“That sounds fantastic,” Kam agreed. “And she’s only twenty-eight. What a career she has ahead of her. It seems like she’s leaning toward the film industry instead of wanting to go the vanity route.”
Iris watched as the SUV turned around in the gravel parkway and left. “Allison is definitely vain and full of secrets. I never did trust her. She keeps Rudd wound around her little finger like a mindless slave. He doesn’t see her like I do. She’s set her children against him, and she isn’t respectful of him. That makes me angry.”
Kam recalled that first night here, when she’d had dinner with the family. It had been the only time, but it was an unpleasant experience, with Allison drawing blood wherever she could.
“That’s sad,” Kam said. “I’m glad I eat my dinner over in the dining area.” Indeed, Kam enjoyed socializing with the ranch staff. There were cowboys mixed with the cooking and cleaning staff. They were a great bunch from interesting backgrounds and all loved working for the Elkhorn Ranch.
Kam ate three times a day over at the staff dining facilities and liked it even more because Wes often showed up for meals. Sometimes, they ate together, but most often he was gone because of his duties as second in command; Wes worked directly for Chappy around the ranch. Still, Kam looked forward to the possibility of seeing him. It was far better than sitting at the family table.
“I can barely tolerate Allison at dinner,” Iris grumbled, getting back to work on her flower bed. “I don’t know why she thinks that because she’s had bit parts it makes her better than everyone here.”
“Maybe she came out of a rough background. Sometimes people who have to scramble to become famous or successful can become like that.” Kam wondered out loud.
Iris nodded, her mouth thinning. “I’ve done a lot of research on her background. When Rudd came home with Allison on his arm, glowing like a Christmas light, I got suspicious. He’d attended a huge dairy and beef cattle conference out in Los Angeles about twenty-eight years ago. Allison had been an ‘actress’ at one of the stalls hyping a veterinary product. I remember him calling and telling me he’d found the woman of his dreams.” Snorting softly, Iris took a handful of the compost that sat between them and sprinkled it across a few more cleaned-up rhizomes. “He said he had fallen in love with her at first sight.”
Kam tried to swallow, but she couldn’t. “A conference in Los Angeles?” That was where her photo had been taken. But Rudd was not with Allison in the picture. He was with her mother, the veterinary researcher. Mind spinning, Kam couldn’t understand what had happened. Did Rudd connect with her mother, then meet Allison shortly after? Which woman had he really loved? Had Rudd met Allison and forgotten about her mother? Kam rested her hands on her thighs, bewildered. “Iris, you said you did some background research on Allison?”
“Yes, I did.” She took her trowel and gently scraped the soil around the rhizomes. “Rudd was like a hormonal teenager with her.” She gave Kam a narrow-eyed look. “And it’s no secret that there’s a casting couch in Hollywood and Allison had quite a reputation. I had a private eye do some poking into her past. She came from a broken family in Chicago. Her mother and father never married. He was a drug dealer and her mother was into meth. Allison got smart and ran away at sixteen for Hollywood. I’ll give her credit—she never got into drugs that I could tell. Her drug of choice was fame, and she did what she had to do to get into movies or television shows.”
“Sounds pretty awful,” Kam agreed, suddenly feeling compassion for Allison. She saw the anger banked in Iris’s eyes, however. Given her daughter-in-law’s background, it had to be hard for Iris to trust that Allison had Rudd’s best interests at heart. What a tangled mess!
“Every time Allison goes to Hollywood, you know what she does?” Iris said in a harsh whisper, her silver brows knitted.
“What?”
“She sleeps around. The private eye told me so.”
“Oh, dear,” Kam choked.
“And my son is blind, deaf and dumb.”
Kam felt the banked rage in Iris’s tone. “And she does this why?”
“To try and pick up crumbs of parts so she can stay in touch with la-la land.”
“I’m so sorry,” Kam said, reaching out and touching the old lady’s slumped shoulder.
“Why couldn’t he have married someone else? A fine woman with values, morals and integrity? Why did he have to marry this monster?”
Shaking her head, Kam felt her heart squeeze with anguish. If Rudd was her father, this was a mess for her, as well. “Does Rudd know this?”
“Of course not,” Iris grated. “I want to protect my son, not cleave open his heart with an ax! He just wants to make Allison happy and if that means she flies out to Hollywood for a month at a time, well, he’s more than willing to pay that price. Allison is usually gone six months out of the year. She spends every winter in Los Angeles. She hates the snow and cold here in Wyoming. Rudd is always depressed when she leaves. I never miss her. We have wonderful family dinners without dissension and bickering when she’s gone. Even Regan and Zach are well mannered. What does that tell you?”
Kam got up and moved to the other side of Iris to work on another patch of the long line of flowers. “Is she close to her children?”
“Oh yes. The big mama bear protecting her cubs, that’s for sure.” Iris snorted and raked the soil around the rhizomes in front of where she was kneeling. “Zach is utterly spoiled. She dotes on the kid. He’s not a bad person, just disconnected from the world at large.”
“Regan seems pretty well-adjusted, though,” Kam said. She raked the leaves off the iris bed and put them in a nearby bucket.
“Rudd and Regan have a good relationship. More than Allison, he noticed her interest in movies and film. It was my son that bought her a camcorder when she was nine, and then she began filming. When he saw her interest in making movies, he supported her every inch of the way.”
“I’m glad that Regan is close to him. Rudd seems like such a natural father, wanting the best for his children.”
“He’s a pussycat,” Iris fumed. “Any woman can wind him around her little finger! I was hoping Rudd would marry a woman from the land. Someone who loved nature, animals and the earth, who would give me grandchildren who love those things, too.”
Again, Kam’s heart squeezed. If she was Rudd’s daughter, then Iris had part of her wish at least. But she could say nothing. Not yet. “Do you think children ever grow up being what their parents want them to be, Iris?”
Iris sat up and pushed away strands of silver hair that had drifted across her brow. She smiled a little. “Now, how did you get so wise for someone so young?”
Feeling heat in her face, Kam shrugged. “Maybe because I was tripping around the world and seeing a lot of different things, Iris. I don’t really know.”
“Your parents raised you right. You’re levelheaded, you support yourself and you have morals, value and integrity. Unlike Allison. If Rudd didn’t have the strong influence over Regan that he has, I’m afraid she’d end up being just like her mother. Rudd has tried to interface with Zach, but he’s locked up in a mental tower within himself. No matter what my son has tried to do to connect with that boy, it hasn’t worked.”
“Zach doesn’t like ranch life?” Kam wondered.
Snorting, Iris got back to work on the bed. “That kid is moody, sullen and barely squeaks through school with Ds.”
“Has Allison tried to get him unglued from his computer games?”
“No. She’s never been what I’d call a ‘real mother’ to her two children. If not for Rudd and myself, those two would be orphans within a family, that’s for sure. I saw Zach as a young boy just wither and go inside himself when his mother was gone for long periods.”
“So Zach never got nurtured,” Kam suggested.
“Right on,” Iris said. “Of course, how could Allison nurture anyone? She was the offspring of two druggies who didn’t have a clue about being good parents. She didn’
t know how. I can’t blame her, but I also don’t forgive her for not trying to be a parent to Regan and Zach.”
“I think she tries, doesn’t she?”
“Oh, in her own way, she does,” Iris admitted darkly. “I should thank my lucky stars she’s not a drug addict. Trevor and I wished more for Rudd. After we adopted him, we wondered what kind of person he’d turn out to be. What kind of woman would he marry? How many children would he have? It was so exciting to us to dream for him.”
“Rudd is adopted?” Kam gasped.
Iris smiled as she patted the soil. “Yes. Didn’t you know? I would have thought Rudd might have mentioned. Then again, most men are private about these things.” She sat up. “I was infertile. We wanted children. We went to an orphanage in Cheyenne and put through adoption papers for him. We were never sorry we did that. He’s just been the most wonderful son to us.”
Swallowing hard, Kam watched Iris. The old woman’s face was wreathed with happiness and contentment. Rudd was adopted! She had been adopted! Mind spinning, Kam wondered what synchronicities of life played out here.
“Rudd is our son. In my will, I leave everything to him. He’s more than met our expectations. I know he’ll do his best to carry on our dream for this ranch.”
Kam rubbed her brow as the shock waves rolled through her.
“The only fly in the ointment is Allison. I just can’t understand it. Why couldn’t he have met a fine, upstanding woman who had good character?”
He did, Kam almost blurted. For a moment, she wanted to take Iris to her suite and show her the black-and-white photo of her mother and Rudd. But what would that accomplish? No, she had to wait. Confusion swirled through her like a muddy, flooding river on a rampage. Kam knew she needed time to digest this shocking piece of information.
“Do—do you know anything about Rudd’s background?” Kam hoped she wasn’t being too nosy.
The expression on the matriarch’s face remained placid. “Rudd’s father abandoned him. His mother died shortly after having him. He was taken to a foster home, which was where we caught up with him. His mom, Sally May Thornton, was a schoolteacher in Cheyenne. His father, Patrick Hanlon, was a truck driver. He signed over all rights to us. The man just wasn’t cut out to be a parent. He liked his big rigs, his freedom, and he just never wanted to be tied down.”
“Is Rudd in touch with his biological father?” Kam asked, her voice strained.
“No. Rudd tried to reconnect with him, but he didn’t want anything to do with him. It was heartbreaking for him and for us. We never hid the fact that we’d adopted him. We supported him trying to find his birth father when he was old enough. It just didn’t work out.”
“Is Rudd okay with how it’s turned out now?”
“I think he is. Of course, losing your birth parents is going to put a hole in your spirit, no matter what,” Iris said softly. “We’ve loved Rudd fiercely and he’s returned it tenfold to us. But we aren’t his biological parents. Which is why I kept a very detailed photographic album of his life. I wanted him to know what he was like when he was a baby, a youngster and a teen growing up with us. I take lots of photos of Rudd doing his stuff. And he got so he’d carry a camera with him whenever he had to go out of town on business. He’d always bring back photos for the albums.”
“I’d love to see those albums if you ever want to share them with me, Iris.”
“Oh, heavens, yes! You’re the first caregiver ever to want to know about my personal life. We’ll have tea this afternoon and I’ll start with the earliest albums and work forward. Would you like that? We can do this daily until we’ve gone through all of them.”
“Yes, I’d love to do that,” Kam whispered. And what would she find? Her heart squeezed in fear and hope.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“GRANDMA, I hate making these stupid flower essences with you every spring,” Zach mumbled. He slid off his bay quarter horse and into the flower-strewn hillside.
“Humph,” Iris said, already off her golden palomino, Pal.
Kam glanced over at Wes, who had accompanied Iris on her first big flower-essence trip. He said nothing as he gathered up the reins, placed them around the saddle horns and hobbled the four horses so they could eat the rich spring grass. Kam took a large, lidded plastic box from Wes. Zach was sulking and angrily kicking at the grass around his feet. The boy was seventeen, about six feet tall with acne covering his face in red, pimply splotches. His hands were shoved in the pockets of his low-slung army-green cargo pants.
“Young man,” Iris said, going over to him, “you have ridden out here with me every year since you could remember. You used to love to come out here and help me. You know this is good for you, Zach. A little fresh air, some sunshine…” Iris pointed to the clear blue May morning sky. “A little exercise is not going to hurt you.”
“There’s nothing to do out here,” the boy complained, ignoring his grandmother. “There’s no Wi-Fi signal, either. I wish you’d put up a big Wi-Fi unit here at the ranch. You have the money.”
Iris smiled at her grandson, patting his arm soothingly. “Come on, come and help me.”
Sighing heavily, Zach stuck out his lower lip and his shoulders slumped. His brown eyes matched the color of his unkempt straight hair. He pushed his thin fingers through his hair and grumbled, “Oh…all right.”
They had ridden about an hour from the ranch in a northerly direction. The area consisted of many rolling green hills dotted with colorful wildflowers. She had no idea what Iris would do next and was curious. Wes remained nearby after making sure the horses were taken care of. The four animals grazed eagerly below them on the hill, swishing their tails, contented.
Trying to ignore Wes and his quiet masculinity, Kam knelt opposite Iris. The older woman spread out a small white cotton blanket and then placed several items from the box onto the spread. “Talk me through what you’re doing, Iris.” Kam said, hands resting on her thighs.
“Well, isn’t it nice that someone around here is interested in making a flower essence?” Iris said rather loudly. She twisted her head toward Zach, who stood about six feet away, sulking.
“I’ll go look for the flowers,” Zach mumbled, scuffing away and going down around the side of the hill.
“Thank you,” Iris called, smiling. She pushed back her straw hat. “Let me show you what to do.”
As she tried to keep focused, Kam felt more than saw Wes come and kneel down on the other side of the blanket. He took off his hat, wiped his brow and settled it back on his head. No matter what he did, the effect rippled through Kam like a soft spring breeze across a pond. Barely meeting his gray eyes, Kam felt her heart leap as he shared a hint of a smile with her.
“Iris is a good teacher,” he said, taking off his leather gloves and tucking them into his belt.
“Indeed I am,” Iris responded, chuckling. “When Wes came here two years ago, he sort of took over Zach’s job. My grandson feels this activity is beneath him now.” She held up a clear custard glass. Ten of them were stacked on the spread. “Kam, when you make a flower essence you always want a clear glass bowl to work with.”
“Why?” Kam wondered.
“To allow the sun to shine through the clear glass and clean water where the flower is floating. If sunlight lanced through a colored glass, then that color is impregnated into the water’s memory and that’s not good. If you have, for example,” and she pointed nearby, “this beautiful red-orange Indian paintbrush, a colored glass would add another color we don’t want. Clear glass deals only with the unique color of the flower. We want only that energy. We have sixty frost-free days here in the area, so wildflowers sprout fast in late May through late July. Some are tough enough to endure the frost and paintbrush is one of them. We’re about a week early as most flowers don’t start blooming until June, which is right around the corner.” Iris frowned. “But our dude ranch opens up on Memorial Day, and Wes won’t be able to help me after that. Which is why we’re out here a few days
early.”
Kam observed the tall, red-orange flower that looked like a stalk with a red flame on top. Or, perhaps, she imagined, it looked like a redheaded person who had stuck their finger in an electric socket and their hair was standing on end. She chuckled to herself, then glanced up as Iris gently touched the wildflower. “That’s a beautiful flower. What do you do with it, Iris?”
“Well,” Iris said, taking a small bottle of water and pouring it into the custard dish until it was about half-full. “We must mentally introduce ourselves to this plant spirit first. The water I’m putting in here is reverse-osmosis water. You never use fluoridated or chlorinated water to make a flower essence because you don’t want anything impure in the nature of the water.”
“You said you talk to the spirit of the plant?” Kam asked.
“Remember, I’m half–Native American. My mother and grandmother raised me to know that all things have a spirit. And that we should always be respectful of nature. Every spirit has a name and a personality, just as humans do. I’m going to move over to this paintbrush, mentally introduce myself to it, tell it my name and ask its permission to take one of its flowers to make an essence. The plant spirit can tell me no. If it does, I go off to find another one and start the process all over again.” She moved to the plant. “Usually, the plant nation loves humans and will surrender a life to them as an act of compassion and love.”
Kam watched, fascinated, as Iris pulled out a pinch of yellow cornmeal from an old leather pouch pinned on the waist of her jeans. Iris sprinkled the cornmeal over the plant.
“What is that for?” Kam asked.
“We always give the gift of cornmeal to a plant we want to work with,” Iris explained, tightening the cords on the pouch. “Just as humans introduce themselves to one another with social patter and a handshake, this is the way we approach a flower. Cornmeal is sacred. The corn mother feeds all her relations. By giving this paintbrush a gift of cornmeal, I show it my intent, Kam. Plants know the protocols between themselves and humans. Before white men came to this land, Native Americans always lived in harmony with all our relations. If a woman had to go out and gather onions in early spring, she would find a patch and give cornmeal to the grandmother plant. She’d ask permission of that oldest plant if she could gather her children for food. If the grandmother plant gave her approval, the women would go through a meadow digging up the onions for their village. And if the answer was no, then they go to another meadow hoping to obtain approval from the next grandmother plant.”
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