Two Sides of the Same Coin (3 page)

“Ya know, Mike, I’d like to be friends, or if that’s not possible at least get along. You make it awful difficult though. Every time I try to talk with you, you don’t want to talk, or I get some smart-ass response. How am I supposed to be friendly if you won’t meet me even halfway?”

He seemed to consider this for a long while. When he finally looked up at me, his expression was conflicted, almost tortured. It was the saddest, most alone expression I’d ever seen.

“I’ve been on my own since I was sixteen. I’ve really been fucked over by people, so it’s kinda hard for me to trust anybody. Your dad said I try to drive ’em away before they can get close.”

“Seems like you talked with my dad a lot.”

“That bother you?”

“Hell no, my mom died quite a few years back, and now that I live in the city, I was worried he’d be lonely. If he saw you as someone he could talk with, that’s great by me.”

He seemed to think about that for a few minutes before responding. “He was real proud of you. He kept talking about his son the cowboy artist, and how someday you’d be famous. I asked ’im once if it bothered him you was a fa… gay, but he said no, as long as you’re happy that’s all he wanted.”

I was the one who didn’t answer right away. I knew my dad felt that way although he’d never said it in so many words. When I came out to him at sixteen, his only response was, “You think you can be happy that way?” Full of teenage rebelliousness I’d shot back a quick yes. His response was, “That’s all that matters then.”

“Thanks for letting me know that. It means a lot.”

He gave me the first genuine smile I’d seen from him. It lit up his face. Even with the constant scowl, he was a handsome man. When he smiled, he was really stunning. He realized I was looking at him just to look. He averted his gaze from mine and reddened slightly.

“The guys would all go into town or into Wenatchee for a Saturday night, and I never felt comfortable goin’ with ’em. After a while they stopped invitin’ me. Your dad noticed and began askin’ me to have a cup of coffee or maybe a beer. He treated me like a person, not just some dumb hayseed.”

“Uh-huh,” was about all I could manage. My throat seemed awful tight. The sharp stab of grief hit me again.

“Yeah, he listened to me. I always reckoned that he valued what I had to say. I ain’t never had anyone treat me that way before.”

“Like I said earlier, I’d be your friend, or at least civil with ya if you’d let me.”

The look he gave me was long and appraising. He then gave me a half smile and said, “I don’t really know how to act around friends, but I’d like that. I mean, I’ll really try. Now, what’s your life like in San Francisco?”

“You heard of a starving artist? That’s me. I do my bronze sculptures and I’m beginning to sell a few. Most of my money comes from being a waiter.”

“Yeah, I’d bet the way you look, you get a shitload of big tips from both men and women.” He turned bright red when he said this, and I had to turn away to hide a smile.

“It pays my share of the rent.”

“You got a roomie?”

“I got a boyfriend; we been together about ten months now. I moved in with him a couple of months ago.”

“Why isn’t he out here with you? Your dad just died. He didn’t even come for the funeral?” Mike had gotten a bit of an angry look on his face.

“Robert doesn’t really like it out here. He’s a city boy.”

“How’d you guys meet?”

“I was buckin’ in the Bay Area Gay Rodeo. He came up and asked me to dance in the dance hall, said he’d noticed me buckin’.”

“I’ll be damned, a gay rodeo and two guys dancin’? I’m guessing you mean two-steppin’.”

“Yep, we started dating not too long after that.”

“You guys happy?”

I considered the question. The first few months had been a great deal of fun. At the rodeo, Robert was impressed that I was a real cowboy with shit on my boots. He liked the competition number on my back. If I said “ain’t” or used some saying like “ya couldn’t swing a dead cat without hittin’… whatever,” he’d laugh. After a while it seemed to me I was his personal trophy cowboy. He could parade his butch boyfriend in front of his queenie friends. Lately though, I wasn’t sure just why I was with Robert. He was demeaning about my bronze sculptures and was always harping on me to get a job as an accountant and give up my art. It wasn’t to his taste he said anytime I tried to show him a sculpture that I thought turned out really well.

God forbid now if I were to have shit on my boots. He’d freak. And there was the constant pressure to give up competing in the gay rodeos. Also the outdoors is one of my passions. I love to ski, snow shoe, hike, canoe, and camp. Robert had no interest in any of that and wasn’t really supportive of my doing so. If I even mentioned hunting or fishing, I’d get a disgusted look like I killed Bambi’s mother.

He was also constantly correcting my grammar, and every time I would use some saying, he’d answer, “How quaint,” in a very sarcastic tone. I was beginning to think that the only thing that was holding us together was the sex. It was good, very good. But happy? I wasn’t so sure anymore. It had been exciting and fun when we got together, going places around the Bay Area, picnics, live music, good restaurants, just a good time in general. It was an introduction to a whole new world for me. Now that world was beginning to seem cold and inhospitable. I wondered what happened.

“Every relationship has its ups and downs,” I replied. “So tell me a little about you.”

“Jeff, it’s really tough for me to talk about myself. I just don’t wanna go there.”

“You sure I’m not gonna see your face on a wanted poster in the post office?”

A momentary flash of anger crossed his face. I could tell he was trying real hard to control himself.

Finally he said, “No. When I’m ready I’ll talk about it, fair enough?”

“Fair enough, bud.”

“Jeff, why’d ya leave the ranch for the city? The little I seen of ya, you really seem to like it here, plus it’s real easy to see you got friends here.” That was a good question, and one I had been asking myself a lot lately. At first it was fun to live in the city, all the restaurants, so much live music, and so many things to see and do. Coming back to the ranch and the valley made me realize just how much I’d missed it, and just how much I really didn’t fit in living in San Francisco. I had thought as a gay man, it was someplace I should go and experience, but it wasn’t me. The concrete was depressing, and everyone was always in a hurry. I finally answered Mike’s question honestly.

“I thought at first it would be interestin’ to live in a place with so many other gay guys and so much to do. Now though, I really don’t know. I keep askin’ myself that same question.”

We rode on in silence for the next couple of hours, but this time it was a companionable silence.

It was coming up on dinnertime when we arrived at the highest point of our ranch. The land was all wooded, and water was much more abundant. There were still broad meadows up here and the cattle loved it. This part of the ranch backed up to the Okanogan National Forest. There were forest service roads not too far, but for the most part the recreational vehicles stayed far enough away as to not spook the beeves.

“Looks like part of the fence is down up ahead. I reckon it was a good idea to ride fences.”

“Yep,” Mike answered in his laconic way.

The break was in a flat place at the edge of a meadow and right by the trees. As we rode up and got closer, it became obvious that this was not a normal fence break. The posts were still standing firm, but the barbed wire had been cleanly cut and pulled back. I dismounted and squatted down to look at the ground. The tracks plainly showed that a group, five maybe six head of cattle had been herded out beyond the fence. I looped Charlie’s reins around the fence post and walked along the trail of cattle tracks.

“Somebody cut the fence and drove the cattle out,” I said to Mike.

“You able to track too?”

Distractedly I answered, “Nothing much to it other than looking at the tracks left behind. Like here it looks like there were two guys on horseback who drove the cattle out.” I followed the trail about one-hundred yards into the trees. I saw where an unimproved track bore the signs of truck tires and a line in the dirt which indicated to me a ramp had led down from the truck. The hoof prints from the cattle ended where the ramp began.

“What the fuck!” I swore in frustration. “It looks like we been hit by rustlers!” I felt like I was in some B Western saying those words.

“I been hearin’ reports of cattle rustlin’,” Mike continued in an almost condescending voice. “Seems they been hittin’ around here lately. With the price of beef goin’ up, it’s worth the risk to them.”

Immediately I began to think about how close the ranch seemed to the break even point. We’d need every head to make a good profit when roundup time came. The random thoughts kept coming back: losing my dad, the ranch close to failing, the questions about my relationship and my living in San Francisco. I felt overwhelmed and very alone. I wished that Dad were here to talk to. The anxiety, grief, and sense of being totally unable to control the situation were channeling into anger, a useless and uncalled for anger.

“Hittin’ around here, where?” I asked Mike with some panic and a great deal of anger in my voice.

“Well, your dad told me we’d lost about fifteen head so far. Sheriff has been lookin’, but nothin’ so far.”

“He told you and he never bothered to mention it to me in any of our calls or e-mails?” The anger was beginning to rise, and I felt almost betrayed.

“Lotta good you woulda done off in San Francisco. I reckon he just didn’t want to worry ya.”

I walked over to Charlie, untied his reins, and swung myself up to the saddle. Mike was watching me. From the expression on his face, it was clear that he’d enjoyed seeing me swing my leg up over Charlie to saddle up. I was pissed as hell about his remark, probably because it was the truth. I was also more than a little hurt that my dad, who I’d considered really close, hadn’t bothered to tell me. Unfortunately, that hurt and the defensiveness caused by Mike’s offhand remark came out in hot anger and a desire to hurt.

“It’s none of your goddamn business where I go, or what good I could do.”

He looked like I’d socked him hard in the face, but didn’t say anything. I wheeled Charlie around and began the ride back to the ranch, the phone, and the sheriff. I could hear Mike behind me, but I didn’t really care. I was riding high on a tide of self-righteous anger, hurt, and panic. It was after a few miles I realized I had acted like a total asshole and began to feel ashamed. I needed to apologize, but worry about the ranch drove me to continue riding. I needed to talk to the sheriff as soon as possible.

Chapter Two

I
SAT
in the ranch office with my head in my hands. It must have been about two in the morning. My laptop was in front of me, and my eyes were blurry from going over the ranch financial books. It seems ranchers live from one year to the next, waiting for the cattle to be sold off and get some money. I had enough money to make payrolls and pay on the loans we had out. I wasn’t sure that the remaining herd was going to bring in enough to keep up the mortgage for the next year. I needed to get the mortgage information and all that from Dad’s attorney. We’d lost a good number of cattle over the last few months. I couldn’t help but remember the conversation with the sheriff. Followed by Mike, I’d ridden a good part of the evening to get back to the ranch house and call the sheriff. He got out to the ranch pretty quick and took my report. He said he’d have one of his deputies inspect the site from the forest service road. Apparently the rustlers had brought a truck right up to the fence, herded some cattle into it, drove a few miles down the road and slaughtered them right there, if they were keeping true to the same method. After that it would be mighty hard to prove just where their beef did or didn’t come from.

I needed to get some sleep. A cold front had come over the Cascades that afternoon, bringing clouds, rain, and the end to our nice, mild weather. Fall was definitely here. I had tried to sleep earlier, but just tossed and turned and worried about finances and what to do about the ranch. I had originally thought about asking Wayne to take on a full caretaker position, hiring another foreman and maybe another hand or two. With the current financial situation, unless something changed, that would be impossible.

Part of the reason that I couldn’t drift off was, aside from the worries, I was cold. I got up and shucked off my T-shirt and boxers and put on a pair of red long handles. The stereotypes about cowboys in long johns are in part true. They’re comfortable and warm.

I also felt bad for the way I’d taken out my frustration on Mike. I needed to apologize, but I’d spent the rest of the day with the sheriff, and later Mike had made himself as scarce as hen’s teeth. I went back to bed and finally fell into a restless sleep.

I
T
SEEMED
I’d just closed my eyes when I was woken up by knocking on the door. Looking up at the skylight I was able to see that it was already morning. I threw off the covers and without bothering to grab my pants, went to the door, yawning as I went. I yanked it open to see Mike standing there. He looked me up and down and blushed furiously. I realized that the long handles fit me like a glove, leaving nothing to the imagination, including the evidence, stiffly poking down the left leg of my underwear that I must have been having one hell of a nice dream.

“Come on in and let me get my pants on.” I walked back to the bedroom and quickly pulled on my jeans and a pair of thick wool socks and then headed back to the kitchen.

“Coffee?” I asked while adding water to the battered old enamel pot I kept by the stove.

“Uh… sure.”

Once the pot came to a boil I added the coffee and left the pot to boil. I turned to Mike, who it seemed had recovered from his earlier shock.

“So what’s up?”

“Well, I was talkin’ with José and Josh, and we volunteered to work a while with no pay if it helps. We know it can’t be easy payin’ for a funeral, the cattle gettin’ rustled, and all the other shit you’re goin’ through.”