Page 45 of Wistful in Wyoming
Ethan should’ve known there would be some negative reactions among the ranch hands to the news the boss was gay—and these two would’ve been on the top of his list if he’d made one. The first voice belonged to Simon Benson, the second to Ferris Baxter.
Before Ethan could react, Anthony was stalking toward the far end of the barn where the two men were supposed to be cleaning out the stalls. Instead, they were sitting on bales of hay, doing nothing. Well, actually, Benson was sniffling, wiping his nose, and quickly shoving something into his pocket upon hearing them approach. Yeah, he was doing something all right, and it sure as fuck wasn’t work. Despite the man’s attempt to brush away the evidence of the cocaine he’d been snorting, there was still some white powder under one nostril.
Both men scrambled to their feet as Anthony reached for the nearest one who happened to be Baxter, grabbing him by the shirt and shoving him roughly against the door jamb.
“What the fuck?” barked Benson.
“That’s my question!” the foreman roared, getting into the coked-up man’s face. “What the fuck? Instead of working, you’re sitting on your goddamn asses, slamming the man who signs your paycheck, over something that’s not any of your fucking business!” Before Benson could stop him, Anthony thrust his hand into the pocket of the man’s jeans, pulling out the small vial of white powder.
“And what the hell is this shit?” he snarled, holding it up in front of Benson’s red, sweating face.
“Fuck you, man! Give it back!”
Standing several inches taller than Benson, the foreman was able to hold the vial out of his reach. Benson made a grab for it and missed, before changing tactics and taking a swing at Anthony, who easily dodged the wildly thrown punch and returned one of his own. He connected with Benson’s jaw, sending him back onto his ass, dust and hay flying up around him.
Wide-eyed, Baxter took a hesitant step toward Anthony, but Ethan moved, blocking his path. “Don’t even fucking think about it.”
As expected, the other man held up his palms and retreated. He’d always been a follower, not a leader, and when confronted, he usually backed down. Most of the time he wasn’t a bad guy, but unfortunately, he’d chosen to pal around with Benson and his thug cohorts. While Benson had only worked at the JP for six months, Baxter had been there for over a year.
Anthony threw the vial to the ground and crushed it with his foot with a snap, grinding the heel of his boot down, making doubly sure the drug was unusable as Benson screeched, “Nooo!” Fire flared in his eyes, and his face flushed as he got to his feet, stumbling in the process. Spittle shot from his mouth as he jabbed a finger in Anthony’s direction. “Damn it! Do you know how much that shit costs, you son of a bitch?”
“I don’t give a flyin’ fuck!” The muscles in Anthony’s neck corded as his nostrils flared. “You’re both lazy and worse, drugged up! Add in your homophobic bullshit attitudes and you’re both fired!”
The blood drained from Baxter’s face, but he remained silent as Benson continued to rant. “Fuck you, Garner! You can’t fire us—you don’t own this place!”
“No, I don’t. But Jeremiah gave me full permission to fire anyone if I need to, and trust me, after I tell him why I canned your asses, he’ll agree with me. Now, pack your shit and get the fuck off the ranch!”
Damn. Ethan had never seen Anthony that pissed before, but from the looks of things, Benson and Baxter would have to be the stupidest people on earth right then not to obey the man’s command. The foreman was taller, broader, and undoubtedly stronger than both of them put together. After a moment’s hesitation, they seemed to realize that.
Benson grabbed his hat from the dirt, where it’d landed when Anthony had decked him, and smacked it against his thigh, sending a brown cloud flying, before slamming it onto his head. While it appeared he wasn’t going to go toe-to-toe with the foreman, Benson still had some bluster in him. “Screw you, Garner! Screw you! You and that faggot can go to fucking hell! Youallcan go to fucking hell!”
Anthony’s voice dropped dangerously low. “If you’re not off the property in the next ten minutes, I’ll break your legs and you’ll be hauled out of here on a stretcher. Get. Now!”
Clearly knowing he was fighting a losing battle, Benson stomped away, cursing and spitting, with Baxter close on his heels. The latter at least had regret in his eyes as he followed his buddy out of the barn and toward the bunkhouse.
Ethan shook his head at the two men’s retreating backs. “Un-fucking-believable.”
Keeping an eye on his former employees, and making sure they kept moving toward the bunkhouse, Anthony replied, “But not unexpected. I’ll talk to the other hands later. I won’t tolerate that shit, and Jeremiah shouldn’t have to deal with it either. In the meantime, get the shotguns. I wouldn’t put it past Benson to fuck up the place before leaving. I’ll watch from here until you get back.”
* * *
Anthony was still steamingmad when Jeremiah came out of his house about forty-five minutes after those two shitheads had left the property. He hated that he had to tell his boss he’d just fired two of the JP’s employees a couple of weeks before they planned to cull the cattle. The process of weeding out the inferior animals, due to infertility, low productivity, poor genetics, or advanced age, usually resulted in removing about fifteen percent of the cows and bulls to increase the quality and profitability of the herd.
He also dreaded telling the newly-outed manwhyhe’d fired the two bigots.
Jeremiah’s smile fell when he spotted Anthony. “What’s with the face? Who pissed in your cornflakes?”
He crossed his arms and tried to relax his scowl. “I fired Baxter and Benson a little while ago and escorted them off the property.”
The boss stopped short, his eyes widening. After a moment, he let out a heavy breath and nodded. “Okay. What happened?”
“Between the cocaine I found Benson snorting, the punch he threw at me, and the homophobic slurs they were slinging in your direction, it took me all of two seconds to can them.”
“Shit.” Jeremiah ran a hand down his face then glanced around, taking a few moments to digest the information. Finally, he eyed his foreman and asked, “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Before the other man could say anything more, Anthony held up his hand. “Jeremiah, look. It’s nobody’s business but yours who you date. I’m not one to judge. The only place labels belong is on bottles. In fact, one of my nephews is gay—just came out last year—he’s nineteen, though the family suspected he was struggling with his sexuality for a few years before that. Anyway, we—Icouldn’t be prouder of him. He’s got the guts to live his life on his terms, and that’s what I want for you too—everyone deserves that. I’ve already talked to the rest of the hands, and you have some staunch supporters here. None of them seem to have a problem with you and Dale being together—if they do, they kept it to themselves. They all volunteered to step up and cover the extra work until we can replace those two assholes.”
Jeremiah’s gaze dropped to the ground, and he swiped at his eyes a few times before lifting his chin again. “Thank you for that, Anthony. You have no idea how much I appreciate your support—everyone’s support. I’ll get an ad in the paper and put out some feelers. Hopefully, we can fill those slots before we start culling. If we can’t, I’m sure Willow and Nathan will let us borrow Dale and Shane for a few half days. Anything else I need to know about?”
