Glass Girl (A Young Adult Novel) by Laura Anderson Kurk

dog that had laid his head in my lap and gone to sleep, then he pulled on his reins and disappeared just outside the trees. He spoke quietly on his cell explaining to someone what we needed.
    In a minute, he walked back through the trees and he seemed happy. He’d tied his horse up on a branch. He started picking up limbs and breaking them across his knee, then created a campfire three times bigger than the one we’d just been so proud of—the one that had started with an explosion and died quickly.
    “I thought you said there was a burn ban,” Tennyson teased.
    “It doesn’t apply to me,” he grumbled.
    He lit the fire and got it going with no lighter fluid. The warmth was immediate.
    “Okay, Miss Tennyson,” he said. “The fee for camping on our land is this—you and Taylor and Sara get off your butts, take my flashlight, and gather more firewood so we can keep this going.”
    “No way,” Tennyson said. “It’s dangerous out there.”
    “Not if you go that way.” Henry pointed toward the trees where he’d tied his horse. “You’ll be fine. And don’t come back until you each have an armload.”
    “How come Meg gets out of this?” Sara said.
    “’Cause she’s new,” he said. “She’ll help me put rocks around the fire to keep it contained.”
    The girls complained as they walked into the woods. Henry sighed and sat down next to me.
    “What about rocks?” I said.
    “Nah, nobody puts rocks around a campfire,” he said. “You’ve put some kind of a spell on my dog, Meg.”
    “I’ve always wanted a dog. What’s his name?”
    “Butch—he’s part Border Collie and part Australian shepherd. Look at his eyes.”
    I touched Butch’s head, and he grunted and opened his eyes—one was a shocking blue and one was dark brown. I smiled. Henry grinned and patted Butch.
    “He’s a real ladies’ man. His mother is my sister’s dog, Claire. He’ll keep the snakes off you if you keep him near.”
    I pushed Butch from my legs and jumped to my feet, scanning the ground around us. Henry reached up and took my hand. “I’m teasing you.” He pulled me back down next to him. “Butch won’t keep the snakes off you, but I will.”
    “What kind of snakes are we talking about, Henry?”
    “Mostly rattlers, so maybe you’ll hear them coming.”
    “Great. That’s helpful. Tell me about your horse.”
    “Truly…that’s her name. She’s a five-year-old quarter horse—a cutting horse. I use her when I’m working cattle. She’s a good girl—young and feisty—but she’s getting there. I’m usually not a big fan of mares because they’re temperamental, but Truly’s all heart.”
    “I’ve never really been this close to a horse.”
    I felt him staring at me. “Well, you’ve got a lot to learn up here. I’ll have to make sure you learn Cow so no one takes advantage of you. Know what that means?”
    “Is it a joke? It feels like a joke.”
    “Cow’s not a joke. It’s the language spoken by all these ranchers that have been here generation after generation punching cows.”
    “Okay,” I said. “Can I have my first lesson now?”
    A slow, easy grin spread across his face and eyes. Tennyson walked up and dumped an armload of wood at Henry’s feet. Without taking his eyes off me, he said, “That’ll only last thirty minutes, Tenn. Get more.”
    She left quietly, shooting me a glance over her shoulder that was full of meaning. I’d owe her for this.
    “All right, Meg. First thing you need to know is that a man’s horse is only very slightly less important to him than his girl. And up here, there’s nothing worse than being afoot—nothing strikes more fear into our hearts.”
    “But that’s Old West stuff. It’s not really relevant anymore, right?”
    He shook his head and narrowed his eyes at me.
    “The West hasn’t changed like the rest of the country.”
    “Okay. Give me a Cow word.”
    He thought for a minute, looking around at the parts of his ranch we could see.