Page 10 of When The Dust Settles

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” I groaned.

“Here’s hopin’ it’ll still be light out when we get there,” Pierce grumbled from the passenger seat. He didn’t sound any happier than I did.

“I dunno,” Dusty said, still grinning. “It’s an awful lotta people to fetch.”

Oh it just got better and better.

We finally got lunch many hours later, and I was surprised when Zach came over from eating with Rand and the others and took a seat beside me. His scrutiny was unnerving because he looked so much like my mother, and I still missed her. He had her same big brown eyes; it was too bad he had his own mouth.

“You lost a shitload of weight, Glenn. You sick?”

“Not at all,” I answered tightly.

He rubbed the back of his knuckles over my beard and then, before I could pull away, jabbed at my mustache with his finger. “And what’s with all this hair on your face?”

Holloway men were usually clean-shaven, so the facial hair—though the beard was barely that—I’d let grow in was just another way to distinguish myself from them. “I’m busy,” I said defensively, hating that he’d even brought it up.

“How busy can a restaurant be?”

I didn’t take the bait since the comment was just plain ignorant.

“It was a joke!” he crowed, whacking me hard on the back. “For fuck’s sake, Glenn, not everything is meant to be taken so serious.”

My back hurt a little because he was stronger than he gave himself credit for, but I didn’t want to fight. “How’re you doing on the Red? You still like it?”

And he was off, telling me about the calves that were born and how many, and the horses he’d helped break and how good they looked, and how one of the Red’s bulls was just sold for some ungodly amount of money.

“It’s hard to be away, but this drive will settle Rand up with Hawley McNamara, and it’s a short trip, and since we’ll have regular folks with us—”

“Regular folks?”

“Well, yeah. The cattle have been grazing on McNamara’s dude ranch since Rand wanted to keep ’em separate from the regular herd.”

I was bored already. “And?”

“Can you hold on a minute?”

I grunted.

“So,” he said loudly. “Since we couldn’t afford to send any men off the Red, Rand reached out to McNamara to see if his men could work the cattle and he’d pay their wages.”

“Sure.”

“But McNamara said he didn’t need money. He needed Rand to take his guests with him and drive the cattle down to the Red.”

“I see.”

“Easy enough, right? And it oughta be nice to break things up.”

“Break what up?” I asked honestly.

“Doing the same ole shit, of course,” he replied, squinting at me. “Man, you are a prickly piece of crap.”

“I wasn’t trying to—”

“Yeah ya were, you know you were.”

“You know what, Zach,” I snapped. “I think your master’s callin’ you.”