16. MATTHEW
Chapter sixteen
MATTHEW
SETTLING IN AND STEPPING UP
I step out of the milking barn and just catch sight of a few figures walking into the main house. “When did you get here?” I hear Atlas ask someone, and I follow the voices around to the other side of the stables.
“Gramps made us park up by the road, you know how he is,” the other voice replies.
“Yeah, I do,” Atlas replies, and I round the corner and find him smiling so wide it has to be stinging his cheeks.
“So, you just going to stand there, or are you coming in?” he asks the guy, and he leaps over the rail in a single bound.
When he turns to head over to Atlas, I get a better look at his face and recognize the youngest of the Beaker brothers, Alan.
He’s tall and wide and walks with an air about him like he’s strutting down some fashion runway, not crossing a horse paddock.
At dinner the other night, I remember Dean and Nial calling him the baby Beaker, and when I asked why, they said it was because he always looked so much smaller than them. He doesn’t look that much smaller now.
“You’ve been here two minutes, and you’re already in with the horses?” someone else calls from behind me, and Atlas and Alan look my way as another guy, who I’m assuming is Ryan, Alan’s partner, jogs past me. I paint on my smile and jog over too.
“Best place on the ranch,” I say, and I hold out my hand. “Hi, I’m Matthew. You’re Ryan, right?” I ask, and he gladly shakes my hand.
“That’s me. So, Matthew, are you a new ranch hand the guys hired to help with the horses?”
Atlas laughs, and I shoot him a playful glare.
“I help on the ranch,” I say, and he nods. Alan nudges his side like it’s something he’s done a million times, and it’s the most relaxed I’ve seen Atlas other than earlier today with me.
“You can help out now and go and let out the next two,” Atlas tells me, and I climb the rail half as gracefully as Alan went over a moment before.
Wait. Where’s Loki? I think, and I scan the field but can’t see him. Maybe Atlas put him back in his stable already. I step into the new stables, and then I spot him at the end, head buried in a basket.
“What are you doing?” I ask, but of course he can’t hear me. I move toward him slowly, not wanting to scare him, but when he lifts his head, the basket is looped over his face blocking his vision, and he takes off toward the doorway. I press myself against the closest stall as he gallops past.
“Runaway horse,” I yell as I follow behind Loki. Everyone turns, then he whips his head with a great neigh, the basket flies off, and he skids to a stop like a cartoon character, stiffens, and falls over.
“This must be Loki,” Alan chuckles. “I thought Dean was exaggerating about the whole playing possum thing.”
“Is he okay?” Ryan calls from the side. He’s climbed up on the first railing to try to get a better look. Loki’s nostrils flare, but he otherwise remains still. I crouch beside him and stroke his neck.
“You don’t have to be afraid of these guys. They’re your family too,” I tell Loki, and Atlas and Alan stand on either side of him.
“I thought Dean said he was deaf,” Alan says.
“He is,” Atlas replies. “Matthew… likes to talk to him anyway.”
“Ahhh, so he’s like Connor with the cows?” Alan says, and Atlas slaps him on the back of his shoulder.
“Exactly. Come help me get the rest of the horses out. Matthew will get Loki sorted,” Atlas tells him, and they walk around us toward the new stables.
On their way, I hear Alan ask, “Why did you name him Loki again?” And I have to laugh.
The Marvel movies are a favorite of most of the guys on the ranch, and Atlas thought calling a horse that played dead Loki was fitting, though he wasn’t too impressed to find out that Loki dies for real in the movies. Either way, the name stuck.
Loki lifts his head a little, and I try not to get too excited, but it’s the most he’s done around other people, ever.
“You can do it. I know you can. This is just like when it’s you and me and the other horses. It’s easy. You can stand, look, I’ll do it first,” I say, and I stand up. His ears flick slightly, and I know he’s watching me. I kneel again.
“See how easy that was. Now it’s your turn, come on, up up up,” I say, and I stand again. His head lifts a little, but that’s it. I crouch, my thighs starting to burn. I pet him slowly. “I know you can do this.”
His nostrils flare again, and his ears flick, then I feel someone behind me.
“Do you think a carrot might tempt him?” Ryan asks, and he crouches beside me, and Loki’s ears follow him.
“Can’t hurt. Give it a go,” I say, and he looks like I asked him to stick his hand in a barrel of snakes. “He won’t bite you.”
“Are you sure?” he asks, hand shaking a little as he starts to move the carrot closer to Loki’s mouth. Loki’s nostrils flare again.
“I’m positive,” I say, and I pet Loki as Ryan gets up the courage to try to feed it to him. Loki’s lips flutter and curl, and then his mouth opens, and his tongue helps to reel in the carrot.
“He took it,” Ryan exclaims excitedly.
“Now we just need to get him to stand,” I reply, and Ryan reaches behind him and pulls out another carrot. Loki clocks it right away.
“Can I give him another one?”
“Make him work for it this time,” I say, and Ryan holds the carrot just out of reach. Loki tries to get it with his tongue, all the while still lying on his side on the ground pretending he’s dead, and the way his tongue flops to the side when he fails to get it actually helps pull off the look.
“Is there anything else he loves besides carrots?” Ryan asks.
“Dancing,” I reply.
“Really?”
“Sort of. He likes jumping around while I dance, but I’m not doing that right now.”
“Fair enough,” he replies, and he stands, moving the carrot further out of reach. Loki lifts his head all the way off the ground this time to try to knock me on my ass. Ryan dangles the carrot in front of Loki, and then for the first time ever, he stands in front of someone new.
Atlas cheers from over by the barn. “How’d you get him to do that?”
“It’s all Ryan,” I call back as I stand and give Loki a scratch behind his ears, as Ryan pulls out yet another carrot to feed him.
“How many of those do you have back there?” I ask, and he laughs.
“Only one more. I don’t think he got up for me, it was just the carrots.”
“Skye’s been trying to bribe him with carrots and every other treat he can think of to get him to stop playing dead around him.”
“So I should maybe not mention this at dinner, then?”
“Yeah, probably not.”
Loki takes off to the far side of the paddock, which is good, because Dean, Nial, their gramps, and who I’m assuming is their sister, Kelly, make their way through the stables and onto the field.
“So, you work on the ranch?”
“Yeah, I help out here, but my job is actually as Connor’s assistant.”
“Really? You’re the suit?”
“Should I be worried that the nickname they gave me is catching on?”
“Sorry, Alan mentioned there was a suit guy, you know, a business type guy, who was managing orders and stuff. I never expected… well, you.”
I feel the deep frown etched into my forehead.
“I’m going to need a little more context to determine if I should be offended or not,” I say, and his eyes go wide.
“No. No. No, it wasn’t like that. I mean, you look like you belong out here, the way you were with the horse. You don’t look like a suit. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a suit.”
I break and burst out laughing. Ryan shoves me and laughs.
“You totally had me. Oh wow, you really are one of them now, aren’t you?”
I shrug. “I like to think I’m getting there.”
“I’m sure you are. Atlas, tell him, he’s fitting in perfectly out here, right?” Ryan asks, and I turn to find Atlas behind me, smiling, his broad arms folded over his chest.
“He’s finding his way.”
“Sure is,” Ryan says, and he jogs over to Alan and leaps onto his back, wrapping his arms around his neck. They spin in place laughing and smiling, and it’s nice.
“So, I’m finding my way,” I say, and Atlas smirks that cheeky smile of his.
“Yeah, you’re doing alright. It was nice of you to give the credit to Ryan for getting Loki up.”
“It really was him. I think I’m starting to understand how his mind works,” I say, and we start a slow stroll back toward the stables.
“Ryan’s?” Atlas asks, and I shake my head.
“Loki.”
“Right. So, what have you figured out?”
“He’s the most comfortable around people who aren’t asking anything of him.”
“Pretty sure I heard an ‘up up up’ from you not that long ago.”
I roll my eyes. “Did it work?”
“Well, no.”
“Exactly. It wasn’t until Ryan stopped focusing on Loki and just stood up that he realized there were no expectations on him and he got up on his own.”
“So how do you explain his playing dead around guests?”
“The Pattersons walked right by him the other day. They didn’t know Loki was there, but he saw them.”
“So you think it’s more of an eye-contact thing?” he asks.
“Maybe. We’d have to test it.”
“I’ll get Skye to come out, and we can test it. Where did Loki go?” he asks, turning in a circle looking for him, but then my attention shifts to something in the grass a few feet away, and I rush forward like an excited child and bend to pick up the shiny penny.
“What you got there?” he asks, as I walk back over, turning it over between my fingers.
“A lucky penny.”
“How many does that make now?”
“One hundred and eighty-one.”
“Wow, that’s a lot of bottled-up luck. How exactly do you use the luck you collect?” he asks, and I laugh.
“It’s not something you get to pick when you use it; you just hold onto it, and the luck grows on you, sort of. It’s hard to explain.”
Thunder claps above us, and a few of the horses neigh.
“Looks like your explanation is going to have to wait. Storm’s rolling in. Help me get these guys away?”
“Not much of an afternoon run.”
“They’ll be happier inside when it’s on top of us.
You might not get back to town before it hits.
You can wait it out with me if you want.
You know, in my trailer. It has a huge skylight so we can watch the storm,” he says, and I try to hold back my smile, but I can feel it teasing at the corners of my mouth.
“Only if we can be naked,” I lean in to whisper.
“Did you think we’d be any other way?”