“Yel-lo,” said a voice that sounded as if it had been dredged from the back of Harvey Fierstein’s closet. “Last Chance Llama Ranch, can I help you?”
“Oh, um, hello, sir,” said Merry with all her customary grace. She glanced at the ad for the contact information she’d deliberately left off her blog. “I was looking for Dorothy Cassidy. Is this her husband?”
“I knew I shoulda given up smoking sooner,” said the voice, resigned. “No, honey, this is Dorothy her own damn self. Who’s calling?”
Shit. Way to win friends and influence people. Now, just ask her how many months along she is and when the baby’s due, and you’ll have this one in the bag.
“Well, ah, my name is Merry Manning. I’m calling about your Craigslist ad?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?” The gravelly voice was amused.
“Telling you,” Merry said with a laugh of her own. “Sorry about that. I’m just never sure what to expect when responding to a Craigslist posting.”
“Uh-huh. You do this a lot?” Dorothy’s voice grew a bit less friendly. “I’ve already had about six calls from Nigerian banking magnates this morning, and I’m neck-deep in marriage proposals too. Some for me, some for my animals. Not sure if I need a shotgun or a secretary at this point, but I sure’s shit am second-guessing this Craigslist crap Jane got me into. So don’t be a scam artist or a goat-fucker, okay?”
Merry snarfed her Diet Coke. “Ow,” she muttered, rooting around for a napkin in her bag. Her shirt sported cola-colored spots and her nostrils stung. “No, no goat-fucking here!” she assured Dorothy. “I’m a travel writer.”
Silence.
“I assure you, it’s a step up.”
“And you wanna be a ranch hand?” The skepticism was strong in Dorothy’s voice.
“Well, for a little while, anyway,” Merry acknowledged. “From your ad it sounded like you’re just looking for someone to fill in.”
“Right. My regular hand Luke’s getting married and his gal Rosie wants him to spend a few weeks with her family down south. But the fluffies won’t feed themselves, and I ain’t as nimble as I used to was, if you know what I’m saying.”
“Ah…sure,” Merry said. “What exactly do you need done?”
“Mucking, fence mending, hay and regular rounds. Welfare checks, scan for bear or mountain lion scat in the far pastures. The usual.” She sounded surprised Merry should have to ask. “Plus, help my nephew Sammy with his side of the business—that’s the llama tours.” Dorothy sounded proud, and Merry had a vision of a younger, cowboy-hatted Harvey Fierstein riding the range with a string of llamas in tow. Maybe the beasts would be doing a chorus number, she thought—high kicks and all.
“You strong enough to haul a forty-pound bale of hay?” Dorothy asked, bringing Merry out of her surreal suppositions. “Muck out a barn?”
It was a good question.
Am I strong enough? Frankly, Merry wasn’t at all sure her leg was up to a lot of heavy farm work. For the past year, her adventures had been more “interested observer” than “derring-doer.” She’d happily skydive—if she was strapped to someone who could take the brunt of the landing. She’d drink in Hemingway’s dives in Pamplona, but she sure as hell wasn’t running with any bulls, before or after boozing it up. She didn’t like to think of herself as a wuss, but she knew her physical limits.
Now, if she wanted to keep her job, she’d have to challenge them.
“I’m sure I can manage,” Merry said heartily. My readers will relish my attempt, anyway. Or so said Joel. As far as her editor was concerned, the more shit she stumbled into, the better. They’ll eat it up, kid, he’d assured her. This is the Internet. There’s nothing these people love better than watching other people land on their fannies—even their heroes. Hell, especially their heroes. So be a good sport. And he’d handed her a kit bag containing bug spray, sunblock, and half a tuna sandwich she suspected he’d forgotten from his lunch.
She’d accepted it without comment, too proud to share her misgivings. Because Merry Manning was a good sport.
“Mrs. Cassidy, what I’d like to propose is a kind of a work exchange,” Merry continued. “You let me experience ranch life firsthand, and I get to write about it for my online magazine.”
“You mean you don’t even want to be paid?” Dorothy’s voice rose to a practically feminine pitch in surprise.
Merry would, indeed, like to be paid. But despite what she’d said to her readers, she couldn’t very well ask the rancher to provide wages when she’d undoubtedly be far less qualified than the other applicants for the job. The per-piece fee she earned for her columns would have to carry her through to the next assignment. Somehow. “Well, your ad did mention something about room and board,” she said. “Would that be okay, Mrs. Cassidy?”
“Call me Dolly. And I just have one question, honey.”
“What’s that?” Merry found herself smiling despite herself. Dolly the Llama Lady? Her readers would have a shit. She could picture Joel rubbing his hands with glee as he told the editorial board what she was up to.
“When can you get here?”
Wow. That was easy. But then, Merry hadn’t gotten to the disclaimers. Dolly might have second thoughts when she learned what her column was all about. The name “Don’t Do What I Did” kind of said it all. “Well, I can leave pretty much anytime, but before you agree, I think you’d better take a look at the website and decide whether you’re comfortable with the kind of exposure it’d bring. Oh, and my editor will want you to sign a release.”
“It ain’t some kinda porn site, is it?” Dolly asked warily. “I’ve heard porn’s kind of a thing on the Internet. I don’t have much truck with it—the Internet, that is—but that goes for pornography too. I don’t want none of it going on at my ranch. We pride ourselves on running a family-friendly operation.”
“Oh, gosh no! What I do is like a cross between Dirty Jobs and No Reservations,” she explained, pitching it to Dorothy in almost the exact words Joel had used a couple of days earlier when cajoling her not to quit the magazine. “Except on a website instead of cable TV.”
There was a silence. The kind of silence that said either “dropped call” or “I have no idea what the ever-loving fuck you are talking about but I’m too polite to tell you so.”
“Anyhow, take a look at my website and get back to me,” Merry reiterated. “If you’re sure this is what you want, email me and we’ll get the ball rolling. Sound good?”
“Sure, honey. I’ll think it over. But I’ve got a good feeling about you, Merry Manning. I expect we’ll be seeing you real soon.”
“Oh, well, that’s great! Incidentally, what would you recommend I bring?”
Dolly gave another laugh—surprisingly appealing despite sounding dredged from a riverbed. “Just the basics, child. Your Carhartt, your shitkickers, big ol’ hats in both winter and summer weights. It’s December overnight and July by midday here. Oh, and lots of layers, from flannels to woolens. Tourists never do take that seriously, no matter how many times I tell ’em.”
My staple wardrobe, in other words, Merry thought, looking down at the ballet flats, Lululemon yoga pants, and Ralph Lauren silk top that was supposed to be a thigh-length tunic but didn’t quite cover her butt. Her mother had sent the clothes, and Merry, strapped for cash, hadn’t seen the sense in refusing Gwendolyn’s latest “care package,” despite the strong odor of reproof that, as always, permeated the clothing.
Don’t disgrace me. Keep up appearances.
Gwendolyn would have blanched to the roots of her expertly colored hair if she could see how poorly the outfit fit Merry’s outsized frame. God only knew what she’d say if she saw her daughter in the kind of getup Mrs. Cassidy was describing. I’ll probably look like the Marlboro Man in braids in that getup. Or…crap. Willie Nelson.
Sorry, Mother, Merry thought. I’m about to embarrass you. Again. She scrubbed a hand over her face. “Got it. Basics it is. Oh, one last thing,” M
erry said before Dorothy could hang up. “Do you mind if I bring my pet turtle? He’s really very well behaved.”
A sound suspiciously like a cackle tickled Merry’s ears through the phone. “Honey, with the zoo we’ve got, I doubt anyone will even notice he’s here.” And with that, Dolly disconnected the call.
Merry picked up the sturdy little box turtle and stared him in his beady black eyes. “Ready for New Mexico, Cleese old boy? It’s so sunny there, it’s practically sunny at night! You’ll be nice and toasty, soaking up those rays.” It might have been Merry’s imagination, but she thought she saw the little fellow nod. “Good. It’s settled then. I think you’re really gonna dig this one,” she told the turtle with over-the-top enthusiasm.
No sense letting her loyal reptilian buddy know how little she was likely to dig it.
Aguas Milagros, New Mexico
Omigod, sooooooooooo CUUUUUUUUUUTTTTTTEEEEE!” I squee’d.
The second I got the car into park, unfolded myself from behind the wheel, and stretched my cramped legs (somehow I managed to get saddled with the only MINI Cooper in the West for my rental car), I caught my first glimpse of my new spirit animal. Standing behind a weathered post-and-wire fence, long ears cocked forward, rubbery lips twitching like a bunny, was a real, honest-to-goodness live llama.
He was cream and brown, sort of like a sheepdog, with a neck that was almost telescopic and eyes that were liquid and calm, the essence of good karma. The intelligent, friendly look on his smooshy-wooshy face drew me closer. I had to remind myself not to pinch the li’l fella’s cheeks.
“Hey, pretty boy!” I cooed, approaching the fence perhaps a bit precipitously.
Ptttoooooo!
Thwack.
Oh my God.
Warm. Grassy. Globulous. Filled with whole universes of evil, vicious, human-monching germs.
I would have screamed, but even in this exigency, I realized that to open my mouth was to invite the unspeakable substance that now coated my face to invade my vulnerable interior.
Friends, I have been in a lot of intense situations, but never—not in the darkest throes of my weirdest fantasies—had I imagined I’d spend my thirtieth birthday getting spit on by an angry llama.
In North Bumblefuck, New Mexico.
I backed up fast, tripped over a root, and crashed so hard onto my fanny that a cloud of dust puffed up and settled upon the swanky new Burberry trench my doting mother recently sent me. Something told me it was now as besmirched as my face. (Sorry, Mother!) Huffing with horror, I struggled back to my feet, scrambling to avoid a narsty-looking draggle of cactus I’d been lucky enough not to discover with my ass. With nothing else for it, I was forced to use the sleeve of my formerly fantastic jacket to wipe the oobleck off my petrified puss.
“They don’t like sudden moves,” came a voice from behind me.
An amused voice—quite warm and slightly gravelly, if I’d been in any condition to notice.
“And I don’t like sudden loogies!” I snapped back, spinning to face Captain Obvious, whomever he might be.
Oh my.
“Captain Obvious” was a demotion. He was Major Gorgeous.
Crouched by the side of the demonic animal’s pen, wrapping wire around a fence post with some unidentifiable manly tool, was a guy who seemed to have sprung from the earth, fully formed, as the epitome of “Cowboy.” A walking (okay, squatting) cliché in Wranglers and a dusty white Stetson, plaid work shirt beneath Carhartt coat rolled up to reveal sinewy forearms.
I had to wonder: Had someone up there found out about my forearm fetish? Had the god of clumsy travel writers perhaps planted this dude in my path just to delight me? (It was my birthday, after all.)
Major Gorgeous rose up from his crouch.
And rose.
And rose.
Holy hillbillies, Batman, I thought. He must be at least six foot five.
Forget the forearms, you guys: I’m a sucker for a tall drink of water.
He looked down at me—all blue eyes and chiseled features shaded from the slanting late-afternoon sun by that ridiculous Lone Ranger hat. Sun-streaked blond hair was caught in a leather thong at the base of his strong, tanned neck. And wait, was he…barefoot? Yes, definitely barefoot. A barefoot cowboy. Just the kind of little quirk designed to intrigue a red-blooded, redheaded woman like me.
“Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” said the stud. “I’m Sam Cassidy, Dolly’s nephew. We’re right glad to have you here at the ranch.”
* * *
Merry stopped, fingers poised over the keys. Now why did I write that? she thought, mystified.
Sam Cassidy wasn’t hot.
He wasn’t particularly tall, either—probably at least three inches shorter than she was, if Merry was any judge. (And she had become one, early on, when her high school growth spurt had been so precipitous her parents had sent her to a pituitary specialist.) “Burly” might best describe Dorothy Cassidy’s nephew, with the kind of bearlike physique that could equally have been beer belly or brawn beneath his oiled canvas work jacket. And his hair hadn’t been some halo of golden sunshine, come to think of it—though thick enough, it’d been dry and straw-like, messily tied back and far too long for Merry’s taste. Yes, his forearms were nicely corded—she’d seen that where his cuffs were rolled up. And yeah, he’d worn a Stetson. And okay, his blue eyes had been suitably piercing. But his craggy features could have been called attractive only by someone in a charitable frame of mind.
And Merry hadn’t found herself in a charitable frame of mind. Because there was another thing Sam Cassidy wasn’t. Charming.
There’d been no “pleased ta meetchas” from the surly man she’d encountered this afternoon. Instead, he’d eyed her with a distinct chill that told her that he was less than delighted to have Merry intruding upon his little corner of the world, not offering her any assistance while she sputtered and gasped after the llama had let loose, just watching as she reacted to its opening salvo. He’d almost seemed to relish her discomfiture, as a matter of fact, eyeing her with an expression that was practically a sneer. Nope, she’d gotten no warm welcome from Sam.
Dolly, fortunately, had been a different story.
* * *
I was still wiping llama effluvia off my cheek when our hostess joined the party. “You’ve met Buddha, I see,” said a woman in an enormous straw gardening hat, striding from the shade of a shed I’d been too blinded by saliva to notice. “Sorry about that, hon. Most of our fluffies are better behaved, but Buddha here could use a few more spins on the karmic wheel.” She cast an exasperated look at the perfidious beast, then stuck one hand out for me to shake.
I gave her my heartiest handshake in return. “I’m Merry,” I said. “Delighted to meet you.”
Mrs. Cassidy’s eyes, every bit as piercing a blue as her nephew’s, scanned me from the shade of both deep sun wrinkles and her prodigious hat. I was pretty sure she had me analyzed down to the DNA in five seconds flat, but she didn’t drive me off with a stick, so I must have passed muster. “Dolly Cassidy,” she said. “Welcome to the Last Chance, hon. Here—you still got some Buddha-goo on ya.” And she handed me a kerchief from one of her voluminous pockets.
I have to tell you, my fabulous fans, that I liked my hostess from moment one. Mrs. Cassidy is a woman who gracefully inhabits her midsixties, sporting short, no-nonsense faded ginger hair beneath that prize-winning hat and a sturdy figure that told me she was no swooning lady of the plantation, but a real, salt-of-the-earth working farmer. It was clear to me that she is a woman of enormous confidence, humor…and a complete, total dearth of bullshit. I’m talking 100 percent bullshit free. She may run a ranch that’s ankle-deep in what she likes to call “llama beans,” but she will tell it to you straight every time. As witnessed by her next words.
“I can see you’re a strapping gal, and lord love you for it, but are you sure you wanna be a ranch hand?” She gave me another probing look, not failing to take in my now-soiled white trench co
at (in retrospect, a poor choice for my chosen mission) and flip-flop-clad feet. (I hate to drive in closed-toe shoes. Call me a weirdo.)
“If you’ll have me,” I assured her, inching another little bit away from the deceptively placid llama. “Just point to what needs doing, and I’ll hop to it!”
“Let’s save the hopping for the morning, hon,” my hostess replied (rather to my relief, as I’d been driving all day). “Sun’s gonna set before long, so grab your stuff from that bitty thing you’re callin’ a car, and I’ll show you to your bunk. Sam, how ’bout you give our Merry here a hand with her bags,” she suggested to her nephew, who’d been standing around looking studly all the while.
“Glad to help.” He tipped his hat at me, then started gallantly for the MINI. I’ll admit, it was no hardship at all to watch his easy gait in those snug Wranglers, nor the way his muscles flexed as he lifted my gear from the car. And then—as if he could sense my far-too-prurient gaze—he turned around.
And winked.
It was at that point, dear readers, that my knees developed a serious case of the noodlies.
* * *
What the…?
Merry took her fingers off the keyboard again and examined them for signs of possession. What was going on? What Sam had actually said was…well, he hadn’t said anything. He’d merely grunted as if gravely put upon when Dolly had directed him to help with the bags. There sure as hell hadn’t been any winking. And rather than weakening, Merry’s knees—along with her spine—had stiffened with affront as he’d yanked her suitcases from the car’s rear and stomped toward her accommodation. But somehow that wasn’t the story she was telling her readers.
Maybe I should just go with it, she thought, an impish idea brewing in her brain. As a rule, she was scrupulously honest in her columns, if not 100 percent forthcoming. But this was a whole new gig, with a whole new mandate. Perhaps a little scrubbing up was what the surly Sam Cassidy needed, both to keep her audience hooked, and to keep Merry from wanting to kick the guy in his undoubtedly furry shins.
Last Chance Llama Ranch Page 5