I’m going to die tonight.
High School
“Is he ever coming back, Mike?” I asked my older brother as I watched him gut a deer.
“No, Layton. I don’t think he’s ever going to come back. ”
“He might. ” I started the fire and zipped up my jacket.
It was such a cold night out, and all I wanted was a warm bed. It wasn’t uncommon for it to be cold in Texas in October.
Shit, I’m just so sick of being cold.
And hungry.
Mike stopped gutting the deer, took a deep breath, and turned around to look at me. “Layton, he’s been gone for almost two years. He only sends us the tax money, so we can keep the ranch—the only damn thing he ever cared about. We couldn’t even afford to keep the cattle on this place. I’ve just about used up all the money we got from selling them off. He left us. He left us in a house that wasn’t finished. We have no heat and no air conditioning and no fucking running water! He doesn’t care about you or me. He never has. All we are is a reminder of Mom. ”
I thought about my mother. She had passed away from cancer about two and a half years ago. My dad had started to build her dream home on top of one of the hills on our ranch, but then they found out she had cancer, and we’d had to move to Austin to be closer to the doctors.
She’d lived six months to the day after they’d sat Mike and me down on the sofa and told us she had breast cancer. I thought my world had ended there. I was wrong. It had ended two more times after—with her death and then our father leaving us.
I glanced over toward Mike and watched him work on the deer.
We had pretty much learned to survive on our own. Our dad had moved us back to Llano to our ranch after our mom passed away. He’d raised cattle, and he had also been big into racehorses. He’d made good money at both, so it made no sense to anyone why he would just up and walk away.
He’d said he was going to New York to look at a racehorse, and that was the last we’d heard from him. The only thing he’d done for us since then was provide the tax money on the ranch, so it would stay in the family, and that was sent through his lawyer.
We never had anyone come to the house. It looked finished from the outside, but if anyone knew that we lived in a shell with no running water or heat and air conditioning, they would put us both in foster homes. There was no way we would let that happen. We had a hot plate, a microwave, and a small refrigerator. We hunted for all our meat, and we had a small garden, using seeds that we’d found in our mother’s box of stuff that our dad had packed up and stored.
We were doing okay though—Mike and me. All we needed was each other.
“You know, Layton, with a little bit of hard work and both of us working like we are, we can buy a few racehorses and get some more cattle. We can make a name for ourselves and build the kind of ranch our old man dreamed of,” Mike said.
I nodded. “Yeah, I know, Mike. ”
It was more Mike’s dream to have the ranch, especially with racehorses. He was just like our father when it came to that. He had a gift, too. He had a few older friends who placed bets for him, and we were doing pretty well with the amount of money we were saving.
He turned and smiled. “You should go hose off, Layton. Isn’t that party at the high school tonight?”
I smiled and nodded.
“You still like that girl?”
“Who? Olivia?”
Mike laughed. “Yeah, Olivia, the barrel racer. You’ve only had the hots for her since…what? Fifth grade?”
I grinned and kicked the ground. “Fourth. ”
“Go get ready, Layton. I’ve got this. There’s some chili. Heat it up, and we’ll have some before heading into town. ”
I turned and started to walk toward the house. I glanced back and looked at my brother. He was almost eighteen, and I was sixteen. I smiled and shook my head.
Yeah, we are going to make kick-ass cattle ranchers and raise some of the best fucking racehorses around. Then, when the old man comes back, we will rub it in his goddamn face. I’ll make Mike proud of me.
As I walked into the house, I thought about tonight.
Maybe tonight, I’ll finally get lucky with Olivia. Damn girl is stringing me along.