Temporary Worker [for Gabe]
Summer in MontanaWarm 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 ( Read more... )
Or a walk, if the fancy took you. Gabriel hummed to himself tunelessly as he strolled along the road, trumpet case in one hand and using his other to pull his overly-long hair back from his face; the breeze was insistent on making sure it went there.
He hadn't been to this particular bit of the world-- leastwise, not here for pleasure, and not, y'know, business, that whole 'angel of death business'-- since, well...... quite a few years, he mused to himself. White man hadn't been here, for one.
And neither, he thought, stopping to look at the object that had intruded onto his internal thoughts, had this fence.
He was just getting ready to clamber on over and continue the same path he'd been walking when a woman's voice called out.
"Howdie! What can I do for ya today?"
Gabriel turned with a look of innocent befuddlement, brows arching in the speaker's direction, then smiled in return and raised his own hand in greeting.
"Heya. Hi. Howyadoin'. Say, ma'am, is this your fence?"
Reply
Is this her...Oh, sweet Jesus. She stopped a few feet back, on the other side of the fence, and placed a hand on her hip as she studied him. He had a worn look about him and his hair made him look nearly wild. And yet, he was carrying what definitely looked like an instrument case with him. Not many wild men played music, or so she assumed.
"It is." She answered his question with a nod and a smile. "My ranch too. Are you lost, darlin'?" Maybe his car broke down somewhere nearby, it happened on occasion. She'd either have one of her men go out and try to fix the problem or let the man call a tow truck.
Reply
His lips twitched as he devoted thought to her question. "Lost? Nah. Not these days. May not know where I'm goin', but, I know where I am." Another nod, this time for his own words. Gabriel nonchalantly set his trumpet's case down and leaned against the fence, crossing his arms as he regarded the woman.
Yeah, I know you. Remember your momma draggin' you to church when you were 'bout knee-high to a grass-hopper, he thought, and smiled. Aloud he said, "So if this is your ranch, and fence, you'd be Laine Anderson. I, I hear you've, sometimes, got a little extra work might need doing."
He left unspoken the fact that he'd heard all this back in town, the direction he'd come from. For one, she could probably add that in herself, and for two, it wasn't actually true.
Reply
She arched an eyebrow at the man leaning on her fence. It was true enough that she often let locals earn some extra cash during the summer by working on the ranch, college kids home on break mostly, but if you were willing to work she had no objections to hiring. "I am, and I do sometimes have work that needs doin'. Did you walk all the way in from town? Bless your heart."
She couldn't help but feel for the man, true the weather wasn't unpleasant but it was on the warm side and he wasn't exactly the picture of health standing there before her. She didn't know what she had around here that he could do, but at the least, she'd offer him a glass of tea and some lunch. "What's your name?"
She was already walking a bit further down the fenceline to the nearest gate, pulling her keys out of her pocket to unlock the padlock securing it shut. "You ain't from around here, so whatcha doin' lookin' for me or my ranch?"
Reply
"Name's Gabriel. But I'll answer to 'Gabe'. Or 'Hey-you-in-the-coat,' on occasion," he said with a smile, stepping through the opened gate.
"Oh, I'm just passing through the area," he said with another dismissive shrug. "Goin' where the road takes me. Just like, a a rolling stone... Could say, I guess, that I'm going where I'm meant to be."
His small smile grew broader. "If you've got work, anyway. I don't, much care to go to places I ain't welcome."
Reply
As she let him onto the ranch proper Laine shook her head. She gave him another once over, still not sure she had anything he could do. The last thing she wanted was an old man suffering from heat stroke or exhaustion on her hands. "I don't know about work, but I can offer ya somethin' cold to drink and a sandwich if you're hungry."
Yet she didn't want to insult the man or hurt his pride by insinuating he was too feeble to work. "Why don't you tell me the kind of work you can do, Mr. Gabe and I'll see what I can rustle up around here, be it Flint Creek or somewhere else nearby."
Reply
He took in the evaluating gaze she threw him without any offense, of course-- the angel well knew what he looked like to human eyes. All part of the Plan. And all part of seeing what they did, how they acted, to those in need of a touch of a charity.
Right now, Laine was getting high marks in Gabe's book. For I was hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in...
He smiled easily at her question. "Anything you need. I know I'm no kid, but I got a, a whaddayacallit, old-fashioned work ethic. Yeah. Got that from my Dad, He, He built a lotta things... so I can use hammer and nails good as any kids you got around. Better, maybe. I'm patient, don't rush to make mistakes.
"I'm good with animals, too. They like me," he offered, not a boast, just a simple statement. "Let's see. Oh, I can fix cars." (This one was stretching the truth perhaps a bit. Although he had learned an amazing amount about engines given how often the Lincoln's acted up.) "The older ones, though. Not the new ones with the, the computers in them."
Reply
"Well, if you can build, I'm guessin' you can take things apart too." She was starting to wonder if she could put him to work for a few days after all. "I've got about a hundred head of cattle here for now, but once they go to auction, I'm not plannin' to raise any more."
Figuring that she'll explain what she has in mind over lunch, Laine changed topics and nodded at his instrument case. "You play somethin' there? What is that, a trumpet case?"
Reply
Gabriel grinned when she indicated the trumpet's case and correctly guessed its contents.
"It is. It is indeed. Yeah, I play a bit. Man's gotta have a hobby. How about you, you play anything? Sing maybe? Or just have a good ear to listen with?"
Reply
Laine didn't necessarily consider that singing so much as part of worship herself, but she knew she could carry a tune. And she loved music. Or classic rock at any rate.
"Come on up to the house and we can talk over lunch."
Reply
He followed Laine's lead in the direction of the house that stood between pastures and barn. Another thing that was new, he thought with a mental chuckle at himself. Gabriel leaned his head back to look up at the sky, that endless blue yawning overhead. Yeah, that was pretty much the only thing stayed entirely the same. Even the ground changed, new rivers and hills and valleys... well, maybe not so much here in the flat broad Montana plain...
"Nice day," he said with satisfaction as they reached the house. "Beautiful day."
Reply
Laine smiled at him as he studied the sky, eventually giving a look heavenward herself. "Yes, it is. Winter seemed to go on forever this year and spring had enough snowy cold days that I wondered if we'd ever see sunshine again."
As she led him up the steps of the back deck and towards the kitchen entrance to the house, Laine paused long enough to pick her cell phone up off the outdoor table. Anrai might call and she'd hate to miss hearing his voice.
"You like roast beef?"
Reply
"That what's on the menu for random drop-ins, huh?" (Definite approval in his tone...)
Reply
And there's the fact that Laine enjoys feeding people almost as much as she enjoys cooking the food in the first place. She never did master the art of cooking for one.
"Pull up a seat and stay a while." She gestured to the barstools lining one side of the kitchen island as she began tp pull things out of the fridge.
Reply
"Don't mind if I do," he says cheerfully, and takes two of the stools-- one for himself, one for the trumpet case.
He watches Laine with interest as she industriously produces lunch items. His interest is only partly for the food. The rest, well, people are a never-ending source of fascination to him these days. And this one's good people. Salt of the earth.
"Run this ranch all by yourself?" he asks curiously.
Reply
Now, at any right. Her foreman--the murdering bastard--in jail, her ex-husband taken an even bigger step back since Anrai became part of the picture. Anrai...now that was a fine mess unto itself. She sighed and nodded at Gabe. "You want mayo on this?
"Until a few years ago, I only kept the books and ran the horse barn here. My brother's place. He left it to me. So, I suppose I do run it myself...with a good, hardworking staff of cowboys and ranch hands, of course." Credit where credit was due. She sliced a tomato into thin rings as she spoke, layered them across a split loaf of bread.
Reply
Leave a comment