Page 68 of Just (Fake) Married
Walking through the barn, I had a sudden longing for my old horse, Prince. Dad gave us each a horse on our tenth birthday with the understanding that we would do all the work that went into owning a horse. We all took it seriously, riding out on the weekends to camp out at the creek up around the north ridge, just the older brothers, and usually Tag.
Mac and Eli would give us shit about leaving them behind until they were old enough to join us.
We’d fish and build a big fire and eat what we’d caught. Seth always brought warm beer he’d stolen from the bunk house. And we’d drink those cans, talking shit while we stared up at the stars until we all fell asleep.
Those had been the best days.
Funny, how I’d forgotten about them.
When Prince died, I’d refused to get another horse, and Dad hadn’t talked to me for a week. Those camping trips stopped around that time, too.
I walked down the wide center aisle of the barn. The swallows dive bombed my head, and the dust motes glittered in the light coming through the dirty windows near the roof line. It smelled like horses and hay, and I realized how weird it was that I hadn’t smelled that smell in over five years. I wouldn’t have said I missed it, but standing in the barn, the horses bringing their heads up over the stall doors to sniff at me, I could say it was a good smell. A really good smell.
“Anyone here?” I shouted.
There was nothing but silence.
Exiting the other side of the barn, I saw a group of men down by the south gate of the paddock. Tag was among them.
The bunk house, which was set apart from the barn and paddock area, but within easy distance for the cowboys to have access to the barn, was a two-story building painted white and black. Today, despite the freezing cold, the doors were thrown wide open.
One of the hands was carrying out garbage bags of stuff. Back here, the snow settled in drifts. There were big swaths of clear land, while the snow piled up against the buildings. The wind had always been weird back here.
Furniture sat on the frozen, snow free grass between the barn and bunk house. This was an age-old process that Tag’s dad always called, “airing out the stink.”
Sunlight and a stiff breeze did a lot of the work.
I didn’t want to interrupt Tag, who was talking to a few of the men, but when I walked up, Tag nodded hello. The other guys turned and stared at me. Half of them I didn’t know.
Curtis was there though, and he’d been there since long before I was born. Always just a cowboy. Never wanted any of the responsibility that Tag’s dad had. That Tag had, now that he’d taken over as foreman. Curtis looked exactly the same as when I was a kid, which was to say, older than dirt. Tougher than rawhide.
“Son,” he said, giving me a hard pat on the back.
“How you doing, Curtis?” I said, patting him right back.
“Oh, you know,” he said, and coughed. I didn’t like his coloring. Not at all. The skin around his lips was white, and the way he was pulling in air, I wished I had an oxygen monitor, because I’d bet my Peloton that his was low.
I also knew better than to say anything in front of the other men. Maybe I could pull him aside later and get him to agree to go into the clinic in town. The Swinging D didn’t offer health insurance, but we had a deal with the clinic that all employees had access to any care the clinic could offer.
Cowboys, being cowboys, didn’t take advantage of that enough.
“Hey,” I said, waving at the rest of the guys who grunted back at me. I looked at Tag, “can I talk to you real quick?”
Tag nodded and we walked a few feet away. Tag’s attention was still over on the guys. “Curtis look all right to you?” he asked.
“Yeah. I mean, no. He looks like a guy who's smoked a pack of cigarettes every day for his whole life.”
“I swear these men need a keeper,” he said.
“I thought that was you,” I said.
He shook his head. “What’s up?” he asked me.
“Do you have Harmony’s cell number?”
“Yeah.”
I blinked at him. “Can I have it?”
