“I can’t dance.” Austin switched hands again. “I feel like my arms and legs are in the wrong places.”
“Me neither, but I loved to watch Miguel. All the men wanted him. Sometimes he’d take a guy off for a quick hand job or a suck, nothing big. I was the guy he was coming home with. He wasn’t made for the city.”
“You said he loved horses.”
“Yeah. Breeding, training, riding. The cattle bored him.” Was that part of the problem, the beginning of the end? Or was it really all my fault?
I fell silent. Down the aisle, one of the horses whickered. Little Olive struggled to her feet and wobbled down again closer to hermother’s nose. Ebony gave her calf a lick, which was another good sign.
“I like the cows,” Austin said. “It’s a balance, right? You can’t get too attached. They’re either meat on the hoof, or they’re breeding stock and even those mostly don’t stick around too long. But they’re living creatures, and they have their personalities and their ways, and those ridiculous ears and eyelashes. It’s a privilege and a responsibility to work with them.”
“Yes.” I couldn’t have put my thoughts into words, but those two felt right for this job I loved. Privilege, to be out here on the range and not cooped up in an office. Responsibility— where the pain began. “I was responsible for a disaster, once. I guess I’m gun shy.”
Austin didn’t ask, just said, “Half done on this bottle.”
Him not asking was what let me tell him. “It was breeding season, late July. Miguel had been with us a year. Sounds like a long time, but what we had still felt new. To me. Maybe Miguel was getting bored.” With me as well as the cows. “He liked to flirt. Harmless stuff. He liked to make me blush and get flustered, out in the open.”
“You didn’t mind?”
“Not really. I was embarrassed I was so easy to wind up. But… Miguel had a shitty time at home as a teen. Got beaten up by his dad and his uncle for acting too gay, more than once. As soon as he was free, he was determined no one would make him act straight ever again. Flirting was flexing his queer power. I understood.”
“You’re a good man, Seth.”
I liked hearing Austin say that, but he didn’t know. “Yeah, until you hear the next part.” I swallowed hard, not sure I wanted to say this stuff out loud, except I couldn’t quit now. “So, there we were, moving one of the bulls out from the bredcows over to the heifers. Dozer, big bull, five years old, so he was experienced and ornery. Zachary and I were keeping the pressure on him, riding one on either side.”
“Who’s Zachary?”
“Seasonal hand. A young guy, just turned nineteen. He’d signed on for the summer. Normally we wouldn’t have a green hand moving a bull, but he grew up on a ranch in Wyoming, knew his shit. Most of the other hands were busy clearing a tree that came down on a fence.” I looked down at Ebony’s furry black side, so I couldn’t see Austin’s face. “Miguel rode up and I asked him to get the gate ahead. He said, ‘Sure, papi. Finish with the bull and I’ll give you a reward.’ Then he looked at the bull and whistled, grabbed his crotch, and said, ‘Now those arebigballs on that bad boy.’ He pretended to be jerking off. I laughed.”
“Well, bulls are, uh, big.”
“Yeah, but… I was so caught up in Miguel, in his joking, in how hot he looked and his hand on his jeans… I lost track.”
Austin kept silent, giving me time to voice my shame.
“I didn’t pay attention. I was the experienced guy, the one responsible. Zachary was supposed to know how to play it safe, but he rode too close, pushed the bull too hard. If a bull resists, you have to back off, give him room.”
“I haven’t worked with bulls, much.”
“You have to nudge them along real slow. They’re touchy and they’re tough. They hate a strong tailwind, which we had, because they can’t scent predators in a tailwind. So that bull kept trying to turn and break back to the cows. It’d been a long day. We were tired, frustrated. When Dozer got stubborn, instead of backing off, Zachary rode in closer. I was laughing at Miguel and not watching like I should’ve. That bull got mad and he charged Zachary. Zachary was riding Copper, who knew what she was doing, but that bull was fast and two-thousand pounds of pissed off muscle.” My breath caught as memories flashed through myhead, a horror movie of bellowing, shouting, thuds, screams. “Dozer got Copper on the rump, knocked her right over. She came down with Zachary underneath.”
“Fuck,” Austin whispered.
I squeezed my eyes shut but the disaster played out behind my closed lids. “Zachary screamed so bad. Broke his pelvis in two places, cracked his spine, busted up his right leg. The fall broke Copper’s hindleg too. We had to put her down right there, one of Kendrick’s best mares.”
“I’m sorry.”
My words tumbled over themselves, exposing every detail of what I’d caused. “Zachary never healed right. He had a bunch of surgeries, was in a wheelchair last I heard. The docs said he might walk someday, but he’d never ride again. Copper was dead.” I clenched my teeth and forced the last part through my tight throat. “And it was all my fault.”
“Seth.” Austin sounded like he was trying to coddle me.
“No, it was!” I looked up at last, glaring at Austin through a shimmering haze in my eyes. He needed to know this about me. “I was in charge, and too busy cruising the hot guy I was sleeping with to keep my work partner safe. I should’ve noticed the bull getting angry. Should’ve seen Zachary was too frustrated to be smart. We could’ve backed off, moved Dozer another day.”
“That’s hindsight, Seth.”
“That’scommon sense!” I rubbed my face. “That was my job. I fucked it up because I couldn’t keep my eyes off Miguel. Zachary and Copper paid the price.”
“Sounds like Zachary fucked up too, pushing too hard. Sounds like Miguel fucked up, distracting you in a dangerous moment.”
