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“Yeah. Mommy let me watch the vet doctor a cow once. Can I be a vet when I grow up?”
“If you want to.”
Jake ran off, climbing on a low stack of haybales and standing on top. “I can see into the stalls from here,” he announced.
“How do they look?” Chase asked.
The boy peered around. “That one’s full of fresh hay. The others don’t have any.”
Chase nodded. Everything was ready, per his orders. “We always keep a stall prepared, Jake. Winter’s coming. Things happen. Now come on down.”
Jake complied, pulling out a straw after he jumped off the last bale.
“Greypa, can I ask you a question?” He looked up, chewing thoughtfully on the straw.
“Sure.” Chase leaned against the haybales, half sitting, half standing.
“One of the cowboys told me that the animals talk on Christmas Eve. Is that true?”
“I don’t know. Could be,” Chase replied indulgently. “Which cowboy was that?”
“Lavell—elli—” Jake shook his head. “I can’t say it right.”
“You mean Pete Lavelliere? The one from Canada?”
Jake nodded with relief. “That’s him.”
“Must be a story they tell up there.”
Jake leaned on the bales beside him, unconsciously mimicking his great-grandfather’s stance. “If a horse could talk, I wonder what he’d say.”
Chase chuckled. “Oh, he’d complain that the cinch is too tight. And he’d ask right out for a carrot and never say please.”
The little boy laughed at the idea and scampered off again.
“Where are you going?” Chase called.
Jake went into the stall with the hay. “Just checking,” he called back.
“For what? There’s nothing in there.”
The boy came out again. “I wanted to see if there was oats in the nosebag or stuff like that. You said the stall was prepared.” He paused for a beat. “Am I getting a pony for Christmas?”
“No. And don’t start asking a lot of pesky questions. Christmas isn’t just about what you’re getting.”
Jake looked a little ashamed. “I know. Mom said that too.”
“Then you need to remember it,” Chase scolded him gently. “You’re going to get to be with your whole family this year. Aunts and uncles and even a baby cousin.”
“Josh isn?
?t such a baby anymore. He can walk now,” Jake said happily.
“Better put any toys that you don’t want him to play with out of reach,” Chase advised him with a wink. “Come on. Let’s go.”
The pickup’s high beams threw a tunnel of far-reaching light ahead of the vehicle, illuminating the edges of the ranch road and the dirty mounds of snow the plow had left behind. Moonlight glistened on the crusted surface of the snow that spread away from both sides of the road, the reflection of it stealing much of the night’s blackness. Overhead a crescent moon looked down from the eastern sky, a scattering of stars surrounding it.
Just beyond the reach of the headlights, a set of darker masses loomed to flank the road. Laredo recognized the familiar shape of the east gate’s stone-pillared entrance and eased his foot onto the brake pedal, slowing the vehicle’s speed as it approached the intersection with the state highway.
