Page 15 of The Banker and the Blue Collar Man

A dull, feverish ache was starting up between my shoulder blades, but I was distracted from that by their again-raised eyebrows, twins of each other.

“You’re a lucky fellow,” one said.

“All that way, just for you,” the second one said. But he didn’t sound mad. Rather, he sounded impressed. Like it was something special to get picked up by Walter Barrett.

I didn’t trust that, though. Too many times, when I figured it was my turn for a treat, something nice, I’d gotten passed over, shoved to the back of the line. Nobody was going to think I was special, not even Walter Barrett.

Looking back, I’d been wrong as hell about that.

I’d gone out and waited on the steps in front of the store, and watched the lazy passing traffic as the sun reached its zenith. I was about to scoot back up a step to be in the shade, sweating beneath my hooded sweatshirt, when a sleek black truck zoomed up to the curb and parked with a sudden skid of tires.

An older man with a gray mustache and a time-weary face rolled down the window. “You Jake Colter?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.” I stood up, brushing the dust from my backside.

“Walter Barrett,” he said to introduce himself. “Well, come on then, if you’re coming.” He returned his attention to the steering wheel, like I was just another errand, and perhaps an annoying one at that. I clambered into the truck, shutting the door carefully behind me.

I fully expected that the ride would be terse, filled with instructions and warnings. A list of tasks and rules. Repercussions for orders not followed to the letter.

But it hadn’t been.

As he drove out of town, he left the windows down, and the cab of the truck was filled with swirling air. Sunshine came in through the dust-speckled windshield. At a stop sign, he took off his hat and ran his fingers through his gray hair. “Will you look at that,” he said. “We got here at just the right time of day.”

I turned to him, looking for signs as to what to say. Which way to jump.

He pointed with a nod. “Snow Creek. The sun coming down at just that angle. Shining on all them pretty cottonwoods, just where it bends north.”

I looked where he was pointing, my eyes wide to see what he was seeing: a sparkle of water between gray-brown tree trunks. The glitter of heart-shaped leaves pitching on their stems in the lazy breeze.

“That’s pretty,” I said, and I meant it, though I didn’t think I’d ever heard anyone call cottonwoods pretty before. We hadthem in Denver, in the parts where I’d lived. But they’d been scrubby, stunted by the city air.

Here, as we turned left onto the country highway, no more than two lanes, they were robust, soaking in water from the creek, branches made lively by the blue sky above.

“The water there is called Snow Creek, on account of it comes straight down from the mountains. Cold as ice,” he said, catching me with his glance. “But it’s a good cold. Good for chilling a six-pack or dunking your feet in on a hot day in August.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I kept my mouth shut, which was always the best way to go.

Walter drove at a fast clip and turned off onto a narrow paved road that twisted along open, grassy fields and in among pine trees.

“You’ll be in a bunkhouse,” he said. “On your own; hope that’s okay. We’re sparse of ranch hands at the moment, but it’s the middle of the season, so no worries there. They’ll be coming soon, when the cattle need bringing down. We need a well dug and fences mended. The ranch house needs painting. Hay bales need stacking from the second cutting.”

At that moment, I couldn’t have cared if he wanted me to dance a jig on the roof. My own bunkhouse? With a door?

“You up for that?” he asked without looking at me.

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“And is that all you brung? That backpack?”

“Yes, sir.” I said. I couldn’t be ashamed that I had so little. Many foster kids left the system with less.

“We’ll get you kitted up, son,” he said. “Boots. Hat. Thicker jeans than the ones you got on. You shaving yet?”

“Almost.” My voice sounded small in my own ears. I had shaved a time or two, using a disposable razor stolen from thefather and foam from the soap dispenser. Sweating the entire time that I’d get caught, my face raw afterward.

“Someone will carry you to the Mercantile tomorrow for the hat and boots,” he said. “There’s a store down the street from there for everything else.”

He said it like that was just what you did. Take in a foster kid and give him a cowboy hat, first thing.