RanchersHealingTouch Read online

  Surprised, she looks ups. “I'm not that young. I'm twenty-three. You're not old enough to be my father or anything.”

  Brax tips his head back and laughs.

  “True enough. I'm old enough to be your big brother, though. Don't think the men would look too kindly on me hitching up with a lost little girl we found on the side of the road neither.”

  Her cheeks burn, this time with frustration. She looks up into the sky for a few more seconds to recover her poise.

  We'll just see who's lost and little, Mister Weldon. I'll prove you wrong as soon as I go to work tomorrow.

  A yawn disrupts the serenity. Sadie covers her mouth, realizing how tired she is.

  They finish walking back to the house together. Brax wishes her a good night and they retreat to their rooms.

  In the darkness, she undresses and switches on the lone lamp in the guest room. She reaches to her discarded dress and plucks out the slim wallet.

  Holding her breath, the leather flaps open in her hands. She exhales sharply as it comes apart, bracing for whatever secrets are inside.

  Most of the leather and plastic sleeves are empty. She digs out a few business cards from restaurants and an auto repair shop, unremarkable places strewn across Minneapolis, Mankato, and everything in between.

  Minnesota.

  She imagines the snowy Midwestern state, not so different from the Dakotas. There's a flimsy vision of a long hill coated in thick snow and a pink sled.

  A little girl climbs aboard and screams as it rampages down the slope. When she reaches the bottom near an old garage, her laughter stops.

  An angry voice inside curses out a subordinate. The trembling adolescent boy answers back, his words garbled.

  The words are nonsense, but they're emotional enough to get an idea about what's happening. The young man is terribly sorry for some offense committed against his unforgiving elder.

  The memory disappears. She finishes her survey of the wallet, surprised that there's no driver's license or credit cards inside.

  Aside from the business cards, she recovers forty two dollars in cash, mostly wadded up tens and ones stuffed into the pouch. Everything goes into her night stand's drawer.

  No answers here. Just more questions. What is this place my mind is trying to hard to remember?

  Disappointed, she looks at the time on the small alarm clock and forces herself to go to sleep. Brax wants her up early tomorrow, and she can't disappoint him on her very first day.

  All night, she dreams about a cold dilapidated house somewhere in a Minnesota suburb. Intoxicated figures of every race and gender come and go through the rickety screen door, hard faced souls doing time in purgatory.

  A tall young man shoots her poison looks as he sits at a kitchen table. He gets up to answer the door each time a new person arrives, shuttling the visitors to large boxes on the table. When their worn bills pass into his hands, he reaches into the containers and hands them small plastic bags filled with different kinds of dark mush.

  Eventually, the others disappear. She's left with the tall man.

  He stares down at her. His lips peel back, barking a command that's silent in her dreams. The order makes her skin crawl, even though she can't hear it.

  II: Hard Labors

  Sadie wakes in a cold sweat. A dark blue light streams in through her room, and the clock on the night stand is clanging loudly.

  She picks up a pair of jeans and a shirt before running across the hall for a quick shower. Downstairs, Brax is finishing up his breakfast when she comes down, a small pile of sausage links with oatmeal.

  “I left something on the stove for you,” he says. “Enjoy it and get out there. Show me what you've got, beautiful.”

  She grins as he disappears out the door. Sadie rushes through breakfast, eager to impress.

  Later, she's in the main barn with Dinkie, a middle aged man with bushy hair and a sizable beer belly.

  He smiles crudely as soon as he sees her.

  “Now, you gotta make sure this switch is all the way off. Lever's a little rusty. Here, give it a good pull.” Dinkie steps back, exposing a large control panel that looks like its best days were decades ago.

  Grasping the big metal rod, she tries to follow his lead. But the lever doesn't budge without applying tremendous force.

  “Damn!” Sadie yelps, lifting herself off the ground in an effort to pin it to the slot in the wall.

  It moves haltingly. Her muscles burn, and she's nearly at her limit after it's closed only half its distance.

  Finally, it locks in place. She watches the water meters spin.

  “That's the right attitude,” her instructor jokes. “Make sure it doesn't pop out of place too. It's been known to do that. The buttons here are for different troughs. Did Brax give you the watering schedule?”

  She pulls a small black notebook from her pocket and waves it in his face. Dinkie glowers.

  “Fair enough. Let me know if there's anything else you need.”

  Sadie watches him walk toward the opening at the back of the barn. He doesn't go without turning one last time – probably trying to catch a good look at her rear. She holds her ground, sending his lecherous gaze away with a smirk.

  Bastard. Looks like making friends here won't be easy. I don't see any other women working here.

  By noon, it feels like she's been lifting weights for hours. Muscles and joints deep inside her body protest, but she keeps moving from trough to trough, fishing out stray leaves and other debris just as she's supposed to.

  When she gets back to the barn in the early afternoon, there's a small commotion. Dinkie and another man are shouting. They stare at the switch, raised well out of its resting place.

  Several of the meters are going wilder. The skinnier man lets out a stream of curses and runs, heading for the flooding trough.

  “Shit, woman! Look at this.” Eyes narrowed, he waves her closer with a snarl. “You've wasted more than a hundred gallons. I told you the lever gets out of place! You were supposed to watch this.”

  Her bottom lip trembles. Sadie tenses and holds her ground.

  “Maybe if the fucking equipment around here weren't fifty years old, I wouldn't have had that problem. When he said automated pumps, I figured they actually worked without all this manual intervention.”

  “Don't blame this on the boss. This is your fuck up, girl.” He turns, forcing the lever back into place with a quick rush of brute strength. “Brax outta know better than to send a woman out on a man's job.”

  “That's enough.”

  She turns her smoldering hatred away from the portly farmhand to see Brax standing in the shadows.

  He strides forward, arms crossed, a halo of sweat between his brow and the brim of his tall black hat.

  “Both of you. Dinkie, if I catch you insulting a lady and a fellow worker here like that again, you're gonna step into my office for a talk. And by talk, I mean ass kicking.”

  “Sorry, boss. I was just trying to do right by the ranch. Least I don't have to pay for what's been spilled here today.” He rubs his hands together nervously, staring at the indentations on the cement floor.

  They stare at each other. It's obvious the fat man is testing a tenuous, longstanding boundary.

  “Good thing I reserve cash just for troubles like this. That's a businessman's job,” Brax says. “You've been here long enough to know that shit happens every so often. Go on, now, and get back to the fields.”

  “Sure thing,” he says, lifting his eyes for one last sardonic wink as he staggers by her.

  “And you...it's your first day, so I'm going to cut you some slack. I can tolerate honest mistakes, Sadie. But I'm not putting up with shifting blame from a girl who should know better. Sure, the equipment around here's a little worn...but it does its job when it's used right.”

  “Sorry. I was just trying to do my job. I didn't know some of these guys were such kids.”

  “If they talk to you like that again, find me. I'
ll deal with it.”

  Squinting at the evening light behind his silhouette , she tries to temper the adrenaline surging in her veins. If he hadn't shown up, Dinkie would've been right in line for a jaw cracking slap.

  “I can defend myself, Brax. I've dealt with bullies before...”

  I know I have. I just can't remember where or when.

  “It takes some time getting used to these men. Some of them have been working here before my dad passed, and it took years to win their respect. I'm the boss now. Keeping the peace is part of my job, but if everybody keeps their nose clean, that part's easier and I can concentrate on everything else. Nobody gets a pass – I don't care how beautiful they are, beautiful.”

  She presses her hands into fists, digging them into the sides of her jeans. The tears are coming at the corners of her eyes.

  I can't do this. I'm not going to cry in front of him. I need to hold steady.

  “Why don't you take the rest of the day off? It hasn't been a total disaster...just one trough flooded.

  Sounds like you need more time to rest, anyway.” He moves to the control panel and checks it.

  “Okay.” Pivoting on her heels, she marches back into the open, praying she doesn't encounter anyone else between the work buildings and the house.

  His words don't sound very sincere. Face it: this was a big fuck up. I know it, he knows it, everybody knows it. I have to do better tomorrow...

  Sadie stays in her room for dinner, settling for a couple fruit bars ferreted away from his kitchen. The same uncertain dreams of a tall menacing man doing forbidden business occupy her all the way until sunup.

  The next day, the kitchen is empty, but breakfast is waiting. She barely eats anything, wondering if he's so disgusted by her performance that he's left for the fields early to avoid her.

  The sun is just beginning to lift itself up into the sky when she heads out. Today, they're putting her in the big barn to gather animal feed with another man.

  “The feeder's like a big funnel. It separates the crap from the gold – as much as you can call animal food gold, anyway. Your job's simple: catch everything good that comes out in these sacs.” The skinny man who introduced himself as Charlie stretches a long crooked finger up to the ceiling. “I'm going to go up in the loft. Careful now. It can come pretty fast once we get going.”

  “I'll do my best.”

  She means it. As soon as she moves to the corner where the metallic tube comes down from the floor above, she stops.

  The pile of thick bags she's supposed to use for catching the feed is much bigger than expected.

  Worse, there's no way to easily catch her partner's attention, short of screaming her lungs out and hoping her voice passes through the old wood.

  It's okay. I can do this. No more screw ups for this girl.

  Each sac can hold almost twenty pounds of grains. She holds it open beneath the pipe-like opening, waiting for the scratchy sound above to translate into something useful.

  The food, mostly corn, tumbles into her sac fast. Within a minute, it's halfway filled, with no sign of slowing.

  As soon as the pellets and kernels pile near the top, she clamps it off and shoves another sac beneath the tube, tying off the first while it begins to fill. With a shallow toss, the full bag lands near the wall.

  The fast and furious labor reminds her of working in a warehouse, or perhaps a shipping facility with a ceaseless conveyer belt. The devilish pace keeps her moving.

  The humid day doesn't help. After filling five sacs, she's drenched with sweat. All the parts inside her that protested the day before are back, howling with discontent.

  Is he ever going to take a break? This is breakneck crazy. No, I must've been a city girl. My body isn't designed for this.

  Clenching her jaw, she breathes deep and forces the thoughts away as she ties off another bag.

  City girl or not, Sadie won't give up. Letting Brax down again isn't an option.

  She focuses on her inner resolve, moving like an extension of the machine. Bag by bag, the feed gets packaged, and soon the finished sacs are stacked high against the wall.

  It's hard to stare at the corn for too long. The waterfall of yellow bits draws her eyes hypnotically.

  Instinctively, she pauses and reaches toward the stream, letting the rapid current pass through her spread fingers.

  “Oh my God. No!”

  Sadie tumbles backward, flatting the half-filled sac. Feed spills everywhere. It keeps coming for more than a minute, completely burying the stunted bag in a small mountain.

  Grasping her temples, she raises her head toward the ceiling and screams with all her might. A few seconds later, the feed stops.

  Charlie rushes downstairs and finds her splayed out on the ground. He drags her up by the shoulders.

  Sadie sees the frightened expression in his eyes. She's shaking uncontrollably. It feels like every inch of her is covered in hive-like goosebumps.

  “I...I'm sorry. I can't do this today. I need to go!”

  Disappointment is the last thing on her mind as she takes off. Fear reigns, and nothing else.

  It only takes her a couple minutes to reach the house, but it feels like spanning miles to get there.

  Flustered and breathless, she collapses near the entryway. She hopes Brax isn't in the house – he usually isn't during the day. Anything to keep him from hearing her sobs.

  That texture, those movements...I know them like my own soul. But it shouldn't make me break like this. God, just where the hell did I come from?

  On shaky knees, she drags herself up to the guest room and collapses. This time, her sleep is mercifully blank, sluggish and empty as her heart slowing with vacant adrenaline.

  It's well after sundown when Brax wakes her. His hand glides down her back, tender but firm. The soft pressure sends her leaping up from the blackness.

  “Hey, it's okay. I just came to check up on you. Charlie told me what happened.”

  She rubs her eyes. It's hard to meet his dark gaze. Even though he's truly concerned, the

  disappointment is there, staring at her like the barrel of a gun.

  “I don't know what came over me. I really don't, Brax. One minute, I was filling the bags fine, letting the feed pass through my fingers. I freaked out.”

  The mattress sinks beneath this weight as he sits next to her. His hat comes off in his hands, resting on his lap. In the shadows of late evening, he looks like a severe cowboy from another age, deep in contemplation.

  “You're going to have to confront your demons at some point. Not today, and not for me. But for yourself – whenever you're finally ready.”

  “I know,” Sadie says softly. His words surprise her.

  This is humiliating. I know he means well...but I just want to crawl away and disappear forever.

  “What now?”

  “Well...I can't let you stay here for free. I'll be damned if I'd turn you out, though. You're going to get another chance to carry your weight. It's too bad we don't know what your triggers are.”

  A crooked smile cuts across her face. “Yeah. Guess I really am a crazy person.”

  “Hey.” Suddenly, his hands are coiled around her wrists, tight and possessive. “Look at me.”

  Shaking, she meets his eyes, forcing back the hard lump in her throat.

  “Whatever happened to you, I'm sure it's not your fault. You're a good person, Sadie. Even if you aren't sure who you are.”

  “I wish I had your confidence. Sometimes I think you know me better than I know myself...whoever I am.”

  He releases her hands, giving her a parting shake of the wrists. His touch is electric, warming. The painful emptiness that comes when he lets go chills her.

  “Keep trying. One of these days, you'll wake up and find that I'm right.” Shifting up from the bed, he walks to the door and stops. “You need to keep your strength up too. I'm bringing you some dinner.

  Don't fight me on this.”

  “Thanks.” Sh
e swallows her pride one last time.

  After eating a sausage and potato casserole with some fruit, she has a quick shower. The steel water knob is turned to cold.

  Icy jets spatter her bare flesh, running off her curves in rivulets that awaken every dormant nerve in her depths. She closes her eyes and receives the glacial misting like a baptism.

  When her toes are curled from the cold, she notices the heat further up her body. Sadie grasps the wall, desperate to ignore the raw fire kindled beneath her belly.

  Not the right time or place. Come on, body. Give a girl a break.

  I'm sure this depression or whatever the hell I have is doing all sorts of crazy things to my sex drive.

  She turns and spreads her fingers. Now, the water hits her back, so cold that the droplets are like hail to the touch.

  If she can't bring herself to satisfy her lusts, then maybe she can freeze them out.

  A shy smile lights up her face and she tips her head toward the faint fluorescent light above the mirror. The discomfort stirring in overworked muscles clarifies everything, though it can't silence her thoughts.

  I can't get him out of my head. No one has ever cared this much. Certainly not that tall menacing man in my dreams, whoever he is.

  Maybe I need a man's touch. If it can't cure these problems, at least it can take me far away from them, deep into a better place.

  Slowly, she runs one hand across her sleek thigh. Beneath the frigid sheen of water, heat pulses, crawling up to her swollen lower lips where it melts into sultry wetness.

  Sadie turns several more times. The motion is just enough to dislodge the wild urges churning in her blood – for now.

  Laying flat on the bed with her body cooled several degrees feels good, especially in the humid night. The guest room's vents are less than optimal. The air conditioning wafts up just enough to be tolerable, but the air remains stuffy.

  Drunk on tension and stagnant heat, she drifts off to dreams filled with naked men riding tall black steeds. She's standing on a lonely porch in the Dakota prairie, watching them chasing after sleek gray wolves.