28
(Garrett)
TWO MONTHS LATER
Thwack.
Christ.
I drop my arm, bow swinging loosely in my right hand, and take a good look at my arrow downrange. Currently sticking into the wooden post behind the 3-D elk target that’s just thirty yards away.
I missed the whole target. The whole elk target. A big animal—and this target is sized to match.
The peanut gallery behind me is unnervingly quiet. Cooper and Braden say nothing, which is worse than having them toss insults my way. I turn and open my arms wide in a silent gesture for them to let me have it. Braden waves me away.
“Move.” He steps up, draws back, and anchors. Holds steady and squeezes the release. All looks good. Except for when he jerks his head up at the last second.
Swoosh.
Braden’s arrow misses the target, swishes through the tall grass to the right, and disappears. Not sure which is worse: my arrow stuck in a wooden post or Braden’s in the grass. We may have to file a missing persons report on his, because it could be anywhere in that field—and almost impossible to spot when the shaft is camo-patterned and the vanes are brown.
Cooper steps forward, shoots a look downrange, and shakes his head.
“Jesus Christ. I thought you two were going to help me get better with my bow. Are you showing me what not to do?”
Braden and I just stand there silently. Cooper is a newbie to archery hunting, and while he filled his turkey tag and killed a nice bird this season, Cooper Lowry doesn’t do anything halfway. He quizzed us for hours before settling on which bow to purchase, then did the same with the quiver, the arrows, the release, and the sight. Since then he’s invested in enough targets and bales to open his own archery range if he wanted to. We’re standing in an empty field across from his and Whitney’s house, on the land he purchased for them to build a new house on and eventually expand the orchard. For now it’s empty and all ours to demonstrate our apparently worthless archery skills.
I shuffle forward and commence to pulling my arrow from the wood post. A good yank sets it free and I inspect the field tip, twisting to tighten it down. Braden stalks past, eyes glued to the ground, grumbling as he looks around for his arrow.
Cooper sidles up next to me, adjusting the hay bale behind the target. He looks Braden’s way, sets his arm atop the foam elk’s back, and leans on it.
“I know what your problem is, but Braden’s a mystery. Guy’s usually steady as a rock out here.”
To be fair, everyone knows what my problem is. You can’t escape the prying ways of a small town, especially when a certain long-legged woman is suddenly conspicuously absent and my mood is coincidently sour enough to curdle a gallon of milk. Long gone is the guy who was content with everything—his life, his world, his complete lack of a future, or anything new and interesting.
And, trust me, I’ve tried to find that guy and forget Cara in all the usual ways. I tried drinking her away for a few days, right after she left. I tried busying her away by working on my truck, shooting my bow, and helping Brooke and Corey and Kenny and Whitney—anybody who would take my help—so that I was busy twenty hours a day and exhausted when I got home. I even tried dragging Braden to the Mesa County Fair on rodeo night, thinking a few pairs of painted-on and blinged-out jeans might help. I came home sick to my stomach and missing Cara more than ever.
I cast a thumb in Braden’s direction.
“Braden is still trying to recover from the whirlwind phenomenon that is Amber Regan. I think he thought that she would come out here and scout, go home, and he wouldn’t have to deal with anything until they came back out to shoot the show. But TV production shit apparently doesn’t work that way. He says it’s like having a hot neighbor who talks too much and keeps knocking on your door in the middle of the night.”
On cue, Braden rises up from the hunched-over position he was in and lets out a sharp shout, then starts to walk around in the field again.
“And you? How are you doing?”
I send a dry look Cooper’s way. He rolls his eyes. “Whitney told me to ask. She says you’re not being forthcoming with her. She’s worried about you.”
“I’m fine.”
“Fine,” he echoes flatly.
“Yup. Fine.”
Braden starts to kick at the ground aimlessly, dirt flying up with every frustrated swing. “Fucking guy needs to get laid in the worst way,” Cooper mumbles, tipping his ball cap up and running a hand through his hair before setting the hat back in place. “As for you, we both know what you need.”
I lift a brow and wait. Cooper’s expression is matter-of-fact.
“You need a treasure map to your balls. I suspect they’re in Chicago, but that’s just a guess.” He glances across the field, over to the house, where Whitney is waiting for him—and always will be.
“Don’t wait too long to go looking for them. She might forget who they belong to.”
Braden never found his arrow.
He kicked the ground a few more times, cursed again, then stomped back over and announced he was going home. I stood around like an idiot, hoping someone might give me a project to do so I wouldn’t have to go home yet, until Whitney stepped out onto the porch with a gleam in her eye that was directed just at Cooper, and I wasn’t blind to what it meant. It seemed that her perpetual morning sickness had pretty much passed and she suddenly wanted to make up for lost time.
Normally, I would have made myself scarce, but then I started thinking about Horny Cara and the only-for-me looks I used to get from her and ended up zoning out at the memory, hanging around the field until Cooper eventually told me to scram.
At home, I check the mailbox before going inside to . . . I don’t know what. Stare at the wall? Listen to feral cat opera? Watch Real Housewives? Fuck it. Maybe I’ll just drink.
The mailbox flops open, a bunch of junk mail and catalogs, most of which are for other people who used to live here. The only things that are mine are a cell phone bill, a Cabela’s catalog, and a large envelope addressed in casual but precise handwriting I recognize immediately. Whether it was from seeing her legal pad scribbling or the sticky notes she used to leave around the house for me, I know it as well as my own. One of those notes is still tacked to my refrigerator, where I avoid looking at it but can’t bring myself to throw it away, either.
Beer in the fridge. Be back by five. A drive later?
xo, CC
Breathing deep keeps me from dropping the rest of the junk mail on the ground and leaving it there. I make it inside, clear a spot on the countertop, and toss the rest of the mail to the side, placing the envelope down in its own special spot, where I can stare at it.
What the hell is she sending me? By snail mail? I slide a finger under the flap and try to open it neatly, thinking if I don’t that would only be more proof of how wrong we are for each other. That Cara deserves a man worthy of her, a guy who doesn’t open his mail like an ape. A man who does it carefully and thoughtfully, in a straight line. Jesus, who the fuck am I kidding? That guy would have a letter opener—a pearl-handled one—and I just have my stupid bear-paw hands.
After sufficiently fucking up the envelope, I pull out the contents and find a very impressive magazine, larger and thicker than most, printed on heavy paper with a matte finish. On the cover in the bottom right corner, I spot why she sent me this.
Last Generation Profile: A Kansas Farmer Looking for Answers
By Cara Cavanaugh
She did it.
Not that I doubted she would—but she did it. A note is tucked inside the front page of the magazine, written on fancy-looking personalized stationery.
Garrett,
So, here it is . . . my first published article as a freelance writer. Now, don’t panic, I didn’t abandon my Grand Valley write-up—that one is much longer, so it’s still in edits and is set to run in the next issue. But my trip to Kansas yielded this piece, and while it’s only two pages, I’m pleased with how it turned out.
I’ve also enclosed a copy of my full interview with Gerald Ramsey, the farmer that I profiled here. Gerald is “good people,” as you would say. Honest and modest, he says what he means and means what he says. You two would get along like there’s no tomorrow.
Take a listen . . . I think you’ll hear what I did. And when you do, you’ll know exactly who Gerald is looking for.
Spoiler alert: it’s you.
Love, Cara