The call came before twilight. Only one person calls me that early and she only calls for one reason... I guessed that the whipping sounds from last nights storm weren't in my dreams. Connecting the time of day to the name on my screen sent my guts rolling - consciousness hesitantly returning after a fitful sleep.
"How close to the road are they?" I spat towards my nightstand, almost tweaking my neck trying to get my ear as close to the phone as possible.
Judy knows that her answer to this question will determine how much fire I put under my ass, but she also knows that if she lies to me, if I go down and those bastard cows aren't exactly where she said they'd be, that she won't be getting my vote for her "Signature Sweet Cherry Tart" come the County Fair this weekend, and trust me, that pastry poodle wants my vote - real bad. I only had to mildly threaten her *one* time and she crumbled faster than the crust on her signature tarts.
"Most of them are crowded behind the barn, but a few of them look like they're making a beeline for the pavement. I really think you should get down here!"
*Beep.*
That was all I needed to hear from Judy.
With a moderate amount of "fire under my ass" I slipped into a pair of black panties, a black sports bra, and the warm set of dark teal quilted coveralls that snap up around my neck. The south field has a tendency to freeze this time of day, and the last thing I need is to see Judy out on her porch waving a scarf in the air. She's a sweet old woman, I think... my perception is lacking in that particular category. Sweetness isn't something I get around to all that often.
I thought about Judy's cherry tarts as I slipped on my perfectly fit Stetson, flattening my disheveled curls. *She really does make a mean one.* My mouth watered thinking about how the expertly halved Bada Bing cherries are arranged so tediously around the crust and how they burst with a sharpness that dances around the custard filling. She calls that almost-yellow filling something fancy at her booth... can't remember.
"Fuck you, Judy," I muttered to myself as I stepped into my muck boots and tossed open the front door.
Course it's not Judy's fault that my fence keeps failing and it's certainly not her fault that I'm such a notorious bitch... some things just are the way that they are. I stomped bitterly to the ATV shed and slung my leg over my "work horse" settling my sore ass against the tattered seat. I reminded myself for the thousandth time to order a replacement from the boys at the mechanic as I turned the key in the ignition and flipped the gear shift to reverse. See, my ass is sore from the eight or so hours I spent on the roof of my stable only to be bested by a faulty pin nailer and I reminded myself to get that fixed too. I swear this ranch is trying to kill me... endless labor, eternal restlessness, constantly mending things that would rather be lost to time.
I shuddered. Trembling from either the morning dampness crawling in around my ears or the cynical nonsense floating between them. I don't like to complain much, but I really am sick of this shit. I bet Judy doesn't fix a damn thing. She probably hires a guy who hires a guy who drives out from the city to screw in her light bulbs and level her picture frames. She's always gushing about how "strong" and "fierce" I am, but right now I just feel... what was that word my mom used to say?
Cattywampus.
Jolted unexpectedly by my own grip on the hand brake, the ATV skidded to a stop and I felt my beat-up glutes slap back down on the beat-up seat as I flipped the gear shift to high and tore down the access road. The engine roared and my eyelashes hummed with the speed. I saw my emancipated cows just as they heard me coming: their walnut-brained understanding displayed by a symphony of head tossing and tail whipping, the older cows beginning to turn back toward their pasture - the easy route. The yearlings panicked as I got closer: bony, meaty windsails stampeding in their modest group of hooligans, the steam from their breath clouding in the dim morning light.
"Yeee-ip!" I skidded off the access road and pushed on the throttle, arching wide between the startled young cows and the paved highway.
Cows are dumb as all hell, but when rightly prompted, they *move.* It took no effort at all to round them into a furry huddle and shove them back through the latest fissure in the fence line. "Don't look at me like that," I said to one of my oldest cows after I cut my engine. "It's not like that grass is any different." I motioned at the ground and then abruptly realized that I was talking to a cow.
My eyes rolled themselves before I started assessing the damage. Two wooden fence posts gave way to the overnight squall, the barbed wire twisting one of them completely upside down, its lichen-stickered top sunk into the grass and its soil-bitten bottom sailing wildly in the breeze. Gnarled, tangled wires held the other post levitating bizarrely in mid-air.
With a groan that too-closely echoed the sounds of my bovine companions I opened the trail box at the back of my ATV and retrieved my gloves, wire cutters, and a spool of barbless cable. A quick fix would have to do until I could get the stretcher bar and post driver.
It must've taken less than twenty minutes, but by the time I was finishing up the sunlight had already broken over the eastern ridgeline, setting a bright orange light on the limbs of the leafless treetops. I'd already snipped the tangled wires with my cutters, freed the wooden posts, and started stringing a large, flat "X" across the span as my temporary patch when a voice cut through the noises playing inside my head.
"Need some help, miss?"
It was a man's voice - strange and melodic and not from this area. He wouldn't be... nobody from around here would offer help to a working rancher. As he approached I was holding a massive amount of tension at the spool, unable to focus my sights anywhere else, but I couldn't help noticing his footsteps as they changed from gravel to grass. The long, slow sound of his gait lent some idea of his stature. I pulled hard at the wire and looped it around the top of the nearest post once... twice... then again for good measure before clipping it and forcing the loose end around itself repeatedly until the pressure started to equalized.
"As if there's any help a townie like you could offer a girl like me," I scoffed, out of breath.
I reached down to retrieve the cutters I had dropped while securing the wire, and as I stood back up, he was standing right next to me: tall, handsome, clean shaven and wearing an honest to god sport coat with matching slacks. His eyes sparkled and his eyebrows were delicately groomed - certainly the "prettiest" man I had ever seen. I didn't really consider myself to be all about looks, but his were impossible to disregard. I felt a pull in my chest, a grinding need to salvage this interaction.
"I wasn't trying to offend you," his eyes saddened and my heart crumpled.
*What are you doing? Things like this don't happen every day!* the voice in my head rang like a bell. *What are you even talking about?* I began to argue with myself. *Things like this don't happen... period!* Letting my eyes wander across his form, the bickering in my head became a hazy background noise. I couldn't deny, as unlikely as it was, that there was a gorgeous man right here on my ranch. It had been a long time since I'd met someone new, and I was already making an absolute fool of myself.
"No, I'm not- shit... sorry," I backpedaled. "You're all good, sir."
"Sir? Really? You think *I* look like a *sir*?"
"If the captoe fits," I giggled, looking down at his shoes. They were far too fancy for my taste, but the same could be said for his- well, his everything. He embodied what I had convinced myself was wrong with the world: he was open, attentive, kind, cavalier... He clearly didn't belong anywhere near this field, but he'd come down here with his own two leather-shod feet, and I found myself stumbling through my thoughts to find a reasonable excuse for him to stay.
"I, uh... I clearly don't take kindly to help, but since you did offer... there might be something I've had a tough time reaching. Whaddaya say?"
The stranger shrugged in a way I found oddly familiar before explaining that he wasn't expected anywhere until later in the day. His smirk had ideas swirling in my mind of how we could fill the next few hours... the rush of possibility strangely tangible between us. The grinding need I felt only got worse and to keep my cool I tried my hand at some small talk - asking him where he was from and what he did for a living. He told me that he was from way out east and worked in marketing - a real life city slicker!
As he went over the crisp, shiny details of his life, I found myself becoming anxious, almost frustrated - I needed to rough this townie up a bit. "You, ah... you think that matchbox can handle some off-road?" I asked him as we began to run out of tedious topics.
I gestured my brim of my hat towards where he'd parked a sleek EV that looked more like a computer mouse than a car. He smirked and spun on his heel, accepting my challenge. We skipped to our opposite modes of transportation but his fired up first. The peculiar whirring sound of it didn't register in my ears as an engine I'd heard before. I saw his lights flicker in my mirror and I muscled my throttle, zipping back up onto the access road and kicking up a cloud of dust dense enough to obscure his ostentatious ride.
I raced to the pole barn about a dozen yards from the driveway. Nestled in the arms of overgrown cottonwood trees and battered by a few generations of howling winds, she's still got her charm. Red paint mostly intact, the light was beginning to pour down her front, deepening the warm colors of the barn wood and the vibrant green of the not-yet-spring grass that poked out around her foundation.
I didn't have much of a plan at this point... but I didn't end up needing one.
I had the barn doors rolling open by the time he cut his engine. I heard a mechanical purr and a click as his car door opened. Watching him step out onto the grass was something out of a movie... I don't remember if the breeze was actually flicking at his lapels or whipping through his short, dark hair, but in my memories... he'll always be in slow motion.
He must've seen how wide my eyes had become... because he smiled, and something inside me said *finally.* I beckoned him in with a wave of my hand and he followed without hesitation. Now that I think of it... I should have realized who he was right when his captoes slid so effortlessly over the threshold. He didn't stumble. He didn't even look at the ground...
His hands were on me in a second and I was still clueless. I thought my clumsy attempts at flirting had won over the affections of a horny stranger; I was more than fine with that. He didn't pause when his fingers laced between mine or when I started backing up, leading him over to the hay loft. He didn't balk when I made up some bullshit about needing his help or when I left my boots behind before scrambling up the ladder.
I made a poor attempt to arrange a couple of hay bales for comfort and threw open the heavy wooden shutters to douse the loft with sunlight. He didn't scoff when I apologized about the conditions.
