Chapter Four
It’s been a long day of feeding, mucking, and ranching, and my dogs are barking as I head into the shed and look for the feed for my
oldest horse, Tango. He’s an old dapple gray, the very first horse we ever got when we moved to the ranch, in fact, and he’s pushing on
in years. About twenty-five I reckon, and he needs special feed and such, unlike the newer, younger horses. Easier stuff to chew with
more vitamins and such to help with bone health.
“Shoot,” I sigh to myself as I sift through the bags of feed.
“What’s wrong?” Mitch asks, coming up behind me with a mucking rake in his hand, setting it against the wall next to some other
tools.
“We’re out of that senior horse feed for Tango,” I reply as I get up with a grunt, my knees starting to weaken, not what they once were.
Guess I’ll need some of that feed soon too,I think to myself, holding back a chuckle. Fifty-four isn’t some spring chicken.
“Aw shoot,” Mitch replies. “Did you want me to go get it?” he asks, and I look at my wristwatch and shake my head.
“Nah, it’s nearly six now. You’ve already stayed way longer than you should have for the day,” I say as I walk out of the shed and into
the sun, its rays warming my face. “Just make sure all the tools you’ve been using are put away and head home.”
“Well, alright then,” Mitch replies as he follows me out. “I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
“Yep, I’ll catch ya later,” I say as I pat my back pocket to make sure my wallet was still there and head for my truck. I crank up the tunes
and head out to town, tapping my fingers on the steering wheel to Clint Black’s “Like the Rain” as I weave through the hills.
I make it to town just as the radio’s DJ switches for the night crew, signaling that it was finally six. The six o’ clock crew played mostly
new stuff, and while I don’t hate the newer stuff, I’m definitely a nineties and older kind of country man.
Give me Travis Tritt, Clint Black, Joe Diffie, Mark Chestnut. . . even Shania if you had me in the right mood. Mel had loved her, that’s for
sure. Her and those Dixie Chicks, but I suppose they’re not called that anymore. The Chicks is what they’re called now, I think. Either
way, the nineties were an amazing time for me, a time when love had found me. I cherish them and those songs deeply. They remind
me of better times.
I stepped into a supply store and, much to my frustration, had to try two others before I found Tango’s feed, everyone else but
Weatherby’s out of stock. As I lifted the two bags I’d snagged and put them into the back of my old Ford F-350, I felt my pocket
vibrate.I dipped my hand in and pulled out my phone, unlocked the screen, and saw that Zack had texted.
Hey Dad, since you’re downtown, do you think you could stop at the store and grab me some deodorant and some snacks? Honey
mustard pretzels, pickles, and some salt and vinegar chips?
Sure,I replied as I climbed into the cabin of the truck and chuckled to myself. You’re going to become a pickle at this rate with all those
pickles and salt.
Luckily, when I pull into the parking lot of the store, it’s pretty dead, which is probably not so great for the store but great for me. I’m
not really much of a man for crowds, nor do I really socialize much, so I avoid them any time I can. Plus, it means I can actually get to
the butcher counter to talk to Alan about bringing a few cows down for him to take care of and sell. Something I’ve been meaning to
do for weeks.
I grab a handbasket and get to work, first grabbing a few things I knew we would need soon, remembering that we were out of bacon,
having used the rest on breakfast this morning. Then, I began to start on Zack’s little list.
Admittedly, I’m distracted by my own thoughts as I quickly glance down at my phone screen when suddenly, something slams me
square in the chest as I turn down the chip isle, something hard. When I look away from my phone and down at my chest, it’s covered
in bits of blueish-purple goop and crusty flakes, alongside a couple of soft blueberries. The aroma of pie fills my nose.
“Ow!” I hear a whine drift up from the floor, and my eyes glance from my light blue button-up and down toward the sound to see a
rather beautiful woman sitting there on the tile floor. She’s about my age, no, younger, I think. . . equally covered in pie, and the rest of
it is crumbled all around her in clumps. Immediately, I feel terrible. Her tight-fitting, red and white dress no doubt completely ruined
by the mess I’d caused.
She must be new,I think to myself as I realize I’ve never seen her face before. No one dresses like that around here. Even her hair
reminds of the old pin-up mags my grandpa used to have in the garage, pin curls and all. Almost too Hollywood to ever be from Texas.
She’s. . . gorgeous.
“Ms., I am so sorry,” I say as I put out my hand to try to help her up. “I can give you the money for a new dress or some dry cleaning or
something.” But her piercing brown eyes leer at me from beneath her doe-like lashes with an icy stare as she smacks my hand away from her, her eyes glazed over with tears.
“What is wrong with you?” she exclaims, pushing herself up to her feet and pulling off her leather gloves, doing her best to brush what
she could off the front of her—anything that wasn’t stuck to the fabric of her dress.
The southern twang in her voice revealed that she was, at the very least, from the south. But her attitude was certainly not the good
old calm, cool, and collected tone I’d come to know in my fifty-four years. In fact, it caught me off guard.
“Don’t you know how to look where you’re going?” she asks, her voice seeming to become more and more angry by the second.
“I said I was sorry,” I reply, and she shakes her head.
“That’s what you men always think solves it, huh? Sorry, as if that ever means a dang thing,” she spits and I’m taken aback by one, her
sudden affront to all men just from an accident and two, her entire demeanor in general.
Maybe she’s having a bad day,I think to myself as I try to figure out a way to diffuse the situation. “Listen, Ms., I don’t want any trouble
here, I promise. I’m just trying to do the right thing.”
She begins to sob, shaking her head. “The only right thing you could have done was watch what you were doing, you. . . you. . . lunkhead!”
“Lunkhead?” I repeat, flabbergasted at her escalation. “Lady, it was an accident, it’s not the end of the world.”
“Oh, can it!” she says. “If you hadn’t been eyes deep into your phone, looking at God knows what, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“I was looking at my son’s list of things he needed,” I reply, my voice raising as I can feel the prickles of anger begin to burn in my
arms. “As if you never made a mistake in your life.”
Suddenly, her face goes from angry to upset, and she begins to sob, like she’s a living mood swing. “Screw you!” she manages to
choke out, and before I can get another word in edgewise, she’s already stomping toward the front door, her pumps clicking loudly
with every step.
“Jeezum crow,” I hear a voice say behind me, “that was intense.”
“What a nut job,” I say as a teenage boy from the checkout comes over and hands me some paper towels to wipe off my shirt.
“Thanks.”
“No problem,” the kid says. “Sorry about that, I’ll have to call Glen to come clean this up.”
“You don’t got to bother the janitor,” I said as I finished cleaning myself up and got on my hands and knees. “I got this if you’ve got
some cleaner at your register. Was my fault anyways.”
The helpful clerk scurried off and came back with a bottle of spray cleaner and a little trash bag, and I went to work, cleaning up the
obliterated blueberry pie from the floor. After I got it all up, I picked my basket back up and went right back to shopping, though I
tried to cautiously rush through it.
I skipped talking to Alan, not too keen on spending much more time in the store with pie all over me, and made it back to the register,
only to be checked out by the nice young man who had helped me earlier.
“Gosh, what a weird woman, huh?” he says.
“Yeah, well, you don’t know what someone’s going through I suppose,” I say as he rings up my groceries. I pull out my wallet, pay in
cash, leave him a tip while he’s distracted—so he can’t argue with me about it—and head back out to the truck.
I carefully peel off the shirt and fold the mess in on itself so none of it gets on my seat, leaving me in my black undershirt and jeans.
Welp, I’m going to definitely need another shower,I think to myself as I take a closer look in the rearview, noticing there’s blueberry
streaked across my face, my ear, and even in my hair.
By the time I get back home, it’s getting late, nearly seven-thirty. When I get through the door, Zack and Noah are sitting at the table,
waiting patiently like two pups at supper time.
“Hey!” Noah calls out, nose in his phone.
“Evening,” I reply as I push the door open with my foot, hands full of grocery bags as I hand Zack his.
“Where’s my snacks?” Noah whines as he gives me a weird look.
“You didn’t text,” I say with a shrug.
“What happened to your shirt? Is that the new fashion now? To go out in a tank top?” Zack teased. “Wait a minute, what’s on your face?”
“It’s a long story,” I reply as I put on Mel’s apron and grab the bag of chicken I’d marinated from the fridge and put it on the counter.
“Well, it’s been a boring day, and we got time,” Noah replies.
“I was at the store, and some crazy lady ran into me with her pie,” I reply.
“Oof,” Noah replies as I grab the shirt I’d brought in to soak and show them the damage.
“Golly! She really did slam into you,” Zack says.
“Actually, it was my fault,” I say, correcting myself. “I was looking down at my phone and whacked into her. Ruined her dress and
everything.”
“Hmm, it’s almost like someone shouldn’t be paying attention so closely to their phone,” Zack teased, echoing a statement that I find
myself saying to the boys daily.
“Well, I could have just not got your stuff then, huh?” I sassed back as Noah burst into laughter.
“Ah, good point,” Zack says with a nod.
“You said she was crazy though? How do you know that?” Noah asks.
“Well, usually when someone makes a mistake, they don’t scream like a dang banshee over it,” I say with a sigh as I pull the meat out
of the bag, slap it onto the cutting board, and begin tenderizing it a bit with the meat mallet.
“She yelled at you?” Zack asks.
“Yep, made a complete scene out of the whole ordeal,” I reply in between whacks. “I even offered to pay for her dress or dry cleaning,
but she was going off about how men never mean nothing they say or some garbage.”
“Sounds like someone was already in their feelings,” Zack replies.
“You’re probably right,” I agree. “Don’t matter though. You can’t—”
“Take your feelings out on others,” the boys say, completing my thought.
“Exactly,” I say with a smile as I pull a pan out from the cupboard, lay the chicken breasts in the pan, and then slide them in the oven before starting a timer.
“Well, hopefully she finds peace,” Zack says.
“Yeah, well, as long as it’s far away from me, that’ll be just fine,” I say as the three of us crack up. “Now. is someone going to help me
peel these potatoes?”
“I’ll do it,” Zack says as he gets up, grabs the bag of potatoes, and starts washing some in the sink before bringing them to the table to
peel. My eyes look toward the calendar. Only one more day before that dreaded day. . . and even though it’s been ten years, I still just
want to hole up in my room and sit there and ignore the world.
But I know I can’t.
I’ve got to keep moving, even if it hurts.