Chapter 10
Stubborn Old Man
Wes
Sawyer left once we got the herd in the pens and let Pops, Tripp, and I worry about getting them in the chutes and vaccinating them.
She came back showered with her hair braided and smelling of lavender with a meal fit for kings as the sun made its way toward the horizon.
At least that’s how it felt at the time, eating marinated chicken and potatoes out of tin foil while sitting around the fire pit.
Pops had only complained minimally that it wasn’t steak, which—Sawyer reminded him—wasn’t good for his heart.
After we’d finished the food, Sawyer and Tripp left to tend to things at their own houses, and now I’m resting on the porch, enjoying kicking up my feet after a long day of physical labor.
My shoulders and arms are sore as hell, and I know they’ll feel worse tomorrow.
My back aches from being in the saddle, but it feels like I accomplished something today.
Pops hands me one of the beers he’s holding and sits in the rocker next to me on the old front porch with a groan. “It sure was nice havin’ an extra set of hands here.”
I ease back in my own wicker chair and take a pull from the bottle. “Glad I could help out.”
There’s not a single cloud tonight and there’s a million stars lighting up the sky.
A bullfrog croaks from the small pond nearby and the cattle aren’t exactly quiet, but it’s peaceful—more restful than the city—and as exhausted as I am, I can’t quite make myself hate this place as much as I thought I did.
On nights like this, sitting on the porch with Pops drinking a beer after a day of hard work, it’s damn near pleasant.
“You should come more often. Get some more practice in so you don’t get rusty.” He peers at me out of the corner of his eye like I’m a bomb that might go off at any second.
I grunt, thinking about all the words resting on my tongue, waiting to be said. They taste bitter there, but if I want to get home, I need to say them.
“Alright, Wes. Why don’t you come on out with it, then? I know you’ve got somethin’ to say, so say it.”
I glance at Pops, hat pulled down low so I can’t see his eyes, but his mouth is turned down in a disapproving frown. I can feel the disappointment rolling off him in waves, and it makes my hackles rise enough for me to get the words out, my tone biting.
“I know you fancy yourself indestructible, but you’re not. That heart attack proved it. You shouldn’t be out here by yourself, and the hospitals in the city are much better than the one out here in the middle of nowhere. You should sell this place.”
“Your parents sent you with quite the task, didn’t they?” His face is impassive, but his tone is low and sharp.
I sigh and rub some dust out of my eyes, tired of this conversation already. I try to turn things around. “Didn’t you ever think about doing anything other than ranching?”
His gaze slides over to me, and his lips turn down.
“Can’t say there was much else I was ever suited for.
Ranching is all I ever knew. I don’t think I thought to want anything else.
” He takes a swig of his beer, eyes shining as he looks up at the night sky like he’s looking for answers to some question he’s posed to himself.
“What about you? You ever think about doing something other than running the accounting firm with your dad?”
I scoff at the question. “Not in a long time.”
“Is it because you love it or because you haven’t had it in you to dream of nothin’ else?”
I scowl into my beer bottle. His words sting for some reason. I turn over the question and the insinuation he made with it, unsure of what the answer is.
Do I love it?
I’m not sure.
I am good at it though, and that ought to count for something.
It’s what Dad expected me to do, to follow in his footsteps, take over the company he started when he retires.
He always told me I had the mind for numbers.
It’s what I went to college for. But after all this time, I can’t say it’s something I love.
It doesn’t bring me any significant amount of joy or make me feel alive.
It’s a paycheck. One that’s a lot more stable than the income of a small-town rancher.
The silence drags on as darkness deepens and the chirping crickets join the cows’ sustained ululation. Pops whistles between his front teeth. “You’re more lost than I thought, boy.”
“I’m not lost,” I argue.
Pops smiles from his spot in the rocker and takes off the cowboy hat he’s been wearing all day, revealing gray hair that’s glued to his head with a day’s worth of sweat and dust. “Well, I hope you’re right. There’s nothin’ sadder than a boy so lost he doesn’t even know he can’t find his way home.”
My throat closes up, and I suck down the rest of my beer to clear away the gravel resting behind my Adam’s apple. Pops isn’t a man of many words. Grams always talked enough for the two of them when she was still alive. But when he does say something, you’d best listen because it’s likely important.
Pops sucks on his teeth as his eyes wander toward the herd, still making a racket in their separate pens.
He stays lost in thought for a moment before he pins me with a weighted stare.
“Tell you what. I’ll sell this place,”—his lips twitch as he watches my face brighten in relief—“if you stay here and help me on the ranch until Thanksgiving.”
My face drops. “Thanksgiving? That’s almost eight weeks away! I planned to be gone from the city for a week tops.”
“Take it or leave it. I’m not selling an acre of this place unless you stay.”
“You expect me to up and leave my life in the city for two whole months?”
He shrugs. “Now, that’s up to you, son. You want me to up and leave my life here? Seems only fair you get a taste of what I’m givin’ up by leavin’.”
“You’re asking a lot of me, Pops. And of Dad,” I point out.
“And y’all are askin’ a lot of me. As I said, take it or leave it, Wes. The choice is up to you. I’ll let ya sleep on it.”
Stubborn old man.
This is the only way he'll consider selling. I know it from the steady gleam in his eyes.
"Fine. I'll stay the eight weeks," I grumble.
"Ah, good. I knew you weren't an idiot."
I give him a sullen glare and head inside without another word to wash today’s grime off me and think through my options before another busy day of work tomorrow.