Last Chance Llama Ranch

by Hilary Fields

  “Yeah, I guess I am.” Merry smoothed her eyebrows nervously. “Truth is, you were right, Mother. My column isn’t always a good thing. In fact, it’s really fucked things up for someone I care a lot about.”

  “Language, darling.”

  Despite the fussing, Merry noticed Gwendolyn had declined to gloat. Well, that’s new, she thought. Huh.

  “Sorry, Mother. Messed things up.” Merry outlined what had happened with Dolly and her ex-husband. “Anyhow, I need to find a way to come up with two hundred grand in the next couple weeks, to prevent Mr. Dixon from selling the Last Chance to that ugly corporation.”

  Gwendolyn made a tiny moue with her lips. She was no fan of big corporations—they had an unfortunate “homogenizing influence,” in her opinion. “Darling, I cannot recommend investing in some little farm in the middle of nowhere, but if you were to accept your grandmother’s bequest—”

  I.e., join the dark side…

  “—you would of course be free to make such purchases at will. If you’d only stop being so stubborn…” Gwendolyn studied her manicure, letting the silence speak for itself.

  Merry sighed. “Even if I weren’t a pain your butt, Mother, agreeing to your terms wouldn’t help with this anyhow. Dolly won’t accept my money.”

  Gwendolyn’s brow rose. “Really? I’m impressed.”

  Merry shrugged. “You’d actually like Dolly, Mother. It might surprise you to hear this, but in a lot of ways the two of you are alike. I mean, not to look at, of course. You’re far more glamorous. And well preserved. I mean in the way that counts. Your standards. Your dedication to your causes.”

  “As a matter of fact, it doesn’t surprise me at all, Meredith. I read your column, you know.”

  She does?

  Gwendolyn ignored Merry’s surprised expression. “It’s clear to me Mrs. Cassidy is a woman of character. More so if she won’t accept charity. But if she won’t, then what exactly is your plan to help her?”

  Merry slugged more coffee. She’d thought about this, and she was convinced it was the only way. “Crowd-funding. It’s when you—”

  “I know what crowd-funding is, Meredith,” Gwendolyn said tartly. “My donors may be of a different caliber, but I am familiar with the concept.”

  “Right. Sorry, Mother. I got the idea after people started up a Kickstarter campaign for Sam’s Survivors—the teens he mentors.” She saw her mother nod impatiently and gesture for her to continue. Guess she read that post too. Wonder what she thinks of Sam? Or the fiction of him I’ve been creating, anyway. “All told, thousands of dollars were raised for the kids, when we didn’t even ask for anything.” The jury was still out—on walkabout, with Sam Cassidy—on whether that had been a good thing. “Anyhow, I figured if people would open up their wallets on a whim like that, maybe we could get them interested in doing some real good for Dolly. I read last year some guy raised fifty thousand dollars for a potato salad party, and I thought, if he can do that for picnic food, surely I could get Dolly the money to buy out her husband’s interest in the ranch.”

  Gwendolyn considered this. “Won’t that be harder now that Pulse is no longer publishing your work? Not that they weren’t beneath you, darling, but they did drive a lot of traffic to your column.”

  It took Merry a minute to digest the fact that Gwendolyn seemed completely up to speed with all her doings, including getting fired by Pulse. I thought she’d lost interest in what I do after the accident. Except to criticize, of course.

  “In some ways, it actually frees me up to write what I like, instead of just being sensationalistic,” Merry said. “Right now, I need to remind folks why Aguas Milagros and its inhabitants are important, why it’s crucial they don’t get bulldozed by the forces of big-box stores and crass commercialism. Single them out, like that Humans of New York guy does with his photographs. If I feature the townsfolk on my site, make people care about their fates, I thought maybe I could get my readers to open their wallets on Dolly’s behalf.”

  Gwendolyn was nodding as she listened. “Yes, I think it could work.” Then she frowned as a thought occurred to her. “But why would she be willing to accept a bailout from a thousand strangers who owe her nothing, and not from one person she knows well, and who does owes her?”

  Merry squirmed. She wasn’t about to confess, Because she doesn’t want me under your thumb for the rest of my life, Mother. “She just is, I guess. Better to be beholden to many than to one, or something. And anyway, she’s promised to name all her new crias after the biggest donors, and make amigurumi for the others.”

  Gwendolyn looked skeptical, as best her Botox would allow. “Well, whatever the case, I find with fund-raising, there’s always one key to success.”

  “And that is…?” Merry asked, when her mother seemed content to stretch out the suspense.

  “Sincerity.”

  Merry choked on a laugh, then pretended to have swallowed coffee down the wrong pipe. Gwendolyn Manning was many things. Poised. Graceful. Beautiful. But she swam in a realm of artifice and glitter as easily as koi in an ornamental pond. Hers was a world not known for welcoming candor. Or Merry, for that matter.

  “I know you won’t think it of me,” said her mother, who had clearly not failed to note Merry’s reaction. “You’ve never given me credit for so much as a soupçon of humanity. But it’s quite simple, really.” She leaned forward into the webcam, fixing her daughter with a gaze that was more direct than Merry could ever remember. Despite the distance between them, the technology making their connection possible, Merry felt seen. “You speak from your heart, Merry. Tell people plainly why your cause is so important, and they’ll make it their own.”

  * * *

  What makes Aguas Milagros so special—its charm—is also what is endangering it now.

  No. You know what? That’s not true. I am what’s endangering it.

  I came here, snark in tow, to make hay of the very people who have so graciously welcomed me into their world. The very name of my column has been an insult to my hosts.

  “Don’t Do What I Did.”

  Well, that’s true. Don’t blunder into a person’s home and imperil their livelihood. Don’t assume you’re more sophisticated, more worldly than the folks you meet, even if the entire population of the town they live in could fit into your apartment building back home. And don’t assume your presence won’t have a lasting effect—or that theirs won’t have one on you.

  What I’m saying here is, I’ve come to love Aguas Milagros and the people who call it home. They’ve made me feel welcome, and valuable, and accepted in a way I can’t ever remember feeling anywhere else. And in return?

  I thought I was doing some good. I hoped that by sharing with you some of the wonderful personalities and talents around here, you’d see the value I’ve come to appreciate—not just in their handicrafts, which are world-class—but in their way of life.

  Instead, because of me, the forces of commercialism have come calling, and the Last Chance Llama Ranch is in danger of being sold off to feed the faceless maw of corporate banality. Unless Dolly can come up with the scratch to prevent a “hostile takeover” in the next couple of weeks, she’ll lose everything, and so will the llamas (and alpacas, goats, chickens, dogs, bunny, and cat).

  I’m not going to try to be cute here. I’m just going to say it plainly. Dolly needs your help. I’m starting a crowd-funding campaign to help her keep the Last Chance from being sold out from under her, and I’ll be featuring more profiles and stories from Aguas Milagros each day while the campaign goes on. Donate if you can, and please pass the word along to your friends.

  * * *

  TravelBiatch: Done.

  Moby’sDick: Done

  Grammahnazi: Done. Period. End quote.

  GrlyGrl: Done. But I want an alpaca named after me.

  SnoreKelli: I just want an alpaca, period. End quote.

  Grammahnazi: Are you mocking me?

  SnoreKelli: Yes. Shut up and fund.

/>   Sam’s been gone nearly two weeks,” Merry remarked, trying very hard to sound as if it made not the slightest difference to her.

  “Eh, he just gets like that,” Dolly said to Merry. They were sitting at her kitchen table, savoring a plate of biscuits and green-chile-smothered scrambled eggs before making their morning rounds around the ranch. “When he does, best to let him walk it off.”

  “But, er, he will come back, won’t he?” Merry asked. Sam had been “walking it off” for rather a while now. And though she might not mind the surly llama wrangler’s absence, her readers were beginning to notice. Though a gratifying number of them had followed her when she’d decamped from under the Pulse umbrella, and they’d loved her pieces about Jane, and the Happy Hookers, and the other inhabitants of Aguas Milagros these past days since she’d “gone rogue,” her site stats showed a distinct bump whenever Sam’s name was mentioned. If she wanted to keep up their interest in Aguas Milagros and crowd-funding Dolly’s ranch buyout, she needed the star of the show to make an appearance—or at least, her sanitized version of him.

  And, hell, if she were being honest, she did mind his absence. If nothing else, I’d like to apologize, Merry thought. On reflection, she could see why Sam had taken it amiss when his kids got swept up in the Internet’s fickle concern. A man as private as Sam Cassidy, as prickly and proud, must hate to find himself and those he cared for under scrutiny by an uncaring and capricious outside world. I certainly never meant to drive him away from his own home, Merry thought. She ached to tell him so. But when Sam went on walkabout, apparently he went on epic walkabout. He hadn’t left so much as a bare-toed footprint round the ranch since he’d taken off at dawn after their confrontation at Café Con Kvetch. He’d simply packed up a llama, left Dolly a note slipped under her door, and taken to the mountains.

  Strange how much she missed seeing his grumpy face around the ranch.

  “I miss that fool boy,” said Dolly, sipping her coffee and causing Merry to wonder if she’d read her mind. “But this late in the season, we’re hardly taking tourists up into the national forest anymore, so his sulk’s not hurting business—least not more than business already hurts. Sam’s got a stubborn streak, and he’s been touchy as all get-out ever since he and Jessica split, but he’s never left me hanging when it counted.”

  “Jessica?” Merry blurted out the question before she could call it back. I don’t need to know about his past relationships, she told herself. In fact, the less I know about that man, the better for my sanity. She already found herself thinking of him, wondering what made him tick, far more often than she should. Better to stick with the romance novel fantasy she was creating for her readers than fall for the much more complicated reality.

  “His ex-wife,” Dolly said, making a face. “Back east. Did a real number on his head, that gal. He hasn’t been the same since, though in a lotta ways I think he’s better. He’s got her to thank for the turn his life took, all those years back.”

  Merry leaned forward on her elbows. Her heart, she realized with surprise, was beating faster than even Dolly’s highly caffeinated coffee could explain. Maybe, just maybe, Dolly’s explanation would allow Merry to understand why Sam seemed to hate her so much. “Could you say more?”

  Dolly snorted, shaking her finger at Merry. “No. I couldn’t. Not when it’s just between you, me, and a million readers on the Internet. Now c’mon, we got fluffies to feed.”

  Merry woke, and wished she hadn’t. So long as she’d been sleeping, she could pretend she was warm, and cozy, and not—mere days before the crowd-funding campaign was to end—still nowhere near saving the Last Chance. John Dixon hadn’t returned, but he’d had that lawyer send over a raft of legal documents, and it was getting harder and harder to see how Dolly was going to avoid having to sell off the ranch. It was a chilling thought.

  Or maybe there was a more practical reason for her shivers. Once her eyes opened, Merry could see her breath, as well as the reason why.

  Her nocturnal caller had been by again. The cabin door was open a crack, and Merry’s boots had been dragged to the doorstep, as if inviting her outside—or warning her she’d need them. More curious than creeped out by now—her recurring intruder didn’t seem intent on any real harm—Merry wrapped herself in Dolly’s afghan and penguin-walked to the doorway, toes curling against the cold floorboards. She shivered and blinked in the sudden light.

  Whiteness. As far as the eye could see, a soft layer of snow had descended overnight, blanketing the pastures and blunting the outlines of the hacienda and outbuildings. The mountains were shrouded in capes of low-hanging clouds, and more fat flakes fluttered down from the steel-gray skies by the minute. The yellow-blooming autumn chamisa were no more than frosty humps in the crystal-white landscape, and Merry could see Dolly’s disparate herds clustering beneath their corrugated steel shelters both to munch on the hay in the mangers and keep their woolly hides from piling up with snow. Merry doubted they’d have to worry much about staying warm, however, what with the eight inches of wool insulation most of them were sporting.

  Unlike me.

  Thank God for the Cosby sweater, Merry thought, shivering again and heading back inside the cabin to dress for the day. Randi had donated the eye-poppingly bright item to Merry’s wardrobe upon learning Merry—who hadn’t planned to stay more than a couple of weeks—had nothing suitable for the late-fall weather, not even a jacket warmer than her windbreaker. The sweater was an impressive tribute to the eighties in a rainbow array of stripes, swirls, and even, if she wasn’t mistaken, a sequin or two. And it wasn’t the only new addition to Merry’s wardrobe. In the past couple of weeks she’d been deluged with homemade leg warmers, hats, scarves, and post-punk mittens from the Happy Hookers, and she’d been grateful to accept, even if sporting all their largesse made her look like a schizophrenic Christmas tree.

  It’s not like I’m out to win any beauty contests out here. But lord, if Mother could see me now…

  Hell, Merry thought, maybe she’d even be proud of me.

  Stranger things had happened—such as Gwendolyn’s tacit support of Merry’s efforts to save the ranch.

  And speaking of strange…Something seemed out of place in the pen nearest the barn. It took Merry a moment to realize what it was—three fluffy lumps, where there should have been four. Quickly, Merry layered on socks and leg warmers over her stupid (and increasingly threadbare) skinny jeans, then sweatered up, wrapping a scarf around her neck and plopping a hat with about six too many pom-poms over her messy hair. She stuffed her feet into her boots and headed out the door to investigate.

  Snow! sang a little, gleeful part of Merry that would never get over the delight of a field of untouched powder. Snow-snitty-snow-snow-snow! Even with the usual morning stiffness in her left leg, Merry found herself skipping a little as she headed out into the pristine white pasture.

  One alpaca, two alpacas, three alpacas…Nope, just three alpacas.

  Jane had sequestered the expectant mothers who required a richer mix of feed in their diets into a pen of their own. Travis McGee, Mike Hammer, and Jack Reacher (all girls) were where they should be, eyeing the brightly colored apparition in their midst with mild interest, but one was missing.

  “Dashiell!” Merry gasped. The delicate young mother had been a source of worry for Jane and Dolly, as well as Sam, since she’d lost her cria in childbirth last year. Now her absence was a source of worry for Merry. Alpacas don’t just vanish. And Dashie’s coat was a rich, coffee brown. She wasn’t likely to blend into the snow, which wasn’t deep enough yet to bury her even if she’d been lying down, in distress. Which Merry sincerely hoped she wasn’t.

  I have to find her!

  The snow had swirled up in a dense drift along one edge of the pen where hay had been stacked, Merry saw, creating a natural ramp a determined camelid could have climbed. The two-toed footprints and, more alarmingly, tiny dots of blood in the snow told Merry one had. The tracks, already disappearing in the
worsening snowfall, headed up and into the mountains beyond Dolly’s property.

  Oh no…

  Merry ran for the hacienda, calling Dolly’s name. But when she got there, flinging herself through the mudroom and into the kitchen without even stopping to wipe her boots on the mat, she found a note waiting for her on the table.

  Needed some kerosene and some treats from town. Looks like it’s fixing to be a real doozy of a snowstorm, and we can’t be expected to weather it without our cocoa, now can we? See you in a couple hours. —D

  Shit.

  Merry grabbed Dolly’s phone, an old rotary dial that felt like ten pounds of lead in her hand. She found Jane’s number taped to the fridge and dialed as fast as her shaking fingers would allow.

  “This is Jane Kraslowski, your friendly neighborhood on-call vet. I’m not here to take your call, but if you leave a message, I’ll be sure to have your horsies and chickens and assorted fluffsters feeling up to snuff in no time.”

  Double shit.

  There wasn’t time to wait for Dolly to get back, or to go in search of Jane, even if she’d had access to a car. The MINI Cooper would never make it past the driveway in this weather, let alone all the way into town. Within minutes, if Merry was any judge of snow—and she was—the alpaca’s tracks would have been completely covered, impossible to follow. She grabbed a pen and scrawled a note to Dolly, telling her what had happened and that she’d gone out after the wayward critter.

  On her way out the door, Merry said a quiet prayer.