“Sid, what the hell?”
“What do you mean?” she replied, removing her leather riding gloves and brushing the dust off her shirt and jeans. She knew exactly what he meant but was stalling for time to consider her defense. She took off her hat, folded the peak, and tucked it into her back pocket, letting her hair fall around her shoulders before flipping it to the side and securing it into a ponytail. She wiped her brow with her forearm and took a breath followed by a short, stuttered exhale.
“Are you okay?” His words were softer, as if sensing that her mind was on other more important matters. Even so, it seemed he wasn’t going to let her off the hook.
She leaned on the quad. “Yes, why?” She tried not to sound as annoyed as she was.
“That wasn’t like you. I mean, well, you went a bit hard on her…don’t you think?”
The woman and the dog. Trespassers.
“How many head, Aaron? Dad wouldn’t say, exactly. So tell me. In the past month, how many head of cattle have we lost?”
“Ten.” He seemed to resign himself to the fact that Sid would rather change the subject than address her behavior. “I’m going to circle back, Sid, I know what you’re up to.”
Sid loved and hated how well he knew her. He recognized her knack for redirection and distraction, and even she couldn’t help but laugh when he pointed it out by yelling “squirrel,” referencing the animated dog in the movie Up. Given the present circumstances, though, Sid knew that neither of them felt like laughing.
“Ten head, all gone, God knows where. Stolen. No sign of predators.” She didn’t wait for a response. “Since I’ve been here, three more. Right? And then a stranger shows up with a lame excuse for being on the step, and you think I’m overreacting?” She stood, putting her gloves over the handlebars of the ATV and walking toward the barn.
The “step” was the local vernacular for the plateau of a low escarpment that extended along the back of the Harrises’ grazing land, pushed into place thousands of years ago by either a landslide or a plate shift. The mountain stream cut the granite before the ridge rose again, creating another step on the Rockies side of its bank. Trees had rooted in the sediment, making it unsuitable for crops but just right for the hundred head that grazed there. The stream then opened into a four-acre lake at the south side of the step before taking its leave on the south side and carving its way through the foothills toward Pincher Creek.
“Still, Sid, that wasn’t like you. I know you have a few things on your mind, but she seemed apologetic. Kinda cute, too. I mean, if you’re into that kinda thing.” He paused. He scanned the barn behind her as if looking for an escape route. “Girls, I mean.”
“Women, cousin! I prefer women.”
She refused to continue reacting. She took out her hat and hung it on the hook inside the barn door. She continued past the stalls toward the feed room, hoping that by creating physical distance, she could put a quick end to his teasing. Instead, he followed.
“Just sayin’, maybe you should think about being more neighborly.”
Thinking more about anything was the very last of Sid’s objectives. Her mind was already spinning, her list of things to do a mile long. The stolen cattle were top of that list, but with the exception of who was committing the crimes, it was no real mystery why and how. Each head was worth a good chunk of change, and if a rancher was not vigilant, they were readily targeted. Maintaining fences around a thousand acres—some at elevations—was a job demanding more than two men, let alone one. If only she had been called home earlier, before her dad had his surgery, maybe they could’ve been proactive and wouldn’t be scrambling to try to plug the leaks. But her dad was stubborn and independent, an inherited trait that she realized had not skipped her generation, and asking for help was not easy for him. In fact, if it weren’t for Aaron sending her a text two weeks ago, he would still be trying to secure the fences alone. And settling the new bull.
In addition to things at the Harris ranch, Sid was also juggling her job at the gallery. And her relationship or what remained. Nothing left, perhaps, to salvage there.
And now, a trespasser. Not really in the suspect pool, Sid reckoned, trying to avoid being sexist but thinking that a woman and her dog in broad daylight did not constitute a likely criminal pairing. Kinda Cute, as Aaron called her, and she did show some bravado, standing up the way she did. Slightly more petite than Sid and well-rounded in the spots that mattered, Kinda Cute hadn’t so much as budged as Sid laid into her. Instead, she held her ground, setting her jaw and riveting her ice blue—no, flame blue—eyes on Sid, fiercely determined to defend herself and her furry sidekick. Milo, was it? Curious that she’d noticed more about the kinda cute trespasser than she ordinarily might have under the circumstances. As if she didn’t have enough on her plate. Best to keep her attention here. And definitely not on women. Any women. Especially the kinda cute ones with flame blue eyes. Maybe, though, she could manage neighborly.
She nodded. “Message received. Did you hear back from the breeder?”
“Yes. Well, your dad has. He told me we could pick him up tomorrow morning. He negotiated a great price.” Aaron grabbed a bale of hay off the stack and walked it toward the stalls. “We’ll have a great spring if things go well. Replace our losses plus a lot more.”
“Makes better sense for us to have a new bull than to have to pay the insemination fees. Prices have sure gone up since I was here last.” She hauled a large sack of grain off a pallet, dumped it into a wheelbarrow, and rolled it over to the stalls, discarding the burlap into a barrel almost spilling over. “And what about you? Still sowing your wild oats?”
Aaron laughed. At thirty, he was ten years Sid’s junior and, unlike his cousin, had been living out loud since he was a teen. He openly shared his outrageous exploits—from his almost legendary status as a bronco rider in the Gay Rodeo, to his winter white parties in Miami—with whoever would listen. And people loved to listen. Aaron was quiet at first, but once he stuck to people, they became equally hard to peel off.
Sid wished she had a bit of his easygoing nature, but she found it difficult to separate her mind from her work long enough to downshift. The few close relationships she had outside of Aaron came as a result of her work. The people she knew there, more acquaintances than friends, filled in whatever personal time she managed to carve out. And those pieces were thin. In fairness to Aurora, her most recent girlfriend, Sid knew she only had herself to blame for her newly single status.
“Yes,” Aaron said, “but I’m slowing down. I might stay here this winter.”
“What? Really? What’s his name?”
She envied the younger generation so much more freely expressing their lifestyle than her, a transition for the better in almost all respects. She had been on the cusp of that social change, living her truth selectively. In Toronto, in the art circles she traveled in, people hardly blinked at same-sex couples. But here, her childhood home, things felt blurry. Probably my own lens. She’d never truly been herself in Green River, Alberta.
“I’ll tell if you’ll tell,” he challenged, breaking up the bale and serving it to the hungry heifers. “You haven’t said much about Aurora…can I assume things with your painter friend have derailed a bit?”
“I’d say entirely. No surprise, given my track record. Our relationship is…was…more open for her than for me.” With that, Sid turned her muddled mind to the grain she was shoveling into the troughs, forgetting to insist Aaron share back as her own thoughts of Toronto, the gallery, Aurora, and that kinda cute blonde with the dog were all successfully excised by the welcomed distraction of physical labor.
Chapter Three
The sun crept over the wheat fields through a veil of thin fog, the heat of the earth barely a few degrees warmer than the air for the moment. But along the base of the Rockies, especially in August in Alberta, the peaks warmed much sooner than the flatlands, creating a valley breeze that would soon dry up the mist and push the warmed winds uphill.
The sky was a blue that reminded Mia of the wild flax she had seen yesterday on one of the south-facing slopes near the stream behind her trailer.
The flash of a hubcap caught her eye, and she turned to watch a pickup truck drive up the north road, turn onto her makeshift dirt driveway, and bounce its way slowly into the field where they were standing, the dust clouding in its wake. We could really use a good rain. As the brakes squeaked to a stop, Flynn left Mia’s side and trotted toward the opening door. Milo rose to follow.
“Milo, stand.” This was a test for the young dog, who was still in the basic command stage of his training. Mia was pleased to see that even with Flynn taking the lead, Milo was holding his spot in front of her. She could sense his eagerness, but he needed to adhere to commands to keep not only his future charges protected but himself as well. Only when the enormous cowboy boots of the driver swung out of the cab and hit the dirt did Mia release him.
“Milo, steady.”
As commanded, Milo slowly approached the figure stooped behind the door, and Flynn’s tail wagged jauntily in response to the massive hands giving him a thorough petting. Mia observed Milo’s intense caution; he hadn’t yet recognized the driver. As soon as Jack McCann stood up and stepped from behind the door, Milo’s focus snapped like a pretzel stick, and he bounded toward his owner.
“Hey there, little fella! How’s my boy?” Jack bent to tousle Milo’s ears, his hands as big as the dog’s head. Mia thought that everything must be “little” to the massive man, a friendly giant whose stature was as huge as his gentle soul.
Milo danced around Jack’s boots, tail fanning like a black and white palm frond, hindquarters carried along with it and almost lifting the small dog out of his own furry white boots. After a few long strokes of his body, Milo began to calm as best a pup could. Flynn had long since abandoned the reunion, his temperament for the intense energy of his buddy having worn thin over the weeks. He found the shade of a nearby fencepost and sat to watch from a distance.
“Hi, Jack! Milo has been great.”
“I can see that, Miss Mia. And how are you today? You’re looking ready for action.” He smiled, and Mia took inventory of her fashion choices: skinny jeans tucked into olive green Hunter boots and a white tank top barely visible beneath the lightweight M65 field jacket with shoulder Air Force patch and name tape still intact.
“Did you serve?”
Mia could tell he was trying to reconcile the name tape, Frigon, with her surname, Jarvis. “No, sir; a very dear friend did.” Riley. “I’m sure I won’t be wearing it long. It’s going to be another hot one. Oh, and before I forget, Beth and Owen said to say hello to you.”
“I’m grateful for your friend’s service. You make sure you say hi back to the Millers. And thank them for not only putting the two of us in touch but for giving you some space for this training. I would’ve happily had you camp at my place, but I gather Milo’s still not quite ready for cattle yet.”
“Well, you may be surprised. We had a breakthrough yesterday.”
Breakthrough, more like it.
Mia told Jack about Milo’s first few minutes on the Harris property before the ATVs roared up, and how he had approached the distant cows with tail down, showing amazing maturity for such a young dog.
“He clearly has excellent instincts, and naturally, as a young dog, he’s still very prone to being impulsive. But most importantly, just from his address of the cows, I can tell he’s equated cattle with work. Some dogs don’t figure that out until they’ve been thumped by a hoof or worse.”
Speaking of being thumped by a hoof…
“Do you happen to know who lives on the neighboring land?” Mia briefly described the unpleasant encounter from the day before.
“Oh yeah, that sounds like Sid. Can’t mistake that girl’s hair; red like chocolate, as my wife says. Rubbed you the wrong way, did she?”
“She wasn’t exactly…neighborly.”
“Well, she’s here to help her dad. All the way from Toronto. I heard he had some shoulder surgery…story is that a bull almost tore his arm clean out of his socket. Happens around cattle sometimes. And bulls are unpredictable as the weather.”
Mia flinched at the thought and mentally acknowledged that perhaps Sid possessed a more generous nature than she’d been willing to share under yesterday’s contentious circumstances.
“And her boyfriend?”
Jack looked puzzled.
“A blond guy? Maybe a speck younger.”
Jack laughed. “Oh, that would be Aaron. Definitely not her boyfriend. In fact, he used to be my son Greg’s boyfriend.” Mia could feel her eyebrows rise, not because she was shocked by the story but rather impressed by Jack’s obvious comfort level sharing it.
Jack seemed to pick up on her surprise. “Times are different now. More important that you choose to love, not who you choose to love.”
“Glad to hear it, Jack. We’d have a problem if you felt otherwise.” Now it was Jack’s turn to raise an eyebrow. Mia was a girly-girl. She certainly didn’t match the stereotype many people still—in spite of all the Ellens and Portias in the world—held regarding lesbians. She loved and indulged in her tattered jeans and her Doc Martens and her flannels, yes. She enjoyed playing on the paradox in her personal style, gender-mashing old school like kd lang in her Reclines days. But even in leather, Mia Jarvis exuded lace.
“About Sid, not to excuse her rudeness, but I’d be pissed, too, if someone was walking away with my family’s property.” He went on to explain that the whole community was on alert because of cattle losses, likely from rustlers targeting the western part of the region. Mia not only grew up but also worked in the farm community, so she was aware of the problem. It wasn’t limited to Green River. Good-natured and trusting, farm folks’ steadfast values often put them at the mercy of organized criminal enterprises. Short of fencing off entire acreages with ten-foot-high electrified barriers or sensors, a cost-prohibitive measure out of reach of virtually every family farm, there was little to prevent middle-of-the-night poachers from trucking away a few head here and there before moving on, always ahead of law enforcement.
“Day and night.” He shook his head disapprovingly. “It’s like the Old West, but these guys are very clever. They don’t sleep. And depending how many head you own, keeping yourself in business is hard when your bread and butter is disappearing right out from under you. Farm margins aren’t as wide as city folks think. We’ve all been victims around here, but the Harrises? My gosh! I know Duncan wouldn’t leave his land unless he was hog-tied to a trailer hitch and dragged off it, but at the rate he’s losing head, well…suffice to say we’re all keeping our eyes peeled for taillights in the night.”
Milo put a paw on Jack’s boot, indicating that the attention should be back on him. Jack got down on a knee and gave him a thorough petting.
“So now that he’s had a taste of cattle, when will I start my work with him?”
“It won’t be long, but just to be clear, the relationship of working dog to handler is not of primary importance. Yes, you will need to learn basic commands, which aren’t too complicated or time consuming. But unlike the kind of obedience training you might see on TV, we’re trying to teach the dog to react to the herd, not to the handler. Too much obedience can divide a working dog’s attention, so once Milo’s around cattle regularly, you almost have to ignore his demand for attention so that he stays on the herd.”
Jack seemed genuinely engaged, but Mia sensed her passion for talking about training might have overwhelmed him. More than sensed; Mia had developed a skill for observation that was applicable to people as well as dogs, one that had been fine-tuned by years of sign and signal interpretation. Enough for today. “I’ll keep you posted. I have your number.”
“I’m sure you will. And I haven’t forgotten…I’ll bring a package of meat and a few bags of grain by in a couple of days if that works for you? Oats, right?”
“Absolutely. We can start on the commands
then. Even though you’re not the dog’s central focus, the two of you are still a team. And someone has to make sure his impulsiveness doesn’t end up getting him or the cattle hurt.”
As Jack’s pickup bounced back down the road, Mia found herself thinking about what she’d just said. Milo’s behavior reminded her of the Harris woman’s, excessive and erratic, led more by instinct than by self-awareness.
Did she really think that Milo and I were intent on stealing cattle?
Sid looked to be in her mid-to-late thirties, so her rudeness couldn’t be excused by youth. No, they were all likely characteristics of a lack of discipline.
Or arrogance.
Sid didn’t strike her as someone who would ever admit she was chasing the wrong rabbit. Too much ego. She was distractingly beautiful with her wavy auburn hair, fair skin, and grey-green eyes. Worth staring into over a glass of merlot. Maybe distraction is how she’s managed to get away with such acrimonious first impressions.
“Take heart, Milo,” she said, “You’re not the only one who could use a little training.”
Chapter Four
Evening in the foothills was a stark contrast to its August mornings. Now the winds descended from the high ridges down across the farmlands, and regardless of the official sunset time, the shadows of the mountains started their brushstroke across the wheat fields well before then. It felt both dark and cool enough by 7:30 to justify a bonfire. Not that bonfires required justification; they were one of Mia’s favourite things. And besides, tonight she had non-canine company.
For over thirty-five years, Leah Fleming had been a constant breath of fresh air in Mia’s life. Regardless of how much time passed between visits—months, sometimes even years—they were deeply bonded and fell into a comfortable groove without having to work at it. Even so, Leah’s visit was unexpected, and Mia found herself wondering what had brought her back to their hometown without an obvious occasion or agenda. Something was up, and before the night was over, Mia intended to know what it was.
Where We Are Page 2