24. Jake
Jake
When I showed up at the barn early, Jesse told me I wasn’t behind on my chores, but I felt like I was. So much had been happening at the ranch, it seemed there must be things being left undone. Unattended to.
Not wanting to contribute to that, I’d left Dalton in bed as the sun came up, the low light through the windows streaking toward sudden purple and lilac. I’d gotten myself ready quietly. Then I’d kissed him on the forehead, pulled the cotton sheet up to his chin, and tiptoed out.
Soon after I started mucking out box stalls, Xander poked his head in. He’d taken a shower, but he still looked like a lost dog who’d recently been rescued from the rain.
His dark hair was finger-combed, lip ring glinting in the early sunshine.
The bruises on his face were darkening to deep purple.
They’d fade and disappear eventually, but they had to hurt like hell.
Which made me wonder why he was in the barn.
The kids in the LGBTQ program didn’t need to get up so early.
“Xander,” I said as he came over to me. “Help you?”
There were two other ranch hands working in the barn, as well as Jesse, but Xander had come to me. I wanted to hear what he had to say.
“I want to help,” he said. “To make up for Daybreak.”
“Daybreak’s fine. You can come with me in a little while to pick her up.”
“I want to work,” he said. “That’s what you said would matter. To work and ask questions. Do my best.”
His face fell after a moment, possibly because I wasn’t saying anything. I was too busy absorbing the fact that he’d taken what I’d said to heart.
This must have been how Walter had felt, back when I arrived at the ranch. When he’d say Do this, and I’d say How long for?
My responses had been based on fear, at first. That whatever I did wouldn’t be enough and that Walter just wanted to see me screw up so he could get rid of me. That hadn’t been the truth at all. I’d gotten hit-the-lottery lucky with Walter, who had been patience itself.
Now was my chance to pay it forward. I never thought I’d get such an opportunity, yet here it was, in the shape of a young man who could have taken a wrong turn at this particular crossroads.
Yet he’d gotten up early today, too. The dining hall wasn’t even open yet, and here he was, ready to go to work. The only question I had to ask myself was what would Walter do.
“I’m glad you’re here,” I said, pulling on memories that were good and strong.
“We’re going to muck out a few stalls, and then, like how we walked around the property last night keeping an eye out for coyotes, this morning we’re going to check the paddocks.
Gates and locks. There are a lot of different things we do here to keep the animals safe. ”
“Okay.” He had no idea how a ranch worked, what needed to be done on a daily basis. But he was willing to learn, and that was worth a lot in my book. He also needed to get kitted up, so it would make sense to do that when we went into town to pick up Daybreak.
We mucked out two stalls, then went to an early breakfast. I scanned the room for Dalton, but he must have been asleep still, and the picture that presented made me feel good all over. He was asleep in my bed. Mine.
“In a bit, we’ll go get Daybreak,” I told Xander. “You’ll be a big help to me.”
There was a little light in his eyes. A faint glow that made me want to feed it with slivers of wood and patient breath, so it could grow to its full height.
“Let’s finish the stalls and then take a walk around.” The walk itself would be educational. I’d show him everything. He might have questions. I’d answer them. I’d do right by the ranch. By Walter. By Xander.
I found him a pair of gloves to keep him from getting blisters as we finished the stalls. He needed boots and a hat and blue jeans that weren’t thin as paper like the ones he had on.
We walked around the lower edge of the biggest pasture, and I pointed out crows and hawks. We saw a fox. We rattled the gates and made sure the locks were solidly shut.
We were wet up to our shins from the dew clinging to the deep grass. Everything had a warm pine scent. I talked about the horses and their care. I talked about cattle, cows and calves, and the birthing time, which was often in the spring, before the snow departed to the higher hills.
As returned to the barn, he said, “It’s a lot of walking.” Then, as though he felt he’d made a mistake in speaking out loud, he added, “But I don’t mind. I don’t. I don’t.”
The kid was riddled with nerves and anxiety. He could probably do with a few more pounds on him, in addition to stamina; he was panting as he trotted to keep up with me.
He needed to eat, work, sleep, and then do it all over again each day until his soul was soothed and he learned that he’d landed in a good place.
I asked Jesse to take us into town so I could pick up Daybreak.
Jesse looked us both over, Xander at my side, a little close, like he was trying to hide in my shadow.
I knew how he felt. If you stayed small enough, inconsequential enough, then maybe the wrath of an adult wouldn’t come barreling down on you.
Jesse pulled his truck around, and we climbed into the back. I braced myself in one corner, near the tailgate, and Xander did the same opposite me. When the truck got going, he looked a little startled, but I nodded at him. “I like the fresh air,” I said.
He lifted his head as the truck sped up, his hair flying in the breeze. His expression told me that enjoying fresh, blustery, almost-out-of-control air was a new concept to him.
I held onto my hat, gazed at the passing scenery, and thought about Dalton. Wondered whether he was at his desk in the staff building. Wondered how soon I could get him alone again, and how quickly that could be arranged, particularly now that he’d found the bottle of lube.
That had been important to him, that bottle of lube. I liked it raw. Felt more powerful when I was being fucked with spit. On the edge of pain.
The journalist hadn’t liked it that way. He’d plain refused. But Dalton? He’d done it the way I wanted it, though I could hear, just about, the way he’d mentally muttered to himself every time he thought he’d hurt me.
He was soft-hearted all the way to his core. Round-eyed at the world, braced for the next rejection. I got that. Maybe I’d try letting him fuck me his way, too, with plenty of lube. Just to keep things even.
Jesse’s truck bounced us all the way into town. He let us off at the gas station, where I could already see Daybreak was patiently waiting in the parking lot of the garage.
I went inside and talked to Ezra. As I paid him in cash, I kept an eye on Xander, who was wandering around, looking at the other cars, hands in his pockets.
When I walked out the door, his attention was all on me. Like I ruled his world.
I didn’t like that feeling. It wasn’t how Walter taught me. Walter had talked to me, guided me, and pointed the way. Never once had he come down with an iron bar or a wall of words. He gentled me into his way of thinking.
“Thanks for keeping an eye on her,” I said as I put my wallet back in my pocket. “So, what do you think? Should we leave her here, or park her on the street in front of the Mercantile?”
“Here,” he said, his focus on the truck, like he was checking to see if the new yellow paint matched the old paint. It did. I already knew that, having brought Daybreak in to be fixed a time or two.
“Good,” I said. “Let’s walk.”
Every kid who came to the ranch was getting the same welcome, Lucas had explained to me after the experience with Dillon and Cameron had taught him they might arrive without any of the things they needed. New clothes. Cowboy boots and hat. Basic supplies.
This was a far cry from what I’d experienced upon arrival anywhere when I’d been in foster care. Those days were long behind me, but I still remembered the scared, empty feeling when you lived in a house with riches all around, none of which you were allowed to share in.
I could wager an entire month’s pay and not lose it that Xander had experienced the same. So the goal here, near as I could figure, was to buy those things for him without him getting overwhelmed.
I just about failed. By the time we’d gone through the Mercantile and accumulated a pile of things for him—jeans, boots, ChapStick, and so on—he was wide-eyed, not with shock but something like it.
His face told me how he was floundering in the face of such generosity. No way. No way. No way. That was what he was saying to himself, in time to his heart beating. Shooting hard glances around him, like he was watching for the axe to fall.
“It’s a lot,” I acknowledged. “But on a ranch, you need these supplies. We want you to be prepared. I want you to be.”
This last bit seemed to settle him. I thanked the clerk, and we grabbed the two plastic shopping bags.
Xander wore his new straw cowboy hat; I tucked the boot box beneath my arm, and we trudged up the street to where Daybreak waited for us.
The purchases went into the truck bed. We wouldn’t be going very fast, so we wouldn’t lose anything.
Just as we reached the turn for the ranch, the last miles half paved, half dirt, I sensed Xander looking at me and remembered my promise to him.
“We’ll switch here,” I said. “Nobody’s coming. But you’ll listen to me and don’t go haring down the road, right?”
“No, sir.” Then he swallowed. “No, Mr. Jake.”
We traded places. I watched as he slid into the driver’s seat, eyes wide, biting his lower lip as he took everything in.
I pointed out the four on the floor. Which might have been his problem, last time he drove. If you weren’t used to a stick shift, let alone a long one that you had to stretch out your arm to use, then you might get distracted from where you were steering.