Page 30 of On the Land, We Shoot Straight

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he shearing crew arrived at seven the following morning. Grady and Cole had the pens inside the shed full, the outside pens full, and the road leading to the shed full, while the bulk of the flock still milled about in the pasture where they’d spent the night.

“Grady.” JP shook Grady’s hand as he greeted him. He gave him a warm smile, his dark skin crinkling around his watery brown eyes.

“JP,” Grady replied. He fell into step with him as the rest of the crew came in the old, wooden door to the shearing shed behind them.

Four male shearers, including JP, plus the wool classer, who was also JP’s brother, Marcel, and the female roustabout—JP had held close to the same crew of six for a good five years.

They were the most coveted not only for being one of the fastest at a decent price, but also because they kept pace without hurting the sheep.

Most farmers couldn’t give a shit about the ethical treatment of sheep, but a sheep wasn’t much good to you if she had cuts, infections and busted legs because your shearers treated her like cargo.

Grady figured Cole would know JP and his crew, and he’d therefore make himself scarce like he had with everyone else.

So he was taken aback when JP’s gaze landed on Cole perched on the far edge of the front pen, Lady running along the backs of the sheep in front of him, and Cole’s face split into a wide grin.

“As I live and breathe!” JP yelled. He went around the back of the pen and picked him right up off the fence. “Jesse Cole!”

“JP!” Cole hollered and returned the hug.

“What’re you doin’ out here?” JP set him down and surveyed him from head to toe like he was an old uncle ensuring his kin was still in order.

“Workin’.”

“Workin’.” JP chuckled and punched him lightly on the arm. “Look at this young fella, all grown up, huh?”

“Shut up.” Cole smirked up at him.

“Carter came by the house lookin’ for you not one year ago, but we told him we ain’t seen ya, and now here you are,” JP said.

Something dark and painful flashed across Cole’s face at that name, but he just shrugged and mumbled, “Here I am,” with a genuine smile.

“We gonna shear some sheep or suck some dick?” Carson asked.

He’d been with JP for as long as Grady could remember—a cousin on JP’s wife’s side.

He gave Cole a friendly shove, while the others took turns ruffling his hair, slapping him on the back, and doing a pretty good job of hiding their surprise at seeing him.

Grady wanted to ask who Carter was, but it wasn’t the time, and he wasn’t entirely sure how to ask anyway.

They got to it, the well-oiled machine that was the JP shearing crew moving as one—the four shearers fanned out in front of their designated clippers like they were predestined and waiting for them.

Taking a sheep each from the pen and bringing them out backwards, practiced arms with corded muscle lifted wethers and ewes under armpits.

Their white bellies pointed up at the slatted wooden ceiling as they thrashed and kicked their hooves out.

The roustabout, Milly, scooped up the first fleece from behind JP and threw it as one piece across the wire trampoline.

She instructed Cole on how to help her skirt off the crusted bits around the edges with no extra words, like she’d been telling him for years, and there he was, just doing it, no need for any questions.

She nudged Cole to the fleece behind Carson, indicating with her head to pick it up where it’d fallen from the ewe’s legs.

She watched with studious eyes as Cole threw it as one piece, keeping hold of the ends as he brought it down, the whole fleece falling like a curtain, the brown, dusty wool facing up.

Milly handed Cole the broom, and Cole quickly swept the locks under the table, keeping the space behind each shearer clear.

“Don’t let ’em get snowed under!” Milly shouted at Cole over the buzz of the clippers, chin jerking to the fleeces shooting out the back of each shearer.

Cole nodded and scooped up the next fleece.

Marcel skirted the table, his brown eyes shrewd and fingers quick as he checked the wool and classed it, and Milly narrated what he was doing for Cole in short bursts—

“Short staple on the crimp. The best.”

“See the fine crimps? Top line wool.”

“Not so good here, look. Wider crimps”

“Extra broad crimps on that one. It’s inferior wool.”

“That one’s tender wool. See the crimps breakin’ apart? Sheep gettin’ a poor feedin’ month.”

Then Milly or Cole rolled the fleece and Marcel bagged it into the wool packs stamped with the class.

As the pens dwindled, Grady moved outside with Lady ahead of him, on it without a word or a bark between them, opening gates and moving the flock through.

The buzz of the clippers was a steady drone of on-on-on, off, on-on-on, off.

And on the other side of the wall from the shearers, the sheep popped out into the corral, white as newborns and skinny to their visible hip bones as they milled about like dazed new arrivals, blinking up at the sun and around at each other, only the occasional mark of bright-red blood on a shorn white flank.

The work happened non-stop until break, the pens emptying and filling, the front pen filling and filling, and one by one they got done.

The shearers ground their combs and cutters before taking a seat, sparks flying from the grinder as the plate circled backwards and forwards, a sharp whirring filling the shed.

The sheep bleated to one another, their hooves tapping the wooden slats of the floor, punctuating a silence that felt new after hours of the buzzing of the clippers.

The deep smell of sheep manure rose up from beneath bodies heavy with wool and mingled with the greasy scent of lanolin.

“The missus sent some coffee cake for ya, Grady, but I reckon when she finds out you’re here, Little Cole, she gonna send a whole course meal,” JP said and mussed Cole’s hair as he passed him.

Cole batted him away with a guffaw, his dark eyes bright and alive. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the hem of his shirt and took a seat on the floor among the shearers. Grady said he’d go on and get the coffee.

“I can do it.” Cole went to get up.

“Sit,” Grady told him. He went out and down to the house.

When he got back Cole was eating and taking some ribbing from Carson about something he did when he was a kid. Cole was laughing, defending himself between bites on his sandwich, and Grady couldn’t help the light feeling in his chest at seeing him so at ease.

“So, how’d ya end up here?” JP asked. “Grady don’t take hands.” JP took the coffee Grady handed him and winked.

Cole shrugged and muttered about how Grady don’t take hands but he needs them.

“Oh hoho!” JP crowed.

Grady shook his head and took a seat. He pressed his back against the wall of the front pen and took a slice of cake.

“If ya gonna take a hand, I reckon a Cole should do it,” Carson said and sized Cole up. “But I woulda gone with Jack.”

“Ah, fuck off,” Cole said.

“Just messin’,” Carson said. “Everyone knows he don’t wanna break a nail.”

“Where’s the missus, Grady?” Milly asked. “Still lawyerin’?”

“Yep.”

“She’s got a big case,” Cole said.

Grady raised both eyebrows. He hadn’t thought Cole had been listening to a word Charmaine said. But he should’ve known better—Cole was always listening.

“Yeah?” JP said to Grady.

“Yep.”

Milly rolled her eyes and turned to Cole. “Like gettin’ blood out of a stone. What’s the case?”

Cole shrugged. “Somethin’ about some kids in some kinda trouble?”

And Grady thought about how Charmaine had talked about it at dinner without actually saying it, and figured it did sound like some kids in some kinda trouble.

Everyone looked at Grady to clarify, their mouths chewing and sipping coffee and smoking cigarettes, their eyes questioning. Grady didn’t really want to get into it.

“Some kids got some trouble done to ’em,” he said.

He saw JP get it, the recognition and flash of anger in his eyes.

He cleared his throat. “Good thing they got her, then.” Which was a nice sentiment, Grady thought, but Charmaine was young and green, and she knew as well as Grady did they gave her the case because no one else wanted those cases.

Still, it was true enough she’d work her ass off to give those boys the best shot they could hope for in these parts.

Carson and his brother, Keith, and the other shearer, Paulo—younger guy, about Cole’s age—looked like they were trying to work it out, foreheads creasing.

Marcel was already in it, his usually expressionless face clouding over, while Milly’s countenance shifted to shrewd, lips twisting.

But JP’s gaze changed, warmly brushing over Cole like he wanted this conversation away from him before settling on Grady and saying, “You reckon we gonna meet in the final this year?”

And that broke the moment, the conversation snapping to how JP’s damn town couldn’t field a decent team on account of everyone leaving, but if they could—if they could!—they’d kick all the asses in the county, and everyone was there, in that place at the final. Except Cole.

Grady caught him watching him, that serious set to his eyes looking at him like he was thinking, like he was thinking real hard and not liking what he was thinking.

“All right, enough jerking off,” JP said.

He got up, and everyone followed. They fanned out into position and brought on their next sheep, the clippers starting up again with the familiar long drone before short bursts of silence.

And they were off, moving through the flock one by one until day’s end.

JP’s truck could still be heard tearing up the driveway when Grady rounded on Cole and backed him up to the fleecing table.

“What?” Cole said.

“What, what?” Grady smirked at the same time as he lifted Cole by the hips, set him on the edge of the wire and started in on his pants.

Cole got with the program and helped him get them off. Grady pushed him down so he was lying flat. He knelt down and hooked Cole’s calves over his shoulders, spread him open with his thumbs, and got him nice and wet and ready for his dick.

Grady fucked him like that, the pieces of wool flying up around them with each thrust, Cole’s hand flying over his dick as he jerked off in time with Grady’s hips pounding against him, his panting in time with the creaking of the springs.

Grady helped Cole to his feet once they were finished. Cole laughed and stumbled as he dealt with his pants around his ankles and his wobbly legs.

“Easy,” Grady said as he steadied him against his chest.

Cole yanked his pants over his hips, fastened them with clumsy fingers. He looked up, met Grady’s eyes and huffed a laugh that ended in a smile. Grady looked at those eyes, so black and serious, at the laughter still in them, and could do nothing to stop his soft smile.

It happened so fast, Grady wasn’t sure what happened. Cole pressed forward and kissed him. Kissed him hard and quick, his dry lips closed and bruising against Grady’s. Grady didn’t have time to react before Cole leaped back, stumbling, whispering in panic, “Sorry, sorry.”

Before Grady could recover, Cole ran for the door.

He darted a look over his shoulder, eyes wide and terrified.

The old wooden door slammed, and Cole’s boots pounded the earth, the sound disappearing into the dusk.

Grady brought his hand up and touched his forefinger and middle finger to his lips, skin buzzing with the forceful feel of Cole’s lips against his.

He went back to the house and couldn’t find Cole anywhere. It took him a while, probably too long, to realize Cole had taken off.

“Goddammit.” Grady went outside and over to the horses.

He hadn’t even had the good sense to take Chloe. Grady whistled up the dogs, saddled up Red, and reasoned he couldn’t have gotten far.

Grady rode out, heading up the front driveway, trusting the dogs to track the little idiot down.

Sure enough, Lady’s barking stopped him about an hour in. She was in the scrub, and Grady could actually hear Cole telling her to be quiet.

“Don’t go makin’ me come in there,” Grady said as Red adjusted his hooves.

Cole didn’t respond.

“Cole.”

Nothing.

“This damn kid.” Grady dismounted.

He called Lady, and she barked in response. He followed her barking until he found Cole, the last of the light casting him in a shadow against a tree, his face clear enough to show Grady he was frightened.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know why I—”

Grady came right up to him, grabbed him by the scruff of his collar, pushed him back against the tree and kissed him.

Kissed him real hard. Cole froze. Grady was beginning to think maybe it was a mistake when Cole pressed back into it.

He was tentative, his mouth barely moving under Grady’s, almost like he hadn’t kissed anyone before.

Well, before this afternoon. Grady kept on kissing him, wanting to give him a message.

Cole relaxed under him and let him do it, followed his lead with lips moving more confidently, his tongue touching Grady’s around a gasp.

His hands came up and tugged Grady closer by his collar.

Grady pulled back after a lot longer than he’d planned, their lips still brushing as he spoke.

“You wanna come in now?”

“Yeah, all right,” Cole breathed out against his lips. Grady kissed him again.

It was pitch black by the time Grady pulled away for good only to lean back in and press another firm kiss to Cole’s lips before sliding his hand down to tangle his fingers with Cole’s. He guided him out of the brush, letting him go once they were on the road.

“Go on then,” he said as he grabbed Red by the reins.

Cole hoisted himself up and shuffled forward. Grady came up behind him, and they cantered back to the house, Cole cradled snugly between Grady’s hands on the reins, his thighs on the saddle.

Once they were back and Red was unsaddled, Grady said, “You wouldn’t think we got another full day of it tomorrow.”

“Sorry.”

“I’m just messin’.” Grady grabbed Cole around the shoulders and tugged him into the house under the crook of his arm. Cole snorted a laugh and dropped his head down as they went in.

Grady let him go in the kitchen, and Cole set about making the dinner. Grady took a seat at the little table, got out his ledger, and calculated how many sheep they’d done, worked out how they’d look for the next two weeks if they kept this pace, and reckoned they’d be looking good.