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“I mean, I figured he’d walk you to the door. Don’t guys still do that?”
“Not for a hundred years, Dad. Maybe some of them, but it’s not expected anymore.” I took my coat off and hung it in the closet. “What did you do tonight?”
“Nice try. We both know I sat on my duff and channel-surfed. So? Where did you two go? What’s he like?”
“Beaufort’s.” I dropped onto the couch, still clutching the journal. “He’s nice. I’m still trying to figure out what he’s all about, but I like him. Planning to see him again after Christmas.”
“Well, that’s good to hear. I’m off to bed.”
I put my hand up to pat him on the arm as he walked by. “Good night. Love you, Dad.”
“Mmm,” he grunted. “Love you, too.”
I waited for his door to close, then looked down and sighed. I hadn’t gotten very far in that journal earlier this evening, but I meant to soak in it now that I had it all to myself. I smoothed my hand over the cover once more—the buttery soft leather that told of sweat and toil, of being thrown in a truck or a saddle bag or being folded over backward and then stuffed into a coat pocket. This was the man’s heartbeat.
I don’t know what I expected. An accounting of his days, maybe, or a record of the work he’d done on the ranch since he bought it. But it was nothing like that.
The yellowed pages were filled with funny little quips—anecdotes of his day on the ranch. They ranged from short stories to one-line thoughts. Some were sparse and incomplete ideas, while others flowed onto the page with the eloquence of a bard.
It was simple things set artfully into the light and examined with care and fascination. Cheerful yellow eeds waving among the alfalfa stalks in a July thunderstorm, the particular curl of hair on a special bull’s nose that made him look playful, the way the sun broke over the mountains after a snowfall. He could make the mundane inspiring, and he saw beauty in things others never noticed.
The back of my neck was tingling as I flipped page after page. I had found my poet.
Dusty
“Pull!”
Dad released the catch on the clay pigeon shooter, and Luke tracked the orange target with the muzzle of his twelve gauge. One quick blast, and it shattered.
“That’s another for Luke. Evan, your turn.”
My oldest brother stepped forward and lifted his shotgun. “Pull.” Evan knocked the clay out of the sky and grunted in satisfaction. “That makes ten total for Luke and me. You guys are up.”
I gave the barrel of my shotgun a quick wipe-down and walked up to the line. This was our Christmas Eve tradition—a team trap shooting game we had invented when we were kids. We’d draw straws for teams, and each shoot six rounds, then swap, kind of like a baseball game, and the losing team did the other team’s chores. Except this year, Cody was married, and Marshall was out having dinner with Kelli’s family, so Dad stepped in to be my partner.
“Ready?”
I nodded, and Luke sent the orange pottery winging through the icy blue skies. I led the path, getting ahead of its arc, and pressed the trigger.
“That’s a miss.”
I lowered my shotgun and scowled. I hadn’t hit one all day. Dad took his turn, and like always, he nailed it. “Bit off your form today, Dusty,” he said as he stepped back. “Feeling okay?”
“Not really. Pull.”
I didn’t miss this time, but it was such a grazing hit it almost didn’t count. What was wrong with me? I caught my brothers muttering something from the corner of my eye, but they hushed up when I looked at them.
I wasn’t blind. They’d all been whispering lately, saying something was up with me, but I wasn’t in the mood to talk about it. How could I? It would require confessing a bunch of my private thoughts all at once, and that was just too much.
Dad and I finished our round, with him hitting every one and me missing most. Once I got a bad start, it was hard to get right again. My head just wasn’t in it, to say nothing for my heart.
“Well,” Luke said at the end, “that’s a win for us. Looks like you two are cleaning stalls tonight.” He and Evan high-fived, and we started packing away our gear.
“I’ll take care of chores,” I told Dad. “You go on in.”
“Nah, fair’s fair. We lost.”
“Ilost. Your back’s still bothering you, isn’t it?”
