Rough (RRR #2)

by Kimball Lee

  “Holt ain’t never met a horse he didn’t like or one that didn’t like him back,” Lonnie Jim says, grinning ear to ear. “He’s got the gift, like they say, a horse whisperer. Hell, when he was no more than a tot we’d find him asleep or readin’ a book in the stables, just curled up to Ol’ Midnight, God rest him, or one of the other stallions. He weren’t never scared, not a lick, and them thoroughbreds is testy and high-strung, let me tell ya.”

  “Buck? Is that like, an urban-legend-cowboy-name for a horse?” I ask, and Lonnie Jim winks at Holt and goes to meet the bus load of boys that has just parked next to the barn.

  “Here, feel his coat,” Holt says, dragging me between him and his horse. He smooths my hand over the velvety caramel coat and says, “He’s a buck-skin, see how his coat feels like suede? So, no, not much originality in his name—Buck the buckskin, period.”

  “Holt!” “Holt!” “Hey, Holt!” A gaggle of boys, most of them around ten or twelve years old, rush up but stop short and get quiet before they reach him.

  “Good morning, dudes,” Holt says and the boys tilt their heads and roll their eyes. “Sorry, not dudes anymore, you young men are bona fide cowboys now that you remember the rules. What’s rule number one?”

  “Never run up behind a horse or you’ll get the snot kicked out of you!” They all chime in.

  “That’s right, slow and easy, don’t spook your horse, and always mount on his left side. Okay, Lonnie Jim’s got your horses saddled, go mount up and let’s rope some calves. Today we’re gonna show my girlfriend Scarlet how real cowboys ride and rope, she’s not from these parts.”

  “Holt has a girlfriend, Holt has a girlfriend!” They echo as they traipse into the barn with Lonnie Jim.

  What’s clear to me as Holt settles my boot into the stirrup and urges me to grab the saddle horn and throw my other leg over the horse, is that just as Buck is the best horse he’s ever known, Holt is a man of many unseen layers, and by far the best man I’ve ever known.

  The boys and I follow Holt on horseback out into a field where a few metal barriers are set up to form a spacious makeshift roping pen. “Ease up on your reins, Scarlet,” He calls to me when I stop next to the metal fence and Sugar starts backing away. “You’re holding them too tight, she thinks you want her to back up. These are cutting horses, they’re trained to back away and hold the rope taut when a calf is cut from the herd and roped. It’s alright, Sugar’s just doing what she thinks you want her to do. Nudge her with your knees a little and she’ll move next to the fence and stand still so you can watch. There you go, now loosen the reins and don’t lean forward when she lowers her head to get a mouthful of grass. I don’t want you to fall head first over her neck and break that pretty neck of yours!”

  “Um, okay,” I say and I can’t help but marvel at the way he moves as one with his horse. It’s instinctual, the way he barely shifts his body and Buck moves left or right, slowing down or breaking into a gallop as Holt rounds up the calves and moves them into the pen with the boys following right behind him.

  He talks each boy through the steps of handling a length of rope that hangs over the saddle horn and they listen to him reverently. His horse certainly knows its job, stopping and starting, weeding a single calf from the herd as Holt loosens the rope coiled in his hand and with a single graceful movement it sails through the air and lands around the calf’s neck. He wraps the end he holds to the saddle horn, yanks a thinner coil free from a loop on the back of his saddle as he jumps down and binds the calf’s feet together faster than humanly possible. “That’s how it’s done gentlemen, now let your horse do the work cutting your calf from the others, and then throw those ropes. It’s all in the wrist, Brady,” he says calmly to one boy, and then to another— “Look here, Justin, relax your grip, there you go! Now hog-tie him quick before he works his head loose. Way to go, get after it, Braedon, lemme see each one of you work these calves, tire them out and it’ll be a little easier. You got it going now, keep it up.”

  A larger calf breaks free from the others, knocks over a section of the metal fence and runs for the open pasture. A rider on a gleaming black horse thunders past, and his white cowboy flies off and lands in the dirt. It’s Campbell, and he whistles for the calf to stop, then his rope makes an arch through the air and loops around its neck. The calf stumbles to its knees and with another twist of his wrist Campbell frees the rope, loops it back into a circle wrapping it around his hand and forearm. He secures it to his saddle then lets his reins go slack as his horse noses the calf back into the pen.

  “Whoa, Goliath,” He laughs and reaches down to scoop up his hat and dust it off while his horse huffs and twitches, tossing his head and pawing the ground. “Always one bad girl in the herd.”

  “Thought you’d lost your touch, good to see you’re still decent with a rope now that you’re the boss,” Holt says and they share a good natured laugh. Campbell leans back in the saddle and motions for Lonnie Jim to lead the boys to the house for lunch and then a swim in the Olympic sized pool. The boys shout and hoot, then take off, shouting to Holt that they’ll practice their roping and see him next month.

  “How about some lunch?” Campbell asks, as his horse throws his head back and moves in my direction. “Goliath, settle down, dammit! It’s Sunday, Holt, you know what that means.”

  “Maudie’s chicken and dumplings, that’s an offer I can’t turn down. You ready, Scarlet? Maudie is not only the best cook in Texas, but in the entire world.” Holt says and I nod and reach for my reins.

  Sugar is fidgeting underneath me as the black stallion presses up next to her with his nostrils flared and a deep rumble in his chest. I know the minute Sugar rears onto her hind legs that I’ve jerked the reins too hard and too fast. I see the blue sky swing into view and feel my feet leave the stirrups, and as my body slides backwards out of the saddle Holt is there reaching out one strong arm to swing me onto his horse.

  “That was a great move, Corrigan, her shining knight in a dirty cowboy hat,” Campbell says, jerking his horse’s reins to steady him. “You okay, Scarlet? Need a doctor or glass of whiskey? This damn stallion is nothing but trouble, guess he’d like a little piece of Sugar.”

  I shake my head but no words come out. Holt shoots Campbell a murderous look and settles me firmly onto his lap. “You alright, beauty? No harm done?” He asks, one muscled arms holds me tight, and he turns his horse and clicks his tongue for Sugar to follow as we gallop to the gate of the house.

  *

  The mansion is extraordinary, originally built in the imposing Victorian-Italianate style, and through later additions it has morphed into a grand hacienda, a singularly Texas-style castle-on-the-wild-frontier. The original brick has been painted white to match later additions clad in white-washed stucco. Some parts are straight forward and austere, while others are whimsical follies with turrets and towers, all capped with a roof of red tiles made by hand on the premises. An open air atrium is at the middle of the house, flanked on two sides by wide curved stairways. Hidden courtyards lead off many of the first-floor rooms, and there’s a dining room and a dining hall, ballroom, billiards room, smoking lounge, parlors. A three-story-tall library holds more leather-bound books than could possibly be counted or read in a lifetime. Room after room, opening off a great central hall, seemingly endless, with Persian rugs, zebra, bear, and lion skins layered on the mesquite floors. Fine western paintings and ancestral portraits line the walls, they’re hung from the floor all the way up to the soaring ceiling, collected and added to by each successive Campbell wife. The furnishings are all polished and gleaming, a mix of styles, every one of them museum-quality antiques.

  “That was my mother, Meredith Campbell McCauley,” Campbell says as I stop to admire one of many life-size portraits of the imperious-looking Campbell women. The painting in front of me is of a lovely but sad-looking woman poised with her fingers on the keys of a grand piano. “She was an extraordinary woman and a mother to all of us, Holt included, and
Emma-Lee was like a daughter to her…. Mother was born in this house, the others were courageous women who left their civilized homes to brave this harsh country beside the men they loved. This one is the grand-dame of our ranching empire, Tallulah Walker, wife of Captain Jon Campbell. She came to Texas from Scotland at the age of seventeen to marry my great, great grandfather, he honored her by establishing the town and naming it after her. This beauty was a socialite from Houston, Lucinda Wylder, she married Tallulah’s son, Jon-Walker, in the largest, three-month-long wedding celebration in Texas history. And this was my mother’s mother, Mary Kate Hennessey, she was from Scotland, too. Graduated from the University of Edinburgh with degrees in music theory and art history, she passed her love of art and music to her only child. My mother played the piano like an angel, she tried to teach us boys but we weren’t having it, but Emma-Lee couldn’t get enough, she learned to play at my mother’s side.”

  “Emma-Lee?” I ask cautiously, his voice is shadowed with tenderness and regret which is at odds with his impenetrable façade.

  “Emma-Lee was like a kid sister to all of us, before Campbell fucked that up,” Holt says, and Campbell’s eyes flash dark and dangerous. “But who didn’t love Miss Meredith? I doubt I would have survived childhood without her iron will, no one else ever stood up to Tom Corrigan. Are we gonna go over the entire history of your inbred family tree, Campbell? Don’t know about you but I’m starving and the smell of hot rolls and chicken and dumplings is calling to me.”

  I look Campbell over and wonder how he’s going to respond, he’s pure alpha-dog, through and through. I can see that Gigi would want a taste of him, but he’s too much, too in-your-face-in-charge-God-complex to appeal to me. He’s all about power and money, and even though he’s essentially Holt’s boss until the redo on the fishing lodge is done, Holt doesn’t give a damn, he tells it like it is, holds his own and never backs down. That’s the difference between them—underneath all his gallant, rich rancher persona, Campbell is mean-alpha and Holt is strong-yet-gentle-alpha, big, big difference.

  “Let’s eat, then, Maudie will be chasing us to the table with a flyswatter if we don’t get in there soon,” Campbell says, collecting himself, and we settle in yet another dining room, this one is slightly smaller than a football field, thankfully. Campbell refers to it as the ‘little room where the family eats’.

  The meal is so good and I eat so much that Maudie comes out of the kitchen and rattles off a rapid-fire barrage of Spanish words. Holt and Campbell can’t stop laughing, they tell me she’s full of praises for the ‘beautiful, too skinny, city girl with an appetite like a field-hand’.

  I ask Campbell if he knows where Gigi is, are she and Jon-Wylder together, is she coming back to the ranch?

  He pushes his plate away and pours a glassful of scotch offering the bottle to me and then Holt, but we both decline.

  “Pridey is running in the Preakness… I might join them… Jon-Wylder’s a spoiled dick, don’t know how long this thing with Gigi will last,” he mumbles and drains his glass. I notice that Campbell’s gracious decorum where curse words are concerned has worn off, he’s plenty comfortable using them now that the scotch is coursing through his veins. I really want to know what’s going on with Gigi so I look at Holt, but he shakes his head emphatically so I don’t press for a more coherent answer.

  We spend most of the afternoon touring the rest of the house and then we sit by the pool in the hundred-degree heat and watch the boys swim. They shout and splash and have a blast before the counselors coax them out of the water and they reluctantly climb back on the bus. We’re quiet for a while after they leave, who can say what the future holds for those kids— Joys or sorrows, foster homes where they might find a measure of stability, and the hope beyond hope—families to adopt and cherish them.

  “I hate to hear about kids being mistreated, it’s inexcusable.” Campbell says and he and Holt exchange a knowing glance. From what I’ve heard, Wes McCauley and Tom Corrigan raised their sons by the laws of bitterness and cruelty.

  “I don’t know about you,” Holt says, glancing at Campbell before he takes a glass from a server who brings a tray loaded with scotch, iced tea and pretty, puffy cookies she calls tea-cakes. “But my old man’s inexcusable brand of parenting ends with him, no kids for me.”

  “You don’t want children?” I ask and my throat is suddenly dry and tight. “Never, not with anyone? What if you fall in love?”

  “Probably a wise decision. Wes and Tom did a real number on us, didn’t they? Even my dear fierce mother couldn’t save us from their fists and knife blades,” Campbell says, he skips the iced tea and has been hitting the scotch-on-the-rocks hard since lunch. “What about Miss Scarlet? Sounds like she’s interested in propagating the species. But let’s hope her friend Gigi isn’t the motherly type, a DNA test would definitely be in order.”

  “How dare you say a word against Gigi? Who gives a shit if you inherited a butt-load of cows and money, you are so far beneath her,” I say, and feel like slapping the arrogant smirk off his face when Holt speaks up.

  “You need to shut the fuck up Campbell, you’re drunk and getting stupider by the minute. You do realize that Gigi is Scarlet’s close friend? We don’t want to hear how you’re fucking that up for Jon-Wylder. You need to get to your shit together and stop letting your past mistakes lead you around by the dick.”

  “Yeah, maybe you’re right, Holt. But why don’t you ask Scarlet, maybe she and Gigi are more alike than you think. How about it, Scarlet, you up for a threesome with me and Holt? It’s not like it hasn’t happened before, growing up out here in fucking no-man’s-land we had to make our own brand of fun with the local girls. Me and Holt and my brothers in the hayloft with the cheerleading squad after our high school football games, trashy, but like it or not, we are our father’s sons. Who knows, Scarlet, with me you might get a baby out of the deal.” Campbell says just before he’s thrown backward when Holt’s fist crashes into his face. “Fuck! Settle down, hoss,” Campbell says when Holt reaches down, grabs the front of his shirt, and hauls him to his feet. Holt’s face is pure unadulterated fury, as he draws his fist back ready to beat the living daylights out of Campbell.

  “Don’t, Holt,” I say. “He drank too much, who cares what you did in high school, it’s not worth fighting over.”

  Campbell is as tall as Holt but not as wide, his body isn’t as bulky and iron-muscled from constant manual labor, but he could definitely hold his own in a fight. He and Holt stare at each other and then Campbell steps around him and reaches for a napkin to staunch the blood flowing from his broken nose. “I’m gonna let that slide cuz I’m a drunken asshole and I deserved it,” Campbell says. “I’m sorry for what I said, and that this fine young lady had to hear it. You know the score with me, Holt— I’m fucked up seven ways from Sunday. Emmy, it’s all about Emmy and that summer, the shit that went down, her leaving me the way she did…. Can we get past this? I value your friendship and count on you to put me in my place when it’s called for, like you did just now.”

  “Sure,” Holt says, he says but his jaw is still clenched and his brows are drawn together in frustration. He strips off his blood spattered shirt and towers over me protectively, he looks even bigger, badder, and better with his plain white T-shirt tucked into faded jeans. “Go ahead and mishandle your own life if that’s what does it for you, Campbell, but back off and let Jon-Wylder have a chance to find what makes him happy. He loves his music, he might love Gigi, stay the fuck out of it. You got that— I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. He’s my best friend and somebody has to stand up for him. You need to remember that money is all that ever separated the four of us, you, Walker, Jon-Wylder, and me. We all wrestled the same demons—our sadistic low-life fathers—we survived with each other’s help. I’m hoping you’re not gonna become one of them— a bitter, self-indulgent jerk-off. As far as Scarlet’s concerned, watch what you fucking say, whatever she needs she’ll get from me, understand? You a
nd I are okay, Campbell, no hard feelings, but here’s a promise I’ll keep—you try and ruin what’s happening between me and Scarlet, and you’ll have to kill me first.”

  We drive back to Holt’s house in silence and my mind, heart, and body are at war with each other. The logical part of my brain tells me that I’m here for four short weeks to order furniture and fabric, whatever it takes to decorate the McCauley’s ‘fishing retreat’. My heart knows I’m in way too deep with a man who will never want children and probably only sees me as a sweet little piece of ass until I go home to Atlanta, out of sight, out of mind. And my body wants him with an intensity that’s truly frightening. Talk about men going all caveman, well I’m having a regressed-back-to-cavewoman moment as I sit here obsessed with each twitch and flex of Holt’s biceps and forearms as he grips the steering wheel. WTF! He just caused a disgusting amount of blood to gush from Campbell’s nose with one—ONE—swing of his fist, and I’m so hot and bothered that if he says a word to me I’m sure I’ll have a ‘touchless orgasm’ RIGHT NOW!

  The minute the truck screeches to a stop in front of his house we both jump out and he has the nerve to haul me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, burst through the front door, smack my ass HARD, and tosses on me on the leather couch. Fuck! It’s as if he read my mind and knows what I need, what I have to have. That I want it, him, rough and rowdy and out of control. That I trust him with my body and crave his special brand of tender and tough, just the right amount of pain that explodes into the most deliriously mind-blowing pleasure. He pulls me up against him and I crash into his solid, immoveable chest. His eyes narrow before he leans down to kiss my lips, my neck, his heart slams in his chest in a perfect pounding rhythm with mine, and I know that he wants what I want, something serious and maybe a bit dangerous. He’s ready to take me to the edge and then over, but he’ll also keep me safe.