Chapter 2

The following morning, Hollis and I climbed into his pickup and started out. We’d spent the prior afternoon preparing the ranch for our absence, which consisted mostly of telling the ranch hands we’d be out for a few days. As it turned out, Hollis introduced me to horseback riding, which was an experience in the chilly mountain air.

After driving for thirty minutes on gravel roads, we turned north on an actual paved road. Another thirty minutes, and we were driving past the interstate. “Aren’t we going to Seattle?” I pointed at the overpass. “That’s I-94 there.”

“Yep, we’re going to Seattle,” Hollis confirmed.

So, we drove through Miles City, and we continued north of town and across a bridge. Then, I spotted a sign for Miles City Airport. I eyed Hollis from across the cab, but I kept quiet. A few minutes later, we pulled into the FBO (fixed base operator) parking lot.

“We’re here,” he said with a smile as he opened his door. “I’ll get the bags in a minute.”

I climbed out and walked around the truck to meet him, and he led the way into the building. An older man looked up from behind the counter and nodded a greeting. “Morning, Hollis. Jimmy should have the plane ready in five minutes.”

“Thanks, Rollie. I’ll get our bags while we wait.” He stepped out the door we’d just come in.

I looked around the spartan office; it was like every other small airport FBO I’d seen; a worn coffee table with several chairs, a couch, a small table with a landline phone, and a large scale flight planning chart covering one wall.

“Miss, would you like some coffee?” Rollie offered from behind the small glass counter. “I just made it fresh.” He pointed to a coffee maker at another table.

“No, thanks,” I shook my head. “This plane, is it yours?”

Rollie laughed. “It’s Hollis’, well, it belongs to the ranch, but that’s his’n, too.”

“Um, okay.”

“You a friend of his?” His tone was friendly, and his face was openly curious.

I nodded. “Yes. He’s helping me get to Seattle to see my mother.”

“He’s a nice kid, uh, young man,” he hastily corrected himself.

Hollis opened the door and came in with both our cases in hand. I stepped toward him, and then the other door opened, admitting a man and a woman, both dressed in pilot’s shirts with epaulets on the shoulders. “Mister Daniels, we’re ready to go when you are,” the woman, who wore four stripes on her shoulders, said with a slight accent that matched her Asiatic features.

Her first officer was younger than Hollis, male, tall, and dark skinned with somewhat African-American features. He stepped forward. “I’ll load your bags for you, if you please.” Hollis handed them over, and he led the way out the door to the ramp.

I stepped through the door, and nearly stumbled over my own feet as I saw the Cessna Citation waiting for us. The captain entered first, then Hollis. I managed to climb up the steps without falling on my face, and I sat in the seat Hollis pointed me towards. The cabin was set up with four seats in a club configuration, with a small folding table between them. There was another pair of seats behind that, and then what looked like a small lavatory door.

“Is that a bathroom?” I asked as we sat down.

“Yes. Do you need to go?”

“Uh, no. I was just asking.” I looked at him in consternation. “I guess you can afford my plane, then.”

Hollis sighed. “It’s not really mine; it belongs to the ranch. We lease it out most of the time to other businesses.”

“But the ranch is yours, right?”

“I told you that it was.”

I opened my mouth, and then the first officer appeared. “We’re ready to go. The flight to Sea-Tac will be about two and a half hours. Once we’re at cruising altitude, I’ll come back to check on you. We have drinks and sandwiches, and I’ll have a car waiting for you when we land.”

“Thank you,” Hollis said.

The man nodded and disappeared into the cockpit. Five minutes later, we were airborne and turning west. “Well, this sure beats hell out of my one-fifty,” I commented dryly.

“You may want to reserve judgment until you see the fuel bill,” Hollis quipped.

I sat back in the real leather seat and looked out the window as we climbed toward cruising altitude. Of all the ranches to land on, I certainly picked a good one, I reflected. “A girl could get used to this,” I told Hollis with a crooked smile.

He smiled back. “I suppose so. I don’t take trips like this very often, though, only if I have business. It beats driving, though.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but why aren’t you married? You certainly have the wherewithal to support a family, and you said you’d been engaged once.”

“You’re right,” Hollis said as he leaned back in his seat. “I can have pretty much anything a rancher from Montana would want. And, that’s the problem.”

I frowned in thought for a moment, and then I nodded. “Most women don’t want to live on a ranch in Montana.”

“Exactly, and there’s rich, and then there’s merely wealthy.” He smiled at my obvious confusion. “The ranch is just under seventeen thousand acres, and we have all the mineral rights, too. Between ranching, agriculture, other businesses, and the oil leases, we bring in about three million per year. Most of that money goes into the family trust, and another chunk is used to maintain everything.” He patted the armrest. “Including this and her two sisters, although they make their own feed bills most years.”

“I have a fixed, per month, expense allowance, since I don’t have any bills to pay, anyway. Most months, I don’t use much of that, and it doesn’t roll over.”

“What does the trust do?”

“My parents were big on supporting education, so we help schools and homeschooling groups with grants and scholarships. We also have a microloan program that works by word-of-mouth, mostly to young people who are trying to start a business.”

“Wow, that’s a lot.”

“There’s always way more needs than can be met,” he sighed. “Compared to other groups, ours is a drop in the bucket.”

“Remember the starfish, right?”

“The little boy on the beach tossing the stranded starfish back into the ocean? He made all the difference to the ones he could touch. You’re right, but it’s still sad to see all the unmet needs.”

“Okay, so the women who want the jet setting lifestyle are out. What about all the farm girls out there?”

“I’ve met quite a few of those. They’ve been weeded out for one reason or another. I don’t mind the isolation, and most girls, women, do. Even with help, the work is hard and unending, especially with the resort ranch. Some didn’t like the weather, and a couple wanted to have a new house.”

I smiled. “And the rest, you didn’t get along with for one reason or another.”

He smiled back. “Yep. That was my ex-fiancée, as the best example.”

“That has to have been hard to deal with,” I said quietly. “I know what it’s like in school, and the small ones are worse, I think, because everyone knows everyone else.”

“I do have a good life,” Hollis said as he waved at the airplane around us. “My needs are simple, I suppose, but working the ranch is what I like to do. It’s mine, as much as land belongs to any one person in this life. It would be great to share it with someone, but it’s still good.”

We fell silent by unspoken consent. I watched the world go by from an altitude much higher than I’d ever been before. Hollis was content to leave me to my thoughts, as he leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes.

The first officer served us lunch, and then we were across the Cascades and letting down into Sea-Tac. The weather was overcast and rainy, and the Citation bumped its way through the turbulent air as the approach controller vectored us onto an ILS (Instrument Landing System) approach to the airport. Hollis and I followed our flight path on his cell phone app while we listened to the ATC transmissions on the cabin speaker.

The approach and landing was uneventful, and we wheeled up to one of the FBOs on the general aviation side of the field. As promised, a SUV was waiting in the light rain for us. We said goodbye to our flight crew, ran to the vehicle, and settled into the back seat while our bags were placed in the rear compartment.

“Where to?” Hollis asked me. I pulled a letter out of my purse, read the address to him, and he relayed it to the driver. The afternoon traffic was something I’d never experienced, but the driver took it all in stride. An hour later, we pulled up to an apartment complex in a not-very-nice part of town.

“You want to be careful here,” the driver warned us. “There’s a lot of drugs and prostitution in this area.”

I looked at the envelope. “There’s no apartment number.”

“There must be a hundred apartments here,” Hollis said as he peered outside. “That’s poor odds, and it’s probably not safe to just knock on doors here.”

“I can ask at the office,” I suggested. Hollis agreed, and the driver parked in front of a building with a large sign stating the office was inside. Five minutes later, I climbed back into my seat. “She was here, but she’s gone, and they’re looking for her for back rent.” I sighed in frustration. “Of course, they have no idea where she went.”

“Let’s go to a hotel, and we can try an online search,” Hollis suggested.

“Online?”

“The foundation uses a reputable service to research people when needed, such as employees. Since you’re an employee, I can use it for a detailed family background check.”

“But, I haven’t accepted the position yet.”

“Pre-employment, then.” Hollis smiled.

I held up my hands. “I yield. Let’s do it.”

A few minutes later, we pulled up to a Hampton Inn, where Hollis had reserved two adjoining rooms. We checked in, went to our rooms, and, after a potty break, I joined Hollis in his room to start our search. He’d brought a small laptop, and we were soon involved in the search for my mother.

“It’s just crazy what you can find out about people,” I observed an hour later. Hollis had started his search with me, which turned up some social media pages where I’d been tagged by a classmate. That, in turn, revealed my school and what grade I was in at the time. My FAA airman’s certificate listed my address, and that linked to my parents.

We looked at my father’s information next; properties owned, addresses, his obituary, and even his past criminal record – nothing other than a couple of traffic violations, I was glad to see. My mother, though, she was a different story.

Beginning with their shared address in Missouri, we assembled a grim portrait of her life. She and Dad had married young; he was twenty-three, and she was twenty. I came along a year later, and things seemed to be good. Dad inherited the farm, and they both worked there full-time. But then, things went wrong. The farm’s income dropped off, and Mom had to go to work. We found late credit card payments, overdue notes for equipment and supplies, and a repossessed truck.

That’s when the trouble started for Mom. She was arrested for dealing in marijuana, and then arrested for dealing in meth. There were no convictions, and more arrests followed. There was burglary, possession of stolen property, and even endangering a child by leaving them (me) at a store. Dad apparently had enough and filed for divorce.