Summer Sweat (Spruce Texas)
My heart is racing as I stare at that glorious bronze statue of a man that is Harrison. Each time he hammers, he proves the way he commits to his tasks, with every fiber of muscle in his body, and with every burning ember of his heart and soul.
No matter how beautiful a work of his seems to the casual passerby, he keeps tweaking it and working it over with expert care and the highest of standards.
Even I can admit how beautiful it is, his dedication to his work. And just when I thought I knew the guy …
He stops suddenly, looks up, then turns my way.
I’m already hiding behind the side of the cabin again, my body flat against the wall, holding my breath. After a minute, I hear him resume his work.
My heartbeat is so damned volatile right now, I feel like a full-on fucking band of drummers going ballistic in my ribcage as I peel away and hurry back across the yard. I slip into the mudroom and drop onto my squeaky cot, then stare ahead at the wall.
No matter how many times I blink, all I see is Harrison, his sweaty muscles gleaming in the work light.
His strength.
His art.
His commitment to achieving perfection.
And all I hear is the relentless drumming of my own heart.
Chapter 4
Harrison
Today, I have one goal, and one goal only.
I’m going to make Hoyt Nowak’s life on this farm so damned miserable, he’ll have no choice but to quit.
I bang a fist against the screen door at dawn’s shiny ass crack.
Hoyt, in just a pair of boxers with his bed sheets kicked off of him, sits up faster than if his ball hairs just caught fire. He blinks a dozen times before he finally sees me. “Rise n’ shine,” I taunt him. “Meet me at the barn. Got horses to saddle and a barn to clean.” He’s still wiping the sleep out of his eyes when I walk away.
After going over all the different parts of a saddle and how to properly put one on a horse, I let him try. As expected, it’s a total disaster. “Nope,” I shout out at him, arms folded, waiting. “Nope, not that either,” I say after he makes the wrong correction. “You want one of us to fall off the horse the second we get moving? You got our lives in your hands, boy, treat them with respect.”
Hoyt scowls, then tries again.
The sun is punishing.
The day stretches on like it enjoys the torture I’m dishing out.
“The barn’s got to be cleaned,” I tell him. “I showed you how to do it yesterday.”
Hoyt gawks. “I gotta clean this whole place by myself??”
“Fred will be by in an hour once he finishes up in the fields, but he’ll expect the stalls to be mucked out by then, at the very least. Hey, this is all part of the job. Muck buckets and shovels are where they were yesterday. Better get to it.”
His jaw tightens. “Yes, sir.” He heads off without complaint.
Half an hour later, I’m busy collecting eggs from the chicken coop, just within eyesight of the barn, when Emmalea gallops by on her horse and comes to a stop at the fence. “How’s the rookie doin’?” she asks. “Have you killed him yet?”
“Failing to impress me is how he’s doing,” I answer.
“You’re so … how do I put this? …” She lets out a dry laugh. “You’re so dang distrustful of new people, you wouldn’t trust a bee with its own hive. Can’t you just be a tad nicer?”
“Lea, you don’t know Hoyt the way I know him.”
“Judgin’ from what I heard, you don’t know him at all.” When I give her a look, she shrugs. “All you know about him is what you heard through Mr. Gary’s nephew and the Spruce grapevine, and ain’t neither of those reliable sources.”
“They’re reliable enough for me.”
“Well, you do you. But the boy’s got a place at our table, even if you only let him sit at it for half a minute this morning. Barely ate any breakfast, poor thing.”
“Not my fault he slept in,” I point out.
To that, she just clicks her tongue, and off she goes with the horse, leaving me with my chickens. I gaze at the barn, wondering how far Hoyt’s come.
Am I being too hard on him?
Then I think about the years of torment he put Toby through, the cocky expression on his face when he first showed up here, and how boys like that never learn their lessons. I don’t care what he says; Hoyt Nowak is used to getting away with everything.
He won’t pull the wool over these eyes.
It’s another hour or so later when I check up on him. “Well?” he asks, gesturing at the barn, out of breath and soaked through his clothes with sweat. “This to your liking?”