“Maybe I can just take a bath in the water trough,” I groused as a trio of goat kids pranced around my legs, one headbutting my kneecap. Ford laughed at their antics, calling them by name. There were so many kids I had no clue who belonged to what doe. Ford did though. They all looked the same to me, and the colored collars were confusing. As long as Ford and Aiden, the local large animal vet, could keep track, I wouldn’t worry over it. My bookkeeping skills were not livestock records. I was the Bastian in charge of the books. Lucky me.
“If the horses don’t mind, I don’t,” he tossed at me as I went to lug in fresh bedding for the goats from the hay mound. Thirty minutes passed in hard work and silence aside from the sounds of livestock and bees warming up as the June sun climbed higher. The call to breakfast arrived just as I was breaking up a clover hay bale into the manger for the milking does.
Ford and I met up with Baker at the back door. “The cattle are going to be turned out soon. Final rides today to check fencingsouth and west. The bull has covered most of the heifers already so he can go to pasture with them. We’ll turn them loose in a few days. Dodge, you want to ride out with us to show them where the water is, where to graze, and just let them know that we’re in charge?”
“Yeah, please. I think Dahn would enjoy it. It’s pretty low key, right?” We clomped into the back room, the mudroom as it was called, to toe off our shitty boots and wash up in an old double sink that Granny said was older than she was.
“For the most part. The bull can be a questionable thing, but he’s pretty docile for the most part. Just let me ride near him in case he decides to get a wild hair.”
“We need to name him and the cows. They’re cows now, right? They’ve been bred?” Ford asked as the smell of coffee and bacon wafted in on a warm breeze.
“They’re bred heifers. When they get closer to calving, they can be called a springing heifer, but I just call them heifers until they give birth and then they’re cows,” Baker patiently explained and left us at the sink as Granny and Bella chatted away in the kitchen.
“You got that?” I teased, knocking elbows with the youngest Bastian brother. He blushed slightly as he nodded his head. “Good. I’m starving. Let’s eat.”
Dahn was at the table, groggy but awake, with a plate of fried eggs and bacon and a large glass of milk in hand. I bent down to kiss his knotted hair. He made that sleepy, grumpy kid noise but didn’t push me away. That day was probably coming soon, but I’d keep kissing him until he said not to. It would break my heart, but all kids go through that stage.
“Morning,” Granny crowed, moving around the airy kitchen in her summer robe, slippers, and leopard leggings. “Coffee is nearly ready. Bella, can you check the toast? That old toaster likes to stick sometimes.”
“On it,” Bella announced, her platinum hair combed back off her slim face and held in place with a pretty pink band that matched her summery rose dress. Her makeup was subtle, and her earrings were tiny pearls. She moved with grace even this early in the morning. “Here we go. No stuck toast today. Dodge, would you like something to take with you to the airport? We’re going to bake some bread before I go to the boutique. We can make sandwiches.”
“No, thank you. I’ll grab something once I land in Sacramento.” I forked some eggs onto my plate and plucked some toast from the platter that Bella placed on the table. “Are you sure you don’t want to come? You haven’t seen your other dad since the end of school?”
“No, I’m good. Ford and me are going to help Doc Aiden with tattooing and castrating the boy goats.”
I threw a look at Ford as he lowered the strip of bacon about to go into his mouth. “It’s nothing bloody. Just bands.”
“If you want your boy to grow up on a ranch, he needs to learn everything,” Baker chimed in to the discussion after taking a slurp of coffee. “It’s not always clean and sparkly on a farm. Sometimes there’s blood and death and real painful things. He needs to learn it all, or he might just as well be back in the city being shot at by gang members.”
“I’m sure the boy will learn what he needs to learn in good time,” Granny interjected as she settled into her seat with the sun on her shoulders. Helped her arthritis, she claimed. “Castrating a bull or buck is part of the working of a ranch. Easy procedure. An elastic band around the dangles and there you go!”
I winced at the thought. “Okay, fine, as long as it’s not bloody.”
I felt there were things Baker and Granny were holding back, but I opted not to press. They were right. I did want Dahn toknow this way of life, the good and the bad. I also wanted to protect him from the ugly though.
“Nope, no blood. And then the steer or wether can be shown at the fair,” Baker said around a bite of yolky toast.
“A wether is a castrated male goat,” Dahn informed me. “I think I want to show one at the Bastian County Fair in August. Can I show one, Dad? Baker said he knows a lot about showing, and there are groups in town with kids that show and know ranching. Can I join one of them?”
“Sure, I don’t see why not. But that will have to happen after I get back from seeing what your dad wants.” Dahn nodded and started talking goats with Ford. I smiled at Granny as my mind leaped into what on earth was so damn important my ex couldn’t tell me in a text or a phone call. The asshole had told me he was disillusioned with our marriage via text. Surely this, whatever it was, could have been delivered in that same tasteless way. Sometimes I swore exes just did shit to get your goat.
***
Sacramento hadn’t changed much since I lived and worked here.
Oddly enough, though, it felt smaller, more cramped, too full of cars and people. A side effect of living on a ranch with thousands of acres where the only other faces you saw were family, cows, and horses. Oh, and goats. How dare I omit the goats my son loved so deeply? Sitting in a booth at a trendy eatery on J Street, I watched the crush of humanity moving past as I waited patiently for Chris. I hoped he would be alone. Thankfully, he was. I spied him entering the sports bar slash restaurant. In all honesty, he was hard to miss. Six feet four, two hundred fifty pounds of hard muscle. Hair so blond it was almost white, eyes as blue as the pressed Levi’s I was wearing, and a smile I had built for him out of the purest of love. Freeof charge, obviously. His dimple flashed as he flirted with table after table of fans.
This was why he always ate out at sports bars. The people there knew him. Nothing twisted his nuts more than entering a busy place and no one fawning over him. I sighed at the ten-minute wait for him to move a hundred feet from the door to our table.
“Hey,” he said as a greeting. “You look good. Less mealy.”
Cool. Great way to open a conversation. “Thanks. I’ve been taking anti-mealy pills.”
He sat back in his seat, arms folded, as he tried to mentally work out if I was being serious or not. “I’m kidding, Chris. There is no such thing. I’m just a little more tanned than I was before as I’m outside working all the time now and not in a dental office.”
“Oh, so you’re starting off this meeting by trying to make me feel stupid.”
I bit down on the inside of my cheek before replying. “No, I’m not trying to make you feel anything. Can we just get to why I had to fly all the way here for a conversation that could probably be had over the phone?”
