Cowboy Take Me Away

Chapter 2

Everybody left the ranch in the early evening. I'd come up to the house at the end of the day because I noticed a large group of people gathered up close. I saw Lee in his bullet proof vest, carrying an assault rifle, and ran to catch up with him. "What's going on?" I asked. "You look like you're prepping for war."

"We kind of are," Lee replied.

"What does that mean?"

"Well, my group is going to get those cows back off of the Reservation," he explained as we kept moving.

"And the other group?"

"Diverting a river," he said dismissively.

"Oh, okay," I replied, like that was no big deal. Colby, one of the ranch hands, strapping a crate of dynamite to a horse, did not escape my notice.

Lee told me not to bother with making dinner, because he'd be really late. That was the last thing he said to me... "Don't worry about dinner. It's going to be a late one."

I felt a deep sense of dread as I watched everyone leave, including my father, who was leaving in the chopper. I gave Ryan a small nod as he rode by, following Lee's group out to the main road.

Rip, my father's most trusted soldier, was leading the second group of people.

"Good luck," I said, as he passed.

"We'll be fine, Charlie," Rip replied with a nod.

I walked up to the porch when everyone was gone, and sat in one of the chairs, looking out over the fields. Beth stepped outside a while later, and sat down in the chair next to me. "Do you have some aversion to coming inside?" She asked. 

"Just don't feel like it," I shrugged. "Are we alone out here?" I asked, looking up at her. It was eerily quiet, and it just didn't feel right.

"No, Jamie's inside," she replied, sitting down in the chair next to mine. "But otherwise, I think so." 

We sat in silence for a bit, until it got dark. Neither group had come back to the ranch yet. "Do you ever get the feeling that something bad is about to happen? Like, something bad is about to happen, and there's nothing you can do to stop it?" I asked, looking over at my older sister.

"No," Beth said, shaking her head. "But it's freezing out here. We can wait for them inside." She stood up and motioned for me to come with her. "Come on, Charlie. I'd put good money on the fact that you haven't eaten since breakfast, and you're starving right now."

"You don't cook," I mumbled.

"No, but Gator said leftovers are in the fridge," she told me. Gator is the cook who works in the main house. Usually, I cook for Lee and I because by the end of the day, neither of us feel like going up to the main house to eat. We'd only go up for special occasions - or if there was something that Dad really needed all of us at the table to discuss.

"If I go in and eat something, will you let me come back out here and wait for them?" I asked, hoping to appease her.

"I can live with that."

I got up and followed Beth into the kitchen, only to find Jamie leaning against the counter, eating something out of a plastic container. There was a tense silence as I picked through the fridge to find the least objectionable choice. I looked at the sheet of instructions Gator left for warming it up before I put the container of pasta in the microwave.

"Drinking your dinner?" Jamie asked Beth as she poured herself a glass of wine.

"Cheers," Beth replied, holding her glass up in a mock toast.