by Janet Dailey
"How long has it been since I needed a new one?" she joked, because her husband hadn't been the type to party or go out for an evening, even if they could have afforded it. He preferred a home-cooked meal to any restaurant fare.
"With that money—" he gestured toward the check in her hand "—you can buy yourself a whole new wardrobe, travel, have fun, do anything you want." As he was making the statement, Alison reentered the living room in time to hear it.
"There's something else you can do, too, mom," she inserted, pausing to sit on the arm of Edie's chair. "I was thinking about it in the kitchen after I hung up from talking to Mrs. Van Doren. You could open up your own upholstery shop, go into business for yourself. Everybody around here knows how good you are at it."
Own her own business? Edie considered the idea, then dismissed it with a slight shake of her head. "It would mean having a shop in town and spending most of the day inside when I'd rather be outdoors. No, I don't think I'd like that, in spite of the challenge. As for traveling, there are a lot of places I'd like to see, but—" She sighed without finishing the statement, because she doubted if she would find much enjoyment in sightseeing alone. There would always be the memory of how much fun they'd had as a family on that camping trip to the Black Hills of South Dakota and the instantaneous love she had felt for that Indian land.
"It isn't anything you have to decide now," Jerry reminded her.
"No. And I don't intend to make any rash decisions about it, either," she smiled firmly.
"I would be surprised if you did, Edie," Jerry declared, and pushed his lanky frame upright. "It's just about chore time so I'd better get back to the farm." Since he had returned home after his tour of enlistment with the marines, Jerry had worked for a large, corporate-owned farm with an enormous acreage of crops as well as a cattle-feedlot operation.
"I'm glad you could get time off from work to come over while the attorney was here," Edie said.
"Yeah, well, it was too wet to be in the fields today anyhow, so—" He shrugged away the rest of the sentence.
"Speaking of chores," Edie glanced at her daughter, "we have some horses that need to be grained."
"And stalls to be cleaned," Alison grimaced. "I'd better go change clothes."
"Me, too," Edie agreed, glancing down at her brown dress.
Jerry had started toward the front door. "I'll probably be over Sunday, unless we start haying."
"Sunday dinner will be at one o'clock, as always," Edie told him before she followed Alison up the stairs to the bedrooms on the second floor.
After the front screen door had slammed shut, the engine of Jerry's pickup roared to life in the yard of the old farmhouse. Edie paused at the open door of her daughter's bedroom. She watched for a silent second as Alison dragged a pair of worn blue jeans and an old shirt from her closet. It didn't seem possible that Alison would be eighteen in two short months.
"Did you want something, mom?" Alison glanced up to see her standing in the doorway.
"I was just wondering—" she began, and changed to a more direct approach. "Do you want to go to college, Alison?"
"I thought we'd been through all that." She widened her brown eyes in mock exasperation.
"I know we talked about it before you graduated, but—" Edie paused "—I want to be certain you refused because you didn't want to go and not because you knew we couldn't afford it. With the insurance money—"
"No, mom," Alison interrupted firmly. "I don't want to go to college. I'm not college material. Look at my grades. Besides, I'm like my dad. I don't have any ambition beyond having a nice home and family someday."
"I don't think you are being exactly fair about your father." Edie was immediately defensive, because she knew too well the night courses Joe had taken in an attempt to better himself.
"Yes, I am," Alison insisted. "I know why dad never said anything about those inventions of his. He didn't want people to treat him like someone he wasn't. He was just a mechanic—a good one, but just a mechanic. He wasn't ashamed of it, and neither am I."
"That doesn't explain why he didn't tell us." Edie returned to the question that kept nagging her.
"Don't you see, mom? If he had told you, you would have been so proud of him you would have told everybody. Can you imagine how someone like Mrs. Van Doren would have started fawning over him, saying how clever he was. Dad couldn't have stood that. Dad just wasn't the type that ever wanted to be the center of attention."
"Yes, I suppose you're right," Edie sighed, seeing the logic of her daughter's explanation.
In a town the size of this small Illinois community, Joe's inventions would have been big news. And Joe couldn't have coped with being a minor celebrity. Heavens, he hadn't even been able to cope with raising a small boy on his own, yet he had been such a strong, stalwart man in many ways.
"Look at me. I'm good with animals—breaking and training horses and such," Alison continued as she untied her wraparound skirt, tossed it on the bed and tugged on her jeans. "I know you once mentioned I could become a veterinarian, but all that anatomy stuff is beyond me. I can't even pronounce some of the diseases, let alone spell them. But, between the money I got from selling Fiesta's colt and what I'll be able to save working as a carhop at the drive-in this summer, I'll be able to pay for that horseshoeing course this fall. Then we won't have the expense of shoeing our horses, plus I can make extra money by shoeing the horses we board."
"One thing is certain. I don't think we'll ever be without horses," Edie stated with a somewhat wry smile.
"Yeah," Alison agreed, and looked up to reveal the impish twinkle in her brown eyes. "We're both horse crazy. Dad loved them, too," she added, a faint sadness touching her smile before it brightened. "Even if we never could get him to climb on one."
"Yes, that's true."
"You'd better hurry up and get changed, mom." She leaned against the single bed to pull on her boots. "I want to work Fiesta's filly at halter, and I'll probably need your help at first."
"I won't be a minute," Edie promised and moved away from the door to her own room.
It was funny how young Alison seemed to her, yet she had been a few months younger than her when she had married Joe straight out of high school. Edie walked to the closet to remove her old clothes. Now there were only her clothes in the closet; she had given all of Joe's to the church. Not that he'd had many, since he'd rarely worn anything but garage overalls. Their faint greasy odor still lingered in the air. She wondered how long it would take before the smell faded.
While she dressed, her gaze strayed to the framed photographs on the dresser. One, the most recent picture she had, was a picture of the four of them taken ten years ago at Christmas. Everyone was smiling except Joe, whose face was in the shadow of the Christmas tree. The second and third frames held yellowed photographs of her parents and her two brothers, and her grandparents.
Their deaths when Edie was only four were a tragedy still talked about in the small Illinois community; almost an entire family, save Edie, wiped out in a single car accident. At the time of the accident she had been staying with her uncle, who subsequently took her in and raised her with his children. She had always been treated on an equal basis with her cousins, yet Edie had never felt that she truly belonged to their family unit.
In the spring of her senior year at high school she had met Joe. At almost the same time, her uncle had announced that they would be moving to California where he had been transferred with a promotion. Edie hadn't wanted to go. And the more she saw of Joe and five-year-old Jerry, the more she realized how much they needed her…and how much she needed them.
All in all, she'd had a good life and a good marriage. She didn't regret it.
THE NEXT THREE MONTHS were an adjustment period for Edie as a single woman again. Although she was used to making most of the decisions since Joe had so often been preoccupied, with his work or projects, there had always been the comforting knowledge that she could consult him when a problem arose.
Now virtually everything was solely her decision—from what time to get up to what to fix for dinner.
There was one major decision Edie had postponed making—what to do with the money? She had discussed it with John Wentworth, the attorney. And as soon as various friends and acquaintances learned about it, they volunteered suggestions. To this point she had spent only a very tiny portion of it since she had continued to live on the strict budget they'd had before. Nearly all of it was presently secured in an interest-bearing account waiting for her decision.
One thing kept running through her mind whenever she thought about how she should use it. Jerry's comment that Joe had wanted her to have her dreams kept echoing back. At first she had dismissed the possibility because, on the surface, her dream seemed ludicrous and impractical. Although she never discussed it with anyone, not even Jerry or Alison, the idea kept coming back. Each time she found more and more reasons that made it seem plausible.
Finally Edie realized that she had to sound out her idea on Jerry and Alison. She needed their reaction to her proposal. Without their support, she wouldn't be able to achieve her goal. The opportunity came on Sunday when Jerry arrived to have dinner with them.
Having set the platter of roast pork on the table, Edie sat in the chair opposite Jerry, at the head of the table. She waited until Alison had offered the blessing and the food was being passed around.
"Mmm, you outdid yourself today, Edie," Jerry declared, inhaling deeply the fragrant aroma of the sage dressing accompanying the pork. "After a week of eating what comes out of the tin cans Chuck opens, this is manna from heaven,"
"Is it true that Craig is going out with Chuck's sister?" Alison demanded.
Jerry measured his half-sister with a sidelong glance then nodded. "Yes, it's true." He helped himself to a heaping mound of mashed potatoes.
"I thought so." It was a somewhat choked response that Alison tried to hide.
"I was cleaning a closet this week and ran across a couple of boxes pushed way to the back. You'll never guess what I found in one of them," Edie stated and didn't make them ask. "Old snapshots of our trip to the Black Hills. They are on the buffet table behind you, Alison."
The distraction was one her daughter sought, and she reached back to remove the packet of photographs from the bureau top. "That old Brownie camera took good pictures, didn't it?" she remarked after she had glanced through the first couple of snapshots. "How old were we, mom? Oh, Jerry, look at this one!" she laughed and instantly handed it to him.
"I think you were eight and Jerry was fourteen," Edie replied.
"You were a bean pole then," Alison teased her brother.
"You were pretty skinny yourself," he retorted good-naturedly.
"Look! This is really a terrific picture of the four faces at Mount Rushmore!" Alison handed him another. "Here's one of the buffalo herd!" As she continued to pass the snapshots on to him, Jerry would sneak a bite of food and lay his silverware down in time to take the next one she handed him. "We had so much fun on that trip," she sighed.
"Do you remember this, Edie?" Jerry handed her one of the pictures, a laughing gleam in his eyes. "You were trying to cook hamburgers on an outdoor grate. They kept breaking in half and falling through onto the coals."
"And Joe kept rescuing them," Edie remembered.
"They were the grittiest hamburgers I've ever eaten," he concluded.
"Definitely not one of my more memorable meals," she agreed with a laugh.
"Would you just look at that country? Isn't it beautiful?" Alison murmured as she handed Jerry a photograph taken of the wild, rolling landscape. "Do you remember how we all started dreaming about owning a ranch there someday? Even dad?"
"Do I remember!" Jerry laughed shortly. "We planned how many acres we were going to have, how many head of cattle it would hold, how much hay ground we would need for winter feed, how many horses we should have. Dad and I were even going to trap in the winter so Edie could have a fur coat."
"You called it our Dakota dream ranch, didn't you, mom?" Alison remembered with a faraway look.
"It doesn't have to be just a dream ranch," Edie said carefully. "We could have it now."
Alison stared at her for a long moment. "We could, couldn't we?" she breathed in realization.
Edie turned her gaze to the young man seated across from her. Astonishment was written in his features. He set his silverware down again, the food on his plate forgotten as he searched her face.
"You are serious about this, aren't you?" His response was almost an accusation.
"Yes." She was holding her breath.
"Do you know how much a ranch out there would cost?" Jerry questioned on a note of disbelief.
"I have a pretty good idea," Edie nodded.
"We can afford it." Alison was giving the idea her full support.
"Even after the down payment there would be enough money left out of the insurance to buy some stock and have a year's working capital." She had already done some rough figuring in her head. "There would still be some money coming in from the patents besides that."
Jerry obviously found it difficult to argue with that. He shook his head and glanced at the photographs scattered across the table amid the bowls of food. "I suppose finding these pictures made you think about it."
"No. I went looking for them, because I remembered what you said about Joe wanting me to use the money to fulfill my dreams," she explained, "Except this isn't just my dream. It was our dream. Yours, Alison's, Joe's and mine."
"I think it's the greatest idea I've ever heard," Alison enthused.
"All right." Jerry was still thinking, mulling it all over. It was what Edie wanted him to do. "You can afford it. And it is something you've wanted. But how on each are you going to run it? What do you know about running a ranch?"
"Most of it is common sense," Edie reasoned. "And I'm not completely without experience, limited though it is. I was raised on my uncle's farm. I've hayed, driven tractors, doctored sick animals, and done a hundred other things. I've certainly had a lot of experience mending fences, and I've been riding horses since I was five. None of that means I can handle the operation of a ranch by myself."
"I'm relieved to hear you admit that." Jerry leaned back in his chair, a vaguely mocking smile curving his mouth.
"However—" Edie paused for effect "—I think I might know where I can get some qualified help to work with me." She glanced at her daughter. "There's you, for instance, Alison. Now that you and Craig are finally through, you might consider coming with me. Between the two of us, we have delivered our share of foals, including the breach birth Fiesta had this last time. Cows can't be that much different. Besides, you have enrolled in that horseshoeing course, a skill that will definitely come in handy on a ranch."
"I'll pack tomorrow, mom," Alison promised.
"What about you, Jerry?" Edie glanced at her stepson, who was the big question mark in her mind. "You are the one with the experience. You've worked practically every summer on the farm with that feedlot operation. You have all the first-hand knowledge about cattle. Is there someone special here you wouldn't want to leave?" Since he had moved out she knew very little about his social life, except that he dated, but she didn't know of any girl he was dating steadily.
"No. There is no one special," he admitted, and Edie could see he was weakening.
"There is one thing I would want clear from the very start," she said. "This is going to be a family ranch, especially if we are all working for it. We'll all have an interest in it and a share of the profits, if there are any.
"Thanks to your father, I don't have to do anything. It's what I want and what I think is fair. The two of you are going to work just as hard as I am to make the ranch successful. What's your answer, Jerry? Do you think you'd like to go into partnership with me and Alison?" she challenged.
He shook his head and smiled crookedly. "It's so insane it just might work, do you know that?"
"That's what I thought!" E
die laughed, unable to check the flow of happiness at his silent agreement.
"We are really going to own a ranch." Alison said it aloud, as if she needed it repeated to believe it.
"We have an awful lot to do," Edie sobered. "First we are going to have to get in touch with a real-estate company to find out what's on the market. We are all agreed on South Dakota, aren't we?"
"How else are we going to have a Dakota dream ranch?" Jerry mocked.
"And we aren't going to jump at the first place that's up for sale, either," she insisted. "We aren't in any hurry, so let's find the right ranch for us, agreed?" Both nodded.
"What about this place?" Jerry wondered.
"We'll sell it," Edge decided. "Burn the bridges. Of course that means the house and barn are going to need a fresh coat of paint. The fences, too."
"We'd better not put it up for sale until we are fairly sure we've found a ranch," Jerry cautioned.
"Yes, otherwise we'll have to find a place to keep our horses until we move," Alison agreed, then asked, "We are taking our horses, aren't we?"
"Definitely." Jerry nodded and glanced questioningly at his half-sister. "Didn't you say that buckskin you bought last winter would make a good roping horse?"
"I think so. Try him out this afternoon and see for yourself," she suggested.
"I'll do that."
Alison rose from her chair, "I'm going to get a paper and pencil so we can make a list of all the things we need to do. This is going to take some organization."
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Chapter Two
NEEDLESS TO SAY, the Gibbs family's decision was scoffed at, ridiculed and the butt of many jokes in the area. No one quite believed that they really intended to go through with it.
It wasn't easy to carry out their plan, either. To begin with, there weren't many ranches for sale in the Black Hills region of South Dakota. They were forced to reject those that were available as too costly, too large or too small. But Edie persisted in trying, and with her as their leader, Jerry and Alison followed suit.
