Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Einstein was right about that, even if he’d never gotten the hang of teaching.
Regardless: time on Heartbreak made for a nice change from foreclosing on people’s homesteads. Which was the inherent irony of her position: The bank didn’t want farms. The bank wanted—needed—money. There was a reason foreclosure was the second-to-last stop. What would Sweetheart Trust do with a bunch of farms not being farmed? There were only three options, and they all sucked.
1) Keep the farms and rot along with the rest of the vanishing town. No.
2) Let Garrett Hobbes finish the job he started, which would lead to strangers in hideous outfits stomping around in cleats whacking small white balls over land her ancestors lived for and bled for. Hell no.
3) Felony murder. Good short-term plan, bad long-term plan. Nuh-uh.
Oh, and here he came, limping out the door, then pausing on the porch and blinking up at the sun like he didn’t know what the big yellow thing in the sky was. He slowly gazed around the dooryard, taking in the barn, the other buildings, the sky, the ground. Then he shuddered, honest to God shivered all over, then limped toward her. It was, she had to acknowledge, a purposeful limp.
Gotta give him some credit, he knows what we all know. Knows he’s not cut out for this. Hasn’t quit. The fact that it had only been a few days didn’t tamp her admiration; she’d seen people quit Heartbreak after two hours, never to be seen again.
And what was she doing, admiring Vegas Douche? Cripes. She didn’t admire his stubbornness, the inevitable genetic trait of any Banaan offspring. And she definitely didn’t feel sorry for him as he painfully made his way across the yard to her. No, she was cold; she was an ice queen; nothing touched her; nothing mattered but her mission, she was unmoved by the gentler emotions.
So she greeted him with, “Unmoved!” and then wanted to slap herself in the face. A lot.
“Good morning.” Dammit, why did his voice have to be so pleasingly deep? He didn’t talk; he rumbled. He’d probably sound like a gravel truck during sex. Which shouldn’t have sounded hot—gravel didn’t do anything for her, sexually—but was.
During sex? Lane! Get your shit together! Don’t make me come down there!
Good advice, brain.
“Morning.” An improvement over unmoved, at least.
“There are two bees on your head.”
“Why are you counting the bees on my head?” She reached up, slowly pulled off her hat, and blew softly at the fat striped things, who buzzed at her in a we’ll let this go because we’re in a good mood, but we could fuck you up if we liked, and flew away. They were all over this time of year; Natalie didn’t mind. It was the idiots who shrieked and jumped and flapped at bees, scaring them, who got stung. Bees were picky; they didn’t want to eviscerate themselves unless they thought it was worth the cost. She could relate. “Sleep well?”
“Comatose well.” He stood before her and braced himself. “What are you doing at Heartbreak today?”
You. Not we. Bastard. Like that, she was annoyed all over again. Annoyed by his silly clothes, his silly voice, his silly face. She’d been saving the worst chore to give the big jerk time to settle in but at once abandoned that plan. “Yeah, c’mon, there’s one more thing that’s going to be your responsibility. Too many people have quit, and I don’t have to tell you this farm doesn’t have near enough employees. There’s three times the jobs for not near enough people.”
“You certainly don’t have to tell me,” he agreed, falling into step beside her. “And yet you did tell me.”
“Foreman prerogative!” she snapped back, and was surprised when he laughed.
“Agreed. I await my list of labors with giddy anticipation and what the hell is that thing?”
They had stopped at the small corral behind Main One, a small fenced-off area about forty feet in diameter. Inside, a stocky, shaggy pony was standing in the middle of the corral, glaring at them. Her coat was the exact color of dust, her tail and mane the exact color of shit. Her head was proportionately large to her body, and the legs were sturdy and looked capable of any task the animal might demand from them. Small ears, big eyes. Most animals with large dark liquid eyes looked adorable; the pony’s eyes appeared to be filled with rage, or at least scorn.
Blake, standing beside Natalie a prudent distance back from the corral, tried to speak, coughed, tried again. “What is that?”
“Six Two Six Nine Nine Three.”
Another dry bark of a cough. “That’s her name?”
“That’s her PIT tag number.” At his look, Natalie elaborated. “Passive Integrated Transponder.”
“So when she runs amok on a blood-soaked rampage, you can track her down and blow her up? Christ, she looks like a barrel with legs. A large barrel.”
“She has to be; she’s a breed of pony—”
“That thing was a pony before she ate a barrel? Where did she even get a barrel?”
Natalie giggled and managed to finish. “—that can carry adults.”
“Pity the adult.”
Exactly, Vegas Douche.
“And see her glare at us!” Blake seemed unable to look away from the game of chicken stare 626993 had initiated. “She’s all by herself, too, back here.” Blake looked past the corral at the great field of grass spread out behind Main One, which took up the better part of an acre before disappearing into the far tree line. It was peaceful back here, yeah, but he was right: lonely, too. “Why even buy the thing in the first place?”
“Because at the time, ‘the thing’ was to have plenty of company.” Natalie managed, barely, not to kick him in the shin. “She’s the last, and her purchase made sense at the time. Ponies eat a lot less hay than horses, and often don’t need grain at all; they’re much cheaper to keep. And pound for pound, they’re strong for their size.”
“Ah. An economical equine.”
“Not bad,” Natalie said, and snickered. To give Vegas Douche his due, he bounced back pretty quick and had a way with words. If anyone else had talked in that stuck-up way of his, they’d be laughed at. Vegas Douche pulled it off, somehow. God, if she wasn’t careful she’d start to like him, which would screw things so completely it didn’t bear examining.
Don’t worry, Nat. He’ll say something douchey any minute, and you can go back to being annoyed. The thought was honest, but she couldn’t miss the inherent bitchiness in it. Is that the kind of woman I am? Or does Vegas Douche just bring that out in me? She decided it was the former. She hated it when people blamed their behavior on other people.
They both watched the ill-tempered pony trot away from them after baring her teeth in what Blake probably assumed was a friendly smile but what Natalie knew was a I’ve got no problem biting if you give me shit, and even if you don’t, display.
“What does Six Two Six Nine Nine Three have to do with me? If the thing is so much trouble and the last pony? Do you— Oh God.” He reached out and clutched at a post to steady himself. “You don’t— Do you require me to kill it? I did not sign on for slaughterhouse duty. Come to think of it, technically I didn’t sign on for anything Heartbreak related.”
“Would you even know how to put Six Two Six Nine Nine Three down?” she asked, honestly curious.
“Not remotely,” came the reply. “I have no idea how to murder a pony; what a failure of a human being I’ve become.” Pause while his brow furrowed in thought, and she swallowed a chuckle. “Just for curiosity’s sake, what would be the traditional method? Firearms? Poison? Making her listen to hours of Strauss waltzes until she commits suicide in despair? What is the etiquette here?”
“You’ve got an inventive and disturbing mind,” Natalie said, not without admiration. “You’re not gonna kill her; you’re going to take care of her and break her. Well, not break—she’s saddle broken, but stubborn. Your job will be to remind Six Two Six Nine Nine Three that she’s supposed to take riders now and again.”
Dammit! Now she liked him again. “Nothing’s coming to mind,” she replied cheerfully. “Once you break her by reminding—”
“I object to everything in that sentence fragment.”
“—we can sell her and use the money in any number of ways. See, it’s all interconnected.” She made her fingers do the here’s the church, here’s the steeple, open the doors, look at all the people wiggle, emphasizing the people part of the wiggle.
“What in the world are you doing with your hands? That’s not American Sign Language.”
“Hush up, ya idjit. Pay attention. One part of the farm finances another part, which finances another. That’s bad in times of economic downturn, but it also means that when things start improving, they improve across the board. See?”
“Hanging the financial hope of Heartbreak Farm on my ability to tame a feral equine will only end in disappointment for you and death by stomping for me.”
“Could be.” She hadn’t been this happy in ages; his transparent horror was cheering her up. And she knew without understanding how she knew that he wouldn’t quit. At least not anytime soon. “I’m willing to risk it.”
“I feel safer already.” They watched 626993 amble back and forth. “I’ll need to do some online research.”
“Oh, sure. The Internet is a big help when it comes to jobs you just need to jump in and start. Google ‘how to ride a bike’ while you’re at it.”
He held up his hands like she’d pulled a gun on him. Which she hadn’t ruled out. “All right, fair point. I’ll again admit I don’t know what I’m doing. You’re the expert; where do you advise I start?”
“Why d’you just assume I’m an expert?” Suspicion bloomed in her chest like nightshade. “Are you assuming that because I’m part Native American I have some kind of secret ancient mystical Indian way with horses?”
“Are you?” He tore his gaze from 626993 and looked at Natalie. “Do you?”
“Uh, no.” Easy, girl. He assumed you were an expert because he thinks you’re the foreman because that’s the lie you told him. He didn’t assume you were an expert because you’ve got your mother’s cheekbones, who got them from her mother, and her from hers, and so on back a few centuries. “You didn’t— I assumed you assumed.” She tried a smile. “Probably says something about assuming.”
“I had no idea what your lineage was,” came the mild reply. “None of my business, really.”
Natalie waited, expecting the usual white platitude, It’s okay; I’m one-sixteenth Cherokee myself, or perhaps a dose of American Indian Princess Syndrome, or an acknowledgment of the glut of Pretendians of late. Or her personal favorite: Hey, I’m cool with your heritage; you can tell me your real name.
She decided to anticipate, not assume. There was a difference! Wasn’t there? “My name really is Natalie Lane, y’know. It’s not She-Who-Pees-in-Woods or anything like that.”
“People ask you that?”
His horror—for once, not aimed at himself or his situation—cheered her. “Oh, sure. It’s always people from—” Las Vegas. New York. Boston. And, weirdly, Pierre, South Dakota. “Um, it’s out-of-towners, usually.”
“City folk,” he mock-drawled.
“Yep. They fall all over themselves trying to show me how totally not racist they are, then they want to know which of my ancestors was raped by the white man. They also apologize. A lot. ‘It’s terrible what my people did to yours; I’m so sorry.’”
His eyes narrowed, which she didn’t find thrilling at all. “That’s appalling. Do you shoot the well-meaning idiots with the bow and arrows handed down from your ancestors while they baste themselves in a sweat lodge?”
It took a second for her to get he was joking and then she started laughing so hard she had to steady herself against his shoulder so she wouldn’t fall. It wasn’t especially funny, but it was from an unexpected source. And the deadpan delivery had been perfect. “I’m saving it for Smack a Pretendian Day,” she wheezed at last. “The tribe looks forward to that all year.”
“Of course they do.” He returned his attention to 626993. “Perhaps I could start by trying to stroke her.” As if she understood his intent, 626993 stopped in mid-amble, glared, and her ears went flat. “Would you recommend that?”
“Nope.”
“Right.”
At his sigh, Natalie gave him a pseudo-manly clap on the back. “I’m sure you two will be very happy together.”
Another sigh, and then he came out with something that made no sense. “Did you know trains crash so infrequently, you’re more likely to be injured during the car ride to the station? It’s true. My train probably didn’t crash.”
“Okay.” Cracking up already, poor idiot. “I’m sorry? I guess?”
“Thank you.” Then he straightened his shoulders and headed back to Main One, and she definitely didn’t watch his ass as he walked away.
Fifteen
Up at dawn. Four slices of toast, courtesy of his new toaster, made from the bag of dry goods he kept stashed in the attic to delay death by starvation. He refilled his old plastic bottle with water from the bathroom tap, which got agreeably cold or agreeably hot, depending on his needs.
Pulled on his Thursday clothes: jeans reinforced at the knees
(I can add handling a needle and thread to skills I never knew I would need and now regret the necessity of knowing),
a gray twill shirt, clean but fading with all the washings and turning lighter gray, so that was all right. Hiking boots, slooowly bending to his body’s will and growing more comfortable by the day. Thick white socks, also turning gray with repeated washing.
A hat was vital. Not just to avoid the discomfort of the sun in his eyes but also to protect him against melanoma by keeping the murderous rays off his head, face, neck.
(Natalie said I’m getting a farmer’s suntan she said it like it was a compliment it likely was not a compliment I will pretend it was a compliment.)
Gloves were just as vital, and he was amazed to see how quickly they wore out. On his third trip to town he’d bought a dozen pairs, and he had gone through four. He grabbed a new pair and stuffed them into the back pocket of his jeans, grabbing his phone and Supertruck keys off the nearest bookshelf.
He checked his phone to see if Rake had replied to his latest hate-fueled text, which his brother refused to take seriously by referring to them as hexts, even nagging him when he was too tired to send one, because Rake was terrible.
No, nothing since Blake’s last outgoing hext—text, dammit: My vengeance will be epic and permanent, little brother. Not so much as a bring it, dickwad or I can’t believe your robot overlords let you stay up this late. He let out a small sigh and tucked his phone away, then realized the extent of his P.O.W. conditioning: He missed his brother. Too much to bear. Don’t think about it now.
He took a last glance at himself in the mirror, hardly recognizing the lanky snob with tired eyes and blistered hands. The blisters would heal, would protect themselves by hardening into calluses over time. Possibly a metaphor there. He was too tired to think of one. Don’t think about it now.
Appropriate clothing, he had learned by the end of the first week, was vital, and everything he bought in Heartbreak had to pass the Lane Decree: tough, but comfortable. (O Natalie Lane I dream of the day I do everything right and you’re generous with those gorgeous smiles and your bright eyes gleam with mirth.)
Child of the most populated city in a desert state, citizen of a considerable financial center, he’d had no idea how rough the mere surface of the planet could be on everything at Heartbreak: equipment, people, clothing, animals, people, buildings, people. His clothes, new just days earlier, looked like he lived and slept in them (which, if it had been an especially grueling day, he did). H
e’d never showered so often in his life, and showers had never felt so luxuriously satisfying. At least he didn’t have to deal with constant reapplication of N,N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide as the others did. Odd thing to be proud of, but then, he had so little to be proud of these days, and so he grinned as he remembered yesterday’s encounter.
“I love everything about this time of year—” Slap! “Except the bugs.” Smack! Natalie had scowled at the squashed mosquito and blood blotch on the underside of her arm. Her forearms were tough and tanned, but the undersides were pale and chubby and he wanted to kiss the bug bite and make it better and she would likely execute him on the spot and it would be worth it.
“I feel like I spend every hour of daylight putting on more bug spray. God knows what all that DEET is doing to me, or the environment. Blech. Never get used to it.”
“Of course you do.”
That had earned him twin raised eyebrows. He loved it when she did that; it made her eyes seem to sparkle at him. For him. Which they of course were not. But more fodder for his mental folder (filed under Natalie Lane: Things That Will Never Happen in his subcortical network or, as Rake would call it, Blake’s Spank Bank) was always welcome.
Her eyes and eyebrows were still doing that thing Blake loved. “What’d you just say? You’re agreeing that of course I have to keep gooping this stuff on?”
“It—it comes with the job. Right?” he added, hearing the note of uncertainty but unsure how to proceed. He’d almost blurted something ridiculous, like The bugs cannot resist you; they want to be on you and taste you; you can’t blame them.
“Right! The job. My job.” She had scratched furiously and looked anxious, for some reason. “Yeah, you’d think I’d be used to it by now, since this is my job and all. If I don’t do it, these things eat me alive.”
I empathize. I’ve occasionally considered doing that myself. Ohhh, boy, did he. He hadn’t needed to take himself in hand so often since he was seventeen.
Danger, Sweetheart Page 9
