Page 29 of Ironwood Ranch Cowboys

Instead it catches in my chest like a splinter.

I leave through the side door with my camera clutched in one hand and my bag hanging half-zipped off my shoulder like I lost the ability to operate closures sometime in the last hour.

The cold hits me first.

It should help. Usually does. Fresh air has fixed at least a third of my worst moods and maybe twelve percent of my bad decisions.

Today it barely makes a dent.

The yard stretches wide under a pale morning sky. Barns red and immaculate, fences straight, horses moving in distant paddocks with the same expensive calm everything at Ironwood seems born wearing.

I walk without deciding where.

Across the gravel, past the side of the house, around a stack of feed bins. My thoughts skid uselessly in every direction.

Maybe I left the card at that rodeo grounds weeks ago. No.

Maybe it fell between the seat and console in my car. I checked.

Maybe I’m having some kind of stress-induced false memory and it was never in the bag to begin with. No.

I know my own systems. I know where things go. That card lives in the third slot from the left because it’s old and important and I like keeping the things that matter where my hands can find them without my brain getting involved.

Someone touched my desk.

Someone opened the wallet.

Or maybe no one did, whispers the meanest part of my mind. Maybe you’re just tired. Maybe you’re sloppy and dressing it up as violation because admitting you lost it feels worse.

I stop walking.

My thumb taps once against the side of my camera body.

Wait.

Twice.

Look closer.

I shut my eyes.

What do I actually know?

The drawer was open. The pen cup was moved. The wallet was unzipped. The card is gone.

That’s what I know.

I keep walking toward the barns.

By the time I step inside, everything changes. It’s cooler. Rich with hay, dust, leather, and that deep animal warmth that settles into wood over years.

It’s tranquil here, but not silent. A horse shifts in a stall. Somewhere farther back, metal clinks softly against metal.

The familiar scents and sounds should calm me down.

Instead I make it three steps in and stop beside a stack of feed sacks because suddenly if I keep moving, I might actually fall apart.

So that’s fun.