“Yes, ma’am,” he said, though the voice didn’t sound much older than him, if she was at all. He had a little bit of savings, as he lived rent-free and had worked on the family ranch for literally his whole life.
“I can pay you seven hundred and fifty dollars a month,” she said. “I’ll give you the three months cash up front, when you sign the contract to work with me through February first.”
“So the job starts November one?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I can be flexible on that, though, as I know most cowboys are working the harvest right now.”
“Is your harvest done?”
Lenore cleared her throat. “Uh, yes,” she said. “I didn’t have much.”
“Okay.” Brandon could hear so many things in her tone, and he narrowed his eyes at the screen as he pulled up his calendar. “I’d love to come see the place, check out the cabin, and go over more details of what you need to make sure I have the skills you need.”
She hesitated, which also set a red flag flying in Brandon’s mind. He looked down at the keyboard, waiting.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll send you a pin, because I’m obviously off-grid.”
“Obviously,” he said. “Do you have generators? Solar power? Anything like that?”
“I run on generators,” she said. “Though I have the capability to get solar set up…if I can get the help.”
Brandon nodded, and he’d roughed it plenty of times in his life. He couldn’t imagine living without water and power for very long, though, and he understood the need Lenore had to get her infrastructure set up.
“What about tomorrow morning?” he asked. “I work the later shift on my family ranch, so evenings would be harder for me. Not totally out of the question, but harder.”
“Tomorrow morning is fine,” she said. “Eight? Nine?”
“Where you at?” he asked, because travel time would factor greatly into what time Brandon could meet.
“My place is northeast of Three Rivers,” she said. “About thirty or forty minutes.”
He whistled, because he currently lived about that farsouthwestof Three Rivers. “Hoo, boy,” he said. “That’s probably a couple of hours for me.”
“Really? Where are you?”
“My family owns the ranch just south of Shiloh Ridge,” he said, because everyone in the Panhandle knew Shiloh Ridge.
“Oh, that is far.”
“I can do it,” Brandon said. It would simply take a text to Duke to let him know he wouldn’t be able to work until noon. “Let’s say nine, and I won’t stay long, so I can get back here.”
“It won’t take long,” Lenore promised. “I’ll send you the pin and see you in the morning.”
“Sounds good.” Brandon added a, “See you tomorrow,” and hung up. He put his interview and homestead visit on the calendar that his whole family could see. Then he texted Duke, Dawson, his daddy, and Zona. They all wished him well, and Dawson sat back, feeling more peaceful than he had in a while.
Then his alarm went off, his stomach growled, and Brandon realized he’d spent his dinner break setting up an interview for another job instead of eating.
“Oh, well,” he said, quickly throwing his uneaten meal on the floor for Dumpling to finish for him. He’d eaten on the go before, and he grabbed a bag of beef jerky and a protein bar on his way out the door to relieve Dwayne from the fall Texas heat and harvest.
The following morning,Brandon leaned forward as he muttered something about whether this was the right road to take or not. He’d been bumping along at a snail’s pace on a rutted dirt road for at least twenty minutes now, and he feared his GPS would give out at any moment, leaving him lost and stranded in the wilderness north of town.
He made the turn, hoping it was right. Relief edged through him as the arrow on the map pointed toward the pin Lenore had sent him. Only another minute passed before he drove past a chunk of trees that needed to be thinned and onto the homestead.
He pressed on the brake as all new emotions stomped through him. This place didn’t need a little bit of work.
“This place should be condemned,” he said right out loud. None of the buildings or fences stood up straight, and piles of lumber, plastic containers, and other debris littered the side of the road where he’d been driving. Chickens roamed freely in the yard, and two dogs got to their feet as the front door of the closest cabin opened.
A woman came outside, and Brandon eased his foot off the brake to get his truck moving forward again. He came to a stop next to her truck, glancing over at it too. The vehicle had to be at least fifteen years old—just like everything else here.
