Greel grunted and moved on to check other tables. Jessi squeezed my shoulder before heading back to the kitchen. The women near the bar were still stealing glances at Becken, who remained completely oblivious as he focused on his dinner.
We finished eating as the evening crowd began to thin out. Tourists headed back to their rooms or wandered outside to enjoy the night air. Becken laid down his fork and pushed back from the table.
“Not bad food,” he said.
“Jessi’s an amazing c-c-cook.” Amazing person, too. No wonder Greel loved her.
“True.” Becken stretched tall to the oohs and ahhs of the women. “I should get some sleep. Tomorrow I’ll start figuring out how to run the rodeo without anyone dying.”
“Good luck with that.”
Becken grunted what might have been a laugh and headed for the saloon doors. The table of women watched him go with sighs of disappointment.
I stood to leave as well, taking our plates into the kitchen and placing them in the big washer.
“Thanks, Hail,” Jessi said from she worked at a nearby counter.
“Of course.”
Back in the main part of the saloon, I gestured to Tressa, who stretched and padded over, ready for the go home.
Outside, the night was clear and cool, with stars scattered across the sky like bits of clay dust. I called for my sorhox, Calli, with a “whoop, whoop, whoop”.
Heavy thuds of cloven hooves rang out as Calli approached town from the open pasture where I’d sent her to graze and relax this morning. My sorhox came into view, her massive body as big as what humans called a minivan, her green hide gleaming in the moonlight. Her three-clawed hooves kicked up dirt as she trotted toward me, her impressive horns spiraling outward from behind her ears before curving forward into lethal-looking points.
Despite her fearsome appearance with fangs protruding from her mouth and the spiked tip of her long tail swishing behind her, Calli was as placid as any creature I’d ever known. She tended to startle tourists. They weren’t used to letting their beasts range free.
We only fenced in our mounts at night, though mostly to keep them wandering through town and startling the tourists. Smoke drifted from her nostrils as she trotted beside the boardwalk and came to a stop in front of me, blowing a gust of steam on the ground.
“Hey,” I said, joining her on the dirt road. I patted her neck and scratched behind her ears where she loved it. “Ready to head home?”
She huffed as if to say yes, though as far as I knew, sorhoxes didn’t understand our language. We trained them from the time they were young to respond to foot commands.
One leap and I’d settled on her back. Tressa looked up at us both from the boardwalk, her tail wagging.
A subtle command, and Calli trotted from town, Tressa racing beside us. She darted forward and then would wait for us to catch up, leading us toward my small ranch home my brothers and I had built when we bought this valley for our new home.
The journey didn’t take long, and my white-painted house soon came into view. Each of us had our own place, spread out enough for privacy but close enough that we could help each other when needed. Only Sel had two bedrooms. We’d built his first, then quickly realized it would be faster to build smaller. Each of us could add to our building if we felt the need.
I doubted I’d ever have younglings, so one bedroom would suite me fine.
Calli trotted past my house and stopped in front of the big red barn. My brothers kept sorhox young inside, but I’d used mine for my pottery until we constructed the barn on the edge of town.
I dismounted and gave Calli a solid brushing before urging her inside the pasture attached to the barn for the night. She trotted over to join the other sorhoxes I was still working with for the rodeo.
Tressa and I went inside my house that felt especially quiet, empty in a way that hadn’t bothered me before but suddenly seemed more noticeable.
I got ready for bed, my thoughts drifting back to the afternoon in the pottery barn. The way Allie had moved through the crowd with such natural confidence. How she’d known exactly what to say to help. The genuine interest in her voice when she’d asked about glazing techniques.
And the way she’d looked at me when I’d asked if she’d come back tomorrow. Like the answer mattered to her as much as it did to me.
I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, Tressa curled up on her bed nearby. Tomorrow morning, Allie would be back. We’d worktogether again, and maybe I’d find the courage to ask her about taking the job.
The thought should have been terrifying. I’d never been good at taking chances, never been the brother who made bold moves or took risks. But something about Allie made me want to try.
Maybe tomorrow I’d figure out what that something was.
I woke up before dawn,which wasn’t unusual. What was unusual was the nervous energy that had me up and moving around the house like I’d had too much of that brew humans adored, coffee.
