Chapter Four
The sharp smell of pine shavings, horse sweat, and damp earth hung thick in the barn.
For Alice Sweet, what might have been off-putting to many city folks was as comforting as a pleasant scented candle.
Pitchfork biting into the soiled bedding, she worked her way across the stall one steady scoop at a time.
Over the last few days, one ranch hand after the other had taken to bed.
Her husband Clint had managed to fight a good battle with the bug until this morning when the fever took the starch out of him.
Grunting softly, she lifted another forkful into the wheelbarrow and straightened just enough to ease the pull in her back.
Boot steps sounded in the center aisle, brisk and familiar.
Turning toward the sound, Alice found Sarah Sue framed by the wide barn doors, one hand braced on her hip, the other still holding her truck keys. Dust clung to the hem of her jeans. The look on her face carried equal parts disbelief and concern. “What are you doing?”
Alice set the pitchfork aside and pushed a loose strand of hair off her forehead with the back of her wrist. “I could say we’re getting ready to put on a show, but I think it’s exactly what it looks like, I’m mucking stalls.”
“I went to the house first.” Sarah Sue stepped farther inside, her gaze moving from the wheelbarrow to the half-finished stall and back again. “No one was there. I came here in search of Clint.”
A low scrape sounded from the next stall over.
One section of the half door swung wide and Cassie stepped out backward, tugging a muck tub behind her. “Seems every man within five miles is down with the flu.”
Sarah Sue blew out a breath. “How bad is it?”
“Bad enough.” Alice shrugged then flashed a toothy grin. “Want to roll up your sleeves?”
“I can talk and work.” In jeans and boots—the standard west Texas uniform—Sarah Sue shoved at her sleeves.
“I’m kidding.” Alice held out her hand.
“I’m not.” Sarah Sue took a few steps and reached for a pitch fork. “I got a call from Aaron.”
Leaning both hands on the pitchfork handle, Alice waited.
“Male German Shepherd. Six years old. Good health for the most part.” Sarah Sue paused, as if sorting through what she’d been told and what she already suspected.
“Years of deployment. Helicopters, gunfire, demolition training. All the noise that goes with the work. Somewhere along the line he lost a good part of the hearing in one ear, maybe more. The handlers had no choice.”
Alice’s mouth tightened. “So they retired him.”
“They had to.” Pitchfork in hand, Sarah Sue moved to the stall beside the one Alice was mucking.
“He’s still willing. Still trained. Still wants to work.
But too often he can’t make sense of where the command is coming from.
It’s clear he’s confused when several voices are going at once.
Startles if someone comes up too quickly on the deaf side.
Not mean. Not aggressive. More… lost than anything. ”
“Poor baby,” Alice murmured.
“That was Kade’s reaction.” Sarah Sue glanced toward the stall where a mare had lifted her head to listen. “A dog like that has spent his whole life doing exactly what was asked of him. Now he just can’t process the world the same way he used to.”
Silence settled over the three women for a moment.
Cassie broke the quiet first. “What’s his name?”
“Valor.”
Alice smiled faintly. “Well, of course, it is.”
The faint smile on Sarah Sue’s face didn’t hold. “Aaron wanted to know if we’d take him.”
“And what did you tell him?”
“That I needed to talk to you first.”
That earned her a look.
“Oh, don’t start.” Hanging on to the pitch fork with one hand, Sarah Sue raised the other at her mother-in-law. “We both know you’re going to say yes. I just figured it was polite to ask before another German Shepherd landed on your porch.”
Setting the pitch fork aside, Alice rested her hands on the top rail, her gaze settling steadily past them toward the sunlit yard outside the barn before she slowly nodded. “Of course we’ll take him.”
Sarah Sue bobbed her head once, as if she’d expected nothing less.
“We’ll need routine,” Alice continued, already thinking ahead. “Quiet where we can get it. One person at a time to start. No crowding. No shouting commands from six directions. Let the poor boy figure out where he is before everyone starts telling him what to do. He needs to find purpose.”
“Aaron said much the same.” Sarah Sue shifted closer. “And heaven knows there’s plenty of purpose to be found on a working ranch. For what it’s worth, Valor responds beautifully to hand signals.”
From outside came the faint sound of boots crossing the yard.
Not hurried. Not dragging either. Measured steps, one after the other, drawing closer.
A moment later Hanson appeared in the doorway.
Blue jeans replaced the khakis. A worn pair of boots had taken the place of loafers.
Sleeves rolled to his forearms, he almost looked like he belonged.
Almost. It was still clear to anyone who could see the man was no longer comfortable in his own skin and certainly not so in Kade’s old clothes and boots.
“Sorry it took so long.” He paused just inside the barn, gaze moving from Alice to Sarah Sue to Cassie and then to the wheelbarrow. “I gave Clint some more juice and ibuprofen.”
“You didn’t get too close, did you?” Alice straightened. “Don’t need you taking to your bed too.”
“No ma’am.” The hint of a smile teasing one corner of his mouth was the first sign of a smile she’d seen and it made her happier than she would have thought.
If there was a time when Hanson felt less comfortable in his skin than he did right now, he couldn’t think of it. His gaze dropped to the pitchfork. “What do I do?”
“Help Cassie.” Alice pointed at the next stall with her chin.
Without hesitation he crossed the aisle, took hold of the spare fork leaning against the wall, and stepped into the stall. One quick look over the bedding, one at the tub, and at Cassie’s flushed cheeks and he wished he’d gotten here sooner.
The barn seemed unusually quiet. The few times he’d wandered inside there was usually a conversation going on between the hands or between man and horse. Considering the place had women working, the lack of conversation surprised him, unless… “What did I interrupt?”
One gelding stamped a hoof. Apparently, he had a few thoughts for Hanson.
“There’s a military dog that has been retired but it is not ready for rehoming. He’s had some hearing loss.”
“So he can’t work.” Knowing that without struggling to put the pieces together made him feel almost like himself again. Almost. Hands settling on the top of the fork handle, Hanson looked down at the shavings a second too long before lifting his gaze. “When does he arrive?”
Alice faced Sarah Sue.
“Maybe tomorrow?” Sarah Sue shrugged at Alice.
The family matriarch nodded. “Hopefully, he won’t catch the flu too.”
Without another word, the three women and Hanson returned to mucking stalls.
One by one, as each stall was cleaned, the horses were returned to their abodes.
Oddly, he could have sworn each one looked at their caretakers with gratitude for a clean home.
That or they were subtly hoping for a treat.
And since Alice gave each horse an apple or carrot depending on the animal’s preference, he wasn’t sure which of the two was the right assumption.
What he did know was that he wanted to help with the dog. Not that he knew a whole lot about training dogs, but he did understand how it felt to be counted on and unable to deliver. To hear words and not be able to find the appropriate response filed away in a battered brain.
Even though he had his doubts that mucking stalls or eating homemade pies would help his brain any, he wanted to make a difference in the dog’s life. No, he didn’t want to—he needed to. Maybe that was something his addled brain could manage.
Seated at the kitchen table, sliding a small red tile stamped with the letter E to the end of the word, Kat tapped the smooth wooden surface with the eraser end of her pencil.
She’d been pleased to discover on their first visit that Mason had a good grasp of short vowels in short words.
He had that rule down pat, so today she moved on to the next rule for longer words.
“All right. Let’s look now. We have M-A-D.
Mad. What happens when we add the bossy E to the end? ”
Staring at the color-coded tiles, the young boy’s brow furrowed in deep concentration.
“Does the E have a sound?”
The boy shook his head. “The E is silent. But…” His gaze lifted to meet hers. “It makes the first vowel say its name.”
“Exactly.” Kat smiled at the boy, her heart doing a little jig when a pride filled grin beamed at her. These were the moments that made her love her work. Using the same pencil end, she pointed from left to right. “So if the A says its name, mad becomes…”
“Mm-ay-d. Made,” he repeated, the sappy grin back in place.
“Perfect.” Giving him two thumbs up, she swept the tiles aside and lined up K-I-T. “Now do this one.”
“Kit.”
“And with the E?” She slid the red tile to the end.
“Kite!” The kid was practically bouncing out of his seat. Success in reading was so rare for these kids that when a building block of words falls into place, the accomplishment was on par with winning an Olympic gold medal.
They worked a little longer building more confidence in his continued success when she decided best to quit before he tired out. Returning her learning aids to her phonics tool kit, she slapped the lid shut and stuffed it into her leather satchel.
“Mama said if I did good today, I could help brush the horses when we’re done.”
“You did better than good, you did great.” Slinging the heavy leather strap over her shoulder, Kat gave him a quick wink.
Following the boy out onto the back porch, the late afternoon air wrapped around her like a familiar old quilt.
The difference being the usual hive of activity she’d find at the ranch had been replaced by an eerie stillness.
Mason’s mom had filled her in on the flu sweeping through the ranch, and excused herself to help with the chores.
Even though she understood why, the silence still felt heavy.
Walking around the property to her car in front, a rhythmic thud drew her attention toward the open doors of the main feed shed.
Parked just outside the overhang a flatbed truck was loaded with massive sacks.
Standing on the bed of the truck, Hanson hoisted a bag onto his shoulder.
The pristine khakis from yesterday were gone, replaced by worn denim and a plain gray t-shirt, damp with sweat, and clinging to his chest. He didn’t move like the chaotic menace who had nearly run her down in the parking lot the other day.
There was no rushing, no reckless jerking.
Instead, he moved with a deliberate, almost mathematical precision.
Lift. Turn. Step. Stack. He repeated the sequence with a slow, grinding steadiness that spoke of pure willpower rather than natural ease.
Watching him work, a twinge of guilt nudged at her conscience.
Alice had mentioned the man was recovering from an accident.
Given the careful way he planted his boots before transferring the weight of the heavy bags, whatever had happened to him had left a lingering mark.
Yet here he was, stepping into the gap left by sick ranch hands, doing the heavy lifting without an audience to praise him.
Having finished the row, he swiped the back of his forearm across his brow and paused, staring at the stacked bags. No movement. The man stood still, his gaze narrowed, focused, and yet. No movement at all. Almost as if he was stuck in time. Both hands came to his face, scrubbing up and down.
Feeling like a voyeur, she couldn’t bring herself to move, fascinated by the stillness of the man on the truck bed. Forcing herself to put one foot in front of the other, she marched up to the vehicle. “Hi there.”
His head whipped around so fast she almost turned to see if something else was behind her. “Hello.” To her surprise, there was a blank look in his expression so strong that she spotted the exact moment recognition dawned. “Nice to see you, Kat.”
“Having fun unloading the truck?”
This time his gaze darted to the bags left on the truck and the stack on the ground in the shed. She could almost see the wheels turning when he blew out a sigh and nodded slowly to no one in particular. “Yes. Unloading. I was unloading.”
Odd response. Then it hit her. He’d forgotten what he was doing.
If he was loading or unloading. That was what he was recovering from.
Suddenly the flicker of a guilty conscience from her anger the other day exploded into full-blown regret.
“And doing a splendid job of it. Alice must be delighted with the extra help.”
“It’s the least I can do for all the family is doing for me.”
“You forgot, didn’t you?”
His gaze narrowed, his jaw line tightened, and his fists clenched at his side before his shoulders slumped and he blew out a heavy sigh. “I forget steps sometimes.”
“Like which is reverse or drive?”
“Or the gas pedal and the clutch. Yeah.”
She bobbed her head. “The accident?”
“Explosion.” He turned and grabbed another sack from the bed of the truck.
“I’m sorry.”
His head tipped to one side and his gaze leveled with hers. “For what?”
“Everything. For my behavior in the parking lot, for the explosion, for the struggles.” She shrugged. “Just everything.”
He paused a moment, mid step. Opened his mouth as if he were going to say something and then just nodded and went back to work.
“Well,” she took a step back, “I should be on my way.” Spinning around, she headed to her car, ideas already batting around in her mind.
Behind the wheel, she turned the ignition, her mind made up.
As soon as she got home she had some things to look up.
Whether or not she could help the Sweet’s houseguest was at the top of the list.