Page 10 of The Banker and the Blue Collar Man

My heart thumped in my chest. I wanted to go over to him, to say hello or something, an urge that felt foreign and exciting at the same time. I preferred to be among people I knew. Yet here I was with the impulse to talk to him.

He wouldn’t like it if I interrupted his work, anyway, so there was no point, right?

By the time the teens and I got to breakfast, people were gathered around where Jake and his fellow heroes were already halfway through their meal. Jake’s shoulders were hunched forward as he dug into his eggs and hash browns, the whole plate covered with hot sauce or maybe ketchup. I liked to think that the expression on his face was the unspoken version of some hokey cowboy response:Aw, shucks, t’weren’t nothing.

Except maybe it wasn’t hokey. Maybe it was real. That’s what he would say, because maybe to him itwasnothing. Rounding up cattle before breakfast. That’s what you did on a ranch.

The way he’d mounted that horse had been breathtaking, though. You had to have strong thighs to make that kind of maneuver work. Getting astride a horse already in motion.

The teens and I finished our breakfast and bused our places, then went over to the three cowboys. It was easier now to get closer to them, since the dining hall was clearing out.

Jake was finishing his coffee, holding the white china mug not by the handle but by the sides. His coffee wasn’t black, as I would have expected. Tough men drank their coffee plain, right? Instead, it was light brown, like he’d piled on the milk and maybe even sugar.

“That was cool,” Dillon said.

Cameron chimed in. “Way cool.”

“Thank you,” I said to Jake. “That calf could have run me over, the way he was going.”

“He wouldn’t have hurt you none,” Jake said. There was a bit of tease in his voice, and his eyes glittered like blue-and-gold stars. “Maybe scuffed your jeans a bit.”

The other two cowboys laughed into their breakfasts, like Jake was a venue-filling comedian. Jake didn’t join in.

Jake had a strip of paper towel wrapped around and around his right hand. Not a bandage or anything like that. Just a narrow line of white with a red streak in the middle. He had to hold it in place with two fingers, as if in a little while he was going to dispose of it altogether.

“I’d like to learn how to do that roping thing,” Dillon said.

“They all say that, kid,” one of the cowboys replied. “But the roping lariats we use weigh almost three pounds.”

Three pounds didn’t sound like much to me, but the cowboy in question had his lariat with him, all coiled up. He took it from the bench seat and handed it around.

Cameron and Dillon pretended it was heavier than it was, fooling around the way they had been since I picked them up atthe Center, but I could see by their expressions that they were surprised by the weight. By the time I got it, I was expecting it to be heavy, and it was.

Jake’s rope probably had blood on it, but I jerked my brain away from that raw image and handed the rope to Jake. Who handed it across the table back to its owner like it weighed nothing.

“I expect we could teach them,” Jake said. “We could start them with a roping dummy and a junior lariat.”

I didn’t think Cameron or Dillon really wanted to learn, but who was I to squash their enthusiasm? Especially when I wouldn’t be on the ranch for much longer.

Jake and the cowboys, having finished their breakfast, stood up. Jake was a little taller than the others, and as I looked up at him, I realized that he wasn’t a story or a stereotype. He smelled like soap from his shower and sweat from hard work. He was the real deal. I’d never met a real cowboy before, and maybe my mouth was hanging open a little bit, and maybe I had to snap it shut and turn away and focus on the next step. Which was packing up and driving home.

As I walked with the boys out of the dining hall, Lucas came up behind me, reached around, and slammed something against my chest: nearly new cowboy boots, smelling like polish. The toes curled up as if they’d not been worn in a while.

“We found you some boots,” Lucas said. “Maybe you could stick around for a while. After the excitement of this morning, we’ve got a trail ride planned before it gets hot.”

“Come with us, Mr. Gayle,” Dillon and Cameron said in unison. “It’ll be cool.”

“It’s Dalton.” I didn’t add that they both knew, as did Lucas, that horses weren’t my thing.

“Yeah, Mr. Dalton,” they said together, smiling wide because everything was a big joke to them.

Except maybe it wasn’t. They’d gotten this far. They deserved to go farther. Maybe I could be an example of how to go about doing something that scared you.

“Okay,” I said. “Please give me the gentlest horse you’ve got.”

We went back to the bunkhouse so we could get ready. I slathered on sunscreen, made the boys put some on as well, arranged the waist of my jeans, sans belt, and pulled on thicker socks before tugging on the boots. The heel was slightly stacked, so I was taller inside of a heartbeat, and I felt pretty confident as we crossed over to the barn, where horses were already groomed and saddled up.

I didn’t want to mention again that I was scared and needed the gentlest of gentle horses. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself that way.