“That’s right.” Elena watched me like I was an unexploded grenade.
“Do I have to go to Bible study?” I asked. “Can’t I just skip it this week? It’s so goddamn boring. Can’t you take one week off spying for my mother and—”
“Wow.” She let out a deep breath. “So. Wow.”
I’d hurt her. I could see it, but I was too angry to take the words back.
Unlike my parents, Elena actually considered my feelings. I had no right to talk to her like that.
“I’m sorry, but your parents insist you attend Bible study. I’ll be sure to get there early afterward so you won’t need to mingle but you have to go. You put me in a terrible position when you ask me to supersede your parents’ rules. You know that, right?”
Her many kindnesses killed me. They killed me.
She wouldn’t look at me. “I can’t put myself in your shoes, but I’m not stupid. I can see how hard this is for you.”
“No, I’m sorry. It’s all good.” I’m the monster. “Me and Maisy love living here with you. I’d probably work for free if I had to, it’s just—”
She finally met my gaze. “Don’t tell that to the boss.”
“Tell me what?” Sterling had opened the door and now he swiveled his head, his gaze going back and forth between me and Elena.
“Nothing,” I said, before Elena could answer him.
He nodded absently before turning back to her. “We’ve got five minutes if you need to do anything before we head out.”
“Okay, Boss. Be right back.” Elena left me and the boss alone.
I took a deep breath.
The boss was an imposing man. He had stature in the community. He had money and he wasn’t afraid to use it to get what he wanted. I guess that kind of power made him feel comfortable, even around a guy my size. A man who feels small usually tries to make other men feel smaller. The boss wasn’t like that, but he used his size to his advantage.
He asked, “Are you still a little hot under the collar?”
“I’m sorry about that.”
He crossed his arms and leaned his hip against the counter. “I heard what you said, though. Maybe I shouldn’t have talked to Skyler about you like that. You’re not a kid anymore.”
“Some folks don’t look beyond Maisy.” I put my hands up like horse blinders. “Sometimes people don’t want to see someone like me at all.”
“I guess if you say it, you must believe it’s true. But I haven’t seen it.”
“It’s hard making friends here. It’s not like—” I was going to say home, but it was hard making friends there too. “It’s even worse knowing you’re talking about me to the hands behind my back. That you feel you have to warn people—”
“All right, now. Wait a minute.” He stopped me. “I hear you. That was an invasion of your privacy and I’m sorry.”
“The hands treat me like a kid—”
“You are a kid to most of them. Twenty-three is barely an adult.”
“But I’m never going to be one of them, am I? To them, I’ll always be ‘Special Ed’—” I made the air quotes that the awful nickname demanded. “I’ll always be less than them. And as soon as anybody comes along who doesn’t treat me like less than, my folks or you or Elena just have to butt in and explain why they should.”
“Nobody ever said you were less than.” The boss’s surprise could not have been faked. I’d shocked him. Maybe I’d even hurt him, but I couldn’t stop.
“You don’t have to! Look at me. I’m twenty-three and I can’t drive except on the ranch roads. I can’t ride. I’m not allowed to go anywhere but church. I’m supposed to be starting my life. I was supposed to get a college degree, screw around, play in the NFL. Now everything is all messed up.”
Chandler’s face fell. “I don’t understand you, Rock. I truly don’t. You’re like that boy from those books—the Boy Who Lived. Three of your teammates didn’t make it off that field, but you survived. That’s a miracle. You’re a goddamn miracle. How can you complain about that?”
“I’m not complaining about being alive.” How could I tell him I didn’t want to be identified by surviving something for the rest of my life? “I want to live the rest of it without the reminder that one day was really, really shitty.”
“I thought you liked it here.” His hurt was now evident. “I thought you enjoyed your job.”
Talking about this with Elena and the boss was like trying to play the most out-of-tune, stringless, pulled-out-of-the-trunk-of-a-car-lying-at-the-bottom-of-a-stagnant pond guitar experience sometimes.
“I do enjoy my job.” I might have whined.
“I just don’t get you.” Chandler sipped his coffee. “I don’t understand anyone under thirty and I don’t trust anyone under fifty. The way Andi acts, you’d think she’s from outer space these days. You know she’s heading on the road with the band I hired for our Fourth of July bash? She’s leaving my grandson with Ryder and that Doc Winters. Now, I ask you—”
“That’s awesome!” His words ignited a bonfire of envy inside me. Andi was a girl who got what she wanted and didn’t let anything get in the way. “She’s— amazing.”
He gave me a disgusted look, threw the rest of his coffee in the sink, and left through the mud room.
Andi was awesome. She didn’t give a fuck what people thought.
Maybe I should start taking my cues from her.
Chapter 13
Sky
As soon as we mounted up, Foster took me under his wing. I rode at his side, kind of like a trainee. Together, we chased down strays, and he showed me how to relax and let Ogre do his job. Ogre was fast and agile, and all I had to do was get used to his rhythm. I learned to tell him what I needed by trial and error, and after that, we made a pretty good team.
All of the hands took turns riding drag like Rainey said, and I was grateful for the protection of the hat and bandanna. All day, it was about keeping the herd moving, and watching the boys work together, waving their arms and hats and rounding up strays.
The country was beautiful, the sky wide. It was a massive blue gemstone flawed with streaky mare’s-tail clouds. The blistering sun beat down on us but a warm breeze dried the sweat from our skin just as quickly as it formed.
The first cowboys—the men who’d tamed this land—never worried about slathering on sunscreen, but we did. Foz kept after me, especially, I guess, because I was new to the job.
“You reapply?”
I nodded. Off and on, he’d ride over with more bits of advice.
“Just let Ogre pivot,” or “Give him a nudge with your knees,” or “Don’t rein him in like that. You’ll only confuse him.”
“Got it.” I practiced letting myself merge with Ogre’s body. Letting him know which way we were heading by using my weight and guiding with my knees. My quads, my back, my abs. Every muscle screamed with pain. I’d be lucky to drag my ass to the bunkhouse from the truck and I doubted I’d be walking upright tomorrow.
By late afternoon I was concentrating so hard on keeping up with the rest of the crew, I’d missed Foz coming up alongside me. “Let’s drop out for a minute so you can catch your breath.”
“I’m fine.”
“I hear you,” he shot me a stubborn look. “But we have a long day to go still. We take turns.”
We took off to the side and let the herd scramble along without us for a bit. The cattle kept on—a rust-red, velvet river of muscle and meat, with Tad and Robbie and James and Julio to keep it moving. Cows are oddly trusting critters. They have no plans to speak of. They mostly just follow along blindly.
Once we got those cattle moving, there was no way to stop them. We could only shape them. Guide them. Use fences to channel and squeeze and sort them and hope for the best.
You could probably see the ball of dust we were kicking up all the way
to the ranch house.
“Look at ’em go.” Foz led his horse to a cluster of cedar elms to dismount. Once he got down, he stomped his feet and stretched his legs. “Would you look at that? Ain’t those beasts a pretty sight?”
“Makes me feel real small,” I admitted. I got down and stretched out my cramped muscles.
“Me too.” He led his horse to a tasty-looking clump of something and regarded me narrowly. “How you doing? Okay physically?”
“I’ll be sore.” Hell of an understatement, that. “There’s no guarantee I’ll be able to get back on my horse.”
“You’re awful young to be so decrepit.”
“It ain’t the miles, it’s the wear and tear.”
He laughed, “Okay, well, I ain’t carrying your ass back, so you’d best figure out how to mount that horse again, then.”
“I used to be a pretty hot-shit rider. Even did some rodeo in high school, but—”
“But you ain’t been on a horse in at least eight years. I know. I’ll tell Boss to cut you some slack until the weekend, if you want.”
“I don’t want special treatment.” God, how would that make me look to the other hands? “I can do what any man here does. I’ll just be sore while I build up to it again.”
“All right. But don’t be no hero.” He pulled his canteen out and took a swig. “Hydrate and take breaks and don’t get hurt ’cause of misplaced pride. Working cattle is grueling. We’re playing a long game out here, so easing up where you can is the way to go.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Call me Foz.” He eyed me. “I saw you last night. Out on the porch with Rocky.”
“Yeah.” Christ. Another warning? Why not just build a big fat wall around the kid?
“I don’t know if Elena is ready for the hands to know I’m courting her.” His grizzled scruff of beard sort of glowed when backlit by a blush like that.
Oh . . . that’s why he wants to talk? “I won’t mention it.”
“She’s embarrassed”—he glanced away—“because of the age difference.”
Aw, man. He was a good-looking guy. They made a good pair. I didn’t suppose my opinion mattered but I gave it anyway.
“It’s nobody’s business but yours. You’re both consenting adults.”
“Right. About that.” He still didn’t look at me. “I suppose you say that because me and Elena are older folks and we’ve been to the rodeo a time or two.”
“You’re not that old.”
“Right. I’m not that old. And she’s not too old for me. And you don’t think it’s weird, right?”
“I don’t think it’s weird at all.” I don’t know why anyone else’s opinion mattered to him, but I agreed. “I don’t think loving anybody is weird, no matter what.”
“It isn’t. Unless there’s a real good reason. Right?” He met my gaze and that was when I realized the conversation wasn’t going to be about him and Elena after all. “Do you know Rock’s story? He was hit by lightning, and since then, he’s had a seizure disorder. Also, he has sudden angry outbursts, and when he’s overstimulated he’ll—”
“Whoa. Why are you telling me all this?”
Would Rock even want me to know this stuff?
“Ordinarily, I wouldn’t tell you.” He pulled his horse into a walk beside him. I followed. “But Rock seems a little fixated on you.”
“N-no he’s not. He’s just a lonely kid, is all. He’s kind of isolated out here.”
“I know, but last night out on the porch you didn’t have a shirt on—”
“Wait. It was hot, and I didn’t realize that wasn’t . . . I already told Julio I’d—”
“It’s not just the shirt. Shit. I don’t know.” He sighed. “This is just between us, right?”
I agreed. “Sure.”
“Rock was always a real decent kid. Great grades, sports, music. He was gifted as hell. It’s just such a damn shame.”
“Yeah.” I agreed, although from what little I could see, he was still plenty gifted.
“’Lena says after the accident, Rock wasn’t the same. He acted out, started drinking. Then they caught him with a neighbor boy.”
“No shit?”
“I know, right? You’re supposed to get struck by lightning after you go gay.”
He said it like a joke and I had no choice but to take it like one.
“No shit.” That’s the thing with gay jokes. When you have no choice in the matter you go along.
“Rock’s folks wanted to send him to one of those gay-conversion places, and somehow he ended up here instead. They’re happy because he’s working and he’s got Elena to look after him. But if he were to screw this up in some way . . . his parents are prepared to make good on their threat.”
“They can’t do that, can they?” I asked. “He’s an adult.”
“Technically.” He nodded.
“Not technically.” I argued. “Boss said Rock’s twenty-three. How can they make him do anything?”
“It’s because of his medical condition. He might be better off in some sort of group home with other people like him and doctors on staff. They have a point—things can become life-threatening quickly.”
“But to put him in some facility?” Prison was a facility. I knew it wasn’t a good comparison, but I hated the word. People need homes. They need to belong. Not to be facilitated, or whatever.
“It won’t come to that, because we protect him.” Foster grinned. “You see?”
“I do.” I did see.
I saw that if he got involved with one of the hands, his folks would take him away from Elena, away from the land he loved, away from a job he appeared to be really good at.
They’d put him into either conversion therapy or . . . a facility.
“Message received.”
“I’m sorry. It’s going to be hard to distance yourself from him. He seems real taken with you.”
“Not as hard as seeing him end up in some group home.”
“Right.” He gave a nod, like he’d settled the matter. “That’s right. If you think about the consequences, it won’t be difficult to let him down easy.”
Either they didn’t see what I’d seen or they didn’t understand what it was like to be a gay twenty-three-year-old boy in an environment full of healthy, active men.
I said, “I’ll do my part by not encouraging anything.”
“I appreciate that.”
“I just hope it works out for y’all.” I didn’t think it was up to all of them to decide what was good for Rock. Despite his health, when I looked at him, I saw a twenty-three-year-old man, trying to get the things any man his age wants: a job, respect, someone to love, sex.
Before I went to prison, I’d have drawn up that list backward, and it would have only been one word long.
“As long as you understand why Elena might want to put the brakes on anything happening between you and him,” Foster said.
“I understand.” But friendship isn’t one-sided, and I didn’t want to let him down, gently or otherwise.
“We should get back.” He turned his horse toward the massive cloud of dirt that was my fate that afternoon. “Let’s go take drag and give Jason and Robbie a spell.”
I pulled up my bandanna before Foster and I rode the cloud down.
Choking dust battled Ogre’s farts for the title, Foulest Odors I Ever Smelled.
Tad’s smile was a little thin when he dropped back to check on us. “How you holding up?”
“Never better.” I lied.
“Me neither.” He had to be lying too. I didn’t need some machine to detect that. “It is good to be alive, huh?”
“It’s all good, yeah?”
“Yep.”
He rode back to the lead, where he let Julio know it was time for a change. Eventua
lly Tad and Julio came back to spell us for good.
The rest of the way we rode flank, keeping the cattle together. When we got to our destination, we put them through a series of gates to count them and physically inspect them. I followed along and eventually got the hang of opening and closing each gate as they sorted the herd. Julio made careful notes about each animal.
And the good news—we hadn’t lost any.
’Nando had a saying: “Do what you gotta to get what you want.”
I was never as fearless as ’Nando, and I wasn’t as cold either.
I could tell Rock to back off so I didn’t get into trouble with the boss, and he’d believe that.
I could sell that.
And if I were to flirt with some of the girls in town or drop a hint about a possible girlfriend back home, it’d make everyone happy. And then I could get out of the public eye, because four separate warnings to stay away from Rock were plenty, even for a dumbass like me.
Chapter 14
Rock
Elena was oddly quiet as we drove to Bitterroot. I didn’t mind since it meant she was no longer lecturing me about how the hands have their own lives to live and I had my job and it’d be best if we all just focused on what was important, blah, blah, blah . . .
I didn’t know whether she was warning me off Skyler again, or whether she was telling herself to cool things off with Foz. The best part of that situation was she didn’t want to talk about it.
Finally, we pulled up behind the church, where the youth pastor was greeting parents and ushering kids inside. Elena waved to Pastor Aiden before dropping me off. “I’ll be back around nine.”
Our group was made up of middle and high school kids. Because of my health, and because—for obvious reasons—I refused to participate in singles’ events, my folks seemed to think this is where I belonged.
I had this failure-to-launch theory that explained everything: Ever since the accident, my parents saw me as a rocket with bad navigation—I was a failure before I ever hit the launch pad, so they’re keeping me with all the other unlaunched rockets. They probably figure if I never “achieve liftoff,” I’ll be okay.
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