The Cowboy's Unexpected Family

If not for the cast on his ankle, he’d have jumped into the truck and…he stopped at the thought. And what? Gone to the Sunset downtown? His bar days were over.

Face it, he thought, stepping across the hard ruts in the parking area, using his cane more than he’d like, you have nowhere to go.

Nowhere to go and nothing to do.

Walter stepped into the barn, feeling like a green cowboy looking for his first job. This barn had been his home but he barely recognized it sober. Of course, he barely recognized it at all because Mia and Jack had updated everything. Fixed the stall doors. There was a cell phone sitting in a charger on top of a filing cabinet that had never been there. A cell phone. In a barn.

What was the world coming to?

But the hard-backed chair that had always been in the office was still there, and he grabbed it, placing it securely in the sun just outside the open door. From the deep right pocket in his shirt he pulled out his penknife. A gift from his father when he turned ten, the bone handle worn and warm. An old friend.

Now he just needed something to work on. Whittling, for a man whose hands shook like his, might be about the dumbest thing ever. But he had this hope that it would help. Help his hands. Help his head.

Without drinking to fill the hours, he was bored. Listless. All too aware of the mess he’d made of everything.

With some effort he turned himself around, heading back down the wide center aisle to the back where they had stacked wood for winter fires.

There was some white birch that was about the right size, and he picked it up, pulling off the long splinters that snagged on the cuffs of his shirt.

From behind him he heard the rustle of hay, the scuff of a boot and he turned awkwardly, hoping to see his son.

But instead, in the stall opposite, he saw a kid’s tennis shoe, the frayed hem of a pair of blue jeans. “What the hell?” he muttered and shuffled his way over to the doorway.

It was the kid. The troublemaker. Ben. Sitting in the clean hay.

“What?” Ben barked when he looked up and saw Walter standing there. The tone of voice was uncalled for and Walter nearly told him to get the hell out of his barn.

But the boy had been crying. Those defiant eyes rimmed in red.

He thought of Annie, the kind of hole a mother like that would leave behind in her sons.

Ben scrambled to his feet. “Am I in trouble?”

“Probably,” Walter murmured.

“I wasn’t doing anything.”

Walter nodded. He remembered the night, a year or two after his wedding to Vicki, when he’d realized what his marriage was going to be like. The long, lonely years that stretched out in front of him. Bleak. Joyless. He’d come out here and started drinking. In the same spot the kid stood.

“You all right?” Walter asked.

The boy looked like he was going to laugh; it seemed actually like the kid’s emotions were going to overrun his banks. But then he cooled himself down. “Sure,” he finally said.

Walter nodded and arranged his body to turn back around. He had his wood. The chair and his knife were waiting for him.

“You gonna make me leave?” the boy asked.

“Only if you want,” Walter said and sat down on his chair, leaving the boy to his demons, if that was what he wanted.

Moments later Walter heard Jack’s voice coming in through the back of the barn. “Okay Mia,” he was saying. “Yes, I’ll deal with him. No, I can’t promise that. You know my dad.”

Walter ran his thumb over the smooth wood revealed by his knife. If only he could do that to his life. Whittle away the mess, leave what was useful. Clean. New.

That, he thought with a bitter laugh, would make for a mighty thin stick.

Jack appeared at his elbow.

My son, he thought. Jack had come back to this ranch a few months ago a broken man, a scientist. Now he was a rancher, a husband, and looked every inch the job. Walter had heard Mia talking about how Jack was getting calls from all across the state asking questions about irrigation systems and water tables.

I’m proud of you, he thought, but for whatever reason…couldn’t say.

“Hey.” Jack pushed his hat back on his head. “You can’t keep chasing off the women who come to interview.”

“I’m not chasing—”

“You threw a bowl of vomit at one woman.”

Not much to say about that, so he kept his mouth shut.

“You swore at that woman today.”

“A woman can’t handle some rough language she has no business on a ranch.”

“Dad—”

“It’s true and you know it.”

“No,” Jack stepped forward. “What I know is that you are making Mia’s life miserable, Dad. Miserable.”