Cattle Stop by Kit Oliver

Chapter Sixteen

Cooper setsthe latch on the gate and steps back. The doe stares at him from the other side of the fence, her head cocked to one side and her long ears pricked up.

“Stay,” he says to the goat, like she’s a dog who knows the command. And like she’d listen, if she did.

Cooper takes a step back. She moves one hoof forward. He’s hungry. And thirsty. And she’s got a feeder full of hay, fresh, clear water, a salt lick, and a dry covered pen full of straw to snooze away the rainy afternoon in, cozy with the rest of her herd. He slowly edges backward.

Rain falls against Cooper’s shoulders and the brim of his hat. The doe scratches at her haunch with her teeth, lips curled back and her neck stretched. She’s still eyeing him, though. Probably trying to lure him into complacency, so that Cooper’ll be back out here tonight, putting up another panel of fencing and coaxing the goat back into her pen while she bleats at him, waking up Cheryl as she prances around the farm, high on the thrill of freedom.

His head hurts. He rubs the heel of his hand against his forehead, but it only smears the dirt coating his palm. He needs a shower. And dinner. And for the damn goat to stay put.

Fuck it. He turns to leave and if she jumps out of her pen as he walks back up the road toward the main house and his cabin tucked against the tree line beside it, the patter of the rain drowns out the tap of her hooves. He can’t see her when he glances back, though whether it’s from the fence he’s reinforced time and again, or that she’s gone on another adventure, he doesn’t know. If she’s gone, she’ll be back when she gets hungry or misses the rest of her herd, elegantly jumping clear over the fence as if to drive home the point that she’ll be going where she wants, when she wants, with no interest in any input from him.

At least the window above his tiny kitchen sink only shows a small slice of lawn and the woods beyond it, gray and dreary in the cold rain that’s falling, and thankfully empty of any wayward goats. There’s still no plaintive bleating as Cooper pulls open the tiny fridge, and he eyes the window again, waiting for her to trot by. When she doesn’t, he pulls out a jug of milk. Cereal for dinner, yet again, since coaxing the stove to light so he can cook for one is just as depressing as sitting at his minuscule table eating soggy Cheerios.

“Cooper?” he hears from outside.

He drops his spoon back in his bowl. “Is she out again?” He pulls the door open, but it’s just Cheryl, her flashlight bobbing in the blue gloom of the evening, and her raincoat held up over her head.

“There’s a phone call for you,” Cheryl calls over the drum of rain. She ducks under the short porch outside his door, gray hair working loose from her braid beneath her hood. “A friend of yours? Drew?”

Of course it’s Drew, not anyone else.

The last time Cooper was in town and had cell service, he’d received a delayed text message from Drew: I need to talk to you. When Cooper called, Drew hadn’t picked up, so he’d left Cheryl’s landline number. Only later had Cooper remembered that Drew was likely in the cheese room, the three-hour time difference meaning that Drew wasn’t eating lunch like Cooper was, grabbing a sandwich after picking up a load of hay.

Cooper trails Cheryl up the stone steps to her house. It looks so cheery on nights like this, golden light shining through the windows and the garden still green and tidy from summer. Even though most of the flowers have died back since he arrived, there’s still a certain charm to the well-cared-for beds. Penny would like it, he’s thought more than once. He even snapped a picture for her, though he still hasn’t texted it.

“Thank you.” He tucks the phone Cheryl hands him between his cheek and shoulder as he pulls the door shut. “Drew?”

“Coop! What’s up, my dude?”

He can hear water running. Drew’s in the kitchen, probably. Cooper glances at the clock above Cheryl’s stove. It’s dinnertime here, so Drew’s wrapping up for the day, washing his hands over the sink.

“Everything okay?” Cooper asks.

It’s always so awkward to find a place to stand and talk on the phone in the house Cheryl shares with her wife. Nice of them to let him use it, but still, he’s left to step out of his shoes, make his way into their living room, and perch on the arm of their couch, his back toward the kitchen as if that’s any more private.

Cell service, he tells himself again. So far, that’s the only thing on his list of what he wants for his next job. That and maybe a veritable fortress of fencing.

“Everything’s great,” Drew says. “How’re the goats?”

“Opinionated.” Cooper adjusts his seat slightly on the arm of the couch. He can hear Cheryl and Kathy in their kitchen, their voices low as if not to bother him. “They’re like Houdini, or at least one of them is.”

“Escape goat.” Drew laughs at his own joke.

He sounds good. Happy. More like himself than he did all summer, that’s for sure.

“How’s it been going?” Cooper asks. “Everything all right?”

“Sure is,” Drew says. “Nice fall so far, the foliage is great. How’s it been going for you?”

“Fine.” Cooper glances at the window and the smear of rain tracking down the glass. “Raining, so same old. How’s the farm?”

“Good, good. Sadie says hi.”

“Aw, hi Sadie,” Cooper says. “How’s she doing?”

“Roasting herself in front of the woodstove. I swear, I’m going to give her an axe one of these days and tell her she’s got to help provide if she’s wanting us to go through this much wood.”

“Can’t you get the squirrels to do it?”

“Fucking won that fight, my dude. We ended up trimming back some of the branches on the maples, and without their superhighway to ship acorns in and out, they weren’t as excited about being our upstairs roommates.”

We, Cooper thinks. “Great job.” In the background, the sink runs again. “You busy? We can find another time to catch up.”

“Nah, it’s fine, doing some dishes.”

Don’t, Cooper tells himself, but all the same he asks, “Whit isn’t on them lickety-split?”

“Whit’s in the middle of a week-long battle with our new bull,” Drew says. Cooper pulls the corner of his bottom lip between his teeth. “I’m making spaghetti.”

“Well, isn’t that helpful.” Cooper scratches at the back of his head. “How’s, um, how’s that going?”

“The pasta? Good.”

“The bull.”

“Oh, yeah, good, it’s a real pain, actually, ’cause now he and the old bull aren’t getting along and Whit’s got the barn, like, partitioned in two.”

“You have a second bull?” Cooper asks.

“We kept back a lot of the heifers. Coop, this wholesale thing, I should be sending you a commission, I’m pretty sure.”

Cooper realizes he’s picking at his pant leg only when a thread comes loose. He smooths it with his thumb. “Send me some more fencing,” he says. “These goats are out of hand.”

“Can’t, we’re using it all to pen in that damn bull. But Whit says he can do it, and you know Whit.”

Cooper purses his mouth. “Yeah.”

“Stubborn asshole, but whatever.” Drew shuts the water off again. “I haven’t heard any loud noises from the barn lately, so he’s probably close to proving whatever point he’s trying to make to that poor animal.”

“Sales are going well, then?”

“Yeah, yeah, we’re still milking and only dried off some of the herd for the fall. Hence the second bull.”

“That’s great.” Cooper’s reflection in the window stares back at him, watery and wan. “I’m—I’m glad.”

“That’s why I wanted to talk to you, Coop.” Drew draws in a breath, the sound of it clear through the phone. “I think I can swing the wages for a second position here.”

“Awesome.” His tone falls too flat.

“I mean you, you idiot.”

“Oh.” Cooper rolls the thread between his thumb and forefinger, the end of it fraying.

Drew’s silence hums down the line. “Is that a yes?”

“Um.”

Cooper pulls at the thread, working it a bit looser. Closes his eyes too, and pictures the kitchen and Drew puttering around in it. The maples will likely be shedding their leaves right now, and woodsmoke will be hanging low over the barnyard, crisp and fresh. He’s sure Drew’s right that Sadie’s on her bed next to the woodstove, waiting on the next season to come, and with it, warm sunshine and green grass.

He could be there for it. Settle in, call it home, and put down roots. So fucking tempting. A life full of those fields and that land and Penny and Drew and Sadie.

And Whit.

Does Whit miss me?he so wants to ask. Think about me at all? Does he bring guys around? Is he dating someone by now and have you met them?

“You know what, I’m actually good out here,” Cooper says.

“What?”

“I’m—yeah, I’ve got a new best friend. She’s a goat, and we don’t actually like each other, but we’re making it work.”

“But I’ve got a job for you,” Drew says. “Is it a money thing? I know I couldn’t pay you much before, but now—”

“It’s not a money thing.”

“Full-time work, Coop. And I finished your room, so you’d have your own space again.”

“I’ve got a job, though.” Cooper wraps his arm around himself, over his stomach. “And a cute little cabin.”

“The hell? Why aren’t you tripping all over yourself already getting packed? Is this Cooper Langston? Please put him on. I’d like to talk to him.”

There’s a joke in there, he’s sure. No, this is Looper Cangston, so sorry for the confusion. Something silly and dumb, and Drew would laugh and Cooper would too, and he’d promise he’d be back to Two Pines as soon as he could work out a replacement for himself here in Oregon and not leave Cheryl in the lurch.

“I can’t take the job,” Cooper says. “Thank you, but I can’t.”

“Coop.” Drew lets out a breath. “The fuck? C’mon, we’re your best friends.”

“No, I know.”

“And you love it here.”

“Course I do.”

“Say one nice thing about goats. Hell, say one nice thing about Oregon.”

Cooper eyes the window. “It rains plenty.”

“Coop.”

“C’mon,” Cooper says softly. “Let it go.”

“No, I won’t. You’ve made this farm into what it is. And all the years you put in, everything you did this summer, you know as well as I do that you should be here for when things are finally going well. I can’t believe you’re not already on your way back, thinking you’re sneaky and pulling into the barnyard to try to surprise me.”

Cooper rubs his hand across his eyes. “Drew…”

“And it’ll be all the better if you jump back into things now and help us get through the winter so we’re rocking and rolling come spring or whenever you’re gonna come visit.”

Drew pauses.

Maybe Cooper should’ve had something more for dinner. His stomach hurts.

“You are coming back to see us at some point, right?” Drew asks.

“Yeah, at some point.”

“Some point…some point when, exactly?”

Cooper forces out a laugh. “Well, you know me, I have no idea.”

“But like…this spring? Or summer?”

“I’m all the way out west, Drew. I don’t know.”

“Cooper.”

“I don’t,” he says, though it sounds weak even to him.

Cooper misses even just the sounds of the kitchen and the picture he has in his mind of Drew standing over the sink. He tips the phone away from his mouth and blows out a breath. Whit’s there too, somewhere. Out in the barn, working with that new bull. Of course Whit would think he could manage to get a stubborn bull to stay put in its pen all by himself. If Cooper were there…he shakes his head at his own reflection in the window.

It doesn’t bear thinking about. Cooper’s not there, no matter that he can imagine it so clearly, leaning against the fence in the barn and giving Whit a hard time for trying to take on the project by himself, before he hops over the fence to help. The two of them could get it done easily enough, though they’d bicker the entire time.

And then what? Spend the rest of the evening fucking each other, with no future waiting for the two of them? Or Cooper would silently go back to his room and Whit would close the door to his own, and they’d play at ignoring how they spent all summer rolling around in bed together?

Maybe that’s what he was missing all those years: the clarity that if anything ever did materialize between him and Whit, it’d be just sex and absolutely nothing more.

Ass, Cooper wants to think, but his throat feels thick and he closes his eyes.

“Cooper?” Drew asks.

“Whit and I slept together.”

Silence. He can hear Drew breathing. He hunches his shoulders, hoping Cheryl and Kathy aren’t listening.

“Oh.”

“So,” Cooper says. He licks his lips. “I’m not…I’m not sure I’ll be back.”

“Okay,” Drew says. “What?”

“This summer, I don’t know. It just happened.”

“I don’t want the details.” Drew’s quiet again, and then says, “Okay, I do want the details.”

“It was just—” Cooper flaps his hand at the window. “It got, um, weird between us at the end, and it wasn’t ever really a thing. So.”

“So?”

“So that’s that, and I don’t really know about coming back east again anytime soon.”

“You two slept together?”

“Yeah.” Cooper wipes his palm down his thigh. “We did.”

“And now you’re not coming back?” Drew asks.

Cooper’s cheeks burn. No, he can’t go back. Whit would likely string him up for telling Drew in the first place. Though it’s not like he can unspill the milk now. Beans. Whatever. Whatever Whit wanted over the summer, it clearly evaporated as quickly as it had come. A couple rolls in the hay, he thinks and tries to smile like Drew would.

He closes his palm over his eyes and out of his mouth tumbles, “I kind of have a thing for him.”

“You do?”

“Whit doesn’t obviously—um—care. Or want that—anything, I mean. So I think I’m going to stick around here for a while. And—and you’ll find someone to take the job, someone great, I’m sure.”

“You slept with Whit? You like him?”

“I should probably go. I think some of the goats are out.”

“Whit? Our Whit?” Drew asks.

Drew’s Whit, maybe. Some other guy’s someday. Not Cooper’s.

“Bye,” Cooper says. “Hey, good to talk to you.”

“Whit?” Drew asks again and Cooper hangs up, pulling in a breath and holding it. He lets it out in a burst. Then, he leans forward, his elbow on his thigh and his forehead pressed to the heel of his hand.

Behind him, the teakettle whistles.

“Sorry,” Kathy calls to him.

“Yeah, no, sorry, I was just—”

Carefully, Cooper replaces the phone in its cradle. He feels shaky. It’s fine. It’s done. Drew knows, and he also knows Cooper won’t be back for another season. Cooper’ll find something else after his contract here is up, and maybe someday, he’ll be in upstate New York again. He can stop by. See the old stomping grounds. And this thing he’s got for Whit will have faded. Blown on by like a pesky storm cloud, dumping rain at the exact wrong time. He got over Whit once, all those years ago, and he will again.

“How’s your friend?” Kathy asks.

“Oh, he’s good, um, calling to say hi.” Cooper rubs his hand down the front of his shirt. “I can stay through the holidays. I know you’re looking for someone to keep an eye on the place and I—”

“Are you all right, dear?” Cheryl asks.

“Course.”

“You don’t look all right.”

“No, I’m fine, I’m—yeah.”

Cheryl pushes out the chair next to her and says, “Come have a cup of tea.”

Inside Cooper’s chest is too watery and weak. He’d probably sit down and just let it all spill out, and really, he wants to crawl into bed and pull the covers up. Practice forgetting Whit entirely, like he’s made any damn progress to begin with. “I should probably check on the herd.”

Cheryl pats the chair. “The herd’s fine.”

“That one doe—I’m thinking, actually, if I built her a shelter? Even just a lean-to against the barn so she’ll have some space outside away from the rest of the herd but out of the rain?” Stop, he tells himself, but the words flow out just the same. More work to bury himself in, not that it’d take more than a week to get up. “There’s some lumber in the back. I’d be happy to give it a try, see if it convinces her to stay put.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to talk?” Kathy asks.

“You know, I think she’s out right now actually.” Cooper backs out the door.

He ducks down into his sweatshirt and bends his head against the rain, though his shoulders are still soaked by the time he reaches the door to his cabin. Inside, he dumps his soggy cereal into the trash.

A goat bleats through the pounding of rain. He closes his eyes. Inhales deeply. When he looks again, the damn doe prances by. She stops, turns, and trots back again, tail held high as she passes past his window.

Put your boots on, he tells himself. Coat, boots, flashlight. Do it, he thinks as he just keeps standing there. He chose this. It’s what he wanted. With a sigh, he slowly gets dressed again and pushes out into the rain.