The cows that had been brought down from the roundup, and far too many of them for the pasture they were in, had to
be moved. That was the topic of conversation, after breakfast was finished, and my brothers began to grab their hats to go
outside.
"Maybe we could rent some pasture, from the McCoy's?" Guthrie suggested, naming our nearest neighbor.
The others exchanged glances and then Crane said, "It's a good idea, Guth, but it's not what we can do right now."
I looked at Guthrie, and he looked at me. I raised my shoulders in a shrug to suggest that I didn't understand, either.
Finally, the decision was made to move half of the cattle, and put them in the pasture where the bull and the other cattle were.
"Wasn't the whole point to have them closer to home, though?" Ford asked.
"It was," Adam said. "Let's stretch some wire around the back side of the barn, with access to the pond. Then we move
about twenty head over there for right now."
"That's gonna take some time," Guthrie grumbled.
"Which is why we start now," Brian told him, putting a hand on the back of Guthrie's neck. "Come on."
Kristin offered to stay at the house, helping with the dishes and the laundry. I was hoping I wouldn't be appointed
to the housework duty. I wanted to be outside.
"Do you have to get to work?" Adam was asking Kristin. "Somebody need to run you to Angels Camp?"
I knew then that Adam thought Kristin was still working at the video store in Angels Camp. And he also
didn't know that she wanted to stay again overnight. For that night. And the next. And the next.
"No," Kristin said, quietly.
"No, what?" Adam asked, in typical 'Adam-fashion', though he didn't say it unkindly. "No, you don't have work, or no, you don't need a ride?"
"No to both," Kristin told him.
"Alright," Adam said, and began to get ready to head out the door. I saw Kristin take a deep breath, and I knew she wanted
to ask Adam outright if she could stay for a while with us. But, in the usual fashion of a hectic morning, they were all
going out the door, and talking, and I could tell she lost her nerve, closing her mouth.
"Don't worry about it," I whispered to her.
"Should I ask Hannah?" she whispered back.
I considered that for a moment. Hannah would be a likely source of support, and understanding in this situation. Still, she
wouldn't make the final decision. That would come from my brothers.
"Talk to her," I advised. "Tell her what's going on, and all that. Don't ask her anything. But then she'll know about it
already, and she might talk to Adam."
Kristin nodded, and when somebody hollered from the porch for me, I went outside.
"Help fill the water tanks again," Brian told me.
"Okay," I said agreeably, and waited for him to tell me who was going to help me.
"Are the keys in the truck?" I asked.
"You'll have to check," he said, and I ran across the yard to where the truck was parked, near the water hydrant. The keys were
in the ignition already, and I started the motor.
I hopped into the driver's seat, and Crane followed after a few minutes, coming around to the other side to get in.
"Who else?" I asked, waiting for the third-place person for the job.
"It's you and me, kid," he said.
I pulled out a little too fast, squealing the tires of the truck.
"Eeeasy," Crane said, putting a hand on the roof of the cab, as if to steady himself. "The old truck can't take
that kind of abuse."
"Sorry," I said, and couldn't resist a laugh.
Crane was the one who got out to open the gate, ushering the cattle back, and then closing it again. When he was
back in the cab, I began to drive really slowly thru the throng of cattle.
"Stop here," Crane told me. "I'm going to feed some range cubes."
So I braked to a stop. I had to hold down really hard with my foot. The brakes were getting worn down.
Crane sprinkled some range cubes, walking amongst the cattle, until that sack was emptied out. He tore open a second sack
and poured out about half of that one.
"Pull on over to the first tank," he told me, and so I drove on, to the first tank in the half-circle of the pasture.
I parked, and got out to climb up into the back, ready to turn on the water. When Crane came over, he made sure the
water hoses were secure, and told me to start the water.
Once it was running into the tank, I sat down on the tail gate, while he stood beside the tank.
"Kristin wants to stay around for awhile, huh?" he said. It wasn't really a question, the way that he said it. So I knew
that was what Guthrie had been talking to him about earlier that morning.
"Yeah. She does," I said.
When he said nothing more, I asked, "Can she?"
"It's not up to just me."
"I know. But Guthrie talked to you first," I pointed out. "Because you understand."
"I'm not the only one who understands," he reminded me.
"I know that." I studied his tanned face. "But, sometimes you're more reachable."
Crane gave me a raised eyebrow look. "Reachable, huh?"
"Sometimes."
Crane looked sympathetic, thoughtful. "We'll see what her mom has to say about it," he said.
"How come?" I demanded.
"How come what?" he asked, reaching down to straighten the hose.
"If her mom is stupid enough to let freaky Frank back into the house again, then why does her opinion even
matter? She doesn't deserve to even have an opinion."
I thought my statement made a valid point, but Crane's swift look gave me a jolt. It was the look he reserves
for when he is most disappointed.
"What?" I asked, genuinely puzzled.
Instead of answering right away, he said, "Turn off the water."
I stood up, and went to twist the water handle until it stopped. After Crane had shoved the hoses back into the truck bed, he
went around as if to get into the passenger side. When he saw that I was just standing there, in the bed of the truck, looking
at him, he said, "Come on. Let's get this done."
I sighed, and hopped down, and got behind the steering wheel.
We finished filling the other two tanks in silence. I kept waiting for Crane to say something more. About why he'd given
me that disappointed look. But he didn't. Just in that short length of time, I got myself all worked up. I felt my mood
shifting, and my temper rising. I hadn't done anything, I thought, in defense. But then, just as quickly, my temper faded
away. Staying mad at Crane, well, it's like a really hard thing to do. Wanting to know why he'd given me that look was almost
more than I could take.
When I'd parked the truck, backed up to water hydrant, ready to be filled again, I turned off the motor. I got out, because
Crane did. He hefted what was left in the second sack of range cubes over his shoulder, and said, "Grab the buckets, alright?"
So I reached into the bed of the truck, and hooked the handles of the two buckets over my arm. following along as he
headed toward the feed shed.
After he'd set the sack down, and I'd hung up the two buckets, I followed him outside. I was trying to think about how
to bring it up when he paused in his walking, and looked at me, putting his hands in the pockets of his jeans.
So I asked. "What did I say that was wrong? Was it calling him Freaky Frank?"
Crane sighed. "No, Harlie, that's not it."
"Then what?" I asked, truly perplexed. Another thought occurred to me sudden-like.
"Because I called Kristin's mom stupid?" I asked then.
"That's disrespectful," he acknowledged. "And I don't want to hear you say it again. But no, that's not what really
bothered me about what you said."
"Then what?" I appealed again, feeling as though I might start crying. And I did not want to do that.
"I'd like to see you be a little easier on people. Kinder," he said. He said it softly. But he said it.
I stared at him a long moment, and now my eyes did well up with tears. "You don't think I'm kind?" I asked, feeling
as though somebody had punched me in the bread basket.
"That's not what I meant, exactly," Crane said. He looked around, and then went to sit on a square bale of hay that
had been left by the front of the shed for I don't know how long. "Come over here and sit down a minute."
I stood where I was, feeling blind-sided, and emotional.
"Harlie," he prompted, meaning that I should come over to sit down beside him.
"I've got to feed the goats," I mumbled.
"The goats can wait a couple of minutes. I want to talk to you."
I turned my head, still blinking back tears, and looking towards the house, and not at him.
"Come on, before this becomes something that it doesn't need to be," Crane said. His voice had lost its patient
tone, and gone up the scale. From a cajoling number one to a three or even a four.
I wished that I had the nerve, the cahoonas, to storm off across the yard. But I didn't. Have the nerve, I mean.
I went over and sat down on the hay bale next to him, folding my hands, and not looking at him.
He reached over and swiped at one wet eye. "Why the tears?" he asked.
"It's not easy, finding out that you think I'm not a nice person," I said, low.
"I'd never say that to you. And I'd never think it, either," Crane said, sounding irritated. "Because it doesn't happen
to be true."
I gave him a side-ways glance, and he raised his eyebrow questioningly.
"Can I explain to you now?" he asked. "Are you ready to listen?"
I nodded.
"Nobody can ever know what someone else is truly going thru in their life. We can hear things, or observe things, but
really, only that person can know all the facts, and feel all the emotions of the situation. We should do our best to not
be harsh in judging them. Because, again, we don't really know all there is to know. Only they do."
"You're talking about Kristin's mom," I said.
"Yeah. That's right."
As I turned to face him a little more squarely on, he went on, "That doesn't mean that I necessarily agree with decisions
that Linda's making. About Frank. And, I definitely think that she should consider Kristin in everything. But, right or wrong,
they're her decisions. And, I think that Linda's been thru an awful lot of pain in her life."
"Here's the main thing," he said. "It's fine to have your own opinions about things. It means you're growing up. Along
with those opinions, though, you need to try to have an understanding heart about people. And what they might be going
thru."
He sighed. "I know you come from a place of caring, and worry about Kristin. I care about her, too. But, to make
the sort of comment that you did, about her mom not being deserving of an opinion about Kristin, well, that's harsh."
After that, he didn't say anything more. He leaned forward a little, resting his elbows on his knees and his hands folded,
looking at me. Waiting, I guessed, for me to acknowledge that I understood what he was getting at.
"I'll try," I said, just wanting this "talk" to be over with. But, I knew he would sit right there, just as he was,
until I answered and seemed to have heard what he had to say.
"To have more of an understanding heart," I added.
"Okay," he said quietly.
After that, my morning didn't seem to go very well. While helping with the fencing, I let a steel fence post fall on
Guthrie's foot, and from the way he carried on about it, well, Good Lord, you would have thought I'd succeeded in
severing a couple of his toes. It did succeed in catching him on the leg, on the way down to his foot, and he swore his knee
was bleeding, underneath his jeans.
I apologized, and he was still grumbling about it, until I snapped and told him to quit being such a damn baby. And I
said 'damn', too, not 'darn' or any of the other non-swear words.
And, though most of the guys were spread out along with line, stretching fence, and digging holes, we happened to
be nearest to Brian at that point. Which was lucky, if you wanted to look at it that way. Brian has never been one
to come uncorked at bad language from us younger kids, at least for the most part. I saw him look up from his task of
pounding down a post, but he didn't say anything.
If it had ended then, things might have been alright. But Guthrie went too far, when he said, "How about I drop one on
your foot, and we'll see who the baby is then?"
"Both of you, knock it off," Brian ordered.
"I wouldn't still be whining about it, if it was me," I said.
Guthrie gave an eye roll, and, in irritation, I thrust the three posts I was holding at him. "Do it yourself!" I told him.
Guthrie didn't have much of a chance to grasp at the posts, and when he tried to catch them, the end of one caught him in the
side. He muttered an 'Ow!', and I stood there, looking at him, horrified. I hadn't meant to hurt him.
"What'd you do that for?" he asked, straightening the posts, and still grimacing.
"I didn't mean to-" I began.
"Good grief, Har," he said, sounding disgusted.
Brian hollered over to us. "What's goin' on?" he demanded, sounding vastly irritated.
I gave Guthrie a glance, sure he was going to rat me out, complain to Brian that I'd managed to hurt his leg, his foot,
and now his side. And with a pointy-ended steel fence post, no less. Fooling around with fencing supplies
is never a good idea.
"Just a disagreement," Guthrie said. He carried the posts over to where Brian was working. "Here," he said, laying the posts on the ground.
I'd followed, and Brian gave Guthrie a long look, and then me, a longer one.
"Do you two need to be separated the rest of the morning?" Brian asked. It would have been funny, at another time,
that he would ask that. Almost as though Guthrie and I were five and six years old again, arguing over what cartoon to watch.
Guthrie shook his head. "Naw."
"No," I said.
Brian shook his head a little, and went back to work.
7
When it got closer to lunchtime, Brian told me to go inside the house and help with that. I went without any complaint, glad by this time
to go.
Hannah was busy in the kitchen, when I came in the back door, leaning over to read from one of the worn cookbooks that
had belonged to my mother. She looked up to smile at me.
"How's the fencing going?" she asked me.
"Slowly."
I went to wash my hands at the kitchen sink. "Where's Kristin?" I asked.
"Upstairs with Clare, folding laundry."
"What are you making?" I asked then, leaning over to peer at the page she was reading.
"Thinking about making Mississippi Mud cake."
"Yum," I said, and then I gave a sigh, wishing for the one-millionth time that I didn't have diabetes.
Hannah correctly interpreted that sigh of mine. "You can have some," she told me. "A small piece won't hurt you."
"What do you want me to do?" I asked.
"I think the mail came. Would you go down and get it?"
I said okay, and went thru the living room, pausing to pull off my boots, and socks, leaving them in a heap beside
the couch. I walked to the mailbox, barefooted, and sure enough, the mail had come early. It looked to me to be nothing
but a bunch of bills again. On the way back up the driveway, I turned when I heard a vehicle coming up the road. They were
driving really fast, dust in a cloud behind the truck. Then, it braked suddenly, whipping into our driveway, and coming up.
Halfway up as I was, I stepped over out of the way, onto the grass at the side of the driveway.
I didn't recognize the truck, as it slowed to a stop next to where I stood. And I didn't recognize the driver, either, though
the passenger looked familiar, in a vague sort of a way.
"Hi, there," the guy driving greeted me. He looked as though he was in his early twenties or so, and he held a beer in
the hand that he had on the steering wheel.
"Hi," I said.
"This the McFadden place?" he asked then.
"Uh huh."
He gave me a careless grin. "What's your name?"
I wrinkled my forehead, as a whiff of marijuana came out of the cab.
"Were you looking for one of my brothers?" I asked him, feeling a tad uneasy.
"Yeah. I heard there's a bunch of brothers runnin' this ranch." He laughed as though that was funny.
I looked towards the house, and saw Gus and Warrior trotting down the driveway, obviously intent on investigating who
was here. I felt better instantly. My four-legged pals were coming to check on me.
Warrior went to the passenger side of the truck, and then around the back, sniffing and smelling. Gus came to stand beside me,
barking.
"Gussie," I reassured him, reaching down to rub his ear.
"Nice dog," the driver said. "I used to have one just like him."
"My brothers are up by the barn," I said. I knew I was entirely safe, with the dogs there, and family within
yelling range. There was something about the young guy that made me feel weird, though. Not to mention the weed.
"What's your name?" he asked me again.
"This way," I said, instead of answering him. I began to walk towards the house, and Gus stayed beside me, while Warrior
ran alongside the truck. Both of them were barking.
Instead of driving on up to the house to park, the driver kept pace with my walking. Not ahead of me, and not behind me. Just
right beside me.
"You're a McFadden, huh?" he asked then, talking louder so as to be heard over the dog's barking.
I gave him a look, feeling more courage the closer that I got to the house. "You must have a real high IQ, if you
can figure that out," I said.
Instead of making him mad, he burst out laughing. "Whoo wee! Did you hear that, Charlie?" he asked, turning to the
so-far silent passenger. "This one's got some spirit to her!"
And then, coming from the direction of the corral, I saw Daniel, walking fast, and with obvious purpose toward me. Evan wasn't far
behind. I had to admit that I was glad to see them coming.
I stopped walking, and so the driver stopped, too, putting the truck into park.
"Brothers?" he asked me, still looking amused.
"That's right," I said.
"Well, that's fine," he said, and the way that he said it gave me chills down my back. He sounded sort of sinister.
By now Daniel was there, slightly in front of me. "Can I help you?" he asked, his voice on the cusp of being challenging.
"I'm Trey Howard," he said. "This is my brother, Charlie. We're lookin' for work."
Evan was there now, on the other side of me, so that I was more or less in the middle.
"I don't know of any work around. You'd have to ask in town," Daniel said.
"Work here," the one named Trey specified. "We heard there was work right here."
Daniel and Evan exchanged a very quick glance. "There's no work here," Evan said.
"Well, how about that?" Trey said, laughing. "We heard the McFaddens were hiring. That you all needed help
this summer."
I felt Daniel stiffen a bit, though he didn't really show it on the surface. "You heard wrong," he said, quietly.
"Well, that's a shame," Trey said. "That's a damn shame."
His eyes went to me, and he didn't look amused any longer. But more scary. There was no question that he
was perusing me.
"Go on up to the house," Daniel said, reaching his hand behind to pat one of my legs.
I hesitated, just for the briefest of moments. Then I obeyed, and only a few steps later, I looked back. The one called
Trey had opened the truck door, and had one foot on the ground. I broke into a run, Gus following me, still barking.
I ran to where the fencing was going on. Ford and Crane weren't there, but Guthrie, holding a strand of wire
taut as Adam stretched it, looked up at my flurried arrival. "What's the matter with you?" he asked me.
Adam looked at me, as I stopped, breathless, and Brian came walking up.
"You should come," I managed, still breathing hard from running. "There's some guys here."
7
