by Imani King
When Ranger was in his stable I walked into my cabin and grabbed a beer out of the fridge, not even bothering to sit down before taking a long, deep gulp. I'm not stupid, I know there's no such thing as an emotionless human being, but I thought I'd been making a solid effort so far. I know vulnerability has a purpose, I understand that it's what attaches us to each other. But like a lot of things, it has a flip side. It causes pain. I don't mean the kind of pain you feel when your high school crush doesn't text you back in time, or your mom tells you you've let her down by getting into a fender bender in her new car. I'm talking about a different kind of pain, the kind that can't be rectified or fixed or made to go away.
It had been so long since I'd even pictured their faces, the brothers I'd lost in the middle of a foreign desert. I took another gulp of beer and decided that that wasn't going to be the night I tried. Finish the beer, go to bed. That's what I was going to do.
And that's what I did – finished my drink, had a quick shower and jumped into bed. It was only when I was finally lying still in the dark that I noticed my hands were shaking.
Beau woke me up early the next morning, licking my face and whining at the goddamn crack of dawn.
"OK, boy," I mumbled blearily. "OK, OK, I'm up."
I deliberately didn't think about the previous night. Not as I scrambled eggs for breakfast and guzzled lukewarm coffee before heading out, and not as I checked, fed and watered the livestock. I continued not to think about it when I rode Ranger into town to check my PO Box and mail some forms to the state agricultural board. Not thinking about certain things is where I, Dallas Corbett, truly shine. The rest of the day was eaten up by various livestock and ranch-related tasks, and I fell into bed before ten o'clock, as usual. The next few days went pretty much exactly the same way. That's how I wanted it. That's why I moved to River Bend. To get some regularity, some peace. Up until then, it had all seemed to be working out as expected.
It was the Thursday after the failed mission to the bar that I walked around a corner at Parson's Grocery, arms full of canned soup, and ran smack into – well, her. Of course. She jumped back, dropping her basket in the process, and, as soon as she saw it was me, averting her eyes in that way women do when they don't want to acknowledge your existence.
And for all my expert experience at bullshitting myself, the feelings from that night outside the bar came rushing back immediately. My guilt at saying nothing – doing nothing – to help her, my embarrassment at being caught with Brittany, all of it.
"Sorry," I said, bending down to pick up her basket at the exact moment she did the same thing, yanking her hand back like she'd touched a hot stove when my fingers brushed hers.
She stood up, basket in hand, and walked away, muttering "I bet" under her breath.
"No," I called out to her as she marched away, not sure what the hell I was doing. "Wait. Hold on. Just wait a minute."
She turned, then, and glared at me, eyebrows raised expectantly. "Yes? Did you have something to say?"
I coughed. "Yes. I just – uh, I wanted to apologize for, uh, for last weekend. For the – well, for not saying anything when you, uh –"
I'm never tongue-tied. Mostly because I hardly speak to anyone, but still. And that day in Parson's I was as tongue-tied as a nine year old boy talking to his crush.
"Is that it?"
She was angry, that was obvious. But there was something else there in her dark eyes, behind the hostility. Hurt. I knew that look. I'd seen that look. Sometimes in the mirror.
"No," I replied, forcing myself to get a grip. "No, that's not it. Listen, I just wanted to say sorry. That was a dick move. I'm Dallas, by the way. And you are?"
"Tia. Tia Kinsley. And just to be clear, you're sorry for whatever it was you think you did on Friday, but you're not sorry for shouting at me when I touched your horse, or acting like a jerk when I tried to help rescue your calf from the road? I'm just trying to figure out what exactly you're apologizing for here, is all."
I smiled, because women always respond well to my smile. Sometimes they visibly soften in front of me, start playing with their hair and smiling back. Not Tia. She was still staring at me, and she wasn't showing any signs of softening. I stopped smiling. It was hard to look at her, she was so goddamned pretty. So unlike the breezy, gum-chewing, corn-fed girls I was used to.
"Yeah. I mean, that too. I'm not – I guess you could say I'm not the friendliest guy in town."
Tia rolled her eyes. "You don't say."
It wasn't going well. I didn't want to snipe at each other. I wanted to be real. If only I hadn't almost completely forgotten how to be real. The soup cans in my arms were in the way, so I bent down and put them on the floor, yanking stray cans back and placing them upright as they tried to roll away. Then I stood back up and looked at her.
"OK," I said, holding my hands up. "I get it, alright? I'm a dick. That's my fault. What I want to say to you is that, last Friday, I saw that you were in pain. I saw it, and I didn't do anything. I didn't want you thinking I was, I don't know, laughing at you or assuming you were some silly drunk girl, alright? That's it. I'm sorry."
Briefly, I thought I saw her eyes get a little glassy, but she blinked and it was gone. "Fine," she said hurriedly, turning to leave. Something was wrong. I'd said something stupid. I reached out and tried to grab her arm. She stopped, but she didn't look at me.
"Hey," I said. "Did I just screw that up? Did you hear me?"
"I heard you fine. You're sorry. Good. I accept your apology."
At that point I was holding her by the elbow and she was openly pulling away from me. I didn't want her to leave. "Wait!" I said as she moved to leave again. "Wait, just...wait. Do you – are you here for long? Do you want to..." I paused, realizing two things that confused me: 1. I quite badly did not want Tia to leave and 2. I had no idea what I was going to ask her to do. "Do you want to come up to my place and see the animals?"
What the fuck. I cringed internally. Damnit. 'Do you want to come and see the animals?' What was I, six years old?
"I mean, I have a ranch – Corbett Ranch – just outside town, I was just thinking –"
Tia turned back to me then, her expression harsh. "No thank you, Dallas. And just for future reference, if you're going to hit on someone, it would probably be a good idea to leave more than thirty seconds between apologizing for acting like a huge asshole and, you know, asking them out."
That time, when I tried to stop her from leaving, she wrenched her arm out of my grip so hard she almost dropped her grocery basket again.
"Tia," I cajoled, trying to get her to stay so I could attempt to climb out of the hole I'd just dug myself into.
But she wasn't having it. She whipped around to face me one more time and got right in my face. "No!" she hissed. "Leave me alone. I don't – I don't want to talk to you. You don't know what's –"
Her voice broke at the end of the sentence and she practically ran away from me, leaving me standing there, baffled. Was that anger? Because it didn't sound like anger, not at the end. It sounded like tears. Tears? Was she crying? Was it something I'd said?
It was obvious I had to let her go, though. I picked up the cans of soup and walked up to the checkout, pissed off at myself. I used to be good with women. I still was – in one sense, anyway. But talking to them? Making them feel like I gave a shit about them? Those skills appeared to have faded away, if they were ever there to begin with.
On the ride back home I swore a little loudly when one of the cans almost fell out of the saddle-bag and Ranger reared up, throwing me definitively into the dirt, and then standing there looking down at me, nostrils flaring. My heart was beating fast and angrily, but I knew it was my own fault – he's always at his worst when I'm in a terrible mood.
"I get it," I addressed my horse, placing a gentle, calming hand on his flank when I'd gotten back to my feet. "Nobody likes me today, boy. Not even you."
We walked the rest of the way back to cabin side-by-side,
because I didn't trust him not to throw me off again, not given the state I was in.
Five
Tia
I didn't break down in front of Dallas Corbett, but if I hadn't walked away when I did, I would have. I was breaking down often those days, and not always in private. Thankfully, the people around me – my great-aunt, my great-uncle, Amber, Kayla, Marcy and Madison, were all supportive. Surprisingly so. Three days after collapsing at the bar, Amber called and invited me over to her apartment for dinner. When I arrived, all four of them were there, armed with ice-cream and DVDs. It wasn't a giggly, girly night or anything like that, no one was dancing around the living room. But it was just what I needed, a quiet night out with the people who were becoming my friends. After we sat down to eat, Amber had grabbed my hand as it lay on the table and looked me in the eye.
"Tia," she said, "we all just want you to know that we're here for you, OK? We might not know what to say and we might not always say the right thing but we invited you tonight so we could tell you that if you need anything – someone to run an errand or someone to talk to or anything like that – we're here."
I teared up, as expected, but for some reason it didn't feel as awkward to tear up in that context. No one was staring at me like I was a freak, or looking anxious over the possibility that I might completely break down into heaving sobs again. So I smiled through my tears and thanked Amber – and all of them. Madison got up and came over to me, putting her arm around my shoulders.
"Also, Tia, I just want you to know that I lost my grandmother last year – she was sick for a long time so we knew it was coming, but she was my best friend. She raised me, actually. And," she paused to brush a tear off her own cheek, "what I want to say is, if you ever want to talk about your parents or show us photos then, well, I'd love that. I'll tell you about my grandma sometime soon, too."
I put my face in my hands, breathing slowly and deeply, and then looked up at all four girls.
"Thank-you," I whispered. "I mean it. Thank you. My mom's name was Rose, and my Dad was Raymond. Rose and Raymond Kinsley."
Marcy picked up her glass and held it up. "To Rose and Raymond."
Everyone else joined in, even me. I said the words out loud: "To Rose and Raymond." Then I put my glass back down, feeling grateful and sad, but also buoyed by the kindness I was being shown.
I was still sad, but it felt OK to be sad with them. We were becoming friends. I even told them about the run-in with Dallas Corbett at the grocery store. At first they were unanimous in their condemnation of him as a 'first class a-hole' as Kayla put it. But soon enough, Amber was asking me if he'd really invited me to his ranch.
"Yeah," I nodded. "To see his animals. That's how he put it. To 'see the animals.' Is that a normal thing to do in River Bend?"
She shrugged. "Not that I know of, but that guy's pretty weird. I think that property and his livestock are his life. Everybody in town knows he wants nothing to do with people. Who knows why?"
"My mom said he was in Iraq," Madison piped up. "She was talking to Bill Baxter – you know, the guy who owns the auto parts place – and apparently Dallas mentioned it to him when he was in there buying parts. I don't know if it's true or not."
Iraq. One of my friends back home – Alisha – had an older brother who died in Iraq. She was pretty young when it happened, but I remembered the way the atmosphere in her house had changed afterwards, how her mother had gone from an outgoing, involved parent to a sort of ghost in her own home, rarely emerging from the bedroom and, when she did, speaking in a voice so quiet you couldn't even tell what she was saying. We'd never really talked about it much, but I could tell that the loss of a son and a brother had, in some very quiet yet very profound way, destroyed Alisha's parents. It probably would have done the same to her, too, if she hadn't been so young when it happened.
I already felt a little guilty about being so brusque with Dallas in Parson's, but after hearing again that he'd been in Iraq I decided I was going to have to explain my behavior to him. Not apologize, because I didn't feel I had anything to apologize for, but just to explain that my weirdness and the almost-crying and the running away weren't really about him.
The next day, after running errands in town for Jenny, I drove up to the property I thought belonged to Dallas and turned onto a narrow dirt track that led into the woods. At the end of it there was a small, tidy looking cabin with a pick-up truck that looked like it hadn't been driven for a long time parked outside and a barn tucked into a clearing in the trees. I checked my reflection in the rearview mirror and stepped out into the hot, pine-scented afternoon.
There didn't seem to be anyone home. I knocked on the door once, then two more times, but there was no sound from inside. It was as I was rummaging in my purse for a piece of paper and a pen that the sound of a dog barking broke the silence. I looked up to see it running towards me, and, unable to tell if it was running in a friendly way or a you're-on-my-property-I'm-going-to-eat-your-face way, quickly pulled myself up onto the hood of the pick-up truck, covering myself in dust in the process.
Soon enough, as the dog ran circles around the truck barking at me the whole time, I spotted someone in the distance, walking from the direction of the fields. Dallas. He took one look at me when he got close enough to see who it was and broke into a huge smile. A 'Hollywood smile' as my friends and I back home liked to call it, all bright white teeth and dancing blue eyes. It was pretty hard not to melt on the spot, but I managed.
"What have we got here, then?" he mused, calling the dog back to him. "You just can't seem to stop getting into scrapes, can you Tia? I fully expect to get a call from the police one of these days, telling me my entire herd of cattle is chilling in your living room."
Dallas Corbett was wearing jeans. Jeans, battered sneakers, and nothing else. He looked like something out of a damned underwear ad, only dirtier. I suspected he knew it, too.
It's difficult to maintain your dignity while trying not to slide ass-first off the hood of a dusty pick-up, but I made a valiant attempt.
"That's funny," I told him. "Since if anything it seems less like me getting into scrapes and more like you being unable to control your animals."
"Maybe you're just prone to mishaps?" he asked, chuckling at my attempt to climb off the hood with grace and, when it became clear I wasn't going to be able to, putting his hands on my hips and lifting me down like I was as light as a feather.
I admit it, that flustered me. He took his hands off me right away and stepped back, but there had been a moment there, a second, when he was close enough to smell the hay-scented sweat on his neck. Calm down, Tia. You're here to explain, nothing more.
I shrugged, hoping my fluster wasn't as visible as it felt. "Maybe. Anyway, I'm just here to tell you something."
Dallas raised his eyebrows. "Oh yeah? What's that, then? You thinking of buying some cattle of your own?"
He was being nicer than I remembered him being during our previous encounters. I tried not to look at him, standing there all shirtless and sexy and dimple-chinned, because I knew if I did I was going to fall into his frame and start flirting right back.
"No, I'm not thinking of buying cattle. I –"
"Well thank God for that," he cut me off, grinning.
I ignored him and continued. "Anyway. What I came here to say is that the way I acted in Parson's the other day, that wasn't about you. I – I've been through some difficult things recently and it's still very fresh in my mind. So if I was rude, that wasn't about you."
To my surprise, he immediately changed his tone. I watched the smile melt off his face and a look of what might even have been empathy creep into his glacier-blue eyes.
"Oh," he said quietly. "Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, I know how that can be. I mean, I know how it can make you act like an absolute crazy person in public, and how it can just make shit awkward as hell."
I remembered what Madison had said about Dallas serving in Iraq. Maybe it was true? Because he was exactly rig
ht about how it was walking around in public with a deep, fresh wound – how it made other people uncomfortable and unsure of what to say.
We stood there for a little while, not speaking. Insects twirled lazily through the sunbeams that shone through the pine trees and the dog sat calmly at his master's feet, looking up at me. Dallas finally spoke first.
"Do you – uh, do you want to talk about it?"
I shook my head. "I don't know. Everyone says I should but to be honest, I'm not sure anything actually helps. It feels like it doesn't matter if I talk about it or not, because it happened and that's the thing that matters. You know?"
He nodded slowly. "Yeah, I do know. Not that I ever talked about it. Didn't even talk about it with the therapist the military made me see when I got back. I was in the Marines, did a couple of tours in Iraq. I tried discussing it a few times with my family, but it didn't help and it just made them uncomfortable. They know bad shit happened, they don't know the details. I guess I didn't ever see how that would help other than to stir it all back up again in my head."
So he had been in the military. "Is that why you're out here?" I asked. "Montana, I mean? Everyone in town seems to think you're some kind of hermit out here on your own."
"Could be," he replied. "Yeah, sure, that's pretty much why I'm here. I think part of me just got sick of humanity. I lost the rose-colored glasses that most people have, this idea that people are basically good. We're not. And I don't have to fake it or hide it or pretend I don't know it around my animals, which has been a relief."
Whatever had happened in Dallas Corbett's life, it was obviously more in the past for him than my parents' accident was for me. He'd had time to think about it, to ponder his own reaction. I envied him a little, in spite of the fact that what he was saying, if I really thought about it, was pretty dark. I kicked at a small rock near my feet, half-buried in dried pine needles. "Yeah," I said. "I don't know about that – not that I'm disagreeing or anything, but it's all pretty fresh to me. I haven't even gotten to the point where I can ponder things without spending the next hour curled up in the corner, bawling."