Wrangling the Orc Cowboy (Brides of the Lonesome Creek Orcs #1)

1. Tark

Chapter 1

Tark

T he ridge behind my ranch offered the best view of the land, from the broad plains speckled with grazing green-furred sorhoxes, to the white-tipped mountain ranges encircling this enormous valley. I love this place that was almost too big and beautiful for words.

Gold and orange burned across the horizon, softening the rough edges of the Wild West town spread below. My orc brothers and I had just finished putting the final finishes on our new tourist destination—an orc-inspired Wild West ranch adventure. Soon, we'd open to guests. Hearing their laughter and feeling their joy might drive away some of the loneliness cratering my soul.

As the manager of our social media platform, it was time for me to start putting all the feelings trapped inside me into words. I hoped I could do our new venture justice.

I shifted my weight, my boots crunching on the dry dirt and tamped down grass beneath me, and held my phone up in one hand. The thing felt too small, too fragile in my big grip, like the time my brother, Dungar, dared me to pick up a human teacup. It was all I could do not to crush it.

My other hand ran over the brim of my cowboy hat, making sure it sat square on my head like the cowboys in the streaming images I’d watched online. This made them look bad-butt.

No, it was badass . Human language sure was complicated.

I hoped I looked okay . I needed to remember to use that word too.

“This’ll work. It has to,” I said, my voice low and rough. I cleared my throat but that wouldn't make much difference. Orc voices were gruffer than a human's.

The words of my poem swirled in my mind, half-formed but carrying pieces of something whole. A sunset. A dream. The hope my brothers and I had carved out in this strange new surface world. Humans liked sentimental stuff, didn’t they? Feelings about wide-open spaces. I’d heard them talk about such things online.

I needed to create videos that would show them what lay in our hearts and make them feel what I did looking at the horizon carved flat and clean by the glow of the end of this day.

It took me a bit, but I switched the camera to myself, taking in my furrowed brow and my leather vest worn over my bare, green-skinned chest. One of my other brothers, Ruugar, had told me women enjoyed seeing males wearing almost no clothing. All the romance book covers had that, he’d said. He was our expert when it came to things like that, and I trusted him, though neither of us could quite determine why bare skin would matter.

Should I tilt my hat a bit? The streaming images often showed a male wooing a female in a setting much like the one around me. Those males wore leather pants called chaps, a leather vest like mine—though often with a star pinned to his chest, since the male was the town sheriff. Well, not pinned to his chest. That would hurt. His vest, maybe.

“You can do this,” I told myself. “You’re Lonesome Creek’s social media expert.” Me, an expert? Hopefully, I would be as soon as my videos started performing. I'd volunteered for this task back when I thought it would be easy. Make a few videos. Talk naturally. Humans would love it, and they’d make reservations.

I’d since learned that people took their social media seriously. I was struggling to find a way to do the same.

Dust clung to my jeans. Authentic, I thought. And isn’t that what everyone wanted from an orc cowboy?

“Okay, Tark.” I eased out a breath. The hat cast a shadow over my black eyes and deepened the medium green of my face. Everything felt right, like this was going to be the beginning of something solid.

Holding my breath, I tapped the start button. The screen came to life, the red light blinking at me as it recorded.

“The land stretches before us,” I said, trying to keep the croak out of my voice. “Wide as?—”

The flap of wings against the side of my head cut me off. Sharga, the raven I'd rescued after I found him lying beside the road with a broken wing, must’ve decided he'd decided this was the perfect time to stretch his wings, though one still hung crooked and lagged awkwardly behind the other when he flew.

“Sharga,” I chided with a shake of my head, stroking his silky black feathers to soothe him. Sharga tilted his head and if he'd had eyebrows, I was sure he’d lift them. He stretched out his wings again, smacking my head and making my hat tilt even more, before resettling himself on my shoulder. He tipped his head back and let loose a gravelly rattle.

“Let me do this please,” I said, though patiently. I'd slowly nursed this raven back to good health, but his wing had been too damaged to set him free. I'd tried, but he kept showing up at my back door, begging to come inside. I’d taken him to the barn and suggested he live there from now on. He seemed to like that. He’d stayed nearby, and whenever I came outside, he'd fly over in his crooked way and land on my shoulder. He saw me as a friend, and I didn’t have many.

Once he appeared to have settled on my shoulder, I held my phone up again. Before I could hit the record button again, Podar started winding around my legs in his irregular hopping way. I'd found the bobcat high in the mountains while hiking, one of the youngling bobcat’s front legs caught in a trap. The animal carer had to remove the leg, sadly, and he'd even suggested I let him kill the poor creature, since Podar was as feral as a sorhox who'd escaped the fence while young and grown up on his own.

I couldn't do anything like that. Each being, even tiny feathered and fluffy ones, deserved to live. After the operation, I'd taken Podar home with me and helped him rest and heal, slowly showing him he could trust me. Now he loved me as much as Sharga, and the two were like brothers. Sharga was as apt to ride on Podar's back as on my shoulder.

I'd left him inside the house, but he must've escaped. Podar could sometimes leap up and open the back door with his paws.

Which meant my back door was open and my house would be full of flies.

Another long sigh jerked up my throat.

Sharga leaned forward and gave the bobcat a creaky meow. Ravens could produce various noises, including gurgling, knocking clicks, sharp calls, and even mimicry of other animals or human speech when trained. I had not trained Sharga to mimic Podar. He’d taught himself.

Podar purred and continued to hop around my legs, rubbing against them.

“You're not helping either,” I grumbled, torn somewhere between fondness and exasperation. “Can't you two see I'm trying to impress the world?”

Was there truly any chance of that? Still, I had to try.

“Start the poem again,” I told myself. “The sunset won’t be here forever.”

I recited the lines I’d written twice more before attempting to make another recording. Each time, I felt like my tongue was too heavy, my words too bumbling, but I finally managed to get it all out and had my first video to share.

I mostly liked how it came out. It ended abruptly, but I told myself that was alright. My voice had steadied by the end, and I’d kept the words flowing without stumbling over them too much. Even Sharga looked cute on my shoulder, and no one could tell that Podar was still bumping his forehead against my leg. I doubted anyone would hear his purr.

The video was good. Maybe even good enough. The light was starting to fade, the deep purples and blues creeping across the horizon in the background. It looked amazing, just what I was looking for.

I hesitated with my thumb over the upload button. A strange, twisting feeling curled low in my stomach, part hope and part the kind of fear you get when you step too close to the edge of a ridge and feel the wind gust at your back. The video was…me. My words. My face. You could even see Lonesome Creek Ranch’s Main Street behind me with its saloon, general store, and jail.

But if I shared the video, the whole world would see…everything.

Wasn't that the point? To show them what we had to offer here. To let them see not only the town but one of the orcs building it. Real orc cowboys, newly transplanted from the orc kingdom far below the ground. I scanned the town my brothers and I had poured our time, gold, and hearts into. This is what I was told people wanted—a dream they could come live in for a short time. A place as big as the sky and as honest as freshly spread sorhox manure.

I hit upload before I could talk myself out of it.

The phone dinged almost immediately, startling me. A notification. That was good, wasn’t it? I released a breath and let my shoulders relax.

I didn't look at the message. I'd give the video time to float around in… Well, I wasn’t even sure where it floated. What was the internet, anyway? I hadn’t figured that out. But my video would now be showing on various phones throughout the world, and there was something amazing about that.

I’d check later to see how it was received.

Pocketing my phone, I scooped up Podar, carrying him under my arm with his purr rising to full volume while Sharga continued to meow on my shoulder.

I approached my small ranch house, noting that the back door was open. Hopefully there wouldn’t be too many flies inside.

One bedroom, like most of the homes my brothers and I had built for each other. Only Greel and Ostor had mates living with them inside theirs, and lucky males they were. Until they started having younglings, there was no need for more than one bedroom, and the odds of me doing what was needed to plant those younglings was pretty much zero.

We'd started small, intending to expand once the tourist town was up and running and money started flowing our way instead of in the other direction.

The cozy wooden building sat next to the red-painted barn, with only a touch of light spilling out my kitchen window. I'd left it on, liking the warm feeling I got when I pictured someone waiting for me inside like Rosey did for Ostor and Jessi for Greel.

Perhaps someday I’d find someone to love who’d care for me in return. My Aunt Inla wanted me to sign up for the dating app she and Jessi’s grandmother were creating, but I wasn’t sure about that. What kind of female would look at a huge orc like me and not want to run away?

My boots made dull thuds on the small back deck, and I stepped inside the kitchen, scanning the room for flies but not finding any. Phew.

Sharga plunged off my shoulder and flew in his crooked way to the perch I’d placed near the refrigerator, landing neatly. He fluffed his feathers and settled, looking at me as if to say, where’s my food? Fetch it for me now.

Podar scampered over to his dish and after I dumped a big clump of raw meat into it, he started eating.

A table with orc-sized chairs sat along the left wall, and after hanging my hat on the hook by the door, I poured out a small serving of meat and chopped fruit and vegetables into Sharga’s dish. If this was like every other night, he’d eat and squawk to go outside. He still preferred to sleep in the barn, and being out in nature was the best thing for a creature like that. He ate while I drank a glass of water, and I let him fly outside, shutting the door closed behind him.

With a second glass of water on the table, I sat in one of the chairs and tugged my phone out of my pocket.

Going “vee-rail”—no, viral —was the goal here. One video could make our dream bloom. And one could make it sag like a pulled-up weed, but I wasn't going to think about that. Everything I'd read online said to be authentic and the right people would not only find my videos, but they’d also comment and give me “likes”.

Ah, some comments!

Podar leaped into my lap and curled around, settling to purr some more as I read the first.

And the next.

The one after that.

I smiled at first. It was working. They liked the open plain, Sharga meowing on my shoulder, and maybe even big, burly orc me. The words blurred together as comments started rolling in too fast for me to keep up. I read some more.

And froze, unable to suck in a breath.

What in the name of cringe is this? someone had written.

Another included a yellow, teary-eyed laughing face. Shrek but with feelings.

Bro took the wilderness too seriously. Someone get him a reality check.

The smile fell from my face, and slowly, piece by piece, everything inside me shattered.

Refreshing the page didn’t help. Each new comment was worse than the last.

Is he auditioning for some bad Orc-Western crossover? Someone yeet him, wouldya?

Imagine thinking sunsets can save this level of awkward. #TotalEmbarrassment.

Who let him post? No, seriously. Who?

The torturous feeling in my stomach expanded, spreading sharp edges to every corner inside me. My hand tightened around the phone, the case creaking under the pressure, but I couldn’t let go. I kept scrolling, even though I knew I shouldn’t.

Podar stopped purring and looked up at me with concern. My no longer feral friend could sense emotions better than almost anyone. He stood and put his front paws on my chest, stretching out to sniff my chin before he hopped to the floor and scampered down the hall.

Stunned and mortified and unsure what to do, I stared at my phone.

My poem, my land, and my brothers’ hard work had been reduced to a joke in a matter of moments. I found a few positive comments, but all I could focus on were the bad ones. Wasn't that like everything else in life?

Something small curled up inside me and turned away as each cutting remark sliced at the tender pieces of me I’d dared share with the world.

I told myself these were strangers. Mean ones, but they didn't know me. Their words shouldn’t mean a thing. But here I was in the shadow of it all, sitting in my big chair in my small kitchen while their mocking echoed in my pointed ears.

What had I been thinking? Orcs like me didn’t make poems. Not ones that mean anything to others, least of all the humans we hoped would come here, have fun, then spread the word.

More nasty comments appeared below my post, and with each one, I flinched like I’d been hit. I’d gone viral but in the wrong way.

I fumbled with my phone, my hands clumsy as I stabbed at the screen to delete the post. The laughing ee-moo-gees, the snide remarks. They wouldn’t stop coming. But if I erased it, maybe this wouldn’t get any worse.

“Gone,” I snarled, but the bunch in my chest didn’t loosen. It pulled tighter.

The phone slipped from my hand, landing face-down on the table with a hollow clack. I stared at it, my arms thudding onto the wooden table beside it. My world suddenly felt too small, too quiet, too torturous to exist in.

Who was I kidding? I wasn’t made for this social stuff. My brothers had assigned me the task because I’d spoken up, a silly orc eager to prove himself in a world that wasn’t made for his clumsy hands. His too-big body. His soft soul.

I’d ruined this.

“Fool,” I whispered. “Just a silly, too-sweet fool. That's what I am.”

A knock on the door snapped me out of my thoughts.

“Tark?” Dungar opened the panel and stepped inside, looking amazing as always. The right size for an orc. Not big and bulky and with too many muscles like me.

His head didn't smack against the frame. His hands didn't fumble with the handle I found almost too small to grip. He carried the scent of the outdoors with him: warm hay, freshly cut wood, and a faint metallic tang from working on a fence maybe.

Settling in the chair across from me, he stretched out his legs in a relaxed way that made me envious. I loved my brothers, but sometimes I wished I could feel as comfortable in my skin as they did. “Why the frown?”

Straightening in the chair, I forced my face to relax, burying the tightness in my chest where he couldn’t see it. “Just thinking,” I reached for the sorhox-shaped salt shaker Aunt Inla gave me. She'd ordered too many for the general store and thought each of us should have a set. For your mates to admire, she'd said with a wink.

No woman would ever want to mate with me.

Dungar crossed his arms on his chest and tapped his boot on the hardwood floor. “Are you sure? If you need anything, say so. I’m happy to help.”

How mortifying it would be to tell him I was messing up the important task I'd been given. Meanwhile, his fake jail looked amazing, and he'd made up these cute little fliers for our future customers offering tours and even pretend arrests—something that stunned me at first. Why would anyone want to pay to be placed behind bars? But the idea was sound. We had guests scheduled for our grand opening week already, and most of them had signed up for the jailhouse offerings, proving he was right.

Guests who would probably cancel if they saw my social media failure.

“Did you need something?” I asked, trying to sound as casual as him.

Probably also failing at that.

He didn’t speak, just stared like he was trying to figure something out about me. Eventually, he let out a breath and straightened. “We’re running low on grain for the sorhoxes. I sent a request to town already. They’ll deliver tomorrow and I’ll make sure they fill your silo too.”

“Thanks.”

“I didn't stop by to see you about that, though. I wanted to see if you'd hired that social media expert yet.” His eyes flicked away from mine.

Damn, had he seen my post? He was savvier about this than me. Savvier about everything when compared to me.

“I plan to.” After my mess-up, I had to. I really was bad at this. Could someone help? Actually, anything would help. I'd hit the bottom and there was nowhere left to go but up.

Dungar's eyes narrowed, and he nodded, though he didn’t seem convinced. “Good. Those humans online—they’re good at making…connections. I think that's the word. I see them talk about food and shoes and, I don’t know, sky things.”

In the orc kingdom, far below the Earth's surface, there was no sky like we'd found here. We lived in enormous caverns, and there were various species of orcs, just like there were all kinds of humans. But our “sky” was the cavern roof speckled with tiny insects that glowed like stars. No sun, a bright, burning mass in the sky that had stunned me at first. The blinding thing almost didn't feel right, though I was getting used to it after a few months on the surface.

Not long ago, an orc went exploring far beyond our caverns. He’d stumbled out into this amazing surface world and even met humans. When he returned, our king formed a treaty with surface governments. Now orcs were moving here, setting up businesses. Finding mates.

“Anyway.” Dungar stood and brushed his hands on his jeans. “If you need something, you know where I am.”

I grunted, a non-committal sound that served its purpose. He stepped forward and rubbed his knuckles on my shoulder, and I rose and did the same, fighting to drag up a grin. To look casual and relaxed and even happy—none of which I was. His knuckling sign of affection would be reassuring if it didn’t remind me how much I was disappointing him and the others.

After he’d left, I sat and stared at the table, listening to the thud of his sorhox's hooves fading into the whirring hum of evening. The house quieted, but the pain in my chest didn’t go away. If anything, it wound deeper, squeezing the air out of me.

Funny how small a big old orc like me could feel at a time like this.

Reaching for the phone, I flipped it back over like I might find something different this time, some forgotten hope among the cruel comments. Of course, there was nothing. Only an empty spot where my post had been, plus the echoes of laughter ringing in my mind.

“Help.” The word left a sour taste in my mouth. Orcs were raised to fix things with their hands, to solve problems with swords and persistence. Asking outsiders was like admitting failure. But this time, I couldn’t see any other way out of the mess I’d created.

Podar sauntered back into the room and sat on the floor beside me, looking up and studying my face. With a soft cry, he leaped, landing square on my lap again. He braced his front paws on my chest and rubbed his face against mine, over and over. Comforting me as only my furry friend could.

My throat tightened so much I could barely breathe. My eyes stung as I patted him until he settled in a ball on my lap.

“I can fix this,” I whispered. “I just need to do it fast.”

I opened my mail-of-the-E and scrolled down to the reply I'd received after enthusiastically reaching out to one of the flu-encers I saw on one of the apps. She seemed so comfortable in her role in life, her skin, and whatever might be thrown her way. The information below her picture indicated she could manage social media for others, which was why I'd sent her a mail-of-the-E. I already had approval from my brothers for this. They'd expected me to get things started but then hand this part of our operation over to someone else. Once tourists started arriving, all of us would be busy with trail rides, rodeo events, bonfires with stories and mallows-of-the-marsh that I hoped didn't taste like moldy grass.

I took a moment to admire her image, a pretty woman standing on a rocky overlook, smiling at the horizon like she knew something wonderful out there was hers for the taking. Long dark hair framed her face, and her brown eyes held a spark of curiosity that couldn’t be faked.

That spark in her eyes fascinated me. It wasn’t the forced brightness I’d seen in other humans. It was something different, natural, like she’d seen the good and the bad of this world and still found a way to love it. The thought turned sour almost as quickly as it hit me. What did I know about human women? Sure, Jessi and Rosey were amazing. Beautiful, and sweet to my brothers, plus kind to me. But I'd barely talked with them. What could I say that wouldn't give away the fact that I was big and awkward and clumsy and…pretending to be something I wasn't?

If I talked too much to them, they'd see right away that my confidence was a facade as unreal as the false fronts on our recreated buildings in town. That my smile masked the turmoil boiling below my green skin.

For all I knew, this wasn’t her real image. She could be using a fake thing to catch attention, like humans sometimes did.

She could be also married. Mated. Though, that didn’t matter. I was also a fool for gazing at her and dreaming when she was probably someone else’s dream already. I wasn’t hiring her for her appearance. If she took on this job, she'd come here to save me from the disaster I’d created.

With fingers too big for the keyboard, I tapped at the screen. I kept my message short and careful. No bumbling around and messing this up as well.

I read it three times, then five times more.

Request for Social Media Assistance

Dear Gracie Weeks,

As you know from the information I sent when I was looking for a proposal, my brothers and I have created a Western-themed orc ranch as a tourist destination. I need some (tons, actually, I thought) assistance marketing this venture (loved that big word) to humans. I believe your skills could be exactly what we need at Lonesome Creek Ranch. We've completed construction, but we’re struggling to connect with people online. If you’re still available, I'd like to hire you for this role. As we discussed, you could start immediately.

Thank you,

Tark Bronish

That was enough, wasn’t it? Respectful. Clear. No hint of the mess I’d made. I even looked words up online before inserting them into my mail-of-the-E.

I hesitated, my fingertip hovering over the screen. But the thought of disappointing my brothers drove me more than anything else. I hit send.

The air seemed to freeze, and I worried I'd created an even bigger mess than before. But there was no taking it back.

Somewhere across the vast, endless surface of this amazing world, Gracie Weeks would see my message.