A Father's Stake

by Mary Anne Wilson

  She squinted at the brown expanse, trying to imagine the land lush and green, with livestock grazing on it. The challenge seemed staggering, but she could figure it out.

  “Why didn’t your family get it going again?”

  He closed his eyes for a long moment. “Things happened,” he said in a flat voice. “Life happened.” Then he turned and looked straight at her. “But it has to be brought back.”

  “Of course,” she said, his dark gaze fathomless.

  “Of course,” he echoed.

  “He built the house, didn’t he?”

  “Yes, everything on the land. He did it all with local materials, hauling rocks and stones, cutting the wood, making the adobe blocks.” He pointed off to his right. “That cut in the pine trees was deliberately cleared by him. If you sit at the table in the kitchen, or on the back stoop, or look out the window of the main bedroom, you can see the Rez through that clearing.”

  She followed the direction he pointed but all she saw were the mountains and the foothills at their base. “Can you see it from here?” she asked.

  “Right there. See the top of the foothills, that large green area and the smaller ones running out from it. Those rocks that look like a circle—they’re near the entrance of the Rez.”

  She squinted again in the direction he’d indicated. Although she couldn’t make out buildings, she could see the rock pattern and the greenness beyond it. If there were structures, they fitted seamlessly into the landscape and looked as if they had been there forever.

  “Yes, I see what you’re talking about. That’s where your grandfather came from?”

  “That’s where he was born and generations before him were born. My mother was the only child not born on the Rez. She’s the seventh and only daughter after six sons. Two are still up there, two are in distant places, and the other two are close enough. My mother never left this area. She and my dad built a ranch to the west, three times as big as this. But bigger isn’t always better.”

  The more he talked, the more she felt his undying connection to this place. And it made her uneasy on some level, but as she looked around her, she also knew with certainty that she was supposed to be here. “So, their place is to the west?”

  “Yeah. Come on, and I’ll show you.” He started down into the dead pastures. They walked in silence across the barren ground, the sun starting to heat up. “Watch your step.”

  “I’m okay,” she said. “These shoes are comfortable.”

  “I was talking about snakes, not comfort.”

  She stopped in her tracks, not moving, and Jack had to walk back to where she stood. “Snakes?”

  “They won’t be around too much out here, but you always have to keep your eyes open.”

  Snakes. She’d never even thought about them.

  Jack touched her shoulder and she jerked. “Stay behind me, and I’ll do the checking, okay?”

  All she could do was nod.

  “You might think about getting some boots to wear outside if you plan on doing much walking.”

  Grace nodded again, and motioned vaguely for Jack to lead the way.

  Boots. She’d get some first thing.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  JACK WALKED, ADJUSTING his stride so Grace could keep up. He felt a tinge of guilt for the snake remarks. If there were any out, they’d be more afraid of humans than the reverse. He had impulsively offered this hike to implement the plan he’d come up with in the middle of the night. After talking to John, finding out what a “city” person Grace Evans was, he’d reasoned that she didn’t have an iota of an idea what it would take to restore and run the ranch.

  He’d known he was right when he’d watched her pick her way through the trees, ducking to avoid branches she would have cleared even if she’d stood straight. Her body language said, “The less contact the better.” And he’d felt encouraged when they’d talked, when he’d shown her the dead land, hoping the work ahead of her would put her off And then she’d asked that question about why the ranch had sat untended for so long.

  The past had intruded without warning, making him face things he never wanted to face squarely again. How could he have told her, “Because my wife was killed and my dad is a drunk.” He couldn’t even say those words out loud. Besides, she already knew too much about his family’s bad side. Instead, he’d mentioned the snakes.

  A city girl? Absolutely. Her eyes had widened, and darted back and forth in search for something moving in the weeds. He’d almost felt badly for her, seeing her revulsion and fear. He’d told her to follow him, and she did, so close he could hear her breathing from time to time.

  He kept going, uneasy. It hadn’t been like that when he was a kid, running over here every chance he’d had. He finally spoke, intent on skirting the painful memories, but putting this place in perspective. “When my brothers and I were kids, we used to come and stay with Grandpa. He’d put us to work with him, feeding the animals, helping with a produce garden from early summer to the fall. We’d follow him in the pastures, him on the tractor and us behind, breaking clods. We ate a lot of dust.”

  “He worked you like that?” she asked, and he knew he’d been way off base thinking she’d be horrified at all the work it took to keep the place going. Instead, she was reacting to what she thought of as child labor.

  He found himself explaining himself. He owed that much to his Grandpa. “We wanted to work with him. He was our hero.” Narrowing his eyes, he kept going. “He loved this place.”

  Then another question took him off guard. “Why wouldn’t he let you work the land later, when he needed help?”

  He stopped and turned to look down at her. “Well, because...we worked with him when we were kids. When he couldn’t work any longer, he didn’t want anyone else taking over. That sense of being able to do for himself was important to him. And for most his life, he could do anything.”

  He cut off any more words, shocked that he’d disregarded his own plan not to tell her anything too personal. He headed off toward a long line of low-growing brush and weeds and stunted trees about three hundred feet away. He wanted her to see what lay beyond that barrier.

  * * *

  GRACE WISHED JACK would keep talking. She was fascinated by the change that came into his voice when he spoke about his grandfather and brothers and it kept her mind off snakes.

  She loved her mother, but longed for a larger, close family. She’d never had grandparents. Her father had told her mother his folks were “no longer” in the picture, and her mother’s parents had passed away when she was a teenager.

  They had some family on the East Coast—on her mother’s side, but her mom rarely heard from them. No cousins, distant or otherwise. That was why she was so thankful Lilly had her grandma.

  They walked, coming to a kind of barrier of low trees, vines and bramble. Jack turned to the left, striding ahead of her for about twenty feet. “We can get through here,” he said, motioning.

  She caught up to him and was surprised to see a parting in the crazy tangle of vegetation. The opening was narrow, held back by old pieces of wood stuck in the ground. With an easy motion, Jack ducked through the passageway and disappeared from sight. She was shocked he’d fit through and even more shocked when he called out, “Come on down.”

  She couldn’t move. “What about snakes?”

  “Can’t see any, and if there are some, they’re here for the shade. They’ll be angry if we disturb them, so we won’t.” His disembodied voice held just a touch of something she thought might be amusement. “Come on—I’ll keep my eyes open for anything.”

  She hesitantly went closer to the opening until she saw Jack standing in a shallow creek bed that looked bone-dry. He held out a strong hand to her, and now she could see the humor lifting the corners of his lips. Taking a breath, she gripped his fingers for support as she navigated the fairly steep decline. Once at the bottom, she let go of him and looked in both directions along the partially shaded trench. Rocks, sand, weeds,
hardy plants that looked like bushes laced with vines, but no snakes.

  It was quiet down here, the now towering growth on either side shutting out almost every noise except a soft chirping.

  “This way,” Jack said, striding down the eroded path.

  She followed, staring at his broad back. There was no question of walking side by side in the narrow cut. “So, does this ever have water in it?” she asked.

  “At certain times of the year. There can be flash floods, and you’d be hard put to get out of here before the wall of water got to you.”

  Without thinking, she looked behind her, then back at Jack. “When does that happen?”

  “During the monsoon season.”

  “Monsoon?” She stopped dead in her tracks. “You’re kidding, aren’t you?”

  He slowed and turned. There was no smile on his face now. “No, I’m not. Monsoons hit this area anywhere from July to the early fall. We’re almost at the end of the season, and this year it’s been pretty clear. Actually, they help with the land, greening it up a bit, making it softer, better pasture and easier to plow.”

  “I thought monsoons were tropical storms, way south of here...like very south of here.”

  He shrugged. “I’ve seen heavy rain, wind, lower temperatures, large hail and the lightning....” He gave a “believe it or not” shrug. “The lightning is spectacular.”

  “Hail?”

  “Huge balls of hail. I’ve seen them break windows, beat cars down, a lot of damage.”

  She hugged her arms around herself. Snakes and monsoons. She’d never given either a thought. “Okay, so are we in danger being down here if a monsoon hits?”

  He did laugh then, that dimple appearing at the side of his mouth. “No, not today,” he said. “So, relax.”

  She could tell he wanted to keep going, but she held back. “Before we go any farther, what else goes on around here that I need to know about?”

  “Such as?”

  “Anything that can drown us, or bite us, or—” She held out her hands, palms upward. “Anything. Just tell me now.”

  He considered her with those dark eyes, then cocked his head slightly to one side. “Okay. Small stuff. Spiders, scorpions, lizards, that sort of thing. Larger animals. Wolves, coyotes, even had a bear once, but that’s usual. Mountain lions—”

  “Stop,” she said, her skin starting to crawl. “Enough. I understand. But I need to know how you survived living here all these years?” That smile, darn it, it was there again.

  “I’ll tell you, this is our home, and it’s their home, and we live in some sort of peaceful coexistence when we respect the fact that they were here first.”

  “That’s baloney. Do you have some philosophical discussion with a mountain lion when it attacks you?”

  The smile stayed. “Not usually. That’s when I use the shooting skills I was taught as a kid by my grandpa.” The smile changed just a bit, his expression wistful. “He knew everything there was to know about coexistence and taught me and my brothers what we needed to know to survive in one piece.”

  “Good, good,” she muttered, about to ask if they could go back right then.

  “Now, come on. We’re safe, and if anything comes up that isn’t expected, believe me, it won’t surprise me and I’ll deal with it.” When she didn’t move, he said, “We only have a short distance to go.”

  She had made it this far, she thought. Might as well go a bit farther. Then she’d get back to the house, go into town and get the boots. A gun was out of the question. She hated guns, but maybe a heavy stick to carry when she was out walking. “Okay,” she said, and he took off.

  “Used to come this way to go hunting with my brothers. This was a shortcut. We discovered it one day, and we made up stories about the Indians going this way, that they dug it just so they could move unseen. Of course, Grandpa explained about erosion and water eating at the earth.”

  “But your idea was more fun, wasn’t it?” she asked.

  “It sure was.” He sounded a bit wistful again as he walked ahead of her.

  “What did you hunt?”

  “Everything,” he said over his shoulder. “Rabbits, squirrels, some birds. Bigger game depending on the season. The only rule was we had to eat what we killed.”

  The idea of killing anything was hard for her to deal with, but to clean it and cook it afterward—that made her queasy. “That’s co-existence?”

  “Yes, you only take what you need to sustain yourself or your family,” he said. “My grandpa was firm on that. Willie G., he’s the same. He’s a huge protector of the land. We’re just caretakers, and both men always said, ‘They aren’t making any more of it. What’s here is all there is ever going to be’ and they were right.”

  His words made her feel this place was even more special. It had been cared for and nurtured for years by the Wolf family, and maybe now it was her family’s turn to look after it.

  He rounded a corner, and the path climbed slightly upward. A few moments later, she and Jack stepped into brilliant sunshine at the mouth of a gully. The trees were farther back now, mostly to their rear, and the sight in front of her was nothing short of spectacular.

  They had come out on a rise, overlooking a ranch so beautiful it was hard to believe it was real. Pasture after green pasture, white rail fencing crisscrossing the landscape. Cattle roamed in the distance, horses beyond them, and past that, she could make out a sprawling two-story ranch house that looked as if it was molded to the land it sat on, the turquoise sky a dazzling backdrop.

  “Wow,” she whispered.

  “That’s my parents’ ranch, Carson Acres. They built on the land Grandpa passed on to them when they got married.”

  Grace shaded her eyes from the bright sunlight, drinking in the vision. “How far does it go?”

  “You’re on the boundary between the two places, and their land reaches the foothills to the north and west.” He motioned to the mountains where he’d pointed out the Reservation before. “Just below the Rez, butted up against it.” She could feel him watching her. “So, what do you think about all of this?”

  Grace looked up at Jack, knowing a smile was curving her lips. “It’s incredible, so vast and overwhelming.”

  “Yes, it is. And it’s a lot of work and expense to keep it going, too. I’d hate to tell you what it costs per month to keep that place working. And that wouldn’t include new livestock for replacements or the payroll that fluctuates depending on the season. We have five wells going all the time, and it’s a full time job to regulate them.”

  “Do I have wells?” she asked, remembering the water rights.

  “Two for irrigation. They’ll probably need work before they’ll be up and running.”

  “There’s water in the house,” she said.

  “That’s from a small well near the house. The other two are straight irrigation wells.”

  She felt her smile falter a bit. “When I need them, I’ll get them fixed. As long as I have water in the house.”

  “I guess that will work.”

  “With a well, does that mean there aren’t any water bills?”

  She could tell her question wasn’t the smartest when she saw the flicker of amusement in his eyes come and go. “Yes, there are no water bills, just electric bills. Although, if your windmills are still working properly, that should help, unless you’re going to irrigate all the feeding pastures.”

  Her mind spun. Feeding pastures. Windmills. There was so much she didn’t know. “I’ve seen windmills, or wind turbines, whatever they’re called near L.A. out by Palm Springs. They look simple enough, so there can’t be too much that can go wrong.” Another flicker of emotion crossed his face, but she couldn’t read it, and was pretty much glad about that. She couldn’t feel any dumber if she tried.

  “There’s lots, unfortunately.” As if he read her mind, he said, “The blades can turn, but if they aren’t serviced properly, well....” He shrugged as if it was patently apparent. “No ele
ctricity.”

  Obviously, that made sense, but she did have electricity at the house. “Good to know,” she murmured, and hoped the warmth she felt on her face came from the sun and not from her blushing.

  * * *

  JACK SAW THE uncertainty shadow her face, and the color rise in her cheeks. Another score for his side. He’d thought the “dangerous life” discussion in the river bottom had been very effective. The disgust and unease in her expression were hard to miss. But now, she definitely looked worried, and he felt like a bully. He didn’t like it, so he pulled back a bit. No need to hammer her over the head with the truth of her situation. “Life’s a bit different in Los Angeles, I guess?”

  “I sure don’t have a well or snakes where I live,” she said.

  “Yes, but you have malls, the beach, entertainment, glamour, gourmet coffee shops selling five dollar lattés. Out here we’ve only got one coffee shop, no movie theater is closer than fifty miles, and just the beginnings of a casino complex. That’s in the future, and what we’ll get from that is a lot of gambling.” As soon as he said the words, he realized he never should have mentioned gambling. The color on her cheeks deepened, and Grace turned from him.

  “You know, I need to get back. I’ve got some things to do before I leave.”

  Any apology was left unsaid. “You’re going back to L.A. already?”

  “Yes, in the morning.” She turned and made her way carefully back to the sandy bed of the dry creek.

  Could it all be this simple? She came, she saw, she left, despite what she’d said about not selling? Now that he’d shown her what lay ahead, could he name a figure to buy the ranch and that would be that? He followed her down the path, his turn to focus on her slender hips and the way her hair in its high ponytail swung in time with her strides. Her running shoes were no longer purple and white, but filmed with dirt and silt. Not a country girl by a long shot.