The Cowboy and the Hacker (Farthingdale Valley #5)

12. Cal

Chapter 12

Cal

A s Cal followed Zeke from the mess tent and along the path back to the paddock, he still could not believe he’d gotten off so easily.

When Zeke had said, You don’t know anything about horses, do you, Cal had been sure that his heart was going to leap out of his chest.

Whenever Preston had confronted him like that, the world had crashed in around him, and he usually staggered back from a blow or, at the very least, a verbal assault.

It had surely come to that when Zeke had said, You can tell me the truth . But unlike Preston, Zeke had not pressed his point, but merely had figured it out all on his own. Then he’d given Cal a second chance, which felt exactly like e was stepping from a swirl of dark dread into the sunlight.

Again, at lunch, Zeke had covered for him. Sure, he could have told Gabe the truth: Cal doesn’t know anything about horses . But he hadn’t.

And it didn’t look like he was going to hold it against Cal, either. Instead, he was going to teach Cal what he knew and, when the others were around, make like he’d known it all along.

All of which was a big fat lie. But it was a good lie for a good purpose. Right?

At the very least, it was a lucky break that Cal intended to take full advantage of. He was going to do right by Zeke, no matter what it took.

“We’re going to have a quick lesson,” said Zeke. “Nothing fancy, it’s just so I can take the measure of you.”

“Okay.”

“Go grab a bridle and I’ll pick out a mount.”

“Sure.”

Cal hustled into the small shed, where bridles and saddles were kept, along with buckets of grooming tools, and bags of feed and horse treats. The shed smelled like wood shavings and molasses, reminding Cal of a summer carnival, something he’d not been to in years.

He went up to Zeke, who had tied Dusty to the rail with a simple-looking knot. Zeke’s head was bent over Dusty’s mane, his fingers untwining long strands of coarse horse hair.

“Now, how did this fairy knot get in here, Dusty?” Zeke asked in a low voice. “Did one take a ride on you while we were at lunch?”

It took Cal a moment to realize that Zeke was talking to the horse like it was a person. Cal stopped, bridle clasped between his hands, new cowboy boots kicking up a puff of dust.

A wash of sweetness swept over him. Any man who was kind to animals, even when no one was looking, had to be good.

Which maybe meant that just because Cal had failed to figure out what kind of man Preston was, didn’t mean that he was bad at reading people altogether.

“What’s a fairy knot?” asked Cal as he came up to Zeke, getting an eyeful of broad shoulders and those strong hands, nimble on the horse’s mane. The loving pat that Zeke gave Dusty’s neck.

“Oh.”

Zeke turned, the faintest-faintest-faintest blush on his tanned cheeks showing he’d not known Cal was there, close enough to hear him.

“A fairy knot,” said Zeke, clearing his throat. “It’s when you find a twisted bit of mane or tail. Like this. Here’s another one.”

Zeke reached in and pulled out a strand of mane and showed it to Cal. All Cal could see was a tangle of hair that ended in a lump of a small knot.

“It’s an old legend,” Zeke said, turning the knot this way and that. “They say that fairies visit stables in the middle of the night and make braids with knots in manes and tails to use as reins and stirrups. Then they ride the horses underneath the moon. And you can tell that they’ve been by because of these.”

All of a sudden, beneath the soothing poetry of those words, Cal could see, exactly so, that the knot now resembled a place where a fairy foot could rest, and where tiny fairy hands could grasp to guide the horse on a wild nighttime ride.

Rather than reply to Cal’s astonished expression, Zeke focused on untangling the knot, head bent, shoulders relaxed, as if the task was going to take as long as it took, and he was completely unbothered by this fact. Another charming detail was the way he hummed beneath his breath as he soothed the straightened strands with his fingers.

He had to be the sweetest man the Cal had ever met or even heard of.

“There you go, Dusty,” said Zeke, half to himself as he used his fingers as a comb to the rest of Dusty’s mane. “All set for the next ride.”

Cal laughed beneath his breath and let the bridle go when Zeke took it from him. And watched as Zeke organized the various thick straps of the bridle, how he looped the long reins over one arm. And grasped the metal bit in his hand.

“As a courtesy to your horse,” said Zeke. “Always warm up the bit, rain or shine. Wind or weather.”

“Yes, sir,” said Cal, but he said it with a smile to show that he wasn’t being sarcastic or anything.

He watched closely as Zeke took off the green halter, stowing it on Dusty’s neck for a moment, then put on the bridle, and looped the reins over Dusty’s shoulders, well, withers, as Zeke had taught him.

“Your horse is always under your control,” said Zeke, unbuckling the green halter all the way and hanging it over a fence pole. “So you must always be careful and slow. Let your horse know where you are and what you are doing at all times.”

“How does it know?” asked Cal. “I mean, how does Dusty know?”

“From the position of your body,” said Zeke. “From the sounds you are making with the bridle or brush. Over time, your horse gets to know you, but you always let him know what you are doing, so he knows what you expect of him.”

Cal had a feeling that Zeke didn’t just do this kind of behavior with horses, but with humans, too. That what you saw was what you got.

“Now, what I expect of you is this.” Zeke guided Cal to come around to Zeke’s right, and touched him on the shoulder, quite gently, to get him to face Dusty’s side. “I’m going to give you a leg up, and then I’m going to walk you around the paddock so you can get a feel for what it’s like to be on a horse. And also, so I can get a sense of what kind of balance you have. Are you ready?”

He was not ready. His heartbeat had picked up and sweat started to crawl beneath his arms and between his legs. But this was Zeke asking. Kind, patient Zeke, who wanted Cal to trust him and who seemed willing to trust Cal in return. Plus, the kindness in those green eyes, the steadiness of those hands that had yet to hurt Cal, was hard to ignore.

“Sure,” he said, not sure at all. “Sure.”

Zeke placed Cal’s hands on Dusty’s withers, then bent to tuck his hands around Cal’s leg.

“Step up,” he said, as if he figured Cal knew exactly what Step up meant, though it resulted in an awkward scramble where, two seconds later, Zeke’s hand on Cal’s thigh, Cal was sitting on Dusty’s broad back, the warmth of his sun-warmed coat soaking through Cal’s blue jeans.

Looking up at him, Zeke’s green eyes glimmered from the shadow of the brim of his hat.

“Shift a bit,” said Zeke, his fingers sprawled on Cal’s thigh. Reassuring. Gentle. Warm. “Roll back and up on your hips to see which position feels the most steady. Let me know when you’re ready and I’ll walk you around.”

Cal was never going to be ready. Never, never, never. But Zeke was waiting, still looking up at him, and Dusty stamped a hoof into the dust, his body tightening beneath Cal, as if to ask, Are you ready now? How about now? And now?

“Okay.” Cal took a hard swallow and watched with astonishment as Zeke moved his hand to take Cal’s hand in his, then he twined his fingers into Dusty’s newly straightened mane.

“Hold on,” said Zeke. “Don’t grab and pull. It’s just for balance. To help you focus.”

When Zeke started to walk, merely holding Dusty’s reins in his hand and not pulling on them, Dusty followed with slow steps, matching Zeke’s pace.

Cal felt like he was rocking back and forth almost violently, then his body seemed to realize that they were going slowly, and just walking, and that there was a rhythm to it. A steady, calm pace that matched the beat of his heart, slow, and slow, and slow.

“Just hold these, now,” said Zeke, and he slipped the reins over Dusty’s neck and handed them to Cal. Paused long enough to show Cal how to hold the leather reins between the fingers of one hand. “Rest your other hand on your thigh,” he said.

Cal did this and tried to accommodate all the signals coming in, the pace of the horse, the weight of the reins, the warmth of the sun on his shoulders. The light on the back of Zeke’s neck where several dark strands of hair had become plastered to his skin with sweat.

It all seemed to come together in one glorious moment of balance and power and everything right in the world. And then Dusty shifted sideways, hoofs clopping in the dust of the paddock, causing Cal’s whole body to become unbalanced as he fell forward on Dusty’s neck.

He was about to fall off, which would hurt like hell, but Zeke caught him, his hands on Cal’s leg and shoulder, and held him in place.

“Easy, easy,” he said, though Cal wasn’t sure if Zeke was talking to Dusty or to him.

Zeke gave Dusty a pat and secured the reins with one hand on Dusty’s neck as he slowed Dusty to a stop. “You okay?” he asked Cal.

“Yeah.” Cal nodded to show that this was quite true, that he was ready, pretty much, for anything Zeke would ask of him.

“Let’s get you off there and put a saddle on Dusty and try again.”

“Okay.”

Cal had never dismounted a horse before, but he’d seen it done in westerns, so he figured all he needed to do was swing his leg over and slide off. Only it didn’t happen that way. He leaned forward to swing his right leg over Dusty’s back, but didn’t do it far enough, and, out of balance, he toppled off.

Tensing, he expected to end up on the ground in a pile of dust and pain, but strong arms caught him again. A broad chest stopped his fall. Warm breath skittered across his neck, his collarbone. And then there was Zeke’s soft, steady voice.

“Got you. You’re okay.”

For a long moment, Cal lingered in a cloud of comfort and safety, reveling in the human touch, the moment of connection that had been lost to him for so long. It felt so good he wanted to stay and stay and stay, but Zeke set him upright, steadied him on solid ground, and those strong arms slipped away with a last lingering pat from those warm hands.

When at last Cal turned to face Zeke, he had been warmed through, and didn’t want to move on. He still just wanted to stay, forever and forever.

“Go fetch the saddle blanket first,” said Zeke. “And I’ll show you how to saddle up Dusty.”

“Yes, sir,” said Cal, because it was obvious Zeke was all business and that’s all it would ever be. They weren’t friends. They were co-workers. Boss and employee. Forever more.

Cal went and got the saddle blanket from the top of the paddock fence and brought it back. Zeke showed him how to lay the saddle blanket high on the horse’s withers and then to slide it in the direction of the hair of Dusty’s coat.

He went and got the saddle and, though much heavier than the blanket, the treatment of the saddle was much the same. Then came the seemingly complicated array of cinches and straps and gullets, which Zeke showed him with patient, slow hands.

It almost took his breath away to watch Zeke mount and then settle in the saddle, rolling his hips to demonstrate how to find your center in the hollow of the saddle.

“It’s all about balance,” said Zeke, looking down as he twined the thick reins in between the fingers of his left hand. “The reins don’t guide your horse, your balance does. The reins aren’t for show, as they supply a second level of guidance, but really, you shift right, your horse goes right. I’ll show you.”

Barely even moving, Zeke pushed Dusty into a walk, and then right into a canter.

Cal couldn’t even tell that Zeke was leaning one way or another, but Dusty could, and obediently turned around, turned right and left, and cantered figure-eights in the paddock. And all the while, Zeke didn’t even look like he was concentrating.

“I can’t ever do that,” said Cal as Zeke and Dusty came right up to him and calmly stopped.

“I wouldn’t expect you to, Cal,” said Zeke. Then, as he dismounted in a smooth swing of strong thigh and balanced shoulders, he added, almost as an afterthought, “I’ve had years of practice, and years of bronc riding.”

“Bronc riding?” asked Cal.

Zeke didn’t answer him and guided him to mount Dusty, which felt like a scramble up a tall, shifting mountain of legs.

When Cal was in the saddle and doing his best to fold the reins properly in his left hand, Zeke was pushing his legs back, his hands busy beneath Cal’s thighs, first one and then the other.

“I’m adjusting the stirrups for the length of your leg,” said Zeke, as if to explain the intimacy of his touch. “You’ve got some long legs.”

“Bronc riding?” asked Cal again.

In the small silence that followed, Cal looked at the woods beyond the paddock, at the way his perception shifted, and he felt tall on horseback. Then he looked down at Zeke.

“I was a bronc rider for many years,” said Zeke, almost as an afterthought, as if this was something he’d forgotten he’d done.

When he looked up at Cal, Cal shrugged.

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Bucking horses at the rodeo,” said Zeke. His small smile did not reflect in his eyes. “I busted my leg when a bronc—a horse— fell on me. Had to get out. Came to the ranch and now I’m in the valley.”

The words were terse and short with almost no emotion, and maybe to anyone else they might have sounded casual, as if Zeke were indifferent to everything he’d just said. But Cal knew better. After prison, hell, after Preston, Cal had become rather good at reading between the lines.

“That sounds bad,” said Cal.

Zeke’s expression darkened in a way that Cal couldn’t quite read.

“No, I mean it,” said Cal. Maybe Dusty felt the unsettled moment between them, for he moved beneath Cal in a way that felt like Cal had been rocked violently forward and back, though it was just Dusty shifting his weight. “It sounds like you had a whole life before you came here. Something you really liked doing. Then you got busted up. That’s a huge change.”

“Everything changed,” said Zeke. The words were still terse, but his expression softened, as if he appreciated the fact that someone cared about what happened to him. As if he’d never before had a chance to say anything about it. “Everything.”

Settling his hat on his head, Zeke seemed to pull himself together. He gave Dusty a pat on his neck, and then he gave Cal a pat on his thigh as his gaze traveled over both of them.

“Let me walk you around a time or two,” he said. “Then I’ll let you take the reins. How does that sound?”

“That sounds fine,” said Cal, though he wasn’t in any way ready to guide Dusty on his own. Still, they were in a closed paddock, and Zeke was right there, so how bad could it get?

It didn’t get very bad, and in fact it turned out to be fun. Zeke was patient with him and at the end of the lesson, by late afternoon, Cal had almost managed to get Dusty up to a canter without Zeke clicking his teeth at Dusty.

The problem came when Cal had to dismount and his legs had turned to jelly when he wasn’t looking. and again Zeke hauled him to his feet with strong arms and a patient manner.

“Let’s unsaddle and groom Dusty,” said Zeke. “Then you can hit the showers before dinner because you’re all covered in horsehair.”

“ You’re covered in horsehair, too,” said Cal, making what to him was an obvious observation.

But Zeke just shrugged, as if the horsehair on him didn’t matter, and together they unsaddled and groomed Dusty and wiped down the saddle and bridle and put the grooming tools away. After they put the green halter on Dusty and gave him a horse cookie, fed to him from Cal’s studiously flat palm, they released Dusty into the paddock.

“You’re covered in horsehair,” said Cal again as he watched Zeke close and secure the supply shed. A few parolees had arrived and were tossing flakes of hay into the pasture and fiddling with the water tanks, where silver streams of water were now pouring out from wide hoses.

“You go ahead, Cal,” said Zeke. “I need to make sure of what those fellows are doing.”

“Okay,” said Cal, swallowing down the sense of disappointment that the afternoon was well and truly over. He’d learned a lot but more, the interaction, Zeke’s attention, had buoyed him up in a way he’d not experienced in a long, long time.

Zeke was already walking away and there was nothing for Cal to do but head to his tent and grab his shower things and head to the showers, as instructed. Again, he appreciated the warm stream and the privacy and the way everything was high end and gleamed.

Beneath the spray of the shower, and even before he lathered up, he folded his arms against the shower wall and buried his face in them and pretended he was standing beneath a warm rain. A rain that let him imagine he wasn’t feeling what he was feeling.

It was foolish. After prison, after Preston, Cal knew better than to mistake kindness for affection. Knew better than to let himself be drawn into the shadow of a man who held more power than he did.

And yet Zeke’s patience made him feel brave and capable. Zeke’s smile warmed him up from the inside. Zeke’s touch?—

Zeke’s touch filled all the cold, lonely places inside of him that had ached for tenderness for years and years. He was a stone-cold junkie for touches like that. A warm palm on his thigh. Guiding fingers on his around thick, sun-warmed reins. A smile of encouragement. A low glimmer of approval in those bright green eyes.

Cal was starving for all of those things, and had been for ages, but now his body, his soul, had been awakened to the fact that he’d been starving for a long time and now he was ravenous.

He stopped himself from thinking these thoughts, from feeling those feelings.

It was happening too fast to be real. Zeke probably wasn’t gay, anyway.

A crush. A mad crush was all it could ever be, but perhaps that would be enough. As long as Cal kept it under wraps, kept it to himself. Then he could feed on the small things that Zeke wouldn’t even realize he was doling out.

What about your plan to get away?

Yeah, about that.

Cal didn’t know anymore. He didn’t have any resources to get away with unless he figured out a way to sell his boots. After today, though, he wanted to keep the boots and all they represented.

He had a little bit of time before Preston showed up. He’d enjoy what he had and let tomorrow’s troubles belong to tomorrow.

Raising his head into the spray of the shower, eyes closed, he let the water wash over him.

He had now. He had the valley and working with Zeke, and that would have to be enough.