Comrade Cowgirl

by Yolanda Wallace

  “I’ll need Andrei’s help going over the sales records,” Laramie said. “Shorty should have plenty for you, Fyodor, and Vladimir to do.”

  “And me?” Anastasia asked. “Would you like me to accompany Shorty and the others to town or remain with you and Andrei?”

  Laramie felt a moment of abject panic. Anastasia couldn’t be in two places at once and neither she nor Shorty could afford to sit around and wait for her to complete one task before she began another.

  “I don’t need no help, Laramie,” Shorty said. “Russian or English don’t matter. I can haggle in any language.”

  “Vladimir speaks some English,” Anastasia said. “He can be big help to you.”

  “You’ve been holding out on me, Vlad,” Shorty said. “You speak English?”

  Vladimir held his thumb and forefinger a few centimeters apart. “Only a little.”

  “As long as you know the words for hammer and nails, that’s all I need. Come on, boys. Let’s get the cattle fed and watered before we head to town. You’re driving, Ivan, but make sure you take it easy on those potholes, hear?”

  It seemed Shorty had amassed a new collection of acolytes. Vladimir, Fyodor, and Ivan reminded Laramie of Chuck and Grant as they followed him outside.

  “We go to work now?” Andrei asked.

  “Yes, we go to work now.”

  Laramie finished her cup of coffee. If the sales records turned out to be as disorganized as Yevgeny had said they were, she might end up drinking the whole pot.

  * * *

  Anastasia had never seen so much paper in her life. The large desk in the office upstairs was covered with so many receipts, notes, and spreadsheets it looked like a giant rat’s nest. She turned to Andrei as Laramie tried to put the mess in order.

  “What did Yevgeny do, toss everything in the air to see where it would land?”

  “He has unusual methods, but we usually manage to make things work.”

  “In spite of him, not because of him.”

  “I think it will be different from now on.” Andrei cut his eyes in Laramie’s direction. “She’s tough. A fighter. I like having someone who will stand up for me instead of talking down to me.”

  “You don’t mind that she’s a woman?”

  “She can be whatever she wants to be as long as she knows what she’s doing.”

  Anastasia wondered if he would say the same thing if he knew Laramie was a lesbian. She had learned from experience that most people’s opinions about her changed as soon as they learned she wasn’t heterosexual. Then she went from being someone they liked to someone they wanted nothing to do with. Laramie couldn’t afford to face the same kind of rejection. Her success at her job was contingent upon retaining her co-workers’ respect. Something she could lose in an instant simply by being honest about who she was.

  Nearly thirty minutes after she started sifting through the paperwork, Laramie pointed to one of nearly a dozen stacks of paper she had created from the original mess. “What are these?”

  Andrei peered over Laramie’s shoulder. “Tell her those are the immunization records. The veterinarian we use is Dr. Yeltsin. He comes out every few months to check on the animals. His next scheduled visit is in two weeks.”

  “Have all the animals had their shots?” Laramie asked after Anastasia translated what Andrei had said.

  Andrei nodded. “Yes. A few cried like babies when Dr. Yeltsin stuck the needle into their backsides, but most did pretty well.”

  “How is their overall health?”

  “A few members of the herd are a bit small for their ages, but most of the cattle are healthy.”

  That got Anastasia’s attention. “Most? Is there something she should know? Something you’re trying to keep from her?”

  Andrei looked nervous. “A few of the calves developed foot rot a couple of months ago and we had to put them down because they didn’t receive treatment in time,” he said, wringing his hands. “I tried to tell Yevgeny something was wrong, but he didn’t believe me until it was too late. When he finally called for help, Dr. Yeltsin said the cows had a mineral deficiency. He prescribed supplements for the rest of the herd, and that seemed to resolve the problem.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Yes.” He pointed to one of the stacks of paper. “The bill for Dr. Yeltsin’s visit should be in the records. He is very good about documenting all of his expenses.”

  Laramie looked up from the chart she was examining. “Is something wrong?” She grimaced when Anastasia told her what Andrei had said. “How many is a few?”

  Anastasia conferred with Andrei, then relayed the bad news. “Ten.”

  Laramie sighed as if she had been expecting a higher number. “That’s bad, but it could have been worse. We lost a sizeable chunk of our herd to Johne’s disease a few years ago. They were infected right after they were born, but the symptoms didn’t appear until they were adults. It damn near broke Shorty’s heart when the affected animals started dropping weight. Mine, too, when I found out that the man who had sold us the cattle suspected they were sick all along but didn’t say anything because he was so desperate to make the sale. I helped raise those cattle from the time they were calves. It was awful watching them start to waste away.”

  That was why Anastasia had never owned a pet. Because she had known the memories of the happy times they had shared in the past wouldn’t be enough to offset the pain she felt when they eventually passed away.

  “What did you do?” she asked.

  “After I talked my father out of breaking every bone in his body, I convinced the seller to refund our money. At that point, word had gotten out about what he had done, and he was willing to do whatever it took in order to salvage his reputation.”

  Andrei tugged on Anastasia’s sleeve. “Is she satisfied I did nothing wrong?”

  Anastasia saw genuine fear in his eyes, making her wonder yet again how bad the working conditions had been when Yevgeny was the only person who had any say over everyone’s fate. She placed a hand on Andrei’s arm to reassure him.

  “Yes, she is satisfied.”

  “That is good to hear. I made good money in Moscow, but I like this job much better than my old one. I am closer to my family, the cost of living is lower here, and I don’t have to worry about getting mugged if I go out at night.”

  “That’s because there’s nowhere to go.”

  Andrei laughed. “Newcomers always say that, but that’s because they do not know where to look. Vladimir knows the history of this town and the surrounding area. Ask him to show you the sights sometime. There is much more to this part of the country than you might realize.”

  Anastasia didn’t care about Godoroye’s history. She was more concerned with its present. From what she had seen, there wasn’t much to attract her interest. Nothing in town, anyway.

  “Are these sales prices listed in rubles or euros?” Laramie asked.

  Andrei peered at the receipt in Laramie’s hand. “Rubles.”

  “What was the conversion rate at the time of the sale?”

  Andrei turned to Anastasia. “I used to run my own butcher shop. I know how the market works. Tell her the prices are fair. I checked them myself before Maria left. Nine hundred US dollars for a calf and up to two thousand for an adult.”

  “Have we added any more cattle to the herd since Maria moved away?” Laramie asked after Anastasia imparted the information Andrei had shared.

  “Yes.”

  Andrei frowned as he shuffled through the stack of receipts. Laramie had taken the time to place them in chronological order. The most recent receipt was dated prior to Maria’s departure seven months before.

  “I don’t see the sales slips here. Yevgeny must have shredded them. He says there is no need for paper. He prefers digital files. The current paperwork must be stored on his laptop.”

  “Password-protected, I’m sure.”

  “Of course. He is very secretive about the business side of things. He often ac
ts like it is his money at stake instead of Mr. Ivanov’s.”

  “Great,” Laramie said sarcastically. “Then I guess our job here’s done.” She placed her hands on the desktop, rolled the chair backward, and pushed herself to her feet. “We can’t audit anything else until we see the most recent records. And there’s no way we’re getting our hands on those until Yevgeny sobers up. If then.”

  “We have rest of day off?” Anastasia asked hopefully.

  Laramie grinned. “Nice try, but there’s always work to be done on a ranch. Especially one this size.” She pointed at Anastasia’s white canvas tennis shoes. “I hope you brought a good pair of boots with you because those weren’t made to inventory nearly five hundred head of cattle.”

  “I do not mind getting a little dirty.”

  Especially if it meant she would be the one taking an impromptu shower in the backyard with Laramie this afternoon instead of Shorty. Even though nothing could come of the encounter, she felt certain she could use it as fuel for her fantasies for months if not years to come.

  Chapter Fifteen

  When Laramie, Anastasia, and Andrei went outside, a large box was sitting on the front porch. Laramie sliced the box open with her pocketknife and dug through the packaging to find the ear tags she had requested. Either Yevgeny had put the fear of God in the distributor when he placed a rush order the day before or he had been sitting on the tags all along. Whatever the reason, Laramie had what she needed to begin working in earnest.

  She directed Anastasia and Andrei to return to the office and begin the time-consuming task of cataloging the serial number for each tag so it could later be cross-referenced to the cow it was eventually assigned to. She wasn’t about to ask Yevgeny if she could borrow his laptop so she retrieved hers and booted it up. After she opened the program she wanted, she gave Andrei and Anastasia a quick tutorial so he could call out the numbers on the tags and she could log them into the computer.

  She watched them for a few minutes to make sure they had a good handle on the process, then she got out of their way. Figuring the task would go faster and leave less room for mistakes with no translation involved, she grabbed her saddle and headed to the barn so she could take Krasota for a ride. She wanted to inspect the property and the herd at a more leisurely pace than Yevgeny had set yesterday. More importantly, she wanted a chance to clear her head. Her favorite place to do that was astride a horse.

  Krasota’s ears perked up as soon as she entered the barn. As Laramie drew closer, Krasota snorted and tossed her nose in the air as if she were nodding hello.

  “Well, good morning to you, too.” Laramie scratched Krasota between her expressive eyes. “Would you like some exercise?”

  Krasota tossed her head again and added in a loud whinny for good measure.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  Laramie retrieved a bridle from a hook on the wall and placed it around Krasota’s head. Krasota chewed on the bit impatiently.

  “Give me a second, missy. I’m moving as fast as I can.”

  Laramie reached for a pair of worn leather reins and attached them to the bridle. Keeping a tight grip on the reins, she opened Krasota’s stall door and led her out.

  “Almost there.”

  She grabbed her saddle with her free hand and placed it on Krasota’s broad back. Krasota shifted her weight but didn’t move. Her twitching ears, however, betrayed her excitement.

  “I think you’re looking forward to this as much as I am.”

  After she cinched her saddle into place and made sure it was secure, Laramie grabbed the pommel with her left hand, placed her left foot in the stirrup, and swung her right leg over Krasota’s rump as she pulled herself up. She settled into the saddle and allowed Krasota to get used to her weight.

  “Good girl,” she said, patting the side of Krasota’s long neck.

  Mounting a horse was second nature to her now. When she had first learned how to ride, though, she had struggled to master the task. She had ended up flat on her back more times than she could count. Once, her foot had gotten tangled in the stirrups as she fell and the horse had dragged her on a couple of loops of the riding pen before she was finally able to free herself. Only Shorty had witnessed the embarrassing scene. She was still waiting for the day when he would finally allow her to live it down.

  “Ready?”

  Krasota’s ears flicked forward in response.

  “Then let’s go.”

  Laramie clicked her tongue and gently squeezed Krasota’s sides with her legs, urging the horse into a gentle trot. Once they were clear of the barn, she tightened her grip on the reins and signaled Krasota to go faster.

  Krasota moved into a canter, then gradually increased the pace until she was running at a full gallop. Laramie held one hand on top of her hat to keep it from flying off as Krasota tore up one hill and down another.

  So much for a leisurely pace.

  After Krasota burned off some of her pent-up energy, Laramie pulled back on the reins and patted the horse’s neck again.

  “Thanks, girl. I needed that, too.”

  She paused to take a closer look at an especially rickety looking section of fence. She slid out of the saddle and gave the post a good shake to test its strength. The post was so dry-rotted her hand came away covered in dust. She pulled a piece of orange chalk out of her shirt pocket and placed a large X on the post so Shorty would know to use that section as a starting point when he and the ranch hands returned from town and commenced their repairs.

  While she waited for Laramie to continue their ride, Krasota lowered her head and began to graze. A thought occurred to Laramie as she watched Krasota nibble on a patch of grass. When Anastasia had read the poem to her last night, she had said Krasota’s name. Not her name exactly but the word. Krasota. Beauty.

  Laramie had been transfixed as she listened to Anastasia read a poem in a language she didn’t understand. She felt that way now as she remembered the look on Anastasia’s face. Recalled the sound of her voice. Clear and bright yet muted as Anastasia spoke at an intentionally lower volume so she wouldn’t disturb anyone in the otherwise quiet house.

  Laramie was curious about the English translation of the poem Anastasia had read, but she was reluctant to find out what it was. Perhaps it was better that she didn’t know. She didn’t want anything to detract from the moment she and Anastasia had shared last night. The truth tended to do that.

  In this case, she preferred fantasy to reality. Because in her fantasies, she could pretend that Anastasia hadn’t been simply reading a poem to her. She had been reading a poem about her.

  “Like that would ever happen.”

  She chided herself for thinking such foolish thoughts. She mounted Krasota again and resumed their slow circuit of the property.

  “You’re here to do a job, not moon over someone you’re not even supposed to look at, let alone touch.”

  If she repeated the words often enough, perhaps she would eventually start to believe them.

  * * *

  Anastasia’s résumé was long but spotty, dotted with a string of jobs she had held for varying lengths of time. Some for as little as a few days, others for several months. One of the gigs was a data entry position she had hated at the time but was grateful for now. The countless mind-numbing hours she had spent plugging in figures on a seemingly endless number of spreadsheets had perfectly prepared her for the task Laramie had assigned her today.

  She and Andrei finished cataloging the thousand ear tags Yevgeny had ordered in a little over ninety minutes. She thought they had made pretty good time, even though it wouldn’t have been fast enough to meet the strict quota of the company she used to work for. That was probably why she no longer worked there. The messy affair she’d had with the boss’s daughter hadn’t helped matters much either.

  She smiled at the memory. She didn’t consider sleeping with Dinara a mistake exactly. More like a pleasant diversion that had gone awry. If Dinara hadn’t flown into a je
alous rage every time she saw her talking to another woman, they might still be together. Or not. Being with Dinara had been a rush, but in all the wrong ways. She hadn’t been nearly as excited by the reality of being with Dinara as she had by the possibility of getting caught. Perhaps that was why she was so intrigued by Laramie. Because she represented the lure of the forbidden. Or was it because she represented something else? Something Anastasia had never experienced: stability.

  She nearly jumped out of her skin when Yevgeny lurched into the room. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair wasn’t combed, and his clothes were so rumpled they looked like he had slept in them.

  “What are you two doing in here?”

  “Working.” Anastasia closed the laptop so Yevgeny couldn’t see what was on the screen. Even though the job she and Andrei had performed wasn’t a secret, she didn’t feel comfortable sharing the details with Yevgeny. If he could hold out on Laramie, she could help Laramie hold out on him, too. “What does it look like we’re doing?”

  “Snooping. Isn’t that what most women do?” Hot ash dropped from the end of his lit cigarette as he tapped the stack of sales receipts. “Did your friend find everything she needed?”

  He made the word friend sound almost unseemly.

  Anastasia brushed the smoking ash away before the papers it had landed on could catch fire. “For now.”

  “Good.” Yevgeny unlocked a large floor safe and pulled out a laptop that was stashed inside. “Now get out of my chair so I can get some work done.”

  Anastasia tucked Laramie’s laptop under her arm and left the office with Andrei in tow. He didn’t speak until they were downstairs.

  “I think he is stealing from Mr. Ivanov. From the company.” Even though they were well out of Yevgeny’s earshot, he practically whispered the words.

  “Why do you say that?” She had her own suspicions about Yevgeny, but she wanted to hear Andrei’s.

  “Most people who act like they have something to hide usually do. Why else would he be so secretive about the missing documents? Or so protective of his computer? None of us want to steal it and we do not care what he has stored on it. We just want to do our jobs and get paid. There is no need for him to lock the computer and ledgers away each night as if we are common criminals. He is the thief, not us.”