by Peter Styles
“We’ll find a way to deal with the bills,” I told her, lifting my head when I was good and ready again. “I promise—long as we’re dealing with it together, it’ll work out, mama.”
“Oh, do you promise now?” she crowed, laughing again, and it made me laugh, too.
“Yeah, mama, cross my heart.”
I left that day without telling her what was about to happen that afternoon.
I figured she didn’t need to be worrying about it. I’d already convinced her to get surgery, and bringing up a meeting about leasing to a pesticide company didn’t seem too smart. One victory at a time, I told myself.
Besides, it was better to save her life and ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission and have her die of stubbornness. A little motto I used to live by as a teenager when I would sneak out at night. Whatever, it still totally applied.
I thought I’d have time to tidy up a bit before those pesticide boys showed up, but there was already a big, dark SUV parked in the driveway when I pulled into the ranch. I could see them on the porch alongside Sawyer and, holding in an internal groan, I turned the truck off and hopped out.
“Hey there,” I called, getting their attention. There were three of the suckers, dressed in neat suits and one of them had a fancy camera. Another had some sunglasses on that I bet cost more than my car.
One, the most senior member of the group, held out a hand. “You must be Quinn Dyer.”
“Yessir, that I am.”
“You’re a younger guy than I thought you’d be,” he laughed, looking between me and Sawyer, who just shrugged.
“Quinn, this is Herman Trace, and his associates Carlos and Vernon. Mr. Trace here is the regional facilities developer for—”
“Global Clarity,” Herman interjected. “The pesticide company.”
I passed my hand around. “Right, right. Nice to meet you.”
Herman smiled and it was crooked, but not in the cute, mischievous way. “This is some fine land you got out here.”
“Thanks,” I said, turning out to face it alongside him. “Goes on that way, and down as far as you can see that way—east.” I added that little bit because I was sure this city slicker wouldn’t know it even if you gave him a compass.
“Ah, well,” Herman mused, “Sawyer says we’ll be looking at the east fields today, right?”
Sawyer nodded, good at adapting to talking to these business folks. “That’s correct, yes.”
“We can take the truck out—” I started saying, only for dear Herman to wave his hand.
“Nonsense, we’ll take the SUV. She’s got all-wheel-drive, and I’ve never taken her off-roading.”
I fixed him with a look, trying not to laugh at the idea. The SUV looked like it was waxed daily and kept in a pristine, expensive garage. Plus, I couldn’t imagine a tight-ass like Herman Trace off-roading or mudding or doing any of those classic country things, as I’m sure he’d call them.
“Of course,” I said, gesturing with a put-on smile. “After you.”
17
Oliver
The steady rhythm of work was familiar. Comforting. Easy to get lost in.
A handful of days had passed since Quinn’s and my sudden breakup—if you could call it that—and though the sting of it was still there when I thought on it too long, working at the Dyer Ranch offered at least one good perk: there was always something to do, something mindless there to occupy my time and attention. Whether it was tinkering with machinery or running with Sundance on errands all around the ranch, work was good. It kept me busy, kept me away from the homestead.
Away from Quinn.
At first I figured he might need the space as much as I did but maybe he didn’t. It was hard not to think that if he was able to end whatever we were doing so casually, maybe to him it wasn’t that big a deal. Fun, I reminded myself. To him, it was just fun.
I sighed, hefting another bale of hay off the back of a trailer into the barn; this was the big job for today. The back and forth of it was monotonous, going from the trailer to the barn and back, then do it all over again. It was fine. Monotony was what I needed, I guess.
Until the monotony broke.
“Well, look at you. Workin’ hard, or hardly workin’?”
I dropped the bale, turning to find James lingering by the door of the barn.
“I’d say working hard, thanks.” I figured now was as fine a time as any to take a short break. Sitting on the hay I’d just dropped, I wiped the sweat from my forehead. “What about you?”
James made an amused noise before shaking his head, taking it upon himself to find a seat on one of the other bales. “Oh, you know. Running the farm while Quinn’s off at the eastern field”—he waved his hand—“bringin’ all those bastards in their slick suits to poison all our good land.”
“Poison?” I asked. I didn’t know much about these guys, except that they were developers from the city.
“Last place they set up shop, they had a leak so bad it ended up killing a bunch of the livestock. Decimated the local bee population.” James gave a shake of his head again. He was burnt up by the idea. His jaw was tight. He had a crease between his brows. “Those folks had to invest in a lot of new equipment just to get the crops pollinated.”
“Shit….” I pulled my work gloves off. “Quinn’s going to let them set up here?”
“He’s damn well thinking about it.” James sighed, a special nerve struck. “It’s a shit idea. And that smarmy prick ought to have known better.”
I was surprised. “Who? Quinn?”
“What?” he waved me off. “No, that good-for-nothing Sawyer.”
Sawyer had only ever seemed pleasant to me. I got the feeling there was something more personal in James’s dislike of the man. “Oh.”
The silence that descended was filled only by the sounds of nature, of the old barn settling.
Finally, the quiet and my curiosity got the better of me. “So what’s the beef between you two anyway?” Trying to keep it casual. “You and Sawyer.”
He scoffed. “It’s nothin’ you need to know about, Oliver. And it doesn’t really matter.”
“Right.” I knew when to leave good enough alone. Everyone had things they didn’t want to talk about; private things. I could understand and respect that.
James muttered, “If that’s the way things are gonna go here, might as well start looking for someplace else to work.” He looked up at me as I stood, heading for the bales still in the truck. “You oughta think about doing the same, partner.”
I lugged the next bale out with a grunt. “Right. Will do.”
“Unless you and Quinn are gonna be shacking up.”
The bale fell out of my hands, landing on the hard ground with a good, loud smack! Pieces of hay and dirt and dust blew out around my feet. James and I looked at each other a good long moment before I shook my head; I didn’t think he was that keen on the two of us. Maybe word had gotten around….
“I’m pretty sure we aren’t,” I said, picking the bale up and tossing it with the others.
Not feeling like saying much more on the matter—a private one—I stayed silent. James took the hint, thankfully; we understood each other in that way. I appreciated it.
“Well, it’s probably better that way,” he said, the final word on the subject.
I thought about Quinn—thought about leaving him with the ranch, about James leaving, just a hardworking young man on a sinking ship, too far out of his control. It just didn’t sit right.
“What about the other ranch hands?” I asked. “They thinking the same thing?”
James braced a knee on each hand. It wasn’t a conversation he was happy to have. “There’s… there’s been talk.”
I took a bale, grunting. “Talk.”
“This place’s been going downhill for a while, there’s no sugarcoating that,” James said, looking around the old barn. It needed work, just like the rest of the ranch. “The hands that are here now are just… the one
s that cared enough to stick around. If Quinn’s gonna start selling off or leasing bits of the land for decades, well, what’s the point in staying? This ranch was part of what got Worthington started, before it was Worthington at all. It’s old. Old things… sometimes they just die off, I guess.”
I let that sink in. Generations worth of hard work and dedication gone with the signing of a single contract. The burden on Quinn’s shoulders was one I couldn’t really imagine the gravity of.
“What would it take?” I asked, mulling all that over. “To turn this place around, I mean. What would you do?”
James whistled before offering a bitter chuckle. “Oh, hell—probably more than any of us would be able to rummage up. Millions, maybe? There’d have to be new technology, more cattle strains, not to mention paying off all the debt they’ve already got cooking….”
Bleak. James shook his head again, his smile a sad one. Defeated. He’d been here a long time; the Dyer Ranch was as much home to him as anyone else. Seeing it go after so long would be about as heartbreaking as anything else, I figured.
“Sorry,” I said, not knowing what else to say.
“Nah. Frankly, it was… it was only a matter of time.”
I frowned, the hand I had set on the next bale stalling, then fading away. I peeled the gloves from my hand, tossing both to James, who caught them at the last second.
“Will you take care of this for me?” I asked.
It did sound cryptic, so I couldn’t blame him when he fixed me with a suspicious look. “Yeah…. You taking off on us?”
I huffed, short and amused. “Not yet,” I told him, patting the side of the trailer as I passed out the barn door. “I just have to go and see someone.”
Vague again, but James took it. I watched him pull the gloves on and wave as he thought something private and probably chastising to himself. Silently, I thanked him. He was a good friend; no questions asked.
The homestead was empty when I got in.
I figured Quinn was still out in the fields with those city creeps, which was fine enough. It gave me the right amount of privacy as I grabbed hold of the kitchen phone and dialed.
It rang, rang, rang—
“Hello?”
“Hey,” I said, nearly sighing into the phone, relieved that it had been picked up. “Tristan, it’s Oliver. Oliver Suarez.”
“Oh!” I heard rummaging on the other end. “Oliver, how are you doing?”
“Good, good, uh.” I crossed my arms, keeping the phone close. “I was doing some thinking. Realistically, what are… what would you say the odds are that we could win a suit? Over the—”
“Wrongful imprisonment?”
“Yeah.”
“I—hang on just a second.” There was more movement on the other end, muffled voices before Tristan’s voice was clear on the line again. “Oliver?”
“Yeah.”
“Look, I’m about to head into a meeting, but meet me downtown and we can talk.”
“Downtown.”
“Yeah. You know the little bistro place? Sailing Street Kitchen?”
“Yeah.”
“We can meet up there,” Tristan said, and I felt just a little flicker of hope, nervous and fresh.
“Right,” I told him. “See you then.”
18
Quinn
I always thought a hard day’s work was out in the fields here, wrestling up cattle or moving machinery in the sun, all day until you were sun-tired and sweat-soaked.
But this—listening to these snakes in suits talk with each other—made all that look like a walk in the park.
My stomach was churning just watching them, and I stood back a few feet with Sawyer to let them think they had some kind of privacy, forgetting that sound travels in big open spaces and I could hear them just fine. Not that I think they cared or minded. They were pointing to different parts of the field, making plans to put so-and-so here or there or—wherever.
All this talk of laying down slabs of concrete over fine, unsoiled land made me sick.
“Well, it’d be negligent of me to not ask,” I said, and good old Herman Trace seemed surprised a country boy like me even knew the word negligent. “But as far as safety procedures go…?”
“Ah. Yes, of course.” Herman nodded, and put on that fake smile of his. “You’re familiar with—”
“Your work?”
I saw a flicker of the smile, almost disappearing for a minute. He fixed his tie. “Our past difficulties.”
“We can assure you,” said Carlos, trying to emulate his boss, “our facilities and the way they’re built have massively improved in recent years.”
“That’s good,” I said, eyeballing the land—my family’s land.
“Really, though,” said Vernon this time, checking his watch, “I’ll let you in on a secret, Mr. Dyer. Agriculture is a dying industry in this country. Most of our business is done out in Mexico and South America.”
Maybe he hadn’t meant for it to be prodding, almost like he pitied me, but it sure came out that way. I reminded myself this was a business meeting and not some soon-to-be bar brawl downtown on a Saturday night.
“Is that so?” I asked, not really caring.
“It is,” Herman sighed. He tucked his hands into his expensive pockets. “This place would make a lot more money as an industrial complex instead of a farm, Mr. Dyer—”
“Just Quinn,” I said, for probably the dozenth time.
“Quinn.” Herman fixed me with a real look, a connection, like he was letting me in on something good, a dirty little business secret. I knew his type. Whatever he was about to say would be self-interest disguised as good advice. “We’ve got connections at Global Clarity. We could make you and your family very, very wealthy.”
Self-interest that paid. He was just like the devil: good at temptation.
I nodded slowly, looking off at the land again. The land I grew up on, that my mama had grown up on, that one day my own kids might grow up on.
“You need to think about it,” Herman said, letting the idea go for now.
“Yeah.”
“Well, I will tell you what. We’re ready to sign papers now, Mr. Dyer.” He snapped his fingers and gave Carlos a ‘give-it-here’ wave of his fingers.
Carlos unclipped something from inside a binder he kept tight against his chest and handed a slip of paper over to Herman. It was held out to me: a contract, all drawn up. All I had to do was sign it all away. “We are very interested. Competitively so.”
I looked at the contract. A lot of words that I’d need to read and double-read. I took it from Herman.
“Yeah,” I said, before nodding at Herman. “Listen, I’m happy to hear it, but I’d like to take a day or two to think on it. I’ll have to have my mother take a look at this since she’s got majority ownership.”
“By how much?”
“Fifty-five percent,” Sawyer piped in.
I expected some sort of pressuring, but Herman just laughed and clapped me on the shoulder with his soft, unworked hand. “Of course. Of course! Take all the time you need.”
We piled into the SUV again and took a bumpy ride across the fields, all the while Herman was gabbing about the suspension of this model and how he’d have to buy a pickup truck or something he could get muddy if he was going to be part of a ranch. The boys dropped us off, and just before leaving, Herman leaned his head out the window and made his hand into a little phone with his thumb and pinky. “Remember, Mr. Dyer. We’re just a phone call away.”
“Will do, Herman.”
Sawyer and I stood on the porch steps till the sight of their SUV was gone, the fake smile dropping to my great relief. I sighed.
Sawyer made a noise. “You didn’t like them.”
“No, no,” I muttered, sarcasm dripping out of every word. “Them? No. Those guys were absolute peaches.”
“Look,” Sawyer said, skipping over my niceties, “I’m not going to push you on this either way. We’ll find someth
ing else if we have to. If we can.”
I clicked my tongue, looking out at the tracks they left in the driveway. “Yeah….”
“This is just the first solution that presented itself,” he said, ever so wise. “That doesn’t mean it’s the best.”
“I know that.” I scuffed my boot at some stray bit of gravel, kicking it into the driveway. “I also know that if we end up holding out too long, we’ll go bankrupt. Lose everything. Which would defeat the purpose of… all this.” I turned to Quinn, hands on my hips. “Wouldn’t that be worse than doing nothing?”
Sawyer looked at me a while, considering it, before he finally nodded. Neither of us were happy about the prospect, but it was the reality: this could very well be the only prospect.
While I was busy waiting to tackle one monster of a problem, part of me was ready to take on another.
Oliver, I was hoping, was around here somewhere. I knew he hadn’t quit just yet because I’d seen him walking away from James’s place one night, which came as a major relief. At first I didn’t get why, before I realized I cared if he hated me. I’d care even more if he left. Relationship or not, that much mattered to me.
I was feeling depressed. Overwhelmed and run-down, like I was trying to run through a field but all my clothes were soaked and heavy and weighing me down. A part of me wanted to distract myself from all of it like I’d been doing with Oliver, fooling around and letting him use me however he wanted, but there was more to it than that. A bigger part of me wanted to just… be around him. Soak up his optimism a little.
Plus, I figured it would be worth it to apologize for earlier.
Instead, when I got into the kitchen, I was disappointed to find that the rattling noise that was coming from the open fridge wasn’t Oliver.
“Oh,” I said. “It’s you.”
James shut the fridge with a leftover bite of yesterday’s lunch in his mouth. “Just me. Good old James.”
“Have you seen Oliver?” I asked, not feeling too up to joking around.
“I have.” James took another bite. “He left.”