Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 136507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 683(@200wpm)___ 546(@250wpm)___ 455(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 683(@200wpm)___ 546(@250wpm)___ 455(@300wpm)
He clucks. “You know, I told Wyatt at least a dozen times over the years to get out of cattle and move into bison.”
“Why hasn’t he?”
“Says he likes his livestock dumb and slow.”
I snort. “Sounds like something he’d say.”
We watch the UTV vanish over a ridge, and the herd goes with it.
“Jon’s got it down to a science, managing the pastures for regrowth and seeding when we need it. There’s timothy and orchard grass growing over there. Red and white clover over there.” He gestures in the general areas. “Hay fields are doing well, but we’ve had to supplement with bales from the Shepherds’ lot in the winter, with how big the herd’s gotten. I warned him, we can’t grow any bigger. Hell, we’re already too big. The land can’t handle it and the herd will suffer.” He shakes his head. “Jon’s got all these grand ideas. He’s always chasing the next thing. Sometimes slow and steady is the right path. But him and Sarah buying up that acreage behind us will help.”
“Jack’s going to bring equipment in next week and start getting those stumps out before the winter hits.”
Dad peers over his shoulder at the chainsawed hunks of wood I loaded and brought in on a trailer this afternoon. “You’ve sure had a day, huh? Saved a woman’s life and then came home to cut down half the forest?”
“I don’t know about the saving part. She had a pulse when they took her away, but I guess we’ll see.” The woman was floating face down when I got to her. We managed to haul her into our boat without tipping it and then Jack raced us back to the landing while Jameson called 911 and I attempted to resuscitate her. EMS arrived in a helicopter to airlift her to North Bay. “They said the cold water could slow down the brain damage, but I don’t know. It didn’t look good. At least we got through to help.” Cell service is sporadic at best out there.
“Where’d you learn how to do that? The CPR.”
“Prison. A volunteer came in, offering to teach a class, so I signed up.” I signed up for everything and anything that came through there, not that there were a lot of options. I finished high school and took all the mandatory anger management and other rehabilitation courses. I even took a university course, thanks to a prison education program. It was a long and tedious process to get approved. The opportunity vanished after the incident with Dorsey. “I only ever practiced on a dummy, though. That was the first time I’ve tried it on a real person. Who knows if I did it right.”
“From Jack’s own words, you saw that woman and dove in without a thought about how cold it’d be.”
“Yeah, that water was fucking freezing.” I chuckle as I recall stripping off my clothes and swapping them for an extra pair in my cousin’s truck. We drove the entire ride home with the heat blasting to cut the chill, to no avail. I’m still cold, even after working out here all afternoon.
“Well …” My father mulls over his words in that way he always does, where his mouth seems to work them around before spitting them out. “I’d say you did it right, for whatever that’s worth. And it sounds like the EMS agreed.”
I harrumph, unfamiliar with anything that sounds like a compliment coming from him. “We gave them our names and info. OPP might show up later to take a statement.” They were on another call when this all went down.
My father hesitates. “Jon mentioned seeing Emery in the garage early this morning when he went to drop off a check.”
“Jon has a big mouth.”
He waits a beat and then adds, “She was there last night when I left too.”
When I don’t respond, he nods to himself, as if he’s gotten the answer he was looking for. “You know nothing can ever come of it, right?”
“Yeah, I’m well aware.” Painfully so. She made sure of that.
“Life sure has tested that woman.” My father stares into the distance, a hard, unreadable look there—classic Holt Landry. “After you went away, she faded. Lost that spark. That’s what Sandy kept saying, anyway. We all saw it too. Then again, you could probably say that about all of us after Jay—” He purses his lips as if catching himself before he goes down that path. “When Emery started seeing Dillon, we thought she might be coming around. And even though Isla wasn’t planned, Clive and Sandy didn’t care. They were so happy that Emery seemed content. But these last ten years …” He shakes his head. “Dillon turned out to be a poor excuse for a husband. Then Clive died, followed by Sandy not long after. That was a damn shock to all of us.”