Page 14 of On the Land, We Shoot Straight

Joel accelerated slowly. “Later,” he shot out the window before he eased up behind the sheep.

They parted slowly as he went through, then re-formed once he was past the rear of the flock, his truck a red square in the middle of a sea of white.

The engine hummed between their bleating as they swallowed him up and spat him out the other end, where he gained speed and disappeared in a haze of dirt up the road.

The drone of the truck was long gone by the time Cole came back over alongside Grady and Red.

He hadn’t relaxed, his posture rigid and both hands tight on the reins.

It was notable now that Grady had seen what he looked like when he was at ease, the way he normally sat in the saddle like it was part of his body, kept the reins loose in one hand.

“Joel’s all right,” Grady said.

“Never said he wasn’t,” Cole retorted, quick as a flash.

“All right,” Grady replied around a quiet laugh.

He heard Cole muttering “They all all right ’til they ain’t,” and decided not to ask.

Only thing was, Cole got to asking what Grady hoped he wouldn’t before he could change the subject.

“Were you askin’ after our horses?”

“Askin’, yeah. What of it?”

“Why?”

“Just wonderin’.”

“Just wonderin’ why?”

And that was a damn good question. Grady didn’t answer it. Not directly.

“Chris reckons they didn’t go to the slaughterhouse. Probably up at the school.”

If Grady thought that news would’ve made Cole happy, he couldn’t have been more wrong. Cole sucked in a sharp breath.

“I don’t wanna know,” he said after a heavy pause.

“All right,” Grady said.

“Just, don’t. Don’t. Look”—Cole glanced at Grady, and his expression was fierce, but it was like the fierceness was busy holding back a breaking point—“I know I ain’t got a right to ask.”

“You got a right to ask,” Grady said.

Cole shook his head, tension stark in his neck. “Don’t go on askin’ about this stuff, all right? Just don’t.”

“All right.”

“Promise?”

Grady wanted to make a crack about what were they, twelve? But Cole didn’t look like he was in the mood for kidding around.

Grady nodded.

Cole nodded back like they’d settled something important. He exhaled long and hard through his nose, eyes blinking rapidly like he was busy keeping his face stern.

“We gotta turn ’em,” Cole said and nudged Chloe so she was moving across the front of Red and up onto the shoulder before he could hear Grady’s response, which would’ve been that he knew that, it was his land, but he reckoned Cole was just resetting the conversation.

They had the flock secure and grazing on the fresh feed in Grady’s far pasture before noon and were able to turn back before it got too hot. It was a good day for a ride, hot but not steaming, and they took the horses at a canter down the road and back to the other farm.

Red had white foam under his saddle blanket when Grady pulled it off, his fur slick, his skin strong and rich with the scent of horse sweat.

“We can hose ’em down when we get back,” Grady said.

Cole nodded at him. He told Chloe he’d hose her down real nice, and asked her to be a good girl and get on the trailer so she could cool down.

Grady had forgotten that she might take a good hour to get loaded while it got hotter.

But there was nothing for it now, so he settled against Red, arms resting over the dip of his back as he watched Cole stroke Chloe’s neck and talk to her.

“You ever try puttin’ him in first?” Cole nodded at Red as he said it.

“Don’t want him gettin’ hot while he waits.”

Cole shook his head. “No, I know, but she might be more inclined to go in if she sees he’s already in there. Sees it’s all right, you know?”

Grady thought about it. “Inclined, huh?”

“Can always take him out again if she starts fussing,” Cole said, ignoring the jibe.

“Starts fussin’,” Grady said under his breath.

But he took hold of Red’s lead rope and walked up the ramp into the trailer, slid under the chest rail at the front, and tied him on.

He could feel the trailer rocking as Chloe came up the gangway, and then her big head was nudging in alongside Red’s, snorting in his face.

Grady huffed at her as Cole tied her on.

“Probably just ’cause it’s hot,” Cole said once they were both in the truck and slamming their doors.

Grady hummed. He started the truck and turned in a wide circle. He went through the gate and waited while Cole jumped out and closed it. As he was getting back in, Grady said, “It’s probably ’cause you were right.”

“Right about what?”

Grady drove onto the road and picked up some speed as they headed back.

“She needed to see it was safe first.”

Cole shrugged and looked out the window. “Have to see if she does it again when she’s not worn out.” He looked back to Grady. “Once don’t mean anything.”

Grady nodded.

“Gotta be at least three.”

“Three what?”

“Three times means you figured it out. Once is random. Twice could be coincidence. Three times is a pattern.”

Grady slowed for the turn and glanced at Cole. “This that book learnin’?”

Cole laughed and shook his head. “Nah, TV.”

Grady chuckled. He stopped at the gate, and Cole jumped out and let them through.

It was a relief to hear Cole laughing again, and Grady didn’t want to think on that too much, so he let their comfortable silence fill the cabin against the background of the radio until they got home and hosed the horses down, gave them more carrot and apple, put them out and watched them feed before heading in themselves.

“Maybe she got hurt,” Cole said in a rush that night after they’d finished eating.

He said it like he’d been thinking on it, had been wanting to say something about it but wasn’t sure if he was allowed.

There was a desperate edge to the words hovering there in the kitchen as twilight settled outside, the final calls of birdsong ringing out confidently beyond the old walls and stuffy air of the kitchen.

Grady pushed his empty plate away and regarded Cole mirroring him with a jerky movement of his hand. He had no idea what he was talking about.

“Maybe who got hurt?” he asked, lifting his coffee to his lips and taking a sip.

Cole scratched the side of his head, flicked his eyes up.

“Chloe. With the trailer. See, I been thinkin’ on it.

And horses, if they get hurt or scared somewhere, then they ain’t never wanna go to that place again.

It’s all about the place where it happened.

And mares are especially bad with it, real careful, you know? ”

Grady set his mug on the table, tapped his finger on the porcelain. He could see Cole had a whole lot more to say, so he waited.

“See,” he started when he noted Grady waiting on him, “I reckon somethin’ mighta happened before she got here, somethin’ bad in the trailer. And that’s why you can’t ever load her.”

“But she went in with Red,” Grady replied and took another sip.

Cole nodded, his eyes growing excited. “That’s it, though. You gotta change the place, change somethin’ about it so they feel safe again. Red changed it for her. But I reckon…”

Grady finished his coffee and waited for Cole to go on. When he didn’t, he prompted, “You reckon?”

Cole gazed over Grady’s shoulder, expression going distant.

“I reckon it wasn’t too bad, what happened.

So Red bein’ there was enough. But some people…

” He met Grady’s eyes again, and Grady nodded.

Cole took a quick breath and went on, “Some folks’ll whip their horses and then just keep on whippin’ ’em when they won’t work for them anymore, so then they think that horse is finished, you know?

But it ain’t true. You can fix a horse like that, but you can’t ever work with it in the same place where it was whipped.

If it happened in a ring, then you take that horse and ride him on the range and he’ll come good.

People throw ’em out ’cause they break ’em, but ain’t no need for it.

Just gotta change the place where you workin’ ’em. ”

Cole was red and a little winded when he finished, like he wasn’t sure if he should be talking this much or if what he was saying might offend Grady.

Grady thought it made a whole lot of sense.

He also heard what Cole wasn’t saying—probably need to stop whipping the horse too, shouldn’t be whipping them in the first place if you want a well-adjusted horse.

“But,” Cole said quickly when Grady didn’t say anything, “that’s just my thinkin’ on it. Maybe she was just hot.”

“Hmm.” Grady tapped his finger against the empty mug. “And maybe she wasn’t.”

Cole’s answering smile was directed at his plate and it was small, but Grady reckoned there was some relief in it too.