by Nancy Radke
He’d never seen them before. They could be there for many reasons, one of which was to steal cattle. Or they could be hunters, scoping out the area for bow hunting. Or they could be loggers or government men. They got into the truck and continued up the road, along the ridge and out of sight. If they were taking cattle, they weren’t doing it right now.
This was the fifth truck he’d checked on today, from different parts of his ranch. Most had driven right along. One other had stopped and the people got out and walked to the fence line. He had decided they were taking a bathroom break and wrote them off as possibles. Other vehicles, such as jeeps and cars traversed the mountain roads, but Adam couldn’t watch them all.
One of these days someone would luck out and catch the men doing the stealing. Robbers usually always got caught, sooner or later. The longer it took though, the more damage they did. Many of the ranchers were barely hanging onto their property. This was grazing land, not farming land. The soil was shallow and rocky.
You could lose a weak animal to a predator, or an accident, or the winter. This hurt you, but not as much as a thief. Thieves were a different breed of cat, taking the best you had. Your breeding stock.
The sun set in a spectacular blaze of flashing lights, and, as he watched for it, a splash of iridescent blue formed across the skyline just before the sun went down.
He put his binoculars away, remounted and rode home through the pastures. It wasn’t that far, only twenty minutes. He was soon at the corrals, getting there at about the same time Johnny rode in.
Johnny. Johnny and Karen. Jo and Gramps.
What a mess. What was he going to do?
“I don’t know what I should do.” Joanna Davies threw up her hands. She sat with the other women in the Sisters of Spirit group, in a rare moment when they were all together. This time they had gathered at the Sheraton Hotel in Seattle for the double wedding of Alison and Chantal, who were marrying their two Super bowl champions, Josh Logan and Jake Earle.
Of the original group, only Stormy and Jo were unmarried, and Stormy’s wedding to Kyle was set for next month. He was there with them, enjoying his introduction to everyone.
Jennel and Zack were there with their three-year-old girl and year-old boy. Ellen and Jared now had a two-year-old boy. Perri and Hugo showed up with five-month-old twin boys. And Angie and Ryan proudly displayed a newborn baby girl. Connor was on his ship, but Mary was there, confident and smiling, being one of Alison’s bridesmaids.
Hugo had paid the wedding photographer to take photos of all the women together, then the group with their husbands and children, then each family separately. He and Perri had decided to do it before the group became so involved with other things that they couldn’t get together again.
The Sisters had been using social media to keep in touch, but nothing could beat a face to face chat. They had gathered in the lounge to visit while waiting their turn to be photographed, but Jo’s cell phone kept ringing.
Turning it off, Jo decided to ask for advice. “Should I go back home or not?”
“Who’s boiling the pot?” Stormy asked, who knew best how to make a pot boil without using any fire.
“Ha! My sister, Karen. She’s been texting me non-stop to come home this summer.”
“Why don’t you? You never went while we were at Virginia Tech together.”
“Or afterwards,” chimed in Robyn Duvall, who as the newest Sister was still not quite up on everyone or everything. “I wondered why you didn’t visit your family last year.”
“Is your grandfather still causing trouble?” Angie asked, her newborn sleeping soundly in her arms. “I remember you saying he would have a heart attack whenever he got angry, and that your family had to watch everything you said about…someone.”
“Our neighbor. Adam Trahern. Gramps can’t stand him. When I’m home, I’m right in the middle. Things quiet down when I leave. So I’ve been absenting myself for a few years in hopes the situation would improve.”
“So, did it?” Angie asked.
“No,” Jo said, shaking her head. “It got worse. Gramps is now accusing Adam of stealing our cattle.”
“I’m a little clueless,” Robyn said. “What caused this in the first place, and why are you such a catalyst?”
“Adam lives just two ridges over from us. When I was thirteen, his father crashed into my grandmother’s car on our country road. Ed was drunk and going too fast. It killed her and ruined all our lives. My grandpa never forgave him. When Ed committed suicide, Gramps just transferred his hatred to Adam.”
“Why would he do that?” Stormy asked.
“I’m not sure. For some reason, he blames Adam.”
“But why do you feel like you have to stay away?” Robyn asked.
“I have my grandmother’s name and I look a lot like her. I’ve always been my grandfather’s favorite. Anything I do or say about the Trahern family really upsets him. He had several strokes before I left. None since.”
“How long have you been away?” Jennel asked.
“Six years, almost.”
“It sound like you’ve been using school as a way to escape.”
“Yes. And I knew that. I’ve got my MA and was thinking of getting my doctorate. But what I really want is what you guys all have. A husband and children. Love.”
“You can check out my stepbrother, Owen,” Perri said. “He’s a hunk. And wonderful. You can come visit Hugo and me.”
The others laughed. “She is always offering up Owen to one or the other of us.”
Perri shrugged. “Yes, I do. But you all keep marrying other men.”
Jo smiled at her. “I met Owen when he came to Virginia while you were there. He is a hunk. But I need to resolve this problem first. I just don’t know how to go about doing it.”
“What’s the problem?” Ellen asked, coming in from having her picture taken. “You’re next, Stormy.”
Stormy stood up, but tarried long enough to hear Jo’s answer.
“The problem is that my sister, Karen, wants to marry Johnny Trahern, Adam’s brother. They’re all afraid to tell Gramps.”
“Oh, wow, how did that happen?” Perri asked.
“They were both at the same community college last year. I just found out that they’d started dating on the sly during high school. They were in the same school musical their junior year.”
“Does any of the rest of your family hate Adam?”
“Only Gramps. We all realize it’s silly to blame Adam for what his father did. But Gramps’ heart is so fragile, he holds both families hostage. If there were any way to get him to forgive Adam’s family, I’d do it. Karen deserves to be happy.”
Jennel bounced her little boy on her knee. “Well, staying away hasn’t helped things. I say you should go home and talk to your grandfather. Maybe if he realizes he’s the real reason you don’t come back, he’ll try to control his anger.”
“He might be using his condition to control everyone,” Ellen said, who had come from a demanding family.
“Or he may not care,” Angie added. “Going home never worked for me. But I agree with Perri. You need to try.”
“And if I kill my grandfather doing it? I love my grandpa.”
The group spoke, overlapping each other. “Don’t think that way.” “You should go.” “He brought it on himself.” “You need to see your family again.”
“What if Karen elopes?” Perri asked.
“Now that would be a big shock. It would probably kill him,” Jo said.
As the oldest Sister, Jennel summed things up as she usually did. “Look, Jo. Make a decision and do it. Call your folks and your grandfather and tell them you’re coming home for a while. Don’t set a definite time. Then stay as long as you need to.”
Robyn still looked puzzled. “What’s this neighbor like? Is he approachable?”
Jo thought a moment, picturing the handsome rancher before answering. It would be difficult after not speaking to him for seven years, but
she could approach Adam. Still, could she trust him not to antagonize her grandfather?
“I don’t know.”
“Is he as old as your grandfather?”
“Oh, no. He’s just four years older than me.”
“Married?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
Robyn laughed. “Oh! I see. I get the picture now. No wonder your grandfather keeps his feud going.”
They all laughed, and Jo shook her head. It wasn’t anything like that. She had had nothing to do with Adam since the incident in high school.
“Maybe you can go with Karen when she tells your grandpa, and just give her moral support,” Jennel said. “Once she’s married, you can leave.”
“If you still want to leave,” Robyn added.
The rest of them nodded.
Stormy returned to the lounge and motioned her cousin to be next. Perri stood up, paused and said, “Go home, Jo. You have a family who loves you and should be part of your life. Go help Karen. See if you can straighten out your grandfather’s thinking. If you don’t go, I think you’ll be sorry you didn’t try.” She left the room.
The others nodded. “Give it a try, Jo.” “Yes, do.” “Stop avoiding it,” they said.
“Okay. I’ll go. But I left all my stuff at school. I only brought an overnight bag.”
Angie shrugged. “Robyn has to go back to finish out the quarter.”
“Yes,” Robyn said. “Just tell me what you want and I’ll ship it out to you.”
“Stay a couple of days here and hit the Seattle malls,” Jennel said. “Zack and I would be glad to have you longer. You’re such a big help with the kids, you’re no trouble at all.”
“Text Karen. Tell her you’re coming. Then you can turn your phone back on,” Ellen said, and they all smiled and nodded. Jo wondered if they had any idea what she was getting into, and decided they probably did.
The next morning Karen picked her up at airport, ecstatic to get her home. As they walked to the car, she brought Jo up on all the latest on their family and neighbors. As soon as they got inside, Karen proudly showed Jo her small diamond ring, which she put on her left hand. “I have to be so careful where I wear this. I put it on when Johnny and I are together, which is always in private. I can’t even wear it when I’m away from Gramps. He has spies everywhere.”
“You mean friends and neighbors who would congratulate him, not knowing that he didn’t know.”
“Right. Everyone knows him.” Karen started the car and pulled out of the parking lot.
“And you. Everyone who’s lived here anytime at all knows both our families.”
“True.”
“And how is Gramps?”
“He seems to get more and more impossible each year you’re gone. Like, all the ranchers have been losing calves the past year, including us. Gramps blames it on Adam. Dad told him that Adam has had some stolen too, but Gramps said that Adam would say that just so no one would suspect him.”
“And that is nothing we can prove right now, either,” said Jo.
“He is so suspicious. And angry. When we told him you were coming home for awhile, he said it was about time. That Adam had kept you away long enough. He focuses on Adam all day, whether we say anything or not. It’s like walking on eggs. I don’t know how we are going to tell him.”
“I don’t either.”
“How long are you going to stay, Jo?”
“I haven’t decided.”
“Promise me you won’t leave until we tell Gramps, one way or another.”
“Well... I’m not sure I want to make such a promise. What if we can’t get Gramps to accept Johnny?”
“We’ve talked about that. We could both leave, separately, and move to another town. Get married there.”
“That would still give him a heart attack, when one of us, or one of your friends, happens to mention it. We have to try something else, so he gets used to it gradually.” She looked at her sister. Karen wore her brown hair long and falling forward on her face to hide the scars she had gotten as a child.
Jo remembered the incident well, as she had been the one carrying the pan of boiling hot pasta that her little sister had reached up and grabbed, spilling it onto her arm, face, and chest. Their screams had brought their mother into the kitchen.
Karen had just started kindergarten, and the disfiguring scars had required lots of surgery to make most of them go away. She had turned from an outgoing youngster into a shy child, trying to hide her face from her classmates’ cruel comments and people’s reactions of shock when they first met her. She had missed two whole years of school, and would have been a grade behind the others, but Jo told their parents how the kids were teasing Karen. Their mother took them out of school right away and home-schooled both of them during Karen’s recovery, including a year before Karen felt ready to return.
It was at this time that Jo developed her love for math and astronomy. She completed three grades during the two years, and returned to school ahead of her classmates. Jo continued to excel at school, taking college courses in high school and getting her master’s at twenty-three. She always felt younger than everyone in a group, even the few times when she wasn’t.
“Promise you won’t leave. You don’t have a job to go to, do you?” Karen was almost begging, and Jo didn’t want her to feel that way.
“No. No job. I put out applications, but there is not much hiring going on right now.” And although she had worked during her school years to help supplement her scholarship, she was now completely broke. She had used up all her savings and had had to borrow some money from Jennel to pay for the flight home, since her round trip ticket took her back to Virginia.
“I’ll have to look for a job around here,” she added, wondering how a degree in meteorology could be used out here. She had planned to eventually work for a radio or TV station, reporting the weather. But she had learned it might take time to get a job doing that.
“I’ve looked,” Karen said. “There aren’t any good ones. I took a part-time job for this summer. Johnny is talking about going into the military, although Adam says he can work on the ranch. If he does, we’d still live elsewhere. We want a home of our own, even if it is a small apartment.”
A home of her own. It was what Jo wanted, too, and she wouldn’t deny her sister the happiness she deserved. Jo barely knew Johnny, but anyone who could see past the scars and make Karen’s eyes glow when she talked about him, ranked high in Jo’s mind.
The Sisters had been right. It was time she went home and confronted her grandfather and got him to face facts. Somehow.
She looked out at the scenery passing by. Big sky country. Montana claimed the title, but any semi-arid country where the buildings and trees dropped away and you could see from horizon to horizon was big sky. A feeling of relief struck her as it always did, for big sky meant home. Unlimited vistas.
As she had done all her life, she envisioned herself riding beside the car, just not on the road. Her imaginary steed took her down each gully, up each hill, jumping each fence that appeared.
Like many narrow country roads, there was no centerline and not much shoulder. When you met another car, both had to slow down and move over. They passed the corner where Grandmother Anna had died. The family had put a small, white, wooden cross there, and replaced it every year. It never failed to remind Jo of Anna, for she had been close to her grandmother.
Then as they climbed up into higher mountain country, Jo thrilled at the sight of the scraggly trees that clung so tenaciously to the rocky volcanic soil. Not beautiful to some people, but to Jo it was home. Home. Her spirit sang within her and she wondered why she had stayed away so long.
Perhaps, now that she was older, she would be able to handle her grandfather. She had blindly believed him when she was little, and stayed loyal to him through high school. It wasn’t until she was in college and got away long enough that she began to understand how controlling he was. Yet each time she had returned for
a few days, she had fallen into the same old habits. It was easier to avoid the topic of Adam and his family than to make Gramps angry.
Karen turned the car up the rocky driveway towards the ranch house, which came in sight as they rounded the corner. A two-story farmhouse, it had endured almost a century of mountain weather.
Jo’s white Appaloosa, Paca, stood by the home pasture fence, her dainty head lifting as the car drew near.
“Did Dad bring Paca in?”
“Yes. As soon as Gramps knew you were coming, he insisted someone bring her in. She was just in the back pasture, anyway, so it wasn’t any problem. Dad just called her name and held up a pan of grain. She ran right up and started eating while he put a halter on her. Do you want to get out here?”
“No. Thanks. These sandals won’t take that ditch.”
“That never stopped you before.”
Jo laughed. “No. But I can wait until I change into my boots.”
Karen pulled up to the house and parked. “It looks like everyone’s gone. Even Mom’s car is missing.”
“That’s okay. Gramps is probably still here.”
She grabbed her few belongings and followed Karen inside.
“Hello?”
“Here’s a note,” Karen said. “Took Gramps in for an ultrasound to check his blood flow. Love you.”
“How has his heart been?” Jo asked.
“Weak. The doctors put in a pacemaker last month.”
“I remember you telling me.”
“They say all his stewing and fussing is not good for him, but he won’t listen to them and try to take it easier.”
“He never did take it easy.”
“He’s starting to. He falls asleep in his chair after lunch and takes a short nap. He didn’t used to do that.” She looked at her sister. “Go ahead and ride, Jo. Everyone expects you to. I’m going to call Johnny while no one is here.”
“Don’t forget to take that ring off.”