Cowboys 03 - My Cowboy Homecoming (4 page)

“Then I must be crazy, ’cause I am working here. At least for two days.”

Resentment thickened in the air between us. “Like hell.”

“Knock it off.” I pointed behind him. “You’re upsetting your horse.”

He pursed his lips and turned, as if to see if I was right. I was. The horse bobbed his head and pawed at the bedding nervously.

“Easy, boy.” He patted the bay gelding behind him. Lucho crooned to him, rubbing his thick, sleek neck. “
Easy.
I ain’t mad at you,
corazon
.”

“That his name?” I asked. “
Corazon
?”

“No.” Lucho didn’t elaborate. He hobbled off to fill a water bucket for the bay, ignoring my presence completely. If he thought ignoring me would make me leave I had a surprise in store for him.

“Look,” I said. “We started off on the wrong foot here. I am not my father.”

“Don’t know. Don’t care.” He went about his business, putting as little weight on his foot as he could. Even though he was trying to hide it, I could see he was in pain.

“I have no beef with you, but you ought to know, I’m not about to back down.”

“Me neither.”

I tried another tack. “C’mon, man. You can endure anything for two days, yeah? You might find I’m useful.”

He eyed me with loathing. “Work with the son of the bastard who killed my grandfather? I don’t think so.”

“Wait.”
His words chilled me. “No . . . wait.”

Had my father actually . . . ?

His eyebrow lifted again. How did he do that, raise just one like that? It had been sensual the day before. Now it was chilling.

“I know my dad’s an asshat, but he’s in prison for arson; nobody was injured that I ever heard of.”

“You don’t think so?” Lucho straightened up to his full height and took a step toward me. “You don’t think an old man who has worked his entire life to build something for his family is injured by the loss of his business? By losing his hopes and his dreams for the future? Losing his livelihood? The legacy he planned to leave to his kids? You don’t think that can kill a man?”

“I didn’t say that.” I pulled at my collar, because suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. “I said no one was injured in the fires that I knew about. There was never a report of anyone being injured. I followed the news, and no one ever made the connection between—”

“So it must not be true, huh? I’m lying because Mexicans are liars.”

“Oh, fuck you.” I took a step back. “I said I
didn’t know
my dad killed anyone. I’m not . . . I didn’t . . . God, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for your loss. I’m sorry for the pain my father caused your family. I don’t even know what happened, but I believe you, if only because knowing my father, it
sounds
true.”

“Your
pendejo
father burned my grandfather’s restaurant to the ground.” He turned his back. “You know how long and hard he worked to get that place? How many years of dishwashing and disrespect and waiting tables in other people’s places before he could scrape together the cash for a place of his own? He built everything with his own hands. I helped him. Even before I was tall enough to reach the counter, I was in there painting and cleaning and—”

“I’m sorry.” I whispered to his back. “I didn’t know.”

Lucho pressed his forehead against the gelding’s neck. “It was insured and shit, but we had to stand there and watch it burn. We had to pick through the rubble, looking for the pictures he had up on the walls, the paperwork. Anything we could salvage. A few months later, my
abuelo
died, but I swear he really died the night he realized that even here—even in the America he believed was the land of the free—anyone can just reach out and take everything away.”

“My dad’s in prison for what he did.”

“You let me know when that brings my
abuelo
back, okay?”

“I’m not my father.” He was taller than me—broader across the shoulders—but he was injured. I probably should have been afraid of him. I’d seen eyes like that before, hatred honed by a lifetime of injustice. I wasn’t scared, because, inexplicably, everything about Lucho Reyes turned me on. Even his resentment. “I knew if I didn’t get away from my father, one of us would end up dead. Or both.”

He balled up his fists. “Fine with me.”

Was he going to hit me? He looked like a street fighter, but he wasn’t the kind to lose his head and lash out if it could cost him his job. He’d wait. Be smart. Make me pay.

I let my hands fall to my sides. “I’m taking my shot here at the J-Bar because I need it bad enough to put up with whatever you dish out—including the beatdown you think I deserve.”

“So we know where we stand, I guess.”

I nodded. “You can work with me or against me. Either way I’m not about to waste the two days Malloy’s giving me. Tell me what needs doing here or I’ll ask everyone else until I find out.”

He let out a breath laden with Spanish expletives. Maybe I’d won that round, but getting a job at the J-Bar was still going to be an uphill battle. “Take the horses out and muck out their stalls. See to the sheep. Feed, check the water levels in the tanks. Those’ll need cleaning tomorrow.”

I nodded, glancing around. “These animals look pretty well cared for. Didn’t Malloy say you’ve got some rescue horses?”

“We’re keeping the new recruits outside, in a separate pen we use for training, until we can get them to trust us. The mare’s social with humans, but the gelding was virtually abandoned. She does what he tells her, and we haven’t separated them yet. He hesitated, as if deciding what to say. “The piebald will attack, so stay away from him if you like your skin.”

“This is the horse that got your foot?”

“It wasn’t the horse’s fault.”

“Yeah, but—”

“He’s not been around people much so he’s a nervous bastard. I got too close to him and he spooked. That doesn’t mean he’s a bad horse.”

“I never said he was.”

He nodded. “Some people don’t take the time to figure a horse out. They don’t realize a horse like that is young yet, and everything’s new to him here. He’s clinging to that mare because that’s his family. We have to separate them gently; we have to earn his trust.”

I nodded. “Sounds like you know what you’re doing.”

“Right.” He glanced at his broken foot. “And now I’m out of commission.”

“Can’t one of the other guys—”

“No. Don’t get me wrong, the other hands are great. There’s not a man here who wouldn’t walk through fire for any living thing on the J-Bar land. But they’ve got calving to see to, and because of me they’re a man short. I was the one who talked them into taking the rescues because I’m friends with the vet. Then I go and get myself hung up here with a broken foot. Idiot.”

“You can’t blame yourself either. Horses are unpredictable. Shit happens.”

“Yeah.” He laughed sourly, still glaring at me. “It does indeed.”

“While I’m here, I’ll do anything you need. I can help. I—”

“What the hell do you know about horses, army?”

“We had horses when I was growing up.”

“Not like this one. Pio must have had a bad experience to react to me like that. He’s scared of people. He’d probably kill a green guy like you.”

I watched him hobble over on one crutch to hang the bucket he’d been using on the wall. His movements were getting slower, his pain more palpable. It brought fresh beads of sweat to his forehead.

“Will you please sit down and put your foot up? There’s always a chance you’ll get to kick my ass later and you’ll want to be rested up and ready for that.”

He looked me over from head to toe. Let out a deep breath. It was a pretty safe bet he wasn’t impressed by what he saw. “There’s some chore boots you can borrow back at the bunkhouse. Wear them unless you want to ruin yours. If you walk back with me, I’ll show you.”

“Thanks.”

“We’ll talk about what else I’ll let you do when I’ve seen how you handle the horses in the barn.”

“Fair enough.”

“Nothing’s fair,” he muttered. “But looks like I’m stuck with you.”

After that, we walked to the bunkhouse without speaking. He used both crutches, thank God, and kept the weight off his foot the whole way. He grunted as he trudged up the porch stairs, where he flopped into one of several rockers. I got another chair and pushed it toward him so he could elevate his foot. He did that without speaking, but heaved a sigh of tremendous relief and leaned back so he could let his head rest against the wall. His face relaxed into handsome repose until a three-legged border collie bounded up onto the porch and demanded his attention.

“All right,” he said, scratching her under her chin. “Yeah, I love you, all right.”

“Who’s this?” I asked as she circled me three times before racing back to settle next to Lucho’s chair.

“Threep.” He glanced up. “3PO.
Three paws only.
She’s Crispin’s dog. He found her on the highway after she’d been hit by a car. She’s been training to help us out with the cows.”

“I’m sensing a rescue theme here at the J-Bar.”

He smiled at that. “Crispin’s a soft touch. Whether it’s wounded animals or hard-luck ranch hands, he’s got a way about him that makes you feel—” He stopped himself from saying more. Must have remembered I was one of those Tripplehorn assholes. “She don’t bite. You like dogs?”

“Yeah,” I held my hand out for her to sniff. She approached warily, giving me a little lick on the back of the hand. “She’s awful sweet.”

“That she is.”

I glanced back at him and laughed. “If you keep frowning at me like that, your face is going to freeze that way.”

“Fuck off.” Lucho was not amused.

I gave Threep one last pat. “Tell me where I can find those boots and I’ll get out of your hair. Unless I can get you something? You’re looking awful.”

“I’m fine.” He was clearly not. “Back porch. There are a couple of pairs there. One will probably fit you.”

“You okay here? You need some pills or a bucket to puke in?”

He shook his head and went back to petting the dog. I gave up and went inside to find those boots.

I felt like an intruder in the bunkhouse. It was fairly tidy, filled with the aromas of coffee and spices and men. I made a guess that to find the back porch I would have to go through the kitchen, and when I did, I surprised one of the hands, an older guy, who stood at the stove, cooking.

“Well, now. Who might you be?” he asked.

I took off my hat and tucked it under my arm. “I’m Tripp. I’m here on probation for a couple days.”

“You’re the kid Jimmy picked up at the bus station yesterday?”

“Yes, sir.”

He hmph’d and added a handful of grated cheese and a half can of green chilies to some scrambled eggs before holding out his hand. “Eddie Molina.”

We shook hello. “I’m just Tripp.”

“Hey, just Tripp. Boss hire you?”

“Not yet. I’m hoping I can impress him in the next couple days.”

“You ever work on a ranch before?”

“No.” I answered truthfully. “But I’ve done plenty of new things in my life and most of those turned out okay.”

“All righty, then. Ain’t you something. What are you up to now?”

“I’m doing barn chores this morning, but I’m ready to do whatever needs doing. I intend to make myself indispensable.”

He smiled at that. “In two days?”

“It could happen. Theoretically speaking, anyway.” I had to stay positive.

“I’ll keep you in mind if I find something needs doing.”

“Thanks.”

“You know . . .” He took the eggs off the fire and slipped them onto a plate before pouring a mess of hot sauce all over them. “I met your mother a few times.”

“Is that right?”

“She had to sell the animals after your old man went to prison. Me and Jimmy hauled the horses to their new owners for her. Kind of as a favor from Emma.”

“Thank you.”

“She seems like a nice lady. Real gracious.”

I smiled at that. “Ma was born a hundred and fifty years too late.”

“Maybe so.” He nodded. “It was a real shame about your brother. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.” I stood there for another uncomfortable second or two, staring at the floor. “Lucho said there are some barn boots on the porch I can borrow?”

“Sure. Outside that door.” He gestured with the spatula. “I don’t want to tell you your business, but maybe you should steer clear of Lucho. He’s got some hard feelings about your dad.”

“He’s got every right to feel how he does. He just needs to see I’m not my father.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier for you to take job somewhere like Santa Fe? Down here, you’re likely to run into a lot of folks who think like he does.”

“My ma is determined to stay here.” I shrugged. “I need a job close by home, for a while at least. I’m not asking for favors. I’ll earn my way.”

“Go to it then, son. Good luck.”

He nodded and picked up his plate, effectively dismissing me. As I opened the porch door, he called out, “If you feed the rescues, mind how you go. The gelding’s a spooky son of a bitch.”

“Thanks. Lucho warned me.”

I found two sets of well-used chore boots in a plastic bin next to a boot scraper. The black ones looked like they’d fit me. I pulled them on and stomped around a bit. They’d serve. While I walked back to the barn Threep trotted nimbly along beside me despite her missing leg.

When I was a kid, we’d had a mixed breed mutt called Lady. I loved that dog so much. She had a run-in with a raccoon and I begged Dad to take her to the vet. Dad hated that dog. Hell, he probably hated me by then too. He’d looked me straight in the eye and said it’d be cheaper just to get another dog.

I managed the nausea that memory always brought with it by sheer force of will.

Threep and I led the horses outside, and she kept me company while I found a wheelbarrow to muck out the stalls.

Strains of music drifted over from the bunkhouse. Lucho’d got himself a guitar from somewhere and it appeared he knew how to play. He noodled around with a few chord progressions, and then riffed on some flamenco, following that up with a sad Spanish ballad. He sang along, filling the air with a sweet-sounding voice. I didn’t recognize what he played, but the words I caught were about love and loss and longing for home.

I closed my eyes and listened for a minute, hidden just inside the barn. I could have stayed there—wrapped in the purity of his song—but there was no time for that. There was only impressing Malloy and saving our place and the rest of the things hanging over my head now that Dad and Heath were gone.

Still catching a few faint strains of Lucho’s song, I headed back to the stalls.

Mucking is hot, dirty work, but it’s not exactly rocket science. It looked to me like instead of straw bedding or sawdust the J-Bar used some sort of wooden pellets. I was wondering about that when Crispin came inside the barn and joined me.

“Hey.” He leaned against the wall, half in and out of the shadows. He was a good-looking man.

“Hello.” I kept on shoveling, torn between the twin necessities of doing my job and making myself pleasant to one of the bosses. “You came just in time for me to ask a really dumb question.”

“I don’t get to hear many really dumb questions. Shoot.”

“Looks like you put pellets of some kind on the stall floors; how much? And where are they?”

“Ah.” He went to a stack of bags. “Over here. You never used these before?”

“I haven’t.” I felt like a dumbass. “I’ve never even seen those.”

“We just started using wood pellet bedding here.” There was a green plastic wheelbarrow up against the wall, next to the stack. It was cleaner than the one I was using. “I’ll show you.”

“Okay.” He left the barn and came back with a big bucket of water. I wasn’t sure what he was up to, until he cut an
X
in the bag and poured the water right inside. “This stuff will absorb all that water in no time, and after it does, it breaks down and puffs up. See?”

He was right. The pellets swelled like popcorn, bursting from the
X
he cut in the bag like crazy. “I’ll be damned.”

“Wood pellets make great horse bedding. There’s less dust, and they biodegrade like magic.”

“It looks like cat litter.”

“Literally, it’s horsey litter.”

I dropped a bunch of the soft damp stuff in the middle of the stall and raked over the places that seemed bare. “That about right?”

“Yeah.”

It was softer than I thought it’d be. Fluffier, almost. I could see why it would take less because less of the dry bedding got scooped up with the wet. “Thanks, man. That’s kind of cool. Do the horses like it better?”

“If they do”—he deadpanned—“they haven’t said.”

The man made me laugh. When he didn’t leave, I asked, “Something else you need?”

“No, no.” He glanced around. “Looks like you know your way around a barn. How are you with horses?”

“It’s been a while, but I get along with most animals all right.”

He studied me. Gave a nod. “I asked around about you.”

“That right?” I stopped what I was doing to give him my full attention. “What’d you learn?”

“Nothing about you personally.” He paused. “I don’t think I’d like your dad much. You had a brother?”

“He’s dead.”

“I know.” He met my gaze with soft brown eyes. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

I nodded. “Thanks.”

“I lost my parents when I was young.”

“That’s too bad.” I left that second stall and started in on the third.

He followed, leaning against the stall wall. “They weren’t good parents, but for a while I felt lost without them. I realized they’d never have a chance to
be
good parents, and somehow that seemed sadder even than if they’d been awesome to begin with.”

“I know the feeling.” I mourned the brother I wished I had—the one I
could
have had if it weren’t for my dad—not the man he became.

“Loss can be confusing sometimes, can’t it?” he asked shrewdly.

“Yes, it can.” The words hung there in the air between us.

He took a deep breath and let it out again. “How about I go dump this and bring it back while you get another bag of pellets ready.” He’d started to take the wheelbarrow by the handles when I stopped him.

“I’ll get it, you still need to show me where the manure goes.”

“All right.” He stepped aside. “The system we use for compost is out back.”

“Compost. Isn’t that what people do with scraps of food and coffee grounds?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that. I’ll show you.” He led me out of the barn and around behind it, where they’d gotten some sort of wooden setup going. Somehow I always pictured those organic gardening types throwing their banana peels and orange peels into a bin that turned them into fuel, like in
Back to the Future
. Horses make a lot of waste. I found it hard to imagine “composting” on that scale.

“It’s taken a while to get Speed on board with composting, but he agreed to a trial.”

“What are you going to use the compost for?”

“At some point in the future, I’d like the ranch to be self-sufficient. That means growing food as well as feed crops. Right now, I’m expanding our kitchen garden in a big way, and I’ll sell the rest of the compost to local gardeners in town.”

“Things have changed a lot around here since I’ve been gone.” I enumerated them. “Gay cowboys, a garden, a composting system, a petting zoo.”

“A what?”

“The sheep and alpacas,” I clarified. “They’re like pets.”

“We sell the fibers. It’s almost shearing time now. I assume you’ve sheared sheep before?”

“Can’t say I have.” I must have looked as alarmed as I felt, because he laughed at me.

“I’m just kidding. Don’t panic. A couple of women come from Albuquerque. They do the shearing and then spin the fibers for local craft stores and specialty weavers.”

“Good to know.”

“You should see your face.”

“I’ll look when I shave next.”

We came to a sort of lean-to with three big bins beneath it. He was proud of his composting system and rightly so, I guessed. I felt a little bit of his enthusiasm when I dumped the horseshit and pellets into the bin. Even just hovering my hand over the pile, I could feel the heat coming off it. “Wow.”

“See? It gets hot because of all the bacterial activity. Everything breaks down, and eventually it turns into a pile of brown gold.”

“If you say so.”

When I’d emptied the wheelbarrow and turned to go back, he stopped me. “I know what it’s like to have your past or your family history follow you around, but if you’re a good worker, Speed will be fair with you. He’s a great boss. He looks past a man’s baggage and sees into his heart.”

“Thank you.” I said. “All I need is a chance to prove myself.”

“You’ll get that here. Good luck.” His smile warmed me almost all the way through before he left with Threep at his heels. Crispin was a really nice guy. Kind of out there. Was he a good match for a cautious, taciturn man like Speed Malloy?

Probably.

I worked the rest of the stalls, wondering how they’d met and how much trouble being a couple was causing them with the locals. My dad’s old cronies would boycott the J-Bar if they knew. Maybe they’d even cancel contracts for feed and seed and goods.

They might have done worse when my dad was with them, chumming the waters with his nutty conspiracy theories. It wasn’t just immigrants my dad hated, it was anyone who wasn’t white, wasn’t blue collar, wasn’t
him
.

Another reason to be glad my dad was locked away.

“Looks good, but you’re going kinda slow.” Uneven footfalls alerted me to Lucho’s presence behind me. “By now you should be done with all this.”

“The work will go faster next time, when I know where things are.”

“We usually start at five in the morning. Are you going to be able to make that if you have to drive over from your mother’s place every day?” He was stubborn, that’s for sure.

“I’m an early riser.”

He muttered a curse. “Didn’t the army teach you how to program computers or something? ’Cause if shoveling shit is how you’re going to be all that you can be—”

“The army taught me lots of things.” I put the pitchfork aside to heft the handles of the wheelbarrow. “One thing that comes in handy is not letting some trash-talking asshole keep me from doing my job to the best of my ability.”

“Come again?” He blocked my way, arms folded across his chest as if he could actually fight me in the condition he was in.

“You heard me. I’m not getting into this with you while I’m working. If you want to have words later, that’s fine. I’ll pencil you in. We can even exchange a few blows.” I looked at his leg. “If you can catch me.”

“What the hell, man? You think I’m some kind of a joke? An annoyance you can brush off? Your father and his pals burned down my
abuelo
’s restaurant. They broke his spirit, and I’ll be damned if—” He stopped to gain control. I thought he was probably having some kind of dizzy spell.

“Whoa, there.” I took his upper arm to steady him. “Steady.”

He jerked away from me. “So now you come along, and you think what? That you can take my job?”

“Sit down before you fall down,” I begged. “Please.”

“So polite.” He limped over to a hay bale and sat.

“I’ve got manners.” I was reluctant to leave him there until he got some color back in his face, but I had to dump the last of the manure. The job won out. I got almost to the door before he spoke again.

“What’d your father teach you?”

I hesitated. “Whatever it was, I don’t remember anymore.”

But as I pushed out into the sunshine of the day I remembered all too well. My dad hadn’t always been an asshole, at least, he didn’t seem that way when I was a little kid. He’d taught me how to fish and use a rifle. How to spot a good horse and keep an old truck running. He’d grown disappointed in life. In me. At a certain point, I just didn’t measure up to his expectations anymore, and after that, most other stuff he wanted me to learn backfired on him.

I’d tuned him out when he went on his infamous tirades, whether they were about women or taxes or immigration. I’d turned a blind eye to the things I couldn’t change because arguing brought me nothing but pain.