by S. L. Finlay
"Maybe I should just enjoy him for what he is?" I asked and Mama perked up before I spoiled it all with reality, "Someone who I have a crush on while I am on holiday."
Mama shook her head at me as she laughed and turned away. She splashed me with some water that I managed to dodge as I left the kitchen. I had plenty to do, even if it was only a Sunday.
And plenty to find out. I was a detective now it seemed.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Hitting the books (or rather, getting back to book keeping) on the Monday was a breeze. I now had something to focus on through the haze of feeling a little too bored of this. Perhaps I would need to work out what to do once I returned to Australia that didn't involve numbers. I knew I didn't like them – even as I was good with them – but thought it would be okay once I got working. The opposite was true as it turned out.
Good to know now when I am so far from home and could make some changes before returning to the role I had carved out for me at home in Australia.
Of course, I did find money was missing in the books. It was a few hundred dollars here and there where we had sold some livestock then the money hadn't appeared anywhere else.
I knew from my research of business, and from my time at university, that sometimes businesses will keep poor books and I knew these were poorly kept before I was here, but the pattern of missing money was obvious, once I found it, I couldn't un-find it.
I couldn't go to the ranch owner without solid figures, plus I didn't want to go to him and say that I had overheard a conversation and as a result had looked all of this up. The last thing I wanted was someone who I was living with to know I had dobbed them in. Besides, through living with these guys and watching how they behaved as well as listening to their conversations I knew no-one here was well off. They all came from poor country backgrounds without two pennies to rub together and most felt lucky to have this job with its live-in nature where they didn't have to pay rent and could save their earnings.
I knew I liked that feature myself, as I saved as much as I could from day to day.
No-one wants to dob someone else in, especially without any proof, so I found the discrepancies and wrote them down as I went.
From the looks of things, these discrepancies went back a number of years, and I could easily believe that whoever did this wouldn't think they would get caught. Of course not, if they had gotten away with it for a number of years, they would think they were continuing to get away with it into the future. But I was getting ahead of myself.
Every day I would find more discrepancies, and every evening at dinner I would look over at Tony and his gang and think to myself that they were so comfortable, so fancy free. They were all happy here, working all day before relaxing at dinner with their friends. These guys seemed nice enough, even as they kept to themselves. I felt bad as I found and documented more and more of their bad behaviour.
Aside from the conversation I overheard though, I wasn't sure that this was them. I had no proof. That helped me to feel better about what I was doing as I collected evidence. I didn't want to be doing this, so I could tell myself I wasn't. That I was only being a good and thorough book keeper. That I was doing my job, and doing it well. I was doing the job I was paid to do.
At dinner too, and at breakfast, I noticed myself making eyes at Billy more. At first, he didn't really seem to notice me doing it then when every time he looked up, I was looking at him and would look away quickly he seemed to be taking note. He would shoot me a smile sometimes. It was one of those knowing smiles you give someone when you're in on the joke too.
I did like him, but I knew all the ways in which it was wrong: He was someone I worked with, I wasn't going to be here forever, he was someone who behaved in a way I wasn't used to and didn't like, he had a mean sense of humour and I didn't ever want to be on the receiving end of it.
Next to Billy, I felt so young. He was only a few years my senior but he seemed to have lived so many lifetimes already. I also felt a little odd about it. Billy was a great guy, but he wasn't for me, I kept telling myself.
I would convince myself that I was right, that I shouldn't be interested in him when I was in my room, at my desk or around the ranch on my own then the next time I saw him I would get all goo-goo eyed again and forget that I had already decided that this wasn't a good idea.
By the time Saturday rolled around, I had spent my week days getting books in order and recording discrepancies while I spent my meals making eyes at Billy who mostly smiled at me and kept to his stoic self. Saturday though was different.
I had gotten myself up late that morning and was slow moving, mostly because I really didn't have anywhere to be. That's what it was like living here, mostly you felt like there was nowhere to be and you moved very slowly.
When I got myself dressed and grabbed a book to go outside though, I walked past Billy who had been sitting on the patio. It was odd to see him there as he normally spent his weekends relaxing outdoors. He didn't like the homestead much and didn't have much reason to go to town so would normally take a horse and go for a ride in the daytime. I was obviously paying him a lot of attention, I thought to myself as a heaved a heavy sigh.
Today though, he was right here. He was right here for me to talk to.
So I did. I doubled back and said hello.
Billy looked me over before greeting me back and asking, "Where are you going?"
"To read." I said, showing him the book I had with me before volunteering, "I read around the ranch every Saturday and Sunday."
"Is that so?" Billy asked, his face framing the question perfectly. I almost wanted to laugh at how his face was asking the question more than he was and how cute that was but stopped myself.
I cleared my throat instead.
"Yes, that's so." I ventured. I felt like I had said those words a bit like the Americans I worked with spoke, but knew Billy wouldn't notice my change of accent as he hardly spoke to me.
Billy nodded and gave me a little smile before asking, "Would you like some company while you read?"
I felt my jaw drop at his suggestion and quickly righted myself. Was he serious? He was going to come with me? Billy wanted to spend some time with me? No. This couldn't be happening. Surely I was on candid camera! I almost looked around myself to check for cameras but managed to keep my eyes on Billy.
I pulled myself together enough to ask, "You want to come with?" I was bluffing. I really had no idea what else to say or do and was merely going with it.
Billy wasn't bluffing though as he stood up. "Where are we going?" He asked.
Rough and ready he was.
"Ah, I don't know." I told him.
He chuckled slightly before asking, "Well, where do you usually go?"
I decided in a split second that I couldn't tell him about that tree I liked to lay in, but it really was the only place that I went. Then I remembered the stream.
"I go down by the stream sometimes." I told him, not completely untrue. I had been there a few times, just never to read.
"Okay." Billy said, "Are we going there then?"
He was every bit of southern gentleman I thought as I nodded and turned. I started to lead the way and he was beside me in a second.
"How are you settling in?" He asked me.
I had been at the ranch for what felt like forever, and he was asking me this now? I sighed. Silly man didn't know what to say to me. "I am settling in fine." I told him, "It's a bit quieter than I expected, and there aren't any other girls to talk to aside from Mama, but the work is okay and everyone is nice enough."
"You wanted more girls?" Billy asked.
I thought for a moment before I answered honestly, "I don't think I knew what I wanted. I just wanted to go to America."
"The American dream?" Billy asked, a faint smile upon his lips.
The sentence made me laugh. "Sure. The American dream." I told him, not really being sure what the American dream was, but having heard it in enough movies to know it was harmless saying that
that was the reason why I was here.
Our conversation turned from this awkward questions and answers session to one that flowed much more easily as we sat beside the river. After a few hours, we were relating to one another in a way that I would never have thought possible with someone like Billy.
He always seemed so different to me, so strong and rugged and manly to my awkward, shy and overly polite city girl self. Underneath all the external stuff though we were really similar. He had a similar upbringing to me with parents who pushed him to be the best, but then he rebelled by running off to work on a ranch.
"I could have gone anywhere, I guess that's why they were disappointed." He told me.
I nodded and asked, "What did they want you to be?"
Billy laughed and confided, "They said I could be anything as long as it was a doctor, a lawyer or an accountant."
"And they were serious?" I asked through fits of giggles.
He winked at me. "Of course they were!"
Then, as he had all day to that point, he asked me more personal questions. It seemed everything I had to say was fascinating to him, and he was surprised at all the similarities between us. Or at least he was as surprised as I was.
It took me a few hours to ask him the one question I was burning to ask.
"So why have you been staying away from me then?" I asked him point-blank when there was a lull in the conversation.
Billy looked taken aback as he answered, "I haven't been avoiding you."
"You have." I said, a bit too quickly. "I have been here ages and you have not asked me to hang out once!"
"Have you been hanging out with anyone here?" Billy asked me.
His question took me off guard and it took me a moment to answer. "No. I have not been hanging out with anyone here." I told him.
"Well why not?" He asked.
I shook my head slightly before answering honestly, "Because no-one here likes me!"
"They don't like you?" Billy asked after a few beats, his voice betraying his own disbelief.
"Yeah, they don't. I spend my days in the office, my bedroom or on weekends I'll come out here and read alone." I told him earnestly.
"Oh. I am sorry to hear that." He told me.
How could he have not noticed that I was always on my own? Was he blind? Where did this man come from? Weirdo.
Four beats before I answered.
"I am sorry about it too. I came here to experience America and so far I have only been working, and in a very isolated place at that." I told him.
"Huh?" He asked. "You want to experience America, why did you come here anyway?"
"This is America!" I told him, motioning around at the trees that shaded the stream. "I am here."
"Yeah." He said, "This is America, but this isn't where I would go to experience anything. What about the coasts? Everyone lives there. There must be a reason for that."
I felt a little silly as I considered his comments then looked over at the stream. "I guess I wanted something different to back home. I live in a city in Australia."
"You wanted to see cowboys and Indians, didn't you?" Billy asked.
I laughed as I nodded. "Sure did."
"And now you're here." He began and my eyes went up to meet his, "What do you think?"
I didn't have time to say much. All I got out was, "I like it." Before his lips were on mine and I was experiencing a cowboy in a whole new way, one I wouldn't have expected when I woke up this morning.
His lips were soft and hard at the same time. His mouth working against mine as his tongue explored mine. They danced together as his hands found my own. He held my hand as he kissed me. Then, after a while his other hand came up to cup my face.
When he pulled away from the kiss, his hands were exactly where they had been before, and his eyes, deep and blue, were on my own.
We shared a cheeky smile and I told him again, "I like it."
CHAPTER EIGHT
Billy and I started seeing one another after that. And by seeing one another I mean sneaking off to the stream whenever we could find time to chat, hold hands and kiss. It felt great to share this kind of intimacy with him, and to have it be just for us.
I never felt like Billy's dirty little secret, but it did feel a little odd sometimes when the other guys would tease him about girls and Billy would just shrug them off without looking over at me.
It was a long-held joke at the ranch that Billy was committed to the life of the bachelor. In these parts, it was pretty unusual for men to remain single, or for anyone to remain single for that matter.
The ranch owner had been married before his wife passed on, Mama had also been married in the past which had sadly ended in divorce. All of the ranch hands had partners (barring Billy and Tony). Some of the guys had girlfriends and some even had wives and children who they would send their pay home to support. Everyone was in a relationship and everyone was good to their partner, that is when they saw them. The boys would have been very hard on their friends if they found out they weren't being good to the women in their lives.
A lot can be said about cowboys, but these ones were all gentlemen when it came to their partners.
Keeping that in mind, it was harder than ever to keep things to myself. It was hard for me to not tell anyone anything about the missing money.
I knew I should tell the ranch owner what I had found, even if I couldn't tell him who I knew it was because of guilt, he did deserve to know that money was going missing from his coffers. He did deserve to know what was up.
But then when I thought about it, really thought about it, I knew he would find out who it was and then I would be responsible for what had happened. For these poor boys losing their jobs and potentially being reported to police.
I know if this happened at home in Australia, if an employee was stealing from a company, an Australian company would report the theft to police. Why would things be any different here?
Life went on though and I kept doing my work and meeting Billy by the stream. Now we met every night, which was perfect.
On one of our meetings, I had decided I would talk to Billy about the issue. I was sure now that he wasn't involved, but that he might be able to give me some insights into what I should do, even if I couldn't tell him everything. I would frame my questions carefully to get the answers that I needed, and he would give me the answers that I needed without any big problems for anyone I felt confident.
As I lay in the grass with my head in his lap looking up at the sky I tried to find a way to form the words. I didn't want to ask the question directly as that would mean giving these guys away and I wasn't ready to do that yet. I had to find a way to ask the question without actually asking the question.
Billy was looking down at my face and playing with my hair when he asked, "What?"
"Hmm?" I hummed, raising my eyebrows in question.
"What are you thinking about? You look like you're concentrating on something." He told me.
I cleared my throat, it was now or never. "I have a hypothetical question for you." I began.
"Yes?" Billy asked, "What's that?"
"Well, if you found something while you were at work that was likely to get someone else in trouble but that was quite big, like it was so obvious that you couldn't miss it and it was really bad, would you tell someone?" I asked.
Billy who had been petting my hair stopped. "What do you mean? What have you found?" I guess my question wasn't so easy to disguise as hypothetical after all.
"Nothing." I said as I sat up and looked Billy in the eye, "It's nothing bad, it's just..." I trailed off, unsure how to finish the sentence. There wasn't any way around this.
Billy's eyes were on mine, holding my gaze as I told him, "If I tell you, you must promise not to say anything to anyone."
Billy nodded without saying a word, his face set.
"Okay, well, a while ago I was laying in this tree reading – this was before you and I started coming down here to the stream – a
nd two of the guys came and had a conversation underneath me about me. They were talking about how I could find something in the books to get them into trouble." I stopped to let Billy take in what I had said.
It only took Billy a moment before he was impatiently motioning for me to go on.
"So I heard that, then I knew there was something in the books. When I looked, it was all I could see. Thousands of dollars stolen over a period of time. Money would be made selling cattle then it wouldn't be put into a bank account or spent on anything, it was like the money had vanished." I told him.
"Who was it?" Billy asked.
This was the question I was uncomfortable about, I didn't want to give anyone up. I stared at Billy for a moment before asking, "If I tell you, will you be able to keep it to yourself?"
Billy shook his head, "Not if you tell me people are stealing from the ranch, I won't keep it to myself." He told me, his temper flaring.
"I don't want to get other people into trouble." I told him and as the words left my mouth, even I couldn't deny how pathetic they sounded.
"Are you serious?" He was angry now, "You are protecting thieves? At my ranch?" His voice was raising in pitch.
I had to do something to stop him getting any madder, to talk him down, but I couldn't. I just stared at him. Like a deer caught in headlights.
Billy seemed to catch himself then, and took a few deep breaths before addressing me again. "Look, you can't tell me these things then back away from the important stuff. I need to know when problems arise so I can fix them."
"But, I don't know I want anyone to fix it." I told him earnestly.
"No, you just want it to go away." He told me while petting my hair again. I always felt so much younger when I was with him, and like he was taking care of me.
I wanted to snuggle into him then and hide from the big scariness of adult life, but I stopped myself. I had to have this conversation. So I listened as he coaxed me, "If this was your business, wouldn't you want to know if people were stealing from it?"
"I would, yeah." I confessed, "But it's not your business." I told him. The face of the ranch owner swam before my eyes as I said it.