by Claire Adams
“Thank you again,” I said as I turned back toward the Millers.
Their generosity and home made me feel safe for the first time in the last week. I was happy to be out of Los Angeles and even happier as I climbed up into the empty bunk bed that had my things on it. Sleep had eluded me since I had first been pulled in for questioning regarding the murder of one of my employees and their involvement with Frank Gordano. My stomach had turned into a knot at the thought of my friend and employee losing his life and fear had overcome me.
Thomas Randal had been a pilot for me since my first year in business. He had grown with me and had been the one to introduce Frank Gordano and me , getting us into business together. Both Thomas and I knew that Frank was bad news; we had talked about it at length on several occasions. Neither of us thought that he would go so far as to murder one of us though; that was the shocking part to me. We had been good business partners for several years and I couldn’t think of a reason that Frank would have ordered Thomas’ murder.
Sure, I knew Frank Gordano was a dangerous man; I knew he was capable of murder. But we were good business associates. Everything he requested, we did for him. Our planes flew him internationally several times a month and we returned home with the cargo of drugs and guns that he had purchased. We took our payment and never spoke a word of our interactions to anyone. There were only two people in the company that knew what Gordano was transporting: Thomas and I.
The other people who had any interaction with Frank had also been well paid. We had been careful not to bring anyone fully into the business end of things, so there was no reason for any of my other employees to be in danger. It still baffled me as to what on earth had happened on the plane that day that ended up getting my friend Thomas murdered. Thomas was a smart man, and much more street-smart than I was.
Thomas had told me it was time to get out of business with Frank Gordano and I had agreed with him. The problem we were having was that Frank made a lot of money because of his trips and our service was essential to him. When I even hinted at not working with him anymore, Frank had threatened to blow up one of my planes. He tried to play it off as a joke, but I knew better.
My suspicion was that Thomas had tried to break the relationship off with Frank that day on the plane. It was the only thing that made sense to me because I couldn’t think of another reason to murder Thomas. Even from the criminal perspective of Frank Gordano, murdering Thomas didn’t really make sense. He murdered the man who had been flying him where he wanted to go. He murdered the one person who was giving him exactly what he was asking for. It scared me. The nonsensical nature of the murder scared the hell out of me.
I had barely laid my head on the small pillow when I felt my body drifting away to sleep. It wasn’t even dark out yet and none of the other men were in the bunkhouse; I assumed they were probably still out working or maybe at dinner or relaxing. But it didn’t really matter to me. I was safe and for the first time in several days, so I was going to sleep. I took in a deep breath at the realization I was about to have to work harder physically than I had ever worked in my life. But I was confident I could keep up.
After working out with a trainer twice a week, my body was chiseled and strong. I had never wanted to be one of those CEO’s who got a big belly and looked like they were two steps away from a heart attack. No, I worked hard to keep myself in shape and I had a feeling that was going to come in handy as I worked on the ranch.
Chapter 2
Sarah
“I’ll do breakfast, go back to bed,” I told my mother. “You never get to sleep in.”
“No, I’ve got it. Don’t worry, Sarah; I’m used to this.”
“I won’t have it. You get back to bed, or read a book, or whatever else you’d like to do. But you’re not making breakfast today.”
It was true, as long as I had known my mother, she was always up before me and everyone else on the ranch. She made it her job to feed the lot of us and always wanted us to have our meals before we got to work. My father tried to tell her that she could make breakfast later in the morning and everyone could come back in to eat, but she refused and told him it was not a very efficient use of time.
One of the things I had learned from my mother over the years was a detailed use of my time. I could fit more into one day than most people did in three. It was probably one of the biggest reasons I had been so successful at such a young age. But there was more to balancing life than fitting as much in as possible. Unfortunately, it had taken me losing my job before I really figured that out.
“There’s a new guy, his name is Garrett. He’s missed breakfast all week; save a little food for him. He’s struggling with the schedule.”
“You’re too nice to these guys, mom. If you didn’t save him food, he’d learn his lesson faster and get his ass out of bed on time.”
“Oh, Sarah, this isn’t your big, New York company. Here, I like to treat everyone kindly. Can you please save him some food? I know you’re a fan of tough love, but I never used it with you and you turned out just fine. Just give it a try and be nice to him for me. I’d really appreciate it.”
“Sure, mother, but I’m not saving it for long. As soon as breakfast is cleaned up, his food is going to the dogs.”
My mother just shook her head at me as she made her way back up the stairs to go to bed. She was tired; I could see it in her body as she climbed the stairs. I was happy to be home to help her and father out, even if the circumstances that had brought me home weren’t all that great. They were managing just fine in getting the day to day tasks done around the ranch, but there was so much more to actually bringing in money.
My parents had worked hard all their lives for the ranch. I had only decided to enter the corporate world so I could make enough money to help them out at the ranch. I knew they didn’t have retirement accounts or any means to ever actually stop working. I had hoped I would be able to buy the ranch from them and take it over someday, but my dreams of financial freedom hadn’t turned out quiet how I had hoped.
Living in New York was extremely expensive and maintaining the lifestyle I had to have as the Vice President of Marketing for Anderson Telecommunications had used up most of the money I earned each year. Sure, I had some in a savings account and I had the severance package that they had given me when they decided my position was no longer needed. But I had totally failed in my goal of earning enough money to actually be of help to my family.
It was difficult to come home and feel like I had failed my family. When I looked back, I wasn’t even sure I knew where all my money had gone. Making $250,000 a year certainly seemed like a lot of money, but apparently it hadn’t been enough.
Working in marketing wasn’t my idea; I had a MBA from Harvard and had hoped to move up in the organization. But marketing and sales were what they needed most, so I learned the position and did the best I could to bring in new clients. It worked, and I had over $3 million in new revenue my first year. My new sales couldn’t make up for poor management though, and the organization was soon seeing red and looking for the easiest executive to cut.
I was that person. To the other executives, they figured lower level sales people could make up for my job and they didn’t need a head of the department. My gut told me they were wrong and I’d soon be hearing about Anderson Telecommunications going broke.
“Good morning,” I said as the first few men trickled into the gathering area. “Pancakes and bacon today; I hope you enjoy.”
“Thank you,” they said as they quickly grabbed up a plateful and sat down at one of bench tables.
Despite what my mother thought, I was actually very kind to the men who worked on our ranch. They worked long and hard hours for my parents and I wasn’t about to do anything to jeopardize that for them. My parents needed all the help they could get. Sure, it was necessary to cut down on the number of ranch hands we had over the years, but we still had to keep enough to keep the ranch running properly.
We ty
pically had anywhere between ten and fifty men working for us. It depended on the time of year and what was going on. In the summer time, we were the busiest, so we typically had the most employees. But on this morning I had only counted twenty-two men. I instantly knew my father’s financial issues had lead to him not hiring as many ranch hands as he normally did. It was a tough decision though. With less workers, it meant the men we had were working much harder and that meant we would probably lose those men to new jobs sooner than normal.
Working as a ranch hand really wasn’t a great job; I knew it, my father knew it, and I suspected even the ranch hands knew it. But many of the men we hired were drifters. They were in the process of moving from one place to the next and needed a few weeks of pay to make that happen. Some would stay on for the whole summer, and even fewer would stay on throughout the winter. We paid well; it wasn’t as if we were taking advantage of them. But the work was hard. It was labor intensive and exhausting and I could see it on the men’s faces that morning.
For me, there was a sense of calm that came when I was on the ranch though. Working outside and with the animals was an entirely different world than the corporate one I came from. Even the long days seemed to fly by because I was out and moving around. The sun was on my face, the wind in my hair; nothing seemed all that bad when you had nature on your side.
While I worked in the corporate world, I had days when I felt energized and excited, but I had many more days where I felt totally drained and unable to move forward. The long hours in an office worked my body both physically and mentally. Working that much made it difficult to find friends outside of the office and I certainly didn’t have time to pursue hobbies or relationships much.
The corporate job was what I thought I wanted and needed though. How was I ever going to help my parents financially if I didn’t make a ton of money? Soon the vicious cycle of working long hours and spending my money to keep up appearances started though. Once I started to become concerned about the luxury handbag I was carrying to my meetings, that was when I stopped working my corporate job to help my family. By the time I was carrying a Hermes Birkin into my meetings on Mondays, I had long fallen down the hole that I wanted to avoid so desperately.
After cleaning up breakfast, I made my way out to the horse barn to take care of them. The horses were my pride and joy; they calmed me, and just being near them always made me feel like I was exactly where I was supposed to be in this life. When I was younger, I had begged my father to let me take riding lessons and he refused to allow it. He promised to teach me everything he knew about horses and then I could be in charge of them. But I wasn’t willing to wait and I started saddling the horses up myself and sneaking them out for ride.
Wild horses were my favorite though. They were like children exploring their boundaries and sometimes they would wander near our ranch. In the beginning, my father ignored the wild horses who would come to our property, but soon we had one that just wouldn’t leave. The horse wanted to be part of our group so we kept her and I worked with my father to break her in.
The idea of breaking in a horse seemed like torture to me when my father first explained things. We had to walk her on a lead rope at all times. I couldn’t spend a lot of time petting her or grooming her until she learned how to behave. It didn’t seem fair. But soon my father explained that the reason she had been sticking around the ranch was likely because the other horses had ostracized her. They didn’t want her with them, so it was our job to give her a home; that made so much sense to me.
“This is Buckjoy,” my father said as he held the rope of a wild horse.
“Dad, you can’t keep bringing home wild things and thinking they are going to like you saddling them up.”
“I think Bambi would disagree with you.”
“She was special. We just have a bond, but I was here to train her and show her she was safe. I don’t think it’s going to work like that for all wild horses.”
After my father struggled with training Bambi, I stepped up and offered to give it a try. I was only a teenager, but I felt like the horse liked me and would listen to me. Sure enough, Bambi ended up liking me very much and wanting to be good so she would get praise. That was what I found as a key to bonding with the horses: I had to find a reason for the animal to like me.
Sometimes animals weren’t all that easy to convince that they liked you. Bambi hadn’t really fallen in love with me until I started sneaking her apples before my father would get up. Then she spent the rest of the morning being nice to me in hopes that she would get another apple. I finally started incorporating feeding the horses apples as a way of building up trust with them and it really started to work well.
“Well, you are home again, so try and tame Buckjoy. I need a new horse for myself and I’d like a nice, strong one like him. I’ve been riding out to the river and it’s exhausting the horses we have. I need a wild one that can handle that kind of range.”
“Why are you going to the river?” I asked.
Although, the river was certainly one of the most beautiful aspects of our land. It was nearly ten miles north of the house and not accessible by car unless we used the off-road vehicle. My father had brought me out to the river area several times over the years and the trek up and over the mountains used to scare me to death. But as I got older, I realized that by just slowing down and keeping in control of the horse, I could make it up and over the mountain with relatively no issues.
“I’m thinking of selling the land north of the river. I’ve been going out there to put some fencing up and take photos for a listing. Although my photos have turned out horrible.”
“What? Dad, no. You can’t sell off part of the ranch. I’m here now. I’m going to help make things work. Why would you even consider this?”
“Honey, it’s not just about taking care of the animals anymore. We really don’t have the money to keep this whole place up and running. I think its fine to sell off that piece; we hardly use it, only for some occasional cattle running. It will bring in some good money and help keep the rest of the ranch afloat.”
“How about I take a look at the books and see if there is any other options?” I offered. “That land is worth more and more money every year you hold onto it. Perhaps you’d be best to wait a few more years.”
I did have my MBA from Harvard, the least I could do was look at the financials of the ranch and see if there was anything we could be doing better. Running a ranch was a huge undertaking. I didn’t even have to look at the books to know that my father probably hadn’t been keeping track of things as closely as he needed to be.
In order to run a successful business of any kind, there had to be very close monitoring of the financials. Even the smallest of mistakes could cost a business their profits. I hadn’t gotten my chance to fully run the financials for a business yet, but I had run them for the marketing division of my company. Not only did I cut back in unneeded expenses, but my department made twice as much as we had been predicted to do.
The problem with running a very efficient group of people was that my organization started to think they didn’t need me anymore. They believed the high functioning staff that worked for me could handle all the jobs that I had done. I wasn’t sure they would be as good as me
But I wasn’t sure I had the energy to train Buckjoy. He was a big horse and full of energy and I was emotionally exhausted from just losing my job. I didn’t have that passion for the horses yet, but I did have a passion for my father. I would do anything for him, and if that meant training a wild horse, I’d give it my best shot and I knew that was exactly what my father wanted me to do.
“Okay,” he said reluctantly. “But you also need to train Buckjoy for me.”
“Deal.”
I was surprised he had agreed to let me look at the books. I had offered once before while I was in college and my father had vehemently denied my offer. My father was a proud man and I’m sure he didn’t want to admit defeat when it came to his
ranch. I knew that by agreeing to allow me to look at his books, my father was agreeing that his ranch wasn’t doing well at all. It took a lot of insight for my father to finally be at a place where he truly understood the financial peril the ranch was in.
Operating a ranch had been a very lucrative endeavor as I was growing up, or so it seemed from where I was looking in on things. We always had a bustling group of ranch hands and even two or three men who had stayed on for many years. In his prime, my father had managed the men himself, but in recent years, he had the man with the most seniority in charge of the other men.
Currently we only had one supervisor over the ranch hands, Walter, and one assistant to him, Forest. Walter was getting ready to leave and I didn’t know much about Forest at all. He was relatively new to me. I had heard of him, but he hadn’t been at the ranch when I came home over Christmas. But that was how things were going lately: the good guys ended up leaving and moving on to larger ranches that were operated by big conglomerates. The larger ranches typically had better hours for about the same pay, so I couldn’t blame them for wanting to move on.
I grabbed the reins of Buckjoy and the horse instantly started to buck with irritation. I could see how he had gotten his name. The horse didn’t scare me though; I saw the fear in his eyes and I knew I just had to step a few steps backward and away from him to get him to calm a little. As I moved toward the door of the barn, I saw the horse start to calm.
“He’s not used to having a woman around,” said a man from the other side of the barn.
“Ah, Garrett, this is my daughter, Sarah,” my Dad said as he motioned for Garrett to come join us.
Suddenly I remembered that I was supposed to have saved some food from breakfast for Garrett. But then again, he hadn’t shown up by the time I cleaned up, so he was out of luck. Any man who couldn’t be bothered to get up at breakfast time wasn’t going to last long around the ranch anyways.