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“Excuse me? Why would that surprise you? Am I already slippin’?”
“No! I meant, with the cage. With the cage.”
“Oh, right. Well, I read up on it quite a bit once I thought about doing it. Those who’ve worn them, they had a lot of opinions, as you can imagine. Mostly, guys like them.”
“The head harness was worse, and I liked it. I thought I’d hate this, and it’s not comfortable, especially when I’m getting hard, but I kinda like that.”
“You would. Yeah, I noticed it was the ones that liked it rougher that liked the cage. Not much I could ever do to you that would be a good punishment.”
“Depriving me of coming? That’s not enough for you?”
He laughed, then kissed the top of my head. “Glutton for punishment you are, you’re gonna end up liking that too. I’m gonna have to get creative, but that’s if I ever even need a punishment. You’re… good. Good to me, good to the place, the animals.”
“I’ll try to fuck up somehow so you can delve into your secret bag of tricks for a punishment.”
He craned his head to look at me. “You probably would, just to make me happy, in some weird way.”
“Yup. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
The next day, Noah was the one that was jumpy. I found him on the porch, looking out at the morning sky, the dark clouds gathering over the western mountains. “Weather report came in that it was about to get bad.”
“Oh? When? What do we need to do?”
“Get dressed, get some cereal and coffee, and be ready for the day. We’re gonna be working hard.”
“I’ll be right back.”
I didn’t bother with the cereal, getting coffee in one of the thermal travel mugs and grabbing a piece of toast to take with me. After my coat was on and fastened to the collar, I hurried out to see Noah already loading the truck with hay.
We got the thing loaded down with more bales than usual. Noah explained why. “If we can’t make it over there tomorrow, they’ll be fed for the day. Gotta make sure those heaters are on and working, and the batteries covered well. If we can, we herd them all around the barns, so they can get there easily.”
We got busy and by the time we got back to the main part of the ranch, the dark clouds were over us. Noah had cussed up a storm a few times that the weather stations hadn’t predicted the snow until a minute before it arrived.
“They said flurries for the last three days, then this morning, bam! Mother fuckers are saying it’s going to dump a foot or more.”
“They can’t always predict.”
“Don’t give those bastards an excuse. For city people, it’s an inconvenience, taking longer to drive to work while people plow the way. Here, it’s not the same.”
Speaking of which, I headed to the barn where the scoop was kept, and while there, I passed the cage, which made me smile to myself. “Noah! The heat could use turned up in here!”
“Goddamn it all to hell,” he spat as he came in behind me. “One of these days, I’m selling the lot, and moving someplace tropical.”
I’ve heard that threat before, and I’d guess all the horses had heard it too, and the cattle a million times before I arrived. “You’d hate it. What would you have to cuss about?”
“The heat. I hate the heat.”
We got the plow on the front of the truck. I got Bossie milked while Noah brought in the last few horses from the corral.
We took a brief break for lunch, and while we were eating some tomato soup Noah had canned, I got a call.
When I looked at the caller ID, I was shocked. “It’s Sarg.”
“Who’s Sarg?”
“Hold on,” I said to him, then answered the phone. “Sarg?”
