Page 11 of His Fresh Start Cowboy
Unsure if Mr. Woods was Brand or Wayne, Hugo erred on the side of it being Wayne, since Brand had always been fond of more modern rock music. At least as far as Hugo knew, but Brand could have changed. “It’s definitely unique. Hello there, No Name.”
The horse nickered.
Hugo met the other mounts, doing his best to remember everyone’s name. Learned where the feed and hay for the nonorganic herd was stored, and where all the equipment was stored around the large barn. Deeper in the barn were all the cows currently pregnant after the last visit from the local AI technician, and who were scheduled to calf in the near future.
“All the new calves will go into the grass-fed pasture,” Jackson explained. “The plan is to transition over the next year into all organic, grass-fed beef. Brand says it hits an eager niche market, so that’s what we’ll do. Just means a bit more attention on the cattle in the west pasture as the herd grows. He wants the herd to have room to wander, but not to separate too far.”
“Makes good sense.” Hugo gazed around at the cows, who were confined because they looked ready to burst soon, but who still had plenty of room to move around. The Woods family kept a humane ranch. Or as humane as it could be when the intent was for all the steer to eventually end up on someone’s dinner table.
It made him think of Levi, a man whose unique brand of inner peace and “one with the earth” mentality always gave thanks to Mother Nature for what she provided. If an animal’s short life was going to be sacrificed so a longer-living mammal like humans could thrive, they should allow that creature to live the kindest short life possible.
“Are the cows who birth allowed to nurse the calf?” Hugo asked.
“Definitely,” Jackson replied. “We’re not a dairy farm, so the calves nurse until weaned, and then they join the regular herd. Should have at least ten new calves by summer. The heifers who can still breed will go back to the regular herd, and the ones who can’t will go to slaughter.”
“Of course.” Such was the circle of life in the cattle industry. They weren’t pets; they were food and profit.
“We’ll go out to the west pasture in a bit and do a head count, make sure no one’s wandered too far from the herd. We’ve also got—”
As if sensing the introduction, a pair of dogs raced down the length of the barn and came up to sniff Hugo. One was clearly a German shepherd and the other some sort of mutt that might have had a bit of Australian shepherd in it. Hugo had never been a huge fan of dogs, even though they’d always been around the Woods Ranch, but they both seemed friendly enough.
“That’s Brutus,” Jackson said, pointing to the German. “He’s Brand’s dog. The other one is mine, I guess, and she’s just Dog.”
Hugo stared a beat. “You named your dog Dog?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “She wandered into my yard one day and then started following me everywhere after I fed her. No one in town responded to the posters I put up, so now she just...hangs out.”
A horse called No Name and a dog named Dog. What the hell kind of alternate universe had Hugo landed in?
Jackson patted his own chest. “Come here, Dog.” Dog obediently jumped up and put two furry paws on Jackson’s stomach. The dog seemed small for the big man, but Jackson rubbed her ears affectionately. “Good girl.”
“They any good at rustling cattle?” Hugo asked.
“Brutus is trained. Dog goes out with us but I found her too old to really train her to herd the cattle, so she just sort of chills with me. I’m just grateful the Woods family loves dogs, because she’s a loyal beast. Can’t imagine having to leave her locked up while I’m working.”
“Gotcha.”
They continued touring the main area around the barn, from the big corral to the cattle chutes. Hugo spotted the regular herd in the east pasture, hanging out close to the fence line where he imagined they’d eventually lay out hay for them to munch on. When they circled back to the barn, Rem and Brand were both inside tacking horses.
“You gettin’ the lay of the land?” Rem asked as he tightened a saddle strap.
“I’m getting a first-class tour, for sure,” Hugo replied. “You heading out?”
“Yep, we gotta do a fence check today. Make sure the perimeters are secure. You’ve probably got a fun day of mucking stalls, feeding cattle, and cleaning horse hooves ahead of you.”
“It’s what you get when you’re the new guy.”
Brand didn’t look his way once during the entire exchange, and it annoyed the hell out of Hugo. But for now, he’d keep his head down, do his job, and prove it hadn’t been a mistake for Wayne to hire him.
Only by lunch, Hugo was exhausted. Sure, he was no stranger to mucking a horse stall, but he was also used to sharing the job with half-a-dozen other people. While Rem and Brand tended to the fencing and the grass-fed herd, Hugo and Jackson had fed the other herd, mucked six horse stalls, tended to the pregnant heifers, and cleaned mud and gunk out of the hooves of several horses, including No Name.
Hugo rewarded No Name’s good behavior with a sugar cube from the box he’d found in the tack room.
Rem and Brand were back from their fence check around noon when Jackson called for lunch. The brothers went inside the main house, and Hugo and Jackson headed for the break room. A little disappointed in not seeing more of Brand, Hugo ate his sandwich quietly, while Jackson heated up a cup of instant noodles. Dog sat quietly at Jackson’s feet the entire time, observant of the food without begging.
“So what’s your story, kid?” Jackson asked near the end of their thirty-minute break. “You leave Texas, end up in California, and then come back again?”
He seemed genuinely curious, rather than obnoxiously rude, so Hugo went with honesty. “No big story, really. I wanted to leave, so I left. Had some interesting experiences. Now I’m back to... I don’t know, fix some stuff that was broken when I left. Rem was my best friend in high school. My mom still lives out in Daisy. Felt like the right time to come back. Maybe it’s not forever, but it’s a good place to be for now.” Hugo quirked an eyebrow. “What’s your story?”
