A mischievous gleam entered Chase’s eyes. Mason smiled. There he was—the old Chase.
“I have a better idea,” Chase said as he started toward the stables.
Mason caught up with him, walking at his side.
“Seeing the girls last night got me in the mood to ride again,” Chase told him. “You mind if I take Mercy out?”
“That’d be great. I’m sure she’d appreciate it.”
His suggestion excited Mason. It was as though Chase was inviting him to participate in a fantasy, like they had gone back in time and nothing had changed since when they took Louise and Mercy out on long strolls together. It was just an illusion, but it was one Mason was eager to participate in.
They went to the stables where they saddled their horses before leading Louise and Mercy outside.
Horses had been Ma’s love—her heaven on earth. She’d grown up in Kentucky with a family who rode all the time, and the stable had been Pa’s gift to her, to keep that thing she loved in her life. Mason and Chase had tended to the horses when they were young while their parents and the farmhands worked elsewhere on the dairy. It was their little pet project, one they’d been more than happy to work on together—one that had helped them grow together.
“Taking your time, I see,” Mason said as he rode Louise through the yard. Louise, an American Paint Horse, had a coat of white and brown, mixed in a pattern so that half her face was brown and the other white.
Mason turned back since Chase was a few yards behind him, adjusting himself on his saddle.
“You know it’ll just be a second before you’re struggling to keep up with me,” Chase teased. “I gotta get my bearings.”
Mason knew the truth of it and saw it when, after a few minutes on Mercy, Chase took off, leading Mason across the field onto the path that led through the woods.
“You’re making me look like the amateur,” Mason called out as they approached the new parlor.
“Did you say something? I can’t hear you when I’m so far ahead of you.”
Dwayne and two other farmhands walked from a truck toward the new building carrying crates and boxes.
“Howdy!” Mason shouted.
Dwayne turned and waved.
Mason and Chase followed him inside where Timmy lay on a dolly with a board across it beneath a tank that must’ve been able to hold several hundred gallons of milk. In a pair of jeans with his shirt tucked into the back of them, he had a wrench in hand. He grabbed a manual from beside him and checked it.
The parlor was much bigger than the old one. The pens encircled a pit—very different than the vertical rows that Chase was used to.
“Good God,” Chase said. “It’s like an alien space ship in here.”
“Right?!” Timmy exclaimed.
“This is how you get milk from a thousand cows,” Mason explained.
Chase examined the space. “How many pens is this?”
“Seventy.”
“That’s a big step up from the twenty we had in the beginning. How many people is Pa hiring to take on the new responsibilities?”
“Won’t need many to run this,” Timmy called from under the tank. “Most of it’s automatic. Us John Henrys are going to be out of jobs once Ford comes up with enough steam drills to replace us.”
Chase marveled at the construction. “How does it work?” he asked. “How do you get them in here?”
Mason hopped into the pit in the middle of the parlor, and Chase followed after him.
“Over there.” He pointed to a closed-off door at the back of the parlor. “That’s where they’ll come in through. These pens are all on a platform that rotates, so we’ll teach them to come in one at a time, and we do it until it’s full.” He pointed to an adjacent door that mirrored the entry space. “We’ll let them out over here. This way we can put all the feed in the middle and then we can come up behind them and attach the hoses. Streamlines the process a lot more.”
Timmy slid out from under the tank and pushed to his feet. Without his shirt on, he strutted his impressive muscles as he hopped into the pit with them.
