Page 40 of September’s Cowboy Travis

The float valve in the south pasture trough had been sticking for three days, and I was running out of patience.

I pulled the cover loose and reached down into water cold enough to make my fingers ache. It took some working, but the mechanism finally moved the way it was supposed to. The cattle had gathered twenty feet away, heads angled toward the trough while I worked.

My phone buzzed from the truck.

I made myself tighten the fitting before I grabbed it. I'd checked the damn thing four times since sunrise already hoping for a text from Kaycee.

The message was from the feed store. I tossed the phone onto the seat and slammed the door.

Kaycee had been back in Bozeman for two days. She'd called both nights. We'd texted enough that I knew she'd eaten Thai food at her desk yesterday and that her upstairs neighbor had started learning to play the drums.

Nothing was wrong. That might have been the problem.

She'd gone back to her apartment and her work, and I'd gone back to the ranch. We talked at night. She sent me a picture of the wilted flowers on her balcony. I sent her one of Bandit trying to pull a glove out of my back pocket.

It was working exactly the way she'd said it could, but I still wanted her back here.

The phone buzzed again before I reached the gate. This time her name was on the screen.

Kaycee: Finishing this job early. How attached are you to having dinner alone?

I read it twice to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.

Me: Depends on who's asking.

Her answer came right away.

Kaycee: The woman who knows what your bookkeeping looked like in 2019.

I laughed.

Me: Low blow.

Kaycee: Accurate though.

Me: What time?

Kaycee: Sixish. Unless you've got better plans.

I looked across the pasture at three hundred acres of cattle and no plans worth mentioning.

Me: I’ll see what I can do.

Her reply was a single thumbs-up.

I shoved the phone into my pocket and went back to work, except now I knew exactly how many hours stood between me and six. That wasn't irritating at all.

The rodeo grounds still needed cleanup, so I headed into town after lunch to help tear down the last temporary stock panels. Most of the vendors had cleared out, and the parking lot that had been packed on Labor Day looked too big without trucks and trailers filling every row.

Beau Jordan was already behind the arena when I got there. His family’s land butted up against mine and we’d known each other since we were kids. He’d never given me shit about my reputation and had been one of the only people who’d checked on me after my mom died.

He stood next to a flatbed trailer with one hand on a steel panel, looking like somebody had tried to build a cowboy to scale and gotten carried away. Beau had a good few inches on me and enough width through his shoulders that the panel probably weighed less than some of his boots.

Two of his Clydesdales waited by the trailer, huge and patient, their tails flicking at flies while Beau worked.

“You're late,” he said.

“I didn't know you were keeping tabs on me.”