He pulled his hat back on and without another word turned to go. The night closed in around Shannon and her father, and the quiet.
Shannon released a pent-up breath and caught her father’s eye. “Thank you, Daddy,” she said, and he nodded. Never had she been so glad to have two such solid men in her corner.
Yet three hours later, at 2:00 a.m., she was still sleepless, staring into a darkness and a future she couldn’t begin to fathom. Rose moved in her arms, then came awake with a violent thrash.
“You’re squishing me, Momma!” she protested. “I can’t breathe...”
Shannon relaxed her arms and kissed the nape of her daughter’s neck, so soft and sweet and vulnerable. “I’m sorry, Rose, I didn’t mean to, it’s just that I love you so much. Go back to sleep.”
Within three breaths, her daughter had done just that, but at daybreak, Shannon was still wide-awake.
CHAPTER SIX
THE DAY DAWNED bright blue and clear with a steady breeze out of the west that would keep the bugs down and the workers’ spirits up. The threat of rain seemed distant. The entire band from the Dog and Bull showed up, as promised. Shannon had a big pot of coffee ready and she poured cup after cup as she scrambled three dozen eggs, fried two pounds of smokehouse bacon and made a stack of buttered toast. Her father drew her aside as the crew sat down at the table to eat.
“I can’t pay those boys,” he said.
“Don’t worry about it, Daddy. We made a deal last night. They help us get the hay in, and I sing a few songs with them at their next gig. They have a band and they like my singing.” He was still frowning as he ate his breakfast, but when Billy showed up, his eyes scanned the crowded table and he caught Shannon’s eyes and grinned.
“Looks like we got us a real honest-to-God haying crew,” he said.
Just then another vehicle pulled in to the yard. Ralph and Kitty Sayres climbed the porch steps. Kitty laughed at Shannon’s expression. “I may be pregnant but I can still cook,” she said as she waddled into the kitchen. Her husband carried a big box of groceries, which he set on the counter. “We figured we’d help out. Our hay’s in, and Ralph just can’t get enough of making hay, says it’s his favorite chore.”
This brought a big laugh from everyone. Shannon gave Kitty a hug. “Thanks,” she said. “I appreciate it. There’s plenty of eggs and bacon, Ralph. Pull up a seat.”
“We’ve already et,” Ralph said. He patted his hefty stomach. “The food smells great, but my wife’s doc warned me about sympathetic weight gain, she says I can’t eat twice as much because I’m not the one eating for two.”
The men finished their coffee and stood from the table. Within moments the kitchen was empty except for Shannon, Rose and Kitty. Shannon watched them leave from the window over the kitchen sink. “We’ve never had such a big haying crew.” She turned to give Kitty a grateful smile. “Thanks for coming. I don’t know what to say. It’s...overwhelming.”
“We’re glad to have you back, Shannon. Your daddy’s one of the toughest men I’ve ever known, but he’s had a rough time of it these past few years.” Kitty was gathering the plates off the table and carrying them to the sink. “We felt bad about the pressure the town was putting on him over the turbines. That’s just wrong.”
“Last night was the first I heard about the wind project,” Shannon said, running hot water into the sink. “But I knew as soon as I saw the ranch that my dad was having financial troubles. I can’t understand why he’s being so stubborn about something that could make his life a whole lot easier. The whole town will benefit from the project, and my father’s holding everything up.”
“Truth is, the town’s pretty torn apart by it,” Kitty said, clearing the last of the dishes off the table. “Landowners who stand to make big money on lease payments from the wind developer want the project to be built, but there are a lot of others who don’t want to see the mountains around here covered with giant turbines and transmission lines. They don’t want to live with the health problems or loss of property value. Some of the lodge owners who cater to tourists and hunters are really up in arms.”
Shannon was swishing the soapy water around in the dishpan and paused at Kitty’s words. “How do you and Ralph feel about it?”
“We thought we were the only ones against the project until your daddy spoke out at the first town meeting. Boy, he’d done his homework, too. He questioned every promise the wind developer made about all the jobs that would be created, about energy costs going down, taxes going down, life in Bear Paw getting better. He had information from a lot of other towns—the jobs and tax cuts are just temporary, property values plummet the closer to the wind turbines a person lives, and the health effects from low frequency sound are detrimental on humans and livestock, not to mention all the birds and bats those things kill.
“After he spoke, the battle lines were drawn in the dirt. Awful, really, how neighbor has turned against neighbor. I’d say the town’s split pretty near half-and-half. Anyhow, when Billy Mac arrived on the scene, he gave the wind developers a whole passel of grief by standing with your father to lead this fight. I guess this same wind company wanted to put a project on the reservation.
“But the thing is, the wind developers have all the fancy lawyers and the government mandates for renewable energy on their side. They target small rural towns because they figure nobody can afford to fight them, and they’re right.”
Kitty stacked the dishes on the counter and picked up a clean dish towel to start drying the plates in the dish rack. “Steve Little’s one of the landowners who signed a lease agreement with Patriot Energy. Conflict of interest? I’d say so.” Kitty blew out her breath. “Sorry, I tend to get a little worked up over the subject.”
Shannon rinsed a plate under the stream of hot water and added it to the drying rack. She glanced over her shoulder at Rose, who was brushing Tess. “Better let Tess have a nap, Rose,” she said. “You brushed her yesterday.”
“Momma, her hair needs to be brushed every day, just like my hair does.”
“Well, she’s old and she needs her rest, too.”
Kitty laughed softly. “Your Rose is beautiful,” she said. “How long’re you planning to stay?”
“I don’t know. At least until the hay’s in. I’ve been away a long time. A lot’s changed.”
“Things do,” Kitty said with a shrug. “I’ve gotten married and had two kids since you left. Both boys are in grade school now, and this one’s my third.” She patted her stomach fondly. “She was a complete surprise. We hadn’t planned on another baby, but when Ralph talks about having a daughter, you should see his face light up. He can’t wait to hold her.”
“There’s a special bond between fathers and daughters,” Shannon said, thinking how hypocritical her words sounded, considering her strained relationship with her own father and the way Travis had treated Rose.
Kitty dried and stacked plates. “Your dad’s sure glad you’re home. He looks like a new man. He’s missed you, Shannon.”
“He thinks pretty highly of Billy.”
“Billy’s helped him out a lot. None of us ever believed Billy’d come back. All he wanted to do when he graduated high school was get out of Bear Paw, same as you. I guess we all think the grass is greener someplace else, and for you it sure was. You’ve done well for yourself, Shannon. We’re all so proud of you. But I’m happy with my life here. I can’t imagine living anyplace else.”
Shannon gazed out the kitchen window and sighed. She wondered if she’d ever feel the contentment and sense of belonging that Kitty did. She wondered if she’d ever be happy again. “I’m surprised Billy’s not married,” she said.
Kitty laughed again. “You and all the rest of the gals in Bear Paw. He was the bad boy in the leather jacket that made all us go weak in the knees. High school quarterback and champion rodeo rider, with a chip on his shoulder the siz
e of Texas because he was born on the reservation. He was mighty sweet on you for a while, as I recall, but then Travis came to town and the rest of your story was written in platinum records. Billy Mac didn’t stand a chance.”
Kitty shook her head, her expression becoming thoughtful. “Billy’s just as handsome as ever, for certain, but he’s lost that rodeo cowboy swagger and he keeps to himself. Maybe he’s still coming to terms with what happened to him in Iraq. Must be hard for someone as athletic as him to come home injured. Ralph said Billy’s vehicle was destroyed by a roadside bomb and he’s the only one that survived. He won’t be able to ride the way he used to... I notice you got some horses down in your corrals. Mustangs?”
“Delivered by the Bureau of Land Management yesterday. My dad and Billy gentle them for public adoption.”
“Is there much money in that?”
Shannon shrugged. “Depends. I guess some of the horses sell for fairly high prices, depending on how much training they have. But Project Mustang isn’t going to support this place, that’s for sure. They’d have to saddle break ten a day, and the market for mustangs hasn’t been that strong since Ford invented the automobile.”
“Can we go riding today, Momma?” Rose asked.
“When the haying’s done,” Shannon replied. “Right now we got us some serious cooking to do for our haying crew. You can help, if you like.”
“Beans and franks?” Rose scrambled to her feet, leaving Tess to her nap. “I like beans and franks, and so does Grampy!”
* * *
THE WEATHER HELD, and by noon they’d finished baling the first two fields, but Billy knew they were racing against time; he’d seen the mares’ tails streaking across the sky.
Ralph’s help had been invaluable. He was a stocky bull of a man, enormously strong, with an endless number of funny stories, something they all appreciated as the sweat stung their eyes and the morning wore on.
Shannon and Rose had driven out once to the fields midmorning in McTavish’s rusty old pickup truck, taking a big cooler of ice water with lemon wedges floating in it and a bag of assorted granola bars. She handed them tall paper cups of ice water, and everyone downed them gratefully.
“You promised us cold beer,” one of the band members teased.
“When you get the hay in the barn, you’ll have all you want of that,” Shannon said. “Lunch is ready whenever you are, and we’re planning a barbecue tonight for when you’re finished. Ribs and beans and coleslaw and fresh hot biscuits. Kitty didn’t like the idea of spaghetti, and I have to admit, barbecue goes a whole lot better with beer.”
She handed Billy the bag of granola bars and gave him a smile that made his heart skip a beat. “First haying job on this ranch where I haven’t had to lift one bale.”
They broke for lunch at noon. The kitchen table was heaped with stacks of sandwiches, bowls of corn chips, jars of pickles, pitchers of lemonade. There wasn’t much talk, just filling empty stomachs and slaking the thirst that haying made so big. The band members and Ralph were covered with chaff and tired from lifting the bales, and Billy felt a little guilty that he’d been sitting on the tractor most of the morning, hauling the baler up and down the rows of hay.
One of the band members, Jeb, had strained his shoulder and was massaging it during lunch. “It’s my guitar arm,” he joked. “I’ll starve if I can’t play.”
“You can drive the tractor when we go back out,” Billy said. “I’ll pitch bales this afternoon. I need to burn off the stack of sandwiches I just ate.”
So it happened that Jeb was driving the tractor and was halfway done with the third field when he drove over a rock that snapped the baler’s axle. The machine slumped to one side. There was a collective groan from everyone as they gathered around to survey the damage. McTavish shook his head. “Bound to happen,” he said gloomily. “Things were going too good.”
“I didn’t see the rock,” Jeb said. “I’m really sorry.”
“I know that, son. It’s not your fault.”
Ralph rubbed his jaw, squinting at the situation. “I’ll go get my baling machine,” he said. “Should’ve brought it this morning, we could have used both tractors and everything’d be baled by now.”
“I can’t ask that of you,” McTavish said.
“You ain’t asking. I’m offering,” Ralph said. “Give me a ride to the house in the hay truck and I’ll go get it. It’ll take me an hour to get home, hook my tractor to the baler and get back here.” They all looked at the dark cloud bank building over the wall of mountains to the west. “We’re wasting time,” Ralph said.
Billy knew it was hard on McTavish, accepting all this help in the first place. A self-reliant man, he was used to doing everything on his own, and right now he seemed mighty uncomfortable. Before McTavish could respond to Ralph’s offer, Billy took matters into his own hands.
“Come on, Ralph. I’ll give you a ride back. We sure appreciate the offer of your equipment,” he said as he unhooked the broken baler from the old farm tractor, climbed onto the seat and fired it up. He didn’t look at McTavish or listen when he started to protest.
Ralph hauled himself onto the running board and they set out at top speed, which for the old Moline, wasn’t all that rapid. When they reached the house, Billy told Kitty and Shannon what had happened.
“How’s my dad holding up?” Shannon asked. “He hates when machinery breaks.”
“He’ll be bringing down another load of hay pretty quick. You can check on him in person. I’m running Ralph over to his place to get his tractor and baler. We’ll be back as soon as we can. We’ll get ’er done before it rains.”
“Sometimes it seems like bad luck is the only kind of luck on the McTavish ranch.”
“There’s six hundred bales in the barn already. That’s not bad luck, Shannon, that’s hard work.”
“Speaking of hard work, I’ve been watching your mustangs all morning long,” Shannon said. “They sure are pretty, but that little bay’s going to be a handful. He’s mighty wild.”
“We’ll get started on the mustangs soon as the hay’s in the barn,” Billy said, putting the truck into gear. “There’s a lot riding on this contract. We told the BLM we’d have ’em ready for the adoption auction in four weeks.”
Shannon stepped back as Billy pulled away, but not before he saw her skeptical expression. He passed the corral and spied the little bay she’d spoken of, the one that kept pacing the perimeter of the round pen with that wild expression in his eyes. Four weeks did seem a mite optimistic, but a much bigger contract was riding on this deal. In four weeks, that little bay mustang was going to be transformed into a saddle horse, along with the other five. He and McTavish could do it.
They had to. A ranch that couldn’t hold its own wasn’t a ranch, it was a failure headed for the auction block. Every little bit of income helped toward the taxes and expenses. They had to prove to Shannon that this was a fine place to raise her little girl. The McTavish ranch used to be the most successful ranch in Bear Paw, and it could be again. The mustangs were the key.
* * *
SHANNON WATCHED BILLY’S truck until it was out of sight. Kitty and Rose came out of the kitchen and joined her on the porch. “Think they’ll get back soon enough to beat the rain?” Kitty asked.
Shannon shook her head, disheartened. “Those thunderheads are getting mighty big. I’m worried about my dad. When machinery breaks, he’s always been determined to fix it himself. He won’t wait for them to get back.”
At that moment, the big flatbed truck, loaded high with hay bales, lumbered into view. Shannon met the crew down at the barn. Her father was noticeably absent. Jeb was driving the truck.
“Your father had an idea how to fix the hay baler,” Jeb explained before she could ask. “We dropped him off at the tractor shed to look for some parts.”
“I don’t see how he can fix a
broken axle,” Shannon said.
Jeb climbed down out of the truck and rubbed his sore shoulder. “Dunno. We’ll get this load of hay in the barn and stacked, and then go see what he’s up to.”
Shannon returned to the porch and confirmed her father’s stubborn behavior to Kitty and Rose.
“Pies are in the oven, and I’ll get started on the ribs,” Kitty said. “You go check on your dad, and Rose can help me set the supper table and get the ribs ready to barbecue. Want to help?” she asked Rose, who nodded vigorously.
“Can we have beans, too?” Rose asked. “Cowboys always eat beans.”
“Of course,” Kitty said. “Wouldn’t be a cowboy meal without a pot of beans. Come on. The ribs have to cook long and slow, and they need to be basted often.”
* * *
SHANNON COULD HEAR loud clanging and the banging of metal on metal well before she reached the shed but all was quiet when she arrived.
“Daddy?” She waited for her eyes to adjust to the dimness and then spotted his legs sticking out from under an ancient baler that hadn’t been used in years. He had a big truck jack propping it up on one side. She felt a quick surge of frustration. Why did he have to be so stubborn? Why couldn’t he just wait for Ralph and Billy to get back? “Daddy, come down to the house and I’ll fix you some lemonade. You should rest awhile until Ralph returns.”
“Can’t move. My arm’s stuck,” he said, his voice taut. “Give me a hand here.”
She crouched beside his legs. “Are you hurt? I can’t see anything under there.”
“The jack shifted and my arm got caught under the frame. Just jack it up a little more so’s I can pull free.” Shannon eyed the jack. It was at a bad angle. She braced one of her feet against the base of the jack to keep it from kicking out and lifted the heavy handle, pushing down until she heard the jack click, then repeated the motion. “Okay, that’s good,” she heard her father say tightly. “Hold ’er right there...”
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