Part Time Cowboy

Connor followed him, the horses’ hoofbeats the only sound as they galloped across the field. Eli kept an eye out for a carcass in the grass, but the absence of crows and buzzards had him feeling optimistic.

Death was a part of ranch life, but it wasn’t one he enjoyed.

Sure, they raised cattle for beef, but they took care of them. They had value to his family that ran deep. It was hard to explain to someone outside of the ranching community, but those in it understood the connection without him having to voice it.

Hell, with a job this demanding, you had to love all the elements of it, or you’d never choose to do it. It was really why he chose to do it only part-time. Maybe that made him a fair-weather cowboy, but he was okay with that.

He still got his job done. Both his jobs, in fact.

He tugged his horse’s reins and slowed her down when they got to the edge of the trees and Connor dismounted.

“Oh, great,” he said, looking back. “We got mama’s attention. But then, I guess that means we’re close.”

But the last thing they wanted was to be on a twelve-hundred-pound mother cow’s radar while they tried to run down her three-day-old calf and give him a piercing.

Eli got off his own horse and followed Connor under the trees. “Okay, Con,” he said, “make this fast because I don’t want to deal with mom cow’s attitude, all right?”

Then he saw it, spindly and wobbly, under the trees. Black as night, obviously not inheriting his mother’s coloring.

“Okay...” Eli said. “Let’s do this thing.”

Connor crossed his arms over his broad chest. “Get in there, part-time cowboy. You’re on shift.” He handed Eli the applicator, which was already clean and ready.

Eli took it, then flipped Connor his middle finger before wading into the foliage.

He looked over his shoulder. The mother cow was jogging now, heading toward them, not happy to see them getting closer to her baby. And they couldn’t blame her. But he needed to get the baby’s tag on so they could match him up with his mother later. Easy enough to figure it out now, but harder later in a field of black calves.

“Hurry up, man!” Connor called.

“Right,” Eli said, tossing the word over his shoulder as he battled through the brush, sticks breaking beneath his boots as he headed toward the calf, who was attempting a getaway. “I’ll just speed this along.”

“I don’t want you to get your ass trampled.”

“Well, neither do I,” Eli growled.

Eli lunged for the calf, and as he did, the mother started to charge in their direction.

“Hell!” Connor dodged to the side and the mom nudged at him with her head, bellowing and generally trying to intimidate him. He sidestepped her next attempt at butting him.

Eli turned his focus back to the calf and grabbed him, fitting the applicator to his ear and punching as hard and secure as he could, holding the animal’s neck and head still with one arm while he finished the job with the other.

“Got him!” He released the little black calf, who now had a yellow tag on his ear and seemed none the worse for wear.

“Then haul ass,” Connor said, moving through the trees and back to his horse. Eli did the same, and fortunately the cow was now just focused on her baby, who was making a low bawling sound.

“He’s playing it up now.” Connor wiped his forearm over his brow. “Trying to make his mom even madder.”

“I don’t think she could possibly get much madder,” Eli said, trying to catch his breath.

“Probably not. I’m going to ride back out for a minute,” Connor told him. “Just to check everything over. You want to meet me back at the barn?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Eli mounted his horse again and rode back toward the barn. One of the ranch hands, a high school kid Connor had hired to help with menial stuff, looked up from mucking stalls as he entered.

“Hey, Mike,” Eli said. “Mind taking care of Sable for me?” He got off the horse and patted her neck.

“Got her,” Mike said.

“Great, thanks.” Eli walked around the barn, Connor’s most prized acquisition. They’d poured all the money from their father’s life insurance settlement into it.

Eli braced one hand on the solid wood wall, arching backward. Damn. He had a hitch in his back. He was too young to get old.

And he had to work a shift for the force in the morning, which meant he didn’t have time to be sore. Double duty was a bitch. But he couldn’t ever give up either job.

Connor lived and breathed the ranch, but Eli appreciated the break.

Because, when it came right down to it, he’d rather chase bad guys than be chased by a damned cow.

Though, being sheriff potentially meant doing a lot more paper pushing, and a bit less bad-guy chasing. But it also meant the chance to effect some good change in the county. Sure, some of it was down to the fact that he was a control freak, and the chance to take total control of the filing system was almost irresistible, and some of it was even ambition, but mainly he wanted to be sheriff because he loved Copper Ridge and the surrounding areas. And serving in law enforcement was the best way he could think of to show that love.

He heard a loud crash, followed by several more crashes and a shrill curse word. He started toward the noise without even thinking, because that was what he did. If there was something wrong, he went toward it, not away from it.

He walked down the path toward the din. Toward the Catalog House. And he already knew that whatever he was going to find there was going to make him very, very grumpy.

When he came through the trees he saw her, across the driveway in front of Kate’s truck. Sadie was standing at the end of it, holding a bundle of crown molding or trim of some kind that had to be ten feet long at least. And in front of the tailgate, down by her feet, were various pieces of hardware and what had probably been a light fixture before it had met an untimely demise on the gravel driveway.

And here was the distraction he just didn’t need.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Oh.” Her head whipped up, her blue eyes wide for a moment, before they narrowed, her expression turning into a scowl. “You have to stop sneaking up on me. I’ve been in town less than twenty-four hours and I think you’ve scared a grand total of twenty-five minutes off my life.”

“Somehow I think you’ll be fine without them.”

“Says you. That’s an entire sitcom’s worth of life you just cost me. Now my plans of watching one final episode of Friends before I go to meet my maker are completely dashed.”

“Do you need help?” he asked patiently.

“Do you ever laugh? Because that was funny.”

“Rarely. Not as rarely as my brother. But rarely.”

“Maybe it’s a male Garrett thing. Your sister is more fun than you are.”

“So much fun that you stole her truck? Are you already adding to your list of felonies?” Eli asked, making his way over to the truck and surveying the small disaster around Sadie’s feet.

“You of all people should know I was never charged with a felony, Deputy Pedantic, so let’s not be dramatic.”