They walked for a good hour, up to the ridge where the fence between ranch property and BLM land was, beyond which loomed the foothills and a taller ridge of mountains, rugged and dark against the bright blue sky.
“That’s Iron Mountain,” said Clay, pointing. “That’s where our storms come from, and our fresh breezes, too.”
At the bottom of the road that led beneath the trees, they arrived at the gravel parking lot, where two flag poles stood between two wooden buildings. One was the ranch’s store, and the other was Maddy’s office.
“You’ll meet her later,” said Clay. “She’s pretty busy on a Monday, with new guests and a whole lot of paperwork, so I hate to bother her. Ready for lunch?”
“Yes,” said Austin, slumping with gratitude, for even though he’d worked out three times a week for ten years, there was a big difference between being able to do two sets of fifteen for every part of his body and actually using every part of his body to walk up and down stairs, up and down slopes, and all of this at a higher altitude than he was used to.
“We’ll stop in the restrooms to wash up,” said Clay, leading them around to the dining hall and into the gents in the entryway. There, Clay took off his straw cowboy hat and sighed at his reflection, at the blue and purple bruises around his eye. Then he put his hat back on and looked at Austin in the mirror as he washed his hands. “That’s the last time I get into it with Eddie Piggot, I tell you what.”
“He sounds like a real piece of work,” said Austin, washing his own hands.
“He is,” said Clay. “C’mon, let’s eat.”
Together they stood in a briskly moving line that took them through a buffet where, instead of the regular, ordinary cafeteria buffet dishes, there was an array of crisp fried chicken, and mac and cheese that looked homemade rather than coming from a box. There were also three different salads, an array of sandwiches cut into triangles with the crusts cut off, and three different desserts: chocolate cake, carrot cake, and something that looked like key lime pie.
“Holy cow,” said Austin, sliding his tray along, unable to decide.
“Get used to it, my friend,” said Clay, piling a healthy helping onto his plate. “You’re about to enter the world of instantly gaining ten pounds. Though I think I gained twenty, but I hope it’s all muscle.”
By the time Austin joined Clay at a long table, across from two young men, he was on the verge of shaking as though he’d run a good long while.
“You okay?” asked Clay, spreading cloth napkin in his lap. “I should have been getting water for you. Around all the buildings there are coolers with ice and bottles of water. You should drink more up here, on account of it’s dryer than where you come from.”
“I will do that,” said Austin. He gulped down his glass of water and gasped a breath as the good coolness slid into him.
“And this is Brody, our horse wrangler,” said Clay, pointing across the table at a reedy young man who looked like he’d be filling out his shoulders in a few years. “And that’s Ellis. He works with our blacksmith.”
“Hey,” said Brody, not quite meeting Austin’s gaze.
“Nice to meet you,” said Austin, nodding at Brody. Then he nodded at the other young man, whose dark hair fell across a unique-looking tattoo on his neck of a circle of blue water and a grey stone. Not having imagined that Leland would allow his employees to display body art that way, Austin kept his opinion to himself. “And nice to meet you, as well.”
Ellis nodded, but didn’t say anything. Austin was on the verge of thinking he’d made some sort of huge faux pax when Clay looked at him and shook his head, a slight quick movement that seemed to tell Austin not to worry about it and that Clay would fill him in later. Which was sometimes how it went during meetings at his old job, where a subject might come up that bordered on being taboo, and a co-worker would shrug to dismiss the subject and the meeting would move forward without a word being said about it. That the same sort of thing would happen on a guest ranch in the middle of nowhere had never occurred to him, but it did happen, and he would just have to be patient.
“Is Jasper joining us?” asked Clay as he dug into his fried chicken, holding a thigh with his fingers, chomping into the crisp skin with sharp teeth.
Ellis nodded, and in that moment, his grey eyes shone like a beacon, and he was almost smiling. Then the smile turned real as a large, broad-shouldered man swung into the seat beside Ellis, flush-faced, and gruff around the eyes till he looked at Ellis and they shared a secret smile between them.
“How do,” said the man. He reached an arm across the table in a genial way, offering his calloused hand for Austin to shake. Austin shook it, not quite wincing at the man’s strength. “I’m Jasper and you’re the new accountant Leland told me about and boy, am I glad you’re here. That man was working himself half to death, and that’s not an exaggeration, is it, Clay?”
“Nope.” Clay shook his head and kept eating, licking his lips. “Fourteen-hour days, near as I could figure it. He was doing all the books himself, though I don’t know if he told you that.”
“He mentioned—” Austin paused, trying to figure out how best to put it that wouldn’t betray any confidence Leland had shared with him. Though, seeing as how everyone seemed to be aware of the situation, it might be okay to be straightforward about it. “He mentioned having to let the last accountant go to save money, seeing as how the ranch wasn’t doing so well last year?”
“Oh, the ranch was doing fine,” said Jasper, seemingly carrying the conversation for everybody at the table. “One of our guests disappeared at the end of last season and the ranch took a hit, what with the police investigations and all and the FBI stopping by on more than one occasion.”
“The mountain took him, that’s what Bill said,” said Brody, though he clamped his mouth shut as though surprised he’d spoken.
“The mountain?” asked Austin, a little surprised at the variety of ways the same story could be told.
“That’s Iron Mountain,” said Jasper. “And no, the mountain didn’t take him.”
Brody, his mouth a thin line, didn’t say anything, though it looked like he wanted to.
As for Clay, his expression told Austin he didn’t really know which side of the story he wanted to stand on, whether the disappearance was something mundane or more attached to the shadowy side of things.
“At any rate,” said Clay, digging into his mac and cheese, “Leland doesn’t like us talking about it.”
