Steamy Dorm

by Kristine Robinson

  Lilly smiled when she heard this. She loved to read, and it was always nice to meet a kindred spirit in that regard.

  “I like to read, too,” Lilly said. “We should start a book club.”

  Then Lilly realized that no one was going to come to a book club when they spent so much time working.

  “I guess I sound like a dope,” Lilly said. “But I'm a nerd at heart, and get excited about stuff like that.”

  The fire blazed higher as someone poured gasoline on it.

  “You don't sound like a dope,” Sam said. “Just hopeful, in the right way. Some people, when they first start working here, they act all jaded because they think it's going to help them somehow. But it never does, and all they manage to do is take all the fun out of a job that is hard enough as it is. I'm just trying to say that I'm glad that you're earnest and have a good heart. I'm so sick of all the want to be hard ass cowboys I see in the business today. There are just so many. So you're a gem, really.”

  Sam leaned over and kissed Lilly briefly on the lips. No one saw, Lilly's eyes flashed around when Sam pulled away just to check. People were drunk, and not just a little drunk, but very drunk. It dawned on Lilly that she and Sam most likely could do whatever they wanted to each other right by the fire, and no one would really notice. But they couldn't do that. They had to hide it.

  So they both took off, heading out into the night. Lilly was sure to bring a saddle blanket so that they would be able to lay next to each other—the flat ground of the plains was covered in rocks and thistles. As the two women made their way away from the rest of the cowhands, the fire was but a prick of light in a sea of darkness. Lilly threw the blanket out on the ground and sat on it, Sam quickly followed her lead.

  “Do you think any of them noticed? They are probably too drunk, I guess,” Lilly said. “But I still kind of worry about it, you know? I don't want people to take me less seriously because we are, well, kind of getting involved.”

  Sam eased her way across the blanket so that she was touching Lilly, and started to run her hands over the other woman's body, being sure to cup her breasts and kiss her neck.

  “We should probably keep it a secret,” Sam said. “Just because, well, you do have a point. While I don't think Brad would have a problem with it, I do think he might give you a little shit. But the rest, I don't know. As much as I like to think that I've hired people that are completely different than the dunderheads up north, I'm willing to wager that no one was paying attention, and if they were, they're so drunk that they'll wonder if they weren't just getting their wires crossed. What if we'd come out here to smoke a joint?”

  Lilly kissed Sam deeply, pushing her back so that Lilly was on top of her. She smiled down at the now not so confident anymore Sam, who was clearly smitten by Lilly to the point of no return. It made Lilly feel good to know that she could have that effect on someone who she found to be very attractive, but it was also a slightly scary thing. Lilly didn't want to mess things up at the Rocking U Ranch, and if things didn't go well between her and Sam, or the dynamic between herself and the rest of the cowhands changed for the worse because of it, that would be bad. It was easy to ruin things, and hard to keep them going well.

  “I want you to promise me that you won't tell anyone,” Lilly said. “Not anyone!”

  “Oh, baby,” Sam said. “You never had to worry about anything like that from me. Now come here and give momma some sugar.”

  They fell into each other, further and further. Rolling around on the blanket both of them rediscovered what it means to be completely in tune with someone else. It was a beautiful moment, a really great feeling. They made love under the stars again and again, and then finally, when both had had their fill, they headed back to the fire.

  Chapter 5

  The next morning Lilly couldn't tell if anyone else realized what had happened between her and Sam the night before. But, for whatever reason, Brad was really riding her ass. It might not have been because of the late night tryst, but Lilly didn't know for certain.

  “You need to hurry up, Lilly,” Brad said. “I know that you think you're special or something, but you've been moving slow all day. The rest of the workers haven't been moving slow, and everyone got drunk last night! So why are you moving so slowly?”

  Lilly didn't say anything, but instead spurred her horse faster. She didn't want to start this negative feedback cycle of getting under the skin of others or allowing them to get under her skin. It wasn't that she wasn't tough or couldn't take it, it was that everyone had a job to do, even Brad.

  “Brad,” Lilly said. “I'd like to know what job you aren't doing right now so I can do it?”

  Brad didn't say anything back to her.

  “Was that not enough like the military or something,” Lilly said. “I mean, it was sort of terse, but still not too disrespectful. I figured you'd be all over it—“

  “That's enough, Lilly,” Brad said. “I don't need your mouth.”

  Brad reared his horse up on its hind legs and galloped away. Lilly wondered what it was all about but then saw Sam watching from the distance with a worried look on her face. Lilly had never thought to think that she might upset Brad by sleeping with Sam. Although she hadn't thought about it before, now she did think about all the possible nights they might have spent together or all the times Brad could have watched Sam do the same thing she did last night with other people.

  Lilly shook her head and tried to clear the thoughts. She didn't want to have to always think about the might bes, or the could bes, but now she had to. Once she slept with Sam, she crossed a line, one that she had only kind of been aware of, but she'd been aware of none the less. Now it was fair game for the other workers to keep a little closer track of her, because what if the boss lady was letting Lilly fuck off because they had been together? There was also the possibility that none of them knew, and that Brad was just an ass, but that wasn't what she'd read on Sam's face as she looked on from the distance.

  The idea that Brad might be giving her a hard time because he knew that she and Sam had found something special together made Lilly furious. Who did he think he was anyway, to pass judgment on the decisions of two other adults. It just didn't put good feelings in her heart to know that Brad was the kind of person who looked down on others. But maybe he wasn't, Lilly thought, maybe it was all just a coincidence, and Brad didn't mean anything by it.

  To blow off steam, Lilly threw herself into the work. Whenever a part of the herd broke away to make a break for freedom across the planes, there Lilly was, to bring them back to the herd. Whenever there was a place that the fence needed to be mended, there Lilly was, tying a piece of neon marking tape to the spot so that a cowhand could easily come back and identify it. The fence was only on the side of the run, the east side. The west side was open, and if Lilly wanted to, she could have taken off west and rode all the way to the coast, all the way until the land ended and nothing but water stretched out in front of her as far as the eye could see.

  At the end of the run, they delivered the cattle to one of the bigger operations up north. Some of the cowhands had mixed feelings about this, not wanting to do any business with the larger operations at all, but not Lilly. She understood that the bigger monoliths of cow farming were now a part of their lives whether any of them liked it or not. Just like her parents had found out, some things were just too big not to affect smaller ranches, as if they were stars orbiting each other out in space. Places like the Rocking U Ranch, although bigger than her parents' place, were still small fish in the big ocean.

  “I know that it's not a popular decision to cut the big operation in on the deal,” Sam said. “But there really isn't much other way around it. I save several thousand dollars by going through them. They have an exclusive deal with a slaughterhouse that buys every head of cattle from them without exception.”

  All of the cowhands had their horses face inward toward the center of a small circle they formed.

  “You didn't
have to pay them anything, did you? God, I hope not,” Brad said. “Because these bigger farms, that's how it starts. They tax our profits a little bit the first time, and the second time, it's even more. Pretty soon they expect to be cut in, and when they aren't they start trouble for the smaller ranches.”

  “I didn't pay them, or anything like that,” Sam said. “It was just business, and they cut me a deal on land rights in the future if I went through them. Simply put, they'll be making money off of the deal that just wouldn't have existed if I'd gone through someone else, or just done it myself. Not only that, it makes it a lot simpler to move all the cattle at once without the inspections of the herd.”

  “Be that as it may,” Brad said. “I'm not so sure about this. There's something that doesn't feel right about doing business with the same people trying to run us off the plain. And I get that life isn't simple, and sometimes people have to make hard decisions, but at the same time, I don't know. You know what, I take it back. If you really think it's the best decision, then I'm with you all the way. I just hope that these bigger operations don't think that we need them, that we can't do it on our own.”

  “I don't think they believe that,” Sam said. “But at the same time I completely understand your reservations, and I'm not trying to minimize them. In the future, we'll be able to go on better runs over their property, and use their connections without tax. You see, this time, around they really needed the money. Believe it or not, these bigger operations are just larger versions of us. The owner of this one was short on payroll money and was willing to do this even though I got the better end of the bargain because he was in a tight spot. Now, in the future, we don't have to stay so strictly to just one path. We'll be able to wander more. Not only that, but it shows that we do fit into the larger picture around here, that the places who think they are so much bigger than us can't just completely ignore what we do.”

  Lilly was listening and thinking about her parents' ranch, about how her father had refused to work with the larger operations. Her mother had suggested that her father at least look into it, but he was a man set in his ways who didn't like new things or new ideas. So instead of trying to work out things with the bigger operations he'd just tried to ignore them, and that had been the worst things he could do. Before he knew it, the water rights to the surrounding land had been bought up from the other small operations, and the level of the water table was sinking. If her father had been more into paying attention to the larger picture he could have bought up the surrounding water rights years ago, but he just hadn't thought of it. That was the thing about smaller operations, sometimes they're thinking shrunk to no bigger than the size of the ranch, and that's when things really went wrong.

  Because the world was so much bigger than little ranches, and none of it would wait for them to figure that out on their own. The ranching business was still just as sink or swim as it had ever been, except that now ranchers had to adjust their business to take into account that there were other forces in moving the tides besides the moon. Now there were other bodies with just as much pull, who could make their lives easier, or they could make it harder. Lilly just hoped that Sam had thought of all the implications of working with one of the bigger ranches before she'd jumped in.

  “What do you think, Lilly,” Sam said. “Your parents' ranch was pulled under. Do you think that this is a good idea for the Rocking U Ranch?”

  At first, Lilly didn't know what to say. But then she gathered herself to spring into the conversation.

  “I think that there is potential for this to help us,” Lilly said. “Just as there is great potential for this to hurt us. We'll need to keep a close eye on how the other smaller ranches react to this. Maybe they don't need to know.”

  Sam's horse took a step back as if mirroring Sam's epiphany via Lilly's words.

  “That's a good point,” Sam said. “We should probably all keep this to ourselves. There isn't any reason we need to go and make the surrounding ranches hate us for what amounts to nearly no reason. We're ranchers just like the rest of them, except a little bigger. To be honest with all of you, we really needed this larger outfit to work with us, this time. If they hadn't, we'd be stuck up here for the next week waiting for some slaughterhouse representative to go over all of the head of cows and pick out all the ones they can say aren't quite up to their insane standards. That would have meant less money for all of us, and also less time to go back to the Rocking U Ranch and have a good time.”

  The wind whirred dust between the standing horses with the cowhands from the Rocking U Ranch circled round atop them.

  “A good time,” Brad said. “Oh, that's right! It is about time for our annual party. I'd forgotten about it because we'd gotten so busy moving cattle around. It would be nice to let loose for a little bit and not worry so much about the ins and outs of the cattle business.”

  The other ranch hands agreed. Lilly wasn't sure what the annual party was, but it sounded like fun. All of the hands followed Sam's lead as she brought her horse up to a trot away from the bigger ranch they'd just dropped the herd off at. The other ranch's hands were corralling the herd, most of them throwing lassos that missed their marks and fell in the dust. Lilly watched the hands from the other side for a few seconds before turning her horse to follow the rest of the Rocking U Ranch gang.

  She couldn't understand how the people who ran the ranch would hire hands who didn't know what they were doing. She'd heard stories of such incompetence before, and of course turned her nose up at the very idea, but she'd never seen it with her own eyes.

  It made Lilly feel sick inside, like something precious to her was being pillaged. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that the reason she felt that way was because that's exactly what was happening. Her way of life, ranching, was being taken over by bigger ranches owned by corporations back east. And even though everyone hated them, especially Sam, they were being forced to do business with them because of the special deals the rest of the industry had cut with the bigger ranches. To Lilly, it just didn't make any sense. As they rode out of the bigger ranch's boundaries, Lilly looked around at the landscape.

  The fences weren't well kept, but instead had snarls of barbed wire about every thirtieth post. The plants inside of the pens weren't well groomed, meaning that thistles—which can kill cattle if they eat them—were left to grow unhindered. There were all sorts of little things that were wrong, but the big corporations back east didn't care. All they wanted was a to pay less money for cows, and all they cared about was how fast that could be done. There wasn't any thought given to, “What is this doing to the business of ranching?” And Lilly doubted that any of the people back east even knew enough about ranching to have a real opinion about it.

  As they all rode back to the Rocking U Ranch Lilly could feel the somber mood which had fallen over the group. It wasn't one of being upset, or afraid, but just one of being misunderstood by the rest of the world. Lilly had felt it before at her parents' ranch, but it had been different, more bitter and full of resignation. The Rocking U Ranch hands didn't act like it was the end of their world, but instead like their world was changing around them and they didn't much like it. Which Lilly thought was fair, considering that was exactly what was happening.

  Chapter 6

  When they got back to the Rocking U Ranch to see the cattle pen nearly half empty, Lilly couldn't help but feel the feeling that came after completing a job well done. The other hands felt it too. There was much horseplay and goofing around until Sam finally told everyone to calm down and get their horses put away and taken care of. There was supposed to be a party that night, and Lilly was excited about it. She wondered what kind of parties happened at the Rocking U Ranch, and if there would be any special fireworks or anything.

  When she'd worked at her parents' ranch, she'd heard that the Rocking U Ranch was the kind of place which wasn't afraid to let loose every once in a while. When she'd listened to the very distant reports of firework
s going off while working at her parents', she'd always been jealous that there was a place not far away that had more fun. It hadn't been made clear to here just how far away the Rocking U Ranch really way until the water rights crisis didn't affect them because they drew from a different water table altogether. Not that that had anything to do with the partying, but it was just a reflection of the general disconnect between the old and the new for Lilly.

  “Lilly,” Brad said. “Help me drag these tables and kegs out.”

  At first, Lilly wondered if Brad was serious about the kegs, but after following him into one of the nearby barns, she found that he wasn't kidding at all. The Rocking U Ranch had bought several kegs of cheap beer for the hands, and Lilly helped Brad haul them out of the barn, tap them, and set them up by the tables ready to be used. After that, they both fetched cups and a few other things that would make the part worth a damn. There were, of course, some spirits around, but neither Brad nor Lilly really wanted any of the hands getting that drunk, so they only brought a few bottles out.

  “Now listen,” Brad said. “I know that we have this party every year after the big drive, and every year we have the best time we can, but I just want to make clear that this year we have to tone things down a little bit. I know it sounds lame, but I don't want the other ranches getting the idea that we are slacking, and all of us know that some of our neighbors hate the idea of all of us out here having fun while they're just starting their own big drives.”

  “Maybe they should start earlier!” one of the older hands hollered good with a smile.

  “Maybe,” Brad said. “But they haven't, and maybe they never will. Until then, we need to tone down what we do as far as our celebration, so no fireworks this year, and I don't want to see anyone getting completely plastered off of hard liquor. I realize that some of you really like to drink, but this is an occasion where I want all of us to take a little time to reflect that things are shifting around us, and we need to take that into account. The ranching business has changed, and we're changing with it. All right?”