by Lexie Ray
All of us sweated in black and the nicest shirts and jeans we could find. Funerals were getting much more common than they should’ve been, old ranchers dying off just as quickly as our way of life was. People just didn’t bring their children up like our parents had been dead set on doing for us. Ranches were getting snapped up by big oil, or bigger, commercial ranching operations like Bud Billings’ outfit. Funerals should’ve been something we were used to for people and ranches, and here we were, weeping over one of the last good men in ranching. Sam Summers had been a force of nature in the ranching world, and nobody seemed to know or care that Paisley was his heir through and through.
The minister droned on and on about fidelity and hard work and perseverance, all qualities embodied by the late Sam Summers. Paisley watched her hands dispassionately, peered up at the sky, looked everywhere except for the box that contained her father, and the hole we were all preparing to place him in. I wanted to put my hand over hers, to try to offer some sort of comfort, but I was pretty sure she would reject it.
The ceremony ended and people stood from their chairs, Paisley rising automatically, moving away from the gaping of the ground, from the abstraction of death and the horror that brought, away. I followed her because I thought that was what I was supposed to do, what Sam Summers had wanted. Paisley seemed placid, but I knew just what level of turmoil churned under the surface of that calm face. I knew it very well.
“My condolences, Ms. Summers.”
We turned to come face to face with Bud Billings, cane in hand, dressed in the nicest suit by far at the funeral — nicer even than the one Paisley was burying her father in. I noticed with some satisfaction that he was in the process of sweating right through it. Not even Bud Billings could escape the heat of the sun.
“Thank you, Mr. Billings,” she said, perfectly polite even as I bristled. He held out his hand and she took it, but instead of shaking it, Bud lifted it to his lips and kissed her browned skin.
“Or, and I’m sorry, is it Mrs. Corbin now?” he asked, glancing at me, not releasing her hand.
“It’s still Summers, as in the Corbin-Summers Ranch,” she said. “Maybe you’ve heard of it.”
“Your father was a good man, Paisley,” Bud said. “A smart man. Hell of a rancher.”
“Yes, yes he was.”
“You were lucky to have him to advise you on managing the ranch.” Bud was talking to Paisley, but he kept his eyes on me. “That’s the reason this new ranch has been relatively successful — so far. But the Corbin boys didn’t inherit their parents’ ranching acumen. They’ll run their half of the ranch — and yours — into the ground before your father’s cold in the ground.”
“That’s the last time you get to talk about our parents like that,” I said, inserting myself between Bud and Paisley. “Mind your own ranch — and your manners — when you’re speaking to my wife.”
“No disrespect meant, Ms. Summers,” Bud said, smirking at me, clearly implying that disrespect was meant to me and my family. “I’m truly sorry for your loss.”
“Move along, Bud,” I said, watching him until he walked away, swinging his cane.
I turned back to Paisley, who had a funny look on her face.
“What?”
“I think that’s the first time you’ve ever called me your wife,” she said.
“How, um, how did it sound?”
“Strange.” She looked up at the sky, then back toward her father’s open grave as the backhoe began to push earth into it. “A shame it took my father dying for you to start doing it.”
“Paisley, it just slipped out.”
“So calling me your wife was an accident.”
“I’m not trying to antagonize you. I’m sorry for offending you. I really am.” How did I blunder into this kind of idiocy? There had to be some kind of reward for it.
“Just — just forget about it. I don’t mean to snap. I’m tired.”
“I know you are. Are you ready to go?”
“Let me just watch them put the dirt on my father.”
“Paisley, I don’t think …”
“It’s closure, Avery. That’s all.”
I sat with her as the afternoon deepened into evening, watching the backhoe operator complete his work, on a couple of metal folding chairs the funeral home saw fit to leave us even as workers loaded the rest into the bed of a truck and paused a respectful distance away.
She waited until the backhoe was loaded and taken away before standing up, walking to the grave, and observing the work done.
“What makes the mound of earth on the grave go down?” Paisley asked absentmindedly, kicking at a clod. “We can come back in a month or two months or six and it’ll be flat again. Why?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart.”
“Oh, first wife and now sweetheart?” she asked, smiling at me. “Did that one just slip out, too?”
It had. I felt such tenderness toward her. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Paisley. I’m right here with you. Whatever you need.”
“I need to go home,” she said with a sigh. “Sorry I’m acting crazy.”
“You’re not acting crazy. You just buried your father.”
“If you say so.”
We rode back in silence, Paisley’s head bobbing with every dip and curve in the road. I thought she’d gotten all her grief out last night, but grief was a funny thing, different for every single person and every single experience they had. She seemed all emptied out right now, but I didn’t know how to fill her back up, or whether she would even want me to try and pull her back into herself. Tragedy had a way of turning everything inside out.
“What do you want to do tonight?” I asked her as we pulled in to the driveway and I turned off the truck.
“Just sleep,” she said dully, looking out the window.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I’m tired.”
“All right. Your body knows what you need.”
But when I went upstairs later to check on her, she was pulling on jeans and a T-shirt, braiding her hair away from her face like she did while working on the ranch.
“What’s up?” I asked her.
“I’m going out,” she said, the same tonelessness in her voice as before.
“Do you want me to go with you?”
“What for?”
“Just to go,” I said, because it was better than “to watch you and protect you and surround you with as much love as you need to go.” Paisley didn’t seem like she’d tolerate any sap right now, even though I was trying to support her like I’d promised her father I would do.
“I want to be alone,” she said.
“Can I drop you off?”
“No.”
She took the truck, and I knew she was going to the bar, the distraction of merriment and free drinks from those sympathetic to the bereaved a welcome thing. I knew what it was to strive for distraction. I just wished she would’ve let me driven her and picked her up.
One o’clock rolled around, and then two. I worried for a while, then decided to do something about it. I fired up an old motorbike I found in the gaping garage, wobbled around on it until I found my balance, and rocketed off in direction of town.
I found her perched on my barstool, her head in her hands, the bartender clearing a long line of shot glasses from in front of her.
“I wouldn’t have let her drive home,” he assured me, dumping the shot glasses in the sink.
“Thank you,” I said.
“I’m right here, you know,” Paisley said. “You’re talking about me like I’m not.”
“Do you feel better, now?” I asked her. “Or is it going to take more liquor than that?”
“She didn’t even come to the funeral,” Paisley murmured, turning away from me.
“Who didn’t come to the funeral?”
“My mother.” Paisley lifted her face and looked at me. I tried to mentally count how many shots she’d had, how many glasses were being cle
ared away when I walked in here, but I couldn’t summon the image.
“Do you think she knew your father died?” I asked hesitantly. “Maybe she missed the news.”
“She didn’t miss the news because I called her to tell it to her,” Paisley said. “Well, I left a voicemail.”
“See? Maybe she didn’t get it.”
Paisley gave a half shrug. “Maybe she just didn’t care enough to come. I don’t know why I felt like telling her. She obviously hasn’t cared about either of us in a long damn time. Maybe I just wanted to be disappointed.”
“Want to go home?” I asked after a beat, not sure what I should say to make that hurt any better. Paisley had lost her father and been brushed aside by her mother. All I could try and do was be a supportive husband, even if I’d never been terribly good at that before.
“Fine,” she sighed. “You’re probably going to flip out at the tab, though.”
“Why would I flip out at the tab?” I asked her. “I’m sure I’ve run up many a similar one.”
“I don’t know.”
She didn’t question my presence, didn’t so much as look in the direction of the dirt bike once I got her into the parking lot. Paisley simply handed the keys over and clambered into the passenger seat of the truck.
We drove several miles before I decided to break the silence.
“I was worried about you, and I wanted to tell you I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry? Why?”
I swallowed. “Because I know how you feel. How you felt. About me, when I didn’t show up at home.”
“Sucks, doesn’t it?” She looked at me. “Not that I planned to teach you a lesson. But you learned one anyway, didn’t you?”
I chose not to answer that. That was Paisley trying to provoke me into a fight. I wasn’t going to answer that question.
“Paisley, I know that you’re hurting right now,” I said, trying to choose my words carefully. “And you know exactly why I know that. I’m here to talk, if you want to, and we don’t have to if you don’t. But I’ll never stop being here for you. Do you understand?”
“Sure,” she said. “But that’s not going to keep me from going out to the bar whenever I want to.”
“I’m not trying to convince you not to. I’m just trying to get you to be safe.”
“Like you were safe before?”
“Better than that.”
“I’m asleep,” she said, yawning widely, and then she was, snoring gently, her mouth wide open against the back of the seat, her body twisted but somehow lost to slumber.
I carried her inside after parking the truck, hoping that the motorbike would be secure, wondering if she’d get angry at me for getting out, hoping she wasn’t too terribly hungover tomorrow. How many times had I just stopped and watched my wife sleep? She was at peace, at least, then, not tormented by the loss of her father or whatever area I had failed her in or her lack of opportunity for leading a ranch without having to be married to anyone. Paisley had too much to deal with. If I could eliminate some of the worries by being the husband I was supposed to be to her, then I’d try my best.
I laid down in the bed gently beside her, curving my body to fit the shape of hers, tucking her hair behind her ears as she murmured in her sleep, draping my arm over her soft stomach. She said something I couldn’t quite understand and started snoring again even as she snuggled back into me. This simple spooning was something we’d never really done before. Every time we had been together, it had been something violent, something visceral. Had we even ever made love tenderly? I couldn’t think of a time.
I loved her so much in that moment, vulnerable and wounded. I would have laid anything at her feet to make her feel better. There wasn’t any use to regretting the past. I hadn’t been ready to be married to anyone, let alone someone as lovely and singular and whip-smart as Paisley. But there it was. We were married, and I should’ve spent my time making the best of it. Now I could do nothing else but try to make it right again.
When I woke up, Paisley’s side of the bed was cold. I knew she had probably found me practically on top of her and slipped out in disgust, preferring to go early to the ranch than have to deal with the man she’d been more or less forced to marry.
I did the only thing I could do — showered, put my clothes on, and headed out to the barn for my horse. It was another day on the ranch, just like any other. The herd was bigger, but the cattle logs were still my responsibility. I had been extra diligent, unwilling to let any of Paisley’s ranch hands take over or help with the duty, ever since those five cows had gone missing.
But when I approached the herd, I knew right away from experience that something was wrong. The cows and calves were skittish, quicker to run from my mount than their usual lazy plod. It was smaller, too, the herd — significantly so. I whipped out my clipboard and began the count … and came up thirty short.
“Shit,” I muttered, and did it again.
We had a big goddamn problem.
I rode my horse as fast as it would take me toward the Corbin barn, where I knew Paisley would be poring over billings and invoices and other records. It was where she came when she was upset, where she could lose herself most effectively.
I had learned that about her. I’d learned lots of things since our wedding.
With any luck, Chance would be there, too. This was a big problem, and I knew he’d want to know.
“Paisley,” I said, dropping down from my horse. She whirled around, her hand covering her heart.
“Christ, Avery, you scared the shit out of me.” For as drunk as she was the night before, she looked no worse for wear in the early morning light, her hair long and loose, casual in a T-shirt and jeans. Was it the same set as last night? I racked my brain and couldn’t come up with an answer, then cursed myself for my lack of observational skills.
“How are you?” I asked, feeling strangely awkward. I’d slept with my arms around this woman, and she probably had no memory of it whatsoever. It was just as well. I doubted my affection would be accepted.
“Working,” she said, gesturing impatiently at the papers spread out in front of her. “What do you need?”
“There’s something wrong with the count,” I said, shoving the clipboard at Paisley.
“You hate cattle logs,” she said, glancing up at me. “That’s what your brother said, anyway.”
“Yes, I hate them, but that doesn’t change the fact that something’s wrong with the count,” I said, pointing impatiently at the grid. “We’ve got cattle missing, and not just a few. Dozens.”
Her eyes widened. “An exact number, please, Avery.”
“At least thirty.”
“Fuck!”
“You’re telling me.” This was a disaster of near-epic proportions. Thirty head of cattle didn’t ever just simply go missing. Unless a sinkhole had opened somewhere on the ranch and swallowed them whole, there had to be a different explanation.
“Where’s Chance?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I thought he’d be here, but he’s not.”
“So you came looking for him, and had to settle on me.” She shook herself out of wherever that thought was going. “Never mind. That doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is figuring out where the hell those cattle got off to.”
I made a move to help her saddle her horse, but she swatted me away. I was only inconveniencing her. She had everything ready to go in just a matter of minutes, and we were off galloping across the ranch. I was worried about the herd, worried I’d gotten something wrong and was wasting our time, but there was something nice about pushing my horse full tilt right next to Paisley. I’d seen her ride before, hadn’t I? How hadn’t I noticed how magnificent she was astride her horse, her body moving seamlessly with the animal even at a gallop, as much at home atop one as anything else? She was beauty in motion, something truly special, and I was almost a little disappointed when we finally caught up with the herd.
“Do the count again
,” she said, her hair wild and gorgeous. “I’ll help. Let’s rule out any human error.”
But it was the same the first time, the second time, the third time — making it the eighth time I’d counted them in the first place. There was no ignoring it, now. A big enough portion of our herd simply wasn’t here.
“A break in the fence?” Paisley wondered out loud. “Would that account for it?”
“Maybe, but then why aren’t we missing more? Why didn’t the rest of them amble along to see if anything really was greener on the other side?”
“If they just wandered off like that, though, someone would’ve noticed.” Paisley’s eyebrows drew together as she tried to focus, tried to puzzle out what had happened. “Someone’s with them all the time during the day. Someone else is riding the fence lines to the pastures before we shift them. Someone else would’ve seen them by now. I don’t understand what’s happened. Who was the last people with the cattle?”
I checked the log. “Tucker and Hunter.”
The line between her brows deepened. “They would’ve noticed if something was wrong. When was the last time the count was correct?”
“Yesterday. At dusk. The herd overnighted in the north pasture.”
“Let’s run the fence.”
I cursed bitterly as we slowed our horses to a canter, then a trot, at the farthest point from both the Corbin house and the Summers house. An entire section was down, which was hard to believe. The line would’ve been checked prior to the herd being moved here to avoid just this sort of thing. I dismounted and examined the posts and wire.