The Ides of Matt 2017

by M. L. Buchman

  “Looks like you’re up front with me, beautiful,” he aimed a lethal smile directly at her.

  She returned the smile, feeling pleased. Then lost it when she realized the implications.

  Two happy couples in the back.

  Handsome married dude in the front.

  And that’s when the background research she’d done on their website finally made a horrible kind of sense. Weddings this. Couples that. Family horseback rides the other. Larry should have sent Colleen’s perfect sister’s family, not her.

  She was a single Japanese chick, with an Irish name she’d taken from the old TV show China Beach. (She’d always liked the main character—strong woman back when that wasn’t a very popular thing to be.)

  Be strong now!

  She was going to a couples’ paradise. This was going to be worse than the parental purgatory.

  She’d be pleasant. Polite.

  And as soon as she got home, Larry was a dead man.

  Chapter Two

  Dateline: Day Two, Henderson’s Ranch,

  Montana Front Range

  * * *

  Montana greets visitors who fly in with the dullest landscape imaginable. Rulers are tested here for an accurate straight edge by laying them on the ground.

  But fifty miles to the west, the Rocky Mountains soar aloft, forcing the eye to constantly scan upward to the bluest sky imaginable. Henderson’s Ranch lies nestled in the softly rolling country at the base of these majestic peaks.

  A night’s sleep and Colleen felt much more human this morning, even if she couldn’t make sense of what lay outside her cabin window. To the south and east, the land stretched so far away that she felt as if she was perched atop an infinite cliff and at the least misstep might tumble down forever. A person could get vertigo here just sitting still.

  To the west, the mountains punched aloft in bold, jagged strokes with little of the softness that Washington’s forests provided to Seattle’s peaks.

  There was a wildness that confronted her every time she looked at these mountains. Her inner city Tokyo childhood, her rebellious escape to the community of fifty-thousand students at the University of Washington, Seattle’s million people—none of it prepared her for this stark emptiness.

  Here along the Front Range, aside from a few dozen guests and another dozen ranch hands, there might not be a soul for twenty miles. It felt like a thousand.

  Down the slope, a tall woman stepped out of the back door of the main lodge and rang a giant steel triangle just like in an Old West movie: clangety-clangety-clangety-clang.

  Families and couples streamed out of the other cabins and headed downhill toward the massive two-story log cabin structure that looked like one of those Depression-era lodges. Huge, powerful, unmoving.

  A quick survey showed that she was the only singleton—if she didn’t count kids, and even they seemed to come in packs. Almost everyone was dressed in K-Mart Western, or some designer version that looked no more likely.

  There were breakfast fixings in her cabin, and she was tempted to retreat there, but she was here to write a travelogue article. For that she had to experience the experience.

  She was last down the trail to the big house. The guests were all guided along the wrap-around porch to the front entrance into the big dining room she’d seen on last night’s welcome tour. Thirty people could eat communal style at the long table.

  However, a few others were coming around to the kitchen door. They were dressed far more casually, and far more authentically. Cowboy boots, dusty jeans, a variety of hats—some battered cowboy, some baseball-cap redneck. The women were dressed much the same.

  Not really paying attention to what her feet were doing, she fell in with the ranch hands and found herself in a massive and beautiful kitchen. The hands were making use of one of the sinks before gathering at a smaller version of the big communal table out front.

  “Mornin’, Colleen. Not up for our ‘Happy Couples’ breakfast?” Mark the pilot greeted her with an understanding smile, reading her too easily.

  Time to gear up the pleasant-reporter face.

  He wasn’t any less handsome this morning, but a stunning blonde kissed him on the cheek as she topped up his coffee, confirming that the ring wasn’t just for show.

  “Not so much, if that’s okay.”

  “Take a seat. Dad’s this one, Mom’s the other end, when she bothers to sit down. The rest are up for grabs.”

  She took a seat almost, but not quite, at the middle of the table on the far side. It gave her the best view of what was going on and would let her hear most of the conversations without being the center of them. No one so much as blinked an eye as she joined them. A pretty redhead gave her a South California, “Hey!” Her husband was more the quiet-nod type.

  Another long blonde gave her a very authentic sounding, “Howdy!” just as the male cook (with a Brooklyn-tinged “Hello and welcome”) came and set a plate in front of the blonde, then kissed her on top of the head.

  Shit! She was in Couplandia here as well. Finally some more guys came in until there was a fair balance of single men. More what she’d expected.

  Her goal of keeping track of the conversations went out the window in the first ten seconds. They were talking about the day to come and what they knew about the guests, but doing it in a handful of simultaneous discussions: “Most of this lot we won’t get out of the corral for a couple days.” “Did you see that absolute babe from England? Never saw a woman sit a horse so purty. She’ll ride far and hard.” His companion—alike enough to be his twin—gave him a knowing smile that was all about the woman and not so much about how she sat.

  Colleen stayed focused on her meal and her article. The food was incredibly good despite how basic a hash brown-and-ham scramble with a biscuit buried in gravy sounded. Article ideas were perking up as she enjoyed the camaraderie around the table. These people liked each other. Liked working together. And whatever else they were saying about the guests, none of it was bitter or caustic. She’d expected some derision of “city cowboys” but nothing even remotely like that came up in any of the several threads she was able to follow.

  She wondered what they’d be saying about her behind her back.

  “I like the way you listen.”

  It took her a moment to rewind the comment because it was only the last word that actually caught her attention. She finally traced it (nearly accentless) to the man across the table. He wasn’t a big man—Colleen had an absolute weak spot for big men, who thankfully often had a weak spot for petite Japanese women—but he had a nice smile so she wouldn’t hold his normalness of height and build against him.

  “Uh-huh,” her cordial-meter was still running below normal, but then no one was supposed to see through her pleasant-reporter face. She really needed another mug of tea.

  “Heard you just arrived from Japan. Family there?”

  “Uh-huh,” her cordial-meter bottomed out. That was a reminder that she didn’t need.

  “Apparently the wrong question.”

  “Uh-huh,” she dialed up her emphatic-sarcasm mode to full.

  “Do you ride?”

  Her first temptation was to go to “uh-uh” but she already was being subverbal far beyond her norm. Besides, it was the easiest response. Like writing, the easiest word (the first word she thought of) was rarely the most precise or evocative one. Good writing required avoiding the obvious while still telling the story—whether it encapsulated what it was like to work on the Boeing manufacturing line like her last article or the current purgatory of Couplandia.

  Her interlocuter (yes! her vocabulary was finally coming back online) looked like a nice enough guy. Cowboy lean with a pleasant smile. She supposed that she’d have to ride a horse to get the full “Henderson’s Ranch” experience and a private lesson sounded far better than shaming herself in public.

  “Not yet,” she added a smile which she knew was one of her strengths. The guy returned with a powerful one of his own
.

  It was only then that she noticed Mr. Handsome-with-a-ring Henderson rolling his eyes at her—at least that’s what she assumed he was doing behind his ever-present shades.

  Okay, maybe she could have been a little more subtle. But he said he liked the way she listened—one of the skills she was most proud of. That bit of insightfulness was going to earn him a lot of leeway.

  Chapter Three

  Dateline, Day Four—

  Colleen turned on a light against the fading day and flipped back through her notes again. Where had Day Three gone? Where had Day Two gone for that matter?

  She finally found Day Two.

  Mac Henderson, technically Mark Henderson, Sr. and almost as handsome as his son, had been thrilled to have her on the ranch. Apparently she was their first journalist, so their resort had a lot riding on making her happy—though he acted as if he was simply glad she was here, not several million readers AAA magazine would be sending this out to. Which was sweet of him to pretend.

  On Day Two, he’d toured her about: cabins, yurts, cooking classes, weaving classes, horseback riding, even a military dog trainer named Stan—a big, gruff man with a hook prosthetic on one arm who only spoke to his dogs.

  As the day had progressed, Mac had grown more and more excited about showing her around his ranch until he was as wound up as one of Stan’s puppies. A former Navy SEAL in his sixties who almost wriggled with delight. She’d always thought SEALs were supposed to be broody and stoic, but Mac was a thoroughly pleasant guy who clearly loved this land with a passion.

  What she’d found truly unbelievable was the amount of work it took to run the place, and Mac made sure that she had a chance to meet and chat with every person of the staff. The redhead who ran the barn was so voluble that Colleen couldn’t have gotten down one word in ten no matter how fast she took notes—and she was fast. Her husband, the ranch manager, was laconic to the point where Colleen wondered if people catnapped between his sentences.

  It took her a while to catch on that he was teasing her with it.

  Day Two afternoon: Mark’s wife Emily took her on a solo helicopter flight over the ranch that was stunning in both its expansiveness and its variety. The softly rolling landscape around the buildings gave way to rugged prairie, patches of pine forest, and even waterfalls along a small river that ran down out of the hills. A group of horses out at a remote fishing cabin revealed that at least some riders had made it past the corral.

  The cook wasn’t a cook at all—he was a dropout New York chef…one she’d actually heard of.

  She was getting why Larry and his family had gone nuts over the place, but that didn’t explain what had happened to her notes. She was sure she taken more of them.

  Day Three’s notes were definitely not here. Then she remembered…

  Raymond Esterling, her Day One breakfast companion.

  Who liked the way she listened.

  That’s what had happened to Day Three.

  …and most of Day Four.

  Colleen sat down abruptly on the bed in her small cabin. She ran a hand over the bedspread: Cheyenne weaving done by the owner’s wife. She was one of those tall, majestic Native American women that never actually existed in real life. The blanket’s geometric reds and golds were as warm as the campfire they’d all sat around while burgers were cooked over open flame on a heavy iron grill earlier this evening—some of the best beef she’d ever tasted.

  Whatever in the wide, wide world of Montana was happening to her? A good girl’s education in being Japanese hadn’t prepared her for this place. Nor a journalist’s.

  Her ears rang in the silence. No cars at night, no planes. Not even the ocean when she vacationed down at Cannon Beach, Oregon and could pretend the waves were actually the low rumble of I-5 that was never silent in Seattle—easily audible from her apartment on the other side of Lake Union.

  A soft whinny drew her back to her feet and out onto the cabin’s porch.

  Raymond sat astride a big roan—as she’d learned to call his cream-colored mount with dark legs and mane. The sunset lit his gentle face.

  He’d “happened” to more than her notes. He was happening to her and none of her training, neither as Kurva Baisotei nor Colleen McMurphy, was ready for it. Not even the city pickup bars had prepared her for him—not even the good ones (if there was such a thing).

  Worse, Raymond hadn’t resisted her journalistic inquisitiveness.

  (Anta, sensakuzuki, her sister would curse under her breath—you are always so nosy, with the anta insult thrown in.)

  Raymond hadn’t resisted it because she hadn’t unleashed it on him. Which was totally unlike her. But he had impressive listening skills as well.

  To his credit, after his horseback riding lessons yesterday and today—in between the lessons he was giving to others—she had a good feel for riding. This afternoon she’d joined a trail ride for beginners and even cantered once; which had been both exhilarating and nearly scared her back into the womb.

  But she knew so little about him.

  He didn’t seem to mind talking—he wasn’t a reclusive hikikomori or even a male jerk “not in touch with his feelings.” But it was as if his life beyond the boundaries of the ranch stretched as empty as the scrub prairie.

  She knew that was total crap—he was a summer instructor and trail guide, no more. But every time she got ready to pin him down on what he did the other eight months of the year he’d smile at her, adjust her “seat” position, point out an eagle soaring on a thermal, anything to distract her…without appearing to distract her.

  Now he sat astride his horse not five feet from the porch of her cabin, looking the quintessential “cowboy in the sunset.”

  “You can’t be some mystic cowboy forever, you know?”

  “Evening to you too, Kurva.” Somehow he’d gotten that out of her. He also managed to say it like it wasn’t a comment on her figure, or rather lack of one, so she let him use it. Instead, he turned her name into a tease, a friendly nickname that didn’t chide her for choosing another.

  “Evening to you, Raymond. What are you doing up on a horse at this hour?”

  “Hoping to take you on an evening ride and see the stars. It’s a warm night, but you might want a jacket.” Never quite a question, yet not a statement either. As if coaxing her along like a reluctant horse. She didn’t appreciate the metaphor but couldn’t find the urge to fight it either.

  Her own mount, a patient bay named Gumdrop of all silliness, trailed behind him on a lead. Colleen was really getting the vernacular down. She wanted to do a little horse-words rap there on the porch but resisted it. Instead she grabbed a polar fleece off a hook inside the door and climbed up into the saddle.

  Seattle girl in the saddle girl

  Astride some rawhide like a way cool—bri—No!

  Her mind nearly strangled itself when her inner rap artist cast up “bride” for worst-rhyming-word-choice-of-the-century award. Definitely not!

  The vertiginous Big Sky of Montana expanded even more as they rode up past the cabins and over the rise at a lazy, side-by-side plod. Gumdrop’s head bobbed easily, no longer nearly jerking Colleen out of the saddle each time the horse leaned down to crop some grass as they went along.

  In the sky, golds found reds.

  Reds hinted at impending purples.

  Soon Raymond reined to a halt and pointed to the west, “Venus.”

  Colleen didn’t know where to look.

  Raymond pulled his mount close beside her so that she could easily follow the line of his pointing arm.

  It took her a moment to pick the sparkling point of light out of the red-gold sky, then she had it. It hung above the silhouetted-black mountains like a diamond.

  “Planet light, planet bright, First planet I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, Have this wish I wish tonight.” Ray’s voice was as soft as the call of a passing bird. “Meadowlark,” he filled in for her.

  “This seems to be the sort of place
that wishes come true.” It really was. The pale dry grass lay in golden waves over the rolling prairie. Far below—she didn’t realize they’d wandered so far as she had watched the shifting light—lay the cozy cluster of ranch buildings: lodge, barns, and cabins. The next farm over, a big-spread cattle ranch, was just barely visible and looked homey as well.

  “What do you wish for, Colleen Baisotei?” He said it right. It was as if he couldn’t quite leave her names alone but had to play with them like cat toys. It seemed to make him happy to do so and, curiously, it didn’t bother her. Words were her toys as well. She liked that in a man.

  “What do I wish for? Not this.”

  “You don’t?”

  “Not really. The beauty here is like a drug. Perhaps in small doses, but I’d miss the city too much as well.”

  “I know,” his voice was as soft as the night. “I come here for the summers, retreat to my city in the fall. But I don’t think about that now. Now, I am simply here.”

  “A cowboy.”

  “They let me play at being one.”

  Colleen liked that about him, too. He knew what he himself was, even if she didn’t know what he was in the real world. And now she understood why. Whereas she— “Huh!”

  “What?”

  “I’m…not sure what to wish for.” Peace with her parents? There was a greater chance of a forest fire in Antarctica. Finding… Colleen didn’t know what to plug in there. That bothered her. She really should know.

  Sure, she was doing fine. She had good friends in Seattle, whether for a quiet dinner or to go out dancing: square dancing at the Tractor, Britpop Thursday at the Lo-Fi, or bottom-trawling at the J&M. Her job sent her traipsing up and down the Northwest until she knew it like the back of her hand, but kept discovering new things there anyway. Men were pleasant and easy. She knew there was a type of man who looked at her and melted, and she didn’t mind that either. Slim-Japanese-with-dark-hair-well-down-her-back slayed them…another advantage to America over Japan where she was just another potential housewife. Dressing in a tight tube-top at least doubled her yield.