This Red Rock (2 page)

not, you know, the campiest flower on the bush, don"t get me

wrong. But obviously, here,
manliness
was going to be

important.

Frank smiled, a little too much as if he knew what I was

thinking. “Okay, kiddo. Let"s get your stuff inside.”

This Red Rock |
Louise Blaydon

8

I snatched my valise out of the trunk before Frank could

get to it, grinning too hard to cover the strain of its weight.

“Sounds like a plan. Lead on, noble Francesco!”

Frank laughed, a short little sound in his throat, and

shook his head. “First on the left, if you"ve forgotten,” he

said, scooping up the rest of my things in his work-hardened

arms.

I threw him another grin and led the way indoors.

MY BED at Frank"s place, I remember, always seemed like a

prison-board when we went to the ranch before, but

evidently my dorm-room student life had hardened me. I fell

asleep almost as soon as my head touched the pillow, and

woke to the glow of an amber dawn inching through the gaps

in the curtains. I lay still for a moment or two, just watching

the light intensify, thinking about how it looked almost as if

the window frame were catching fire. But this was a ranch,

and ranches wake up early. There was a familiar commotion

going on outside, men shouting indistinctly in the distance,

and the constant mooing of cows protesting at their

treatment. I lay there another decadent minute, luxuriating

in the warmth of my cocoon. And then, with a monumental

effort, I threw back the covers and swung my legs over the

side of the bed.

Normally, I only dress quickly when a room is cold.

There"s something about the cool starkness of tile against

your bare feet that makes you want to curl your toes and

shudder them into your shoes as fast as you can manage. By

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Louise Blaydon

9

this logic, I guess my little bedroom at the ranch should have

had the opposite effect, because the tile there was still

pleasantly warm to the touch, the polished kiss of it oddly

soothing to my feet. But this was my first morning, and I was

still mindful of the promise I"d made to myself the night

before. I was gonna show Frank what I was made of, and

already I was the laziest son of a bitch on site. So I hauled on

my jeans without even stopping to think; skinned into my T-

shirt and fastened up my belt and my shoelaces like I was

being timed. Catching sight of myself in the mirror, I was

pretty content with what I saw. Maybe the earring could have

stood to go, but I was fond of it, and I had no desire for the

damn hole to close up "cause I"d taken it out for the summer.

It wasn"t particularly noticeable, anyway, except from time to

time when the sun flashed it up in passing. My hair, for

once, was something close to its natural black, and my skin

had already picked up some early summer color. In the

southwest, people tend to assume we"re Latino, and I don"t

usually correct them. I reason that Italian-Americans
should

be more qualified to be Latinos
than anyone else, even if

what most people mean by it is something altogether more

Spanish. In the glass there, I thought I looked pretty

unremarkable. There were plenty of slim young men on

Frank"s land, browning like nuts as the summer"s heat

increased. I could do my bit without attracting any attention.

The moment I stepped outside, I doubted my

convictions. It couldn"t have been much past six thirty, but

the place was already a hive of activity: guys in beat-up Levis

stalking past with hay bales on broad shoulders; and cattle

trooping in neat files down to the sheds for milking. I stood

on the edge of all of this organized, heavy-duty chaos,

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Louise Blaydon

10

looking on as my stomach sank into my totally and utterly

inappropriate boots.

“Shit,” I muttered, as I watched a guy chivvying some

renegade bull back into its pen. “Aw,
shit
.”

“
Problem?”

A soft voice, lightly accented, and rich with amusement.

I whipped round, withdrawing my hands from my pockets

instantaneously. Another habit I hadn"t yet managed to kick,

even though my jeans were far too tight for it to look

anything other than effete, at best.

There behind me, surveying me with the corners of his

wide mouth quirking, stood a guy. One of Frank"s rancher

guys, to be precise: a loose-limbed, dark-haired, caramel-

colored twenty-something in a well-worn hat and jeans. His

hands were casually in his pockets, too, but somehow the

cut of his pants, while rewardingly tight—a requisite for

riding, I reminded myself—prevented the stance from

appearing fey, the way my skinnies tended to make it.

Nothing about this guy, in fact, could be called skinny. The

muscles in his forearms showed as ripples under the bronze

of his skin.

“No problem,” I assured him hastily, when I could trust

myself to speak. “I"m just new around these parts—or new to

ranch work, anyway, if not to this ranch itself. I"m Alex.” I

held out my hand.

“Frank"s nephew,” the young man said, knowingly, the

corner of his mouth turning up a little more. It should have

been irritating, that he already seemed to know who I was,

but somehow, it seemed more charming than anything else.

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Louise Blaydon

11

Maybe the fact that I was distracted by his smile had

something to do with it.

“You got it,” I confirmed. “Alex Arzano.”

“Oro,” he reciprocated, taking my hand in his, just as I

was about to withdraw it in embarrassment. The
rrr
rolled

easy as thunder over his tongue. “Oro Torres. This is my

third summer here.”

“You from around here?” His grip was firm and warm. I

didn"t want to let go, which of course is why I did so as soon

as I was able. It wouldn"t do me any good at all to get

attached to a guy like this, all easy swagger and brawn. But

damn him, with his unexpected warmth, he wasn"t making it

easy.

“I grew up down near Santa Fe,” he said, shaking his

head slightly in response to my question and laughing

shortly. “Closer to home than you expected, right? Folks up

here always assume I must be Mexican because of my

accent.”

“I hadn"t noticed,” I lied.

He smiled, and countered, “You had. But you weren"t

listening properly, were you?” He laughed again, not at me,

but with me, and I felt myself soar a little, despite myself.

“My parents are Spanish. Real old Spanish, from Spain. It"s

my first language.” He shrugged. “Mexican Spanish is

completely different.”

“I know that,” I told him, earnestly, and then laughed

back. “You guys lisp.”

“That"s right!” He grinned at me, and shifted his weight

in the dirt. “Important distinction, man. We lisp because

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Louise Blaydon

12

we"re aristocrats. Don"t forget it.”

“Oh, I won"t.” I was leaning back a little, angling my

body toward him. It was an unconscious movement, the kind

of stance I took up in San Diego bars, entirely unsuited to

the bright dawn sun of a New Mexico cattle ranch, but I

wasn"t thinking. He was easy to talk to, this guy, this
Oro.
I

could see now that there might be something in this summer

for me, so long as I kept a hold on myself, didn"t let myself

get out of hand. If I could be content just to ride the ragged

edge of flirtation, enough that there"d always be a margin of

plausible deniability, maybe Oro and I could be friends, kind

of. Maybe we could have some fun.

“You an aristocrat too, hrrm?” He gestured at my hands,

which l had unconsciously stuffed back into my pockets in a

way that now felt abruptly and distressingly awkward. I

grinned at him nervously, and withdrew them again.

“I wanna do what common people do,” I quoted glibly,

the back of my throat tensing up the moment the words were

out of my mouth at the realization that this guy, unlike

everyone at UC San Diego, would almost certainly not have

Pulp"s back catalog memorized and on hand to quip with.

Probably he"d just think I was being an ass. But he went on

smiling, although he shook his head a little in a way that

told me he thought there was some reference in there

somewhere, but that he was missing it.

“Well,” he said, tipping his head toward the long shed

that ran along the outskirts of the great dirt-field where the

majority of the work seemed to be going on, “I"m sure I can

fix that for you, if you want some help getting started.” The

gesture was an obvious invitation, and, combined with the

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Louise Blaydon

13

half-step he took in the direction of the shed, I deduced that

he wanted me to follow him. My hands, forced out of their

usual hiding place, felt over-large and superfluous. I found

that I had no idea what to do with them, and quickly tucked

them behind my back.

“Thanks,” I said, my gratitude so heartfelt that I was

sure it had to be fully audible in my voice. “Simple things

first, I think.”

“Oh, I can find you simple,” Oro said, his voice thick

with amusement as he led the way in long, certain strides,

the pointed toes of his boots leaving triangles of purpose in

the dust. “Things don"t get simpler than mucking out.”

I should have known that was coming. I snorted, and

kicked up a little cloud of dust as I tripped after him. “They

don"t,” I conceded, humbly. “I"m sure that"s the best place to

start.”

“It is,” Oro informed me brightly, shoving open the half-

gate of the long building, which I now determined was most

definitely a stable, divided up into a number of neat little

stalls. When I had followed him inside, he bolted the gate

behind us, and cast about the room with his eyes, evidently

in search of something. The something turned out to be a

spade, which he located quickly, and pressed into my hands.

“Which ones need doing?” I asked him, my heart sinking

a little as the weight of the spade registered. It was only a

spade
, for crying out loud. Man up, Arzano.

“You"ll know.” He tipped his head again in the direction

of the stalls. “I"ll be back in...” he looked at his watch, a glint

of leather and silver against the brown of his arm “say an

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Louise Blaydon

14

hour and a half? I expect progress, aristocrat.” He winked,

and tilted the brim of his hat in my direction, a quick switch

of his hand knocking it back into place in the moment

immediately following. Deft hands, and not a born laborer"s

hands, either. I forced myself to divert my energies away

from that particular train of thought, and nodded my assent.

“There"ll be progress,” I promised. He grinned, and

walked out,
snicking
the bolt neatly back into place behind

him.

I soon discovered that he hadn"t been kidding when he

said I"d know which stalls were in need of attention. The

horses—of which there weren"t too many, really, given that

this was a cattle ranch where the horses" main function was

to help with herding—were all out for the day, hard at work.

Looking at the stalls, though, my heart didn"t exactly grow

fonder of them in their absence.

Put simply, they stank. The horses may have been

absent, but they had left their mark behind. As I wandered

from one end of the row of stalls to the other, it became

evident that not just one or two but all of them were severely

in need of a thorough cleaning out. Oro had been right, of

course, in that this was hardly a task requiring any great or

specialized skill, but my heart still sank at the mere idea of

embarking upon it unaided. Spade in hand, I wandered in

some desperation back to the main door of the stable and

peered out. Oro was nowhere to be seen. The brown dust

yard outside the door was quite empty, all the laborers

having long since departed for enterprises rather further

from the main hub of operations. It seemed that I was quite

on my own.