Chapter 1

I had just finished loading up my car, and too a long look around the ranch. This was the main part, what my brother jokingly called “The Compound”, and it was actually the smallest part of what was known as Ranco Mañana. A 24 acre spread, which was where most of the family lived.

My parents had the house on the top of the small hill, three bedrooms that I had lived in for as long as I could remember. My big brother lived in a house that in my earliest memories looked the same, but painted brown instead of gray like ours. But at the time I was in middle school he ripped off the roof and added a second floor, so now it was much larger.

Kim and her parents now lived in what the adults all called “The Big House”. It was Kim’s family, as well as her parents. Four adults and five kids. A few years ago “Grandma Darlene” had broken her hip, so they turned their house over to the ranch hands and moved all of them down there and lived with their daughter and her family. But all my life I called her “Aunt Kim”, but she was not really my aunt. And “Grandma Darlene” was not my grandmother.

My entire family was a mess. I had a brother who was closer in age to what my father should be. I had a great lady that helped raise me I called my Aunt, but she was of absolutely no relation to me. And her oldest daughter who I called my sister when I was little, who once again was of no relation to me.

Family wise, it was just me, my parents, and my brother. No cousins, but a slew of family friends I called “Cousins”. But once again, absolutely no relation at all. Mostly the kids of my older brother’s friends. Most of them gals he had fucked at some point.

Which was strange, but with my family that is to be expected. My parents got married when my dad was quite old, he was already in his 40’s. At least my brother did not wait so long, he and his wife only being in their early 30s when they had my niece and nephew. So they were actually close to the age they should be in relation to me.

I do like my brother, but he can be such a prig sometimes. Telling me how he made everything himself, and how I should follow in his footsteps. But the thing was, I knew that was all bullshit. A big payday after an accident is what set up all the family owns now.

And he and dad trying to tell me I should follow in their footsteps. That I should join the military like them, learn some skills in electronics like them. But screw that, let him push his kids into carrying a gun somewhere like Afghanistan if he was so willing to watch them die. Dad got lucky, never a scratch in Vietnam. My brother, he slipped out of the Gulf War, and still talks about his “glory days” in the Marines. And how he wishes he could go back in to to over and get some payback for 9-11.

Yeah, right. Like the Marines would want some dude in his 40’s. All they want is young cannon-fodder. To die for the military-industrial complex. I was not stupid like that, I was going to become a lawyer.

I closed the hatch, and looked around the area and saw somebody coming up towards me. Oh shit, it’s my “little sister”. Just about to start her Freshman year of High School. More and more over the last year and a half she had become, distracting. Her boobs finally came in, and it seemed like she almost never lost a chance to remind me, sticking them out at me or even rubbing them against me. At least she was actually having enough there to count as “boobs”, the year before when she tried to show me she had gotten her first bra by pulling up the front of her shirt I think they were about the size of mine. And she cried when I told her that, which made me feel bad.

Grace came up, and gave me a sad smile. “So, you leaving tomorrow, George?”

“Yep, finally. Kick this dust of Idaho off my shoes, and really live in a real city.”

“We live in a real city. And it is not like there are not bigger cities just an hour or so away. Remember last winter, when you took me to Twin Falls to see Harry Potter?”

I snickered and nodded. “Yes, almost two hours away, because you said the sound and screen in our theater ‘blows’. And that is the thing, I want to be able to go just a few miles and see a real movie in a real theater. IMAX, Dolby and THX. They even have some where the seats are real high as they go back, so nobody sitting in front of you with their head blocking your view. And real concerts, not just the same Charlie Daniels and Paul Revere ones at the fair each year. OutKast, Staind, Puddle of Mudd, Nickelback, Creed, real groups who play real music. Not just playing the same songs that they wrote before we were even born.”

But I could tell I had hurt her feelings, when she looked up with her eyes wide and softly said “But I like that music, George.”

I reached down and ran my fingers through her hair, and said I did also. “But I want to experience something new, something more. Besides, I like LA.”

“How would you know? You moved up here when you were like five.”

“True, but I have been down plenty of times. Remember, every summer Pete often takes me with him on one or two trips. Last year we spent two weeks there.”

“Yes, I know all about it. You stayed with Aunt Linda for the first week, then the second week in Long Beach with Aunt Holly. That was actually the best part you said.” She laughed and reached out and poked my side. “And you said that is only because you finally got laid.”

I pretended to breathe on my fingernails and buffed them on my shirt. “True, but that is also where I convinced him to let me go to that Tool concert. That is real music, like Linkin Park and Blink-182. Pete actually thought I would rather go to see Eric Clapton. I do not think that guy has even had a song on the radio since I was a kid.”

Grace did nod at that. Then surprised me a bit when she hugged me tight, her arms around her waist and saying she would miss me. I went ahead and hugged her back, tickling her sides and saying “I am gonna miss you too, squirt.”

She giggled, then promised she would write to me each week. I said I would return her letters, and I knew that would not be hard. Because I knew in a week or so she would stop writing. She was after all 14, and rarely kept up with things like that for more than a few weeks at most.

I went back in the house, and my mom asked me if I was sure I had everything. I nodded, and said that everything had fit. She reminded me again about the letters she had given me, and who to deliver them to. Of course, I knew this was just her being a mother. But one of them I knew I would be delivering very quickly. After all, I was promised that Aunt Becky had a computer waiting for me. And as I was leaving my computer here, I would need that quickly.