Cowboy's Law

by B. A. Tortuga

  “Namaste, right Uncle?” Wiley asked.

  “Good guess.”

  “He loves that stuff. You should make it for him.” Dawn grinned.

  “Okay. Sunday, you said. I’ll make it Sunday.”

  “Cool! So you’re coming to the game tomorrow night?” All of the sudden Wiley looked like the little boy he remembered.

  “I am. If that’s cool with you.” Law wanted to get to know his siblings. He had a lot of mixed-up guilt that the younger ones had no memories of him.

  “Sure. Sure, you’re family. Right, Uncle?”

  Seth looked him up and down, nodding. “He is. You’re welcome to hang out with us.”

  “Thanks.” Relief filled him, which surprised him. He’d always been a “take it or leave it” kind of guy, but then, he’d always been self-sufficient. Law wasn’t sure he was now.

  Wiley shot Law a pleased grin. “Cool! Dude, Uncle, can I go call Dalton and Elijah? Tell them?”

  “Not Mandy?” Seth teased.

  “Uncle!”

  “Go on, son. You cooked. It’s Bethany and the twins turn to do dishes.”

  “Yessir.” Wiley wasn’t going to wait for anyone to change their mind.

  Bethany went to start the dishwater, while Jordan and Keira gathered dishes. Dawn looked at him too. “May I go read?”

  “Sure, honey.” Seth watched her go, but it was Jordan and Keira who surprised Law, coming to slip a hand into each of his. “Can we watch a cartoon?”

  “I would love that, guys. What’s y’all’s favorite?”

  “Scooby-Doo,” they said in concert. “It’s scary.”

  “I love that one.” He really did too.

  “Uncle, put it on for me?”

  “Did you scrape the plates for your sister?” When they nodded, Seth stood, little body creaking. “Sure, kiddos. You can watch two, and then it’s bathtime, okay?”

  Jordan nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “No tears,” Keira agreed.

  That sounded about right for him too. Law had driven a helluva long way, and his body wasn’t entirely up to it. He settled on the couch with the kids, who both scooted close.

  “Okay, Uncle. Make with the Scooby!” Lord, Jordan was all light and life, wasn’t she? So much energy.

  Seth queued up the show before meeting Law’s eyes. “You all right here with them? I need to help Bethany with the loading. It’s a little finicky.”

  “I’m fine.” The Advil was kicking in, and he was a little sleepy from eating, but he could handle two six-year-olds.

  “Good deal.” Seth left him with the little ones, who jabbered quietly about the cartoon, the sound soft and comforting.

  He tried hard not to nod off, and finally settled for putting an arm around each of them so he would feel it if a kid tried to make a run for it. Not that they were going anywhere. Apparently they had decided to be his friend.

  He woke up to Wiley picking up a sleeping Jordan while Seth took Keira. “Do I just put her in bed, Uncle?”

  “Yeah. She’ll be fine for a night. I’ll wash her sheets in the morning, since she was in the sandbox. If she wakes up a little, I’ll get her to put on pajamas.”

  “Will do.” Wiley walked off carrying his sister.

  “Sorry. Sorry, I was just worn-out.” He creaked himself more upright.

  “No apologies. I’ll be right back.”

  Seth disappeared, and he was left alone with the television, the scent of coffee fresh on the air. The whole room was clean, if cluttered. There were books stacked up on end tables and toys in baskets. The heavy leather furniture was covered in Mexican blankets and fleece in wild patterns, from Spongebob to rainbow llamas in glasses. This was a home, through and through.

  It made him feel proud and small, all at the same time.

  Seth walked back in, offered him a half-smile. “You want to talk or are you worn? I can show you the casita.”

  “I can walk to the casita now, I think.” He sort of needed to, in fact. Law grabbed his cane before levering to his feet. Wow. Stiff.

  “The bed in there doesn’t suck. You have a bathroom, a TV, a little sofa, and a little kitchenette. It’s nice.”

  “Sounds like heaven. I’ve been in hospitals and rehab facilities.” He wrinkled his nose. “Always smells like antiseptic.”

  “Yes. God yes. I hear that. I have been in more than one.”

  “I bet. Bull riding is all about when you get hurt, right? Not if.”

  “You must have known a bull rider.” Seth led him outside, down a well-lit path. “This is the garage; my office is above it. The casita’s on the other side.”

  He was grateful for the relatively flat pavers, because he felt off-kilter, his whole brain fuzzy. “Thanks for letting me stay, man. I appreciate it.”

  “You’re family.” Seth walked ahead, and Law just then noticed the man carried his bag. “The door locks from the inside. I have a key, but no one’s going to bother you. I have to be on the road at two for the whole game-day rigamarole.”

  “Okay. I’m an early riser, so holler if you need me to help.” He was up at six no matter what freaking drugs they put him on.

  “If you want, there will be breakfast at six thirty. Biscuits and sausage and eggs. I have hands to feed.” Seth walked in and opened cabinets and doors. “Towels in here. There’s a shower, no tub. Here’s the heater, extra pillows, extra blankets. I had Bethany put waters, Coke, and some chocolate in the fridge.”

  “Thanks.” He would bet a lot of Seth’s old rodeo buddies stopped by. “You got a nice place here, Seth.”

  “It’s home. Pistol’s house had too many stairs. I’m renting it to a buddy of mine and his wife. They’re foster parents, and they needed the room for now. They’re in the process of buying their own place.”

  “Cool. He would love that. He fought hard to keep the kids, even though he was only a baby.” God. He and Pistol had been close once, as kids. He’d been so proud to be a big brother.

  “He did. He was a good man.” Seth nodded to him, dipped his chin once. “You get some rest. Holler if you need anything.”

  Right. This was no memory lane. “Night.” He waited until Seth turned on his heel before he closed the door and locked it. “Man, I screwed up, bro. Seems like I do that a lot.” He said it to the air, knowing no one was actually listening.

  Still, Rodgers took him in, as polite as could be, letting him stay in a place that was bigger than he’d had in eons and way more private.

  Law figured he would take it, at least until he figured out which way was up and down and how to get his feet back under him.

  Tomorrow was a new day. At least that’s what he told himself.

  3

  Seth had his laptop on the dining room table, his earpiece in, his phone on. “Come on, Jeannie. I’m leaving in ten minutes. Do we have a deal or no?”

  He wanted to start running buffalo, and he had a cowboy, a pasture, and the cash. He needed some stock at a reasonable price.

  He did love doing business on Friday afternoons because everyone knew he stopped working at two to be a band dad.

  “You drive a hard bargain, Seth. But yes. We’ll do it.”

  “Excellent. I’ll come by Monday morning with a trailer and some help. Five cows and a bull, right?”

  “Yeah. Two of them are pregnant, two have calves. So you’ll have a start.”

  “Works for me. I’m tickled.” He checked his smart watch. “And I’m out. I’ll pick up the papers Monday?”

  “Andy will put them in your mailbox today. That way you can just drop them Monday.”

  “Sounds great.” He hung up and stood, doing a wild, stupid, thank-God-I’m-alone victory dance.

  Except when he looked up, Law stood at the door of the dining room, watching him. Shit.

  “Hey. Sorry. You about ready to go? You want a shirt? I bet you could wear one of Wiley’s.” He was not blushing. Not. Nope. Not at all.

  “Sure. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
He thought maybe that was the first time he’d seen Law smile.

  “Yeah yeah. Just practicing my end-zone dance.” He had to grin back, though, because buffalo were cool.

  “I like it. Way better than mine right now. A fist pump will do, right?”

  “Totally. Let me grab you a T-shirt. You’ll need a jacket tonight.”

  “Got it. I’ll grab it on the way out and save a trip.” Law gave him a wry grin.

  “Excellent. You’ll find out that Fridays are like this weird mixture of hell and wonder. Home games are easier.”

  “Yeah? Does the schedule start later?”

  “Nah, but we’re less rigid about it.”

  Law laughed. “Good deal. Do I need to pack snacks?”

  “I bring pregame sandwiches to the band. We’ll take the kids to eat, and there will be ice cream after.” Thank God he’d stopped to see Tomas this morning. There’d been a houseful, so he hadn’t done more than chat a second, see the scars from the heart surgery and feed dogs. Things were going to be too busy this evening.

  “Cool. Cool. I just want to help if I can.” Law did look a little out of his element.

  Seth rolled his eyes. “You didn’t hear the boy this morning, did you? You’re going to be paraded out in front of all his friends. He’s so excited there’s a big guy in the family he’s fixin’ to shit himself.”

  “Oh, well. Sure.” That looked like pure panic for a moment, but Law covered well. “I’m glad he’s tickled.”

  “He is.” He grabbed the T-shirt off the top of the washer, along with a change of clothes for Jordan in case of catastrophe, jackets for everyone, and his official Band Uncle button-down. “Here you go. Let’s head out. I’ll load the van up with water and Cokes.”

  “Got it.” Law took the tote bag from him too, determined to do something, he thought. The jacket Law wanted seemed to be in the truck, not the casita, so that was good.

  “I know that van isn’t sexy, but it holds all the kids, Dawn’s tack, Keira’s dance bag, Wiley’s trumpet case, Bethany’s Girl Scouts cookies, and Jordan’s robotics shit all at once.” In fact, he sort of loved the stupid van. It made him feel like a dorky 1970s teenager.

  “I kinda love it. All it needs is a wizard or a mandala.”

  He grinned. Law got it. “Right? I threatened, and Dawn burst into tears. No fair.”

  “Yeah, kids can be so picky. When I got my driver’s license, I got an old Firebird, and Pistol was so damn embarrassed by the paint job. You remember that super sparkly brown paint?”

  Seth snorted. “Oh, man. You know it. Metallic baby-shit brown.”

  “Yep. With a big orange bird. God, I loved that car.” Law climbed into the van.

  “Yeah? My favorite was a Mustang convertible. I had it for a month and a half before I rolled it.” He shook his head. It had been the heartbreak of his young teenaged years.

  “Makes me hurt just thinking of it.” Law rubbed his ribs.

  “Right. I thought the world was over, then I lost my first horse, and I knew it was just a car.”

  “Yeah. Pistol was always about the animals. I was way more a machine kind of guy. I guess you two had a lot in common, huh?”

  “We traveled together a lot. He was going to be one of the best.” He respected the hell out of Pistol.

  “Yeah.” Law went quiet, and he wanted to know what the man was thinking.

  He started up the van, plugging his phone in and mounting it so he could see.

  “So where are we headed?” Law looked curiously at his phone.

  “First? The grocery store for the sandwiches before we pick up Bethany and the little girls. Then Dawn. Then to the high school to drop off the food before we head to the dry cleaners.” Then back to the high school to drop those off.

  “A dad’s work is never done?” Law actually sounded pleased. Weirdo.

  “This is true. I tell you, by the end of my first home game, I wanted to die.”

  “If I sit a lot, does that make me a giant weenie?”

  “God no. You’re here to cheer on the band. So long as you scream for them, you can sit on your ass the entire time. I’m in charge of third-quarter security—no running off, no sex under the bleachers, no fighting. Dawn will be tickled shitless that you’re there.” He usually made her sit with the little ones. This time, she could sit with her best friends.

  “Cool. I’ll try not to embarrass anyone. I know this has to be weird.”

  “You were in the service. You know how to cheer someone on. I ain’t worried.” Wiley was going to be over the moon.

  “I do. Not that I was ever in training. Hell, I cheered Pistol on at peewee rodeo.”

  “Yeah? Did you get along with your stepfather?” He knew Pistol rarely, if ever, spoke about his biological dad.

  “Yeah. I mean, I was a teenager and all, but he was always kind to me.” Law shook his head. “Dad has never really been that.”

  “No? I never met him. He didn’t come to the funeral.” Sort of like you.

  Law’s face screwed up into a grimace. “Yeah? Damn it. He’s only in Texas.”

  “They had a fight when he was home.” That was all he knew too. Just that there was a fight. He hadn’t asked for more.

  “I couldn’t stay there with him anymore. Dad, I mean. I couldn’t bear him looking at me.” Law clamped his lips shut like he’d said too damn much, but Seth got it. All scarred up and dragging ass home to someone who thought you were worthless anyway? No.

  “I hear you. Sometimes folks suck.” That was fair, right?

  “True enough.”

  They headed into town, and after that, Seth was relieved that the most serious thing they talked about was how to get mustard out of a band uniform.

  He let Law sit while he grabbed the boxes of sandwiches and a shit-ton of Cokes—some for the band and some for the house—and on his way out the door, he grabbed Law a stadium seat, one of the nice ones with the backs. He didn’t think too long on why, to be honest. He didn’t have to.

  Law had served. Whatever they could do to make something like sitting easier, they did.

  In fact, Law was pretty decent company if he didn’t think about it too hard. If he did, he got riled up thinking about Pistol and how they were a lot alike but so different.

  Seth set to loading up the back. “I got you a cold Coke. You want?”

  “Please. Man, this is a lot of moving parts.”

  “You get used to it.”

  Law helped with a few things, moving stiffly, but a man had his pride, so Seth wasn’t going to say a word.

  “Okay, on to the elementary school.” He checked the time and zoomed across town for kids three, four, and five.

  “Hey, Uncle Seth! Hey, Law.” The kids all piled into the back, buckling in. “You made good time,” Bethany said.

  “Thank you, young lady. How was school, y’all?” Now Dawn.

  A cacophony of voices just started up—Bethany had a fight with her best friend, Keira got ‘an a hundred’ on her spelling test, while Jordan was all about art and recess and enchilada day in the lunchroom.

  “I like enchiladas too,” Law told her, and Jordan lit up like a Christmas light. He could see it in the rearview.

  “These are the best for lunch. The best. I eat them all!”

  “Yeah. We’ll have to make them together sometime.”

  Oh, Jordan would love that.

  “Okay!” Jordan bounced. “We need hamburgers and tortillas and tomatoes and gravy and pepper sauce and cheese.”

  “We do. We’ll go shop when your Uncle Seth says it’s our day to cook.”

  Jesus, it sounded like Law intended to stay a few days. It was okay. Weird. But okay.

  He could let the man rest and figure out what to do, he guessed.

  It wasn’t like he didn’t have company all the goddamn time, right? Every so often guys stopped by, depending where they were on the circuit, coming for a burger and a beer and a friendly ear.

  And the kids. Jesu
s, he had more sleepovers than any one man should have to bear.

  The kids were talking fast and hard, and he pulled up to the middle school, his eyes finding Dawn, who was red-faced and crying.

  “I’m going to kill that little son of a bitch.”

  Dawn had a crush on a little boy on the rodeo team. A heeler that let someone else take care of his horses. Fucker.

  “Point me and shoot me,” Law said. “I can scare off anyone who hurts her.”

  “Right? He’s a shit.” He stopped when she came to the van. “Hey, baby girl.”

  “Uncle. Can we go? Please? Right now?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Let’s hasta.” He didn’t ask. She would talk to him or Bonner, one or the other.

  “Thanks.” She huddled into her seat, arms wrapped around herself, and good man, Law never asked.

  Neither did any of the other kids.

  “Anyone want a cookie?” Law asked. “I pulled some out of my bag. Oreos.”

  Law got three yesses and a silent shake of her head from Dawn.

  Seth headed for the high school, trusting she’d break. She trusted in him. He was a cowboy.

  “Do you think I’m homely, Uncle?”

  “No, ma’am. I think you’re fine as frog hair.” Motherfucker. He was going to stomp that little Kevin asshole until he was a grease spot. “I think you have gorgeous brown eyes. I love the way you smile. You’re a cowgirl, and I believe anyone who cain’t see that is a friggin’ moron.”

  So there.

  She sniffed but chuckled. “Thank you.”

  “I think you’re so pretty!” Jordan said. “I like the way your nose is kinda tilted.”

  “Tilted?”

  “Uh-huh. It makes you look smiley.” Jordan smiled at her. “You have eyes like Bethany and Wiley too. Dark like hot chocolate. That’s the best.”

  Everything was food for that child. Everything.

  “But no marshmallows,” she teased, and it was working. She sounded happier already.

  “Nope.”

  Bethany looked at Dawn, and Seth held his breath. Bethany could be cutting when she was in a temper. She was so smart, so well-read, but she could be a stone-cold bitch without even meaning to. “I think whoever said that is ridiculous and jealous. I’d love to look like you, Sister. As soon as Uncle lets me, I’m dying my hair the color of yours.”