Authors: Nadene Seiters
They’re sitting down to a meal of leftovers from the night
before of another roast when Cassidy sits down at the table with yogurt. Troy
idly wonders if the girl eats anything else when she plops it in front of her
father and takes the roast right out from under his fork. She plucks the fork
from his hand before he can comprehend with is happening and starts eating his
leftovers instead.
“So I think Sky Runner is ready today.” Her father grunts as
he dips into the yogurt.
“You said that yesterday.” He tells her, makes a disgusted
face when he tastes the yogurt, but swallows it anyway. “And the day before.”
He reminds her.
“I know, but I really think today is it!” She doesn’t say
any more on the subject, and Troy wonders if this is how their conversations normally
go. Do they usually just say a few sentences and quiet down? If this were his
family, he cuts that thought off and focuses on his leftovers. He’s starving
after this morning and doesn’t think that this will be enough to hold him off
until dinner. But it’ll have to do.
As soon as lunch is through, Troy grabs his dirty boots and
heads back to the barn. He starts on Beethoven’s stall first and replaces a few
worn looking boards. With the drill, the work goes pretty fast, and he has
half the barn done within a few hours, so he decides to take a quick break.
What he doesn’t bargain on is hearing Cassidy arguing with her father in the
training ring. Thinking they’re arguing about the horse, Troy steps up to the
barn door opening closest to the ring and watches.
“You don’t have to worry, Dad! He’s a convicted felon in my
eyes, and I don’t go for that type.” Cassidy’s voice carries over the lawn, and
she sounds indignant. This must have been going on for a while now.
“I know you don’t, Cass, but I just don’t want you to forget
that. I don’t think he’s an awful person per se, but he’s dangerous.” Her body
is positioned towards the horse, but her shoulders and her back stiffen as she
stands up straighter.
“I can handle myself. I don’t need you to protect me all the
time!” She has to be in her early to mid-twenties, and Troy’s not so sure about
the fact that she can handle herself. Her way of making friends is a bit
unconventional, and she has a pretty crass mouth on her when she’s upset.
Overall, Troy’s glad that he’s not her type. He’d rather go for a woman who
knows how to be gentle and kind, not one that could turn on him in a heartbeat.
“Honey,” Grant’s voice trails off in Troy’s direction and he
steps back into the shadows of the barn. If they don’t want someone listening,
maybe they should have this conversation elsewhere. Cassidy turns back to her
father with her arms wide.
“You don’t have to worry!” She lets out a laugh as if that’s
supposed to make the argument better and turns on her heel just outside the
barn door. When she’s in front of him, she stops but doesn’t turn. Her eyes
remain on the floor of the barn aisle as she puts her hands in her jeans
pockets.
“He doesn’t have to worry, right?” She whispers to the man
standing in the dark. Troy crosses his arms over his chest and doesn’t answer
her for a long time.
“No, he doesn’t have to worry.” He’s not sure if she was
asking about the possibility of him being attracted to her, or the possibility
that he can hurt her. Either way, her father has no reason to worry about Troy
Red slipping in bed beside his daughter. She’s too dangerous for that.
Cassidy walks away from him with her chin held high, and her
back ramrod straight. Just before her face is out of his sight, he sees a flash
of indignation and figures that the look is actually meant for her father.
After she’s out of sight, Grant comes stomping through the barn. He stops by
Troy and glances at him. Then he looks forward as he works his jaw for a
second.
“You heard that.” Troy doesn’t answer. His silence seems to
be an answer enough for Grant to go on. “I don’t think you’re a bad person,
son.” There is a ‘but’ at the end of that sentence that’s not spoken aloud, and
Troy lets his arms uncross.
“I am a bad person, Robert Grant. Don’t ever forget that.”
Grant looks in the eyes of a killer and nods once before he heads after his
daughter. It’s best to destroy the fantasy now that Troy Red will be anything
but a dishonest person. He may work hard, and he may not hurt women, but that
does not make him someone to respect.
Hours after the argument and after Troy’s confession of
being someone to fear, he sits down on the front porch with his dinner. He
doesn’t feel right eating at the kitchen table with people who make an honest living
without hurting others, and he can’t take the pitying looks that Cassidy is
throwing his direction any more. He licks the last drops of yogurt off the
spoon and figures that eating this will make up for all the calories he consumed
this morning.
The front porch door closes audibly behind him, but he
doesn’t turn around to see who it is. Cassidy doesn’t say goodbye or look back
as she walks to her truck. She slides in behind the wheel of the old pickup and
just as she’s about to reverse, she glances up. Troy makes sure not to smile
when she tries for one, and turns his attention back to his yogurt cup.
She’s going to be sour in the morning, but even though she’s
feisty, she’s not malicious enough to get into bed with the likes of him.
There’s some clanking around inside, and then a silence
followed by the front door opening and closing. Grant positions himself on the
porch swing as he packs tobacco into a pipe and lights it. He takes a few drags
before he sets the pipe down and looks out at the barn while the sun starts to become
low in the sky. The horses are still out, and he’ll be putting them away in
about ten or fifteen minutes.
“You want to tell me about it?” He asks as he looks at the
glowing trees. People in town have already been asking him about the late night
visitor he got, and they’re not going to stop gossiping until Troy shows
himself. He has to have some type of backup story soon, or it’ll attract too
much attention and Troy will have to leave like the last one.
“Can’t,” the young man says as he pulls off his boots. He
sets his socked feet onto the wooden steps of the porch as he listens to the
night sounds of the country starting.
“Can’t or won’t?” Grant pushes a little before he takes
another puff of the pipe. He’s looking at the back of Troy’s head now and sees
the muscles in his neck twitching as his pulse increases.
“Both,” Troy answers before he stands up and goes inside the
house. Grant looks at the sky for a few moments before he puts out the pipe and
meanders down to the barn. Troy watches him from the window beside the door
until the old man disappears, and heads upstairs for a shower.
Images of his sister lying gutted on the kitchen floor with
three fingers cut off makes his stomach roil, and he’s glad he had yogurt as he
wretches into the toilet. There isn’t much to come up. He clings to the sink as
he sips on some water, and then looks up at the face of a monster. If he had
just stayed away from them, they would still be alive, and he would be numb as
he used to be.
Now that he’s been forced to feel something, it’s starting
to pile up on him like boulders. Narrowing his eyes, he looks away from the man
in the mirror and hops into the shower where he tries to think about anything
else but his dead family. Thinking about the blonde agent from the hotel two
nights ago doesn’t help him much either. It just makes him feel like a prick.
“You have the address of the mark, why do you need the
reason?” His voice is deep on the other end of the phone, too deep to be his
real voice. The man must be using an app to make it sound different if it’s even
a man at all.
“The reason is important. I don’t just kill anyone for
anything.” The man known as Troy answers calmly as he stares down at the
address on the piece of paper.
“You’re a killer for hire! You’re paid to ask no
questions and kill whomever you’re instructed to. I paid good money for this!”
Troy rolls his eyes to the ceiling of his apartment as he leans the stool he’s
sitting on back.
“I’ll refund it. Just tell me why you need this
particular guy dead.” There’s a silence on the other end as the person seems to
reconsider their position on the subject. Then they finally answer.
“He killed my husband and left my children without a
father. I want him to pay for what he’s done.” He feels his mouth go dry when
he realizes it’s a woman he’s speaking with. Troy switches the disposable
cellphone to his other ear and stares down at his name on the piece of paper
along with his address. It’s not the first time he’s heard of a client hiring a
hit man to kill himself. He just never thought it would happen to him.
“How long ago did this happen, ma’am?” He sips on some
water from a glass and turns his head when his door begins to creak open. Troy
slams the stool down and hangs up the phone abruptly as his little niece comes
waddling through the doorway. His sister slips through behind her daughter and
smiles at him warmly with a bag in her hands. None of his family knows what he
does for a living, and if they did, they wouldn’t speak to him.
Troy pockets the piece of paper, and like any good man,
he puts work aside for his family. But the piece of paper is burning a hole in
his pocket while he devours Chinese food and listens to his niece’s trivial
complaints. They’re not inconsequential to her, so Troy pays the utmost attention
and answers her accordingly.
He wakes up with the sheets tangled around him and a cold
sweat soaking him. Troy stares up at the dark ceiling for what seems like a
long time, but is only a few minutes. Each breath is like a burning poker down
his throat as he clamps his eyes tight against the tears. They were too innocent
to die the way they did, and he did it to them.
When the heavy weight on his chest finally lifts enough that
he can draw in a normal breath, Troy glances at the clock on the nightstand
beside his bed. The red, glowing digits tell him that he’s fifteen minutes
early, but he turns off the alarm and slides out of bed anyway. This morning he
does sixty pushups before he makes his bed military style.
Grant isn’t downstairs this morning; thus Troy has to make
his own cup of coffee. He roots around the refrigerator for the ingredients to start
the eggs and fumbles around with making hash browns. He has a hard time with
it, and ends up making French fries in the pan with an extra helping of butter.
Grant shouldn’t mind.
The old man’s shuffling footsteps alert Troy to his presence
coming down the stairs, and Troy realizes the man looks a lot worse when he
hasn’t had the time to get started on his own coffee. He’s like a zombie as he
fixes himself a cup, which consists of pouring the coffee in and nothing else. After
four sips, he looks a little less worse for the wear.
“The last time a guy was here, it took him six days to make
his own breakfast.” Grant rubs at his eyes and stifles a yawn with his fist as
he stares into the pan of fries. His eyebrow quirks at the same time that his
lips twist wryly at the corners. “Not sure how to make hash browns?” Troy
shrugs and begins plating without an answer.
He’s not in the mood to talk this morning. Grant seems to understand
that as they sit down, and he seems mechanical at he eats. Troy isn’t any better.
“Cassidy’s not coming to exercise the horses today. She’s
not feeling well, so I’m going to need your help with that.” A fry gets caught
in the hit man’s throat, and he gently beats on his chest with a fist as he
coughs, attempting to dislodge it.
“I’m sorry, what did you just say?” Grant has a gleam in his
eye that is a little too mischievous for Troy’s taste.
“I’ll need your help with the horses.”
Yeah, that’s what
I thought you said
Troy mentally adds as he digs into his eggs. Today is
only going to get worse it seems.
“What’s wrong with Cassidy?” The old man glances up at him
and shrugs a shoulder as he takes both their plates and starts to rinse them.
“Don’t walk behind him! Don’t you remember what happened
last time you did that with a horse?” Grant’s loud tone is not going to help
the situation, but Troy does as the old man says and remains in front of the
horse. Beethoven is not fond of him, and it’s obvious by the way the horse’s
eyes roll back into his head when Troy gets close.
The chestnut mustang stomps his feet with his agitation and
chomps at his bit while Troy tries to get him to walk out to the ring. His
chest still aches from the other day, and last night he bled a little on his
shirt. Beethoven sidesteps away from the man leading him and throws his head up
into the air. There’s enough of a lead that it doesn’t jerk Troy forward, but
he braces for it anyway.
“Calm down! The way you’re feeling right now is the way he
feels about you. He can smell your fear from the way you’re perspiring, and he
can see the way your muscles are tensed each time you make eye contact. Take in
a few deep breaths and relax.” The old man speaks as if he’s talking to a
child, and Troy, against his better judgment, closes his eyes as he holds onto
the lead. Instead of focusing on the fact that a one thousand pound horse is in
front of him, he tries to think about something that used to make him happy.
“The pony should be purple! That one’s not green!” Her
chubby fingers grab for the crayon before Troy can ruin the coloring book, and
he takes the purple one she hands him. Lilly’s fingers grasp for a pink one as
she starts coloring her own My Little Pony picture that Troy hunted the
internet for.
“Sorry, kid. I’ll get it right someday.” There’s a lot in
those words. Spending time with her makes him remember that there is something good
in this world.
“Someday,” her tiny voice pipes up as she reaches a hand
over to put on his forearm. Warmth envelopes him as he colors in her coloring
book, a privilege that no one else has. She reminds him love still exists.
“Whatever it is you’re thinking of, it’s working.” The voice
by his ear makes him jump and almost yelp at the same time. He’s getting slow
since he hasn’t been on the job in over three weeks. Cassidy’s hand is resting
on his arm where he imagined Lilly’s to be just moments before.
“What are you doing here? You’re Dad said you weren’t coming
today because you’re sick.” Her hand slides off his arm as she turns to look at
her father sitting on one of the fences with his eyes upon them. Troy doubts he
can see the frown from this distance, but it’s right there between her
eyebrows.
“I’m not sick, but he did say he didn’t need me today. I figure
he’s just upset about yesterday.” Cassidy takes the lead from his hand, and he
lets it slide out easily. Beethoven is grazing about six feet in front of him,
but his ears are still pointed towards Troy as if he’s on alert. The horse does
seem calmer.
“I can take it from here. Beethoven can be a bit of a prick
sometimes. He has a mind of his own, and he doesn’t like to take orders.”
Before he can stop himself, Troy hides a chuckle with a cough and turns away.
“What’s funny about that?”
“It’s just, I think I know how he feels. Taking orders
sucks.” Now that he’s free of horse walking duty, Troy takes his leave of the
woman, and her mustang to clean the stalls. Grant slides off his fence and
follows after the stranger on his farm.
Robert Grant can’t stop thinking about the mystery man who
showed up early in the morning on his farm after he received a phone call only twenty-four
hours ahead of time. He’s never told what it is that these men had done before
they were enrolled in the program, but he is told what type of risk they
entail. Troy Red is the most dangerous man he’s ever let into his home, and all
he knows is that the fellow killed people.
It’s not that he doesn’t like the boy, but Cassidy can fall
easily when she has a mind to. Grant doesn’t want his daughter getting involved
with a man that will lie to her. It’s not a matter of if but when. Yet
something intrigues him whenever the man lets his guard down for a few seconds.
“Troy!” Grant calls out, grabbing one of the shovels from
the tack room. He puts on a smile for the newcomer and tries to push aside his
worries. “You did good.” He takes the shovel from Troy that has a splintering
handle and replaces it with the better one. Then he wanders off to check his
fields.
As he shovels, Troy attempts to think of anything but his
niece who just enjoyed coloring in her pictures. Life was good until he screwed
up, and now he has to deal with the consequences of involving them with him at
all. He should have done just as other hit men do, disappear from their family’s
lives and forget they exist.
It’s not until the barn door slams shut that he realizes
he’s been shoveling the same stall for over half an hour. It’s scraped so clean
he’ll barely have to hose it down at this point. Cassidy is pulling off her
gloves and shaking her hair out of her face when he glances up. Their eyes meet
for an instant, and he sees the flush on her face when she heads for the tack
room. Is she embarrassed about yesterday, or something else?
Thinking about it is only going to get you in more
trouble.
Troy moves on to the next stall before he can get into any more
trouble with Grant’s daughter. If he stays away from her as much as possible,
he won’t be tempted to test the waters with her. One second he feels cold
towards her, but when she’s off guard and uncaring, she reminds him of a
sweeter life.
The sound of their shovels scraping on the concrete floors
is the only noise in the barn when Grant walks in through the doors with dirt
all over him and his hair sticking up at odd angles. He’s suspicious of the
silence, but doesn’t say anything as he walks to the tack room to put his
gloves away. Troy is in the third stall down, so he leans against the sliding
door and watches the man’s back bunch with his labor. It’s obvious he’s
attempting to work something off, but Grant doubts he’ll talk about it.
“The hay will be ready tomorrow. It’s already dry in this
heat. Do you think you’ll be up to it?” Troy’s grunt is the only answer he
gets, so he moves on to Cassidy’s stall and leans against the door. She’s
working just as hard as the man across the aisle from her.
“I’ll be ready, Dad.” She says without looking up at him.
There’s a bead of sweat that drips off her nose and Grant wonders what she’s
trying to prove. The girl always tries to do better than everyone around her.
It’s going to end up being her downfall one day.
“How are the stocks treating you?” He asks her idly to make
conversation. Troy’s shovel pauses for half a second before he realizes that
he’s let on he’s listening.
“They’re good. That little business I invested in is doing
quite well. The other one is floundering, but I think they’ll pick up.” Her
breathing is labored, but she doesn’t slow down. Her pace is almost as fast as Grant’s,
but she’s starting to wane.
“That’s good. Are Hannah and her mother making it up today?”
The shovel in Troy’s stall pauses again, but it doesn’t start up. Grant notices
and Cassidy’s own shovel stops as she looks up. She sees the tormented look on Troy’s
face before he turns away from the both of them, but Grant doesn’t see it. He
does see the curiosity on his daughter’s face and feels his heart sink. She’s
interested.
“Yeah, they’ll be here around three.” Troy’s shovel starts
up again with renewed vigor, and Cassidy starts up again. They work in tandem
for a few minutes before Grant slaps the wood on the door and smiles at his
daughter before he leaves to find equipment to clean. There is always something
to be done on a farm.
“You don’t like kids?” The question is unexpected and
startles Troy into stopping his work again. He leans on his shovel as he stares
at the working conveyor belt. Then he finishes up the stall and moves on to the
next one without answering her.
Cassidy starts in the stall beside him and pauses as she
leans on the boards separating the two stalls. She has to boost herself up so
that she can see over and rests her chin on her forearms. The unruly pink
stripe twists forward and gets into her eyes as she watches Troy attacking the
straw. Something is obviously bothering him.
“What’s your beef with kids?” He flinches at her terminology
and scowls while he dumps the pile on the conveyor belt.
“I don’t have a beef with kids.” Troy’s eyes dart up to look
at her blue ones, and she sees the lie in them. He’s awfully tense today, and
she remembers what happened the last time she egged him on. But there are
boards separating them this time; thus she feels a little safer.
“Then why are you flinching every time I mention one. Did
you have kids?” A muscle begins to twitch in his jaw, and she starts to prepare
herself to duck or run, maybe both.
“No, I didn’t have kids of my own. You’re awfully nosy, you
know.” She ignores his attempt at turning the conversation around to her and
narrows her eyes at his behavior.
“But you had a kid, or kids, that looked up to you.” He
stops and turns his back on her, but she can see the red starting on his neck.
Cassidy slowly lowers herself to the stall floor and backs away from the wall.
She’s afraid she’s pushed him too far again today.
“Nosy, and observant,” She hears him mutter before the
scraping starts again. Feeling that she’s pushed her luck for the day, Cassidy
leaves the rest of the stalls to the mystery man and goes to find her father.
Troy feels relief when he hears her receding footsteps and stops to wipe at the
sweat on his face. He won’t admit to the fact that it’s more than sweat dripping
off his chin.
Cassidy leans against her truck while Troy’s head remains
under the hood of her pickup truck. She can hear him tinkering with something,
but doesn’t say a word to him as he works. Her goal was to learn one thing
about his past life, and learning that he was some sort of family man makes her
feel accomplished today. Her father is sitting on the porch in the unseasonably
warm air with a pipe in his mouth. He’s reading a book. His back started
acting up during lunch, and she threatened to destroy the tractor so he
couldn’t use it tomorrow if he didn’t rest.
At the sound of a jeep trudging up the gravel driveway, Troy’s
head finally turns so that Cassidy can see his face with grease prints on it.
He’s squinting at the vehicle as if it’s imperative that he sees the driver,
and she wonders what he’s worried about. To quell the sudden stiffness from his
worry, Cassidy steps in front of him.
“It’s Hannah and her mother, Jody. Try to be nice.” He has
the desired reaction when he stands up and puts the wrench down to wipe his
hands.
“You’re carburetor needs cleaned. You should take it to a
shop.” Cassidy crosses her arms over her chest and looks at where he was
tinkering. It’s obvious because it’s actually clean. Her lips pinch together as
she studies it.
“You can’t do it for me?” A door slams behind her, and Troy
seems to clam up immediately. Jody’s a pretty woman, but she has a feeling it’s
not Jody who has made him tense.
“Cassie!” Turning around to tackle the little girl with fair
brown hair and hazel eyes, Cassidy swoops her up into a dirty hug. Her mother
gets out of the car after the six year old and starts lugging a bag out of the
back. The old man stands up to help the woman up the drive, but Troy’s there
before he can hobble down the steps with his bad back.
“Thank you, you must be Troy. Everyone in town has been
talking about you already. If you don’t show your face soon, you’ll get the title
of hermit!” Jody’s chatter never seems to cease, but her daughter hasn’t
uttered a word since she caught sight of the bulky man carrying her small bag.
“Why so shy?” Cassidy whispers to Hannah as she sits the kid
down on the ground. Her hand remains in Cassidy’s as her fingers grip tight.
“Who is that?” She’s not usually so clingy, but Troy seems
to disturb her more than most. Feeling a twinge of protectiveness, Cassidy
steers her little ward up the steps to her father as Troy drops the bag off at
the top of the steps. He looks like he desperately wants to get away from Jody’s
chatter about the last man who visited Robert Grant.
His expression is of polite interest, but Cassidy can see
the twitch in his jaw and the impatience in his eyes. She decides to intervene
before Jody finds herself the recipient of horse shit flung at her and leaves
Hannah at Grant’s side.
“It’s a little hot to be riding today, unfortunately. But if
you had plans, she can stay here for the two hours we agreed on. Maybe we can
brush off a few of the horses.” Cassidy effectively takes the attention off
Troy and moves it to Hannah’s well-being and the plan for her. He takes a few
steps back and starts fiddling with some hoses in Cassidy’s truck to make
himself look busy. He honestly just wants a hole to swallow him up because he
can feel Hannah and Grant’s eyes on his back.
“That’s fine. I actually have a yoga class I’m supposed to
be at in town. It’ll probably only be me and a few other ladies today, but
Hannah always gets so bored there. Are you sure you don’t mind?” Cassidy
assures the woman that she doesn’t. “It was nice meeting you Troy!” Jody calls
back as she flounces down the driveway in her flip flops. She’s a pretty woman
in her late thirties with stringy, black hair and hazel eyes.
While she seems likeable, Troy doesn’t seem interested when
he glances up at her to watch her walk back. It’s just male curiosity that has
him looking in the first place. He didn’t see a ring on her finger, so he
assumes that the girl’s father most likely is not in the picture. Yet he could
be wrong. There are more and more couples not getting married anymore.
“See something you like?” Cassidy has amusement in her voice
when she asks, but Grant recognizes his daughter’s sarcasm starting. He clears
his throat as he puts out his pipe and steers Hannah into the house with her
bag. He waits in the doorway as if Cassidy is going to head in with them, but
she remains by the truck stubbornly.