Page 25 of Baker (Bastian Brothers #1)

The morning went fast as we rushed to get things ready.

No sooner had we filled the troughs for the Herefords than the rattle of two cattle trailers trundling up my rutted drive filled the air.

The goats were out in their pasture, nibbling grass and watching with big eyes as the trailers rumbled past their pen to park beside the cattle barn.

Manfred Owens exited the first pickup. A huge man with a booming voice who had been in cattle his whole life.

He had thinning brown hair hidden under a red ball cap and five sons who were just as boisterous as he was.

“Baker,” he said as we shook hands. “Glad to see you getting back into the business. Lord knows we need more farms, not less.” Manfred gave my brothers a long look as they ventured over. “Heard old Cash had catted around on your mama but didn’t think he was fool enough to plant his seed so often.”

I thought to comment about him planting his seed at least five times but bit my tongue. I wanted these cattle, and Manfred could be a touchy SOB when he felt his manhood was being called into question.

“Well, he did,” I replied as I introduced Ford, Linc, and Dodge to the Owens men.

The bull in the trailer could be heard lowing for release, even though he was sharing a trailer with nine lovely ladies.

“Thank you again for helping to resupply my stock. I know you have some of the best bloodlines in the state.”

Manfred puffed up like a sage grouse at the compliment. The cattle in those trailers were good beefers, costly, yes, but if we had a good calving season come January, we could recoup the fifty thousand dollars on the hoof to my right.

“My pleasure. Your granny and mine went way back,” he replied as Granny herself emerged from the house in blue jeans, an Oklahoma Sooners sweatshirt, and a wide grin. “Speak of an angel and one appears,” Manfred called out to my grandmother.

“You go on, Manfred, tell me more.” Granny chuckled as she neared and got a gentle hug from the big man. “How’s Winnie?”

Manfred removed his ball cap. “Not so good, ma’am.”

“I’ll stop by the nursing home when I’m in town next with some of my rhubarb sauce.”

“She’ll like that for sure,” Manfred replied with considerable softness. Then he turned to his boys and bellowed like the bull in the trailer. “Let’s get these beefers off them trailers, boys!”

All the visiting came to an abrupt end. The trailers were backed up to the gate just as Aiden rolled up, looking sleepy but happy.

“Morning, gents,” the vet called as he slid from his vehicle with a smile that made his dark eyes dance. “Sounds like we have at least one intact male?”

The bull was making his presence known with a loud bellow.

“Yep, two-year-old out of Goose and nineteen heifers. None have been exposed to the bull until today, and I figure he ain’t got room to mount them in there, so your records should show conception any time after today’s date,” Manfred said to me and Aiden.

“Okay, good enough. Let’s start running them through the chutes so we can start the health assessments,” Aiden said as he zipped up his overalls.

The curved chute had solid sides to reduce any further stress on the cattle, and using calm movements, we began moving the cattle through one at a time.

Aiden and Manfred exchanged medical papers, registration forms, and other documents that would be copied into the vet’s files as well as ours.

We ran each cow into a palpation cage so Aiden could look the animals over, give them shots as required, and then move on to the next one safely.

The bull, a big black and white Hereford, remained relatively chill until they nudged him into the palpation cage and Aiden began fondling his bull bits.

Being a young bull, the vet checked his sheath, prepuce, and testicles for any signs of trauma, infection, or other issues.

When he found none, the bull was then examined for general health and condition, including his eyes and teeth, and then turned out into the holding pen with his new gals.

The bull, who had weighed in at fifteen hundred pounds, was probably at about seventy-five percent of his projected weight.

So he should top out at about two thousand pounds, give or take a few hundred.

All the cattle were prime, and I could not thank Manfred enough for the good deal he had given me and my brothers on this new venture.

As the last heifer thundered out of the gate to join the herd and her new beau, the door to the springhouse flew open and Bella stepped out onto the rickety porch. Every Owens’ male head turned as the petite woman caught sight of us and waved.

“Where did that little miss pop up from?” Manfred asked as his sons, three of whom were married, stood up straighter while trying to dust off their dirty jeans.

“She’s a friend of mine,” Ford chimed in as Bella began picking her way to us, taking care not to tread in mud that would soil her purple flats.

She had drawn her hair into a soft little bun, something that she did when busy sewing so it wouldn’t fall into her face.

She’d skipped any makeup or shaving this morning as we had been rushing her along.

As she neared, I could feel the shift in the Owens men as they noted that the woman they had been drooling over was sporting a subtle amount of whiskers.

“Bella, come on over and name this bull!”

She arrived with a smile for all as usual. The Owens men all moved away from her as if she carried the plague as soon as she wiggled in between Ford and Dodge.

“Oh look at how huge he is!” she exclaimed as the bull began doing bully things, such as sniffing the cows when they urinated to check if any were in estrus. “He’s so handsome. I’ll think hard on a suitable name for such a studly man.”

The Bastians all fell into conversation about cows. Manfred steered his sons away from Bella with dark looks and jerked his chin at me. I followed him from the paddock to his pickup as Granny and Bella were tossing out names for the new bull as the guys voted yay or nay.

“Anything wrong?” I asked when we were on the other side of a cattle trailer, just me and Manfred.

“Did you know that you got a man wearing a dress parading around your property?” Manfred asked, peeking through the slats in the trailer back at the family gathered by the cattle pen.

The moment the words finished falling out of his mouth, my hackles were up.

“I did, yes. Bella is a friend of Ford’s, and by virtue of that, she is also a friend of mine and Granny’s.

She’s going to open a dress shop in the springhouse.

” His jaw literally fell open. “Is there something wrong with having friends?”

“No, course not, but I never thought I would see the day that Cash Bastian’s boys would be associating with one of them kind.”

I tipped my hat back. “And what, pray tell, is one of them kind?”

“You know, them transgenders. Your granny and mine both are God-fearing women. Just saying, Baker. God made the bull and the cow. Simple as that. Cows don’t want to be bulls, and bulls sure as shit don’t want to be cows.

Some things just ain’t according to nature is all.

Your granny knows what I mean. The Bible says—”

“The Bible says to love your fellow man. I don’t recall any distinctions on which of your fellow men to love. And, as you know, I’m not exactly straight.”

“Well, yeah, but you also fuck women so them odd dalliances with men was just drunken shit. I mean, a boozed up dick don’t care what sex’s lips is wrapped around it.”

He chuckled. I did not. “I think you need to head on home before someone says something that can’t be taken back. Thanks for the cattle. Your check is in the mail.”

I turned on my heel without offering him my hand for a shake.

I didn’t stop to look back to gauge what he was feeling.

I didn’t care. I was well aware that this little tête-à-tête would have ramifications for me when Manfred and I next met up somewhere.

No shits were given. He could haul his hateful ass right back to his ranch and stay there.

If I’d have known he was that much of a bigot, I would have found another nearby rancher to buy cattle from.

Stalking back to my family, who were calling out sillier and sillier bovine names, I supposed I should have had a small hint in the way that Manfred always looked down on Ollie, but I’d chalked that up to some grievance that Ollie and the youngest Owens brother had from years back.

Maybe it was more than that. Didn’t matter.

Whatever his bigotry was, it could stay on the other side of the county.

Bastian Acres might not be the biggest spread in the state, but it was going to be the most accepting.

Hell, I might buy the goats rainbow collars and march them down Main Street for the Fourth of July parade. I’d been known to do wilder things.

Just ask Granny.

Speaking of the grand dame of Bastian Acres, she was waiting for me on the front porch while the others were gawking at the bull doing what we paid big money for him to do. Make baby cows. She got my attention with a sharp whistle. I padded over and up the steps to meet her on the porch.

“Looked like you and Manfred were having quite the tea party over there. What did you say to twist his knickers?” She ran a hand over her aquamarine hair to move it from her eyes.

I leaned against a post as shouts of encouragement rang out over at the cattle paddock. “He had some things to say about Bella that I took offense to,” I explained, tipping the brim of my hat back some. Her expression shifted from curious to pissed as a rattler in the blink of an eye.

“What did that hemorrhoidal inflammation have to say about sweet lady Bella?!” Granny was usually quite forgiving.

I mean, that was obvious just by the fact that she hadn’t kicked my drunken ass to the curb twenty years ago.

But, on the other hand, she did not turn the cheek when someone came after those she liked. And Granny adored Bella.

“Some stupid shit about bulls not wanting to be cows. It’s all hateful rhetoric.”

“Damn right it is. Ever since I met Miss Bella, I been reading up on things in nature. Lots of critters change sex, and it ain’t no big thing, just like it ain’t no thing if a person does.

I wish I’d known he was spouting that kind of shit on my property.

I’d have booted him in his flabby ass so hard he’d have had to get my boot surgically removed from his rectum.

I could do it too. I still got my high kick from my Vegas showgirl days. ”

I nodded. She could kick pretty high. And she had been a showgirl in Vegas in the 60s for about a year and spent some time strutting her stuff on the strip before coming back to Oklahoma—sowing wild oats and all that.

She’d met Robert Goulet once. She spoke very fondly and dreamily of the man to this day.

“Well, he’s gone and paid. Any shit he stirs up can be ignored. I know you and Winnie are close and all, but that man is a bigot. And I am not going to stand on my own property and allow him to run down my family,” I firmly stated.

The frown she had been wearing morphed into a knowing smile. “So now you accept them as family?”

Shit. “Not really. I mean family in the way that friends are family. Like Ollie and Aiden. Them kind of friends.” She smiled wider. I huffed. Damn woman. “Bella is a nice person. She only wants to make pretty dresses for ladies and live her life.”

“Oh, honey, I agree. And I’m glad to hear that you’re coming around to liking your brothers. I know it’s tight here right now, but you all will spread out soon and things will quiet down. As for me and Winnie don’t fret over that. She and me go back. I have an idea.”

Oh Lord. Granny with an idea could be trouble.

Her last idea was to learn to be a sharpshooter so she could supplement her social security by plinking prairie dogs for the local ranchers.

The war between prairie dogs and ranchers was a long one.

We disliked the little invasive vermin for many reasons, such as destroying grazing lands and having livestock step into a burrow and break a leg.

“Don’t stir up things at the nursing home,” I warned with a look that she promptly waved off.

“You just worry about yourself, child.”

With that, she went inside and the screen door closed in my face.

Sighing, I turned to find the gang breaking up to get to their chores.

Dodge had put a bee in my bonnet, so I called Ford over to the porch.

He arrived looking so damn young and so damn earnest. Had I ever been this youthful?

If so, the memories were hazy. Too much Jim Beam will do that.

“Listen, we need to finish the riding fence. I’d like you to come along. You can use the time on horseback, and I’d like to talk to you as we ride,” I explained.

He blinked, then silently nodded. “We can take an ATV.”

“Nope, let’s take some horses. We’ll take our time.”

He followed me to the horse barn like a child being led to the principal’s office by his teacher.

I let him saddle Prissy and one of our most gentle geldings, a pretty red appaloosa named Upton.

Upton and Prissy got on well—Prissy could be snotty with the other mares—and he was old enough to have seen it all a dozen times over. Nothing rattled Upton.

It took the boy a bit longer than it should have, but I was patient and did my best to use gentle reminders about things as he went.

Soon enough, we were on our way. Talking always came easier to me when I was on a horse’s back.

Most things seemed to be easier when out on the range with a faithful friend under you and the warm sun on your head. Or maybe that was just me…