4. Wolfe
wolfe
Iserved up a dinner of beef stew and biscuits and just forgot about eating mine as I sat across the small table from him and watched Blue eat like an alley dog.
He was swimming in my last year’s pair of thermal underwear, the worn collar coming away from his neck, showing the bones of his clavicle.
His jaw worked as he shoved in the food, as though he feared a famine was coming.
There were biscuit crumbs on his mouth as he glanced at me, pausing, flicking his eyes to the last biscuit on the plate.
I pushed the plate of biscuits toward him with a nod. I could make more biscuits in a heartbeat, but I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen anyone eat so much so fast.
There might even have been a bit of stew in his hair, but I didn’t stare. It would be rude. Accusatory. Maybe even confrontational. In prison, you never stared. It was safer. And though I certainly wasn’t in danger from him, and didn’t need to be so much on my guard, I took the safe route.
He was such a contradiction. From his fine-boned face and near-perfect teeth.
His ultra-polite way of talking. The haughty, almost imperious expression in his blue-gray eyes.
Those cheekbones. His way of sitting or standing.
Straight-backed, like he was in church. Except now he was hunched over his plate, just about eating with his hands.
His mouth was so near the bowl that the spoon was not a utensil, it was a shovel.
Blue was unaware of any of this. Where he came from, perhaps, it was normal to wear beauty with such a casual air. Was he beautiful? Yes, he was. In my current narrow sphere, yes. In my old life, he would have been the object of sermons: the sin of pride. In prison, he would have been fought over.
Would I have fought for him? Traded cigarettes for a chance to sit next to him in the dining hall? Surely no, but maybe yes. Would I have collected packets of ramen to lay at his feet, an offering of prison riches? Couldn’t have afforded it, but might have done it anyway.
Would I have risked a shiv for him? Debatable but possible. During my eight months behind bars, I’d kept my head down, my back to the wall, and counted not just the days, but the very seconds, to my release.
I was free now. Free to rescue a young man whose pretty looks were so much more apparent after his bath that I wondered how I’d missed them before. His hair was tangled. The skin along his neck was still damp. I made myself look away.
“Do you have room for dessert?” I found myself asking. “I’ve got cake donuts. I had some of Mabel’s pecan brownies, but those have been eaten.”
He furrowed his brow as though he had no idea what either pecans or brownies were. Paused in his eating, cheeks bulging.
I had enough food, plenty, really, for the blizzard, which was expected to last four days. Though with the amount he ate, I might have to dig into my freezer.
“I think I might like to lie down,” he said, his voice clear, the words articulate, even as he wiped his mouth on his sleeve. His face was flushed, as if the hot food was overcoming him. “If that would be all right.”
“Sure.” I got up from the table, grabbed spare bedding from the closet in my office, made the couch into a bed, then stood to one side, gesturing.
Realizing that he’d been watching me the whole time, as though I might suddenly jump in his direction, teeth bared.
That was the feeling I got from him, though I could not trace the source.
“You can rest. I’ll build up the fire so you won’t get cold. ”
“Thank you,” he said. He began to hobble into the living room. The distance wasn’t far, but with that ankle, it would take too long. Which was bad because now that he’d stopped eating, all of his muscles seemed on the verge of collapse.
“Let me help you.”
Wrapping my arm around his waist, I helped him to the bathroom, then, realizing he couldn’t manage, held him from behind and looked at the ceiling, mentally whistling as he peed into the toilet.
I paused him at the sink so he could wash his hands, but he used so little soap, it was as if he’d forgotten how.
Wiped his hands on his thighs rather than use a towel.
“Let’s get you on the couch.”
I helped him into the makeshift bed, turned off the floor lamp behind the side table, and went to poke up the fire. By the time I turned from that task, he was fast asleep. His long, dark lashes just about made shadows on his cheeks in the glimmer of the firelight.
I turned off the floor lamp on the other side of the couch and, as silently as I could, I went into the kitchen and cleaned up, put away leftovers, did the dishes.
Then I went about the task of checking the doors and windows.
Doors, front and back, were good and solid, as I’d put them in myself the previous summer.
I had a guy install double-paned windows, and they were all locked.
In the kitchen, I looked out the window in the back door, where I should have been able to see my workshop, but all I could see was a wall of white. The cabin felt the sideways wind, but with the brute force of its solid structure, it held firm, resisting the storm.
I checked the gauge set into the wall. The pump from the cistern was working fine, even though I felt I’d not buried it deep enough.
I’d have to keep an eye out. The backup generator, in its own little hut just outside the door, was fine.
I’d checked it yesterday when the announcement for the blizzard had come.
The front door was just as solid as the back door, though there was no window to see out of.
Turning around, I checked on Blue. He was sleeping, his face innocent and calm, blond hair spread across the pillow like a scarf. Then I went to my office. I’d left many tasks undone that day on account of my unexpected visitor, and I needed to catch up.
First, a call to Mr. Tate of Farthingdale Ranch. He’d been one of my earliest customers and had been waiting on the return of a saddle and bridle set I’d repaired for him for over two weeks. I needed to keep him happy in order to help my business grow.
The pieces were well worn, but still sturdy, and the fact that it was the saddle that Bill Wainwright, owner of Farthingdale, had ridden in back in the day, made it a prize. Guests, I’d been told, coveted the opportunity to use that saddle.
I sat at the long, narrow farm table that I used as my desk and dialed the number. The phone at the other end rang three times. I checked the clock on the wall. It was the same time in Montana as it was in Colorado, so I wasn’t calling too late.
“Hello, Tate here,” said Mr. Tate.
“Yes, Mr. Tate,” I said. “It’s Wolfe Bramwell calling.”
“Yes, Wolfe,” he said, his voice rising. “Please call me Leland, if you would.”
“Sure.” I settled the phone more comfortably in my hand. “I’ve got your saddle and bridle ready to be picked up—or I could ship it—but the blizzard is making travel impossible. Either by one of your men, or by UPS.”
“Yes, the blizzard. We’re getting a bit of snow down here, but nothing like where you are. How is it?”
Talking with Leland Tate was always a pleasure. He was typically pleasant, always polite, and the way he talked told me he was very sharp. But I was worried. He’d paid a great deal for the repairs to his set. He should already have it in his possession.
“A whiteout,” I said. “Sideways wind and probably below zero temperatures by now.”
There was a pause. Some clicks. “My app says it’s twenty below where you are,” Leland said. “A good night to be inside. A hot chocolate with marshmallow night, as Jamie says.”
I thought Jamie might be Leland’s partner. Gus had mentioned him, but beyond that, nothing more, and I didn’t want to pry.
“You got that right,” I said, wondering if I had any powdered cocoa on hand. And whether Blue might enjoy some. At the same time, I shifted in my seat, feeling cold. If I’d not found Blue when I had, he’d be dead by now. “But about the saddle.”
“It’ll keep, son,” he said.
Sometimes he called me that. Son. As if he knew me, or had met me in person. I didn’t really mind as I had a feeling he liked me. Maybe Gus had put in a good word for me.
“Of course, it’d be nice to have that saddle back.
Bill cussed me out something fierce when he found out what I did with it.
” A low chuckle. “Maybe take a picture and send it to me so I can show him that it’s in good hands?
You send that invoice, I’ll pay it, and we’ll both keep an eye on the weather.
Maybe I’ll have Hudson drive it down. He used to be in my rehab program for ex-cons. He works for Gus now.”
I knew about that program but had not applied, mostly because my third-class aggravated assault charge was far too piddly for me to be considered an ex-con. I wouldn’t have gotten in. At any rate, I’d been released in August at the tail end of the solitary summer they’d had the program.
“Would he be willing?”
“Hudson?” Tate paused. “I believe so. He used to be a trucker, so maybe he’d be up for it.”
“That’ll work,” I said. “I’ll take that picture and send it to you, and when the weather clears, we’ll get your saddle back.” I didn’t mention the invoice, which was for quite a bit, because I knew Leland Tate was good for it. He had a solid reputation, even all the way up here in Montana.
We ended the call. I put the cell phone down, took a picture of the saddle and bridle, and sent it to him. Then I dug up the invoice, checked the figures against the repairs, which included sheepskin replacement, re-flocking, new stirrup leathers and so on, and emailed it to him.