Cowboys 03 - My Cowboy Homecoming (9 page)

Malloy was silent. Weighing his options. “All right. He’s your responsibility from now on. You get him used to your presence in there, and I’ll reconsider, but for God’s sake, don’t let Fausto near him. I had to look his grandmother in the eye and tell her I let Lucho get hurt. I can’t go through that again.”

“Thanks, boss.”

He left and I was once again face to face with a horse that despised humans.

What had I won?

The opportunity to get myself stomped or worse by the same horse that attacked Lucho?

The opportunity to fail Pio—to fail another living being on this planet who needed more guidance, more confidence, and probably more strength of character than I had to give?

I stepped up to the fence,
chk
-ing at him like I’d
chk
’d at Kiki. His ears twitched but he didn’t move toward me.

I felt beaten already, but he didn’t have to know that.

“You got me good this time, but I’m not going anywhere, you feel me?” I thumped my chest, mammal to mammal. “You’re smirking now, Pio. I get that. But who’s really winning here? That’s what you got to ask yourself. Who’s still got his
balls
?”

As I headed for the hospital with another care package for Lucho, my stomach rumbled with hunger. This time Crispin sent a meal that smelled like barbecue. Brisket, maybe, or pulled pork.

There were fresh biscuits again too, and another little plastic pot of jam. It seemed like when you worked at the J-Bar they fed you like family. I don’t know how any of them kept fit enough to mount a horse.

Once I got to Silver City I pulled through a taco joint and ordered some street tacos, just so I wouldn’t fall on Lucho’s food like a starving man before I even got it to him.

It would probably be bad if he opened all those bags up and found only a handful of crumbs and some used napkins.

The same nurse from the night before smiled at me as I passed by with my bags of food. “Uh, oh. Looks like another delivery. What’d I tell you?”

“I’m sorry ma’am.” I held it up. “It’s from our boss. I just deliver it. You don’t want me to tell my boss no, do you?”

“I guess I know where I should look for work. Great food, hot cowboys . . .”

I looked behind me.

“I’m talking about you, silly. Imagine a boss who’d send me a handsome cowboy
and
dinner. I think I’d be pretty happily employed in a place like that.”

Was she flirting with me?
“I’m sure they’d be glad to have you if you know anything about cattle.”

“I’m afraid I don’t.”

“Me neither,” I admitted. “So far I’m pretty clear on which half eats. They’re being patient with me, though.”

“Lucky. You have a nice visit, now. I never saw that food.”

“Thanks.” I left the desk and headed for Lucho’s room.

Since his family was probably in with him again, I’d planned to drop his meal off and go home. What were the chances they’d let themselves be chased off a second time?

To my surprise, when I poked my head past the door to see if he was busy, Lucho was alone in the room, watching basketball on the grainy television mounted to the wall.

“Hey,” I waved with the food. “Dinner service.”

He didn’t smile. “Thanks.”

“You okay?”

He shrugged moodily. I put the bags down on the rolling tray table and started to unwrap his dinner.

When I looked him over, the area around his mouth seemed a little pinched and pale to me, and there was no sign of the IV that had kept him comfortable the day before.

“You look like you hurt. Do you want me to call the nurse and see if I can get you something?”

A cranky almost-pout marred his good looks. “I could get myself something if I wanted it.”

“Did something happen?” Wasn’t his injury healing? Surely if that were the case his family would still be here, wouldn’t they?

He rubbed a hand over his unshaven face. “I had a fight with my mother.”

“I see.” I knew all about mothers. I had an abiding respect for mine and I’d learned to pick my battles, but there
were
battles.

“She hovers like a swarm of killer bees.” He dropped the television control onto the night table, next to the cacti I’d sent him. “Now she wants me to move back home so she can nurse me back to health and that’s all I need. My whole family smothering me.”

I nodded in understanding. “I don’t have any other family besides my mother, but even so, I need a breath of fresh air every now and again.”

“I love them. I just don’t want to live with them. Plus, I’ll need a wheelchair for a couple of weeks. I won’t be allowed to put any weight on my foot at all. My mom’s house isn’t accessible by wheelchair. We have a gravel drive, uneven ground, and stairs. And you know she’ll want to follow me into the fucking bathroom to bathe me like I’m some kid. It’s a nightmare.”

“Is there anywhere else you could go?”

“I want to go back to the J-Bar.”

“There are stairs up to the bunkhouse,” I pointed out. “And I don’t even know if the doors are wide enough to get through with a wheelchair. Do you?”

“I don’t know. Doesn’t matter. I work
and live
at the J-Bar.”

“You know you can’t work until you’re better. Your job will still be there when you get back. Maybe you should accept your family’s help while you need it.”

“You don’t get it. I haven’t lived with my mother since I was seventeen years old. She’s going to want to wipe my ass, and—”

“I understand more than you think I do.” Since I’d started wearing a cowboy hat, I’d developed the habit of taking it off and squeezing it between my hands when I was tense. I put it on the chair behind me. “I don’t have a bedroom other than the one I used to use with Heath when we were kids. My mother told me to put my things in there the night I moved back and it was like climbing into a time machine. It’s got a bigger bed and sheets without
Star Wars
characters, but it’s still right back where I started.”

“You could move into the bunkhouse,” he said, opening bags and taking out food. “There’s room.”

“No, I really can’t. I need to be at the house to look after my mother.”

“How come? She seems to have done fine without you. Heath didn’t hang around at the house all the time.”

For the second time that day, someone brought Heath up to me. It was goddamn painful. “How would you know that?”

“Everyone knows Heath partied.” He pursed his lips. “He spent all his nights making trouble in the local bars and went home with any woman who would have him. Your mother was alone a lot of the time, and she’s fine.”

Was he trying to piss me off? “I liked you better when you were on the morphine thing.”

“I’ll just bet you did.” He shot me a nasty smile. “But you were too much of a Boy Scout to take advantage, and today it’s a lot easier to remember you’re the guy whose dad killed my grandfather.”

I stiffened. “I understand why you see things that way, but even if it were true, I am not my dad. I had nothing to do with your family’s misfortune, and I’m facing some tough things right now, just like you.”

“Like what? What’s so tough? You think you can beat a torn-up family and a broken foot?”

“It’s not a goddamn contest.”
Shit.
“Do you suppose we could maybe pace ourselves a little? Call a truce at least until after you eat?”

“Maybe you should go home. I’m not in the mood for company tonight.” As he raised the head of his bed, he winced.

“If you’re in pain, at least please let me tell someone.”

He shook his head. “I don’t like the drugs.”

I sighed. “Because when you’re high, you can’t keep yourself from smiling at me?”

“You don’t know anything.” His cheekbones darkened.

“I know when to shut up.” I handed over the containers Crispin sent and watched as Lucho jabbed his fork into pulled pork and green beans. There was mac and cheese too. It was a shame to waste it on a man in such a crap mood.

“Did you learn your bedside manner in the VA hospital?”

“Maybe I did.”

“Did you take your gimp friends there food too?”

“Don’t call them gimps.”

“This is kind of your thing, isn’t it? You’re like my
mami
, hovering over the bed and hounding me to eat.”

“Okay, yeah. Wow. Buh-bye.” I turned to leave.

“Wait.” His words stopped me at the door. “Don’t be like that.”

“Look. I came here—”
I don’t know what I was thinking
. “I guess I was wrong. I won’t bother you again.”

“Wait—”

I hurried out of the room because that was just the last straw. I’d started my with my dad’s shark-lawyer, and then I’d struck out with Lucho’s brother, and a goddamn horse. No way was I going to spend my night squabbling with Lucho himself.

After all.
What did I expect?
That after yesterday, after the marginally good start I had, after that brief cease-fire with Lucho the night before, my troubles were over?

They weren’t over. They’d never be over.

My dad was still in the slammer. My mother was still delusional, and Slade took a too-personal interest in our family.

I got in my truck and started for home, but I was so tired. The stars shone like billions of bits of broken glass in the sky. They were so bright it almost hurt my eyes.

I’d been so many places—seen the sky like that so many times—but I’d rarely had the opportunity or the quiet in my heart to enjoy it. There had never been a place safe enough to pull off to the shoulder of the road, sit in the truck bed, and watch as the bloated moon pulled higher into the sky. I rested my back against the cab and counted stars until they swam before my eyes. I drifted off to the sight of a shooting star slashing across the sky.

That’s the last thing I remember until I found myself in the glare of a flashlight.

“You okay?” A gruff voice.

I blinked and held my hand in front of my face to shield my eyes. “Yeah.”

“You having car trouble?”

“No sir.” I sat forward as my eyes adjusted. “Just tired.”

“Can I see your driver’s license and the registration on the truck?”

Christ. Unless by some miracle Heath had renewed it, there was no way the truck’s registration was current.

“Okay. I’m going to reach into my back pocket for my wallet. That all right?”

“Yeah.” The deputy sounded wary, but he let me pull out my wallet and retrieve my license.

After checking it over for a while, he said, “You been drinking, Mr. Tripplehorn?”

“No sir. I just worked a long day.”

“Where do you work?”

“The J-Bar Ranch.”

He eyed me. “That so?”

“Yes, sir. You can call them if you need to.”

“You look military.”

“I just finished my TOS.”

“Tripplehorn . . .” He held my license in one hand and tapped it on the other. “Have I heard that name before?”

Of course he’d heard it before. I don’t know why he was playing me like that. “My brother died in a car accident about four months ago, and my father is currently a guest at the federal penitentiary.”

“Ah. Of course. I remember now.” He nodded. “Sorry about your brother.”

“Thanks.” I stood up so I could climb out of the truck.

“Hold on.” His hand went to his weapon.

I held my arms out at my side. “Just getting down. All right?”

“Yeah. Take it slow.”

I climbed over the fender and dropped lightly to the ground. The registration for the truck was rubber-banded to the visor, but it was so old it had yellowed with age.

“I’ll need to write up a citation for this.”

“That’s fine.” Why not? We already lived in a state of catastrophic default. There were late fees on our late fees.

“You’re sure you’re okay to drive?”

“Yeah. I caught a few winks. I’m fine now.” I got into the cab but didn’t shut the door between us while he wrote me up.

When he was done, he handed me the ticket and explained how I’d be able to clear it. “Sorry about this. Thank you for your service Mister Tr—”

“Sergeant.” To be an ass, I supplied my former rank.

“Thanks, Sergeant Tripplehorn. Drive home safely.”

The truck growled to life when I keyed the ignition. “Thank you, deputy.”

I took off again, trying to see the bright side, trying to find anything that could remotely be called a “bright side.”

That was right about the time I passed the turnoff to the J-Bar, with its fancy, wrought iron arch. Welcome to the J-Bar Ranch
.
The sign had been there as long as I could remember.

I couldn’t see anything but the gate, but I knew somewhere the horses were settled in the moist warmth of the barn. The sheep and alpacas were clumped together in fluffy livestock clouds and that goddamn gelding, Pio, was lying in wait to stomp someone again.

Maybe the only thing I had going for me was a job that called to me, even when I wasn’t working.

A job I liked and people I enjoyed working with.

Maybe if I got up extra early and took that unruly beast a bag of apples or carrots. Some kind of treat . . . Maybe if I gave Pio enough attention, enough time to see me as a friend and not another human who would neglect him, he’d warm up to me and give me his trust.

And wouldn’t that just chap Lucho’s ass.

I rolled up to my mother’s place with at least the bare outline of a plan: Sleep. Then get up and try again.

I figured that was probably good enough, for now. If it wasn’t, I was too tired to come up with anything else.

“I don’t see why it’s your responsibility to take that young man his dinner every night,” my mother complained as she slid two fried eggs right from the pan and onto my hash browns.

“I offered. It’s just a nice thing to do.”

“Why would you do that? You didn’t get in until after midnight last night, and it’s barely five and you’re going back to work again.”

“That was my fault. I had to pull over because I was tired. I fell asleep for a bit.”

“What? You don’t even sleep here half the time. I hear you in there—”

“I sleep fine.” I shot her a look that shut her up. If nothing else, I could always count on my mother to pretend anything unpleasant—my nightmares, for example—didn’t exist.

“Tell them they can get someone else to take that boy’s dinner tonight.”

“All right, if there’s anyone who isn’t busy. But it’s a tough time of year. From what I understand, everyone works around the clock for months.”

“So how do they have time to fix meals for this ranch hand? Surely the hospital would feed him. They feed everyone else.”

“It’s just something Crispin does. He’s a bit of a mother hen, I think.”

“Oh, I’ve heard all about Crispin Carrasco. Yancy told me plenty.”

I stilled. “What did he tell you?”

“How that boy came along and turned Speed Malloy gay.”

“People don’t turn people gay, Ma.” Would we have to go through this again? “They’re born that way.”

“They do so turn people gay. There were hardly any gay people at all when I was growing up, but now they’re everywhere you look. Of course they’re recruiting. That’s the whole point to all this news coverage of gay rights and those shows that make being gay look as if it’s normal.”

My fork hovered over my hash browns. Should I wade in, again? Or ignore this? “It seems like there are more gay people because they’re not hiding anymore. And I’m gay. You know that.”

She frowned at me as if I’d switched the salt and sugar again—as if my being gay was a prank or some mean new joke I was playing. “I wish you’d stop saying that.”

“Ma.” I tossed my napkin down and stood, arms crossed. “I am a gay man.”

“Don’t
say
that. Maybe you were confused by your feelings for that boy in high school, what was his name?”

“Jay.”

“That’s right. Jay. Well.” She placed her hands flat on the table. “He moved away and good riddance. I am certain he met with a bad end.”

I
happened to know Jay was happy and healthy and working as an airline mechanic in Dallas. And he was still just as good in the sack as ever.

“Nothing’s changed since then. I’m gay, Ma.” Her willful blindness would be funny if it weren’t so goddamn sad. “I like men.”

“You
experimented,
sweetheart. That’s not the end of the world. Maybe all those adolescent hormones were to blame.”

It had been Jay’s sinful, full-lipped mouth, as I recall, and his ass, which he let me have every chance we got, that were to blame. His wavy dark hair. Velvet brown skin and dark, knowing eyes.

Looking back, it seemed to me I had a type.

“There is no blame. I am gay. I get turned on by men. I do not have sex with women. Period.”

“I don’t want to hear another word, young man.” She drew her apron off and threw it on the counter. “Not until you come to your senses.”

“That’s going to be a long wait.”

“Junior,” she gasped.

“
Call me ‘Tripp
,’” I ground out. “Call me ‘
son
.’ Call me ‘shit-for-brains,’ call me
anything
, but do not call me ‘
Junior
’. I never asked to be Calvin Tripplehorn’s son. I do not acknowledge him. And I am a gay man with normal urges, and I will not live a lie.”

She burst into tears and ran to her room, shutting me out with a final, firm snap of the door.

I leaned back, resting my head against the cabinets. “God
damnit
.”

I sat back down again and tried shoveling some food into my mouth. In my anger, I’d apparently lost my tastebuds, because later I couldn’t even tell you what I ate.

Eventually, I couldn’t stand myself anymore. I got up, walked down the hall and knocked on my ma’s bedroom door.

From inside, there was the sound of sniffling, but she didn’t speak.

“Ma?”

Nothing.

“I’m going to have to go here in a minute.” Silence. “I’ll try to be home earlier tonight.”

A small voice said, “I’ll leave a plate in the oven for you.”

“Thank you. I’m sorry I yelled, Ma.”

There was no answer to that.

“You know I love you, right?”

I got no answer to that either, so I shrugged it off. I’d done my part. As I turned and started to walk away she opened the door and peeked out. “You’re a good son.”

“Thanks.” The frozen part of my gut thawed a little. “See you later.”

The door closed between us again.

When I got to the truck, the ticket I’d left on the passenger seat the night before reminded me I had to mail a payment to the DMV. I rested my forehead on the steering wheel. The predawn stillness brought back all the times I’d rolled out in a Humvee with my buddy Maddox driving, Erb and Kelly and Franklin in the back, mocking every word I said while singing whatever song was playing on their iPods at the top of their lungs.

There was more to war than patriotism. I missed the fierce loyalty of my brother soldiers. I missed the familiar snores and grunts and laughter. I missed the humor we shared, because nothing makes things funnier than balancing on the edge of oblivion every day for months on end.

I missed the stolen moments of relief. The groping hands. The embarrassed press of human flesh that might or might not turn into a desperate booty call no one would ever talk about in the light of day.

Now it felt like I was on some outcast planet, holding my shit together without them and I’d never even texted them once since I’d got out because . . . maybe I had no right to them anymore.

I took out my phone and pulled up Kelly’s email address. Maybe if I sent a general greeting he could pass it along to the rest. I couldn’t think of a single thing they’d want to hear about my life these days, except . . .

“Hey Kelly, you fucker. Guess what? I’m learning to cowboy. Horses are smarter than officers and goddamn if I’m not still shoveling shit. We don’t have to burn it, though. I’m working for some composting green organic-type fuckers, but they’re cool. Next time you see me I’ll be eating cheese-flavored tofu snacks and drinking decaf soy mocha-cappuccinos and shit like that. Tell Franklin I’m going to send you some cigars, soon, ’cause you’re my heroes. I don’t miss you assholes at all.”

I hit send and waited for a few minutes before I put my phone away.

As I started the truck, loneliness ate at me. The sun cracked the eastern horizon while I drove. I appreciated the beauty of the landscape, but it was like watching a movie. It had nothing to do with me.

Once I parked the truck, I made my way to the barn, sorry now to have put my breakfast away half-eaten.

The horses were already gone and Fausto was just finishing up Theodore’s stall. I said, “You got the horses up early this morning.”

“They’re out on the trail.” Fausto turned to me. “You missed meeting the seasonal guys. Everyone rode out to bring in the heavies. Malloy said you’ll have to take me to school this morning.”

“Where’s Kiki?”

“I took her out to clean her stall. The gelding is pissed I didn’t put her back with him.”

“That’s fine. He can be pissed for a bit. What time do you normally leave?”

“Seven.”

“All right then. I’ll finish up here while you see to the critters.”

He gave me the shovel and headed out but before he got to the door, he turned back. “Did you see Lucho last night?”

“Yeah.” I rested my hands on the handle of the shovel. “He’s doing okay. Unhappy he’s laid up.”

“Is he coming home soon?”

“I don’t know. He has to heal first. If they do let him out, he says your mother wants him to go to her place so she can look after him.”

“He’ll hate that.” The kid grinned. “He says she fusses over him too much.”

Been there. Had that. “A man doesn’t like his mother to fuss, but he never wants her to feel like he’s rejecting her, either.”

“I wish he’d come here. Him and me could bunk together. I could help him out if he needs anything.”

“I’ll bet he’d like that.”

“
Mami
can be very stubborn.”

“The doctor will tell everyone what’s best.”

Fausto wrinkled his nose. “Lucho is a donkey sometimes. He doesn’t do what anyone tells him.”

I think I got that memo.

“
Tick, tock,
schoolboy. We leave at seven on the dot and those sheep won’t forgive you if they go hungry.”

Fausto growled at me before he ran off to finish his chores. It seemed like he was warming up a little, but he was sure full of contradictions.

I heard a car crunch over the gravel drive just as I was dumping the last of the muck into the compost bins. When I rounded the corner, I saw Lucho getting out of a taxi. He used his crutches to stand while he paid the driver.

Christ, how much must that ride have cost him?

Forget cost!
Wasn’t he supposed to be in a wheelchair?

“What are you doing?” I asked angrily. “Wasn’t what happened the last time you jumped the gun enough for you?”

“I ain’t jumping the gun,” he said tiredly. “I’m discharged.”

“But last night you said you didn’t know when you’d get out. Last night you said you’d need a wheelchair. I swear to God, Lucho if you—”

“The wheelchair is in the trunk.” He glared at me. “And you’re not my fucking
mother
.”

“Lucho!”
Fausto threw himself at Lucho, wrapping his arms around him and squeezing him like a boa constrictor. “Are you going to stay in the bunkhouse? You can share with me if you want. I could do stuff for you, like get you water and help you out and I promise I won’t smother you like
Mami
does.”

I didn’t miss Lucho’s wince of pain. “Watch it, Fausto.” Lucho steadied himself with a groan. “You don’t need to kill me when I just got here.”

I watched the exchange with an ache in my gut. Fausto took the plastic sack with Lucho’s personal things—the kind they give you in the ER—and Crispin’s neat thermal carrier and placed them both on the porch.

“Are you sure this is wise?” I asked.

“I talked it over with the doc. He gave me a list of what to do. I can use the crutches a little, to get up these porch stairs and shit like that, but for a week he wants me in bed or in the wheelchair with my foot elevated ninety-nine percent of the time.”

“You need to see if that chair works in the bunkhouse. If it doesn’t, when I take Fausto to school I can see about renting you a narrower one.”

“All right.” Lucho waved to the driver as he backed away. I watched as he crutched his way carefully up the bunkhouse stairs.

After Fausto ran inside, I said, “I thought they were going to keep you longer.”

“It wasn’t my idea to come home, or my doc’s. The insurance company won’t pay for a longer hospital stay, and I can’t pay cash.”

“Those cheap fuckers. Are they going to pay if your fucking foot gets fucking infected again?”

Lucho looked up at me with awe. “You’ve got a dirty mouth today.”

I did, didn’t I? I’d been missing Maddox and the rest of the guys, who were all pretty unimaginative conversationalists. “Sorry.”

He glanced at the ground, at his hands, at the distant hills. Anywhere but at me. “I was an asshole last night.”

“Yeah.” I agreed wholeheartedly. I tipped my hat back and waited.

“I’m sorry about that. They took away the good painkillers, and it hurt, and then I had a fight with my mom about everything, and after that I started thinking about spending weeks in a wheelchair. So I lost it.”

“I know it’s hard.”

He glanced down again. “I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. You’ve been nothing but decent to me even though I—”

“That’s me. I’m cursed with the nice.” I searched his expression for some sign he was feeling better, but his eyes still reflected pain. “You still hurt?”

He nodded tightly. “They gave me some codeine shit, but it makes me sick to my stomach. I’m taking anti-inflammatories, but”—he shrugged—“they don’t do much. I’ll be fine. Let’s see if the chair even goes through the front door. If not, I’ll need you to drive me to my mother’s place when you take Fausto to school.”

I got his chair and put it in place on the porch. He sat, and we fussed with the footrests a little, raising one so his injured foot wasn’t dangling down. When Fausto came back, he grabbed for the handles.

“Whoa.” Lucho stopped him. “No offense, Fausto, but you ain’t got a license to drive me until I know if I clear this door or not.”

“I won’t hurt you.” Fausto tightened his lips.

“I know you won’t, not on purpose. But I think maybe I’ll let Tripp handle that to start. It sounds like he’s got experience.”

“Oh, yeah, sure. I push people around all the time.” I had pushed a friend’s chair around the VA hospital while we healed up.

Lucho gazed up at me and batted his lashes. “Be gentle with me.”

What the everloving fuck?
Lucho was blowing hot again. Jesus. His moods swings were going to give me whiplash.

Fausto and I left our work boots on the porch and then we took turns “driving” Lucho around the bunkhouse. The chair fit through all the doors just fine, except for when it came to the bathroom. Lucho wouldn’t be able to close the door while he was in there.

He was going to miss his privacy, but he wouldn’t need the chair forever.

“Shit,” I said, looking at my watch. “It’s after seven. I’ve got to take Fausto to school.”

“Go.” Lucho gripped the wheels of his chair and rolled himself backward out of the bath. The door was a tight enough fit he had to use the door frame to propel himself. “I’ve got this.”

“Do you need anything before we go?” I asked, while Fausto put on his school shoes.

“I’ll be fine. I’ll just sit here and watch television.” I was about to argue when he held his hand up. “I swear I’ve learned my lesson. I’m going to do exactly what the doctor said. I promise.”