Chapter 2 #2
I'm not tracking where Sawyer and Rhea have taken Cassie into the intake process, walking her through how the first evening runs from the staff side, where the keys live, what gets logged, and what a client's first two hours on the property actually need from the people working it.
My job is the side-by-side, the tack, and the luggage, and I'm doing my job.
That's a lie. I've looked over there more times than I can count.
Sawyer has her clipboard, and she's talking with Cole and Tatum. Rhea is walking Cassie through something near the arena. Cassie has her head tilted.
I load another saddle and glance again.
Sutton appears from somewhere near the dining hall, Bingo at his heels, doing his best impression of a dog with full control of all four feet. He plants himself in front of the side-by-side like he was always going to end up here.
"I can help," Sutton says.
"You're gonna help," I confirm, and he climbs into the passenger seat without slowing down.
Bingo makes his run at the seat and doesn't make it. I deposit him in Sutton's lap. Bingo immediately goes for his face, and Sutton lets him.
We do two runs. Sutton narrates both of them with authority, managing Bingo's antics with one hand while discussing topics of interest. The extra biscuit he took at breakfast, and nobody saw him.
The gray horse in the third trailer that he'd decided was going to be trouble before it even came down the ramp. The fact that he’s almost decided on a name for his horse, which he doesn't have yet, but the name is very nearly chosen.
"What name?" I say.
Sutton looks at the trees going past. "I'm still deciding about the first part."
"So not decided."
"Almost decided," he says. "It's different."
Logan appears at the barn door on our second pass back and takes in Sutton in the seat with the expression he has for exactly this situation, the one that means I didn't put you there, and I'm not surprised you're there.
Sutton waves.
Logan lifts his chin at me like thank you for that, and heads toward the dining hall.
***
By five, the lot is quiet. The horses are settled.
The gear and luggage are where they need to be.
The ranch has made the shift from arrival energy to first-evening energy.
That loosening when everyone has found their cabin and the work of getting here is finished.
I put the side-by-side away and go clean up before dinner.
Darla and Mandy put out a full spread: pot roast, cornbread, green beans, and mashed potatoes.
The conversation starts low and finds its level as people get comfortable.
Cole is already talking to Weston, who he met hours ago, as if they have a shared history.
Tatum is listening to both of them with the attention of someone who has been translating between Cole and the actual world for a long time and is good at it.
Marcus is asking Logan something about his horse, talking through something that's been bothering him. Logan’s listening and offering ideas the way Logan does, unhurried, like there's nowhere else he needs to be.
Marcus leans forward with his elbows on the table, working something out. "Rowdy does it every time I ask him to move off the rail," he says to Logan. "Just plants."
"How long have you had him?" Logan asks.
"Three years."
"And he's always done it?"
"Always."
Logan nods as if that tells him something. "We'll look at it this week."
Cassie’s at the end of the table nearest the kitchen.
I've been not-watching her all through dinner, which means I've seen everything.
The way she eats, like she's got somewhere to be, ten bites and done with her plate before Cole's finished his story.
The way she pushes her sleeves up to her elbows and doesn't push them back down.
Londyn stops by her chair, tops off her tea, and they talk for a minute, just the two of them, low enough that I can't hear it.
Whatever Cassie says makes Londyn laugh.
I eat. I talk. I tell two things that land the way they're supposed to. I'm myself in all the ways. I'm always myself at a table full of new people, and it costs me nothing. That's what I'm telling myself. Underneath it, I'm not looking at Cassie’s table more than once or twice.
***
The fire pit pulls everyone out after dinner, the June evening holding its warmth, nobody wanting to go back inside yet.
Cole finds a chair that was built for him.
Marcus pulls his chair so close to the fire that Rhea tells him to move it back.
Kade is at the far edge of the fire, and Rhea has a drink already.
Logan and Sawyer are in their chairs with their shoulders close.
Sutton's somewhere at the edge of the firelight with Bingo.
The two of them running their own operation that has nothing to do with the rest of us.
Cassie has the chair closest to the woodpile, and I know which one it is before I sit down.
I grab my guitar.
Kade drops into his chair and looks at me across the fire. "You're going to play that thing all week, whether we want you to or not."
"That's correct," I say.
"Just so we all know where we stand."
Cole gets going on the running board story before the second round is out.
"I want you all to know," he says, "that I have been getting out of trucks my entire life."
"He has," Tatum says from the chair beside him, not looking up.
"Forty-three years. Thousands of trucks. Never once…"
"Cole."
"I'm telling it."
She gestures for him to continue.
"The point is," he says, "that running board had it out for me."
"You caught your boot," Tatum says.
"I caught my boot," he agrees, like this is a perfectly reasonable conclusion to the story. "In front of everyone."
I play through the chord I've been sitting on and say, "I saw it, and I thought you were going to stick the landing."
Cole points at me. "I almost did."
"You went down on one knee," Tatum says.
"Like a proposal," Marcus says from his chair, grinning, and Cole tips his beer at him like fair point.
The circle gets loud for a minute. I play through it, and the fire builds and the night settles into that first-evening ease, the week not started yet, everyone still loose from the drive and the arrival and Darla's chicken.
Bingo drops first, flopping down in the grass with his tongue out. Sutton looks at him, looks at Logan, and climbs into his lap without a word.
Sutton's leaning hard into Logan's arm, eyes at half mast, still talking.
"Sutton," Logan says.
"I'm not tired."
"I know."
"I'm just resting my eyes."
"On my arm."
"It's warm."
Sawyer looks at Logan over Sutton's head, and Logan looks back at her. It's the kind of look that belongs to two people who built something together. I watch the fire instead.
I'm good at this. The fire, the new group, my guitar.
The way a first evening gets people talking, gets them past the awkward first-night quiet.
I play and talk when there's something to say, and the people around the fire get comfortable.
The part of my head that should be doing nothing is doing something else entirely.
I'm working through something slow when Rhea says from across the fire, "Walker. You're slowing down."
"Just thinking," I say.
"About what?"
"The chord."
She gives me a look that says she doesn't believe that for a second and goes back to her drink.
***
I'm working through something slowly when Cassie gets up from her chair. She says something to Rhea, low, and heads toward the staff cabins. Her attention already somewhere past the fire and the voices.
Then she slows.
I don't look up. Keep my eyes on the strings. She's not stopping.
I feel it anyway. That small pause. The moment where her footsteps change rhythm before they pick back up.
She keeps walking.
The chord I've been on should have moved by now. I know this progression the way I know everything I've been playing since I was seventeen. My fingers always ahead of my head, always finding the next note before I've thought about it.
I've been sitting on the same chord three full counts longer than the song needs.
I make myself move to the next one.
"Do you take requests?" Cole asks across the fire.
"Depends on the request," I say.
"Something my wife won't hate."
"That narrows it down," Tatum says.
Rhea points at me. "Don't encourage him."
"Too late," I say.
The circle stays warm and easy for another hour, and I'm all of it, the whole version of myself, no part of me somewhere else.
Mostly.
***
The fire burns low around ten, and the group breaks up easily. I say the goodnights, put my guitar away, and walk back to my cabin in the dark with the fire noise fading behind me.
Nine years at Whispering Creek Ranch. I've worked alongside every kind of person who passes through here. I've never once had to spend the walk back to my cabin running through a conversation that lasted two words and a doorway.
I lie on my back in the dark and stare at the ceiling.
I try to locate something useful in my head about Cassie Holt, and what I find is this.
She slowed at the edge of a fire pit for two seconds.
I held a chord too long, and I still can't figure out what any of it means to her.
It might mean nothing. It probably means nothing.
That might be the problem.
I've never not been able to figure out what someone's thinking.
She's going to be here tomorrow morning.
I'm gonna keep trying.