Lauren

He showed up out of the blue on a hot, cloudless Wyoming summer day, inquiring if there was any work we needed to have done on our family’s ranch. All that he had with him was his dusty cowboy hat, a beat up mutt, and a Marlboro thermos. I was 15, but looked young than my years, and I knew the ranch as well as any girl would whose parents believed that being outside and out of their hair was the best way to raise children. I knew that there was fencing in the lower pasture that needed attention as the younger cattle were getting out with increasing frequency. I told him that if he’d like some work, I could help him get the tools needed to repair the barbed wire fencing and take him there. All that he asked for was $20 and a meal for himself and his dog, whose name was Stoney. ### When we got to the barn, he filled up his Marlboro thermos in the tack room to help combat the heat of the day that was rising every minute. These were the days when you actually walked your ranch instead of driving on some fancy ATV. We walked in silence down the path that led along the stream where the cattle were now gathering to escape the blasting heat of the sun. When we reached the spot where it was obvious the fencing needed repairs, he nodded and tipped his hat and told me he’d return to the house when he was done with his work. I could tell that he was the type of man who was more comfortable in the company of dogs than with people, so I left him to his work. I walked the short path up to the pastures and turned around to glance back to see what he was up to. You can tell a lot about how someone works on simple tasks, he took some work gloves out of his back pocket and put them on carefully like a surgeon puts on his rubber gloves in the OR. I knew from the care he took to get his tools in the right places that the fence line would be fixed well before dinner. ### He returned around 4 pm with Stoney trotting behind him; he knocked on the screen door of the kitchenand casually told me that he had finished up early and put the tools back in the barn where they belonged. He mentioned that one of the cattle had a nasty cut from the barbed wire. He figured it had gotten caught when it tried to get thru the fence. He had come up to the barn to get some salve to put on the wound. I thanked him for the extra care he took with the injured animal and he said that he felt obligated to help animals since they can’t speak for themselves. I told him dinner wasn’t ready but that it would be shortly and he thanked me and said he’d go sit down beneath the shade tree in the front if that was OK with me. I told him to make himself at home and that I’d fix a plate for him when dinner was ready. When I took the plate out to him I asked him if it was OK if I joined him and Stoney for their dinner – I felt like he wanted someone to talk to and I think I needed the company more than him. We moved to the porch and sat on the glider and ate together – I had fixed a plate for Stoney and the dog ate it carefully and then wiped the sides of his muzzle with his paws, leading me to believe that he had once been someone’s house pet and not a stray. ### The man, who never told me his name, shared his water from his Marlboro thermos with both Stoney and myself. The water tasted so cold and sweet, I couldn’t believe it had come from the tack room faucet. He told me he had found a spring on the far side of the property and he had filled the thermos from it before heading back to the house. I thanked him for the work he had done and for his company during dinner and he nodded and thanked me back. When he turned to leave he refused the money he had rightfully earned from his day’s work in the heat. He told me sometimes something unexpected like finding that spring was all the earnings he needed for the day. He said that the water had revived him and made him feel like a new man. He tipped his hat, gathered up his thermos and whistled to Stoney to signal that their time at our ranch had come to an end. Even though I had drunk from that spring hundreds of times in my youth, it never tasted as sweet as that day when the nameless stranger shared it with me from his battered and worn thermos.