Lifting the Sky Read Free Page A

check up on things. I’d like to be movin’ along soon as these heifers have calved.”
    My mom finally spoke up. “I can handle it,” she said.
    Mr. McCloud gestured toward a small log cabin that was partly hidden by trees beside the creek. “That’s where I bunk out when I’m here,” he said. He jerked his thumb at a wooden building beside the barn and added, “And that’s the bunkhouse for the hands.”
    He stopped as though his train of thought had taken another track. I could almost see the wheels churning as another thought hitched up.
    â€œThe old homestead’s up there apiece on the hill. It’s where I grew up. Where I used to live…” He gestured to a place up the road, though we couldn’t see any house because the road bent around some aspen, cottonwood, and golden willow trees that glowed in the late-morning sunlight with the first yellow-green buds of spring. The ranch lay snuggled in a sheltered valley, and all around its fenced pastures rose hills and cliffs and canyons, and behind those, high mountains.
    Mr. McCloud stared down at his hands. There was a long silence when all we could hear was the sound of the creek and some birds. “House hasn’t been lived in for almost three years,” he finally said. “It would need fixin’ up, but it should be livable. You can bunk out up there.”
    â€œOkay,” was all my mom said. She hadn’t spoken more than a dozen words and she’d landed the job.

Chapter Three
    Mr. McCloud tipped his hat. “Well, ma’am,” he said. “Just follow me then, and I’ll show you two up to the house.” He climbed into the big diesel truck parked by the barn and we followed in Ol’ Yeller.
    My mom reached over and touched my knee and smiled. My fingers were now so stuck together from crossing and recrossing that I had to pry them apart.
    As soon as we rounded the bend of trees, I felt like laughing and crying and shouting out loud—it was all just as I’d drawn it! A secret place up in the mountains with canyons and cliffs and a long winding stream—and there, up in one corner, on a hill overlooking hay meadows, stood a high-tall two-story house.
    â€œBlue, you’ll catch a fly if you don’t close your mouth,” my mom said as we drove into the driveway and stopped, but I’d already flown out of the truck. I ran to the house and touched it to be sure it was real. My legs startedwobbling. I felt so dizzy I sank to my heels. Stew Pot trotted over, his worried ears cocked, and stuck his nose in my face.
    â€œOh, Stew Pot,” I whispered. “I think we’ve just stepped into my drawing!”
    The house I’d drawn had looked just like this one all right, but it had been a happy, sunshiny house. This one seemed lonely and sad, with its windows blank and dirty and dark. Sagebrush, rabbitbrush, and scraggly wild rosebushes had taken over the yard.
    From somewhere that sounded far off I could hear a voice saying, “This whole place has been going downhill for the past several years. Maybe you’d be better off down in the bunkhouse.”
    No, no, it’s perfect,
I wanted to shout, but the words stuck in my throat as I looked over at Mr. McCloud. I squinted. I rubbed my eyes. No, they weren’t playing tricks. He was standing in the wild, overgrown yard looking like he’d just stepped into a rainbow. Rosy pink floated out of his middle. Emerald green shot out of his chest. Out of his throat bubbled a lovely deep blue that floated up into bright yellow. Misty lavender circled his head like a cloud.
    I’d seen them before. The lights. But never, ever like
this.
It was as if I’d never seen color before.
    Truth is, I couldn’t remember a time when I hadn’t seen colored mists flashing around people and animals and sometimes even out of trees and rocks and plants. But almost as soon as I’d see