Chapter Text
He was drowning in southwestern charm. Something he’d been away from for so long that the scene almost felt like a novelty to him.
It was the brutal heat of the Arizona summers that the property’s owners were looking to escape. Ana had eloped, reappeared into the world with a mountain of a man on her arm and officially in retirement. He’d been meaning to visit, wanted to see where the matriarch was finally making roots, but work had kept him busy, having multiple temporary duty assignments sending him all over the East coast.
The timing for his sabbatical couldn’t have been better. He got to spend a day catching up with Ana and Reinhardt before they left for their cruise, then he had the whole month all to himself, no phone calls from clients, no mind-boggling twists, no red eyes from being up all-night writing reports. Just the doves singing as the sun comes up, and the million muddled colors of the evening sunset.
They didn’t need to show him how to do much. He was familiar with the horses, the chickens, and as she walked him around the property line, he reassured her that he didn’t need much else. Ana gave him a map with some of the trails around the area, should he want to take Sabah out. He wasn’t so sure about that mare, her red coat and jet-black hair gave her a wild look, and he didn’t want to break something when he was supposed to be resetting himself.
He was staying in the guest yurt. It complimented the scenery with its tan totality and short stature. It sat up and to the side of the main house, a small outdoor set of stairs made from flat stone and natural jagged rocks led to the entrance. The inside was weird, he couldn’t say there were many rooms he had stayed in that were in the shape of a circle. The bed sat on the left-most side of the room from the door, a folding privacy screen at the furthest end of it. Then there was a desk and a dresser both a dark oak that contrasted the lighter browns of everything else. The opposite side of the room had the door to the small bathroom, the only break from the circularity of the structure. The floor was made with large flat stones and were cold on his bare feet. If he hadn’t been in such a rush to leave his cramped apartment, he might’ve remembered to bring slippers, but he didn’t, so he wore socks and prayed he didn’t step on any stray bugs if he got up to piss in the night.
Outside of the yurt was a cattle tank, no that it looked like it had ever been used as such, not a single hood shaped dent was in it, instead empty and covered with a pipe that ran alongside it. Ana said was hooked up to the water heater so he could bathe under the stars if he pleased. That had made him laugh, wondering if she remembered him mentioning how he missed the hot springs of his adolescence. There was something about the sanctity of the water, the heat. The sort of relaxation that soaked right through you, as good as any drug. Not that you were supposed to drink, (or smoke) but him and the boys did both, stripping down to their mosquito-bitten skin and enjoying their well-hidden spots of hot mineralized water. That was his favorite thing about his days out in the desert— knowing where the water was.
They were leaving the morning of his second day there, so that evening they had a feast. Rein was a good guy. Cole had worked with him in the past when he was consulting. It was easy to enjoy their company over a couple of suspiciously rare steaks (just the way Ana liked it) and a bottle of tequila that he picked up on the drive over. None of that cheap sweet shit, he assured her. Only the best for such fine company.
When he woke up the next day his head was spinning, and his stomach cramped something fierce. His throat hurt, was drier than the dust that had settled on his leather boots. He smoked quite a bit more than he normally did with the giant of a man the night prior. He wasn’t sure how they managed it at their age, but he powered through, changing and splashing water on his face, swishing out the dead smokiness from his mouth and pulling at the bags under his eyes in the mirror. They seemed to have become a permanent fixture on his face recently, something he was hoping his vacation would fix right up.
He joined them for one last meal before he drove them to the airport. Eggs from the birds and sausage that Reinhardt said came from a guy on the other side of town that he traded his sourdough for. He could picture the man baking, how small the razor must look in his hands, cutting crosses across the flour dusted tops. The idyllic beauty of their lives made him a little jealous, nearly forty with no spouse, home, or trophies besides the occasional scar to show for his years. All the more reason he needed to take a step back from his work-addiction. The man was overdue for a mid-life crisis. But perhaps the crisis would start with him going the wrong direction and getting an actual car.
He dropped them off in their big ol’ SUV, having to pull the seat up significantly from where Rein had it adjusted to. Most folks really did do the opposite, trading their stability in for thrills and adventure but not him. He wasn’t sure how much more of it he could take. Five years ago, he would’ve been happy to let the dangers of his job take him out, but as he drove back in comfort of the AC, the thought of slowing down the pace of his living seemed sweeter and sweeter the more he imagined it.
But then the heat tended to do that to him. Southwestern summers made him lazy, beer cans piled up on the coffee table, and the curtains stayed pulled shut to keep the sun out. It’s a dry heat! Was the favored slogan, but he never stayed dry, not when the warmth of the UV rays made him so damn bored.
On the drive back he noticed the man on the neighboring property, a small blip of color: blue jeans, and a white hat. The other people living around here were much farther up the main road. Ana and Rein had at least five acres, so there was no waving to the guy next door after grabbing the morning paper.
Cole was curious about him, if he was alone or if there was a wife and kids there, what kind of animals did they have, how long had they been in the area? But he shook those thoughts away, his mind was running away again. The best cure for that was manual labor, which he turned to as soon as he got back, getting his gloves dirty, cleaning Sabah’s stall and testing the waters with her by giving her a brushing. That, she enjoyed, the thing was clearly used to being pampered.
The property had a lot to explore. He poked around the barn, inspecting the two other stalls, surveying the feed and tack room that were empty. Cole made a note to tell them they could start boarding if they needed a side hustle, he would’ve been pleased to give them pointers.
He sat outside the yurt, under the shade of a mesquite that had been dripping dark sap all over the table and chairs. Putting a little bowl down on the table to use as an impromptu ashtray, he smoked as the sunset came in.
It was what he missed the most, the ways the colors would change day to day. Sometimes all the moody brilliance of purple and blue, and sometimes the blinding vibrance of orange and red. If it was cloudy they would throw the light, the breaks between them letting the last bits of warmth hit the desert soil before the plummeting night time temperatures. He knew to listen when Ana told him to pack some warm things too, he had sat out in his little chair, listening to insects and critters until the stars came out and he began to shiver. He went in for his serape, wrapping up tight and sitting out just a bit longer, until he was ready to sleep.