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“Is that what you told your dad to change his mind about selling? Or did you have to buy it back from the new owners?”
“Neither. Him selling the ranch was the last conversation we ever had. What happened is he died before it closed and the buyers backed out instead of waiting for the will to be sorted out.” Hank lifted one shoulder. “I came home to a ranch that was halfway sold and wasn’t exactly thriving. By then, neither was I.” He turned and looked at Mac. “I’ve caught you looking at my leg. Or at least where it used to be from the knee down.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, me too. Ended my military career. I was bitter for a while. Bitter at the whole world. Maybe I still am, a little. The horses helped. Eventually.” Hank rubbed his thumb over the steering wheel again. “At first they just gave me something that needed doing every morning.”
Mac understood that better than he wanted to say.
“Then a buddy started coming out. Then another. We never set out to build a program, but that’s what we have now. A program for disabled vets that helps them…find their way again.” Hank’s mouth twitched. “Filed as a nonprofit three years back, because grant money doesn’t care what you meant to do. Now I’ve got a board. Five people who’ve never mucked a stall, telling me what my own place needs.”
Mac chuckled. “Fair enough. So, what do you do in the program?”
“I mostly put them to work.”
Mac’s eyebrow rose.
Hank smiled. “Not much of a brochure, is it? Some of them ride. There’s fence to mend and stalls to clean either way. Nobody has to talk about anything unless they want to. But it still comes up, usually around the fire we used to have outside. None of that now.”
Mac looked back through the windshield at the bone-dry landscape.
Yeah.
He could see how a program like Hank’s would work. He thought about the stock pond dug into the draw, the pipe fence, the long rectangle of pasture running out toward the open range. In a third dry year, that pond alone was worth more than most of what it sat on.
“You’ve got the water rights?”
“Yes, sir. Granddad’s doing.” Hank’s jaw flattened. “Which is why the phone still rings.”
“Other buyers?”
“Yup. Same guy’s been calling since spring.” He slowed for the turn onto the highway. “I tell him I’m not selling. He thanks me for my time and calls back the next month.”
Mac left the conversation there for the rest of the drive.
The ranch-supply store sat on the edge of town, its parking lot crowded with pickups. Hank grabbed a cart inside, and they loaded up on fencing hardware and enough gate chain to make sure they didn’t have to come back the next day.
They were comparing two packages of replacement latches when a familiar voice came from behind them.
“Those cheap latches won’t last through August.” Virgil stood at the end of the aisle with a bag of mineral over one shoulder.
Hank didn’t look impressed. “Morning to you, too.”
“I wasn’t buying the cheap ones.”
“You were holding them.” Virgil dropped the bag into his cart, pushed it forward to the two men, and stopped.
“I was putting them back,” Hank said.
Virgil looked at Mac. “See what I deal with?”
Mac glanced between them. “I’ve known you for less than twenty-four hours, so I’m reserving judgment.”
Virgil snorted and reached past Hank for another latch. “Get these. Springs don’t seize as fast.”
Hank inspected it, then put two in the cart without thanking him.
Interesting.
