The Searcher(29)

“You’ve a good way with them,” Lena says. “If you want one, you can have one.”

Cal wasn’t aware, till that moment, that he was being evaluated. “I’ll take a week or two to think it over,” he says. “If that’s all right.”

Lena, her face turned to him, has that amused look again. “Did I give you a fright, with all that talk about the blow-ins packing it in after one winter?”

“It’s not that,” Cal says, a little taken aback.

“I told you, most of them last six months. You’re here, what now, four? Don’t worry, you won’t be setting any records if you cut and run.”

“I want to be sure I’ll do a dog justice,” Cal says. “It’s a responsibility.”

Lena nods. “True enough,” she says. There’s a slight lift to her eyebrow; he can’t tell whether she believes him. “Let me know whenever you make your mind up, so. Is there one that takes your fancy? You’re the first person I’ve offered; you can have your pick.”

“Well,” Cal says, running a finger down the runt’s back, “I like the looks of this one right here. He’s already proved he’s no quitter.”

“I’ll tell people he’s spoken for,” Lena says. “If anyone asks. If you want to come up and see how he’s growing, give me a ring first to make sure I’m about—I’ll give you my number. I work odd hours, some days.”

“Where do you work at?”

“In a stable the other side of Boyle. I do the books, but sometimes I give a hand with the horses as well.”

“Did you use to have those? As well as the cattle?”

“Not of our own. We boarded a few.”

“Sounds like you had a pretty serious operation here,” Cal says. The runt has rolled over in his palm; he tickles its tummy. “This must be a big change.”

He’s not expecting her swift curl of a grin. “You’ve got it in your head I’m a poor lonesome widow woman devastated by losing the farm where she and her man worked their fingers to the bone. Haven’t you?”

“Something like that,” Cal admits, grinning back. He always did have a weakness for women who were a step ahead of him, although look where that got him.

“Not a bit of it,” Lena says cheerfully. “I was only delighted to be rid of the bastard. We worked our fingers to the bone, all right, and Sean never stopped worrying that we’d go bankrupt, and then he started drinking to ease the worry. The three things between them gave him the heart attack.”

“Noreen told me he died. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“It was almost three years back. I’m getting used to it, bit by bit.” She rubs behind the mama dog’s ear; the dog narrows her eyes in bliss. “But I held it against the farm. Couldn’t wait to get the place off my hands.”

“Huh,” Cal says. It occurs to him that Lena is talking pretty freely to someone she’s hardly met, and that most people he’s known to do that were either crazy or looking to lower his guard for their own purposes, but from her it doesn’t make him wary. He’s aware that, however revealing this conversation might appear to be, the vast majority of her is held so far apart as to be imperceptible. “Your husband wouldn’t leave it, huh?”

“Not a chance. Sean needed the freedom. He couldn’t stick the thought of working for some other man. For me”—she tilts her head at her surroundings—“this is freedom. Not the other. When I walk out of work, I’m done. No being dragged out of bed at three in the morning because a calving’s going wrong. I like the horses, but I like them even better now that I can leave them at the end of the day.”

“Makes plenty of sense to me,” Cal says. “And it worked out that simple?”

She shrugs. “More or less. Sean’s sisters were bulling: the family farm, sold away before he was even cold in the ground, that kind of thing. They wanted me to let their sons work it, then leave it to them when I die. I decided I could live without them better than I could live with this place still on my back. I never liked them much anyway.”

Cal laughs, and after a moment Lena does too. “They think I’m a cold bitch,” she says. “Maybe they’re right. But there’s ways I’m happier now than I’ve ever been.” She nods at the runt, who’s flipped himself right side up and is squeaking furiously enough that his mama’s ears prick up. “Will you look at that fella. I don’t know where he’s going to put it, but he’s looking for more.”

“I’ll let you all go back to business,” Cal says, sliding the pup gently back into the box, where he squirms in among his brothers and sisters, heading for food. “And I’ll get back to you about this little guy.”

Lena doesn’t invite him in for a cup of tea, or walk him to the main road. She nods good-bye outside her front door and goes inside, Nellie bouncing after her, without even waving him off. All the same, Cal leaves her place feeling more cheerful than he has all day.

This mood lasts until he gets home, when he discovers that someone has let the air out of all four of his tires.

“Kid!” he yells, at the top of his lungs. “Get out here!”

The garden is silent, except for the rooks jeering back at him.