Damn cows! Damn them all! Jess Lincoln, her black hair flying free from her ponytail, swore as she ran through the knee high grass. The cow loped out of her way, dodged around a scrubby bush and cantered off in the opposite direction.
She hadn’t signed up for this, not at all. The property description had said quite clearly that this damnable ranch, in Colo-stupid-rado, had stupid people…what were they called? Oh yes, hands who worked with the cows. No one had said that they would all be gone when she got there, or that the fences were in reprehensible disrepair, or that in the face of an oncoming thunderstorm, the stupid creatures would scatter to the four corners of the state.
Jess stopped her helter-skelter run and hands on knees began to suck in lung-fulls of air. The stitch in her side was becoming a problem. A cow turned brown, expressive eyes on her and mooed dolefully.
“Yeeesh, and to you too,” Jess said.
“That’s not how ya do it!” That was Old Charlie. He had come with the ranch, but since Jess guessed he was at least a thousand years old, he was no use to her. He leaned against the still standing part of the fence and smiled his toothy grin. He was an African American man with a dandelion, powder puff of white hair that stood up like Albert Einstein’s. Jess had known Charlie for five minutes and already he was getting on her nerves.
She could’ve stayed in New York. It was a big city, with bustling people and cabs. She could have kept her old job at the ad agency, or found a new one since Conrad, her ex, probably still worked there. Actually come to think of it, she could have chosen a lovely tropical island in the Bahamas instead of this cow-infested dust bowl. But then she looked up at the view; the plain stretching out ahead of her to a line of trees, and then the mountains in the distance. All this space, all this land, and she’d bought it for a steal.
Sighing, Jess turned to look at Old Charlie. “Okay, so how do you suggest I get these dumb creatures back?”
He shrugged. “You know how to ride a horse?”
“No,” she said wrinkling her nose.
“Well then, you’re poked,” he said and shuffled his way back up to the main house.
“Thank you, oh so much for that,” Jess yelled after him.
He just waved a wrinkled hand at her and went on his merry way.
Oh well, nothing for it. She ran around for a while as the clouds rolled in overhead and cows trotted out of her way in a distressingly unconcerned fashion. It was almost as though the beasts knew that she had never so much as petted a cow before.
Eventually she flopped down in the turf her sides aching, while above her the sky began to boil. Lightning flashed and licked the depths of the clouds turning them bright for an instant before letting them fall dark again. And of course the sun was setting. It was going to rain and get dark all at the same time and she was so far out of her comfort zone, it was on another continent.
“Hell of a first day,” she said to herself, pulling at a grass stalk. It had such smooth sides. Her fingers ran up it and then, “Ouch!” Jess stared at the red blood welling out of the slice and then something hit it. Something wet and cold crashed into her finger, washing the blood away. More raindrops fell.
Jess stood up and ran after the cows again, flapping her arms and yelling with more urgency now. Why were the stupid creatures so happy to spend a stormy night out in a field? Couldn’t they see that the sky was angry at something, and planning on hitting the ground with as much lightning as it took to make it sorry? How was she supposed to do this on her own?
A cow mooed at her and ran towards her. She sidestepped out of its way and in the gloom lost her footing and fell face first into a puddle, drenching her from head to toe.
“Oh well, thank you so very much!” she yelled after the beast’s retreating back. “Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!” Each word was accompanied by her fist slapping into the muddy water. And then she began to cry and swear, and as the hopelessness built inside her, scream.
“Excuse me Ma’am, but you look like you could use a hand.”
Wiping mud and sodden hair out of her eyes, Jess looked up. The face she saw was long, brown and had huge nostrils. It snorted at her. She looked up again and this time saw the man seated on the horse.
“It’s the damn cows,” she said in what she thought of as her petulant voice. “They won’t listen. They won’t come in out of the storm.” She was sobbing now and then realizing that she must look awful, she tried to wipe her face. But the rain was doing a good job of washing her from head to toe, and her efforts to not look like a drowned rat were proving futile.
“Well, we’ll see what can be done,” he said and in one fluid movement he got off the horse’s back.
All she could see of the man now standing in front of her offering her his hand, was his golden eyes. They almost seemed to glow in the dark.
“Who are you?” she asked taking his hand. He pulled her to her feet and then helped her onto the horse. “Oh no, I don’t know how to ride one of these,” she said. He might have smiled, she couldn’t tell in the uncertain light and the rain. In a moment he was up behind her, his arms on either side of her holding the reins. “What about the cows?” she asked.
“The cattle will be just fine,” he said. His voice was smooth and rich and confident. It was the voice of someone who just knew things would work out. The horse ran up to the house where the lights were on and Old Charlie was standing in the doorway.
Her legs feeling a little weak, and shaking from the cold, Jess found herself deposited on her back porch. Then the stranger on the horse galloped off into the night as lightning sliced the sky.
“Who was that?” Jess asked.
Old Charlie just smiled at her and handed her a towel.