Beneath the Tombstone (The Tombstone Series) (16 page)

Jason
was starved. That can of beans from last night was long gone, so he was
grateful for the instructions to do exactly what he wanted to do… wolf his food
down. He took a big bite, and his eyes lit up. “This burrito is delicious,” he
managed to exclaim with a full mouth. “Who made it?”

“I
did,” came Rye’s casual reply. “My mother taught me how to cook.”

“Well,
you tell her she did a good job,” Jason completed.

Rye’s
face set into a hard line, and he didn’t respond or acknowledge Jason’s praise.
Jason, unsure of what he’d said wrong, quickly finished the burrito while he
waited close by, watching Tyler saddle the horses.

“Let
me show you your job,” Tyler instructed as he finished tightening the cinch on
one of the colts. He led the way over to an empty wheel-barrel that had one of
the weird looking shovel things sitting in it. “This is a poop scoop,” he said
as he picked it up. “You’ll get to know it real well before you leave here.”

“Okay,”
Jason said willing, “but when does my training begin?”

“Now,”
Tyler responded as he handed the cleaning tool to Jason.

“You’re
task is simple,” Tyler spoke as he led the way along the stalls, pushing the
wheel-barrel. “Scoop up the manure and leave the sand and wood-shavings.” He
came to a stop at the far end of the barn. “See that big wagon-like contraption
over there?” he asked, pointing towards a piece of equipment barely visible on
the outer edge of the light.

“Yes
sir,” Jason replied.

“It’s
called a manure spreader. Put manure in it then hook up to it with the tractor
and spread it over the fields for fertilize.” Made sense to Jason. “When you
get a wheel-barrel full, push it to the top of that ramp,” he indicated towards
a metal frame sloping up to the top of the spreader. “You’ll want to get a good
run at it, or you won’t make it to the top. But be careful. As a matter of
fact, on your first few trips, I wouldn’t fill it up completely. That way
you’ll get a chance to get the hang of it.”

Get
the hang of it? Was he serious? Jason was going to be shoveling up horse dung,
and Tyler thought he could mess that up? Did he need to get a degree in poop
scooping first? Of course, these thoughts never left his lips. He’d just have
to show the horseman that he wasn’t as dumb as he was thought to be.

“I’ll
take care of it,” Jason assured the cowboy. “Then what?”

“Get
this done then we’ll worry about ‘then what,’” Tyler ordered as he was walking
away. “Oh,” he added on second thought, “don’t let any of the horses out.
They’re pretty sneaky and always looking for a chance to escape.”

- - - - - -

Jason
wiped the sweat from his brow and smiled down at the brimming-full wheel-barrel
load of horse manure. Tyler had said
take it slow and get the hang of it.
Please. There was just too little trust being placed in Jason’s abilities for
his liking. It was time to change all of that.

He
lined up on his goal, which was the top of the manure spreader, and charged the
several yards towards it. He hit the ramp and… uh-oh, he was losing momentum –
fast. The load stalled halfway up the ramp, and his foot slipped on the slick
metal. Then Jason, the wheel-barrel and its contents all came crashing down in
a big green heap.

Jason
leapt to his feet, brushed the manure from his clothes and quickly glanced
around, hoping no one had seen. No such luck. Tyler had been trotting a horse
around inside a nearby round pen from which he had witnessed the whole thing.
He just shook his head as he trotted by again, an I-told-you-so look written
all over his face.

An
embarrassed and humbled version of Jason began quickly shoveling the load back
into the wheel-barrel. He knew what his problem had been. He hadn’t gotten far
enough back – needed more of a run at it. He wouldn’t make the same mistake
twice. With the wheel-barrel brimming-full once more, he backed up as far as possible,
which was a good thirty yards, and charged full throttle. He hit the ramp and
didn’t slow down… not even when he got to the top. Like water over a cliff, he
did a nose dive into the half-filled manure spreader. Jason fought his way to
his feet and, as he rose in triumph over his addition to the manure spreader,
he cast a quick glance over at the round pen. Both Tyler and Rye were sitting
atop their horses, having halted to watch the show. Huge grins were spread
across their faces as they chuckled and shook their heads at Jason’s stunt.

“We’ll
keep him around for entertainment purposes if for nothing else,” Jason
overheard Tyler say to Rye, and they both laughed as they nudged their horses
up into a trot.

After
the two embarrassing episodes, Jason decided to take Tyler’s advice and empty
his cart before he got it completely full. It was almost noon when he finally
finished cleaning the stalls. He had thought it would take far less time than
that. He went and retrieved his coat from the stall door he’d hung it on and
made his way over towards the saddle shed where Rye was unsaddling a colt that
was so sweaty it looked like it had been ridden by Paul Revere. Jason wasn’t
sure what kind of operation this was, but they sure did seem to go through a
lot of horses. He’d seen them wash off and tie up at least ten since the
morning began.

Approaching
Rye, he decided to see if he could get an answer to his question. “What are
y’all
doing that wears out so many horses?
Y’all
must be working a lot of cattle.”

Rye
smiled politely. “Actually the opposite is true. We’re not using the horses to
work the cattle; we’re using the cattle to work the horses.” Seeing the
confusion in Jason’s eyes, the young man continued. “All these horses,” he made
a broad sweeping gesture to the horses tied out along the pipe fences, “they’re
cutting horses.” Jason had no idea what that was. Rye saw that the lack of
understanding was still apparent in Jason’s eyes, so he added. “When we’re
finished training them, we’ll be able to sort a cow from the herd, drop our
hand and let the horse take over, keeping the cow away from the others on its
own.”

That
sounded really cool, but how could two grown men spend all day teaching a bunch
of horses tricks? It sounded fun, but Jason couldn’t see how that paid the
bills. “I don’t want to sound ignorant, but why do
y’all
do that?” he asked, still as confused as ever.

“What
you’re really asking is how can we afford to do that, right?” Tyler asked as he
rode up behind Jason.

“Well,
um, yeah,” Jason admitted, turning and looking up at the tall cowboy sitting
horseback.

“While
cutting horses are fun they are also big business,” Tyler explained. “People
pay us good money to keep their horses here to train.”

“So
you guys don’t own any of these horses?” Jason asked, thinking he was beginning
to understand.

“Only
a few,” Tyler responded. “Most of these horses are two and three year olds
being trained for the Futurity that takes place at the end of every year down
in Texas. Some of the better bred horses here cost more than you mortgage.”

Wow.
Now Jason understood both the why and the how of what these guys did. “I
finished cleaning out all the stalls,” he stated matter-of-factly.

“I
saw that,” the tall cowboy stated. “Looks like you did a pretty decent job…
once you figured out how to get the manure in the manure spreader, that is,” he
added, grinning. Jason gave a sheepish smile. The ribbing was duly earned.

“Wait
while we unsaddle these two then we’ll go up to the house and get something to
eat,” Tyler instructed as he stepped down from his horse. “After lunch, I’ll
get you to go around and clean out all the water buckets. Once you finish that
and fill ‘
em
back up, it’ll probably be about time to
do the
evenin
’
feedin
’. We
feed every
mornin
’ at five and every
evenin
’ at five. You missed it this morning’, but I’ll show
you what to do this
evenin
’… Tomorrow morning, it’s
all yours.”

Jason
stood by and watched as the horses were unsaddled and washed off before being
tied to the fence, out of kicking range from one another. Once they got inside
the ranch house, Tyler and Rye began sticking half full dishes into the oven.

“We
always cook twice as much as we’ll eat, every evening,” Tyler explained, “that
way we’ll have enough to just warm up for lunch.”

Whoever
had cooked supper the night before had done an excellent job because just the
leftovers from it were delicious. Shortly after eating, Jason found himself
back out in the barns, cleaning out water-buckets and refilling them. He was
determined to beat the amount of time Tyler had said it should take for him to
complete the task.

Jason
finished cleaning out and filling up the last bucket ten minutes before four.
Yes! He had beaten the time by over an hour. With a delighted-in-himself grin,
he walked out to where the men were doctoring a few sick claves to announce his
victory.

“Already
done, huh?” Tyler asked, seeing him approach.

“Yep,”
Jason said, about as proud as a strutting turkey. “Thought I might run up to
the house and rest a bit until five. Is that okay with you?”

“I’m
okay with part of your idea,” Tyler said with a gleam in his eye. “The part
where you said you’d run.” He turned to the young cowboy and asked, “You got
things under control here?”

“You
bet,” Rye responded. “
Y’all
go have fun.”

Tyler
swung into the saddle and, as he trotted past Jason, he said, “Follow me.”

Follow
him? Was he serious? Jason would have to practically run to keep up, but
remembering the results of not following an order first thing that morning,
Jason obeyed.

He
had no idea where they were going. Tyler took the trail that led up towards the
shack that Jason was staying in. It wasn’t until they got to it that Jason
realized the trail actually went further. The horseman didn’t even slow down –
just trotted right on by.

The trail
fell away down a steep hill, and at the bottom of it, small cliffs were on all
sides. Jason began to get excited. He was fixing to learn how to climb! But
again, to his dismay, the horse and rider never slowed. Tyler didn’t even seem
to notice the cliffs. He just nudged his horse into a lope and headed up the
narrow trail that led out the other side.

“Come
on, Jason,” he instructed. “Don’t make me wait on you. We don’t have much time.
Gotta
be back to the barn to feed in an hour.”

Jason
dug deep, found a little more speed, and charged up the trail behind the man
who sat easily upon his horse, the trip costing him little to no effort,
whatsoever. Sweat began to pour. Jason was feeling nauseous. Just when he
thought he would crumple to the ground from exertion, Tyler slowed his horse to
a walk.

“Let’s
give my horse a minute to catch her breath,” Tyler said. “I don’t want to wear
her out.”

“Where,”
Jason huffed from behind, “we going?”

“You’ll
see when we get there,” Tyler responded flatly.

Soon,
he returned to his original pace of trotting and loping his way down the trail.
They kept this pace up, switching from walking to running every few minutes,
for most of the next hour. Finally, Tyler stopped and said, “Here we are.”

Jason
couldn’t see what they had traveled so far to look at because the horse was in
his way, but as he began making his way around the critter, he knew one thing
for sure. It had better be good. What he saw took his breath away. “The ranch?”
he asked in disbelief as he gazed out at the barns and shed they had left
behind an hour earlier. “We went through all of that to look at what we’ve
already seen?”

“Yeah,”
Tyler replied proudly, “but this is from the other side.”

Jason
sat down on the ground shaking from exhaustion. He chuckled and shook his head.
“Is that the shortest way you know?” he asked the big cowboy sarcastically.

“Nope,”
was the response, “but it’s my favorite.” With that, the horse and rider began
making their way over towards the ranch at a slow walk. “Come on,” Tyler instructed.
“It’s time to feed the horses.”

That
evening, Jason sat at the table in the ranch house and dozed off a few times as
the two cowboys fixed dinner. As soon as he finished eating, he thanked the men
for the meal and made his way up to his shed. The picture of Jason and Misty
together on their wedding day had somehow survived the beating it had been
given earlier that morning. Now, he gently took it out and placed it on the
table beside his phone which had its alarm set for fifteen minutes before five in
the morning. The bed gave out a loud creak as he flopped down on top of it. He
was sound asleep moments after his head hit the pillow.

The
next morning, Jason was up and getting ready when Tyler stuck his head in the
door. “Good, you’re up,” he said with a satisfied nod.

Jason
fed that morning, cleaned stalls until lunch, and then did odds and ends until
it was time to do a lap, following Tyler around the trail before the evening
feeding. Several days passed by in this manner… then a week. Time soon became a
blurred rhythm of working eating and sleeping. Up at five, feed, clean stalls,
eat, work, run, feed, eat again, go to bed then get up and do it all over again.