Chapter 7

Natalie: December 13, 2014 Missoula Montana

Natalie Willetts never tired of gazing at the clear night winter sky. The remoteness of their ranch meant that there was no outside light to obscure the view so the stars were as brilliant as the most fervent astronomer could wish. Natalie was not an astronomer; she just enjoyed watching this display of celestial magnificence. She stood in the pre-dawn darkness and wondered if she’d ever return to this place, and if their new home would offer anything that could approach this amazing display.

Tears became ice crystals as they rolled down her cheeks, as sorrow tinged with anger replaced the serenity she usually experienced when she watched the star-filled sky over her Montana home. It wasn’t fair!

As she moved across the yard toward the silent barn, her boots crunched as they broke through the crust of ice that had formed on the snow. Her gloved hands managed to pull some tissues from the pocket of her parka. She wiped her face and nose and stuffed the now-frozen tissues back into her pocket.

Sure life wasn’t fair – her older brother Harrison was a perfect example, but he was also an example of someone who never quit. He’d been an amazing athlete, high school all American, straight ‘A’ student, student body president, scholarship offers from lots of schools, but he’d chosen to attend the University of Montana so he could stay close to home and continue to help his parents on the ranch. Two years later he married his high school sweetheart Cindy and they moved into a small house near campus. Ten months later she gave birth to sweet little Jenny, and then it had all gone to hell.

Natalie struggled to open the massive barn door. The strong wind plus the snow that had drifted against it caused the weathered door to resist her efforts, but finally with a squeal of protest from its frozen hinges it gave in. She turned on the lights although she hardly needed them since she knew every inch of the place - she just wanted to feel and smell it one last time – to smell the hay and horse manure and dust and old tack, and the all the barn smells she knew since she was old enough to remember. The horses were gone as were all the other farm animals, mostly sold, some given away. She tried to deny it, but she knew they’d never come back – back to this place with all its happiness and also the tragedy and sadness – the house and barn and pastures which had been in the family for generations, the place where those generations were buried and where they’d scattered the ashes of their parents. Now someone else owned it and they would take possession Monday – Monday when she and Harrison and Jenny would be somewhere on the highway on their way to California.

Harrison would say they were lucky because they had found a buyer and been able to pay off all the debts on the ranch with a little left over and they were going to a place where he had a job. That was Harrison – the eternal optimist – the guy life had kicked in the teeth more than once. She knew he kept it up for Jenny and for her, but she had seen the pain in those unguarded moments. She often wondered how he held it together. Harrison had joined the Army National Guard when he graduated from high school and about the time he turned twenty-one he was commissioned a lieutenant. He was so proud of the crossed rifles he wore, designating him an infantry officer.

Natalie moved around the cold barn, silent except for the wind whistling through the cracks in its ancient boards. She smiled briefly as she remembered Harrison’s promotion – that was some party! Her smile vanished when she remembered that was also the last celebration their mother attended - she was dead from ovarian cancer a few months later. Within a month Harrison moved his young family back to the ranch. Natalie was twelve at the time.

As she climbed the tall wood ladder to the loft her breath made little clouds of ice crystals. At the top of the ladder she looked at the neatly stacked bales of hay. She had helped put them there – hay to feed the livestock, the horses and cattle that were no longer on the ranch. For a time after her mother died the loft became her refuge. She’d bring a book and spend some time away from the world, her world that had suddenly turned dark and fragile.

Memories of her early years in this loft washed over her. She remembered bringing her Barbies to this place, that was before she got her own horse at eight and shortly thereafter discovered she was hooked on the thrill of barrel racing. She and ‘Tempest’ had won a lot of ribbons and trophies. Those mementos were gone now, as was Tempest. She had cried for days after giving her beloved horse to an up and coming thirteen year-old barrel racer. But there was no place for a horse in her new life in California and no room for her ribbons and trophies in the thirty-foot U-Haul that contained all their remaining possessions. Natalie absently rubbed her wrist where it had been broken in a competition not long after her fifteenth birthday.

Tears returned as she sat on one of the cold bales. She wondered if they could have kept the place going if their father hadn’t died after being thrown from his tumbling horse, but really she had known that his heart wasn’t in it once their mother had died. Harrison loved the ranch as much as Natalie did, but some Afghani with an RPG had put him in the hospital and he required months of rehab. He came home from the war and he was changed mentally and physically and it seemed that every time he came close to resuming some semblance of a normal life there was a setback - first their father died, then Cindy left.

“Cindy ... how could you do that to us?” Natalie buried her head in her arms and sobbed.

Cindy had an amazing voice and she and her country group, ‘Front Range’ were going to Vegas and then on to Hollywood or Nashville and she was going to make a lot of money and send it home to Harrison. Instead, Harrison sent her money and finally in return he got divorce papers. She cut herself off from all of them and that hurt. Cindy had been a big sister to her and what was worse she left five year-old Jenny behind. Natalie loved Jenny and could never understand how any mother could abandon her child. Jenny was smart and beautiful and once in a while Jenny would forget and call Natalie ‘mom.’

She clenched her fists as the pain of betrayal lanced through her, “Cindy ... you bitch! If I ever see you again you’ll be very sorry!”

Natalie had watched Harrison try to explain to Jenny why Mommy had gone and why she wasn’t coming back. At eighteen Natalie had willingly stepped in because she loved Jenny and Harrison. Now she was nineteen, and Jenny was a precocious and lovable six year-old. Natalie realized it had been some months since Jenny had even asked about her mother.

Natalie got to her feet and wiped her eyes and nose and as she climbed down the ladder she muttered, “Damn you Cindy ... someday I hope someone hurts you as bad as you’ve hurt all of us.”

It was a little after six when Natalie got back into the house. She hung her coat and hat and stepped out of her heavy boots in the mud room just off the kitchen and then quickly stepped aside as Banner scooted past her and ran out the dog door. He knew something was up, with all the packing and furniture moving, but like all dogs he was a pack animal and as long as he was with his pack - his family, he’d be okay. She smiled. Plus he loved riding in the truck so a four-day trip to California would just be another doggie adventure.

She got the coffee brewing and checked on her freshly made cinnamon rolls. They were about ready to go in the oven. She decided to let Jenny and Harrison sleep for about another hour – Harrison wanted to get on the road at first light but this time of year that was closer to nine. There was a storm coming out of the Pacific Northwest that would bring lots more snow so it was depart today or maybe be snowed in for several days. Harrison had mapped the route west to Spokane then south to the Columbia River then west again to Portland and then south again on Interstate Five to California. He explained that the more direct route to Salt Lake City and then through Nevada was too chancy with a storm coming in because of the elevations. Natalie wondered if Harrison subconsciously wanted to avoid Nevada since that route would take them through Reno, the last known location for Cindy.

Natalie shook her head. She needed to get over her feelings of loss and rejection at the hands of Cindy. Harrison and Jenny needed her and what was done was done.

She quietly moved into the living room where they had spent the night and put some kindling on the embers of last night’s fire and watched as they quickly took hold, and then she added a few larger pieces. She wanted to take the chill off the room. The big old gas furnace that heated the ranch house struggled against the arctic cold that she’d experienced outside, and the warmth of the fire would be welcome as they got going this morning.

Harrison and Jenny were both still asleep. She smiled when she saw them in the light of the fire. Harrison, lying on his back, half out of his sleeping bag, looked as peaceful as he ever did, and Jenny, dressed in her pink ‘muddy girl’ camo pajamas, an early Christmas gift, was sprawled across his chest, her long light brown hair covering her sweet face.

Harrison had made sleeping in sleeping bags in front of the fire an adventure. All their beds were in the truck and so he suggested they roast marshmallows and make s’mores and drink cocoa while he told them about their new home in the central valley of northern California and the route they’d take to get there and how different the weather would be.

Natalie had helped Jenny compose a letter to Santa telling him their new address – they’d leave it in the mailbox on their way out, and Natalie had promised them both that the first order of business on arrival was to find a Christmas tree for their new home, and put up decorations. Their new home?

She quietly made her way back to the kitchen and poured herself a cup of the freshly brewed coffee. She sat at the big wood kitchen table thinking about the idea of a new place to live. It was disconcerting. She absently examined the marred surface of the table and then she reached out and let her fingers trace some of the more prominent scars. She knew this table had been in this same spot for over one-hundred years. Generations of her family had sat here in this kitchen while they planned their future, grieved their dead and raised children who loved this land, and loved their country – they talked and quarreled and thanked God for their bounty or questioned God for taking loved-ones or for giving them too much or too little rain.

And now they were leaving. It felt wrong to abandon their land. But they couldn’t stay. This ranch and this house and all the out buildings needed an infusion of cash that was not available to them. Their neighbors had made them a fair offer and saved them from the indignity of foreclosure. This ranch would be swallowed up as part of a larger ranch and for the first time strangers would be here – not even the new owners but some sort of manager who would help oversee cattle operations. He had a family but they wouldn’t be tied to this place like they were. What would they see when they sat at this table?