5. Cash
CASH
The back porch of the main house is quiet, except for the low hum of the night. I’ve got my boots kicked up on the rail, a half-warm beer in my hand, and Pixie sprawled across the wooden porch. The old dog twitches every few seconds, chasing something in her sleep.
I know the feeling.
Out past the yard, the tree line sits black and heavy. Crickets chirp away in the grass, and somewhere deeper, a coyote yips once and falls silent. This place always sounds like it’s holding its breath right before it decides whether or not to bite you. It’s home, for better or worse.
The screen door creaks, but I don’t turn my head. I already know who it is by the way the air shifts.
Dad steps out, boots heavy on the wood. He drops into the chair two down from mine without a word. Grandpa is already out here, rocking slow and steady in his old chair, no drink in his hand, just existing.
“Evening,” Dad says.
“Evening,” I echo.
Grandpa rocks in his chair, looking out into the darkness.
Dad clears his throat. “You get those heifers moved to the south pasture like I asked this morning?”
I shake my head and take a slow sip, already knowing where this is headed. “Forgot.”
“You forgot? That’s your answer? You forgot? Those heifers needed to be moved today, Cash.”
I set the bottle down on the table beside me and raise my hands. “I had other shit to handle for Rhett.”
“You always have a goddamn excuse for why something doesn’t get done. You can’t just do whatever the fuck you want, son. You keep acting like this and—”
“And what?” I cut in. “I ain’t out here for you to fucking lecture me about responsibility, Dad. I did what Rhett asked me to do because there was a trough that was cracked and needed to be replaced. Sorry if I felt like that took priority.”
Dad’s jaw locks. “Watch your mouth, boy.”
I scoff. “Or what? You gonna fire me? Hard to fire your son from the fucking family.”
Dad and I have always been like this—two hard-headed bulls in the same pen, neither one willing to back down first. He hated the ranch when he was growing up like me because Grandpa’s oldest, Luke, was the golden boy, similar to Rhett.
Dad was the screw-up, the one who got in trouble, ran wild, and eventually landed in prison at twenty-one because he was the getaway driver for a bad decision that cost him five years.
He came home changed, but the ranch was still here, still waiting, and Grandpa never let him forget how much he’d disappointed him. Now Dad’s trying to break that same cycle with me, except he doesn’t see that he’s repeating it. He just sees me acting like the version of himself he hates most.
“Enough,” Grandpa says. “That’s enough out of the pair of you.”
Dad exhales hard through his nose, still staring at me.
Grandpa looks at him. “Go on inside, Eli. I’m spending time with my grandson.”
For a second, it looks like Dad might start picking a fight with Grandpa too. Then he pushes to his feet, gives me one last hard look, and heads for the door. The screen door shuts hard behind him.
He’s been trying to hammer that lesson in my skull since I was a kid. The problem is, he’s never figured out how to do it without pushing me right toward the same fate. The only person who keeps me grounded is my mother.
She told me no felonies. And I keep my promises to my mother.
I peel at the label on my beer, jaw still tight.
He wants me to be better; I know that. I’ve always known that. But it doesn’t make it better to accept.
Grandpa doesn’t say anything for a while after Dad leaves.
Eventually, he reaches down and drags his knuckles slowly across the top of Pixie’s head.
She sighs without waking up. Then he opens the cooler beside his chair, pulls out a beer, and holds it across the gap between us without looking at me.
I take it.
“You remember that mess that happened when you were seventeen?”
My thumb stills. Memories of the night rush to my brain.
I had drank way too much at a bonfire that eventually got rained out.
I was in no business to drive, but I had to make curfew because Dad was already on my ass about getting caught shoplifting at some Wal-Mart a few towns over.
The rain was coming down so hard it washed me off the road, and I ran into a ditch.
“I didn’t cover for you because I thought you didn’t deserve it. I did it because I know who you are and can separate that from what you did.”
“Yes, sir,” I say.
“You could have killed others or even yourself for that stupid mistake. Why you called your Uncle Luke, I’ll never understand.
That man would never bail you out of jail—for the record.
He wanted to leave your ass out there and make you call your father.
But instead, I found a buddy and we pulled your truck out of the mud. ”
I look out at the tree line. My throat feels tight. I want to say something, but there isn’t anything worth saying. I fucked up that night. Bad. Grandpa saved my ass when nobody else would have.
He leans back in his chair, the wood creaking under him. “Your dad would have seen that and it would have proved everything he already thinks. I just saw a dumb kid who made a mistake and still had enough sense to call family instead of trying to hide it.”
“Thank you…for that night. I never really said it back then.”
“You don’t have to thank me. Sometimes, I feel like if your dad had had someone to call, he might never have wasted all those years locked up,” he says, then pushes himself up onto his feet and heads toward the door.
“You’re not lost, Cash. You’re just loud…
and that ain’t the same thing as being a bad man. ”
Grandpa goes into the house, leaving me alone.
Benjamin Thornwood is the man everyone looks up to.
Loyal to his family, dedicated to his land, honest to a fault in a way that should be annoying but somehow isn’t because when Ben tells you something, you know it’s true, and you know he means it.
He has never known a stranger. Never turned away someone who needed something.
Never once in his life walked into a room and made it smaller.
I am nothing like my grandfather, which is why I choose to go by Cash instead.
I drink too much, cuss too much, fuck too much, and follow up too little. I have never once been described as dedicated to anything that required sustained effort or a clean record.
“—I don’t care what the timeline looks like, Dawson. You don’t put a sick bull back in with the herd because it’s inconvenient to wait—”
“I’m not saying it’s convenient, I’m saying we’re already three weeks behind on vaccinations and two hands short, and at some point, you have to make a call with the information you have—”
“The information I have is that Colt hasn’t cleared him yet—”
“Colt is here for an internship, Rhett, not to make ranch management decisions for—”
Both of my brothers come around the corner mid-sentence, still going at each other.
I watch them for a second before they notice me.
Rhett’s walking fast, shoulders tight, while Dawson trails a half-step behind with his hands in his pockets like he’s done with this conversation but knows it’s not over.
“Rhett, you really just need to get laid, bro,” I call out.
Rhett’s eyes snap to me. “Don’t.”
“You’re wound tighter than a—”
“Cash.”
“—spring on a brand new trap, is what I was going to say.” I hold up my beer. “Sit down.”
His jaw works. And for a second, I think he’s actually going to keep standing there out of pure stubbornness.
Then Dawson drops into the chair beside me and steals the last beer out of the cooler.
Rhett, because he can’t stand being the only one left standing like an idiot, finally pulls the other chair around and sits.
I clink my bottle against Dawson’s. “You really cannot help it,” he mutters.
“Never could.” I grin.
Rhett rubs a hand down his face. “One of these days I’m gonna knock your teeth in.”
“You’ve been saying that since I was twelve,” I shoot back. “Still waiting on it, big brother.”
Dawson chuckles low. “He’s just pissed we don’t run the ranch like he would.”
“You two would burn this place to the ground in a month if I let you.”
“Probably,” I admit cheerfully. “But it’d be a hell of a party first.”
We settle into the kind of easy bullshit that only happens when it’s just the three of us. The argument about the bull fades into the usual mix of insults, ranch gripes, and old stories. Dawson continues to get on Rhett about being a control freak, and I pile on because it’s too easy.
The screen door creaks open and Mom steps out, arms crossed, one eyebrow raised. “Boys. You’re being too loud. Some of us are trying to sleep.”
Dawson immediately tries to look innocent. “We’re barely talking, Ma.”
She gives him the look. “I could hear you three arguing about that damn bull from the kitchen. Take it down a notch or take it to the barn.”
“Yes, ma’am,” we all mutter at roughly the same time.