Page 12 of The Banker and the Blue Collar Man

Still, leading a string of horses with sensible adult riders was mighty different from leading a group of older teens from the city, most of whom had probably never been in a saddle in their whole lives. From what I could tell—a quick glance, an overheard conversation—they weren’t mean kids. Just rambunctious and easily excitable. Even now I could hear their laughter and shouts, and I could imagine Colt doing his best to stay calm, leading by example.

As for Dalton, who was a prime model of everything about the city that I disliked, I wanted to go to the top of the slope and wait for his return.

He’d not seemed at home in the saddle, his shoulders tight as though something was going to jump up and bite him. But he’d held the reins the way I showed him, paying attention like it was his life’s work. Didn’t twitch, at least not much, when I adjusted the length of his stirrups.

And those eyes. So blue. So wide. So terrified, even when facing only a simple ride. An hour there and back again. Just right for most first-timers, but, perhaps, too long for Dalton.

Still, he’d not complained, but had sat tall, taking up the tail end of the line of riders. Seven in all. And in those borrowed boots and my hat, donated to him at the last minute, he looked, as he glanced back at me, like he’d been astride horses all his life. Like he belonged at the ranch.

I felt those blue eyes knew what they saw when they looked at me: a man whose life was a series of jigs and jags. Of half-finished paperwork and a line of foster homes where no social worker had ever set foot.

Seven foster homes, starting at age three, when my dad left and my mom decided that taking care of my two younger sisters was enough homemaking for her.

I was a badly behaved child, or so the intake form in my file said. At three? Give me a break. It also said I never smiled. No facial expressions. Hard to interact with. Years later, a yellow sticky note suggested I get tested for autism, that I might be on the spectrum. I never thought I was, but what did I know?

The only thing I wanted was a room to call my own and a family that was mine. I pathetically held on to that dream all the way until I was shunted out of the system.

Mostly the homes they put me in were shells that contained people who were only interested in the money they could get for having a foster kid living under their roof.

In my final year, I brought in $1,795 a month. I didn’t know what the amount was in earlier years.

In most of those homes, I did chores and ate plain food. I had one pair of shoes, two pairs of jeans. The basics. I watched while therealchildren got bikes for Christmas and trips to the park to play catch.

Two of the homes were far worse.

In one, food was a reward, often withheld due to my bad behavior, my clothes came from Goodwill, and I slept in the basement on a ratty old mattress in which mice had surely set up housekeeping before being smoked out so I could use it.

Of the other, when I was around ten, I had flashes of memory strained through fingers of light and dark, like I was looking through bars. I remembered fighting, lots of screaming, cigarette smoke, and being forced into baths of cold water to bring the welts down when the church ladies would come over with their casseroles and words of praise for the man and the woman who’d taken me in.

I’d never tasted those casseroles, but the smiling ladies presented them with such pride, and they always smelled good. Butter. Salt. Garlic.

Even to this day, I couldn’t stand having an empty belly. Even to this day, I could not tell you what that man and woman looked like. What their names were. Where the house was. I preferred to forget.

Then one day, my luck turned in a sharp, unexpected lurch. It was the evening before I was to leave my last foster home with nothing but a backpack and a voucher for a halfway house where I could stay for six months and look for a job.

I had no idea what I was going to do. I had yearned to be free of the system, only now that they were now kicking me out of it, I didn’t know how to feel.

In that house, the monthly payment had actually been spent to benefit me. At least some of it. The mother and father were still cold, and their two real kids, both younger, would look right through me. But I’d slept in a bedroom and had three meals a day. Decent sneakers. A coat.

The phone rang. It was the landline, which almost never got used.

“Jake, it’s for you.” The mother shook her finger at me as she handed over the receiver. “You have two minutes.”

“Hello?” I said, blinking, confused. “This is Jake.”

The person on the other end of the line was a social worker who specialized in job placement, and she wanted to talk to me about a job out of town that came with room and board included.

Right away I understood that this call wasn’t coming from a place of kindness. If she could parcel me out to a different county or city, I wouldn’t be on her books, and her responsibility for me would end at midnight.

I had the halfway house voucher in my pocket, but a job that could last indefinitely, that seemed like a better deal. Even if the job wasn’t great, it would be experience I could point to when I looked for something else.

“Where is the job?” I asked, completely puzzled. Not just about what she was telling me—something about a ranch—but by the very fact that anyone was talking to me at all about what I wanted.

“Snow Creek Ranch,” she said. “It’s up in the foothills, west of Fort Collins. They’re looking for ranch workers. Wranglers. Stable hands.”

“Wh—” What? When? Where? All those questions that started withwh. “Why me?” I finally managed.

“When you lived with the Leetons,” she began, “you wanted to be a cowboy for Halloween. It’s in the file. You had a model horse. So I figured you’d be a good match.”