Jake ran his fingers through Earl’s long hair. “Their hair is matted and full of brush from being out with the goats. Well have to see to a good brushing and trim later. They’re great guard dogs. We’ll let them wander around the house at nights for a few weeks. I have to make sure the small pasture where we have the goats is secure. Goats can jump and eat their way through just about anything.”
“How is guard duty going to work?”
“We start tonight. You and I take the 11:00 PM to 7:00 AM shift and then we rotate nights. Off three, on one. I appreciate your offering to help. You cheered me up. I was in a mean mood when I left the kitchen.”
“Anything I can do for the boss.”
“Anything?”
“We’ll see about that,” she said with a smile. “I’ll see what’s happening in the house. I was headed for the kitchen when I heard the ruckus. Can I get you a cup of coffee?
“No, it doesn’t go good with beer. I can’t guarantee what will happen in the kitchen. Do you want me to go with you?”
She shook her head. “No, you have a ranch to run, remember? If I’m going to stay on, I’ll have to get to know all the relations. I might as well start now. I’ll put on my big girl pants.”
He laughed and said, “Good luck.”
Fiona walked slowly to the kitchen door. Tillie and Opal had gone back inside or at least they weren’t on the back patio any longer. A light breeze ruffled the blue jean skirt she had donned that morning. She pulled open the screen door and went inside. No one was in the kitchen, but she had not heard the truck leave. The coffee pot was empty, and she went about fixing a new pot. She wondered if Olympia was up and went to find her while she waited for the coffee to brew.
Jake’s kiss would not leave her mind. The feel of him kept playing over and over again in her head. He was looking better and better every day. He sure would be nice to wake up to in the morning. He had the most incredible build. Solid. Arms that could take a girl to eternity and back. And he sure fit into a pair of jeans real nice. Stop it. Stop it. You know when you get like this something is going to happen, and there won’t be any turning back. The question was did she want to turn back?
Fiona stopped outside of Olympia’s door, listened then gently opened the door. She wasn’t in the room, and the bed didn’t look like it had been slept in. Bad news. Where had she spent the night and who with? Last night Jake said she had spent the day with Sweet. Her car was in front of the house. Fiona walked down the hall to see if she was in the guest bathroom. No one there. She hoped her friend was not going to rotate her way through all the buckaroos before she left town. Maybe it was time for her to leave.
Jake finished work on the motor so he could get a better pump working at the stock tank in the pasture where they had moved the cows. The one there kept cutting off. He had meant to have it fixed before they moved the cows in. But the cattle rustlers made havoc of his schedule. Ranching was like that. It was always something breaking that had to be fixed. Then there were more cows to rotate to other pastures and make sure they had water. Then there were goats to attend to, fences to mend, horse to train, haying to finish, the swather that needed maintenance. The list went on and on. Sometimes he wondered how he had ever got caught up in the ranching business. He should have stayed with rodeos. But by now he probably would have a busted back, and no money to show for it. Hard as ranching was, rodeoing was harder and more dangerous. On the other hand, Opal’s relatives could be more dangerous than bull riding.
What he really wanted to know was who was stealing cows and sneaking around the ranch. He stopped and stared out the workshop window. Three ravens flew a zigzag pattern over gold and brown fields, chased by a four angry little birds. He wondered what mischief the ravens were up to this time. They were like cattle rustlers, thieves in the night.
He wondered if the ranch would ever be his. Now he wasn’t so sure.
Sweet shared what they called the new bunkhouse with Mort Glory and Tommy Hide. It sported the same weathered look as the rest of the buildings on the ranch. Fiona’s designer’s eye had imagined them painted at first. But now she realized that the weathered look reflected ranch life. Her idea of making everything look new didn’t work here. Rustic was a new shade of color in her designer book.
She walked toward the new bunkhouse which was a ways from the main house around behind the horse corrals and the open-sided hay barn. Sweet had ridden in with the goats, but she hadn’t seen where he had gone. Jake said Glory and Tommy were haying. She didn’t know one pasture from another, the place was so big, so endless. She didn’t know how many acres made up Opal’s ranch. Jake had said it took thousands of acres to pasture cows in the high desert. He’d said they leased some of the land from the Bureau of Land Management. She felt the uncertainty in him now about the ranch and was a little upset with Opal. In all fairness, Opal had more than her share of worries to deal with.
She wasn’t sure if Olympia would be at the bunkhouse, but she had a sinking feeling that was where she had spent the night since she hadn’t seen her last evening. While Olympia was a grown woman, her playing fast and loose wouldn’t help anything while things were in such turmoil. Most of the time, she could laugh off Olympia’s amoral approach to living, but none of them needed her complicating things now.
Fiona had never been in the new bunkhouse. She didn’t know whether to knock or just go in. She didn’t detect any movement inside through the open blinds. There was a small wooden porch with two chairs sitting to the side of the entrance. She paused, hands on her hips and looked around. Where could Olympia be? Fiona had visions of her sleeping off a drunken night in one of the buckaroo’s beds, or maybe they had had a foursome. She cringed at the thought.
Working up her nerve, she knocked on the door. No one answered. She turned the knob. The door wasn’t locked. No one seemed to lock doors in this valley. She opened it and peeked inside. A messy living room dominated by a wide screen TV greeted her gaze. Beer cans littered the coffee table. A ratty looking recliner and sagging couch faced the TV. Four closed doors fronted on the room. She stepped into the room, feeling like an intruder.
“Olympia? Yoo. Hoo. You in here?”
No answer. This was annoying. Where was she? She might be sleeping one off in any one of the rooms. Fiona hated doing this and was about to turn and leave when something caught her attention on the couch. She tiptoed over to get a closer look.
An old revolver lay on the couch. She hesitated then picked up the rusted old thing to have a closer look. Along the handle was one bright silver patch that had caught the sun on the day she had found it. How many old rusted guns could there be on one ranch, and what was the one from her knoll doing here? Carefully, she replaced the gun on the couch and debated what to do.
No one was going to believe that she had discovered the gun again unless she took it as evidence. If she took it, then she might be stealing, and they’d know she was in their house, sneaking around. But she wasn’t really sneaking around. She was looking for Olympia. If she didn’t take it, and it disappeared what would that prove? How many old revolvers could there be? If it were the same gun, why did one of the guys bring it here to the house and leave it in plain sight?
She reached into her skirt pocket for her smart phone. Looking around for the best light she aimed and took a photo of the gun lying on the couch. This time at least she had a photo. She looked at the picture on the small screen. It showed up fairly well, but she snapped another with a wider view of the couch in the room to be on the safe side.