The man was sixty-two and he had more land than Hix figured took up the whole of the town proper of Glossop.
He was a rancher, not a farmer, as his father (this happening twice over) had been, all of them expanding the ranch and the head of cattle on it to the point they didn’t see lean years like other ranchers sometimes had to endure. His sons worked with him as well as both owning their own small farms. His daughter worked for him too, doing the books, dealing with the auctions, making the sales of steer sperm, overseeing her brothers’ individual accounts, their farm business, and all the rest that was required, which was a lot with an operation that large.
For the men, the work was honest, but hard and never-ending.
Even so, Jep looked his age, not a day younger, but not a day older either.
Except right then.
Right then he looked about a hundred.
“Jep,” Hix called.
His ex-father-in-law turned his eyes to Hix and requested, “Can I ask one thing of you, Hixon?”
“Hate to say it how I gotta say it, but it depends on what that thing is.”
Jep accepted that with a nod.
“What it is, is that I know it’s none of my business, wasn’t when you were with my daughter, isn’t now. But can I ask if you’re needin’ to use that money your uncle gave you to buy you a new place?”
Hix straightened from the desk, surprised this was something he wanted to know.
Surprised, but there was no reason not to tell him.
“No choice,” he shared. “Had to use some of it on a lawyer and setting up the apartment too. Why?”
Jep’s eyes went even sadder and he shook his head. “Just . . . guess . . .” He pulled in breath, looking like he was struggling, and Hix hated watching a man who was always so sure of himself going through that. Finally, he got where he needed to go. “Wanna know you’re covered, son.”
This wasn’t surprising.
Hix had a great dad.
But Jep still was like a father to him and had always treated him not like a son-in-law, but like a son.
Not to mention, Hix had Jep’s grandchildren half the time.
“I’m good, Jep. Kids’re good. We’re lookin’ at houses. We’ll be settled soon.”
“Unh-hunh,” Jep mumbled.
“We’re okay and it’ll get better, time passes,” Hix assured him quietly.
Jep nodded.
Then he lifted himself up, faced Hix dead on and declared, “We spoiled her. Our last. A girl. Marie wanted one so bad. I didn’t admit it, but I did too. Let her have her way until it was time to stop doin’ that, then she set about makin’ things her way and we shoulda nipped that in the bud too. We just didn’t, and now—”
Hix cut him off. “Jep, now she’s an adult and she needs to bear the consequences of her actions, not you. Not Marie. This isn’t on you. Or Marie. And further, no need to find a place to lay blame. What’s done is done. It’s over. We just gotta find our way to move past it and settle in.”
“Reckon you’re right,” Jep muttered.
“No choice but to be right about that,” Hix told him.
His shoulders slumped, the light in his eyes dimmed, and Hix wished he’d found different words or not said anything at all.
“We’ll miss you at our Thanksgiving table, Hixon,” Jep told him.
“And I’ll miss being there, Jep,” Hix replied.
Jep brightened. “Maybe one day, you all get settled in, we’ll all—”
“Jep,” Hix said carefully.
“Yup. Yup,” Jep replied, catching his meaning and nodding. “You’re right, Hix.” He took his big, calloused hand from his chair and lifted it Hix’s way, pressing it toward him a couple of times, saying “Best be leavin’ you alone. No need to follow me out, know my way.”
Hix stood where he was and watched Jep walk slowly to the door.
He stopped in it and turned.
“End this the only way I can,” he stated. “And that’s to tell you the God’s honest truth. Me and Marie, we want you to be happy. Cook and Jessie do too. Reed, he spoils his sister more than any of us ever did, he’s not handlin’ things well, but he’ll come around. His Molly’s already there.” He gave a grin he didn’t even try to make Hix believe was real. “But she’s always been the sharper tack between those two. Smartest thing Reed’s done is make that woman his wife, and you know I’ve said that to his face so you don’t gotta keep it under your hat, mostly ’cause Reed agrees with me. But we all . . . just to say, we all . . .” He smacked his lips, held Hix’s eyes, and finished, “Don’t care what no papers say. You’ll always be family, son. Not my grandbabies’ daddy. Family, Hixon. The real kind. Always.”
Hix found he had to clear his throat before he replied, “Same.”
Jep nodded quickly and repeatedly and murmured, “Let you get to work.” And on that, he opened the door and walked out.
Bets walked in.
Damn.
“Bets—” he started.
She interrupted him.
“The Mortimers called. They just got home from a weekend in Lincoln. Home game. Made a thing of it and cashed in some freebie they’d won for a double-night stay at a Best Western. Got back this mornin’, found someone painted graffiti on their barn. They’re ticked. They want someone out there. I’d say I’d go with Hal, but, don’t get pissed, he’s being more of a dick than normal and I’m fed up with his crap. So just wanna ask, can I go alone?”
Butch Mortimer was born in a bad mood and he was big as a house.
His wife Louella didn’t come straight from the loins of her momma. She came straight from the loins of Satan.
No way in hell he was sending Bets out there to deal with those two alone.
And this would take some time. Time to listen to Butch shouting. Time to listen to Louella bitching. Time to ask the questions that might give them answers that possibly might pinpoint the actual person who graffitied their barn rather than the dozens of suspects who disliked them enough to be moved to do it.
Shit.
Apparently, he’d have to ask Greta to lunch tomorrow.
He moved from his spot, saying, “We’ll both go.”
She looked panicked.
She’d have to get over it.
He was her boss. They had to work together so she had to find a way to make that work.
She might as well start now.
That night, after they did not narrow down the suspects of the barn taggers, and after Hix had gone to the gym to work out, he sat at a stool at the bar of the Outpost between his buds, Toast and Tommy, watching Monday Night Football on Betty-Jean’s eighty-inch TV.
His gut was full of wings and pop and his mind was full of football and the lunch he hoped to share tomorrow with Greta.
In other words, he was feeling good.
Until his phone rang, he lifted it from the bar and the screen said Hope Calling.
Toast made a grunt, but then again Toast had had his own bitter divorce from his wife two years previously. Tommy just shifted on his stool, giving Hix a half-grimace that said he felt Hix’s pain even though he was a confirmed bachelor so he couldn’t even come close to doing that.
They’d seen the screen.
For Hix’s part, she had his kids, he had to take the call.