Home to Wind River

by Lindsay McKenna

“Idaho doesn’t have as long a winter as you do around here, thank goodness.”

  The breeze was fragrant with the scents of alfalfa hay, and of the horses she saw in one large oval corral down the road. They were all saddled, and she saw ranch guests going out for an afternoon ride. The place was alive with wranglers, men and women, horses, a chuck wagon and people coming to enjoy such a life. She saw Jake lift his hand from the steering wheel as three wranglers on horses were riding into the main area.

  “How many people do you manage, Jake?”

  “About a hundred and fifty in the busy season, from May through September. Then, a lot of them are seasonal workers. We’re down to about fifty during the slow season, the winter.”

  “Where do all the other people go?”

  “Some live around here and have a second livelihood. Some live off their earnings and live in Wind River. Not many go to Jackson Hole because it’s where the rich corporate people are, and rents are too high for them to afford.” As he drove out of the area, he pointed to an area off to the right. “Maud and Steve started a program for wranglers and their families. If they worked a few years here, they would be given a free log house package and five acres to put it on. They had to build it, and Steve would bring in equipment to help get it erected. The land and home were then put in their name.”

  Her eyes widened with surprise. “That’s so generous! I’ve never heard of anyone doing that.”

  “Well, Maud and Steve aren’t your normal human beings either. They’ve made a point of hiring military people over others. They see how many of us are at loose ends when we come out of combat and need help of one sort or another. Unlike the VA, which has a spotty record of helping vets, they’ve been a bright spot for a lot of us.”

  “Having a home you own? That means something to anyone, whether they’re a vet or not.”

  “Yeah,” he said, glancing toward her, “that’s true. But for vets with PTSD, there’s no anchor to hang on to. You come home wounded in your heart and soul and all the VA wants to do is throw meds at you, numb you out and make you feel half dead. Here? Maud has a therapist from Jackson Hole, Ms. Hilbert, come down once a week, and we vets go to the auditorium where we talk and hash things out. And instead of meds, we get a horse assigned to us, we get a job that we want to do and we know if we stick with their program, a house and land of our own is the reward.”

  “I never knew about that,” Lily whispered, suddenly emotional. “That’s wonderful, Jake. Is that how you got your beautiful home?”

  She saw one corner of his mouth drawn inward. “I don’t call it a home. It’s just a house. And you know Steve built the foreman’s house about twenty years ago.”

  “So, you don’t have a cabin or land to call your own?”

  “Well, the house is mine until I don’t want the job as foreman anymore. It’s a nice place but way too large for one man. Maud and Steve will give me a cabin package and land at that time.”

  “That’s wonderful. That house is sure a lifesaver for your mom in her situation. And there’s a room for me as well. Three people fit nicely in there. Heck, as large as it is, a family of six would love it.”

  “The last foreman was here at the ranch for twenty-five years, never married. He had to go back to Maine to care for his aging parents. That’s how I got the job.”

  She watched the pastures, so lush with quick-growing grass beginning to spread out across the flat land. In each huge pasture, she saw Herefords eagerly chowing down on that nutritious grass. Each pasture seemed to stretch for as far as she could see toward the Salt River Range towering in the distance. “All these fence lines must take a beating in winter.”

  He snorted. “A helluva beating. We don’t keep cattle here in the winter because temperatures are far too low; they’d die of exposure. The buffalo can tolerate it, but domestic cattle can’t.”

  “But they have cattle ranches in southeast Wyoming.”

  “Yes, but the snowfall and temperatures there are a lot better than here.” He pointed to a herd of brown-and-white Herefords off to her right. “These are all grass-leased pastures. A cattle ranch from Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico or Texas will truck their cattle up here from June through September, and the animals put on a lot of good weight due to the grass. Then they’re trucked out of here by early October for the livestock yards. There’s good money in grass leases, but you have to have the land to do it right, plus a lot of wranglers to keep those fence posts strong and the five strands of barbed wire tight. It’s constant work.”

  Lily could see a pickup truck and four wranglers out doing just that: fence mending, along one side of the grass-lease pasture. “I know from my dad’s potato farm about fences and rotting posts. We had it around the farm property along with some corrals and pastures for our milk cows.”

  “How old were you when you started driving fence line?”

  She liked the glimmer of amusement in his eyes. “Twelve. My dad and I would drive up and down the road looking for rotted posts or sagging barbed wire. My mother, Sadie, gave me a twelfth birthday gift of a stout pair of elkskin gloves.”

  “Only kind to use,” and he pointed to his, sitting between them. “You can handle the worst barbed wire with that thick leather. Deerskin will rip and tear, so we never use it here.”

  “My dad got me a straw cowboy hat and a blue neckerchief, saying that at twelve, it was time for me to learn about farm work.”

  “Did you like it?”

  “I loved it. I loved going out with my dad. We had two black-and-white border collies that went with us. My mom would pack a big lunch for us, two thermoses of coffee for him and one of hot tea for me. I always looked forward to working with him. We had a lot of fun and laughs and got a lot of posts replaced and wire tightened up.”

  “But you’ve never been around horses?”

  “No.”

  “Weren’t you horse crazy as a kid?”

  She smiled a little, hearing teasing in his tone. They were now driving on a dirt road, heading toward the Salt Range. “I was, yes, but my dad didn’t have time to take care of one.”

  “They’re constant, daily work,” Jake agreed.

  “What about you? Did you grow up on a ranch?”

  “No, my dad, who’s gone now, owned a grocery store in Casper. From the time I was fourteen, I spent my summers on a nearby ranch, learning how to be a wrangler. It was good money and I liked being outdoors and around animals.”

  “I’m sorry you lost your dad. That had to have been awful.”

  He shrugged. “He died of a heart attack. I was already a recon Marine in Afghanistan and couldn’t be reached or go home for the funeral. I was out on a top-secret assignment and radio silence couldn’t be broken. When I got in off the op, two weeks later, they told me what had happened and I flew home.”

  She could hear the emotion carefully controlled in Jake’s lowered tone. His fingers moved restively on the wheel when he spoke about his father. “I don’t know what I’d do without my mom and dad. I just can’t imagine them leaving me.”

  “Jenna took it hard. They really loved each other. And I grew up seeing what real love was about. At the time he passed, I was getting a lot of PTSD symptoms, although I didn’t honestly recognize them until I went home after the funeral.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’d been in the Marine Corps from age eighteen. My father died when I was twenty-five. My enlistment was up at twenty-seven and I got out. Let’s just say I thought I’d return to Casper and run our family grocery store, but I couldn’t hack it. My symptoms were such that I didn’t even want to be around my mother and scare her half to death.”

  “What happened to the grocery store?”

  “Jenna has a good manager and she still owns it, so my not taking over didn’t scuttle the business.” His black brows fell. “Let’s just say I was a certified mess and didn’t stay at home for long. I came west and got this job.” He grimaced. “It saved my life.”

  She sat th
ere digesting his heavy, forced words, as if he didn’t really want to admit any of it to her. “I understand,” she said softly. “I couldn’t stay on the farm, even though I wanted to.”

  “Because of the PTSD?”

  “Yes, very bad PTSD.”

  Jake slowed and turned down another, narrower dirt road. “I was wondering about that,” he said, glancing at her momentarily.

  “Oh?” Her stomach tightened and she grew fearful, her palms breaking out in sweat.

  “Jenna told me this morning she’d heard you screaming last night.”

  “Oh God . . .”

  Jake slowed the truck. “Jenna was worried about you.”

  Pulling her hand away from her eyes, she stared at him. “About my PTSD?”

  “She knows about it on paper. But because I didn’t go home and stay, like you did with your parents, she never understood that I’d get flashbacks and nightmares where I’d wake up screaming.”

  Her heart felt as if it were cringing in her chest and she placed her hand there. Jake was driving more slowly now. Up ahead, maybe half a mile away, she saw a truck, horses and wranglers waiting beside a high, stout corral. Inside it, she saw the buffalo and the calves. Swallowing hard, she managed to force out, “I had a flashback last night. I was so scared they’d happen here. Scared it would wake everyone.”

  “It didn’t wake me upstairs. But Jenna heard it.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she choked out, giving him a fearful glance.

  “You looked tired when I came in at lunch. I figured you’d probably had one.”

  Wiping her upper lip, she managed, “Yes . . . I did. Was Jenna upset? Did it scare her?”

  “She was concerned, was all,” Jake soothed. “I told her you probably had a bad dream and explained about PTSD. She accepted my explanation.”

  Lily felt as if her whole life was hanging in the balance. What was she going to do? There was no way to control them.

  “I–I can’t do that again.”

  Shaking his head, he muttered, “It’s not something you can control, Lily. What I’d suggest is to keep your door closed.”

  “But I’d told Jenna to keep our doors open so I could hear her if she needed help at night.”

  “I was thinking about that.” Jake slowed the pickup and drove to just behind the group of wranglers. “I have an idea that might work. That way, when you have an episode, you won’t wake Jenna and you’ll be okay.” He put the truck in Park and turned off the engine. “Wipe the worry off your face. Okay? You’re not going to be fired. It’s safe and so are you. Let’s go.”

  Chapter Seven

  June 7

  It’s safe and so are you.

  Dizzied by his gruff, emotional words, Lily almost felt separated from her body for a moment. She got that way when a bubble of hope skimmed through her. It didn’t happen often. In fact, hardly ever. Absorbing that sensation, the hope almost so palpable she could reach out and touch it, she climbed out of the truck, joining Jake, who waited for her at the front. There was too much going on right now for her to fully digest the enormity of his words, or the sense of overwhelming protection that seemed to fall around her when he held her gaze as he spoke to her. Lily had gotten used to feeling like an oyster without a shell since her breakdown. Her whole world revolved around not feeling safe anywhere, that there was nothing inside her to help her erect a protective shield so she could start to function somewhat normally once more. It was a helpless feeling, one she hated. She’d never been this way before.

  Jake’s unexpected response sent her into a euphoric state of hope. Right now, Lily knew she needed protection to cobble her shattered life back together again. But how to do it? How to make it happen? No therapist had the answer for her. Just now, however, Jake had made her feel safe for the first time since that night in the Afghan village. Lily had always felt sure of herself, felt capable, strong, and she had been living her life of service in a way she was passionate about. But not anymore.

  One night had destroyed her world. Destroyed her. And she was careful to allow herself, even in this moment, to know she was making slow, torturous progress toward finding a new Lily to replace the old one that had been damaged. The worst part was not feeling safe out in the world at any time. And it involved every decision she made every day. How to fight to get a skin back on her raw body to protect herself from the hardness of this world. How to fight by the hour, sometimes by the minute, to find some small place she could relax. Never in her life had she ever thought about safety before that night. Her parents had raised her to stand up for her integrity, morals and values; they’d taught her that she had a voice and could speak up for herself and for others. Not anymore.

  On some days, Lily wondered if she could make it through the next hour; the strength within her, which she thought was her core, was fragile, sometimes online, sometimes not. Every day was a struggle, a new mountain to try to climb.

  Jake was a protector. It wasn’t obvious. He was gruff and responded to others with a single word or as few words as he could. But she felt that sense of sanctuary he was offering her now. Just now, Lily felt that the tiny mustard seed of hope he’d shared with her would take root in her shattered soul.

  Her maturity warned her not to project on Jake. To take it one day at a time with this enigmatic man she sensed hid behind hard, impenetrable walls of his own, who had to deal with his own struggles with PTSD. And yet, he had the strength to reach out to her, to tell her that not only was her job with Jenna was safe but she was safe. For a moment, Lily wondered if she’d made it all up. That it was something she wanted to hear so badly that her brain was screwing her up once more. Repeating words or concepts to make her feel better.

  The truck slowed, and she lamented she didn’t have the time to carefully sift through their conversation right now. Frustrated, she gently held this new awareness within her like an egg that might crack at any moment, putting it aside for now. Sensing a new world was opening up to her: ranch life, and Jake’s nearness, for which she was grateful. Lily had just discovered he needed his own bulwark of quiet strength. That helped her to fight to become healthy and whole once more. He was a good role model.

  To her surprise, as they drew up to the corral, she saw two of the four wranglers were women about her age. The other two were men in their late twenties, if she had to guess. Her window was open, and she heard one of the women call out to them. “Hey, Jake! You hired a new woman wrangler?” a redhead called out, tugging on her elkskin work gloves.

  Lily climbed out and shut the door. Jake met her at the front of the truck. He brought his hand beneath Lily’s elbow and gently steered her toward the group. He couldn’t blame the men because Lily was sweetly attractive in an alluring, quiet way. It sure as hell called to him. “This is Lily Thompson. She’s an RN and is taking care of my mother, who’s staying with me while her broken hip heals up. She’s an employee, not a wrangler.” He guided her to the redhead, who had just called out. “This is Red Parker,” he said. “She’s one of our buffalo experts.”

  Red grinned and pushed her black baseball cap back on her hair, which was caught in a single braid between her shoulder blades. Taking off her glove, she thrust her hand forward. “Nice to meet you, Lily. I bet Jake brought you because we always have some kind of medical emergency when we have to vaccinate these wild, cantankerous buffalo.”

  Lily shook her hand, felt her palm roughened with calluses. “Nice to meet you, Red.”

  “And,” Jake said, taking her next to the black-haired woman, “meet Elena Amell. Red is breaking her in to becoming a wrangler. She’s been with the ranch for a year now.”

  “Welcome, Lily,” and Elena smiled and shook her hand.

  “Thanks. It’s such a nice surprise to see women wranglers. I didn’t even know they existed.” She felt warmed by the grins the two women traded. It was good to be in the company of two very confident females and Lily silently lapped it up. She used to be just like them.

  “You
gotta be a vet,” Red prodded. “Which branch? Elena and I are Army.”

  “Army, too.”

  Elena whooped.

  Red’s smile broadened. “Nice work, Jake.”

  “I had no part of hiring her. Maud did it all.”

  Red pulled her glove back on. “Next time I see her, I’ll tell her she did good.”

  “What about us, Jake?”

  The two hombres were giving her thorough looks. She knew that look, which made her feel unsafe once again. She was glad Jake was at her side, his hand comforting on her elbow, as if silently letting her know she wasn’t alone. Since being kicked out of the Army, she hadn’t thought much about herself as a woman. Just a broken human being trying to put herself back together, somehow. Someday.

  “Lily, this is Steven Hogan. He was a paramedic in the Air Force before joining us.”

  “Hi, Steven,” she said, shaking his hand. He was as tall as Jake, but leaner, with blond hair and blue eyes. He was sinfully handsome and he knew it, too. Stepping back, the second male wrangler took off his baseball cap and extended his work-worn hand to her. She felt safe with him.

  “Casey Engel, ma’am. Nice to meet you. I was a Marine, like Jake, here.”

  “I never thought there was an ex-Marine,” Lily teased, liking his gentle shake of her hand.

  Casey’s gray eyes danced with humor. “You’re right, ma’am, once a Marine always a Marine. Right, Jake?”

  “Yes,” he answered, dropping his hand from Lily’s elbow. He urged her over to the eight ten-foot-tall rail fences. “We have those calves to vaccinate,” he told her, pointing to the other corral, where the four-month-old youngsters were huddled, pressed against the fence, bleating for their mothers, who stood on the opposite side.

  “They don’t look that hard to vaccinate,” Lily said.

  “Wait until you see them try to fight being driven into the chute,” Red said, coming up on the other side of Lily. “Their kick can break your arm. They’re small but mighty.”

  Elena came to stand just behind Lily’s left shoulder, a few feet between them. “We had a wrangler last spring get kicked in the thigh by a six-month-old calf and it broke his bone.”