Needled to Death

by Sefton, Maggie

  “Thank you. Had to replace my old one. It blew into the middle of a pigpen when I was helping some guy over in Greeley.”

  “Now that’s a picture,” Jayleen said, chuckling. “Sorry, couldn’t help it.”

  “Please tell me we don’t have pigs,” Kelly begged.

  Both Curt and Steve shook their heads. “You would have smelled them,” Steve replied.

  Kelly sniffed. “I smell something, and it’s ripe.”

  Steve grinned. “That’s the cattle.”

  “Oh, brother.”

  “Pigs are worse,” Curt said.

  “Much worse,” Jayleen concurred, clearly enjoying Kelly’s consternation.

  A screen door slammed, and Kelly turned to the ranch house. A tall, lean young man bounded down the front steps.

  “Whoa,” Jennifer murmured beside her ear as the ranch manager drew nearer. “I pictured this manager guy being old and gray. Things are looking up.”

  “Hey, you’re here to help me with the house, remember?” Kelly teased.

  “Morning, folks. I’m Chet Brewster,” the young man announced as he strode into their midst. “Mr. Chambers said you’d be driving up today.”

  Tall, lean, and ruggedly handsome, Brewster looked like he stepped right out of the cowboy storybooks—or at least, Cheyenne Frontier Days.

  Curt stepped up, hand outstretched. “Chet, I’m Curt Stackhouse.” He gestured to Kelly. “We’re all friends of Kelly’s, and we’re here to help her take a look at this spread.”

  Kelly took that as her cue and reached for Brewster’s hand. “I’m Kelly Flynn, Mr. Brewster. Pleased to meet you,” she said with her brightest meet-the-client smile.

  Chet chuckled. “Call me Chet, ma’am. My father’s Mr. Brewster. And I’ll be glad to show you folks around.”

  Ma’am? Kelly thought in surprise. Did she look old enough to be a ma’am?

  Steve stepped up and introduced himself as well as the others, then added, “Do you have any horses we could use, Chet? It would be much faster to check out this herd on horseback.”

  “Oh, yes, sir. We sure do,” Chet replied. “I kinda figured you might want that, so I’ve got three already saddled. Do you want to check out the sheep, too? They’re over in the back pasture.” He pointed behind him.

  “We’ll check those, too. How many have we got?” Curt asked.

  “Over a hundred now, with the new lambs.” He glanced to Kelly. “Are you riding with us, ma’am? I can saddle another.”

  “No, I don’t think so, Chet,” Kelly said. She hadn’t ridden since she was a child and was sure she’d forgotten everything she ever knew. She’d probably fall off into a big, fresh cowpie. “That’s why these guys are here.”

  Gesturing toward the house and barn, Chet said, “You and your friends are free to look at anything you want. House, barns, storage, pastures. I’ve got some coffee and doughnuts in the kitchen, too.”

  Kelly grinned. She liked this guy already. “Chet, you’re a lifesaver.”

  Chet looked embarrassed. “It’s nothing, ma’am. Make yourself at home. We won’t be gone too long.”

  Jayleen stepped up. “I’m here to take a look at the alpacas, Chet. I can see where you’ve got the pastures separated, but I only see two animals. You got any more?”

  “Yes, ma’am. We’ve got three more with one on the way,” he said proudly, then pointed toward the garage. “The garage was turned into an alpaca barn. They go between the corral and pastures and the barn.”

  Jayleen turned to Kelly. “Not bad. You’ve got the start of a nice little herd. I’ll know more when I see the paperwork on them. Registry papers and all that.”

  “Do you know where the owner kept his records, Chet?” Kelly asked. “Is there an office in the house where we can look for documents?”

  “Sure is, ma’am,” Chet said with a respectful nod. “Right off the front hallway on the right.”

  Kelly didn’t know how much longer she could take the “ma’am” moniker. “We’ll be looking at more than animals today. My friend, Jennifer, is a real estate agent, and she’s come to do a market analysis of the property while we’re here.”

  “Charmed, Mr. Brewster. Absolutely charmed,” Jennifer said in a sultry voice as she offered her hand.

  This time, Jayleen wasn’t the only one staring at her boots to keep from laughing, Kelly noticed. She watched Cowboy Chet fall beneath Jennifer’s spell. “Ummmm, glad to meet you too, miss.”

  “Where’re those horses, son?” Curt cut to the chase.

  “Right this way, sir,” Chet recovered quickly, pointing at the stable. “You ladies take care now,” he added and tipped his hat as he followed after Curt and Steve.

  “How come I’m a ma’am and you’re a miss?” Kelly asked dramatically.

  “You’re his boss. You have to be a ma’am,” Jennifer replied.

  “That cowboy doesn’t know what hit him,” Megan predicted, then giggled.

  Jayleen gave a loud laugh. “Damn, you girls are a hoot.”

  “Okay,” Kelly said. “What do we tackle first?”

  “We’re closest to the alpaca barn, so why don’t we start there?” Jayleen suggested as she headed toward the converted garage.

  Kelly quickened her pace to keep up with Jayleen, who was already pushing the door open. A familiar smell of hay and feed greeted Kelly when she entered the barn. It was a little cooler, too, she noticed and wondered if the animals sought shelter from the brutal summer sun the same way humans did.

  “There you are, little mom,” Jayleen crooned to an ebony black alpaca in the large corner stall. Two alpacas stood beside her, one a creamy caramel color and another, milky white.

  “Wow, they’re pretty,” Kelly remarked as she approached the stall. Jayleen was rubbing the pregnant female’s nose, so Kelly extended her open hand, palm up, in case the alpaca wanted a sniff. The female took a tentative step forward and reached her long, graceful neck to sniff the tips of Kelly’s fingers. It tickled, Kelly noticed.

  “Good girl, make friends with your new owner. C’mon, you two,” Jayleen continued in the same low, musical cadence as she beckoned the others over. “She’s a beauty, Kelly. I can’t wait to see who she’s been bred to.” Pointing to the others, she added, “And so are these two. Boy, I hope the owner has some pictures of them with their full coats before they were shorn.”

  “Do they bite?” Jennifer asked as she and Megan neared the stall.

  Jayleen laughed. “They won’t bite you. Go on, rub their noses.” Both Megan and Jennifer extended their fingers to be sniffed.

  “So, these alpacas look pretty good to you?” Kelly asked.

  “Damn right, girl,” Jayleen said. “But I want to see who they’ve been bred to and what the babies looked like.” She bent down belly level with the animals. “Yep, I’m right. I thought these two are females. Good. They’re worth a helluva lot more.”

  “Geri explained a little bit about how this business works,” Kelly said, remembering. “You want female babies because they’ll sell for more, and the better the sire, the better the colors of the babies’ coats. Right?”

  Jayleen grinned. “That’s about it in a nutshell. That’s why I’m hoping the owner kept pictures along with the records. Then, I can give you a much better idea of what this herd is worth.”

  Kelly glanced toward a second open door leading to a separate corral and watched the remaining two alpacas slowly approach. “Looks like we’ve got a gray and a dark brown.”

  “Smoky gray and chestnut. Good colors. Hey, I’m excited, almost like this is mine,” Jayleen said, her tanned face creasing into a grin as she leaned over the other stall fence. “C’mon, you two, say hello. Bet you guys are the little boys, right?” she said as she bent to check. “Yep. You got yourself two young males, Kelly. Not old enough to breed yet, but they will be. They sure are pretty, too. Wonder what colors they’ll throw.”

  Kelly rubbed the smoky gray nose of the closest male. To her surpris
e, he pushed his face toward hers. She jumped back.

  “Don’t be scared. He just wants a kiss, don’t you, little boy.” She shoved her face next to his, making kissing sounds. The smoky gray obliged. “Teenagers,” Jayleen said with a laugh.

  Kelly carefully leaned forward so the smoky gray could give her a half sniff, half kiss. “Tickles,” she said.

  “Boy, I really wish there were some fleeces left. I’m dying to know what these animals produce.”

  “Well, I think you’ve got your wish, Jayleen,” Megan called from across the barn. She stood in the doorway of an adjoining room. “I see several bags of fleeces in here.”

  Jayleen let out a whoop and raced over, Kelly and Jennifer in her wake. “Doesn’t take much to get her excited, does it?” Jennifer observed.

  White plastic trash bags lined the floor, fleeces spilling over the sides. Caramel, charcoal, beige, and white, creamy white, and ebony. “Wow,” Kelly said in admiration. “Look at that. Burt will be spinning into next year with all these bags.”

  Jayleen was already examining and fingering a charcoal gray fleece. She gently lifted it from the plastic bag. “Hey, help me with this one. I think it’s the entire blanket. We can unroll it over here.” She bent to one knee as the others did the same, and they slowly unrolled the thick coat.

  “Whoa, this is even thicker than I imagined,” Megan said. “And longer, too.”

  “That’s why it’s called a blanket,” Jayleen explained. “It’s shorn in one piece from the shoulder to the flank. That way it looks better for alpaca shows.” She stroked the luscious wool. “This is a beauty. Someone must have planned to enter it.”

  Kelly let her fingers indulge themselves in the lusciously soft coat. The fibers were over six inches long and silky. “This really looks good enough to show?”

  “Damn right. You’ve got some excellent quality, Kelly. In fact, you might think about entering next year’s wool market.” Jayleen glanced to the other bags. “Let’s see what else we’ve got here.” She started rolling up the charcoal blanket once more and slid it into the plastic bag.

  Kelly noticed the other side of the storage room was filled with even more bags. Bags stacked on top of bags. Five alpacas couldn’t have produced all this, she thought. “Has he been storing these fleeces for some reason? Why are there so many?”

  “That’s a good question,” Jayleen said as she lifted two bags from the stack and checked inside. One fleece looked palomino gold. The other was long, white, and curly. “Well, of course,” Jayleen said, chuckling as she fingered the fleeces in both bags. “These are sheep fleeces. We forgot about the sheep. Your luck is holding, Kelly. These look real good, too.”

  In the fascination with the five-alpaca herd, Kelly had completely forgotten over a hundred sheep. Yikes! Were there a hundred fleeces in here? Burt would be spinning the rest of his life. She’d have to put him on retainer.

  Megan and Jennifer were already checking out the bags, exclaiming over the softness. Kelly chose a bag filled with creamy oatmeal-colored fleece and sank her hands down to her forearms in the soft wool. Surprisingly soft. She fingered the fibers, then chose another fleece, and another. Black, milky white, palomino gold. Each time enjoying the rich lanolin that coated her hands afterward.

  Jayleen pulled out a notepad and pen from her pocket and began scribbling away, counting and checking bags, peering into containers. Kelly felt slightly guilty for playing in the fleeces while Jayleen was actually doing something useful. Then she reminded herself she hadn’t found a way to be useful on this ranch yet. In time, Kelly hoped she could learn what she needed. Meanwhile, she was grateful she’d brought experts who knew what they were doing.

  “Do you have any idea what all this is worth?” Kelly asked Jayleen.

  “A general idea, but I need to see the paperwork. See what the bloodlines are, check some invoices, all that stuff.” Jayleen shoved the pad and pen into her back pocket.

  “I think it’s time we checked out the house and found that office Chet mentioned,” Kelly said, rubbing the lanolin into her skin.

  “Good idea,” Jennifer said. “I need to take a look at the house. I printed out the public records info from the state Web site, so I can start with that. Plus, I’ve got recent sales data for this area of Wyoming. Land sizes, property descriptions.”

  “Did you bring a camera?” Kelly asked, snapping off the light as they left the storage room.

  “Digital, plus extra memory card. I’m ready.”

  “Bye-bye, guys,” Jayleen called to the alpacas watching them from the stall. The teenagers had returned to frolicking with each other outside.

  The sun’s bright glare hit Kelly as soon as they emerged from the barn. She pulled her hat down and squinted into the distance. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw three men on horseback in the far pasture.

  Jayleen shaded her eyes. “We’ll let the guys count the sheep and cattle. We’ll take care of the tricky stuff, right?”

  “I’d be glad to help,” Megan offered as they walked toward the ranch house. “I may not know anything about alpacas or real estate, but I can certainly sort through papers.”

  Kelly paused for a minute at the front steps of the large, two-story, white frame ranch house. A weather-beaten front porch stretched the width of the house. Two rockers and a glider sat invitingly, beckoning her out of the sun. She could picture herself sitting there drinking a lemonade like she did years ago as a child on Aunt Helen’s shady patio.

  Brother, where did that memory come from, she wondered? She shook it away. This property was going to be sold. She could not afford to become attached to it.

  “Okay, team, here we go,” she joked. “Jennifer, real estate. Jayleen, registrations of all four-legged residents on this ranch. Megan, you can help me with everything else.”

  Suddenly, a horrifying thought struck. Kelly cast her face to the heavens. “Please let there be a file cabinet and not cardboard boxes.” With that, she ran up the steps, her friends following behind.

  Thirteen

  “Found another one,” Megan announced, paging through the stack of papers on the floor. “This one says Ryeland. Do we have that breed yet?”

  Kelly ran down the list she’d made of the various breeds of sheep. “Yeah, we’ve got that one. Put it in the pile to be copied. I’m going to have to make a binder with all these certificates and pictures. Otherwise I won’t be able to remember which one is which.”

  She took a drink of the last of Chet’s coffee. Not bad. Not great, either, but right now she couldn’t be choosy. It was nearly noon, and she was hungry. She hoped the guys didn’t return from their cattle tour with big appetites, because the doughnuts and coffee were long gone. She and the others had convinced themselves that sorting through disorganized files had a much higher stress level than riding the range looking at cows. Therefore, they deserved the doughnuts. But she didn’t look forward to explaining her line of reasoning to the guys.

  Kelly leaned back in the cushioned armchair. Sunlight poured through the windows of the cozy ranch house office. She glanced around the cluttered desk, file folders stacked on top of each other and on the floor. Both Jayleen and Megan sat in opposite corners, each surrounded by piles of paper. It had taken three hours for them to get this far, and Kelly estimated they’d only checked a third of the files in the cabinet.

  Then, there was the desk itself. Kelly didn’t want to think about that. She’d opened all four drawers earlier and found stacks of developed photographs, all wrapped in rubber bands with sticky notes attached. All those memories shoved in a drawer, she thought sadly.

  She reached her arms over her head and stretched. “I’m hungry. How about you two?”

  Megan nodded over her pile. “Oh, yeah.”

  “Maybe Chet has sandwich stuff in the fridge?” Jayleen suggested.

  “He doesn’t. I saw some eggs and things, that’s all,” Jennifer said, appearing in the doorway. She collapsed in a nearby chair. “
Wonder if they deliver pizza out here.”

  “Dream on,” Kelly said.

  Megan looked up. “Well, if he’s got eggs, I can take a break from sorting and make something for us. Let me take a look.” She scrambled from the floor.

  “Bless you,” Kelly said. “We can’t finish this office today anyway. There’s simply too much. I’ll have to spend a whole weekend here.” She grimaced.

  “Okay, let me see what I can find in the kitchen,” Megan said as she left.

  “At least we got all the alpaca certificates and most of the sheep and cattle info,” Jayleen said as she set her stack of papers on a nearby table. “It’s a good start, Kelly. Now we can come up with a rough idea of what these animals are worth.”

  “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your help, Jayleen. I’d be lost trying to figure out all this animal registry business.” Glancing to Jennifer, Kelly asked, “How’s your real estate survey going?”

  “Except for a couple of shots of the pastures and views, I’ve got everything I need. I’ll put it all together in the office and come up with a market analysis.” She leaned forward. “Kelly, have you taken a good look at some of these furnishings? I think there’re some antiques here. I’m not an expert, but I have a hunch. C’mon, let me show you.”

  “Go on, Kelly,” Jayleen said, shooing her from the office. “I’m going to get these registry papers in some kind of order.”

  Kelly followed Jennifer into the living room, which was darkened by heavy green drapes drawn across the windows. She stood for a moment, letting her gaze drift across everything—glass china closets, overstuffed sofas, portraits and paintings with ornate frames hanging on the walls, end tables, tea tables covered with lace cloths and crocheted doilies, curio cabinets filled with porcelain and glass figurines.

  Memories were everywhere. Kelly could feel them all around her. Here were Martha’s memories, she thought, remembering Martha’s spare and empty house in Landport. All of her memories had been left here. It looked to Kelly as if Martha’s husband had kept the room exactly the way it was when Martha ran away four years ago. Kelly could smell the dust.