AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Noah climbed off his horse and came over, slowly, like he was approaching a skittish animal himself. “Eli, don’t get jumpy. They’re rare, but it can happen, that’s all I’m saying.”
I nodded, though I must have swallowed three times, my throat suddenly dry as a desert.
“I’d rather you sit the horse, but you’re not a rider yet. You’re getting there, but you’re not a rider yet, and if they come at Tawny, well, she’ll bolt too, unless you keep her steady and move her away from the coming cows. Can you do that?”
No. I couldn’t, but I couldn’t run fast enough to get out of the way of a stampede either. I had to weigh my options, and I didn’t want to look like a coward doing it. It was a hard fence to sit for that few seconds, but I finally said, “I’ll sit on Tawny. She… she’ll need me too, right?”
The smiles he gave were rare. Not that he was a grouchy fucker or anything, but he didn’t smile for the hell of it. When he smiled at me then, I felt like I’d earned it. “Good boy,” he said, and that took me by surprise. It reminded me of some of the dominant men in the leather clubs, how they’d praise their submissives by telling them that.Good boy.
I brushed it off, of course. Sure, he was gay, but the chances of him being into leather… it was slim.
I got on Tawny’s back again, and she held steady for me while I did it. I think she knew that if she moved, I might have jumped right out of my skin, thinking a stampede was pending.
As I sat, though, I forgot all about my fear again. Watching Noah could do that, just like talking to him did. It was fascinating, watching one man doing the work of five, but he did that on a daily basis. The cows trusted him, just like the horses. He had such a way of getting living beings to take his subtle and quiet direction, and I was floored when not one cow left the pack, all of them heading in the right direction.
Noah took his hat from his head and waved it, whistled, moved his horse this way and that, never too far in any direction, and got them moving like a brown sea of lowing, rolling waves. As they started moving, they kept going even when Noah rode over to me, leaving their progression long enough to call me to follow. “You did good. Follow me, and just keep an eye out for stragglers.”
“I did nothing, not one of them came my way,” I protested good-naturedly. “But I’ll keep an eye.”
A curt nod and he was turned back to the herd, and he rode behind them. I tried to follow, but I would not push Tawny into a gallop, or whatever it was called, that came between a gallop and a walk. Cantor, I thought, but I knew I was likely wrong.
I laughed at myself for knowing that much, picking up things as Noah said them. I moved Tawny along, or she moved me. I couldn’t tell the difference any longer. We rode behind the herd, and dust became a cloud, blocking my view for part of it. When I caught up to Noah, I saw his handkerchief, the one he always used to wipe the sweat from his head, was tied around his head, over his nose and mouth.
He looked like some old west outlaw, and I again thought about him, in a leather club, dominating someone. I tried to keep sexual thoughts at bay around Noah, but it wasn’t easy. The man was purely sexual in all his movements, in his eyes…
Or… I was just horny. I couldn’t tell the difference anymore.
The hills they moved the cattle through were just more amazing landscapes on the property. I didn’t know where to look next as my head swiveled around like some idiot. It was all just so beautiful, I couldn’t decide what was better, the tall pines or the aspen, which were, in fact, changing color.
I caught Noah looking at them, his brows drawn together hard. He was worried, but damned if he’d say it. There was no snow on the ground, so I wondered why. I got Tawny to get me closer to him again, forgetting the scenery for the moment. “What’s up, Noah?”
“I said I needed a hand, and you came. I just wish you’d come sooner, I guess.”
“What needs done? I’m here now.”
Noah smiled in a way that looked weary, and I didn’t like that. He’d helped me in a week take off so much of the stress of my former life that I owed him. I wanted to make him relax.
“You’re… doing fine, Eli. I can’t thank you enough for helping me around this place. The cattle, well, if it’s a hard winter, I’ll be lugging heaters out here, having to break ice in their water troughs, and about a hundred other things. I should send them all south, like other ranchers up here do, but not only can’t I afford that, I don’t have a place to take them anymore. One of those corporations that we were talking about, well, they bought the ranch of a friend that used to take my cattle for harsher winters.”
Before I knew I was going to say it, it came out, and I didn’t regret it for a second. “I’ll stay through the winter, if you’ll have me.”
Noah side-eyed me for a long moment. In that look was surprise and then concern. “And why would you do that?”
“Why? Noah… you…” I didn’t know how to say it. I felt like I should tell him everything, but I was so afraid he’d chuck me right out the gate, I didn’t think I could form the words.
“We’ll talk after this.”
I got my eyes back on the cattle, nearly forgetting my job to look for strays as the scenery had taken me, and then Noah’s worry. I had seen shows about people doing that, herding cattle, watched cowboys using lassos and all that, and it was so different from the two of them, walking behind the herd.
Of course, like Noah said, it was a small herd. Even so, there were no ropes being swung over Noah’s head, noyeehaws. The sea of brown animals moved smoothly, almost stoically over the grass and mounds of hill and then, over one of those hills, I saw where we were taking them.
There were three huge, three-sided barns in the small valley. And the valley, it was something out of a picture book. Like the barns, it was protected on three sides by hills, and in that small, almost perfectly circular valley, it was as green as I imagined the hills of Ireland to be.
“It’s been used before, obviously. It gets less snow than the rest of my land, and there’s a dirt road over to the left. I can get in with the truck to feed and water them, check on them every day.”
“It’s a paradise, Noah,” I whispered because a louder voice seemed disrespectful.
“It sure is, now. It’s better than the rest, though. In the winter, the rest of the place is a death pit for cattle. Deep snows, blizzards that seem to come out of nowhere and bury the land feet under it. It won’t be an easy winter, even if the winter is gentle.”
