Temporary Worker [for Gabe]
Summer in Montana
Warm and sunny, as is typical for this time of year, Flint Creek is alive with ranchers and livestock. Cattle are grazing in green fields that are occasionally studded with large granite rocks breaking up the landscape. A few men on horseback keep the wandering herds from roaming too far. Others are shifting sacks of grain and mixing meal to fill the feeding troughs. Calls back and forth over walkie-talkies, sometimes idle chatter and laughter other times actual work-related matters being discussed, make the air crackle and hum with human noise as well as lowing cows and nickering horses.
As for the owner and operator of the ranch, she's set up a working office out of doors--on the back deck of the main house. If she's going to be bogged down with paperwork and phone calls, she's at least going to do it with the option to enjoy the weather and keep an eye on things. This is the last year that Flint Creek will be dealing with beef and the shutting down of one type of business and rolling it over into another is almost as labor intensive ands getting the ranch up and running was in the first place.
She remembers those headaches quite well, even a good ten years after the fact. With a sigh, Laine pulls her eyes away from the computer screen of her laptop and scans the horizon. Her brow furrows as movement catches her eye. Movement that shouldn't be there, just beyond the split rail fence marking the start of her property and the end of the state's rural routing. Trespasser? Troublemaker? Who knows...
She picks up her own walkie-talkie and tucks it into the back pocket of her Levi's (just in case) and makes her way towards the apparent stranger, putting on a friendly smile as she waves and calls out. She'll let them know they've been spotted long before she's in any real proximity. "Howdie! What can I do for ya today?"