Home on the Range

by Ruth Logan Herne

  “He needs a transplant.” Angelina said the words through a tear-streaked face, and when Angelina gave way to tears, you knew things were in a serious way. “They’ve put him on the list, but they need to find a good match and then have him healthy enough to undergo the surgery.”

  “Oh, man.” Nick thought his days had been full a few minutes ago, but the thought of actually losing his father brought up emotions he didn’t want to deal with. He tipped his head back, gazed at the ceiling, then faced them. “What kind of a timeline are we talking?”

  “Tight.”

  He sat in the nearest chair, and Colt and Angelina joined him. “What are the options?”

  “We just told you,” Colt began, but Nick shook his head.

  “No, sorry, I mean how do we find out the options on procuring a liver? Is it a critical need list or best match? And is there a possibility that we can buy one?”

  “Nick!” Angelina stared at him, appalled, but Colt nodded.

  “I wondered the same thing. I don’t mean on an illegal market,” he explained when Angelina looked like she might pop both of them in the jaw. “There are ways to do this legally, I believe.”

  “I don’t even want to know how you might know this.” She leveled him a hard stare and sat up straighter. “It’s a rating system. A mix of critical need, then the best match for the most critically ill. There is the possibility of a living donor transplant according to the surgeons. But it has to be a good match. And there’s risk involved.”

  “Okay, that’s ghoulish.” Nick narrowed his gaze at her. “You can’t live without a liver, so how can a living person donate theirs? And you thought the idea of buying one was out there. As if.”

  “The liver is one of few organs that regenerates itself.” Colt faced Nick. “Remember that big scandal back east, where the doctor was doing too many of these surgeries to make money for the hospital and pad their stats?”

  Like Nick had time to sit around and catch up on East Coast scandal sheets. “No. One of us was too busy impregnating cows, cutting hay, and dodging bulls to sit around reading newspapers. What’s that got to do with Dad?”

  “We’ve got to make sure that whoever works on Dad has no one to impress,” Colt declared. “We’re not after the hospital that does the most of these; we want the one with the best possible outcome percentage.”

  “And how do we find out if we’re a match?” Nick asked. “Where do we go to get tested?”

  “The doctors can set that up,” Angelina told them. “We’ve got good hospitals all along the West Coast, but if we can’t find a match, they said the waiting time is shorter in the Heartland.”

  Colt threw up his hands. “That makes no sense.”

  “Sure it does,” Nick told him. “It comes down to numbers. Highly populated areas probably mean higher need, more patients.”

  Angelina nodded. “That’s what they said.”

  The phone rang just then. She got up, looked at the read-out, and held it up for Nick. “Whitney.”

  He waved her off to buy time. “I’ll call her back later. Right now —” He stood, hauled in a deep breath, and headed for the door. “I’ll be back.”

  She let the call go to voice mail, and when Colt followed him out the door, Nick paced about thirty feet away and then turned. “How do we do this?”

  Colt didn’t look any too sure, but he pretended to be sure, and that just aggravated Nick further. “Day by day, same as always, I expect.”

  “We’re down on help, we’ve got a ridiculous amount of work to do each day, we’re committed to helping the town get back on its feet, and if one of us is a match, that means another man down. And I’ve got the whole Whitney situation to deal with now.” He waved in the general direction of the town. “She’ll be underfoot, wanting this, wanting that. What if I’m the match?” He turned toward Colt. “How do I keep an eye on Whitney and the girls if I’m off in some hospital undergoing life-threatening surgery?”

  “You won’t be in any such place, so don’t worry about it.”

  Sam’s voice, coming from over Nick’s left shoulder. Could this possibly get any worse? He turned to apologize, but his father’s glare stopped him.

  Sam moved forward. He didn’t falter as he walked, which meant Nick’s tirade got his adrenaline pumping.

  Great.

  Sam stopped in front of his two sons, and the stern look on his face was contradicted by stark fear in his eyes. But Sam Stafford never let fear stop him, and today wasn’t any different. “I don’t need anything from anyone. Not now, not ever.”

  “Dad, I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant to say.”

  Sam shook off his hand and his apology. “And I sure as shootin’ don’t need a half-baked apology. You spoke your mind, made your feelings clear, and that’s that.”

  Nick started to speak. Colt warned him off with a shake of his head, so he waited until Sam let the screen door slap shut behind him before speaking. “I thought he was asleep.”

  “I realize that now.” Colt winced. “Sorry, man. I never thought to mention he took a walk to the barn. Give him time to digest all that’s happened today, and then apologize. Or give him part of your liver,” he added cheerfully.

  “That’s not funny.”

  “It is in a way,” Colt argued. “I’ll call and get an appointment set up for the testing. No sense in us going separately.”

  “And I’ll call Trey.”

  “To tell him, sure.” Colt took a deep breath and faced the broad expanse of fields. “We’ll be able to put him to work here, that’s for certain.”

  “Well, that, and to have him get tested.”

  “You think Trey could be a match?” Colt asked, surprised. “Really?”

  Nick shrugged. “When we arrange genetic cattle crosses, there are certain dominant traits that breed true. They say siblings are usually the best match, but if Dad's sister passed those traits down to Trey, he could be a match.”

  “I suppose.” Colt saw Murt moving their way and he slapped his hat back on his head. “Me and Murt are drawing blood from the heifers today. I’ll be back later. Unless you want to do Dracula detail and I’ll cut hay?”

  “I’m better up top, alone, where I can think about shutting my big mouth.” Nick pulled his Mariners baseball cap down onto his head. “I’ll be back at dark.”

  “I’ll tell Ange and Isabo.”

  He took the four-wheeler east to the thick, lush hay field, and when he climbed into the cab of the monster-sized tractor, a heart-stopping view lay before him, sprawled in elegant beauty. And just as much moved north behind him, a stunning testament to Sam Stafford’s hard work.

  And here he was, stuck in the middle.

  He loved this land, this ranch, the entire entity that was the Double S, and he’d been mad at his father for so long that anger seemed part and parcel of the family holdings. Sitting up top of that mammoth machine, he realized that in spite of his own childhood bitterness, Sam Stafford had built a larger-than-life legacy in Gray’s Glen, a legacy that would pass to his sons.

  But he wasn’t ready for his father to die. He didn’t want to say good-bye with old wrongs wedged between them. He should be proud of his father’s newfound faith. He should be happy for him, but was he?

  No.

  He was resentful, thinking of those workers that came late in the day and got paid as much as the laborers who worked all day. Where was the equity in that?

  There was no equity. There was just another story about a lamb, one of those parables that made you feel good until you realized that ninety-nine lambs were risked because one chose to go astray.

  Colt had flown off to build himself a life in the east. Trey had stood his ground against Sam’s tirades and gone south to Nashville, where he made a big name for himself. And Nick had stayed here, the good son, striving to build the ranch alongside his father while showing his father what a successful marriage looked like, right up until his wife proved him wrong and made him look foolish.r />
  He’d paralleled Sam’s life while trying to do the exact opposite, so who was the stupid son?

  He scowled as the tractor jerked forward along the first edgy row of the sage-green field.

  Colt had come back. And now Trey would return. Was he jealous that his effort meant little?

  Or was he selfish, wanting credit for a job well done while the wandering lambs built their own way in the world?

  Would Christ’s analogy really work on a ranch? Percentages were a big part of the annual report because no farm was perfect, but God didn’t rest on percentages. He wanted his lambs—his people —accounted for.

  Nick eyed the remaining acreage and realized he’d have plenty of time to mull because this hay field stretched long and hard to the south and east, and maybe hours on his own would sweeten his attitude.

  Your attitude was all right when you were kissing Elsa this morning.

  Elsa, laughing at him. Talking to him. Letting him say what was on his mind without regret.

  He aimed straight ahead and figured it wasn’t a bad idea to say some prayers. There was a lot of ground to cover, a parable in its own right, and while he took care of the hay, he’d ask God about seeing to everything else. Given their current family dynamics, Nick figured the good Lord had his work cut out for him.

  Elsa had discovered a new scientific theory yesterday. The power of one very well done kiss could provide environmentally friendly energy for the world, if harnessed correctly.

  It sounded preposterous, but how else could Elsa explain the urge to scrape one side of the house to prepare it for painting, spackle dents and holes to discourage bugs, and bake double batches of brownies and cookies for the volunteer construction crews working on the church? She dashed in and out of the house, humming—yes, humming!—while she rotated pans in the oven and scraped the beige clapboard. Once the desserts were cool, she packed them into plastic containers and headed toward the construction site.

  Her tire pressure light came on as she drove toward the main road, so she stopped by the convenience store on the way into town. She unscrewed the valve covers, then fed coins into the machine. When the air hose burst to life, she filled the low tire, then decided to check the others. As she rounded the back of the car to get to tire number three, she noticed two people coming out of the small, patched-together bar on the other side of the intersection.

  Whitney Stafford and Johnny Baxter.

  She watched, dismayed. Neither one looked sober. She didn’t realize she was staring until the air pump ran out of time and the motor shut off, leaving a silent gap.

  The change drew their attention. Elsa felt Whitney’s gaze as if taking measure. She set the hose down, moved around the car, and fed more coins into the machine. It sprang back to life, but when she turned to finish the last two tires, Whitney was approaching her.

  She’d felt prepared to deal with Whitney on Sunday, surrounded by Nick’s family.

  But here? At the corner of Rustic and Deserted?

  Elsa’s heart went into overdrive. Her palms broke into a cold sweat. Her throat choked, and she had to mentally disengage herself from the pure physiological reactions as Whitney drew near. “You’re Nick’s little friend, aren’t you?”

  She could argue, admit it, or smack Whitney with the air hose and run away. Option two won. “Elsa. Yes.”

  Whitney’s eyes narrowed, and when she raked Elsa’s T-shirt and capris with a deliberately disparaging look, Elsa was pretty sure she’d just stepped back into eighth grade. “Why were you watching us?”

  She was trying to put Elsa on the defensive. That would happen only if Elsa allowed it, and she wasn’t about to give Whitney the satisfaction. She moved to the opposite side of the car and went back to filling tires. It was impossible to hear over the roar of the air compressor, so why try? And the wait might give Whitney time to settle down.

  “You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?”

  The air compressor shut off just then, which meant she couldn’t help but hear Whitney. The choice of whether or not to answer was another story.

  “But who are you, Elsa?” The scent of liquor grew stronger as Whitney moved closer. “Who does Nick have watching my girls, because Johnny tells me no one knows all that much about you. But there are ways of finding things out, and if I want to know more about you, I can find it out like that!” She snapped her fingers for effect, but the snap missed and the dull scrape of skin to skin missed its mark.

  Elsa faced the taller woman and spoke simply. “Your girls are beautiful. They’re wonderful. And they miss having a mother, but if you’re really interested in stepping back into the job, Whitney”—she sent a direct look toward the bar across the street before shifting her attention back to Nick’s ex-wife —“you might want to consider some changes.”

  Whitney’s face flushed, but Elsa didn’t wait for a reply. She climbed into her car, started the motor, and pulled away.

  She refused to let Whitney intimidate her. So what that her heart was pumping a mile a minute and she had to swipe damp palms against her khaki capris? She’d gone face to face with an angry parent and stood her ground, and if she was still in personal therapy, her therapist would have called that a victory.

  Their little tête-à-tête had all the earmarks of a milestone. But the realization that Whitney was holing up with someone else who hated the Staffords might be cause for concern. Were they just a couple of foolish drunks feeding their habit in the local watering hole? Or were they getting together purposely to figure out how to even up old scores?

  Don’t apply rational thought to irrational people.

  She drove into town determined to move forward. She’d baked for the construction crews, and she wasn’t about to let a rude confrontation ruin her day. It took all her gumption to drive past the road leading into her woods, because it would have been so much easier to turn the wheel and head for home.

  She didn’t, and that was another solid success.

  She parked, then carried her plastic totes of brownies and cookies toward the construction zone. One of the local families had opened their three-bay garage as a soup kitchen, offering free food and drinks to the men and women rebuilding the damaged buildings.

  “Look what we have here!” A smiling heavyset woman with pinned-up gray hair hurried her way. “You’re Rachel’s sister, aren’t you?” She angled a happy look of appreciation to the stack of plastic containers. “You’ve just made yourself a lot of new friends here in town. Come on back here and meet the folks on hand today. I’m Wandy Schirtz, and that gruff old-timer across the way is my husband, Ben.”

  She grabbed Elsa’s hand and led her up the driveway and into the wide garage.

  Extra lights had been rigged to brighten the shaded area, and tables had been arranged to make the best use of the space. Not too many folks were sitting right now, and the methodical movements of another older couple made quick work of table cleanup. “This is wonderful.” Elsa turned back toward Wandy. “I’m Elsa. Just in case that bit of information hasn’t gotten this far yet.”

  “Nice to meet you finally, Elsa. Ben there”—she nodded her husband’s way —“is on the school board, so I know your sister well. Such a nice woman.”

  “She is.”

  Wandy glanced toward the construction area, then tapped a watch. “The next lunch will be here in five minutes. I don’t suppose you have a few minutes to help, do you, dearie?” She gazed expectantly at Elsa, and how could she say no? It wasn’t as if she lived a crammed full, hour-to-hour schedule anymore.

  “I can help.”

  “Perfect!” She beamed Elsa’s way. “Mary Kay’s daughter decided to go into labor a few weeks early, so she’s off to the hospital, naturally, and Jemma Myering came down with a spring cold and can’t stop sneezin’, so there’s no way we want her around food, is there?”

  Elsa couldn’t argue the logic in that, so she shook her head. “No, ma’am.”

  “If I could have you ser
ve up Rowen’s chicken and dumpling stew, folks can help themselves to the biscuits alongside, and we’ve got just enough time to set out dessert trays before folks head over.”

  “You’ve got scheduled eating times?” Elsa moved down to the dessert table and began filling trays from the stack of boxes and plastic containers on a shelf behind the food tables. “This is the pinnacle of organization.”

  “Well, at first we just had folks come whenever, but then we’d have too few one minute and too many the next,” Wandy admitted. “We’d run out of seats, folks had to wait in the rain, it was a mess. Course, there weren’t as many daily workers then, because it was all groundwork goin’ on. Diggin’ and layin’ block and stone and tearin’ down burnt buildings with big equipment. Once they got to the above-ground stuff, we got hoppin’ over here, and schedulin’ just seemed to make sense. Oh, that looks so nice, Elsa!” Wandy was looking at the dessert trays she’d set up for the workers. The older woman’s approving smile bolstered Elsa’s self-confidence after her little run-in with Whitney. “And here come the troops. Get ready, folks!”

  Wandy wasn’t kidding.

  A crowd of hungry people headed their way, and as Elsa served up bowl after bowl of chicken and dumpling stew from the cavernous pot, the steady stream of thank-yous and smiles made her feel like she was part of this small town. She filled the next bowl and started to hand it out when a strong hand covered hers.

  She peeked up, knowing without looking, but needing to see.

  “Mighty nice of you to help out, Elsa.”

  She felt the blush rise from somewhere around her feet. “I do what I can, cowboy.”

  His smile. The sweet look of affection in his eyes. The touch of his hand, firm and strong. The combination called to her, but behind all the normal lurked abnormal, and Elsa couldn’t take that lightly.

  “If you’re done makin’ moon eyes at the help, there’s a few more of us waitin’ on food, Nick.”

  He laughed, unoffended, gave her one last smile, and moved down the line, but the memory of that smile and his gaze kept her glancing his way while he and a bunch of others wolfed their food.