Chapter 1 #2
“Was a gold town once.” He took a long swallow from his mug.
“Cattle later. There’s still the Bar & Star ranch, and that’s some of the local income.
They take in guests in the summer, dudes, y’know, so there’s a bit of tourism.
Plus some remote workers. Some retired folks who land here for the cheaper properties, but the cold drives ’em off when they get arthritic.
There’s a few artists and such. We’re small and getting smaller. ”
“Sign by the highway says a hundred and forty-seven people.”
“Ain’t been updated in a couple decades. The young folk don’t stick around much. Getting soft these days.”
The young woman snorted as she approached. “Right. That’s why. We’re in search of luxuries.”
“You’re the exception, Caitlyn, honey. They should all be like you.”
“Right. Have a grandparent pop off right as they find out they’re pregnant?” She tossed her head.
His “Sorry, honey,” didn’t get so much as a look.
She focused on me. “So, stranger, what can I get you?”
I hadn’t given the menu much more than a glance. I scanned the choices. Most of it was out of reach but I could get the plain burger, or a piece of pie. Burger made sense, if this was the last food I’d have for a while, but I said, “I’ll try that cherry pie.”
“Ice cream on it?”
“No, thanks.”
“Cup of coffee?”
“Just the pie.”
“Coming up.” Caitlyn took the menu I held out to her and headed off.
The old man looked at me. “What’s your name, son?”
I almost told him, but at the last moment, a realization hit me. I didn’t have to be Frankie here. Didn’t have to be Frank Morse, Junior, my dad’s little clone. I could choose. I said, “Austin. That’s my middle name, but it’s what I go by.”
“You don’t sound like Texas.”
“Nah. My grandma picked it. A family name.” Dad’s middle name too, but he hated it, which gave it extra shine.
“You do ranch work? Those boots have some wear on them.”
The old guy had sharp eyes to pick up where the stirrups had rubbed my Durangos. “Have done. I worked a cattle ranch the last year.”
“I was the foreman on the Bar & Star till a few years back. It’s a good, honest life. Not much money in it for the boots on the ground, of course.”
“Truth.”
“Well, you’re young yet. Whole life ahead of you. You’ll get by.”
I wished I had his confidence, but I nodded, then smiled at Caitlyn as she set the pie in front of me. Two days of short rations and I could’ve wolfed that slice down, but I made myself savor it, tasting every luscious bite.
The old guy introduced himself as Pete, and he took my silent eating as an excuse to entertain me with stories of his ranch life.
I didn’t mind. It’d been a lonely two days so far, after spending my waking hours working with the other hands.
A friendly voice was welcome and he made the Bar & Star ranch sound like a good one, with pranking, not bullying.
Although maybe that was seeing things from his side of the prank.
When I was done, I dragged out my wallet and set that last five-dollar bill under the plate. With tax, the tip would be less than fifty cents, and I felt cheap. I dug in the coin part for anything more, added a couple of dimes.
Pete watched me closely. “That’s a mighty empty wallet, son.”
I waved my useless debit card, the one linked to my bank account that Dad emptied the day before I turned eighteen.
I’d been underage, so it was a joint account.
Dad claimed my money was just payback for the years of raising me, but I’d seen a glitter in his eyes and wondered what he knew.
Next day, I ran. Pete didn’t need to find out, though.
“Modern times. Plastic is the way to go.”
“Oh, sure. Good to know.”
“Doesn’t mean I’d turn down a job,” I said, as Caitlyn came to relieve me of my plate and money. “You think the Bar & Star might be hiring?”
“Not this time of year. Come spring, yeah, they take seasonal hands. If you’re still in these parts and have a good reference, they might hire you, even scrawny as you look.”
“Pete!” Caitlyn took a swipe at the old man’s hair. “Don’t call people scrawny.”
“Well, it’s not like that’s a secret,” Pete protested. “He knows he’s no Hulk Hogan, right, kid? What are you, a buck twenty soaking wet?”
“One-forty, dude,” I told him. I’d grown another inch in the last year, to a respectable five-seven, and put on some muscles with the work.
“Well, excuse the hell out of me.” He grinned. “No worries. Sometimes the scrawny ones can work the big guys under the table. I was always lean myself.”
I could believe that. He looked taller than me, though it was hard to tell sitting down, and what muscle he’d once carried had thinned down to gristle, but he didn’t have the look of a man who’d ever been big.
“I can work,” I told him. “I’m not afraid of any job.” I glanced at Caitlyn, an idea coming to me. “You don’t happen to have, like, a community bulletin board? Someplace work gets posted?”
“Sure. I can give you the link,” she answered.
There went that hope. Because this was 2012, with not many towns as set in their ways as Dover’s Ridge, Colorado, where the general store still had bits of paper pinned to the cork. I was in deep trouble. “Broke my phone,” I lied. “Don’t have a new one yet. You have a library?”
“Nearest one is in Tolberg, twenty-minute drive.”
“Got it.” I managed a smile.
“Are you even eighteen?” Pete peered at me. “You a runaway, kid?”
“Fuck no!” I added, “Excuse me,” because Dad had beaten politeness into me. “I’m eighteen. Here, no lies.” I passed him my driver’s license.
“And three days.” He handed it back. “Happy birthday, kid.”
“Austin, not kid,” I retorted.
“I’m seventy-four. You’re all kids to me. How broke are you?”
“Not that bad,” I lied again. “But if I want to stick around, I’ll need to get a job.”
“Go to San Francisco,” Caitlyn told me, brushing a strand of hair off her face. “Or LA, someplace real. No one sticks around here.”
“Maybe I’ll be the first.” I smiled at her.
“Not interested,” she said, like she’d said it a hundred times before.
“No, I didn’t mean that.” I didn’t dare out myself, but I added, “Bad breakup. I’m not flirting with you, or anybody. I just like this town, what I’ve seen of it.”
Pete snorted. “That license should probably say ‘needs glasses,’ then. Although there’s far worse places, I guess.”
I slid off the stool. “I’m going to walk around some, see more of the sights. Caitlyn, is it okay if I leave my truck in the back of your lot for now?”
“Sure. Been years since we came close to filling that lot. Come on back in if you work up an appetite.”
“Will do.” Not, since nothing on the menu was priced under a dollar.
Once I’d taken advantage of a bathroom with warm running water to wash up, I walked the entire town.
Wasn’t hard to do, because there wasn’t much of it.
I inquired about jobs in the gas station, the laundromat, the grocery quick-mart, the feed and hardware store, the appliance repairs and snow removal, small beat-down businesses.
No surprise that all I got were nos, and some curiosity about who I was.
Mostly who I was related to. I guess no one came to Selbyville to stay unless they were moving in with family.
By the time I’d circled my way back to the diner, my hopes had narrowed down to the ranch.
Pete was right, of course. Fall roundup and sorting would be done.
They might still be moving herds to the winter pastures, but that needed fewer hands than the roundup.
They’d be letting cowboys go, not hiring.
Still, maybe I could barter some of the roughest chores for room and board.
It wasn’t the gay life I’d hoped for in San Francisco, but shoveling manure wouldn’t have me on my knees for some stranger on the San Francisco streets, which I’d also pictured.
Worth a try. If Tilly consented to start.
I got in, set my hat on the pack in the other seat.
Turned the key. The pickup coughed, then the ignition caught and roared to life, the rusted muffler doing not much of anything.
Probably nothing the folks around here weren’t familiar with.
I drove out of the lot and turned south, looking for the sign to the Bar & Star.
A mile beyond the last house, I spotted the turnoff, and hung a left.
The road wound down through some gullies and canyons.
At one point, a vista opened out and I caught sight of a big property in the valley below, a dozen outbuildings and silos.
Then the hillsides closed in again. No one passed me or came up behind, which was just as well as Tilly ground her laborious way up another steep slope.
She cleared the top, coughed twice, started down the other side, and died.
Shit. Momentum kept us rolling downhill.
Neither side of the road had a shoulder worthy of the name.
I held my foot off the brake and let the truck gather speed.
The tires whined a complaint as I steered through a curve.
For a moment, I looked out across space at the valley below and thought about…
just not. Not steering. Letting gravity take me wherever it wanted.
But down there, a man on horseback loped across the grassy field, sitting easy on his palomino, and I wasn’t ready to give up yet. I touched the brakes and wrestled the truck around the next bend.
Luck more than skill let me steer without losing too much speed or over-correcting.
After a few more turns, the slope lessened, the road flattening out between stands of trees.
I began coasting, checking for a wider bit of shoulder, when I spotted a rutted lane leading off to some trees.
Some last vestige of pride made me steer for the gap, momentum carrying Tilly off the pavement, bouncing over the ruts, and into the trees.
She slowed, barely crawling along, screened from the road, and I wrenched the wheel to take her off the track in case someone used it to get somewhere.
We shuddered inch by inch beneath a tall pine, the lowest branches scraping over the roof of the cab.
And stopped.
The silence hit me first. Somewhere out there were traffic and people, horses and cattle, music, dogs, but here under the tree, the silence settled on me like a heavy blanket.
This is really it.
Until I had money for gas, this was where Joe’s truck would stay, and all my stuff with it. Somewhere south of Selbyville, California, on a cold November day with the daylight already fading.
This was the moment to set my hat on my head, get out, and start hiking, but my resolve failed.
I didn’t know how far I was from the ranch, and although I had a flashlight in the glove compartment, I didn’t want to walk a dark road in the middle of nowhere.
Even if I didn’t get lost, bears and occasional cougars roamed these mountains.
Tomorrow, I told myself. I had pie in my belly that an hour’s job-hunting wouldn’t have walked off. I had my bedroll in the footwell, good enough to keep me warm. I had nature’s toilet outside, some water left in the pop bottle I’d filled at a waystation hours back. I’d be fine till tomorrow.
What I didn’t have was any way to keep my mind off my situation.
I was used to having my phone, with Instagram and music and videos at my fingertips.
And yeah, porn. Not that I felt like watching hot guys right now.
Mostly, I felt stupid. I’d prided myself on how working a real outdoor job meant I didn’t have my phone glued to my fingers, like most of my classmates.
The last three days showed me I was more addicted than I knew.
I unrolled my sleeping bag, tilted my seat back, and pulled the insulating fabric around me. Outside the car, the evening shadows deepened quickly. With the engine off, chill air sank off the windows, and I shivered.
Think of something else.
I hadn’t thought about my mother in years.
Not on purpose, anyhow. Now I remembered one vacation we all took to some cabin a friend loaned my dad.
The second day, it rained. Dad went off fishing but Mom and I holed up in the cabin.
There was no TV, so Mom spent several hours teaching me to tie knots.
A bowline, a square knot, a clove hitch.
Slip knot, anchor hitch, and butterfly. A few I used regularly— till two days ago— on the ranch, but a bunch more besides.
I was nine, not super good with my hands, but for some reason the work fascinated me. Mom said her dad was a sailor, and he taught her. Knots became kind of our thing, after that.
When she left a year later, before I knew she wasn’t coming back, I used to work on tying knots under the covers at night using pieces of string, watching my fingers in the beam of a flashlight. Double sheet bend, Carrick bend, and handcuff knot.
There was probably rope in the truck bed, but I wasn’t going out there. However, I had sneakers in my pack. For no reason I could figure, I pulled out the laces and began to tie, squinting in the fading light. Butterfly knot, monkey’s fist, Spanish bowline…