“The one with the bell?”
“That’s him. The steers all have a place in the herd. They go to the same spot every day. If this were about a hundred and twenty years ago and we were taking the cattle from Texas to Kansas, they’d walk that whole distance in formation. If a steer got sick, he’d drop back until he was better, then return to his original position.”
“Has Manny always been the leader?”
“Pretty much. I take him with me whenever I move cattle. He’s calm and doesn’t mind crossing water.”
“We met. He seems very nice.”
Zane tugged on his hat and muttered something like, “You’d make friends with a tree,” but Phoebe wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly, so she didn’t comment.
“Manny’s pretty tame, but watch yourself with the other steers. Remember what happened with the goats.”
She instantly thought of the kiss they’d shared outside the baby-goat pen, then realized he probably wasn’t talking about that. Ah—she’d been bitten by a kid.
“The steers have much bigger teeth,” she said. “Would Manny bite me?”
“No.”
“Then I’ll only talk to him.”
“That’s probably best.”
She glanced at him. Zane looked as if he’d just swallowed lemons.
“Don’t you want me talking to Manny?” she asked.
“I don’t care one way or the other.”
“You think I’m crazy.”
His dark blue eyes crinkled as he grinned. “Crazy’s a bit strong.”
“I like animals. I don’t have any pets of my own, so I like to spend time with other people’s.”
“Cattle aren’t pets.”
“I know. Manny would probably be tough to housebreak and I sure wouldn’t want to be the one cleaning up his accidents.”
She shifted on her saddle. They’d just broken free of the trees and were out in the open. The sky stretched out for miles, as did the grassland. Small trees provided pockets of shade.
“It’s not like this in LA,” she breathed.
“Is that where you’re from or did you move there after high school?”
“Born and bred. A back-to-nature outing for me is a trip to the beach or hiking in Griffith Park.” She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. “You don’t strike me as the city type.”
“I don’t mind visiting, but after a few days it gets too noisy and crowded.”
“I like being around people, but I can understand the appeal of this kind of beauty.” She inhaled deeply. “No smog and you have a satellite dish.”
“There’s also Cookie’s biscuits.”
Phoebe sighed. “They’re pretty amazing. If he opened his own restaurant, I bet he’d make a fortune.”
“Cookie’s not a real people person.”
She thought of his over-the-top flirtations with the female members of the group and his annoyance whenever anyone turned down one of his dishes.
“Okay. Maybe he doesn’t have the service industry temperament, but I like his cooking.”
She watched as the herd moved into the open pasture. The steers stayed in their basic formation, but spread out more and began to eat. In the distance, she saw an animal that looked far too large to be a cow.
“Is that an elephant?” she asked.
He gazed in the same direction and nodded. “That’s Priscilla. She lives at the Castle Ranch.”
“They breed elephants?”
He chuckled. “No, they rescued Priscilla. See that little dot to her right? That’s her donkey.”
“The elephant has a pet donkey?”
“Fool’s Gold is a strange place.”
Strange and wonderful, she thought. What would it be like to live in a place where people would rescue an elephant, and where they treated strangers like new friends?
“Maya mentioned you make a cattle drive every year. Are we following that same route?”
Zane pulled his hat low over his forehead. “No. Usually I take a few hundred head north. That trip takes about three weeks. We didn’t have that long, so we’re going in a different direction.”
“What happens after your steers arrive? Is it like summer vacation for them?”
“Not exactly. In early September I round ’em up and ship ’em out.”
Phoebe winced. She didn’t want to think about where the cattle might be going. She knew it wasn’t Club Med. Her stomach flopped over, and she hoped they weren’t having burgers for lunch again.
“Is that what your father did?” she asked. “Is it a family tradition?”
“He sent the cattle up north, but didn’t take them himself. My grandfather did, when he was alive. And his father. There have been five generations of my family on the land.”
She tried to imagine that and couldn’t. “The house isn’t that old, is it?”
“The one we have now was built in the sixties. The original place was torn down.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Too many old buildings are destroyed to make way for the new. In LA, something from the thirties is considered ancient.” She looked at him. “It must be nice to have such deep roots.”
“It’s all I know.”
What would it be like to belong to a place? To be part of history and know that in another hundred years, the family would still be there?