The Sowing

4. Wannabe Cowboy

Meredith

I squinted in his direction, wishing I had it in me to laugh at the sight of Sebastian DuPonte wielding a stirrup hoe. 

He drug an arm across his brow then, wiping the sweat that threatened to spill into his vision. 

From under my hat, I watched him while steering the compact tractor over the ground, enjoying the monotony of tilling. 

I'd passed judgment before it'd been due – DuPonte wasn't exactly the full-fledged wuss I'd pegged him as. Whether out of fear, obligation, or gratitude, he'd picked up the tool Merle had tossed him without hesitation. 

Merle's grandson, Tommy, had been kinder to the well-kept magnate. Having grown up on the farm, Tommy knew how to care for the land like he knew how to breathe. He'd modeled how to weed the ground to a nodding DuPonte who seemed to settle into a rhythm fairly quickly.

I watched him now, hat low, gloves rich with dirt, his muscles flexing with the task of breaking the ground. He may have appeared like he didn't know the difference between a Slater's hammer and a felling axe, but he gritted his teeth as he braced against the unyielding weeds like he’d toiled with manual labor before.

Sensing my surveillance, he looked up in my direction. I'd been caught, but I wasn't about to let him know that.  

I squinted, unblinking. This man could be the literal death of me, and I'd agreed to house him for some unknown amount of time. He wasn't my responsibility, not my ward, and yet, here he was, dressed like a farmhand in the middle of my Swiss Chard.

Like some wannabe cowboy, he tipped his hat in my direction. I scowled, rolling my eyes.

The nerve of him, to be so smarmy while he ran for his life.

He flashed me a smile this time, offering a thumbs up.

Yeah, he was slicker than owl shit.

I steered the John Deere in the opposite direction, breaking my pattern. I bumped along the terrain, growing increasingly peeved at everything and everyone.

Haphazardly, I parked the tractor into its designated spot, hopping off into an angry gait.

I stomped up the porch steps, snatching the dusty buckskin Stetson off my head.

The screen door slapped behind me as I bustled into the kitchen. James sat at the dining table, a large unfolded map before him as he used a drafting compass to pen a circle. 

His expression was unchanging, “What? Is he not working out?”

My  nostrils flared in anger as I poured myself a glass of water. When I was done, I took three clarifying deep breaths.

James set the compass down, looking at me, “Have him clean the stables, Mera. He’ll stay out of your hair. I promise.”

“You have one week to get your shit together, James. One week,” I stalked to the back door, grabbing the basket of produce I harvested from the garden that morning.

“Meredith, I'm working as fast as humanly possible, okay? You know how this works – there’s a lot of silence, a lot of waiting, and a lot of bureaucracy.”

“Looks like you're enjoying an off-grid vacation while you drink my damn coffee up, James. That's what it looks like,” I turned off the new pot of bean juice he had just finished brewing.

“Oh, come on,” he turned back to his map, holding out his mug to me, “Don't tell me that some part of you isn't humming with a sense of purposefulness.”