Chapter 30 #2
The grove was already unrecognizable from the tangled mess I’d first stumbled on during Gideon’s tour all those weeks ago. I set the cushion boxes down beside the bench and stood there for a minute, hands on my hips, taking stock.
The garden beds I’d been tending were actually blooming, purple coneflower and wild columbine pushing up from the dirt.
The bench was sanded smooth, the silver-grey wood warm to the touch when the sun hit it right.
I’d even hauled a few flat stones from the creek bed to create a little stepping path from the main trail to the base of the cottonwood.
My haven. My project. The one place on this ranch that was entirely mine.
I made two more trips back to the porch, hauling the boxes that contained the water feature, and my coffee.
The lights went up first. I stood carefully on the bench and wound the solar string through the lower branches of the cottonwood until they draped in loose, pretty loops overhead, then looped them around the space on the extra posts I’d purchased.
They wouldn’t turn on until dark, but I already knew they’d be gorgeous.
The cushions went on the bench next. Deep forest green against the silver wood. I smoothed them flat, adjusted the angles twice, then stood back and admired my work like I was staging a listing for a luxury real estate magazine.
The water feature took longer. It was a small, tiered stone basin that recycled its own water, no hose needed, just a solar pump.
I positioned it near the bench where the sound would carry, then filled it from jugs I lugged from the house.
After a few minutes in the sun, the pump kicked on and a soft, steady trickle of water filled the grove.
I sipped my coffee and surveyed the scene. It was beautiful. Genuinely, truly beautiful. All it needed was the reading chair I had on order—a wide, round, cushioned nest with a canopy that would be perfect for curling up with a book on warm afternoons.
One thing still bugged me, though. The tall grass and scrub at the base of the cottonwoods was thick and wild, ruining the otherwise tended look of everything around it.
I’d briefly considered getting down on hands and knees to trim it with a pair of scissors, but that felt like a “city girl” thing to do.
I rolled my eyes at myself, knowing they made tools for this sort of thing.
Which is how I ended up in the barn twenty minutes later, standing in front of a gas-powered weed whacker that looked like it could take my arm off.
I pulled out my phone and typed “how to use a weed whacker for beginners” into YouTube.
The first video was twelve minutes long and featured a man in cargo shorts who kept calling it a “string trimmer” while his wife yelled at him from the porch about the flower beds.
The second was for a different brand. The third was a teenager who spoke so fast I caught maybe every fourth word, but he did demonstrate how to load the line, so I watched that one twice.
Armed with questionable knowledge and the safety glasses I’d swiped from the nearby workbench, I hauled the machine back to the grove, grumbling about how it was heavier than it looked.
I set my stance the way cargo-shorts guy had demonstrated, gripped the handle, and pulled the starter cord.
Nothing happened.
I pulled again, harder this time, and the engine coughed once, then died.
“This is supposed to be the easy part,” I muttered at it.
On the third try, I yanked the cord with all the force I could muster, and the engine roared to life so aggressively that I stumbled back a step and nearly tripped over the water feature.
“Oh my God.” I tightened my grip, steadied my footing, and grinned. The vibration buzzed up through my arms and into my shoulders. It was a very angry, very powerful weapon of “grass” destruction, and I was immediately obsessed.
I touched the spinning line to the first patch of tall grass at the base of the cottonwood and watched it disappear. Gone. Obliterated. Weeks of frustration weeding with my little trowel, and this beautiful, violent machine solved the problem in seconds.
Working my way around the trunk, I cleared a wide swath through the scrub. Cut grass sprayed my jeans and stuck to the sweat on my forearms, but I didn’t care. I was a woman with a power tool and a mission, and I was having the time of my life.
I was halfway done when the line hit something hard.
A sharp metallic clang cut through the engine noise, vibrating up the shaft and into my wrists. I released the throttle and the motor sputtered down to an idle, then silence as I killed the engine and set the whacker in the grass.
Crouching down, I brushed aside the freshly cut debris.
A flat marker sat embedded in the earth at the base of the tree.
Tarnished brass that gleamed as the sunlight caught it.
I pulled off my gloves and brushed the remaining dirt away with my bare fingers.
The marker was larger than I’d first thought.
The tall grass had been hiding the full scope of it.
A heavy brass plate, maybe a foot wide, mounted on a flat river stone that had been deliberately set into the earth at the base of the cottonwood.
Someone had placed this here with care. With permanence.
Easton James Calhoun Beloved Brother, Packmate, and Father “Ride eternal, cowboy.”
My hands went still.
Calhoun.
I knew that name. I’d worn its owner’s scent on my skin when I’d held his hand in the school parking lot and called myself his.
I stared at the marker until the letters blurred.
Brother. Packmate. Father.
I couldn’t breathe as I stood up, stripped off the safety glasses, and walked.
I didn’t go to the house. I crossed the east pasture with the grass whipping at my shins and the sun hot on the back of my neck, heading for the fence line Gideon had mentioned that morning.
I found him a quarter mile out. Shirtless, his back slick with sweat, a post driver braced against his shoulder. The muscles in his arms and back flexed with each strike, and the silver chain at his throat caught the midday light every time he brought the driver down.
The chain. The necklace he touched when he thought nobody was watching. The one he gripped like a lifeline when the noise got too loud.
He must have heard my boots in the grass because he stopped mid-swing and turned. His storm-grey eyes found mine, and whatever he saw on my face made his hands go slack on the post driver.
I stopped ten feet away. The wind pulled at my hair, carrying the mingled scent of cut grass and sweat and tobacco between us.
My voice was hoarse as I asked the question burning in my throat.
“Who’s Easton?”