Page 4 of Believe in Caloosa Springs (Caloosa Springs #3)

Porter

“Are you sure this is the right place?” I asked, trying to see through the large gaps in the security gate.

“The sign on the fence back there said Baker Farm,” Henry said, his sentence interrupted by a yawn.

We’d driven most of the night, stopping to snooze for only a few hours in the parking lot of a mini-mart.

I should be exhausted, too, but something about running away from my entire life in the blink of an eye had me buzzing with terrified excitement. I kept checking the rearview, like I was going to see someone chasing us.

“Maybe we’re too early?” I worried. “What time did they say we were supposed to show up?”

“The email said anytime after eight.” Henry glanced at his phone screen. “It’s nine-fifteen.”

“I think someone’s coming,” I said, crouching down to get a better look through the windshield. “Yeah, there’s a truck coming.”

The truck slowed as it got closer and the gate began to open in towards it. Once the entrance was clear, I put the car in drive and pulled into the property, stopping to talk to the person in the truck for further instruction.

It seemed to take him a minute to realize I was waiting for him, and then another moment of his trying to figure out how to roll the window down. Consequently, it took a bit for me to get a good look at him for the first time

Most of his hair was coal-black, with long, choppy pieces that framed his face—except for a large section that hung down over his forehead that was intensely… pink. I’d never seen anyone with that color hair before. He had a silver stud in his nose nestled next to a matching hoop. Another silver ring clung snug to his bottom lip on the opposite side. His left shoulder was exposed, displaying a lot of tattoo work covering every inch of his skin from his left collar bone down to where his wrists met his hands. There were bats and pumpkins, a scary looking tree with various symbols and other intricacies that would make my mother drop to her knees and beg God’s forgiveness for even having laid eyes on it. I’m not going to lie; he immediately made me very nervous. Did everyone here look like him?

Was he, like… a devil worshiper, or something? Was this a cult? If anyone had us accidentally join a cult, it would be Henry. Oh, Lord, what had we done?

Free room and board… yeah, I bet. How gullible could we be?

“Good morning,” he said, flashing me a surprisingly warm and nice smile. “Um, I think if you just go ahead and pull up to the house, Mandy and Tyler are trying to get everyone situated.” He held his hand out the window and pointed up the drive. His voice was soft—the complete opposite of what I had expected him to sound like.

I nodded and faced forward, taking my foot off the brake and rolling slowly towards the house ahead of us.

“He was scary,” Henry said quietly, keeping his eyes straight ahead.

I didn’t respond. I was a little embarrassed by having felt the same way, and having made immediate assumptions of the guy from just looking at him. The whole point of getting out of Salt Lake was to meet new people who had different viewpoints, and to try to figure out how and where I fit into this world. Alternative people weren’t necessarily devil worshipers. Evil worshipers wouldn’t sound shy and polite, right? I was, by that point, aware that so many of my thoughts were the result of a life of religious programming fed to me to inspire fear and submission to the church’s control.

“You need to shake that mindset, Porter.”

“Huh?” Henry grunted.

I didn’t realize I’d said that out loud. “Nothing.”

I let the car coast up to the house, not wanting to accidentally kick up rocks with the tires. I knew making a good first impression was a big deal. Especially with people who were going to be providing my housing and a paycheck for the next year. That’s how long the initial contract Henry and I had signed with Baker Productions lated. They had told Henry many times that this was just the initial, and that, if all went well, they would offer extensions. That was a nice gesture, I guessed, but it was hard to imagine anything past tomorrow. Or the day after that, even. This was definitely going to be a live by the moment kind of experiment.

All I knew was that I better find what I was looking for soon, because I’d lied to my entire family. I’d skipped out on my mission, which would pretty much automatically excommunicate me from the church, and the people I’d grown up with my entire life would disown me. Lost in desperate thoughts, I pulled the car up to a large wooden fence beside another car parked similarly and turned off the engine.

Neither of us seemed to be in a hurry to get out.

“Ready?” I asked after a long moment.

“Yeah,” Henry answered immediately, nodding his head.

We continued to sit there until the scary boy in the truck pulled up on the other side of the car. I got out of the car, Henry quickly following suit. We stood awkwardly at the trunk of the car and waited.

“Should we get our stuff?”

“I don’t know, Henry,” I replied testily. “I’ve never done this before.”

The boy climbed out of the truck and took a few steps before coming to a stop a few feet away from where we were standing. He looked around for a second and then began to kick at the dirt with the toe of his shoe.

“So, uh… should we get our stuff?” Henry asked, his voice a bit shaky.

It took a bit for him to stop moving his foot and look up at us. “Are you talking to me?”

Henry nodded.

“Oh, I have no clue,” he answered, shrugging his tattooed shoulder, and biting his lip. He looked… nervous. “I’ve never been here before.”

He reached into his back pocket and grabbed his cell phone as the breeze picked up and ruffled the loose-fitting material of his shirt, showing off a strip of pale skin on his flat tummy. There was more line-work on his abdomen, and I shamefully caught myself staring. He was on the thinner side, and a little shorter than me… maybe 5’8”? His hair hung down around his neck to the tops of his shoulders. The black makeup around his eyes made the blue of his irises shine. I mentally kicked myself again for having been the slightest bit ‘scared’ of him. He was… just a guy. I’d never seen a guy who chose to dress and decorate himself like that, true, but wasn’t that all just window-dressing? I had no idea who he was. I didn’t even know his name.

We all turned at once as a group of people arrived. They were led by a very short black-haired girl that looked like she was a matching set with the guy standing beside us.

Henry leaned over and whispered into my shoulder, “Oh, sweet Lord, they all look like him.”

“Okay, so everyone has their keys?” the girl asked briskly as she turned back to face the group. Of the people behind her, two were dressed like cowboys, and another one was wearing a plain white t-shirt and jeans. The last guy was younger, and smaller in stature than the others.

One of the cowboys stepped up next to the girl-leader and spoke. “Okay, if you follow the driveway around the back of the house, there’s a dirt trail we dug to get to the residences. You can’t miss it. I’d say, everyone, come back and meet at the barn in ‘round an hour or so for some food.”

“Can I help?” the smaller guy asked.

“That’s very nice to offer, Max, but you just worry about getting settled in. There will be plenty of cooking to do tomorrow.” The guy smiled, and the group began making their way past the girl and down the steps. A few of them piled into a Toyota and drove off towards the back of the property.

“They were wondering what they should do,” the vampire boy said, gesturing towards Henry and myself with his phone.

“I’m Tyler,” the dark-haired cowboy said, extending his hand. “Are you Henry?”

“I’m Henry,” Henry said.

The guy turned. “Sorry about that. I’m Tyler,”

Henry shook his hand.

“That means you must be Porter,” Tyler said, turning to shake my hand as well. “Welcome to Caloosa. Thank you guys for coming. It means a lot. Looking forward to a great year.”

I nodded. “Thank you.”

“Okay,” the girl began, "If you guys want to go get settled into your cabins, we are just finishing up in the kitchen, and then we’ll have an early lunch in about an hour in the main barn.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

She cringed, wrinkling the thick black makeup around her eyes.

“Please just call me Mandy. Thanks.”

I nodded and turned to get back in the car.

“Uh, Porter? Was it?” Mandy spoke up again.

I turned back to face her.

“Your keys,” she said, holding two key rings. I walked over, and she set the keys in my hand. “I figured you guys, being family, would want to be closer to each other. Oliver put you in cabins six and seven, if that’s okay.”

“I appreciate that, ma- Mandy.” I caught myself before the ma’am slipped out. Good thing her name started with M.

“The larger key will unlock the handle and bolt to your cabs. The smaller key is to the barn, where everyone has access. You’ll see it here in a bit, but it’s mainly a big eating and hangout room. That’s kind of how we imagined it, anyway.”

I nodded again and when I felt like she wasn’t going to say anything else to me, I turned around and climbed back into the car.

The small road to the other side of the property was easy to find once I had driven past the main house. I followed the trail as a massive red barn came into view. Thirty seconds later, I could see the outline of smaller structures peppered around the barn like tiny moons orbiting a planet. Each cabin was separated by a good chunk of land on all sides. As we began passing the small structures, I remembered reading in the contract, months ago when we started planning all of this, that we would each have roughly an acre of land to do whatever we pleased with throughout the duration of our stay on the Baker farm. I had assumed they would just assign each of us a small plot in the middle of a field they weren’t using. I never imagined I would be getting my own little cabin and have the surrounding land. Not that I was much of a planter. I wasn’t shy when it came to hard work, however, and I didn’t mind getting my hands dirty. Those were about all the qualifications I had. I’m amazed they even hired me.

I squinted through my sunglasses at the white numbers painted on the railing of each little porch we passed. Cabins one and two seemed about double the size of the rest of them—I wondered if the managers slept in those. We passed by cabins number four and five and then the road curved to the left before I pulled the car in front of cabin number six and put it into park.

“They look nice,” Henry said, craning his neck to get a better look at the cabin.

“Yeah, they do,” I agreed, feeling myself smile for the first time in the last 24 hours.

I reached down, pulled the release for the trunk, and got out of the car. November was still fairly warm in southern Colorado, and the sunshine on my face was a grounding force.

I gathered my bags from the trunk as Henry began rummaging through the back seat.

“Which cabin do you want, Henry?”

“Oh, I don’t care,” he said, half-ignoring me as he began pulling things out and setting them on the ground.

“Well, the other one isn’t that far, but I still wouldn’t want to carry a bunch of stuff from here to there.”

“Yeah, that makes sense, Porter,” he agreed, pulling another backpack out of the car.

“So you’re going to take this one, then?”

Henry closed the car door and shrugged. “I told you, I don’t care.”

I shook my head and handed him the keychain with the number six written in marker on it and got back in the car to drive over to number seven, just two acres away.

When I parked the car in front of my cabin and got out, I was grateful to still have all my luggage—I had forgotten to close the trunk before driving away from Henry’s. It wasn’t far, by any means, but it wasn’t like I had been driving on pavement. Just another testament to my jangled nerves.

I slung my gym bag over my shoulder and decided to leave the rest until I got the door open.

The cabin had a tiny little porch, big enough for maybe a chair or two, and the planks creaked slightly under my weight. It smelled sweetly of fresh lumber and sawdust. Breathing it in, I tried to take a deep breath and quell the storm of emotions raging in my chest. This was the first place that had ever been mine. I had privacy and space to be my own person… whoever that happened to be.

I put the key into the lock and opened the door. My first impression was that the cabin was cozy. Maybe 900 square feet, if I had to guess? Panels of light-stained wood lined the walls floor-to-ceiling, giving the space an open and bright feel. There was a queen-size bed in the far corner with a dark heather comforter that matched the large area rug in the center. Atop the rug was a small coffee table and love seat facing a mounted television screen above a small wood-burning fireplace. To my immediate left was a kitchenette with a small sink and a two-burner hotplate. Mounted above the sink to save space was a dish rack holding what looked like brand-new pearl-white dishes. In the corner sat a fridge that looked about ? the size of a normal household model. It was cute. In fact, the whole place was. Light streamed in the open windows, along with a cool waft of fresh air.

Heaven.

A long dresser stretched from one side of the bed to the wall, its height perfect for desk space under a window overlooking a pasture where I could see several horses lazily grazing. It was a great view.

They had definitely designed the cabin for maximal storage while keeping things open, I thought. I hauled my suitcase up off the floor and onto the dresser. I wasn’t exactly sure what I had imagined my living quarters to be like, but a small slice of country paradise wasn’t it. I sent up a silent prayer of gratitude to God. It could have been on a cot in some damp basement or any other number of unscrupulous settings that had drifted through my mind in the weeks leading up to running.

I thought that Caloosa Springs was going to do just fine.

I had just gotten my few belongings situated and all my clothes put away when Henry knocked on my door.

“Did you get all unpacked?” I asked, turning around and leaving the door open for him to walk through. I made my way back over to the dresser and plugged my phone in. If it were up to me, I think I’d just rather not have one at all, but I knew that was highly impractical. Everything was done on your phone, nowadays. An app for this, an app for that.

“Yeah. There’s a lot of room,” Henry commented.

“It’s much better than I had been imagining.”

“Honestly, same.”

Henry began to speak again, but then hesitated.

“What?”

“Do you wanna just hangout in here today?” Henry asked, turning his face away from me as he mumbled.

I sighed, and took a few steps towards him, placing my hand on his shoulder. “We’re going to have to meet them eventually, Henry. We are going to be working, and for all intents and purposes, living with these people for the next year. I’m sure they are all very nice.”

“What if they are, like… crazy, or something? I mean, what kind of person wants to just uproot their entire life to come live and work on a weed farm? People who aren’t running away from their families?”

I laughed. “I don’t know what that has to do with anything. Seriously, though, it’s going to be fine. Besides, there’s no food in these cabins yet. If we stay in here, we’ll starve.”

Henry looked up at me. “I am kinda hungry.”

I locked the door behind me after Henry followed me outside. I didn’t want to assume my belongings weren’t going to be safe, but I hadn’t met these people yet—and I was starting with very little as it was.

As we started following the gravel trail towards the barn, I could see the front door of one of the bigger cabins open and the shorter guy I had seen leaving the main house earlier along with an older woman walking out towards the barn. They were carrying large trays of food covered with tinfoil.

As we passed by, I couldn’t help but slow down and peek through the open door. It looked like a big industrial kitchen. I could see a good chunk of a massive stove with a steaming pot sitting atop one of the burners.

“Those are kitchens,” I said, knocking against Henry with my elbow to get his attention. “That makes sense. If you have a place to cook the food out here, it’s a lot easier to carry it all to the barn.”

Henry nodded. “Clever. Though I hadn't really imagined eating all my meals in a barn.”

I wondered exactly what Henry thought he was going to get when he signed up for the ultimate cowboy experience out here, but I was starting to think he hadn’t seen the same movies I had growing up. This was a lot better than I had expected, no doubt, but I wasn’t surprised to see legitimate cowboys running around. Eating in a barn seemed perfectly on brand for Caloosa Springs.

I stopped dead in the wide expanse of the wooden French doors, each propped open by a large rock. It may have looked like a giant, unassuming hay loft or horse stable, but inside, it was like something I’d seen in one of Mama’s Southern Magnolia magazines. It had been completely finished, complete with stained wood-plank flooring, and a large fireplace on either end of the massive, open space. If I had to guess, I’d say it was at least 1,200 square feet.

The forward section of the immense room was taken up by a large wood-block table with seating for 15 people. Maybe 20? I didn’t count right away. The back half of the barn had been set up as a casual hangout spot. Two overstuffed sofas faced each other, a small table between them. There were several comfy-looking chairs scattered around in clusters, and even a couple of bean bag sacks begging to be flopped upon.

Taking up most of the back wall was a huge, hanging white screen. Tilting my head up and glancing at the ceiling, I spotted a large projector mounted to a support beam. Movie night was going to rock! Or at least I hoped that was what it was going to be used for. I loved movies. Funny movies, scary movies, documentaries… didn’t matter; I liked them all. I had only been allowed to watch family-friendly stuff under my parents’ watch, but I expanded my palette at sleepovers and covert trips to the cinema with my friends. Why did God care if I watched a PG-13 movie? Nobody had adequately explained that one. In any case, I was pumped.

“Hello, and welcome.”

I looked over to see the older woman I had watched carrying trays of food into the barn ahead of me.

“I’m Evelyn Baker. We are so delighted to have you join us.” She smiled sweetly as she began to close the distance between herself and where we were standing in the entrance.

I shook her hand and introduced myself. Henry was frozen in place, so I took the liberty of introducing him as well.

“Well, Porter and Henry, we are just about all set for lunch,” she began, turning back to the guy who had been helping her carry stuff inside. “Max?”

He looked over and nodded, a few chestnut curls bouncing free across his forehead. “Just waiting on the coffee pot, now.”

Evelyn folded her hands together and smiled. “Wonderful!”