“Leland here,” said Leland on the other end of the line.
“Hey, Leland,” said Gabe as he gestured to Wayne and Blaze that the morning’s work was done, and that they could meet him in the mess tent for lunch. “What’s up?”
“Do we need a meeting?” asked Leland, quite without preamble. “I thought I had it on my schedule that we were supposed to meet this morning, even if only by cellphone. Did I miss it?”
“No, I missed it,” said Gabe, wincing as he walked away from the mess tent because he had a feeling he was about to get hollered at and he didn’t want witnesses. “I’m sorry. I just got caught up with everything that needed doing.”
“So, is your team suffering from being down not just one man, but two?”
“There’s been a little bit of adjustment there, but no suffering,” he said. “Turns out Wayne is allergic to horses, but he’s been doing all right on his own with clearing undergrowth, mapping stumps, and so on.”
“So, a hard worker.”
“Hard,” said Gabe, agreeing wholeheartedly. “Blaze is too. He’s willing to jump in and take up the slack at whatever task.”
“Quint and Brody spoke well of their dinner with you,” said Leland, now, and while he didn’t seem like he was seeking praise, Gabe was happy to give it.
“Your theory is working,” said Gabe. “Give a man good food to eat, a comfortable place to sleep, and decent work to do and—”
“I’ve never seen it fail yet,” said Leland, and if he was pleased with himself, Gabe couldn’t blame him. “Well, except with Kurt, who seemed like he’d be a good fit, but that’ll teach me to tighten my vetting process.”
“I’ve still got a good team, even if it is only two men,” said Gabe, and he could see that Blaze was standing at the opening of the mess tent, as if waiting. As if he wasn’t going to eat his lunch until Gabe could.
“We’ll have some new parolees sometime next week,” said Leland. “I’m having Royce take them on. He’ll have them fine tuning some of the landscaping closer to the lake, surveying the outer reaches, and he can help you with the horses.”
“Sure thing.” Gabe nodded. Royce came from a ranching family up in Montana where they raised expensive horses and grew lush alfalfa hay, though Gabe could never understand, if Royce had all that, what he was doing so far south working on a guest ranch. “And we’ll have eight horses ready to process, if Quint or someone wants to come by and help me look them over.”
“I’ll have him call you.”
“Sounds good,” said Gabe. He lifted his chin, though at this distance he didn’t imagine that Blaze could see it. “The boys are waiting on me for lunch,” he said. “Talk to you later.”
He tucked the cellphone in his back pocket, then hurried to the mess tent. There, the cooks had put out their usual spread, more than that, even, perhaps a bit out of desperation to prove their worth even though they only had three people to cook for.
“We’re getting more parolees next week,” said Gabe to everyone in general as he sat down. “Leland will have the actual numbers soon.”
Now that they were sitting at the table, Blaze and Wayne on one side, himself alone on the other, the question that had been safely tucked away during his and Blaze’s rush out of his tent, the scurry to feed and water the horses, and to help Wayne at the chipper, now seemed to loom upwards.
What was he supposed to do now that he and Blaze had shared what they had, touches to bare skin, kisses, the taste of Blaze’s spend on his tongue? Such trust from Blaze could not have been given easily, and Gabe did not want to squander that trust.
Just as he was about to dive into what looked like an amazing plate of spaghetti bolognese and toasted garlic bread, his cellphone rang again, and when he pulled it out, it was Quint.
“I’ll be down after lunch with some saddles and bridles,” said Quint. The sounds behind his voice, people talking and laughing, told Gabe that maybe Quint was in the dining hall at the guest ranch, just about to sit down and eat but taking care of business first. “Will that work? Can we put one of your boys up in the saddle to see how they move?”
Gabe knew that Quint meant he wanted to see how the horses moved with someone astride who might not know what they were doing. A well-trained horse, experienced and steady, could handle an untrained rider, where a poorly trained horse could not.
“I’ll bring a lunge line,” added Quint, as if he could hear Gabe’s resistance due to the fact that it sounded like Quint was willing to use Gabe’s parolees as crash test dummies, that he thought ex-cons were disposable. “I’ve been informed they can’t ride, but I’m not expecting them to. I just need the weight up in the saddle. Real weight.”
“That’ll work,” said Gabe. “I’ve only got one man that you can use. The other one’s allergic to horses.”
He heard Quint’stsk tsksound, derisive and quick, but that was Quint. Good at what he did, but judgmental of weakness, and that included allergies. At the same time, Quint was an amazing horseman and even if he sometimes rubbed Gabe the wrong way with his taciturn manner and fierce air, he was very patient with questions, even from greenhorns.
Gabe hung up. Wayne rolled his eyes and smirked, as if he knew Quint’s opinion but didn’t give a rat’s ass about it, and Blaze was looking at him, his green eyes wide, a contented air sifting around him, settling on his shoulders.
“Quint’s coming to help me review the horses, the eight that are ready, to see about them. Whether they can be sold or donated and to who.” Blaze’s expression turned expectant, eyebrows rising. “We need an inexperienced rider so we can get the mettle of the horse. What say you, Blaze?”
“I can’t ride,” said Blaze. “I mean, Ican’tride.”
“I know, but you’d be on a lunge line, wouldn’t have to steer or anything. Just get up there.”
