Assassin

by Seiters, Nadene

  Mr. Grant goes through each horse and tells Troy all about them, things he doesn’t actually need to know. Then he points at a small room that he calls the tack room and Troy opens up the door. It’s not that he’s afraid of hard work. He’s had to do some hard work in his lifetime, but none of it involved shoveling up shit and throwing it onto a conveyor belt where it just piled up outside to be used for manure.

  After a few minutes, Troy is left to his own devices with a pitchfork in hand, a shovel leaning against one wall, and instructions to put new straw in the bottom of each stall after he’s done cleaning. Oh and the worst part, he has to use a hose to run the rest of the shit he can’t scrape off down drains in each stall. He’s going to stink afterwards, and this is just his first chore.

  “Please, God, strike me down now.” He looks up at the ceiling of the barn and waits, but nothing happens. Instead, he starts scraping and shoveling. It takes him forty five minutes to scrape and shovel the waste out, and then he has to hose down. After hosing down the stalls, he has to wait for the floor to dry before he can put fresh hay in.

  This means he has to find something else to do while he’s waiting, and that’s when she walks in. It’s well past nine in the morning when Cassidy Grant walks through the barn doors with her sneakers on, a pair of hip-hugger jeans, and a shirt that shows a thin ribbon of skin when she lifts up her arms. She has her hair cropped in a fancy bob that goes higher as it travels back with a pink streak running down the front right. She’s blonde, and she’s a bombshell.

  As soon as she sees Troy, her complacent faces turns to disgusted as she looks him from head to toe.

  “You wreak,” she says with a strong voice, but it’s still feminine. That voice could do wonders in the bedroom.

  “I’m shoveling horse shit, what do you expect?” Troy leans on the shovel and tries not to look her up and down a second time. He’s already made it clear he’s interested by lingering his sight over her hips and her rack.

  “No, you stink like a city boy. You smell like that cheap cologne they all wear. I wouldn’t be surprised if the horses trampled you so they could smell the stench of rotting flesh and not that crap.” She has one hell of a mouth on her. Her statement seems to have knocked him right out of his admiration stage to pissed off.

  “Is that so?” He asks with his deadly calm voice, but she doesn’t know him. Cassidy plants one hand on her hip and cocks it as she studies him further.

  “That’s so. Now, when you’re finished here, please haul your ass back to whatever hellhole you came from and leave my father alone. He doesn’t need pigs like you hanging around. We prefer the kind that we can butcher and turn into bacon.” There’s a first time for everything. Troy’s mouth hangs agape far enough that flies could fly in as she turns on her pretty sneaker heel and marches from the barn with her ass swaying back and forth.

  She hates his guts, that’s obvious, but he still can’t stop drooling over her like a moron. Confused and angry, Troy lets the shovel fall to the ground and stomps up onto the loft so that he can push hay down. He mumbles under his breath as he works, and kicks around a few bales just to get out his frustration. If he were home, he’d have a few solid rounds with some of the members in the opposite gang and bash their skulls against the ground. But the only two people who are here is Cassidy Grant and her father. And neither one of them would be a fair fight.

  About an hour before noon, Mr. Grant returns to find that Troy is not as incapable as he previously thought. The stalls are spotless, and none of the horses are dead. They’re all still grazing happily in their pasture, and Cassidy is in one of the practice rings with a young mustang. She still can’t mount the chestnut horse, but she’s getting close.

  “You hungry?” Troy is sitting on one of the benches in the aisle with his head in his hands. He’s covered from head to toe with a powdery dust and muck on his boots, and the old man wants to know if he’s hungry. Why would he want to eat when he smells like he just rolled in manure?

  Because his stomach is going to jump out and start eating the feed in the troughs waiting for the horses, that’s why.

  “I could eat.” He stands wearily and trudges across the gravel driveway up to the farmhouse. Mr. Grant takes off his shoes and waits for Troy to do the same. They’re just going to leave them on the porch?

  “Go shower. There are pants and shirts in the dresser that should fit you. They gave me your size when they called two days ago, and I managed to find a few things at the local Wal-Mart.” Grudgingly, Troy heads up the flight of narrow stairs to the second floor and peels off his clothes as he goes. He dumps them in a hamper, in the bathroom, and hops into the shower.

  Surprisingly, the chilly water feels right on his skin as he cleans up. Flashes of Cassidy’s face and her hips intrude upon his thoughts, and he scrubs at his short hair with frustration as he tries to forget about their encounter. He feels like a fool for not coming up with something to say back to her, but it wasn’t fair that she turned around! How is a man supposed to think with a woman like her walking away? He doesn’t.

  The evidence of how much her backside affected him is obvious when he gets out of the shower. Troy sits down on the toilet with the seat down, and a towel wrapped around his waist as he tries to forget about her pretty lips and her blonde, funky hair. It turns out if he thinks about the words that actually came out of those pretty lips his erection goes flaccid pretty fast.

  He continues to think about that while he brushes his teeth and puts on a particular brand of deodorant he’s never heard of. Reluctantly, he roots through the clothes and finds a pair of black jeans and a white t-shirt that fit well. He smells like a different person and looks different, too. It seems that the old him has died on the way here, and now he’s a city boy who is trying to fit into the country side.

  “This is never going to work,” Troy mutters to himself as he leans against the bureau with a mirror above it. He doesn’t see Cassidy in his doorway, leaning against the frame with her arms crossed over her chest and a frown on her face because his eyes are closed.

  “No, it’s not going to work. Lunch is ready.” Troy grips the sides of the bureau without opening his eyes, and grits his teeth. He has the perfect comeback, finally, but she’s already gone. Infuriated, he runs a hand through his quickly drying hair and stomps down the steps. The smell of bacon reaches his nose, which makes him even angrier.

  “Cassidy, darling, would you please stop stocking my fridge with yogurt?” Troy stops just outside the doorway and listens. This is what he was adept at back home, eavesdropping. He used it to learn about his victims so that he could take them down easily when the time came. Hell, he knew almost all their secrets, and there was never any need for torture at the end. Besides, torture is messy, and Troy hates messes.

  “It’s good for you Dad. You know, it regulates your digestive system, and I’ve been reading that as you age your digestive tract is not as healthy as it was before. Besides, a little yogurt and some fruits aren’t going to kill you.” So she cares enough to worry about her father’s health. That’s interesting. Perhaps the outburst earlier is not so much about Troy personally, but about something that may have happened with a previous program member that screwed up. Feeling a little lighter, Troy walks into the kitchen as if he just came down and didn’t hear a word.

  “Wouldn’t you agree that yogurt is healthy?” Cassidy’s blue eyes bore into Troy’s dark ones as she puts her hand on her hip and cocks it, that must be her signature move. He swallows once as he tries to come up with something smart to say, but this new man is at a loss for words.

  “Smart man,” Mr. Grant says as he sits down with a large plate of what looks like leftover pot roast. Troy piles on a few spoonfuls to his own plate, and watches Cassidy get yogurt from the fridge instead. She doesn’t sit down with the men at the table but eats with her butt planted on the kitchen counter.

  “Why would you say that?” She sounds a little tart over the compliment, and looks sou
r over the fact that Troy didn’t come to her rescue. What did she expect? She insulted him.

  “He knows when to remain silent when a woman is in a tiff.” Troy is about to open his mouth and say that the old man is wrong, when he realizes he was just given a compliment.

  So he focuses on his meal while the young woman goes on about how yogurt is good for the intestines and makes the stool soft so that older people don’t have to deal with hemorrhoids. Mr. Grant looks more and more irritated by the minute, but his voice remains calm and steady as he puts out excuse after excuse as to why he doesn’t want to eat the yogurt. Something tells Troy this is not the first thing they’ve argued about over the years.

  “Cassidy Grant, if you mention my stool one more time, I’m going to take all that yogurt and feed it to the horses.” Troy almost chokes on his piece of roast as he thinks about horses with diarrhea, and Cassidy looks a little put-out by the idea, as well. She’s probably thinking about shitty horses while she’s trying to ride them.

  “Fine, but I think you should just try it.” It seems she likes to have the last word, but so does her father.

  “Fine.” They finish up lunch, and Cassidy doesn’t mention another word about yogurt as she gets a glass of water after the dishes are started. Occasionally, Troy meets her eyes and stares until they’re both forced to look away when her father catches them. He doesn’t need to worry, all Troy has to do is think about the fact that she thinks he should be fried like bacon.

  “Are you going to attempt it today, or are you going to kill that horse with patience?” Troy was lost in his own little world during the first half of the conversation, and tries to pick up where it’s left off. Grant’s daughter has a small frown on her face with her arms crossed over her chest. She’s wearing a pair of socks that are black with little red hearts on them. What kind of girl wears those?

  Troy doesn’t remember most of the women he slept with over the years wearing socks. They wore high heels, all of them. He’s staring at her socks when Mr. Grant calls out his name. “Troy, hey Red, Troy Red!” Startled out of his daydreaming about peeling off the socks, Troy tries to play it cool while he looks up at Mr. Grant’s face.

  Cassidy waltzes from the kitchen with a satisfied look on her face and the door shuts quietly as she leaves the house. Mr. Grant has a funny look on his face, like a cross between being constipated and angry. “I said my daughter is off limits.”

  “Don’t worry, she wants to fry me like bacon. She’s rather insulting.” Unfortunately, the words don’t seem to ease up Mr. Grant’s fears that Troy is already starting to look at his daughter the wrong way. Yet there isn’t much he can do about two consenting adults, except kill one.

  “Just remember that you’re a guest here, and this is my house. You will follow my rules while you are under my roof.” Feeling like a scolded fifteen year old, Troy squares his shoulders and nods. If he were home, he’d smash someone’s face in. But he reminds himself he’s attempting to start a new life, one that doesn’t involve killing others for money.

  That doesn’t mean he can’t kill them for being pissy.

  “I have to finish raking the rest of the hay in the fields. Why don’t you start cleaning up some of the farm equipment in the barn?” He can do that. Besides, Cassidy will be out in the pastures with the horses, so Mr. Grant won’t have to worry about anymore contact between the two.

  Troy nods his agreement and bolts for the door to put his shoes back on. He runs a hand through his mussed hair as he approaches the barn. He suspects the equipment must be stored on the other side that has double doors, and heads for the left. Just as he rounds the corner, he almost runs into the perky blonde with blue eyes. She mumbles an ‘excuse me’ that sounds more like ‘fuck off’ and ducks into the side of the barn where the horses are kept.

  Distracted as she pushes her hair back from her face by running her hand through it from her forehead back, Troy barely notices the fact that she’s noticed him looking. The dour look on her face just makes her even more exotic to him. How could someone so easy on the eyes to the opposite sex come from someone like the old man back there?

  Struggling to figure out how genetics could be so random, Troy opens up the sliding door before he can make even more of a fool of himself and slips inside. Ninety nine percent of the different attachments for the tractor confuse him and, in his mind, they don’t have names. He begins by removing the blades off a large tiller and scraping the dirt off them. Then he finds a spray bottle and just starts spraying, hopefully it’s a cleaner.

  Cassidy periodically ducks in to grab tools, but she doesn’t say anything more to Troy. Apparently she’s lost her fight for the day, and she’s going to lay low until she’s sure she can rebound the next time. At one point, she leads a horse around and starts cleaning out the shoes. Then brushes him down not too far from where Troy is working. He wonders why she can’t do these things on the inside of the barn, and when she finally attempts conversation with him, he understands.

  “So you’re a drug dealer.” She says it as if it’s a fact, and Troy furrows his brows as he tightens a bolt.

  “No.” He doesn’t offer any further explanation.

  “You’re one of the guys who runs the drug dealers, then.” She’s brushing the chestnut mustang and he’s nibbling at her shirt as if he’s trying to groom her in return.

  “No.” Again, no offer of why he’s here.

  “You’re one of the rare good guys who ended up seeing something he shouldn’t have.” Finally, she looks at him with a twinge of hope, and he feels the muscles in his back tensing.

  “No.” He’s not going to lie to her, but he’s not going to tell her what it is he did that landed him here.

  “Does it have to do with drugs?” She looks and sounds disappointed.

  “No.” He grits his teeth as he waits for the next guess.

  “Maybe you’re part of the underground sex slave trade, and you cracked. You told the police everything, so now they need to keep you safe until you can testify?” Now he’s insulted.

  “No, I’d never hurt a woman.” She snorts, and he finally turns to look at her fully with the wrench still in his hand. His arm is bulging from his grip on the tool, and he sees her swallow.

  “A child?” He sighs as she continues barraging him and turns back to the tiller.

  “I’d never hurt a kid either.” He’s reminded of his niece, and for a moment he stills as he remembers her sweet smile and the way she would run down the hallway for him whenever he showed. Then he remembers how she lay still in the hallway of his childhood home with a bullet wound to the chest. It was a tiny wound in the front, but a gaping hole in the back.

  Cassidy is talking, but he can’t hear what she’s saying due to the ringing in his ears. He feels the lump starting to form in his throat and remembers that men don’t cry. So he throws the wrench across the length of the barn and it pings as it comes in contact with something metal. He’s breathing hard, and it’s the only noise he can hear over the ringing. The images of their bodies strewn about the house as if they had tried to get away clouds his mind so that he’s no longer in the present.

  When he finally comes to, Cassidy is gone, and he’s alone in the barn. He retrieves the wrench and begins his project again. Troy ignores the footsteps as they approach, but he can hear their voices.

  “Lost his mind or something, Dad! Jeez, I was just trying to have a conversation with him, and he flipped out. You really should just get rid of this one. He’s beyond help, alright?” They both round the corner and Cassidy shuts her mouth when she realizes that her voice probably carried. Troy ignores the two of them as he tightens a few more bolts, and then he puts down the wrench. He wipes his hands on a clean rag and tosses it into the dirty rag pile.

  “It’s clean. I’m going in.” Mr. Grant lets him pass without saying anything, but Troy doesn’t miss the look that he gives his daughter. He doesn’t have to worry about his being able to stay at the house, but Cassidy mig
ht have to worry about whether or not she’ll be allowed on the farm while he’s here.

  “Dinner’s not for another hour!” Mr. Grant finally calls to him in his scratchy, old man voice. For a split second, Troy thinks about giving the old man his signature wave with the finger, but he pockets it instead.

  Cassidy is right. He lost his cool today, and it should never happen again. Ever since ‘the incident’ he’s been losing his mind, and he’s not sure how to get it back. Moving across the country is not going to make images of his dead family go away. The shitty part is he didn’t get to go to their funerals.

  Chapter Three

  The next morning, old man Grant doesn’t come to wake Troy up for breakfast. He slides out of bed at exactly quarter of five in the morning and slips on a fresh pair of jeans and t-shirt. Dropping onto the floor, he does another set of thirty and heads down the steps to see if it’s more butter, grease, and potatoes for breakfast.

  Sure enough, Grant is setting down plates on the small, kitchen table, and it’s home fries this morning with scrambled eggs instead of fries. Troy ventures towards the coffee maker and figures out how to brew a single cup with the device. He’s seen these before but never used one. In a way, he has some equal footing with at least one thing with Mr. Grant.

  “In a week I’m going to start bailing that hay out there. In the meantime, I was hoping you would help me clean up some of the barn equipment and the barn itself. I need a few stalls looked into and repaired.” Troy sits down at the table with dark wood and sips on his coffee as he watches Mr. Grant stir the scrambled eggs. Then he pops in a little more butter, and Troy wonders if he’ll be able to work off the amount of calories the old man is putting into breakfast.

  “I’ll help you out under one condition.” Mr. Grant looks up from his cooking with his brows furrowed like he had them the morning before. It seems to be his signature look in the morning.

  “What’s that?” He asks suspiciously, only turning his attention back to the home fries when they begin to burn.