“Stella gave me the keys to your room, Austin,” said Leland. He dug in his pocket and handed a set of keys to Austin. The phone in his back pocket rang, and Leland answered it while striding away. “See you,” he said with a wave before going behind the barn.
“He’s a busy man,” said Austin.
“Well, he’s got a lot to do,” said Clay, looking at Austin from beneath the brim of his straw cowboy hat with some earnestness. “And if I’d gotten you here yesterday, like I was supposed to, he could have shown you around himself. He usually meets with the BLM folks about once a month, so he had to go.”
“BLM?” asked Austin.
“That’s the Bureau of Land Management,” said Clay. “Their land abuts ours and since we graze our cattle there sometimes and take trail rides and cattle drives on it, it pays to have a good relationship with them.”
“Ah.” Austin nodded. “I guess I have to get used to living in flyover country where things are different from what I’m used to.”
“Flyover country?” asked Clay as he hauled Austin’s two boxy suitcases from the bed of the truck and hefted them one in each hand.
“That’s places in the country that aren’t on the coast, aren’t full of beaches and nightlife that everybody wants.”
“Well, I don’t want that.”
Sensing that he might have ruffled Clay’s feathers, which he most certainly did not want to do, Austin took one of the suitcases from Clay, hefted his backpack on his shoulder and slapped on a smile. Clay deserved better than to have his lovely ranch maligned as being worthy only of being passed over.
“I’m sorry,” said Austin, and he meant it. “I’m still ragged from the divorce—” He stopped, uncertain if Clay even knew he was divorced, or if it was common knowledge. “There’s just been a lot of change in my life lately. I don’t mean to be rude, though.”
“Oh, you’re not,” said Clay with a shrug, his smile returning. “I know you’ll like it here once you settle in. As for now, let me show you where you’ll be living.”
Now that they were going at a walking pace, Austin felt his body slow down and his eyes open to what was around him. He and Clay went along a dirt path beneath a tunnel of green leaves that granted sweet-scented shade while offering tidbits of blue sky, along the side of a large structure that looked like it was made of wooden logs. Up ahead was a set of stairs that led to a long shaded porch. He followed Clay up the stairs and then, once inside, up two more flights, until they were on the top floor.
“I’m at this end,” said Clay, pointing to the left with his elbow as he turned right to go along the wood-paneled passage. “And you’re at this end. The rooms are small, but you’ll have everything you need and all the privacy, too. Most employees don’t like to come up all this way, but when Leland asked me about it, I told him I thought you might enjoy the view.”
Putting down the suitcase, Clay opened the door, which wasn’t locked, and stepped back. It wasn’t quite noon, so the room was in shadow, but beyond the small, white painted walls and the single bed with the white-painted iron bedstead, and through the open curtains, lurked the promised view.
Putting his suitcase down next to the tall dresser, Austin went to the window with a kind of wonder and leaned to look through the thin window-screen. To the left were more leafy green trees that might be cottonwoods, though he couldn’t be certain, and long-trunked pines growing out of the hillside. To the right, through an opening in the trees, circled the glimmer of a blue river along a green bank, wending its way into the hills. And beyond that, open space, without a single building or structure or fence or power wires.
The view seemed to curve over a low plateau and disappeared into the distance of blue sky. In Thornton, or anywhere in the outskirts of Denver, such a view would have taken an entire lifetime to buy. But here, in the middle of nowhere, the view was being given to him, the ranch’s newest employee. As a gift, a kind of bonus, maybe, though to think in those terms seemed to imply that he was trying to measure a view like it was money. Like it could be bought. Which it couldn’t.
“Nice, huh?”
Clay came up close, pressing his shoulder to Austin’s shoulder, looking out as though he’d not seen the view a hundred times before.
“I used to have this view before I moved to the other end of the hallway where it’s a little shadier in the afternoon. That sun can get fierce in the afternoon, but the sunsets are gorgeous.”
“I don’t mind,” said Austin, and he meant it. “That view is marvelous.”
“All the views are like that,” said Clay. He stepped back, and Austin turned to look at him, to absorb that smile, the pride that lifted his chin, the starlike sparkle in his eyes. “Every single one.”
A thought flickered in Austin’s head about the view he was seeing now. About the energy coming from Clay that he probably didn’t even realize he was giving out, and that Austin was absorbing as though he was a battery that’d run all the way down to empty and feared he could never be recharged again.
Then Clay took the suitcase from the doorway and plunked it next to the other suitcase.
“If we leave these for now, I can show you around, and then we can get lunch.” Clay nodded as Austin placed his backpack on the bed and shuffled the suitcases closer to each other. “You don’t want to miss Levi’s good cooking. He’s the cook for the ranch, but I think he’s had real training or something because he’s just that good.”
Having doubts that the cooking on a ranch was any better than a common cafeteria, Austin kept his thoughts to himself. He was used to a different life, different ways, but he’d left that behind him, willingly or not, and now he needed to get used to a new life. Which meant not voicing a negative opinion on every little thing like Mona always did simply because that’s what all her friends did. Raise yourself up by taking the other fellow down a peg or two at any opportunity. He didn’t want to be like that. Not here.
Together he and Clay clomped down the stairs to the long porch, where Clay took a moment to point out where they were to orient Austin. Then he led Austin through the small glade to the road, where he showed him the bunkhouses, the main lodge with the dining hall and rooms for guests above that, and the select cabins, the roofs of which could just be seen peeking up above a small rise.
“Those are pretty special cabins,” said Clay. “They’re very private and have amazing views. Let me show you the barn.”
At the barn was a small gathering of horses in a group being led into a sandy arena. Along the wooden fence stood people dressed in cowboyesque outfits too new and too crisp to be real.
“That’s the riding lesson, or one of them,” said Clay. “Let’s go this way. My face is still too banged up to be customer facing.”
