Cowboy in Colorado (Fifty States of Love)

by Jasinda Wilder

  I get the distinct impression that if they don’t like the idea, I won’t be having a meeting with Will, who is, apparently, the final word when it comes to the ranch. I’m not sure how that works with a patriarch like Henry, but this is not my world, after all.

  When I’ve said my piece, silence reigns for several minutes. Henry and Eileen exchange a long, silent, meaningful look, and then Henry turns to me.

  “We’ve done things a certain way, the same way, for nearly two centuries, Miss Bellanger.” His voice is as spare and hard as the rest of him. “Auden Town has been operated and taken care of by the Auden family since Andrew Jackson was president. It is a responsibility and privilege for this family to see to the well-being of Auden Town, and it is one that we do not take lightly at all.”

  “What Dad isn’t saying,” Theo cuts in, “is that that responsibility and privilege falls, historically, upon the eldest daughter. Meaning me.”

  “We pride ourselves,” Henry continues, “on the operation of Auden Town much as it has been operated since its foundation in eighteen twenty-nine, when it was just the general store, saloon, livery, and blacksmith.”

  “It does have that feel,” I say. “And that’s exactly what we would hope to market and capitalize on.”

  “We’re not interested in having a Starbucks or a McDonald’s,” Theo says.

  “Nor am I.” I sense the resistance, and know that I have to sell it, here and now, or the deal is off before it can really start. “Please understand me, Mr. Auden, Mrs. Auden, Theo—I am in no way interested in cheapening your legacy. But there’s money to be made here, and I think that’s something we can all agree would be a good thing—provided we do it right, with a view to preserving the very legacy you’re so proud of, and rightly so.”

  “This just seems a little…left field, for someone like you,” Eileen says.

  “Someone like me? Meaning what?” I ask.

  “Big city, big money,” she answers, forthrightly. “You seem like the type to put up condos and high-rises, not investing in quaint little historical villages way off the beaten track in the wilderness of Colorado.”

  I smile at her. “You’ve estimated me correctly, Mrs. Auden—that’s precisely who I am, or rather, who I have been. But recently I’ve been tasked with expanding and broadening the scope of my company’s holdings. Which are, as you’ve guessed, mostly urban developments, high-rises, condos, malls, office buildings, restaurants, things like that. This idea, this deal we’re talking about right now, represents a shift away from that—intentionally. Diversification into unknown and therefore potentially risky territory.”

  “So you’ve never done anything like this before,” Theo says.

  “Not at all,” I say, knowing my best chance is to just be honest—these seem like the type of people who’ll smell bullshit from a mile away, and bolt at the first hint of it. “But I know my capabilities, and that of my team, and I know we can make this work…if you and your family are on board. Because this won’t work without your family’s vision and input.”

  Henry glances at Eileen, and then at Theo. Finally, he nods, and turns to me. “I’ve been retired for going on six years. But I’m still well informed when it comes to the well-being of my family’s ranch, and I can tell you that, through no fault of my son’s, things have been tough lately. We’ve lost a few contracts, a few long-term clients—again, not due to anything we could’ve done differently, just the inevitable march of progress. We’ve had to downsize, which in turn means losing people, which means Auden Town just has less of everything.”

  He glances again at Theo. “And like she said, typically it’s the eldest daughter who runs the town, solves the problems and sees that it has everything it needs. It’s not incorporated, it’s just a little place we pay for out of our own pockets to keep up for the good and convenience of the folks who work for us and live in the area. But it’s getting expensive, and Theo…well, this more private family business, but she’s been wanting to spread her wings a little bit, but that’d leave running Auden Town to Eileen and me, and we’ve been thinking of taking the motorhome south for the winter.”

  Theo rolls her eyes and sighs. “You were right when you said that was private family business, Dad.”

  He just narrows his eyes at her. “Theo—it’s relevant. We ain’t gettin’ any younger, and you’ve been chomping at the bit to get out on your own, maybe not forever, but for a time, at least. Will and Clint have the ranch operations locked down tight, and I think without the expense of running the town to worry about, it’d free up resources so he can focus more on the horses, and even give you the space you’ve been wanting. His herd of mounted police horses is coming along nicely, and I know he’s got several outfits interested, but things are tight.”

  “So you’re interested—maybe even inclined go for it?” Theo says to him.

  He nods. “It makes sense to me, but we need to talk about this in greater detail. This has come at us out of the blue and it is a big step. We need to make sure it is the right thing for our family, our ranch, our legacy.” He eyes me. “But I can tell you one thing. You’ll have your work cut out for you with Will, though. He won’t like the idea. I can almost guarantee that.”

  “But you’re his father, and the patriarch,” I point out.

  He snorts. “My dad is ninety-five, sharp as a razor and still walks three to four miles every single day. He’s the patriarch of the Auden family. And yeah, I’m Will’s father, but I’m retired, and Will is running this operation. My word and my input carry a lot of weight, but if Will feels it’s not in the best interests of the ranch and the family, he won’t go for it. He has a very black-and-white sense of things, and this idea is outside his field of view.”

  I shift uncomfortably. “You make him sound almost unreasonable.”

  Theo chuckles, and it’s a sound that doesn’t seem to bode well for me. “It has been said of my dear brother that he is as immovable as the mountains themselves, once his mind is made up.”

  I let out a long sigh. “Oh boy.”

  Henry nods. “He took over and immediately started doing things his own way—had to get out from under the shadow of the way I did things, and the way my dad did things. He wants to leave his own mark on this ranch, and not just coast along on what his ancestors have created.” He indicates me. “And that’s why I think, if you can get him to listen, he may go for your little idea.”

  Theo groans. “Dad. Little idea?”

  Henry waves her off. “Don’t go charging at windmills, Theo. Didn’t mean it like that. Just a phrase.”

  I look from one face to another, ending with Henry. “So, we’re all in agreement?”

  Henry nods. “Yep. If I were still in charge, I’d sign right now. But I ain’t, and it’s Will you’ve got to talk to.”

  “But I have your blessing? And I can tell him you think this is the best thing for the family and for the ranch and for the community?”

  Henry nods again. “Sure do, sweetheart.” He frowns at Theo. “Sorry, I mean, Miss Bellanger.” He jerks a thumb at his daughter. “She’s forever trying to get me to think, act, and talk with more tact and less sexism.”

  “He’s a product of the era in which he was raised,” Theo says. “He’s very open-minded, all things considered, but some things just stick, you know?”

  I think of my own father who is, in many ways, very much like Henry Auden. “Yes, I think I do know what you mean.” I smile at Henry. “Don’t worry about any of that around me, Mr. Auden. I can see through it to the man you are.”

  He slaps his knees and stands up. “Well, I promised Eileen we’d ride up to Talkabout Ridge for a picnic, so we best be gettin’.” He reaches out and shakes my hand. “I’ll get Will in for a talk, and we’ll be in touch.”

  When they’re gone, it’s just me and Theo again.

  "Best if you just let it go. A good idea, but you won’t get anywhere.”

  I chew on this for a moment. “I don’t give
up easily, Theo.”

  “He doesn’t give in at all,” she says, shrugging.

  “What if I tried talking to him myself?”

  She snorts. “If you could find him, and if you could get him to listen, he probably still wouldn’t change his mind.”

  “Find him? He’s the owner of the ranch, how hard can it be?”

  She hesitates, thinking. “I know he was planning on working out of Alpha Camp for the next few days—he said as much when we spoke to him last night.”

  “Alpha Camp?” I ask.

  She nods. “The ranch is ten thousand acres, Brooklyn. That’s fifteen miles square, and it’s fenced off into various pastures, each of which has its own cowboy camp—a way station, you could call it, where the ranch hands can stay, take breaks, things like that, without having to ride all the way back here, which can take most of a day. Alpha Camp is the biggest one, and it’s the most central, and it’s nearly eight miles from here.”

  “Well, point me in the right direction, and I’ll drive over there.”

  Theo shakes her head. “No, you don’t understand. We do things the old-fashioned way. Meaning, on horseback.”

  “I saw an ATV and a utility vehicle in the garage,” I point out.

  “That’s for getting back and forth from here to the big barn, and to town. It’s an absolutely inviolable rule—no vehicles of any kind, even electric, in the pastures. In the history of the ranch, there has never, ever been a wheeled, mechanical vehicle on those lands—nothing beyond good old horse-drawn wagons.” She sighs. “I’ll have to go find him.”

  “And when you say you’re going to go find Will…”

  “I mean I’m going to saddle up a horse and ride out to Alpha Camp and see if anyone’s seen him.”

  “He doesn’t have a cell phone, or a walkie-talkie?”

  Theo laughs. “A cell phone. That’s funny.”

  I stare at her. “I mean…not really? They have satellite phones that will work in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, or at the top of a mountain, or deep under the earth in a bunker.”

  “There are walkie-talkies at the camps, and there’s always at least one person in each crew who has one in case of emergency, but Will doesn’t like to be easily found. He knows where he’s needed, and that’s where he’ll be.”

  “What about emergencies?”

  She shrugs. “This is a ranch—there’s always an emergency. Horses foundering, mares giving birth, colts wandering off, wolves and coyotes and mountain lions getting stragglers, hands getting thrown or kicked. It’s a dangerous place, Brooklyn. What’s Will going to do? Monitor every last little thing? That ain’t his job.”

  “But…he’s in charge. So yeah, it is kind of his job?”

  She shakes her head. “No. His job is to run the ranch—to know the horses, to select the best stock and separate them so they can breed the best horses, and cull the rest. The horses are his job, the land is his job. But he can’t be everywhere. That’s why we’re careful of who we hire—our hands are independent, trustworthy. They can handle their own emergencies without having to call Will every few minutes for input.”

  I again think of my own father, and how he selected James as his personal assistant and how much he delegates to James—leaving him free to worry about the big picture which is, in the end, his primary talent and responsibility. Different world, different stakes, but the same mentality.

  “I understand that,” I say. “So, I’ll just wait here while you go find him?”

  She shrugs. “I could be a while.” She gestures toward the barn. “I could get Hector to give you a tour. But it would be best if you came back tomorrow morning. By then I’ll have had a chance to speak with Will and he can talk with Mom and Dad.”

  “That sounds good, Theo. I’d love to see the barn, though.”

  Theo grins. “All right, then. Come on.”

  And so, I find myself in the passenger seat of a side-by-side UTV, zipping down a gravel road at a breakneck speed around a long downward curve from the house toward the barn, which, as we approach, is even more mammoth than I’d originally thought.

  Theo parks beside a pair of doors huge enough to admit one of my father’s private jets, and leads me into the cool, airy, echoing interior of the barn—the floor is concrete, but scattered with wood chips and hay and horse droppings.

  The central hallway is easily ten feet wide, with horse stalls lining each side; windows built into each horse stall admit daylight, and here and there a horse head can be seen over the top of a stall door. The stalls I’m seeing here clearly only comprise a small portion of the total size of this barn.

  The air is thick with barn-smell—horses, manure, leather, hay. Voices echo, horses whicker and whinny and grunt. The sense of industriousness is palpable; everyone has a job, and they are busy—there’s no one loafing or lounging. At the far end of the barn is another pair of opened doors, letting a cool, steady breeze waft through, ruffling my hair and the silk of my suit pants.

  A young man wearing knee-high rubber boots pushes a wheelbarrow with the handle of a shovel sticking out. He pauses near us and uses the wide, flat-bladed shovel to scoop up a pile of horse poop, tosses it into the wheelbarrow, and pushes on with a respectful nod at Theo.

  “Miss Auden,” he says, and then moves on to the next pile of poop.

  “You have someone whose sole job it is to pick up poop?” I ask.

  Theo nods. “There’s more than sixty horses in this part of the barn alone, and they poop a lot. But Jared does more than just scrape piles off the floor—he mucks the stalls, grooms the horses if necessary, cleans the tack. He’s a barn hand—he does anything and everything to do with upkeep in the barn.” She sees a man striding across the barn, and calls out to him. “Hector!”

  The man stops, pivots, and approaches Theo; he’s on the younger end of middle age, medium height, thickly muscled, with black hair and dark eyes, and a deeply sun-browned complexion; his accent, when he speaks, is definitely Spanish. “Miss Auden. You are taking a ride? I saddle Cupcake for you, huh?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes, I am—I have to find Will. But can you have Jared saddle Cupcake? I need you to give my friend Brooklyn a tour of the barn—she’s here to meet with Will.”

  Hector eyes me, looking me over: custom Tom Ford pantsuit, Tiffany earrings, rose-gold Bulgari timepiece, and three-inch, patent leather Louboutin’s…and this is my idea of business casual.

  “Sure, sure. A tour.” Hector mutters into a walkie-talkie, and then addresses Theo. “Mr. Will, he working with the culls, down south from Alpha.”

  “That’s what I thought I’d heard him say yesterday. Thanks.”

  “I give Miss Brooklyn this tour. Whole barn?”

  She nods. “Is Luis working with Shadow in the arena? She might like to see that.”

  “No, not Shadow. Shadow, he get too cranky. Luis is working with Ringo.”

  “Luis is our horsebreaker,” Theo explains. “He specializes in the really difficult ones, and right now, he’s been working on both Shadow and Ringo. They were both culls from the mounted police herd since they’re too small for police work, but they’re top-notch horses otherwise.”

  Jared approaches, leading a tan horse decked out in a shiny black saddle and reins, the leather polished to a gleam, the points of joined leather sparkling with silver.

  “Watching Luis work is magical,” Theo continues. “The man is a genius. Anyway, I should be back fairly soon. Just hang tight and stay close to Hector.”

  She takes the reins from Jared, puts a boot into a stirrup, and swings up into the saddle with practiced ease, settling in and gathering the reins, patting the horse on the neck and murmuring to him. I back up as she nudges him forward, wanting to keep well away from the huge animal. Its hooves are massive, its head is massive, its eyes are massive, and even though Theo is relatively small, shorter even than I am, she sits on him easily and confidently, mastering the huge, powerful beast as if it were no more than a sm
all dog.

  “Cupcake will no step on you,” Hector says to me. “He is a good boy.”

  I glance at Hector. “Oh, I…yeah. I know.”

  I don’t know. The closest I’ve been to a horse is one in Times Square. Hector just nods, but I get the sense that the only reason he’s not laughing at me is because he’s too polite and professional. He gestures for me to follow him, leading me down the center aisle of the stable to where another hallway intersects the main aisle; this perpendicular hallway features lockers on one side, and a cavernous, wood-paneled room closed in with sliding glass doors on the other—the wood-paneled room contains saddles on stands or racks of some kind each mounted to the wall, with matching bridles and reins on a hook beside the saddles. If I had to guess, I would say the room is temperature-controlled, and that the saddles within are each very, very expensive, made from high-quality leather, hand-stitched. I think about my most expensive leather, handmade shoes, and how expensive those can be, and then scale up for the amount of leather needed for the saddles, and my eyes water at the idea of how much just one of those saddles must cost.

  Hector sees me pause at the saddle room, and juts his chin at the glass. “The Audens’ private tack room. Some of those saddles you see in there, they are antiques, from Old West time and older, worth as much as a house. One, belonging to Mr. Henry, it is kept in a vault upstairs, and it was made in Spain for a wealthy vaquero. It cost over a hundred thousand dollars new, then, in eighteen nineteen. Now, it is worth…more than I know the words for.”

  I blink at what he’s telling me. “A hundred grand…in eighteen nineteen?” I know some basic currency inflation calculations, and go through them in my head. “That’s like…two million dollars!”

  “Yes. Now it is worth much more than that, because it is kept perfect condition.” He indicates a biometric lock to one side of the door. “See? Even these, not so valuable as that one, are protected. This room is proof from water, fire, and theft.”

  “What about the horses?”