He gritted his teeth a bit, did his PT exercises, rubbed arnica cream on his left thigh, shoveled horse shit, and showed greenhorns how to ride. Led the way on trail rides that were no longer than half a day into the hills, and were usually shorter than that.
Sometimes he was flooded with the uselessness of the activities at the guest ranch. None of it was real. Just some rich city dwellers coming out for fresh air and a change of pace, neither of which was a desire he could fault them for. They had dreams that they wanted him to make come true for them.
In his mind, if they wanted to experience ranch life, they should actually get hired at a ranch. Which was foolish of him to think, to imagine they would be the slightest bit interested in real ranch life. They wanted photograph worthy events, colorful images they could show to their friends back home:I’m wearinga hat! Now look. I’m on a horse!Like that old Old Spice commercial.
Midway through that season at the guest ranch was when Galen had come on to him. Casual and friendly, gifting Zeke with gray-eyed flashes of want amidst blush-cheeked smiles.
Could a man be pretty? Zeke had never thought so, but Galen made him think so, though it did take Zeke a few encounters before he realized what was going on. Before he could figure out how to respond to those broadly aimed comments and hints that Galenwanted him,wanted him. Like a man might want a woman.
Galen wanted kisses and intimacy and seemed to imply that he might not be put off by the fact that Zeke’s left leg ached after a hard day’s work and that he might not be as nimble as Galen might like. Or that Zeke himself might like.
Zeke hadn’t been with anyone since Betty Lou over a year before, so in a blank, Galen-induced, passion-colored mindset, Zeke was just about able to imagine being in bed with Galen. Could almost feel how it would feel as he corded his fingers in that soft-looking hair. How his body might respond as his mouth pressed against the plushness of Galen’s mouth.
In the midst of all those images, he could imagine—maybe—what it would feel like to bring another man to pleasure. With his hands. His mouth?—
The thing of it was, Zeke was not gay and besides, Galen deserved to be with someone who truly cared about him. Who shared his desires and dreams.
Zeke was not a one-night stand kind of guy, whether with a man or a woman, and Galen didn’t seem like he was either. Galen was just lonely, as far as Zeke could see.
Perhaps Galen had thought Zeke was like him, lonely, alone, and gay—or maybe because he was truly interested—and so he’d come on to Zeke.
Zeke couldn’t figure it out, so in a cloud of confusion, being as polite as he could, he’d turned Galen down.
You’re a good man, Galen,Zeke had said, crossing his arms over his chest as a kind of shield.But I’m straight. Why, I dated Betty Lou for three years before I busted my leg. She only wanted a buckle-winning kind of man. Not a broken one. Hence, I am on the shelf, on the lookout for a nice woman to settle down with.
Not that Zeke had any idea how to find that nice woman to settle down with, since he figured most, if not all, of them would not want someone who was so broken. Not with the kind of work he had done. Not with the life he wanted to lead, even if the idea of what that life would be seemed to keep shifting.
The following season, when Galen had gone off to help with the Farthingdale Valley Fresh Start program intended to rehabilitate ex-cons, Zeke had breathed a sigh of relief.
Feeling like a coward, he was grateful he had some breathing room from the puzzling feelings he’d had after Galen’s nuanced come-hither suggestions. Except then Leland Tate once again offered Zeke a job, this time helping ex-cons learn how to ride. Down in the valley. The same valley where Galen worked.
Leland’s offer had come at the end of a successful sunset trail ride, which had consisted of an hour of placid walking along the low hills below the shadow of Iron Mountain. A ride easy enough for grandma or anyone. All of which left Zeke more bored than he cared to admit.
Zeke had quelled his urge to gallop along and force the city dwellers into something real and exciting. Something that would coat their bodies with dust so they’d have a real reason to shower, and not just perform another ritual with fancy and overpriced soap.
But rules were rules, and the website clearly described the ride as peaceful and soul-fulfilling, rather than anything harum-scarum that Zeke might enjoy harkening back to his rodeo days. So he’d restrained himself.
“Don’t you already have Galen down there?” asked Zeke as he leaned against the top rail in the picturesque paddock.
He and Leland, in the long shadows of a late-summer dusk, had been watching high paying guests stomping their expensive boots in the dust and laughing as they cleaned hooves and brushed out manes and tails, pretending all the while that getting horseshit on their boots was exciting.
“Galen’s a good man. Good at teaching.”
“Galenisa good man,” said Leland, echoing Zeke’s pose, pushing up the brim of his hat with his thumb as he kept an eye on the activity in the paddock. “And he’s good at teaching, but what he’s really, really good at is wrangling ex-cons.”
Leland paused to chuckle low, as if the discovery about Galen was a surprise to him. Then he said, “He received the roughest set of parolees we’ve gotten so far this summer. Now those ex-cons wear matching hats. They’re tidy and industrious. They brainstorm solutions and execute the plan like they’ve been sitting in a conference room together for years. That Galen, he sweet-talked them into turning over new leaves. Doesn’t even realize how good he is at it, which might be a good thing. Hate for him to become self-conscious.”
“But he’s not much good in the ring,” said Zeke, figuring out what Leland didn’t seem to want to say.
“He was here,” said Leland, with a nod at the paddock. “These folks are pretty well-behaved and good at following directions. But ex-cons on horseback are another thing altogether. Things get out of hand, and accidents will happen.”
When Leland cast his clear-eyed gaze in Zeke’s direction, Zeke heard the unspoken words quite clearly:He might be in over his head and I don’t want anyone getting hurt.
Zeke knew he, personally, would be more worried about any horses getting hurt than ex-cons. It was for that reason that he slowly nodded and said yes.
He would go because of the horses, and he would learn to rebuild a relationship with a good man who had only asked for what he wanted and had never pushed Zeke into anything.
So he packed his bags and got a ride to Torrington, there to take part in the two-week training at Wyoming Correctional.
