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I was surprised he knew what dialup internet was at all.
He pulled out a chair and sat at the table with me, picking up one of the notebooks Noah had brought along that had belonged to the former owner. “You have a list of buyers or traders, as the case may be. We call them all over the next few days and get orders. We make the deals. We get that…boy to kill them, and whatever is done after, smoking or curing them. We have a building for that, though it’s not much of one.”
It would have hit the table if Noah’s jaw dropped any lower. “You know about smoking and curing the meat?”
“I told you; I looked it up. Smoking seems to be the preferred method, but everyone has a preference. After that, we’ll likely have more. We speak to a few markets outside our area. We can buy or rent a truck to haul it; if those boys have the means, they can drive. We’ll pay them for it, obviously, out of the profits. In the cities, people are crazy over responsibly sourced meats, and our…animals don’t seem to be abused in any way, are they?”
Eli and Noah both shook their heads while their mouths were hanging open.
“Good. I’ll make a website, then. Since we won’t have a lot of meat after the bartering, the price we charge can be outrageous, and people in the city will pay for it. We’ll not only have the food we’re trading for, but we’ll also have a nice bit of money with it.”
I was shocked, but…I wasn’t. Theo was obviously educated, but he rarely used his brains for good instead of evil. I was pretty proud of him. “Theo, that’s a great plan.”
“Y-yeah, Theo,” Noah said, laughing. “Damn, good plan! If Dale was estimating right, you have about seven nice hogs for slaughter right now and maybe a couple more in a few months when they weigh a bit more. You can make quite a chunk of change. I’ll take half a hog myself, and for it, three pounds of cheese and twenty pounds of beef.”
“Depends on the cuts. I don’t want a hamburger.”
“Okay, then,” Noah negotiated. “Fifteen good steaks and ribs.”
“I’m not fond of any food you must eat with your hands, so no ribs. I'll throw in three cartons of eggs for twelve of the best cuts and five pounds of cheese. Hud keeps bringing them in, and I don’t eat that much.”
Noah stuck his hand across the table, and they shook on it. “Deal.”
Eli kissed Theo’s cheek as they left, and I watched Theo glow. Once they were gone, Theo was quite taken with himself, and he had every right to be. In fact, I even offered to make dinner without asking for help.
“Thanks. I did well?”
“You did. And I think you impressed Noah, and I know that’s not easily done. He takes all this ranching and farming work very seriously.”
“I guess it can be a good business. Working with animals, though, it’s not something I ever aspired to.”
“I think you could do anything you want, so what interests you? Photography?”
“What’s the point? With AI, Photoshop, and filters on every platform, there is little calling for good photography any longer.”
I thought about all the little shops in town, how tourists buzzed around them, buying the “quaint” things the small-town shopkeepers sold. “I…wonder. Like the responsibly sourced meat, maybe some responsibly sourced pictures would sell. Sure, some people love AI, but others are against anything replacing real people, real art. Why don’t you try to take some photos, and we can find someone that makes frames.”
His stormy eyes narrowed at me as he asked, “Do you think?”
“All you can do is try.”
Chapter Seven
One evening for my rounds, I noticed that the aspen trees were all turning the most glorious colors that shone right through the darkness of that moonless night.Golds[t1]that were so intense, I felt them, rusty reds that made me feel things deeply. I wished I could blame those colors on how Theo got to me, but I couldn’t. I owned my shit, unlike so many people I knew. I confessed that I was attracted to him and falling for him.
Which, in itself, was stupid. Falling for some guy that irritated me, that infuriated me; it was ridiculous. We had little interaction that didn’t leave me flustered, but every time I looked Theo’s way, I felt my pulse quicken and my heart pounding.
I walked over to the trees with those fantastic colors, standing out from the dark forest with white trunks and fiery leaves that whispered eerily in the night breeze. The place was filled with ghosts, the mists of them just off to the left and right of my vision, disappearing when I turned my eyes that way.
I heard footsteps, forgot my musings about becoming the bodyguard again, and saw a figure approaching me. I noticed the figure was much taller than Theo, so I asked, “Who is that?”
“T-Tucker, sir,” he called as he stopped suddenly.
I let out a pent breath and said, “Tucker. Fuck, you scared me.”
He came into better view, and I closed the distance. “Sorry ‘bout that. I been likin’ to take walks at night.”
“That’s okay, Tucker. I was…I was doing my rounds but got lost looking at the trees myself.”
