Page 20 of Cattle Stop

“Well, two’s a party,” Cooper says and puts on a smile. This was a shitty plan, not dragging Drew along and getting stuck with these two, of all people. “Thought we’d take you up on your offer to look at some equipment.”

“Anytime, Coop.”

“We’re looking for some new gates,” Cooper says.

“We’re repairing the gates we have,” Whit says.

Cooper waves a hand. “Same thing.”

“I sold off most of our fencing,” Brad says. “A couple guys from Pennsylvania came and took it all down.”

Whit steps back and jangles the keys in his pocket. “We should just go, then.”

“We’d love to take a look at anything you’ve got left,” Cooper says.

Whit sucks his cheek in, like he’s chewing it between his molars. “I have work to get to.”

“We all have work to get to,” Cooper says.

Though, not Brad, maybe. But Brad’s still smiling as wide as ever and he snaps his gum again. Well, smiling at Cooper, because nobody in their right mind would turn a smile on Whit, not with that pinched glower on his face.

“You can leave Cooper here for the morning,” Brad says.

“No.” Whit releases his cheek to shake his head. “It’s fine.”

Cooper leans towards Whit as they follow Brad across the barnyard. “Why don’t you like Brad?” he asks quietly.

“I like him fine,” Whit says, his words sharp.

“He’s annoying, you can say it.” Cooper raises his eyebrows. “Wait, I know, did he turn you down? Did you ask him out for a romantic evening of hauling tiny hay bales and folding baling twine and he offended your delicate pride?”

Whit brushes past him, into the dark mouth of the barn. “I have better taste than that.”

Cooper snorts out a soft laugh. No, Brad probably wouldn’t top Whit’s list—and besides, interested in men or not, Brad’s not dour enough for Whit, who’d choose a guy as bland and forbidding as himself. Brad, with all of his enthusiasm and gusto, would just grate at Whit. A second thing we see eye to eye on, Cooper could say, but it’s no use trying to joke around with Whit, so he just follows him into the barn’s dusty, dim interior.

“Not gates,” Brad’s saying to Whit as Cooper picks his way over to them, past the pieces of a disassembled rototiller and the shanks of a rusted plow. The snap of Brad’s gum is loud in the dark space. “Cattle stops.”

“They look like gates,” Whit says. He sounds as waspish as ever. “And aren’t they called cattle guards?”

“I worked at a farm down south that used them,” Cooper says. Grids of bars as long as Cooper is tall, laid flat on the ground and just as effective as a gate for keeping cows in a field. Stock gaps, the farmer he’d worked for had called them, though Cooper turns to Whit and says, “Cattle stops, that’s the right term.”

“It’s not.”

“Is,” Cooper says. “Brad, you’re getting rid of them?”

“I meant to get them installed, then never got the chance before selling the herd off,” Brad says. “They’re perfect for our pastures. You dig a ditch, drop the grate over it, and you can drive right over them. The cows won’t go across it.”

“We’ll take them,” Cooper says.

“We won’t,” Whit says. “We need to ask Drew if he even wants cattle guards.”

“Cattle stops,” Cooper corrects. “And what does he care? He’s busy with cheese and the house.”

“The cost?” Whit tips his head and gives him that look.

Cooper sighs. It’s the same look he used to give Cooper when Whit was on one side of twenty years old and Cooper was on the other, like Cooper, perpetually two years younger, was some kid Whit had to put up with.

“Fine, let us know what you want for them, Brad, and we’ll be back for them after we talk to Drew.”