Leland
Typically on Thursdays, Maddy didn’t set up a dance in front of the dining hall, but she’d organized a nighttime hike up to the ridge and back for some stargazing. That wasn’t for hours yet, and Quint and Brody were leading that hike, so by the time the dinner bell rang, Leland was done for the day. Except for his usual ride around the ranch later, he was off duty. It was a good feeling and a nice treat mid-week, letting him catch his breath.
In the dining hall, he piled his plate with the lasagna and garlic bread they were serving, and also got a salad. Standing there with his tray, he saw Jasper and Brody at a table near the windows.
He might go sit with them, and make sure he was seated at the end of the table, in case any guests came by to chat. Then, out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Jamie standing at the end of the buffet line with his tray. He was a little grubby from the day’s work, but he looked good, like he’d taken breaks and had plenty of energy to spare. When he saw Leland, his eyes lit up, shining like beacons.
What Leland should have done was nod and Jamie and gone to sit with his other co-workers, the ones who were like him, in charge of various functions of the ranch, in charge of people. What he should not have done was gesture to an empty table further along by the windows, with a smile to welcome Jamie to join him. But that’s exactly what he did, and he felt a kind of joy seeing Jamie hurry over to the table even as he chastised himself. His rule was never to play favorites, but he was breaking that rule now.
“Hey, Jamie,” he said as they sat across from each other. “Saw you working the corral again.”
“I took breaks, every hour,” Jamie said, nodding. His hair spilled in his eyes and Leland wanted to push it back, but that was him being ridiculous.
“That’s good,” Leland said, instead. “Eat up, we’ll put some meat on those bones yet.”
They ate in silence, much as they had when they’d been delivering salt blocks earlier.
Leland didn’t know exactly why he’d asked Jamie to help him with that particular task. He’d written Jamie’s name on the roster the night before, crossed that out, and written down Clay’s name. Only to, in the end, call out Jamie’s name.
He was glad he had, for it had been such a perfect time, the weather sunny and bright, just the two of them out there. Leland could never get over how beautiful the front range was, especially in early summer, and it gladdened him more than he could say to look at Jamie and see him taking in the view with wide-eyed wonder.
It made him glad all over again that they were starting that ex-con program and other community outreach programs. Bill was right. It was selfish to keep this all to themselves, and important to share it carefully, slowly, with minimal impact on the environment.
But more, it had felt significant to share it with Jamie, being together like they had been. It took all of whatever Leland possessed to not suggest to Jamie, then and there, that they should do the same the next day and the next and the next. But he couldn’t. There was always other work to do, and besides, it could never be the same perfection. The landscape shifted, and the clouds moved, and it was always different each and every day.
Like the expressions on Jamie’s face now, as he dug into his apple crumble and looked at Leland like he didn’t know what to expect from him, but might welcome it. Leland didn’t know what to expect from himself, so he could well appreciate what Jamie was going through. All he knew was that the affection he felt was solid, and beneath that was something more fleeting but quite powerful, if he let it come to fruition. He didn’t know if he dared. Didn’t know if he could resist following through, as he was only human after all.
“You’re doing good work, Clay says,” Leland said, reaching for his own apple crumble, trying to distract himself. “My, look at this. We have the best cooks at the ranch, just the best.”
Jamie smiled, and the smile reached his eyes, and Leland wondered how many people had seen this smile since before his parents had gotten divorced. Not many, that’s what he figured. But he was seeing it now, and it made something come alive inside of him. He was such a stickler for rules, but could they be broken or bent for such a smile as this? Maybe.
In the midst of his musings, Jasper came up and wanted to talk about new bellows for his forge. While Leland had already told him no, as he really didn’t need a new one, Jasper patiently explained that what he wanted to get was an old-fashioned, wood-and-leather set of bellows that would be perfect for demos and would give the right atmosphere. Then Clay trotted over and wanted to know whether he could help with cabin assignments for the next week’s group of families and singles.
In the middle of that, Jamie nodded at Leland, gathered his tray, and left. Which left Leland bereft and oddly unable to focus on Jasper or Clay. Or the other three ranch hands who came up to him with questions. And the pair of guests after that. Well, he was the foreman, so it was his job to answer their concerns, which he did, as patiently as he could, all the while hoping he’d catch another glimpse of Jamie before he left the dining hall. He did not.
After dinner, he went to the barn where a horse was waiting for him, all saddled and ready to go. This one was Travelle, a nice quiet bay mare who loved to run, when anybody would let her, but who was gentle and perfect for kids, for all she was a little lean in the withers.
Leland mounted up and went down the road, past the dining hall, cantering sometimes, or strolling in the cool air beneath the trees along the road to the gate. He checked the gate was closed, then turned back up the road and over the bridge.
From a little rise, he could see that the water from Horse Creek was collecting nicely in the pond on the other side of Jasper’s cabin. The grasses along the river were high, except around the fire pit where Jamie had so obligingly scythed them back.
Someone, probably Jasper, had come in and finished the job and so now the fire pit was ready for the regular Friday night cookout. Some groups wanted scary stories, some wanted singalongs, and Maddy took a vote for preferences at the beginning of the week. This week was song week, which, luckily, he was not on tap for, as he was a horrible, truly horrible, singer.
He guided Travelle to the left and took the narrow, almost invisible dirt road that led up to the Surveyor’s Cabin, a lonely spot tucked behind a hill. For over a hundred years, a log cabin had stood on that particular spot, falling into disarray over time. Finally, when the ranch could no longer insure the structure, Bill had it torn it down, some seasons back. It had been a wreck anyway, with the roof caving in and the walls crumbling into the earthen foundation. Someone, probably Maddy, had collected artifacts and such and set them up in display cases in her office, and put pictures of the original cabin and occupant on the walls, as a kind of shrine to the old days.
Over the winter, when Bill had taken a trip out to assess the ranch, he’d come across the site, and dreamed up a plan to rebuild it, just as it had been. Even without a whole lot of money to spare, Bill had hired carpenters. They’d worked like fury during early spring, and now here the cabin was with a tidy roof that looked like wooden shingles but were actually cement, fire-safe and to code.
The air smelled like pine as Leland rode up to the cabin. There was a lock on the door, as the inside still needed some work. Someday, Bill hoped to rent the cabin out to folks who really wanted to get away from it all, live simply for a day or two, and stare up at the brilliant stars that could be seen overhead at night.
The structure had seasoned for a little while and now needed painting. Bill had ordered the color he wanted for it, which he insisted should be very natural looking and fit in with the wild prairie landscape. The gallons of paint were in the supply shed, and Leland knew that yes, he was going to ask Jamie to help him. The task would only take them a day or two, and while it might not be like their trip to deliver salt blocks, it might be something else.
Turning Travelle back to the main part of the ranch, he shook his head as he scolded himself. These weren’t the thoughts a foreman should be having about one of his ranch hands. But he was having them. All kinds of thoughts and feelings he’d not had in a good long while.
Maybe he felt close to Jamie because he needed someone in his life, and maybe Jamie needed him. And maybe Leland needed Jamie to remind him it wasn’t all rules and regulations, that life could be fun. That smiles could be shared over slices of apple crumble.
To soothe his troubled thoughts, he made another circle around the ranch, wide, to the north, going on the other side of the river from Jasper’s cabin and his blacksmith forge, up along the hill above the pond. There he could see the spread of the ranch, the barn, the roofline of the staff quarters above the pine trees, the smoke rising from the dining hall’s chimney, the majority of the building completely tucked away behind aspens coming to full leaf.
And there, just on the other side of the river where Horse Creek led into the pond, was Jamie. Maybe he’d come out to watch the sunset in the beauty of the evening. Or, possibly, he’d come out to watch Leland ride. Sometimes guests did. It had the air of the romantic about it, Clay assured him, even though he was doing it for very practical purposes.
