Lakeshore Chronicles 04 - Snowfall at Willow Lake by Susan Wiggs

Author:Susan Wiggs [Wiggs, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-10-28T01:40:49+00:00

He blew a plume of smoke into the air from the skinny cigar he was smoking.

“Now that,” Noah remarked, “is nasty.”

Bo took a slender flat box out of his pocket. “Want one?”

“Right. I've always had a death wish.”

“I don’t inhale.”

“Then you'l stil be alive to see your mouth rot.”

“Don’t start sounding like my mother,” Bo said, leaning back against the wal , his foot propped like the Marlboro man. “Not that I have a mother. And I only smoke in the off-season, anyway.”

“Oh, that's right. Then you turn into a health nut and switch to chewing tobacco.”

“Dip. It's cal ed dip. As in dipshit.”

“I'I remember that.” Noah studied his friend. They had met three years ago after Bo had just signed on with the Hornets, a professional independent basebal team in the Can-Am League. Not long afterward, Bo joined Noah's garage band as bass player.

“Seriously, man,” Bo said, standing wel out of the way as Noah hosed down the barrow and the sloping concrete floor of the barn, “don’t you have someone to do this shit for you?”

“Sometimes,” said Noah. “Girl down the road, name of Chelsea, helps out in the clinic three days a week, but horse manure is kind of an everyday event.”

“Wonder why,” Bo muttered, pushing away from the wal .

“It's not so bad,” Noah pointed out. “Back when my family had the dairy, I was dealing with cow manure, which was a lot nastier and there was a lot more of it.” With practiced routine, he scooped feed from the bin, fil ing four pails.

“Take the bucket to that one, wil you?” He handed Bo a galvanized pail of feed deeply scented with molasses.

Grumbling, Bo went to tend to the big roan quarter horse. Friendly as a Labrador retriever, it sidled right up to him. “Jesus, he's stampeding me,” .80

said, nearly spil ing the bucket as he plastered himself against the side of the stal .

“Nah, he's just glad to see you,” Noah cal ed, feeding Alice in the next stal . “Relax, buddy. I thought guys from Texas were al cowboys who liked horses.”

‘That's what everybody who's not from Texas thinks. Closest I ever got to a horse growing up was watching old Bonanza reruns on a TV I stole.”

“Hang on a second while I take out my violin.” Noah pantomimed drawing a bow dramatical y across the strings.

“I’m just saying.” Bo finished emptying his bucket and moved back as the horse went to the trough.

Noah knew Bo hated pity. He would rather be made fun of than pitied for the way he'd grown up, raised by his older brother. The Crutcher boys had lived in a trailer park in East Houston, with a yard that backed up to a ship channel so pol uted with petroleum products that it regularly caught on fire.

“Anyway,” Bo continued, “you're the one shovel ing stal s while I’m fixing to head down to Florida to work on my tan.”

Noah reeled in the hose and put up the equipment.

“Okay, we're done here.

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