On the right, as she approached the horizon line, Kam noted hundreds of white-faced Herefords. Buffalo on the left. Cows on the right. Kam recalled that Buffalo carried some disease that could infect cattle, but it seemed that the owners of the ranch kept them well separated. She wondered why there was such a large herd of buffalo. Coming over the slight hill, Kam gasped and stepped on the brake.
Below her on a gently rolling road stood a sprawling ranch. Men rode on horseback, some of them herding groups of cows to other pens, others walking with brooms and buckets toward a row of small cabins below the main area. There was a single-story ranch house made of pine logs and plaster. The structure must easily have been ten thousand square feet. The ranch house seemed to have been built in sections over time. The sheen of the timber contained color changes, which indicated a gradual build. As Kam eased her foot off the brake and allowed the Prius to amble down the slight incline, she wondered just how old the structures were.
A bright red two-story barn on her left appeared to be the center of activity. Kam spotted cowboys holding a line of several horses waiting for the farrier to put new iron shoes on the animals. Two dogs, a yellow Labrador and a golden retriever, bounded around the group, tongues hanging out of their mouths as they frolicked. In front of the ranch house sat a huge garden surrounded with six-foot-high cyclone fence with bird netting over the top. The rich, black soil had been tilled and furrowed but she didn’t see anything growing. No one would plant until June for fear of frost in areas such as this. In this valley, she’d read, there were only sixty days a year above freezing. That was tough on any gardening activities. Still, her photographer’s eye absorbed the neatness of the garden that surely fed a huge group of people. It was easily two acres in size.
Cottonwoods stood in a semicircle around the conglomerate ranch, their yellow-green leaves just starting to emerge after the hard Wyoming winter. Behind and to the south of the ranch was a delightful brook that reminded her of a lazily moving snake across the valley. Kam wondered if there were trout in it, something that Wyoming was famous for. Her heart started to pound in earnest as she eased into the parking area. Tires crunched the gravel. A number of hitching posts were scattered around the area.
A sign at the main ranch entrance said Enter Here. Okay, she would. Kam got out and slid the leather purse strap across her shoulder. The May breeze was warming. Sunlight poured down strongly, lifting the coolness from the air. Fingers tightening around the strap, Kam was locking the car when she heard someone riding at a gallop and turned. A wrangler raced by. She took in his dark blue shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, leather gloves on his hands. He wore a red bandanna around his throat and a tan Stetson low across his eyes. The gray horse was long and lanky, probably part thoroughbred. Still, the man’s squinted eyes had briefly met hers, and she had felt a sudden, unexpected leap of her heart. But this wasn’t fear. He was terribly handsome in a raw, natural way. Under any other circumstances, Kam would have given this guy a second look, but not now.
Grimacing, she turned and walked with determination up the steps to the front door of the Elkhorn Ranch. The dark green screen door had been recently painted and didn’t utter a sound when she opened it. Someone had paid attention and oiled it. The inner door was wide open, and she stepped into the immaculate, pine-floored hall. To her left was a sign that said Office.
Taking a deep, final breath to try and steady her fraying nerves, Kam turned into the office. Behind the counter Rudd Mason was sitting at a blond oak desk, frowning as he read some paperwork. Kam stood staring. This man was tall, probably six foot four and about two hundred and thirty pounds. His face was narrow, nose hooked and skin deeply tanned, weathered and lined from living so long in the elements. His hair was red! Kam swallowed her shock. Flaming red hair peppered with some silver throughout the strands. He wore his hair short but what got her attention was that elegant red handlebar mustache. Rudd Mason looked like he’d just stepped out of the 1860s from the OK Corral gunfight. Still so much like the man in the photo.
If she hadn’t been so nervous and afraid, Kam could have appreciated the man’s simple cowboy garments: jeans, a checked red-and-white long-sleeved shirt, a blue bandanna around his throat. When he lifted his head to see her standing there, his turquoise-blue eyes narrowed.
“Afternoon, missy. Might you be Kamaria Trayhern?”
Her skin shivered with excitement. Rudd’s voice was deep and the drawl took away some of her angst. “Yes, sir, I am. Are you Rudd Mason? The owner?”
He gave her a curt nod. “I’m him.” He gestured for her to come around the end of the counter. “Come and sit here next to me. I’m glad you could make it. Any problems with the flight? Nowadays, I never fly. Such a hassle.”
Kam smiled. She liked his straightforward demeanor. He stood waiting for her, the epitome of that old cowboy custom of being a gentleman. His hair was plastered against his skull and his black cowboy hat, stained with sweat around the band, sat on the desk next to his pile of papers.
“Thanks. And my flight from Billings was uneventful, thank goodness.”
“Can I get you anything to drink? Cup of coffee? Tea?”
At least he was pleasant, Kam thought. “No, thank you. I ate lunch in Jackson Hole just an hour ago. I’m fine.” Kam sat down and kept her purse in her lap, hands across it. She watched him settle back down in the wooden chair, which creaked under his full weight. Rudd picked up a yellowed mug and lifted it in her direction. “Well, I’ll take a cup of joe anytime someone offers it to me.” He took a long sip and set it down in front of him. Rummaging around, he found her résumé and put it on top of the stack of papers.
“I liked your qualifications. You’ve got EMT certification, but I see you aren’t with the fire department. Usually, most EMTs are.”
Kam squirmed beneath those assessing blue eyes. “I’m a photographer, Mr. Mason. I do a lot of work overseas in areas where there aren’t many hospitals. I decided to get certified as an EMT a long time ago in case it was me who got hurt in the middle of nowhere.”
“I see….” He smiled slightly. “You’re a gal with some brains in your head. Ever used your EMT skills?”
At least he appreciated common sense. Kam felt her hammering heart slow down a tad. She liked Rudd Mason. He seemed very laid-back, easygoing and able to communicate. “Yes, sir, I have. Usually on villagers. I never had to use it on myself.”
“You ever work with older folks, Ms. Trayhern?”
“Old as in…?”
“My mother, Iris Mason, is eighty-two. She’s the one who needs taking care of. She lives here with us.” He waved his hand in the direction of the rest of the ranch house.
“I’ve dealt with villagers in Africa and Eurasia who were very old,” Kam said. “And I used my EMT knowledge to help them. I think I put in my résumé that I had never actually been a caregiver.”
“Right,” Rudd rumbled, “you put that in here.” He poked at the paper. “You get along with the elderly okay?”
“I think I do. In my business as a photographer I meet all kinds of people of all ages and nationalities. I try to be a good listener and keep my own stuff out of the way.”
“Humph.”
A lump began to form in Kam’s throat. She saw Mason frowning and studying her résumé again. Struck by how lean and scarred his brown hands were, she began to understand how much this man battled the harsh elements of this state.
“Ever deal with a cranky senior?”
When he lifted his head and nailed her with that dark look, Kam gulped inwardly. “Well, uh, anyone can get cranky from time to time.”
“My mother is headstrong, opinionated and stubborn, Ms. Trayhern. You can’t sweet-talk her, and once she’s got her mind made up, nothin’ is gonna change it.”
“Oh, I see. That kind of cranky.” She saw the left corner of Rudd’s mouth twitch upward.
“Yes, missy. The doctor tells her she has high blood pressure and she won’t take her medicati
on. She’s already had a TIA, a mild stroke, but she won’t take the medicine to lower her blood pressure so she won’t get another one.”
“Ouch,” Kam murmured sympathetically. Clearly, Rudd Mason was worried about his mother, but he seemed helpless to get her to change her mind.
“Yes, ‘ouch,’” Rudd dryly agreed. “My mother is a tough ol’ buzzard. She’s lived on this ranch since she married my father, Trevor, at age twenty. My father’s dead now, but she runs this family ranch in his stead.”
Kam nodded. “A true matriarch.”
“You could say that.”
His dry sense of humor rubbed off on her, and Kam met his slight grin beneath the mustache. There was nothing to dislike about this man so far. Kam wondered if she should just blurt out her real reason for being here. He seemed to be the kind of person who could handle any adversity. Something cautioned her not to rush. Still, the words ached to leap out of her throat and pass her lips. She longed to scream out, I’m your daughter! Maturity won out and Kam sat, mute.
“My mother is the boss,” Rudd told her. “She’s sharp, but the mild stroke has addled her memory somewhat. She’s got arthritis and sometimes needs help getting around. Iris loves to drive, but her license got yanked by a local judge about a year ago, thank God. If he hadn’t done that, she was bound to have an accident that killed her or some other person. You’d be expected to drive her wherever she wanted to go.”
“That wouldn’t be a problem.”
Rudd assessed Kamaria. “You a city slicker?”
“Uhh…no. I’m a country girl. Why?”
“Humph.”
Just what did that mean? Kam almost asked but decided against it.
“You got a young man in your life?”
“Not presently. My life as a photographer was pretty much on the go. I didn’t have time for something like that.”
“Humph.”
She blinked once. He scowled and put on a pair of bifocal glasses to study her résumé again.
“You like gardening?”
“I love it. My parents have a huge garden, certainly not the size of the one I saw at the side of your home, but my mother and I raised a lot of veggies over the summer.”
“How about flowers? You like them, too?”
Kam grinned. “Who doesn’t like flowers?”
“That’s what I always thought, but you’d be surprised,” Rudd muttered. He made some notes out in the margin of her résumé. “I’m curious about why a photographer would suddenly want to become a caregiver.”
Kam licked her lips and said carefully, “I’ve been on the move since I graduated from college, Mr. Mason. I’m twenty-eight now. I’ve been kicked around this globe and seen a lot. I guess I want to have a life. I don’t want to lie awake half the night scared out of my wits, wondering if some rebel is skulking about to behead me. Or, that I’ll contract malaria or yellow fever and die alone out in the bush.” Kam shrugged. What she said was the truth, but not all of it. “I figure I’ll continue to do some photography and make a little money on the side as a caregiver. It won’t interfere with my job here.”
“Your nesting phase, as my mother would say.”
“Pardon me?”
“Nesting. You know—settling down. You’ve been a tumbleweed rolling all around the world and you’re tired. You want to settle down and sink some roots like the rest of us.”
“That’s another way to put it,” Kam agreed. She liked his cowboy insight and use of colorful Western slang.
“Iris is unique,” he began, leaning back in the creaking chair, his hands resting on his hips. “My family came from a line of trappers who first discovered this area in the mid 1800s. My great-great-grandfather, Rudyard Mason, married a Blackfoot gal by the name of Buffalo Woman. This ranch became his home. He claimed it and worked it and eventually owned the land outright long before Yellowstone or the Grand Tetons were made into national parks.”
He tugged at his mustache. “It seems that each Mason man married an Indian woman, so we have a lot of that in our blood to this day. My mother’s father was a full-blood Crow. Her mother was white. Iris lives close to the earth and practices Native American ways. That’s her garden out there.” He pointed in that general direction. “She also has flowers that she grows in and around the ranch. Her company is Tetons Flower Essences, and she sells what she makes around the world. My mother spends from dawn to dusk with her plants and loves every second of it. I’m happy she’s happy. With her brain addled by the stroke, she’ll be needing someone to help her with the packing, shipping and making out bills to customers. Your job as her caregiver would be a lot more than that. I need a person who is very flexible, who loves nature, who can deal with a cranky woman who gets her back up every once in a while, but who can appreciate her passion for life.”
Kam swallowed hard over the fact that this fascinating woman could be her grandmother. What a rich gift that would be. Fighting back tears, Kam blinked several times and whispered, “I’d love doing anything to help her, Mr. Mason. I love the earth, too. Gardening is a healing meditation to me.”
“Humph. Iris says the same thing. Says that when she gets out weeding in that garden of hers, any bad feelings she carried out with her just go back into the ground. She always feels better afterward.”
Never had Kam wanted a job more than this one. Something about Rudd Mason struck a chord so deep. “Mrs. Mason sounds like a dream come true to me.”
“Plenty of people around here consider her an ongoing nightmare.”
Kam noted Rudd scowling, his gaze off in the distance. Who wouldn’t love a senior like Iris? “Maybe a person who didn’t work in a garden might not understand,” Kam said forcefully, “but my experience is that gardeners are some of the most peaceful, calm and centered people I’ve ever known.”
Rudd chuckled. “I hear you, Ms. Trayhern. There’s folks I’d like to throw into a garden and not let them out until they got it, but that ain’t gonna happen.”
Kam watched him as he looked up at the ribbed pole ceiling of the office, as if considering something. She had to be bold. “I’d really like this job, Mr. Mason. I believe I could get along very well with Mrs. Mason.”
“Call her Iris,” he said finally, glancing over at her. “She hates standing on protocol. And she loves her first name, Iris. Her parents named her an Indian name that means Iris Blooms in the Morning. It fits her. My mother is the backbone of this ranch, and she made it into what it is today alongside my father. She’s worked hard all her life. She’s got arthritic knuckles to show for it, too.”
As she heard the pride and love in his voice, Kam hoped he would speak to her in such a tone someday. It all hinged on this job. Gripping the leather purse, she waited for his decision.
“Okay, Ms. Trayhern, let’s give you a whirl. First, you gotta meet Iris. She will be the one who decides whether or not you stay or go. Fair enough?”
A shock of relief shot through Kam. “Fair enough.”
“Okey-dokey,” he said, unwinding and standing. “Let’s go find Iris. Chances are she’s out back in her greenhouse with her flowers.”
Joy mixed with dread as Kam followed him out of the office and down the hall. Her heart hammered again and she wondered if Rudd could feel her nervousness. She tried to steady her breathing and contain her excitement.
CHAPTER THREE
“IRIS, I want you to meet Kamaria Trayhern.”
Kam smiled as she approached Iris Mason, who sat on a stool in front of her baker’s table. In her hand she held dark, rich soil that she was putting into a small clay pot. The woman was about five feet six inches tall with short silver hair that seem to glow around her head like a halo. Her blue eyes were lively and sharp. Kam could easily see the Native American features in her deeply wrinkled, copper-colored face.
“Hello, dearie,” she said, holding out a long, lean hand caked with soil.
Kam didn’t hesitate but grasped her hand. “Hello, Iris. Just call me Kam. What
are you planting?”
Iris chuckled and released her hand. “Not afraid of a little dirt, are you?” Kam took in the woman’s dress. She wore a T-shirt covered with a white blouse and a very old denim jacket adorned with Indian beading on the back.
Rudd stood behind his mother, hands on his hips as the two women conversed.
Kam knew he watched and assessed their interaction. However, Iris was the one in charge. “I love gardening. Mr. Mason said you had a huge plot and I got excited. I grew up with one about half the size of yours in Montana.”
“Maybe we got lucky, son?” Iris quipped, looking up at him and grinning.
“I hope so, Iris,” Rudd rumbled good-naturedly.
Iris gave Kam a keen, long look. “Ever since my head decided to get slightly addled, my son has been trying to fix me up with a babysitter. I’ve chased all of ’em off. I’m only eighty-two and I’m not in diapers—yet.”
Chuckling, Kam enjoyed the feisty elder and hoped they were related. Iris was small but mighty. She kept putting soil in each of the six pots in front of her. Several packets of flower seeds sat on the table. “I hope you won’t see me as a babysitter, Iris. I’ll be here to help you when you need it. Otherwise, I’ll stay out of the way. How does that sound?”
“Oh, you mean you aren’t going to tail me around like a proverbial shadow, waiting for me to stroke out? You aren’t going to jaw me to death for not taking a high blood pressure pill? Complain that you’re outside too long with me in the garden? Whine about pulling weeds?”
Kam grinned. “No, ma’am, I won’t. I grew up in the wilds of the Rocky Mountains. My mother always had a huge garden and I loved weeding it. We froze and canned everything we grew. My mother believes in living organically off the land.”
“You’re a healthy-looking specimen, I’ll give you that,” Iris said, raising her thinned, arched silver brows. She twisted a look up at Rudd. “Since you insist upon me having a babysitter, this one looks hopeful compared to the others you’ve dragged kicking and screaming in here.”
Shadows from the Past Page 3