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... )
Comments 43
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 ( ... )
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
Reply
Leave a comment