“Are you sure?” Laramie’s mother asked. “You’ve always been a homebody, and that place is an awful long way from home.”
“It typically takes two to three years to take a herd from ranch to market,” Laramie said. “If the hands are fast learners, I’ll be back in no time.”
“And what if they take a while to catch on? Their winters are just as long and cold as ours. What will you do if you get lonely? You can’t spend every night taking potshots at starving predators trying to make a meal out of the cattle. When it’s twenty degrees below outside, it feels pretty good having a warm body to snuggle up to.”
Laramie knew what her mother was getting at. Homosexuality was illegal in Russia. Even though Laramie didn’t wrap herself in the rainbow flag or march in pride parades, she had always been honest about her sexuality. Doing so in Godoroye, the small town where Sergei Ivanov’s ranch was located, could result in a much more serious rebuke than the occasional frown of disapproval she and a girlfriend received when they sat too close to each other in the bleachers at a college football game or slow danced in a cowboy bar.
“His company’s offering four times what I can make here. For that amount of money, I can stand a few lonely nights.”
“Three years’ worth?” Her mother turned to her father for backup. “Are you really going to let her do this, Thad?”
Laramie’s father started to say something, but he clammed up when Lloyd Whitaker, Trey’s surgeon, walked into the waiting room. Dr. Whitaker’s paper cap was soaked with sweat, and his scrubs were stained with blood. Trey’s blood.
Fearing the worst, Laramie swallowed hard. “How is he, Doc?” she asked as her parents clung to each other for support.
Shorty, Chuck, and Grant returned from the chapel just in time to hear the prognosis.
Dr. Whitaker removed his surgical cap and took a deep breath before he began to speak.
“When Trey was brought in, he looked like he’d been in a car crash. He had a ruptured spleen, four cracked ribs, a broken clavicle, and a dislocated hip, but we managed to repair the damage. He has a long road ahead of him, and he might need to have his hip replaced one day if arthritis sets in, but he’s going to be fine.”
“Oh, praise Jesus.” Laramie’s mother dabbed her eyes with a tissue. “When can we see him?”
“He’s in recovery now. I plan to keep him sedated a while longer. His body needs time to heal. I’ll fetch you as soon as he starts to come around.”
“Thanks, Doc.” Laramie’s father pumped Dr. Whitaker’s hand. “I appreciate what you did for my boy. The next time you need a case of steaks, just say the word.”
Dr. Whitaker squeezed Laramie’s father’s shoulder. “Let me get him back on his feet first, Thad, and I’ll be sure to take you up on that.”
“Tell it to me straight, Lloyd.” Shorty asked the question that was on everyone’s mind. “Will he ride again?”
Dr. Whitaker chuckled as he tried in vain to smooth his tousled hair. “Based on the extent of his injuries, I wouldn’t recommend it. But he’s a Bowman, so I know better than to tell him no. That will just motivate him to try even harder to prove me wrong.”
“Like father, like son,” Shorty said as he, Chuck, and Grant exchanged jubilant slaps on the back. “I told you he’d pull through.”
“Yes, sir, you sure did,” Chuck said. “If you’ll excuse us, Mr. and Mrs. Bowman, we’ll be getting back to the ranch now. It’s still light out and we’ve got work to do.”
“Thanks for coming, boys,” Laramie’s mother said. “Make sure you get something to eat before you work yourselves into the ground.”
“Yes, ma’am. We sure will,” Grant said. “Pearl isn’t as good a cook as you are, but she won’t be getting any complaints from me tonight, that’s for sure.”
After everyone cleared out of the waiting room, Laramie’s father took her by the arm and turned her to face him.
“If you’re taking that job just for the money, don’t. We’ll make a way somehow. We always do. But if you look me in the eye and tell me you’re doing it for the adventure, I will drive you to the airport myself.”
Laramie was daunted by the idea of spending three years in a foreign country with no idea how to speak the language or what the local customs were, but she was thrilled by the challenge. She had been in Trey’s shadow since they were kids. She had never minded it before, but maybe this was her chance to shine.
“Ranching’s my life,” she said, “but I always dreamed I would see more than the backside of a steer one day.”
“So did I,” her father said with a faraway look in his eyes, “but I guess my kids will have to do it for me.”
He draped his arm across her mother’s shoulder, signaling the matter had been settled. Her mother didn’t look happy, but Laramie knew she could count on her to support her decision. Whether her mother agreed with her or not, she trusted Laramie’s judgment.
“Watch out for yourself over there.” Her mother’s grip was firm, but her hands trembled as she held Laramie’s hand in both of hers. “Don’t forget where you came from. And, most importantly, don’t forget who you are.”
Laramie returned the pressure. “Never.”
She was a Bowman. It might not mean much where she was going, but it meant everything to her.
* * *
Anastasia Petrova ordered a kvas and turned her back to the bar. Even though she was in what was supposed to be a safe space, she couldn’t afford to let her guard down. Lyubov was the most popular gay club in Moscow, which made it a target for everyone who wanted to see the club shut down and its regulars thrown in jail for daring to frequent an establishment that catered to queers. That could be anyone from government officials to private citizens.
The fight for gay rights in Russia was an uphill struggle. It had been for years. None of the various organizations Anastasia had joined had been able to gain much traction in the seemingly hopeless battle to have some of their country’s more provincial laws overturned, namely the ones that labeled her and her friends as criminals simply for being who they were.
The current regime’s propaganda machine was much more effective at getting the word out than Anastasia and her cohorts were, but she refused to admit defeat. She spent her mornings organizing protest marches that yielded little to no results, she spent her afternoons trying to hand out flyers to disinterested or downright hostile passersby, and she preferred to spend her nights gleefully breaking most of the laws she hoped to eventually abolish.
“Would you like to open a tab?” a bartender in a black mesh tank top and gold hot pants asked as he filled a chilled mug with a fermented beverage made from rye bread.
“No, thanks.”
Anastasia slid a few rubles toward him. The cover charge had taken a large bite out of her limited budget. She needed to go easy tonight if she wanted to have enough money to pay her half of this month’s rent. One drink, perhaps two if she met someone she wanted to impress, but certainly no more than that. Otherwise, Mischa would be on the hunt for a new roommate, and she would be looking for a generous friend or sympathetic ex-lover who would allow her to sleep on their couch until she saved enough money to get a place of her own.
Mikhail Ivanov ordered his usual mors and leaned forward to check out the bartender’s ass as the bartender poured the drink. Kvas was slightly sweet, but mors wasn’t nearly as subtle.
“How do you drink that stuff?” Anastasia asked as Mischa gave the bartender a generous tip, along with his phone number. The non-carbonated fruit drink he favored was made from berries, fruit juice, water, and enough sugar syrup to send her into a diabetic coma.
“The same way I do everything else: with style.” He took a sip of his drink and checked out their surroundings. “This place is usually packed on Fridays. The crowd’s so thin tonight everyone will be going after the same people.”
“You’re not afraid of a little competition, are you?”
“No, having to work for it makes
the conquest that much sweeter.”
“Not as sweet as that drink you’re guzzling.”
“You’re just jealous because I can drink as many of these as I want without having to worry about losing my girlish figure.” Mischa struck a pose like a supermodel on the cover of a fashion magazine. “But seriously. Where is everyone?”
“Didn’t you hear? There was another crackdown last week. A marriage equality meeting I was attending was broken up by a group of anti-gay vigilantes who chose to practice their own version of conversion therapy using crowbars instead of psychobabble. They cracked a few heads, but no one was seriously hurt.”
Mischa’s mascara-accented eyes widened. “Are you okay?”
“I escaped out the back door before they managed to surround the place. That’s why I always insist on meeting in venues that have more than one exit. Nothing ever happens to me. I’m bulletproof, you know that.”
“You’re lucky is what you are, but everyone’s luck runs out eventually. I’m worried about you, Ana. You’re starting to make a name for yourself. You need to be more careful.”
“I need to be less out, you mean?”
“You need to learn to play the game. How many jobs have you lost because you insisted on telling your bosses and co-workers that you’re a lesbian?”
Anastasia lowered her eyes. “Too many to count.”
“And what will you do if the next employer decides that firing you isn’t good enough and reports you to the authorities instead? You could be labeled an enemy of the state. No one talks about it, but everyone knows what happens to those people. Do you want to be the next person who dies or disappears under mysterious circumstances?”
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you actually cared about me.”
Anastasia tried to muss his perfect hair, but Mischa grabbed her hand before she could.
“I need you to stop joking around and listen to me for once.”
Anastasia was rendered mute by the seriousness in Mischa’s tone. She often teased him about sounding like a nagging aunt. Tonight, he was even worse than usual. She knew he meant well, but she wasn’t accustomed to having people worry about her. To having someone care. She wasn’t sure if she liked it.
She had been forced to fend for herself almost from the minute she was born. Her parents, whoever they were, had left her on the steps of an orphanage in Drezna when she was a few days old. She and dozens of other kids had grown up in that accursed place. Some had eventually gotten adopted. Others, like her, hadn’t been so fortunate. She had run away when she was seventeen and had been on her own ever since.
An armchair psychologist would probably tell her she fought so hard to update the definition of family because she didn’t have one of her own. Their arguments might have merit, but she wasn’t in the habit of self-examination. She had more important things to do than sit around navel-gazing. Like changing the world, for starters. Tonight, though, she’d settle for a drink, a few laughs, and a beautiful woman to share both. After, that was, she listened to Mischa’s latest lecture.
“I’m not asking you to go back in the closet,” Mischa said. “I know the very idea is anathema to you.”
“Then what are you asking me to do? Be one person by day and another by night like you?”
In the mornings, Mischa dressed as conservatively as the other cubicle-dwelling drones in the accounting firm he worked for. When the workday was done, out came the makeup and more daring fashions.
“I’m the same no matter where I am or who I’m with,” she said. “Anything else is too much work.”
“We both know you’re allergic to that, right? Is that the real reason you can’t keep a job? Because you’re too lazy to make the effort?”
Anastasia winced. Mischa’s barb had unexpected sting.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. Come here.” He set his drink on the bar and gave her a hug. “I admire you for not playing by society’s rules. Maybe I’m a little envious, too. I want to tell my family who I really am, but they wouldn’t understand.”
“Then it’s a good thing I don’t have a family.”
Anastasia took a sip of her kvas to help her stomach the lie. She tried not to get too attached to anyone so she wouldn’t end up getting hurt, but sometimes she yearned to belong to someone so badly she couldn’t stand it.
“Do your parents still think I’m your girlfriend?”
Mischa laughed. “Mama keeps asking why it’s taking me so long to make an honest woman out of you.”
“You should tell her that’s never going to happen.”
“I’ve tried. She just changes the subject from weddings to grandkids.”
Anastasia nearly choked on her drink. “I love you, Mischa, but not like that.”
“The feeling is mutual, believe me.” He was quiet for a moment, then he gave her a tentative glance. “Are we okay?”
“Yeah, we’re okay,” Anastasia said as she locked eyes with a gorgeous redhead who was sending her all the right signals.
When the woman offered her an enticing smile, Anastasia knew she’d be taking her home tonight. She didn’t want to make her move too soon, though. There was no need to rush what felt like a sure thing.
“My finances aren’t okay, but we are.”
“If you don’t mind a change of scenery, my uncle has a job you’d be perfect for.”
“Which uncle?”
“Sergei.”
Anastasia frowned. “Isn’t he the guy who has memorized all the lines from John Wayne’s movies and asks everyone to call him Duke? The braggart who says the city of Ivanovo was named for your family but doesn’t have any evidence to prove it?”
Mischa nodded. “He’s a little weird, but he’s a good guy.”
“Is he still rich?”
“Not as rich as he used to be, but he still has more money than most.”
“What’s the job?”
“He recently got out of the oil business and bought a thousand acres of pastureland in Godoroye.”
Anastasia frowned. “Godoroye? That’s in the middle of nowhere.”
“I know, but it’s apparently the perfect place for a cattle ranch. Lots of room for the cows to roam and plenty of grass for them to eat while they do it.”
“Who does your uncle think he is, one of the Khachanov brothers?”
Viktor and Aleksander Khachanov were the principal owners of a prominent agribusiness company. Together, they had purchased more than a million acres of property in the Russian heartland, set up over a thousand ranches, and stocked them with almost four hundred thousand head of cattle. They hired locals to work on their ranches and brought in foreigners to train their employees. Brazilians. Australians. Even a handful of Americans had answered the call. The Khachanovs supplied beef to some of Moscow’s hippest restaurants, where customers were willing to endure a thirty-minute wait for a gourmet hamburger.
“Uncle Sergei says he wants to learn from the Khachanovs’ example,” Mischa said. “Their business model has proven successful and he plans to follow it to the letter. He’s hired a couple of Americans to train his staff. Neither of them speaks Russian and none of the ranch hands speak English so he needs a full-time translator to act as a go-between. I would love to get paid to be surrounded by a bunch of cowboys in tight jeans all day and night, but your English is better than mine. Do you want the job? It’s a three-year gig.”
“How much does it pay?”
“More than what you’re making now.”
“Funny.”
She didn’t want to spend three years dodging cow patties on a cattle farm several hundred kilometers from real civilization. And anti-gay sentiment was even worse in small towns than it was in vast metropolises like Moscow and Saint Petersburg. But a paycheck was a paycheck and she desperately needed one.
“I’ll think about it and let you know tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? Why not tonight?”
Anastasia finished her drink and set her empty mug
on the bar. “Because I see someone who needs my company more than you do.”
Mischa followed her line of sight. “She’s pretty.”
“I know.”
“I think I’ve seen her somewhere before.”
“That’s supposed to be my line.”
“No, I mean it.” Mischa grabbed her arm. “I’ve seen her and the two guys she’s with.”
The redhead was standing between two nervous-looking men who were chugging bottles of beer. They were acting like it was their first time in a gay bar and they were trying to work up enough courage to make a move on someone.
“Did you see them here?”
“No.”
“Then where?”
“I’m not sure, but something doesn’t feel right.” Mischa set his half-finished soda down and pulled her toward the door. “Let’s go.”
“We just got here.”
“Trust me, okay?”
Anastasia didn’t protest. Mischa had a nose for danger. She had faith in his instincts. If he sensed something was off with the trio, she chose to believe him. Even if it meant she would be sleeping alone tonight instead of with the beautiful stranger she had her eye on.
The redhead sidled in front of her before she and Mischa reached the door. “Leaving so soon?”
The woman was even more enticing up close than she was from a distance. Ignoring the voice in the back of her mind trying to convince her that Mischa might be wrong for once, she tried to find a polite way to blow the woman off.
“We have a party to get to. Our friends are waiting.”
“I would like to be your friend tonight,” the redhead said. “Where’s the party?”
The way the redhead looked in her white lace blouse and black miniskirt, Anastasia wished she had a party to take her to, then steal her away from.
“On Nikolskaya,” she said quickly, naming one of Moscow’s most upscale streets.
“I know where that is,” the redhead said. “We will walk with you.”
“That’s okay,” Mischa said forcefully. “We can manage.”
“Are you sure?” one of the toughs with the redhead said. “You look like you need a strong man to protect you.”
Comrade Cowgirl Page 2
