Page 18 of Baker
“Feed. Right. Okay, I’ll call Paul at the mill when I get around and get them to make the order today. I’ll have to go to town to pick it up.”
“I’ll go with you. I messed up relaying the message, so I can help load and unload.”
“Don’t beat yourself up over it. Would have been too late last night to do much about it, anyway. Just make sure the barn and fencing around the pen are good and tight. I do not want to spend my days chasing goats.”
“Got it.” He gave me a weak smile that lit up his whole face before he ducked out of the door and disappeared.
Exhaling deeply, I kicked off the covers, padded over to the far wall, and pounded on it until Linc stopped singing. Once he quieted, I dug around in my clean clothes basket, pulled out jeans, a tee, and a flannel, socks, boxers, and then dressed as the sound of Granny insulting her gun floated up to my bedroom window. Another day at Bastian Acres begins. Maybe if I hurried, I could get to town, pick up the goat chow, and hurry back so I could ride out to see Hanley again. With that scenario in mind, I made a mental note to pick up an ice pack, some anal cream, and some juice boxes to stick into my saddlebags. Hydration after strenuous exercise is important.
I ambled down the hall, slid into the bathroom as Linc was drying off, and nudged him out of the steamy room so I could piss. He seemed a pretty amiable guy for the most part. Guess he was working hard to be chill about life in order to lower stress levels.
“Sorry to be so long. The beard wash and conditioning takes time.”
I glanced at his facial hair. It was nice, not going to lie, and fit him. I’d never tried a beard. My ex hated them, so I just got into the routine of shaving frequently.
“No problem.” I shook, flushed, and washed my hands as he moved around me to slide out into the hall wearing a towel around his waist. When he exited, Dodge appeared. “All yours.” I dried my hands and stepped around the ginger.
“Thanks. Hey, Ford said you’re going into town. I’d like to ride along. Get to know the feed mill workers and maybe visit the bank?”
“Sure, yeah, okay.” The front seat of my old truck would be full of Bastian backsides. It all seemed so damn weird yet. All these people in the house, riding along to town, taking up all the air in every room I walked into. Granny was as happy as a clam about the full house. She and Bella seemed to enjoy all the extra work involved in feeding four men. I was still hoping they’d all move to town, but since my grandmother would sooner see Satan sitting at her dinner table than ask her grandsons to vacate, I was stuck passing the potatoes to Beelzebub for the foreseeable future.
***
Bastian Grange was the type of small town you could find in any state in the USA.
Main Street was short, just a couple of blocks, with small businesses all flying the stars and stripes. We had a bank, a bar, a library, and two eateries. One at each end of Main Street. Peppered among the shops, you could find a hardware store, a bookshop, a store that sold sewing supplies, and an outdoor store. Right smack dab in the middle of all that commerce wasthe Bastian Grange Sheriff’s Office, where Ollie and his deputy sheriff, Easton Reese, could be found. Unless they were out on a call, then Monica Purcell, who handled the calls coming in as well as other paperwork, would greet you with coffee and gossip. Ollie liked to joke that he and Easton wore the badges, but Monica was the real law in town.
My brothers—half-brothers—seemed enthralled with the place. They chatted and pointed out the local grange, the volunteer fire hall, and the town green as if they had never seen such things.
Probably they never had. New York and Sacramento were huge cities with tons of people. Bastian Grange? Not so much. We boasted about two thousand souls. Could be more by a few now, depending on if Clarence and Holly Bernard had added another kid to their passel of eight. I’d not heard if they had, but then again, after kid number four, you kind of zoned out on the tittle-tattle of old women.
“Why is the town named after our family?” Dodge asked as we cruised to the only red light on Main Street. Rumor was the mayor was angling for another one at the other end of town but was running into trouble setting up the traffic study required for the red light. Maybe if he hired someone other than his second nephew to engineer the study that might speed up things. Everyone knew Willis Peete was as lazy as a toad at the bottom of a well.
“Our family was the first to settle here after the expansion west back in the early to mid-1800s. Isaiah Bastian and his wife staked out a claim where the house sits now. There was safety in numbers, and they welcomed settlers to come join them. Soon there were little farms all over, ours being the largest, and they all come together to charter a town. Named it after Isaiah since he owned the largest parcel of land,” I said as we crept through the green light and made a left to head to the feed mill. Thetall grain silos used for storing grain for the mill, painted yellow and black like big bumblebees could be seen from Main Street. I cranked the wheel to park in a wide slot facing the mill itself. We piled out of the truck to stare at the sky for a moment and work out the kinks.
Ford was impressed with the history lesson. “That’s really cool about our ancestors. And brave! Imagine coming out here with just a wagon filled with kids and women, leaving everything you know behind, and facing down all kinds of wild shit so you could claim a chunk of land for yourself.”
“Yeah, that was so damn cool. Nothing like driving all those wild things off their land,” a voice that I knew well said from behind us. We all turned to see Ollie Ahoka standing in the parking lot with a fifty-pound bag of chicken feed on his shoulder. I peeked at my siblings. They both looked like they had plunked their naked asses down on top of a nest of red ants.
“Oh, well, hey no, I didn’t mean…” Ford then fell over himself while Ollie stood there holding his bag of laying mash with a flat expression. Dodge was unable to speak, it seemed, his gaze locked on the tall lawman. “I meant that I think that…shit.”
Ollie sighed. “I’m just giving you a hard time.” Dodge blinked a few times before falling into the same bumbling morass that Ford was still floundering around in. “Mostly.”
“We’re sorry,” Dodge finally said.
“For what?” Ollie asked, the bright sun making me squint. Sure wish I had my hat.
“Everything that ever happened to the indigenous peoples of this country,” Dodge replied to which Ford nodded so hard I feared he might tip forward. Or backward. Or just plain pass out from his brain sloshing around in his head.
“Oh, well, thanks,” Ollie replied as he gave the parking lot a long once-over. “I thought maybe you had parked illegally or something.”
“In the feed mill parking lot?” I asked and got a quick wink from the sheriff.
“You showing your brothers the sights?” Ollie enquired nonchalantly. That was life in Bastian Grange. People had meetups anywhere they met. Parking lots, sidewalks, or in the middle of the road. Rural folk loved to shoot the shit. There wasn’t really much else to do to be honest other than spend time bullshitting. Ollie gave Dodge a look that I knew well. I’d seen it more than once in our long friendship. He thought my half-brother was tasty. I’d never been big into gingers, and Dodge’s blood was the same as mine. Okay, well, not exactly the same. Fifty percent the same, but even so, I’d have to be more than a little soused to give him the look that our sheriff was flashing at him. Dodge, to his credit, seemed to be picking up the vibe but was unsure of how to handle the obvious appreciation of his finer qualities. Spoken as his half-brother, I could say Dodge did have great teeth.
“Yeah, the tour bus is leaving the feed mill after we get some goat chow, and then we’re heading to the bank. Maybe we’ll visit the hardware store for some fencing staples. You know, the real highbrow spots of our illustrious town,” I said and got a soft snort from Ollie. “Where’s your uniform? Is it casual Thursday?” I waved at his jeans and denim jacket outfit.
“I have the morning off to take my dad to the doctor. Where’s your hat?”
