“Um, McBride, ma’am. Henry McBride.” Henry slowly started following her.

“Well, Mr. McBride. What can I do for you?”

“Actually,” Henry shook his head slightly, still not believing he was getting ready to say it out loud. “I was wonderin’ if you needed any help around the place.” He winced.

“Looking for a job, are ya?

“Yes ma’am. I guess I am.”

Jessie pushed the wheelbarrow out on to the ramp and tipped it up against a stop nailed to the end of the board so the wheelbarrow wouldn’t fall into the spreader. The wheelbarrow was nearly as heavy as Jessie and she struggled to get it dumped. After heaving it into place, she dropped it back down onto the ramp, wiped the sweat from her nose with her shirtsleeve, and scraped some of the remaining manure from the bottom of the wheelbarrow with her hand. She threw it into the spreader as well. “You must not be from around here. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you before.”

“No ma’am, I’m not.”

“Where are you from?”

“Most recent, up near Elko.”

“That’s all cattle country up there.”

“Yes, ma’am. It is.”

Jessie extended her now slightly manure-covered hand for Henry to shake, and Henry, undaunted, reached out and shook it. “So you’re a cowboy?”

“Yes, I am.”

“You any good, I mean as a cowhand?”

“Yes ma’am. Real good.”

Jessie pushed the wheelbarrow back the way they had just come, and Henry followed. She’d seen hundreds of broke-down cowboys in her time at the ranch, all of them coming around, hat in hands looking for work when no one else would have them. She’d even given a few of them a job, only to find she shouldn’t have. If they weren’t trying to steal from her, they were off getting drunk and coming in the next day late, if they came in at all. Some would just disappear, slinking off into the night about the same way they came slinking in.

“If you’re a real good cowboy, then what are you doing hunting up a job at a guest ranch? Why aren’t you out chasing cattle?”

Henry stopped in his tracks and let out a tired, deep sigh. She was right. If he was the cow hand he thought he was, or if he hadn’t been living out of a bottle for the past seventeen years, he’d be trailing cattle out in the big wide open somewhere, not begging a job that meant watching a dudes fall off horses his grandmother could have rode.

“Sorry for taking your time, ma’am. I’ll just be on my way.”

Henry tipped his hat, turned and started to walk back toward his truck. There was something in Henry’s voice that struck a chord with Jessie. With the other cowhands that came around looking for work, no matter how down and out they seemed to be, they always had an arrogance about them, as if their presence on her ranch was some kind of gift they were giving her. This Henry McBride was different. There was no arrogance to him, but rather what seemed to be a profound sadness. Her last question to him had been chosen carefully. It was meant to cut the cowboy and discourage him from wanting him to stay. She had enough trouble with the help she already had this season, not the least of which was Chad, who she regretted not firing when she had the chance. Still, she realized her words discouraged the cowboy even more than he already was, and almost as soon as she had asked him the question, she was sorry she had.