“Well, when I get my own horse again, I’d like to get back into roping and steer wrestling. For now I’m just riding broncs and bulls.”
“Bull rider, huh?” He paused to sip his coffee. “You any good?”
“Not especially.”
Walter grinned like he knew Tommy was being modest. “Well, I admire your courage. It takes a lot of guts to climb on the back of a two-thousand pound animal.”
Tommy shrugged. “I’ve been around big animals all my life. They don’t scare me.”
“Sounds like you grew up on a farm.”
“My folks have about fifteen acres. It’s nothing fancy. But my father’s been riding in the rodeo his whole life.”
“So you’re following in his footsteps, then?”
He paused, searching for the right response. “It’s what I’m doing for now.”
Madeline returned with two frothy chocolate milkshakes and placed them on the counter. Tommy didn’t realize how hungry he was until he took a sip; then he picked up his spoon and downed the entire shake in five gulps.
Walter watched with an amused grin before he turned back to his own drink. “You looking for work, by any chance?”
“What kind of work?”
“I’ve got a cattle ranch up in northern Wyoming. This summer we’re tearing down all our old fences and putting up new ones. Gonna be a hell of a project, considering it’s just me and my son and my old head wrangler.” He met Tommy’s gaze again. “We sure could use someone with a strong back, if you’re interested. There’s a bunkhouse on the property that isn’t getting much use these days.”
Tommy studied his expression intently, trying to determine if the offer was being made out of genuine need or out of pity. He never wanted to be viewed as a charity case. He saw no pity in Walter’s eyes, though…only sincerity.
“I’ve never been to Wyoming before,” Tommy said.
Walter gave a knowing smile. “You’re going to love it.”
*
The thousand miles between Wichita and Jackson afforded Tommy plenty of opportunity to get to know his new employer. Walter told him all about the history of his ranch; then he explained his theories about natural horsemanship and the seminars he conducted around the country.
Tommy listened to all of it with rapt interest, though his attention was divided when they neared Denver and the snow-covered peaks of the Rocky Mountains appeared. He’d never seen snow or mountains before, let alone a chain of jagged white peaks that stretched from one horizon to the other.
Walter chuckled at his expression. “If you think this is pretty, wait ‘til you see where we’re going.”
It was dark by the time they crossed into Wyoming and well past midnight when they passed beneath a large wooden archway that read Flying W Ranch. As they approached the barn, Tommy could make out a farmhouse perched on the hillside and a cluster of small cabins near the pine trees. He and Walter worked in easy silence to unload the three horses and get them settled in their stalls. Then they swept the hay and manure from the trailer floor before they headed up the hill.
It was the first time in over a year that Tommy had set foot inside a house. Since he’d left home, his accommodations had ranged from his truck to shared bunkhouses to the occasional run-down motel room. He paused in the foyer and took it all in–the photos on the wall, the row of pots hanging above the stove–until he remembered what it was like to belong to a family.
An unexpected voice jolted Tommy back to the present. “Pop, you’re already back?”
Tommy glanced across the living room to see a younger version of Walter seated near the fireplace, holding a hardcover book in his hands. “The drive goes much quicker with two,” Walter replied, placing a hand on Tommy’s shoulder. “Tommy, meet my son Alec. Alec, this is Tommy. He’s going to be helping us out for a while.”
Alec rose from the couch, extending his hand in Tommy’s direction. “Nice to meet you.”
“You, too.”
“We’ll get the bunkhouse set up for you tomorrow,” Walter said, motioning for Tommy to join him. “For now, you can sleep in the guest room. Should have everything you need for the night.”
Tommy followed him down the hallway to the guest room, which was twice the size of his bedroom back home. It was stylishly decorated, too, with cheerful striped curtains that hugged the windowpanes. There was even a walk-in closet and a door that led to a private bathroom.
“Breakfast is at five-thirty,” Walter added. “Just make yourself at home, alright?”
Tommy was in a daze as he watched him go. Was it just this morning that he’d awoken in Oklahoma to a stolen truck and nowhere to go? How on earth had he ended up here?
“Walt?” he managed to say.
He turned back to him. “Yes?”
“Thank you.”
Walter gave his signature smile. “No, son. Thank you.”
*
Already Tommy could tell that this wasn’t going to be an ordinary summer job. It wasn’t just the jaw-dropping sight of the Tetons when he opened the curtains the next morning. It wasn’t just Walter’s kindness or the instant rapport that Tommy felt with both Alec and their head wrangler, Roger. It wasn’t even that he was back on a ranch, surrounded by animals and doing the kind of work he loved to do.
He sensed that there was some deeper purpose for his being here, some reason that he and Walter just happened to be traveling the same road that day. It was such an unexpected turn in his life that the only thing he could figure was that he was meant to be here.
It was mid-April and temperatures were frigid, but Tommy didn’t dare complain. Alec gave him his old coat and a warm pair of gloves and that was good enough to last him through the spring. The four of them fell into an easy rhythm of caring for the livestock and inspecting fences, determining when and where to begin their repair work.
By the time May arrived and the days began to warm, Tommy already felt like he’d lived there for ages.
He was up in the hayloft early one morning, unloading feed bags from Roger’s truck, when he heard Alec and Roger conversing in the aisle below. “The friend from Chicago?” Roger asked.
“Yeah,” Alec replied. “I’m leaving her the keys to my truck, but do me a favor and check in with her later. Just to make sure she has everything she needs.”
Tommy couldn’t help but be curious. He’d already learned that Alec was an only child, Walter was divorced, and Roger was a contented bachelor, so there’d never once been mention of a woman on the ranch before.
“Who’s this we’re talking about?” he asked as he descended the ladder.
Alec grinned. “My friend Shania. Come on, I’ll introduce you.”
Shania certainly didn’t look like any friend Tommy had ever had, although it was clear from the way she looked at Alec that they were more than just friends. Later that morning, Walter and Alec left to move their cattle back from Idaho, leaving Tommy, Roger, and Shania on the ranch.
He was pleasantly surprised when Shania showed up each morning to help him and Roger feed the animals. She was as passionate about the ranch as Walter was and she turned out to be a hell of a horsewoman. One afternoon she and Tommy saddled up and took a leisurely ride around the property, talking about rodeo and Shania’s competitive years on the show-jumping circuit.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary the day Walter and Alec were scheduled to return from Idaho. Tommy was halfway through mucking stalls when the phone rang in the barn office.
“What?” Roger screeched. “Wait, Alec, just slow down…”
Tommy frowned and set down his pitchfork as Roger emerged from the office. “What’s the matter?”
The blood had drained from the old wrangler’s face. “You’d better get Shania. We have to go to the hospital.”
The rest of that day would be a blur for everyone involved, and Tommy was no exception. He listened in horrified silence as Alec described the landslide, the two wranglers that had been killed right before his e
yes, and Walter’s own misfortune. Tommy had only known Walter for a couple of weeks, and it was hard for him to believe.
He didn’t want to picture the kind-hearted man who’d given him a chance now being permanently confined to a wheelchair.
Not knowing what else to do, he and Roger returned to the ranch and got back to work. Sometime in the middle of the night, though, Tommy awoke to the sound of squealing horses and breaking glass. By the time he pulled on his boots and scrambled to the barn, he could hear Shania’s voice screaming for Alec to stop.
Instantly Tommy’s thoughts returned to his parents, but when he approached the office he saw that Alec’s rage was directed at the furniture, not at Shania. She glanced at him with a silent plea in her eyes, and once again he responded on instinct. He brushed past her and grabbed hold of Alec’s arm, effortlessly forcing him to the floor.
“Take it easy, Alec.”
Tommy was fully prepared for a fight–and whatever consequences followed–but Alec didn’t fight him. Instead he dropped his head onto the floor and started to cry in a way that no grown man should ever cry. He and Roger half-dragged Alec up the hill and into his room, but it wasn’t until Tommy returned to his bunkhouse that he began to understand the reason that he was here.
The next day, just before lunchtime, Tommy was sifting through the storage shed when Shania’s tall silhouette appeared in the doorway. “Tommy?”
He turned to look at her. “Yeah?”
“Can you take me to the airport?”
Only when she stepped closer did Tommy realize that she’d been crying. “Ummm…sure,” he managed to say. “When did you need to go?”
“Can you take me now?”
He almost asked her why, but he stopped himself just in time. “Yeah. Just let me get the keys from Roger.”
The drive to the airport was–up until that point–the longest half-hour of Tommy’s life. Shania hugged her knees to her chest and turned her face to the window, but he could still hear her sobs and sniffles. He struggled to think of something to say, but he didn’t have any idea where to start.
As soon as he pulled up to the airport he leapt from the truck, desperate for a breath of fresh air. He lifted Shania’s suitcase from the bed of the truck and set it on the curb while she slid from the passenger’s seat. She didn’t say anything at first; she merely regarded him for a moment before she stepped closer and wrapped her arms around his neck. Not knowing what else to do, he tentatively returned her hug.
“Thank you,” she whispered, turning her face to kiss his cheek. Then she gathered her suitcase and walked into the terminal without giving him another glance.
Tommy watched her go, trying to imagine what had happened between her and Alec. Not that it mattered; it had nothing to do with him and there was nothing he could do about it. Still, he felt shaken. For the first time in a long time, he thought of his mother and his sister and the way they used to cry on his shoulder.
Was it simply his fate to console all the brokenhearted women in this world?
When he returned to the ranch, Alec was waiting for him outside the barn. Tommy’s stomach lurched as he parked the truck; he hadn’t stopped to consider what Alec’s reaction might be. He sucked in a deep breath and opened the door, again preparing himself for whatever was about to happen.
Like the previous night, though, Alec made no move towards him. His shoulders were sagged and the dark circles under his eyes almost resembled bruises. He looked…well, he looked like a man whose entire world had just been shattered.
“Where’d you take her?” he asked.
Tommy swallowed hard. “The airport.”
A pained expression crossed Alec’s face. “I’m sorry you got put in the middle of that.”
He turned and vanished down the aisle, leaving Tommy in his wake, and that was all that was ever said about it. Tommy never asked and Alec never offered an explanation, and it would be another nine years before Tommy heard Shania’s name again.
Chapter 7
The summer wasn’t finished with surprises yet. Tommy called his mother one evening in June, as he’d faithfully done every week, only to discover that his father was in the hospital in Santa Fe. He’d gotten hung up riding a bull and had been dragged around the arena for over a minute before the pick-up riders managed to free his hand.
“He’s unconscious and he’s got some sort of hemorrhage in his brain,” Phyllis explained. “The doctors don’t know yet what’s going to happen.”
Three days later Rodney died in his hospital bed, having never awoken from his coma. Tommy felt strangely unaffected by his father’s death, probably because they hadn’t spoken in over a year. Phyllis didn’t have the money for a proper funeral service, but she still assumed that Tommy was going to return home.
“I miss you so much,” she told him. “And your room’s just the way you left it. You can come back and pick up right where you left off.”
Tommy hung up the phone and stared at the wall of his bunkhouse, trying to envision the two paths before him. He could return home, but he wouldn’t be picking up where he left off. His friends would be moving away and starting college this fall while he’d be stuck repeating eleventh grade.
He didn’t see himself living in Wyoming forever, but at this point he didn’t see himself returning to high school, either. He tossed and turned that evening, debating the choice he had to make, before he realized that he didn’t need to decide anything right away.
As it turned out, Alec unknowingly made the decision for him. He met with Tommy and Roger the next day to explain a few major decisions of his own.
“I’m going to remodel the farmhouse,” he began. “I need to get the downstairs ready to accommodate a wheelchair. And next week I have a team of contractors coming out to begin construction around the parking lot.”
“What kind of construction?” Roger asked.
Alec released a deep breath. “We’re going to become a luxury guest ranch. All the pieces are already here; we just need a lodge and cabins for the guests. If we can get everything up before winter, I see no reason why we can’t open next summer.”
Roger gave him a curious stare. “Does your father know you’re doing this?”
“No. But I’ve already made up my mind that this is what I’m going to do.” He turned his gaze to Tommy. “I need to know what your plans are. There’s going to be plenty of work here over the next year or so, and it’s yours if you want it. Otherwise I need to look for someone else.”
All of the indecision that Tommy had wrestled with last night flew right out the window. This was why he was here, he realized. This was why he’d come to Wyoming.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Tommy promised.
While he and Roger were busy caring for the livestock, the new version of the Flying W began to take shape. The farmhouse doubled in size, the framework went up for a soaring A-frame lodge, and a new forty-stall barn appeared beside the original one. By the time the first snow fell, construction was complete on twelve guest cabins.
Tommy stood beside the corral one afternoon and took it all in, amazed at how much Alec had accomplished in five short months. That same week Walter finally came home from the rehab center, although Tommy didn’t see much of him after his return. On the rare occasions when he did, Walter wasn’t even a shadow of the warm, charismatic man who’d offered him a ride back in April.
After a long, frigid winter, the Flying W officially opened to guests the following May. Tommy didn’t know what to expect any more than Roger or Alec did, but somehow everything ran smoothly.
Alec hired a New Yorker named Ryan to manage the lodge; he also hired a couple college-aged girls to lead trail rides and teach riding lessons. It was fun to have girls on the ranch for a change, but more than anything Tommy genuinely enjoyed working with the guests. Every day he got to put on a show and talk about horses and the ranch he’d come to view as home.
He was having such a great time that he actually felt disap
pointed when September came and their first season ended.
“I’m sorry I can’t keep you here through the winter again,” Alec told him. “But you have no idea how much you’ve helped us out. I hope you’ll consider coming back next summer.”
Tommy didn’t hesitate to nod. “I’ll be here.”
He’d saved most of the money he’d earned over the past eighteen months, so even though he had nowhere to go–again–at least this time he was prepared for it. He bought a halfway decent truck and drove down to Texas for a long overdue reunion with his mother; then he hit the road and officially rejoined the rodeo circuit.
That pattern would repeat itself for the next three years. He’d spend his summers working on the Flying W; then he’d tour the circuit for the remainder of the year. It was a lot of driving and shabby motel rooms and way too much fast food, but Tommy didn’t mind. He enjoyed his freedom, even if it wasn’t the kind of life he’d envisioned for himself.
He was on his way up to Wyoming for his fifth summer on the Flying W when he received an unexpected phone call. “Are you going to be in Jackson again this year?” his sister asked.
“I’m driving there now. What’s up?”
He could hear the smile in her voice. “A teaching position just opened up at the high school there, and I was thinking I might apply.”
“Really? That’d be great!”
“You think?”
“It’s amazing, Kelly. You’ll love it there.”
Two weeks later, Kelly was hired and had moved into a tiny studio apartment in town. Tommy tried to sneak away from the ranch whenever he could, but the summer was halfway over before they were able to spend any quality time together.
They went for a hike and were enjoying the view of the valley below when Kelly finally released a sigh. “So there’s this guy.”
Tommy chuckled. “Why am I not surprised?”
She laughed, too. “I really want you to meet him. We’re going camping next weekend up in Yellowstone. Do you think you can come?”
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