Flint Walker had been driving since daybreak, and his plan was to stop at the casino right in Terral, Oklahoma, for a bite of lunch. The signs along the road had advertised the best barbecue sandwiches in the state at the River Star Casino, and Flint loved barbecue—almost as much as he loved chicken-fried steaks.
He passed a sign that welcomed him to Ringgold, Texas, and from what he could see on his phone GPS, he was just five miles from deciding if the advertisement about the best barbecue sandwich in Oklahoma could pass a lie-detector test. He glanced over to his left and saw a two-story house with a wide front porch. When he shifted his eyes back to the road, a big yellow dog was sitting right in the middle of it. He honked but the animal just looked at him like he had rocks for brains and didn’t move an inch.
Flint braked hard, swerved to the left, slid across the gravel parking lot in front of the house, and finally brought his pickup truck to a stop just inches from the porch. He hopped out of his vehicle to make sure he hadn’t grazed the dog, only to see the animal wagging its tail and coming toward him at a snail’s pace.
“What the hell!” A brunette stepped out onto the porch and let the old wooden screen door slam behind her. “Did you have a blowout?”
Flint shook his head and pointed. “No, ma’am. That dog right there was in the middle of the road.”
The lady clapped her hands. “Go home, Max, and go through the pastures, not on the road.”
As if the old dog could understand every word she said, he dropped his head and started out around the end of the porch toward the backyard.
“He’s old and gets confused,” the woman said. “Sorry that he scared you.”
“No problem,” Flint said. “I’m just glad I didn’t hurt him.”
He started to turn around and get back into his truck but noticed something stenciled on the window of the house: CHICKEN FRIED.
“What’s that?” He pointed at the sign.
“This is the Chicken Fried Café. We make the best chicken-fried steaks in the state,” she answered.
“Are you open for business?” Flint asked.
“Barely.” She wiped a tear away from her cheek with the back of her hand.
“Is that a yes or a no?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m open,” she answered.
He left his truck, and in a few long strides, he had climbed the four steps up to the porch. “Then I’ll see just how good your chicken-fried steak is.”
“All right then, but I’m doing it all today, so it might take a little while.” She opened the door and went on inside.
That’s when he noticed the red and white HELP WANTED sign thumbtacked to the wall next to the screen door frame. “Where’s your staff?” he asked as he removed his cowboy hat and hung it on a rack with ten empty hooks just inside the door. Evidently, the place catered to a lot of cowboys to have places for coats and hats.
“I’ve been running this café for ten years now, and my biggest problem is keeping help,” she answered as she headed for the kitchen. “Don’t suppose you want to apply for a waitress job, do you?”
“No, ma’am.” He removed his fleece-lined leather coat and hung it beside his hat. “I’m just passin’ through on my way up north.”
“How far up north?” She raised her voice to be heard.
“Don’t know. Colorado, Wyoming, maybe even Montana.” He sat down at the table nearest to the kitchen. Red-and-white-checkered oilcloths covered ten tables for four. A pint jar filled with sunflowers sat in the middle of each of the tables. Pictures and framed newspaper clippings of what he supposed was Ringgold both past and present hung on the walls. Shiny black-and-white tiles covered the floor in a checkerboard pattern.
Before the lady had finished making his steak, the door opened and two guys in overalls, cowboy boots, and mustard-yellow work coats entered the room. Like Flint, they hung their coats and hats on the rack and then sat down at a table in the middle of the café.
“Hey, Jasmine, me and Elvis want the Monday special. We both been hungry for meat loaf all week,” one of the men called out.
“I’ll get right on it, Amos. How are you and Elvis today?” Jasmine yelled through the window that had a ledge for passing food through.
“Old, and gettin’ older every single day,” Amos answered, then focused on Flint. “Ain’t seen you around these parts. You got business around here?”
“No, sir,” Flint answered. “I’m just passin’ through on my way up north to find me a ranch to buy.”
“Plenty of ranches here in Texas,” Amos said. “One right out beside my place that just went on the market today. If I wasn’t so damned old, I’d buy it and double the size of my place.”
“You’d be crazy to do that,” Elvis said and folded his arms over his chest. “Me and you both are goin’ to die, and our kids is going to sell off everything we got. Kids today don’t want to live in a place like this where it’s twenty miles to a decent grocery store or a doctor.”
“Ain’t that the truth.” Amos removed his glasses and cleaned them on a red bandanna that he pulled from his bib pocket, then squinted across the room at Flint. “What’s your name, son?”
“Flint Walker,” he answered.
“Well, if you change your mind by the time you get done eatin’, that ranch is about two miles south of here on the west side of the road. Looks like crap right now because the old folks that lived there moved out after that big fire we had more’n a decade ago. Fire didn’t hurt their house but burned up their stock, so they went to live close to their kids up around Amarillo. You could buy the place a helluva lot cheaper than what you’ll likely have to give for a ranch up in Wyoming, and besides, you’re going to freeze your butt off up there come winter,” Amos said.
Elvis put in his two cents. “And winter lasts ten months out of the year up in them parts.”
“Come on now,” Flint said. “That’s a bit of an exaggeration.”
“Might be, but it’ll seem like that long when you’re ass-deep in snow and tryin’ to bust ice off the waterin’ troughs,” Elvis said.
The old guys reminded Flint of his grandpa and his best friend. Flint had been put on the ranch payroll when he was ten years old. On Saturdays, Grandpa Zeb and his foreman, Sam, would take Flint with them to a diner in the little nearby town for lunch. Those two old guys would talk the ears off of whoever came into the café for lunch.
“I appreciate you tellin’ me about the land.” Flint smiled. “But I kinda got my heart set on going north.”
“Order up!” Jasmine called out. “Crap! I don’t know why I said that. I’m the one who’ll be serving as cook, waitress, and cleanup girl until I can find some help.”
“I’ll get it.” Flint pushed back his chair and went to the window.
“Thanks,” Jasmine said. “I overhead you talking to Amos and Elvis. Glad to meet you, Flint Walker. I’m Jasmine Thurman.”
“My pleasure.” He picked up his platter of food and carried it to his table. “How would I go about getting a glass of sweet tea?”
Jasmine jogged around the wall separating the dining and kitchen areas and handed him a tall glass. “Fountain and ice are right there. Help yourself.” She nodded toward the end of the room and hurried back to the kitchen.
Amos and Elvis went over to the fountain, and each of them poured themselves a cup of coffee. Amos added cream and sugar, but Elvis took his black. Instead of going back to their table, they took the one right beside Flint’s. He sat down, cut into his chicken-fried steak, and took a bite. He had to admit that it was pretty damn good.
“Good, ain’t it?” Amos asked. “Jasmine can cook like an angel, but she can’t keep waitresses or dishwashers since we’re so far from anywhere. Wait ’til you taste them mashed potatoes. I don’t know what her secret is, but by golly, she can outdo my wife. Don’t you never tell Hetty I said that, ’cause she’s a right fine cook. If you was to stick around here, you could eat Jasmine’s cookin’ every day.”
“Yep, and that sweet tea didn’t come from no packaged mix, neither. She brews it up right here in the café from scratch,” Elvis added.
It was beginning to look to Flint like he was going to have to agree to look at a scrubby old ranch just to be able to leave town. “It’s really good food. Are you two the neighborhood recruiting team or something?”
“Nope, just tryin’ to get young folks to move into Ringgold rather than move out from here,” Amos said. “Since the fire, we ain’t got but about a hundred people in town, and that’s if we rake ’em up in a pile for about ten miles any which way you go. Where you comin’ from anyway, Mr. Walker?”
Flint tasted the potatoes. The fellows were right about them being good. Then he took a bite of the fried okra and the hot yeast roll and determined that the whole dinner beat a barbecue sandwich. “I’m just Flint, not Mr. Walker,” he said, “and I came from a little town just south of Stonewall, Louisiana, which is just down the road a piece from Shreveport. My granddad passed just before Christmas, and I wanted to keep the ranch left to me and my five cousins.”
“But they wanted to sell out, right?” Elvis said. “Most young kids your age don’t realize that God ain’t makin’ any more land, and keeping it in the family is important. I’m talkin’ about my own kids and grandkids.”
Flint wondered why in the world he was telling two complete strangers anything at all about his life. “Yep, the vote was five against one, and I couldn’t afford to buy them out, so we had an auction and sold everything, but I’m not really a kid. I’m almost forty years old.”
“To old codgers like us that’s still trying to run ranches when we are eighty, you’re a kid.” Elvis finished off his coffee and took his mug across the room to refill it.
“And now you’re lookin’ to buy another ranch?” Amos asked. “Hey, are you any kin to Zeb Walker?”
“That would be my granddad who passed away,” Flint answered. “You knew him?”
“Nope, but I sure knew of him. Zeb raised the best Angus cattle over that way. My breeder bull was sired by some of his stock. August is his name, because that’s the month he was born. I’d be willin’ to sell you a couple of his calves to get you started if you was to settle around here,” Amos said.
“Thanks, but I’ve got my eye on a couple of places up north.” Flint finished off his dinner and pushed his plate back.
“Goin’ to freeze your ears and other vital things off up there.” Elvis brought his coffee back to the table.
“You worked for your grandpa, did you?” Amos asked as he moved over and sat down at Flint’s table. “He teach you everything you know?”
“Yes, sir, he did,” Flint said. “I lived with him from the time I was born. My daddy wasn’t in the picture, and Mama raised me on the ranch.”
Elvis took his coffee over to the table with Amos and Flint. “We could use some young blood like you around here for sure, especially in the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association. Around these parts, the youngest one of us is past seventy.”
Flint was glad when the door opened and a burst of cold air seemed to push another elderly rancher into the café. He hung his hat on the rack but draped his coat over the back of the fourth chair when he sat down.
“Hey, Jasmine, I need a chicken-fried steak,” he yelled.
“Sure thing, Clark.” Her voice came through the window. “Order up!”
“I’ll take care of it,” Flint said as he pushed back his chair.
“Thanks,” Jasmine said. “I appreciate it.”
He carried his dirty dishes to the kitchen and picked up the tray with two platters of food and a basket of fresh bread on it. He took it to the table and set it down. “Here you go, guys. Y’all have a nice day. Nice visitin’ with you.”
“If you ain’t in a hurry, get another glass of tea and sit a spell longer,” Elvis said. “This is Clark Gibson. He’s a rancher like us, but he also runs a little real estate business on the side. He’s the one that’s got that ranch listed that I was telling you about. Clark, this here is Flint Walker. He’s just traveling through on his way up north to look at a ranch.”
“That truck with Louisiana plates out there belong to you? You wouldn’t be related to Zeb Walker, would you? I knew him well from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association conferences.”
Evidently, Flint’s grandpa’s reputation did not stop at the Louisiana border. “Yes, sir,” Flint said. “That’s my grandpa.”
“Did you ranch with him? I am Clark Gibson.” He stuck out his hand.
Flint shook with him. “Pleased to meet you, sir.”
Clark had a full head of gray hair and a white mustache. His brown eyes had perked right up at the mention of someone looking to buy a ranch. “I got a steal a couple of miles south of town. Got two good ponds on it that are spring fed. It’s not huge. Just six hundred and forty acres, and it’s been let go so it needs some work, but the price is low. It’s been on the market for a while now, and the folks sellin’ it are gettin’ antsy.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I’m not supposed to tell you, but I bet you could get it for a good price if you was to make an offer, and man alive, it would be good to have Zeb Walker’s grandkid down here to work with us.”
Flint wondered exactly why these old guys were so intent on him sticking around and looking at that particular ranch. Sure, they either knew or had heard of his grandfather, but that didn’t mean the apple always fell right next to the tree. Was there some kind of conspiracy going on here? If he bought the ranch for a song, would he find out that the whole deal wasn’t legal, and they were all three con artists? Maybe they had sold this same sorry old ranch a dozen times already, only to have the owners find out they had bought a place that wouldn’t grow a bale of hay to a hundred acres.
He might just have to stick around and take a look at the place, but these guys weren’t going to hoodwink him. He wasn’t a wannabe rancher, and he knew good land when he saw it.
“Where’s the nearest motel around here?” he asked.
Elvis grinned. “That would be Nocona, going east on Highway 82.”
“Henrietta, going west, and Waurika has a small one if you’re going north,” Amos added.
Jasmine brought out a plate and set it in front of Clark. “Or you could work for me for a few days. I’ll give you room and board, plus minimum wage. I only need someone for a week. My cousin is buying the cafe and will be coming to take over real soon.
“Oh, no!” Clark exclaimed. “What if she can’t cook as good as you?”
“She’s a great cook, and you’ll love her. What do you say, Flint Walker? Want a job for a week where you don’t have to pay for motel bills?” Jasmine asked. “You’ll have to work from six in the morning until three in the afternoon, but you can go look at ranches after the day ends.”
Lord, have mercy! What have I done? Jasmine panicked as she waited for his answer, but she was desperate for help. Thank goodness there was a lock on her bedroom door upstairs.
“Sure, why not? Do I pay for my dinner or am I on the clock?” Flint asked. “You aren’t going to ask me to wear an apron, are you?”
“Consider your meal as your sign-on bonus,” Jasmine said, “and aprons are optional.”
Four ladies came into the café and took a table in the back corner. Flint carried his dirty dishes to the kitchen and grabbed an order pad and a pen from a worktable. Jasmine had never had a male waitress (or should she call him a waiter?) but she’d bet that there would be an increase in business for the week with a sexy cowboy helping out.
She went back to the kitchen but stole glances at him through the serving window. When he stood up beside her, she had barely come to his shoulder, which would put him at over six feet tall. His dark-brown hair curled up on his shirt collar, and his mossy green eyes had little flecks of gold floating in them.
Now why would I notice that? Jasmine asked herself.
“Good afternoon, ladies,” Flint said as he pulled the pad and pen from the hip pocket of his tight-fitting Wranglers. “What can I get y’all to drink?”
“You’re Jasmine’s new help?” one of the gray-haired ladies asked.
“Yes, ma’am, for the next week,” he answered.
“We’ll all have sweet tea, two with lemon, two without. I’m Hetty,” she said. “This is my friend Lola, and these are my two cousins, Doris Anne and Mary Sue. They live down in Bowie. Those two old codgers over there belong to me and Lola, and don’t you believe a word they say.”
“They’re tryin’ to sell me a ranch south of town. They say it’s a good piece of property,” he said.
“That you can believe. They know ranchland a whole lot better than they know their wives.” Lola giggled at her own joke. “You’re not from around here, are you? Is that pickup out front with the Louisiana tags yours? You got a drawl that will make all the young women around these parts drool.”
“That’s my truck, and that’s where I’m from.” He smiled. “I’ll get your drinks while you decide what you want.” He pointed to the four menus stuck between the napkin holder and the ketchup and steak sauce bottles.
Jasmine’s hands shook as she rinsed the dirty dishes that had accumulated on the worktable and put them in the dishwasher.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. Her best friend Pearl’s voice popped into her head.
“Flint looks like a decent fellow,” she whispered. “Amos and Elvis liked him well enough to want him to stick around, and they are pretty good at reading people.”
Her cell phone rang. She dried her hands and pulled it out of her apron pocket. “Were your ears burning?” she answered when she saw that it was Pearl calling.
“No, but I got this sudden urge to call you this morning. Did you find a waitress? Is there any way you can talk Diana into coming over sooner?” Pearl asked.
“I found some help, but…” She went on to tell Pearl what she had done.
“That is so unlike you, but that voice you heard would surely be something either me or my granny would have said,” Pearl told her. “Is he handsome?”
“Hold on a minute,” Jasmine whispered as she put the phone on camera mode and took three discreet pictures of Flint and sent them to Pearl. “Take a look for yourself.”
“Oh. My. God!” Pearl gasped. “He looks like a model from the covers of those Western romance books we’ve been hooked on for years. Those green eyes are downright mesmerizing.”
“I know,” Jasmine groaned, “but I can keep the bedroom door locked.”
Pearl giggled. “Maybe you’d better put a lock on the outside of the door as well.”
“Why would I do that?” Jasmine asked.
“For his protection,” Pearl answered, “but then you are looking forty in the eye, girlfriend. If you want to have a family, you’re runnin’ out of time.”
“I’m not forty yet,” Jasmine protested. “I’ve still got time to have a couple of kids. Do you think I’ve done a stupid thing here, Pearl?”
“Hell no! Maybe he’ll even settle down over in that area, and honey, I’ll be in to have dinner one day this week. I want to meet this guy,” Pearl told her. “Right now, the kids are getting off the school bus. See you later.”
The call ended, and Jasmine went back to work, but the way Hetty, Lola, and their friends were whispering behind their menus, she figured the rumors would be flying by the time they got home.