“Or else?”
I took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Or else, I’ll remind you why you hired me in the first place. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.” With that veiled threat, I turned and headed out of the stuffy office to take in some fresh air with hopefully a view of a horse and an open field.
Wolf had started out with a little horse-racing operation, off the books, while also handling the betting that came with the races. His operation attracted a particularly seeding clientele: people who got their betting money from less than legitimate sources and who didn’t always take too kindly to losing it.
I was only a few years out of high school at that time but had already earned the reputation of peacemaker—though I didn’t necessarily use peaceful means. Initially, Wolf brought me into his operation as ‘muscle’, the kind of muscle that a boss like Wolf would show and hopefully not have to use.
We had a few good years together—a few more bad years too; not unlike my first marriage. Eventually, there was so much money coming in that Wolf decided to go ‘legit’. That’s when he bought the ranch and took over the annual rodeo. Now my role was quite different. I was the peacemaker between Wolf and the riders and workers. And the only time I’d flex my muscle was if there was something heavy needing to be loaded.
But I hadn’t forgotten how we’d gotten here. Apparently, Wolf needed a little reminding.
Aside from dealing with Wolf, the job itself wasn’t half bad. The boys didn’t need much supervision. People who work in a rodeo do it because they love it. And when you love what you’re doing, you don’t need much prodding and pushing to get it done. My job mainly consisted of keeping morale up when the pay was low—which was always—and making sure the brawls the riders would get into didn’t get too out of hand.
I walked from the office—a makeshift box that had been set up behind the stables and would be taken apart after the rodeo—down to the main gates. It was still too early for the trailers to be stirring with activity, though occasionally I’d pass one or two from which I could hear people getting a start on their day. I ran into Winston sitting outside his trailer, smoking a cigar and cleaning his boots.
“Sometimes I wonder why I clean my boots every morning,” he said. “And every morning I know I’m just going to get them mucked up again.”
“That’s why you do it,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“You clean your boots so that you can muck them up. Can’t get dirty boots dirty,” I said. “And you can’t get in a good day’s work without getting dirt on your boots.”
“So, I clean them, so I can dirty them,” he said.
I nodded. “Sounds about right.”
“Is that why I hate my wife, too?” he asked jokingly. “I hate her so I can love her?”
I held my hands up. “I am the last person on God’s green earth to be commenting on marriage.”
Winston nodded knowingly. “I hear you.” He went back to scraping the caked-in dirt from the soles of his boots. “I’ll just stick to cleaning my boots. A whole lot less complicated than women.”
“And a whole lot less muck,” I said.
I spotted Wyatt walking along the outside of the riding ring. As I approached, he bent down to pick flowers and I noticed that he carried already a considerable bunch in his hands.
“Morning, Wyatt,” I called out.
He spun around, startled. “Teddy.”
“Fancy meeting out here like this,” I said.
He motioned to the flowers he held in his hand. “Ruby’s coming by a bit later.”
I chuckled. “Makes sense.”
“Does it though?” he asked. “I’m out here at sunrise picking flowers for a girl I’ve just met. Doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense to me.”
I chuckled. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you’re in love.”
He took a whiff of the flowers. “Or I just really like flowers.”
“Yeah, it’s probably that.”
“What are you up to?” he asked.
“Avoiding Wolf.”
“And how’s that going?”
“So far, so good.” I looked around at the empty riding ring and the trailers and the ranch yet to come alive with activity. “The calm before the storm, I guess you could say.”
“Speaking of ‘storm’,” Wyatt said, “when Ruby comes round, I was thinking of saddling up Storm. Let her take him for a little ride. What do you say?”
“First flowers, then Storm. What’s next? You going to ask her to marry you?”
“Don’t jinx it,” said Wyatt.
I put my hands in the air defensively. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” I looked back toward the trailers then back at Wyatt. “You know anyone up yet? I could sure go for a cup of coffee.”