Page 25 of Brett and Rowdy (Gomillion High Reunion #5)

“Oh, I’ve got me a couple of chihuahua mixes.

They’re both something else too. One of them, I think, is a chihuahua dachshund; what do they call that son?

A chiweenie?” When Rowdy nodded, he went on.

“The other one, I think, is half Shih tzu or Yorkie or both. I ain’t never had the DNA done, but they’re good little monsters. ”

“Don’t let him fool you. The chiweenie is a terror.” Madison giggled. “But he’s cute. He looks sort of like Sir Didymus in Labyrinth . Have you seen that movie?”

“Have I seen that movie? It’s only one of my favorites,” Brett said.

“Oh my God! We’ll have to watch it together.” Madison actually bounced. “And maybe Willow and The Princess Bride .”

“Like all kids her age, Madison thinks the ’80s are the shiz. I told her that was before our time,” Rowdy snarked.

“Daddy, did you just say shiz? Nobody says that anymore. Not even Snoop Dogg.”

“Well, get over it. I figure if I ever was turned into a vampire, I would use slang from every century I ever lived in. Do you want me to get started and show you what it would sound like?”

“No, sir. I’m gonna go get washed up and change into jammies. Pappy, I’ll see you over at my place.” She bounded off, and Brett chuckled.

“You’ve really got her number.”

“I’m her daddy. It’s my job.”

“Right.”

Rowdy rolled his eyes and grinned, eyes wrinkling at the edges. “Come on, let’s go. I went ahead and had them stock our fridge with Dr Peppers and the beer you like.”

“Thanks.” Someone stocked Rowdy’s fridge. Jesus fucking?—

BAROO!

Mr. Mann’s howl rang through the house, and Brett took off at a run. That was not “oh, I’m playing”. That was an “alarm, Dad, alarm” sound.

He hit the door hard, finding Mr. Mann standing at the back of the doggy door, staring out into the quickly fading sun. Something or somethings moved outside, and he was trying to focus on them when a face appeared at the window, a fuzzy head staring in.

Mr. Mann set to howling again, and he made a not particularly manly squawk. “Jesus Christ, what is that?”

Rowdy came walking in, slower. “I don’t know, give me a hint. Inside or outside? Fuzzy or bug?”

“Outside, fuzzy.”

“Tall or short?”

“Tall, with a lot of shorts.”

“Goddamn it,” Rowdy grabbed his phone and hit a button. “Eduardo, the fucking goats got through the fence again. That damn llama is staring in my window and scared the fire out of my guy.”

Brett went up to the window and looked, and sure enough, there was a llama and about, he didn’t know, ten or twelve thousand sheep.

Demon sheep.

Like terrifying demon sheep.

“Rowdy, were you aware that these are mutant sheep?”

“They’re not mutants. Somebody get somebody out here to get these goddamn sheep.” He hung up the phone.

“They’re demon sheep, Rowdy. There’s something wrong with them.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my sheep, man. They’re sheep. You know sheep shaped.”

He stood there, shaking his head. He’d never seen meaner-looking beasts in his whole life. “Sheep don’t have four horns.”

Rowdy chuckled softly, shook his head. “Churro sheep do.”

Somehow Brett had lost the plot. “Churros are crispy things that you get at the fair during Mexican day.”

Rowdy held up one finger. “One, you’re in New Mexico.

There is never a Mexican day. Every day is Mexican.

Periodically, if you’re lucky, there might be a gringo day.

If one happens, I’ll let you know.” He held up a second finger.

“Two, if there’s a llama staring in the window, his name is Happy.

He’s friendly unless you bother his sheep.

He and the dogs have an understanding. The sheep are churro sheep.

From the Diné. They came with four horns.

Some of them come with two horns, some of them come with no horns.

They’re pretty cool. If there’s lambs out there, do not fuck with them because the moms will eat you. ”

Brett’s eyes went wide. “I told you they were demon sheep.”

Brett noticed the shepherd dogs were in a circle, including Barney, staring at the sheep. Like they were just waiting. “How did the sheep get in?”

“I imagine they broke through the fence. This happens a lot.”

“What happens if my dog happens to get out while your sheep break through the fence?” he demanded, and Rowdy rolled his eyes.

“It appears he runs into the house like the coward that he is, and he howls really loud, warning us and letting us know that the sheep are in his space. Then we come and rescue him. So, good dog.”

Mr. Mann wagged.

Brett considered hitting Rowdy with a shovel, but he wasn’t sure exactly where a shovel was. And it would be odd to ask, “Pardon me, could you tell me where a shovel is that I could hit you with?”

Instead, he went with, “Cool. Do we need to do anything?”

“You want to meet the llama?”

“Is it friendly?”

“Yeah, he’s pretty friendly. He’s a good-tempered guy. He used to run with the herd. He got older and the other llamas were being mean to him, so we decided to give him his own sheep. So this is Happy’s herd.”

“Happy’s herd.” Brett was really tired.

“Yes, we have about twelve different herds. Those sheep, each of them have their own llama or sets of llamas.”

That was it. He was leaving. He was not going to live in a universe where llamas had herds of sheep of their own. It was just not going to happen. There was a reason that normal people from the East Coast didn’t come to New Mexico and this was it.

This was one of the things.

Rowdy’s head tilted. “You sure you don’t want a beer?”

“I’m pretty sure if I’m going to say hello to Happy the Llama, I shouldn’t be drunk while I’m doing it.”

“Dude, if one beer gets you drunk, you’re in trouble.” Rowdy’s phone rang again, and he answered it. “Yeah?”

“Daddy!” Madison’s voice rang out over the speaker. “Happy’s sheep are out again!”

“Actually, I think they’re in again.”

“I’m already in my pajamas. Can you call Eduardo?”

“I did already.”

“Good deal, thanks, Daddy. I’ll look into anti-llama/sheep fences tomorrow.”

“You do that.” He hung up the phone and rubbed the back of his neck. “That girl. If they made churro sheep-proof fences, we would have them.”

“When I figure out what the hell that means, I’ll come up with a weighty reply,” Brett said, paraphrasing one of his very favorite movies of all time.

“I told you what churro sheep are, right?”

“You did, and I keep seeing things like fair food sheep with cinnamon and sugar sprinkled all over their wool in my head. So it still doesn’t help. I’ll meet the demon sheep tomorrow. Right now, I have to convince Mr. Mann that the apocalypse has not shown up in a furry suit.”

Rowdy chuckled. “Let’s detour so I can show you where the dog cookies are.”

At the word cookies, they were suddenly surrounded by German shepherds and a very interested Mr. Mann.

Rowdy blew out a breath. “Aren’t you yahoos supposed to be out there herding sheep? Isn’t that your job?”

Brett loved that Rowdy talked to his dogs like they were people, just like he talked to Mr. Mann. It gave them something else in common, as small as it was.

“Seriously, babe, let’s hand out cookies, and I’ll take you and Mr. Mann to your room so you can get settled a little bit. Well, my room, like I said. We’ll put Mr. Mann’s bed in there if you want.”

“Yeah, that’ll work great. I may have to go to Walmart to get him a couple more for the rest of the house. That way, he won’t be laying out in the middle of hallways trying to trip people and get cookies.”

Mr. Mann howled at the second mention of cookies, and they both laughed their butts off.

While they distributed the dog biscuits, he heard a whistle outside and a furious little spate of barking.

When Brett glanced out the window, there was a border collie out there working sheep, with an older-looking Mexican man just sort of standing back at the fence line and whistling instructions.

It was fascinating to watch, and he had never seen anything like it except once when his grandpa had taken him up to the highland games in North Carolina where there had been a sheep-herding competition.

It was really interesting to see it in a practical application like this, and he had to admit that churro sheep and the llama looked way more contentious than the gentle, bleating sheep had seemed in North Carolina.

He said so to Rowdy, who just waved a hand in the air.

“You know out here everything wants to bake your bones in the sun or abrade you with sand or spike you with cactus or cut you with something or bite you or sting you or whatever. I guess you gotta be tougher than wherever those sheep come from. The ones you have in North Carolina or South Carolina or wherever.”

“I think those sheep mostly come from England in the great scheme of things.”

“I think so too. Anyway, these guys are specifically bred for this climate and for the land we have here. So they’re a little nuts.”

Once everyone had been cookied, Rowdy started off to the bedroom again.

Brett called for Mr. Mann to follow him.

He wanted the old butthead to see where everything was in the house, and also where he was putting the bed and the suitcase so Mr. Mann wouldn’t worry about it.

Basset hounds tended to worry over things.

“Wow, this is really comfy,” Brett said when they made it to the bedroom.

He looked around curiously because this was Rowdy’s private space.

The bed dominated the room, and he thought Rowdy really was something of a creature of comfort.

The huge California king with the intricately carved headboard looked like maybe it was Spanish, and there were warm Navajo rugs on the floor, and rough-hewn furniture much like the front room filled the place.

A bench at the end of the bed was padded so no one whacked a knee on it.

A pair of nightstands with some iron lamps on them.

He could do better than those. And once again, all of the artwork was nice, but it was super generic.

These were all Native American-looking weavers and shepherds, but it was all prints in store-brought frames.

“We really need to up your art game,” he told Rowdy.

“Give you something tactile, something you can touch every so often when you go by. Maybe some glass or some metal sculptures. I saw this one in a gallery that was fish, and they were all on little posts. When you got a magnet and brushed it over the wall installation, the fish would all turn different directions.”

Rowdy’s face lit up, the smile shining through like the sun through the clouds. “Oh wow. That would rock so hard. I can imagine that!”

And there it was again.

Why he was here.

Rowdy needed art on a cellular level, and he needed to create it.

“Yeah. Maybe I can do one for you with demon sheep…” He chuckled, knowing Rowdy needed more than visual clues to get that he was laughing along.

“I’m so in, so long as they get their own llama.” Rowdy sat on the end of the bed. “The bathroom is just to the right, the closet is to the left, and the remote for the television is on the bedside table.”

He blinked, looked around. “There’s no TV, honey.”

“What?” Rowdy looked confused.

“No television here. I can’t see one.”

Rowdy leaned over and grabbed the remote, then one of the frames with the boring art became a television. Boom.

“Never mind. I found it.”

They got Mr. Mann settled, and then the shepherds started slinking in, ending up in puppy piles in beds all in the far corners of the room.

He did his business, barely registering the amazing, fancy-assed bathroom, and then soon he was crawling into the huge bed with Rowdy, who immediately wrapped around him and held on tight.

He thought he managed a “good night” before he fell into an exhausted sleep.