18 Business

I NEVER TOOK that wolf-tooth necklace off. It wasn’t like it was on a chain with a clasp. Merv knotted the cord around my neck and it was just too short to pull over my head. Oh, I didn’t wear it outside my clothes or anything. But I always felt those teeth against my skin. I did, however, take to wearing a bandana around my neck. I had two ugly red scars that I didn’t want people staring at.

On Saturday the next weekend, Kyle, Aubrey, and I went up to the Bearclaw cafe to get a burger. I saw Harold Watson from the Bar-Double-D with a bunch of other ranchers having coffee. That name always got us laughing as kids because we’d switch the ‘r’ and the ‘a’ around. The three of us were chowing down on the world’s best burgers when I looked up and the guys were standing around our table.

“Can we see it, Ramie?” he asked. “The teeth?” Whoa. News travels fast.

They were respectful, though, and it didn’t seem right to withhold something that was as important as killing wolves on rangeland. We’d all had problems and lost cattle to them. A hunting pair was unusual. We suspected there were more up on the mountain. I pulled the thong out from under my shirt and the guys all nodded their heads when they saw the size of those teeth.

“You two done good,” Harold said. “You’re good people. Thank you.” There was a moment of almost reverence as he looked at my bandana. Well, in for a penny ... I pulled the bandana down and away from my neck and they all let out various curses and blessings when they saw the welts.

“My niece is looking for a place to board her trail horse for the winter,” Al Robertson said. “I saw a poster you put up about taking horses in. You still got room?”

“Yes,” I said. “We’re ready for boarders. Have her give me a call.”

By the end of the next week, LK Stables had its first paying customer.

I’d put up little half-page notices that LK Stables was open for boarding and would be offering stud services in the spring. Each one had half a dozen little tear-off strips with our phone number on them.

I guess advertising pays. Of course, a little notoriety about the kids who protected their stock and survived a wolf attack didn’t hurt either. Both Kurt and Merv told the story when they saw someone glancing at the flyers in their stores. I think Merv embellished the story somewhat with a tale about spirit walkers or some such. Whatever, it didn’t hurt our reputation.

The first of January, I read on EquineNews about an accident in Colorado where a driver lost control of his truck on ice and jackknifed his rig. He was pulling a horse trailer and while the driver wasn’t hurt, the horse had fallen and was pretty banged up. I called them right away and found out that the horse was going to live but had a lot of bruises and cuts. The owner had decided hauling horses wasn’t anything he was going to do again and I offered to buy the horse. Kyle and I drove down and, for a mere fifteen hundred dollars, came back with a registered American Saddlebred stud that stood close to sixteen hands. He needed rest and recovery, but he was a proud boy.

I hadn’t traveled back to Miranda since my birthday, but I wasn’t too worried about her. I’d left her in a pretty safe place as long as she didn’t blow her cover. She was doing what she knew how to do best. She was trading goods and building her stock. When that girl got her own store she was going to be a terror. And I also knew now, that time had no relevance. I could wait five years of my life and return to the next day in her timeline.

Boarding horses and picking up a couple more rescues kept Kyle and me pretty busy after school. Aubrey continued to spend about every other weekend out at the ranch and on the off weekends one or both of us would go into town and take her on a date. We didn’t want her thinking that the only thing either of us wanted was sex. We even had a couple of weekends at the ranch when we didn’t have sex. One night we had an old-fashioned slumber party and the three of us sat up in the family room all night watching movies.

I wouldn’t say there was no kissy-face and touchy-feely going on, but we didn’t actually have sex.

“I’ve got some bad news,” Kyle said as we drove into school one Wednesday morning. It was an unusual day as the junior high had a day off, so we didn’t have the kids with us on the drive. I looked at him.

“What?”

“I went traveling last night,” he said. “I plunked into Jason’s body just in time to almost get him killed. He was having a tussle with a private in his troop. I hate those fuckers. They were ganging up on his friend, John—did you ever see the Indian he travels with?” I nodded. I remembered how startled I was the first time I saw the Indian shadowing him. “Well, Jason stepped in between them just as I showed up and almost got killed when he realized I was there. Private Randolph was coming at John with a knife. I barely knocked it aside in time to keep from being skewered.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound like bad news. Thank god you knocked it aside.”

“Yeah. The private is cooling his heels for thirty days in the brig at Fort Number 3. But in the meantime, the troop was sent on to Omaha. Riding across Missouri is no vacation.”

“Yeah, tell me about it.”

“Anyway, I remembered what you said about camping out in St. Joseph. When we got there I looked high and low. There was no sign of Miss Miranda or any couple who were spending the winter trading. We were only there two nights and then pushed on toward Omaha. I got snatched back before we reached the city.”

“We weren’t there? Maybe we’ll meet in Omaha, then. We must have already left.”

“I’m so pissed that Jason lost you in Indiana. It was that same damned private that got the entire troop confined to quarters for that section of the trip.”

“Wait. Kyle, when were you in St. Joseph?” I asked.

“Near the end of October. They were pushing us to get on to Omaha before we were hit with bad weather.”

“What year?”

“Right after the train ride from Baltimore in ‘65.”

“Damn it! It’s the damned time sequence being out of sync. You got there a year before we did, but here it was months afterward. How are we ever going to get together? We should be having this adventure with each other.”

We were getting through school. The end was in sight. Just another month. And our horse-ranch was beginning to take shape, too. We’d rescued three more horses, but it wasn’t just a rescue operation. Harley, our Saddlebred stallion, was gentle as a lamb. He had a good pedigree, and we already had three people come out to look at him for standing stud to their mares. He was strutting around the secondary paddock like he owned the place. We were keeping him and Pa’s Bolt way separate.

He was a big boy and Kyle and I were walking out to the pasture when we saw him covering Bows. We hadn’t intended to breed the two pinto mares yet, but they were healthy and their hooves were regrown so that they could enjoy life. It sure looked like Bows was enjoying it. And so was Harley. Kyle and I leaned against the fence to watch.