Chapter Five
Five days had passedwith me making a daily sweep of the dig site. I had to admit it was pretty damn fascinating to watch this small team of fanatic fossilists painstakingly working on removing what Bishop was relatively sure was a Triceratops, which was not to be confused with any of the other Ceratopsians such as Centrosaurus, Koreaceratops, who was a swimming dino, Pentaceratops, or good ole Styracosaurus. I had zero knowledge of any of them but Bishop and the bone gang sure did. Every day after my last cattle check, I’d saddle up Tiberius and head out, stopping only once on Sunday to visit the lone oak pasture. I’d sat by the tree for a bit, fingering the wildflower stalks that were shooting up before tying a new hair ribbon around the cross that I’d had Kyle make two years ago.
Usually, I would spend hours by the lone oak, lost in the memories of a life that was as faraway now as the world those dead reptiles Bishop was so fond of was. Tonight, it was a short visit. New ribbons—yellow ones to match her hair—then I was back on the four-wheeler. Tiberius had come up lame. Probably too many miles after years of being a lay about. I gave him a cold therapy treatment then wrapped the slightly swollen cannon. Hopefully, the rest and the icing would see him improved in the morning.
So it was wheels and not hooves that carried me across fields of new growth. The Tetons were still snow-capped, shrouded in fog now that the days were warming. All the little creeks were heavy with melt off. Water splashed up over my boots, dampening my pant legs, when I forded a muddy stream on the Polaris. I followed our fence line for a space, stopping once to inspect where all three lines of barbed wire were down. Sitting on the four-wheeler, I looked the area over. McCrary land buffeted up against ours here for a few miles then veered off. Leaving the machine idling, I got off to inspect the fence.
Taking care to lift the top strand—barbed wire digs in deep—I noted how clean the break seemed to be. Making a mental note to myself to send a couple of the men up here to fix it, I walked back to the Polaris, chewing on this discovery. We’d had “incidents” in the past with fencing being cut or our cattle wandering into the Hollow Wind pastureland. It happened. Livestock did break out on occasion. And there was never any proof of wrongdoing. The lost cattle had been rounded up after they’d been spied by Clint Sully. Black tends to stand out among the red cattle, although the McCrary’s had been mixing their line with Angus so that means of identification was becoming less and less reliable. Still, I had to wonder if it had been anyone other than Clint who had been in charge would those beefers have ever come home? It warranted keeping an eye on. I climbed back onto the four-wheeler and gave her some gas.
It was hard to explain the feeling in my chest when I saw the green tarps that served as tents over the excavation area. It felt like a flock of pine warblers were trying to break free of my breast. I knew now that the giddy sensation was because I was going to see Bishop. I finally confessed to myself my attraction to him last night as I lay in bed, dick in hand, and beat off to the fantasy of him laying me down under one of those green tarps and fucking me into the dirt. I had come so hard my toes had cracked when they dug into the mattress. You know it was a good orgasm when your toes crack.
Bishop sat alone under one of the tarps, his head down, his attention on the raft of bones buried within the ground. He glanced up, dirt smeared over his nose, his hair pulled up into that silly bun. He stole my breath. Then he smiled and the pine warblers inside me took to wing.
“Where’s the prehistoric pit crew?” I asked after parking well away from the site. He sat back on his haunches, firm ass on his heels, and waved his brush in the general direction of Copper Falls.
“They were dying for some pizza and beer, so I gave them the night off. There was mention of a movie as well. Your man went with them.”
“Good.” I stepped under the tarp, careful with where I put my big feet. The area was marked off with string and stakes in a neat grid pattern. Bishop sat in one of the squares, precisely situated between what looked to be a pile of big rib bones and what could have been vertebrae. Around him lay water bottles, chisels, brushes, and a hand-drawn map of the dig site. “He needs to be with people his own age.”
“That’s what I told him.”
“You’re not much older than they are. Why didn’t you go too?” I dropped down into a crouch, eyeing up a pick with a fine hook.
“I’m an ancient soul,” he replied then slowly stood, stretching tall, his tank top hiking up to show me that tempting strip of belly. “Also,” he said as he stepped lightly over the strings and bones to stand before me. “I was hoping you’d show up tonight.”
Those warblers inside me broke free when our eyes met. “Finally work up the nerve to get on my horse?”
“Uh, no, not exactly.”
“He won’t bite.” I paused to reconsider. “He probably won’t bite.”
“I’ll pass. Rumor has it you’re good at paperwork?” I nodded warily. “Excellent. I have a cubic shit ton of data to get logged into our files. Give a guy a hand?”
“Is that an official scientific measurement of weight?”
He stepped over the string, lifting his leg high, then threw me a “totally, dude” over his tanned shoulder. I followed him to one of the rather nice tents pitched around the site. Inside the tent was a thick sleeping bag, his rucksack, and piles of papers scattered all over the place.
“I’ve been too busy to keep up with all the data we’re collecting,” he confessed sheepishly. “With two of us on it, we should be done in an hour.”
I sighed as my gaze touched on the mess. “If I help you do this what do I get out of it?”
“What do you want, cowboy?” he asked in a fairly passable Mae West impersonation. That made me chuckle.
“I’ll think of something.”
We sat down on the sleeping bag, the inflatable mattress under it making rude noises whenever we moved. His knee rested against my thigh, making concentration difficult. Nevertheless, I shook away the tingling sensation in my leg and focused.
“Hmm, I’m much better at numbers than I am at collating taxonomic and stratigraphic data, but I’ll do my best,” I admitted while trying to make sense of the hastily scribbled jumble of letters and drawings in an old-fashioned notebook.
“Just move the geological context from the paper to the tablet while I work on the notes the students turned in today on treatment history.”
I nodded, removed my hat, and hunkered down to the job at hand. I’d not been working two minutes when I glanced up and caught Bishop staring at me, the pencil in his hand caught between his teeth. When our eyes met a nice rosy blush crept into his tanned cheeks. He lowered his gaze as he slid on his dark-rimmed glasses.
“Sorry, I’ve never seen you without your hat before.”
“Sure you did. That first morning you showed up at the ranch.”
“Ah yeah okay. Guess seeing you in your reindeer boxers grabbed all my attention.”