Chapter 13

Cheryl was very subdued all of Tuesday and Tuesday night. Impatient for an answer, she finally called Doc and asked about Cletus Judson's cow. The calf didn't make it out alive, and the cow was still on the critical list. Instead of mutual masturbation, all she wanted Tuesday night was to be held while she drifted off to sleep.

Who'd have thought Mandy's daughter would have so much empathy for someone she'd never met?

She spent breakfast voicing concerns about Cletus and his family, wondering what we could do if he lost the cow. She was still distracted when Summers and his crew showed up for the horses. He was making a big fuss over "Little Missy" when Doc called to tell her that the cow was going to survive, though it was quite anemic from blood loss. As I learned later, she was concerned about the bill for Doc's services. She arranged a deal to provide Doc with advertisement photographs in exchange for Doc applying the cost of the photo session to Cletus's bill.

I was surprised when I learned the fee Doc had agreed to, especially since she was an apprentice photographer. I decided that she should negotiate all my payment contracts for me. I could pay her ten or even twenty percent of the difference and we'd both come out well ahead.

Meanwhile, Summers had inspected Lariat and pronounced him fit. I repeated my promise to replace him if necessary.

"Son, I appreciate that, but ain't no way I'll need to collect. I know enough about horses to replace most vets doctorin' them. Lariat's gonna be just fine. Fourth, maybe fifth best horse I ever bought. Be good for the men to ride, maybe some of the more qualified women, though you don't get many of them at a dude ranch. Hey! Here comes Little Missy!"

He let Cheryl tell me that the cow was going to make it, and then I couldn't get a word in edgewise while he discussed the photo shoot with her. Most of the discussion was one-sided, of course.

Mandy always put a lot of effort into being the center of attention and frequently failed at it. Cheryl did nothing more than show up, and Summers, Doc, and the ranch hands were hanging on her every word, watching for her every signal. Attitude makes all the difference because physically, Cheryl was similar to her mother at that age.

Summers didn't stop talking to her while he handed me the check. He did manage to squeeze in a "Thanks for everthang" and a "Pleasure doin' business with you" along with a handshake before he climbed into the truck and hung out the window, still talking to Cheryl as his foreman put the truck in gear and eased toward the gate. I guess the foreman wanted to get home before winter snows closed the highways.

Cheryl looked at me and shook her head. I thought of a hound dog trying to clear water from its ears. "And I thought Mother liked to hear herself talk."

"Shoot," said Jake Matson, digging a finger into one ear like he was trying to prod it back to life. "I thought Doc liked to hear himself talking to you, but Summers got him beat. I'd rather be deaf than trapped in a room with those two trying to monopolize your attention."

"What?" Cheryl said, surprise blanketing her face. "Me?"

"Well, yeah," said Bob Wagner as he directed Ricky to remove a pile of horse apples from the parking area with a flick of a pointed finger and a lift of his chin. "Didn't you notice that he never said more'n a dozen words to all of us and maybe two dozen to the Boss whenever you were around? Only difference between him and Doc is that Summers has a deeper voice."

Cheryl looked puzzled. "No. I guess I was too concerned with how we were going to get pictures of his guests made, too. It's a family ranch, so he should have pictures of families in his flyers, too, and not just all the pictures of me he kept talking about."

Pride may be a sin instead of a virtue, but I never felt more pride in my life than I felt at that moment for my niece.

Friday morning, Cheryl finally came to terms with Buena Vista and Cheryl's Blaze moving from the barn to Stable One. It became a late afternoon homecoming party of sorts, with balloons and crepe streamers and an "IT'S A GIRL!" sign that had Bob shaking his head every time he looked at them. Well, me, too, because I don't know where she found the balloons, and she wouldn't tell me. Cheryl showed Blaze stall seven and said, "When you're a little bit bigger, this will be your room." Blaze seemed to be unimpressed, but maybe she was just being Miss Cool for Cheryl.

My niece might be well down the road to becoming a functional human being when she wakes up at six, but when my alarm sounded at four the next morning, she called it names I'd never heard before. I was fairly sure that "fun peachit" was "fucking piece of shit," but the rest of it defied any attempt at translation.

I spanked her bare ass and felt it ripple delightfully under my hand. "Come on. We don't have much time."

"Lem' slee'."

"Unh uh. This was all your idea, remember?" I said as I sat up. "Besides that, I tried to get you to go to sleep early last night, but you kept saying you were too excited from Blaze's homecoming party and needed to get off. Then you insisted I needed to get off, and then you said you were still excited and you needed to..."

She pulled a pillow over her head. "F'k off."

I yanked away the pillow. "Whoa! Improper attitude! Photographers have to learn to get up at any hour, bright eyed and bushy tailed and raring to go!"

She let one breath out in a low, rumbling growl. With the next she mumbled, "Do' wan' be 'to'f'r. Be mod' 'stead."

"I've told you, models don't live glamorous lives. They have to get up an hour or more before the photographers do for a dawn photo shoot."

"F'k."

I thought about tickling her, but since my hand was still on her butt, I pinched it instead.

"Ass'le."

I paused to turn on the bedside light and then pinched some more, alternating cheeks.

After several more words, a few of which I might have recognized, she finally shoved herself up on her hands and knees.

It wasn't Cheryl. It was a crossbreed between that rabid pit bull and the javelina, and it looked worse than both. I had a vision of glowing red eyes with cat-like slit pupils and a huge snarling maw fitted with a hundred fangs that all dripped poison onto huge-clawed front feet capable of eviscerating an elephant with one swipe.

I did two things, only one which made sense. First, I recoiled in horror. Or terror. Or maybe it was both. Then, for reasons I'll never understand, I kissed her. I mean I really kissed her. It was stupid in more ways than one. She easily could have bitten off my tongue and gone back to sleep without remembering a thing about it.

Her struggling didn't stop, but it did change direction in an instant. One second she was fighting to pull away from me, the next she was trying to climb inside me through my mouth. I came to my senses when I realized she was pumping a fistful of iron and was trying to climb onto my lap.

It took strength I didn't know I had, both physical and emotional, to stop her.

We saddled the horses quickly. I didn't check her work when we finished. "You know what you're doing," I said when her head drew back in surprise. "You don't need to be checked like a dude rancher or like a little girl. Let's go."

At first I thought she was going to repeat our kissing session. Then, with a bright smile, she picked up her camera gear and led Misty out into the darkness.

I locked the camera in place on the tripod, stepped back, and indicated with my head for her to look through the viewfinder. "That's where the sun will hit first," I said as she looked across the valley toward the house. "You can set your camera toward anything you want. I'm just letting you know in case it makes a difference in your plans."

"Got it," she said, then set the Hasselblad where she wanted it and locked the tripod. She was still giddy over my surprise announcement that it was her camera for this session. "I think I want this."

I looked. "The sun should get there maybe a minute and a half afterward." I checked my watch and said, "We have fifteen to twenty minutes, so you can do some grab shots if you want."

She pointedly looked at my crotch in the pre-dawn light. "I know what I'd like to grab."

"Yes, but you'd get too distracted and forget about your photograph. You'd have gotten up two hours early for nothing, and then you'd be mad at me because I caused you to miss your shot. This whole morning would have been a waste of time."

She blinked. Twice. "God, I hate you."

"Because I make more sense than your mother?"

She sighed. "Okay, then I love you."

"I think I like that better."

"Good." She switched on her own camera, the FUPOS 1369. "Get over there. I want to shoot pictures of a great photographer at work. You'll do as a substitute."

I ignored the snide comment. "Shouldn't you turn on the flash first?"

"No. I want to try something I read about a couple of days ago. I want you in silhouette against the lighter background."

"Well, if it's helping with something educational for you, then I'm glad to be of assistance."

She smiled at me. "Cool. You know, you're the greatest uncle ever."

"But first I think we'd better hobble the horses, or we'll find them wandering into the scene just as the sun appears."

She got just one shot of me before the deer appeared below.

"That's the problem with nature photography. You can go a week without any good shots, and then you find yourself having to choose between two them. If you want the deer, take the other Nikon and a telephoto lens. I didn't bring a third tripod, but the monopod is in the case. Slowly! They can see the movement even from that distance. I'll watch for the sun while you do that. Maybe you can get a couple of shots before it comes up."

I heard the shutter click five times. After the fourth I heard a mumbled, "Cool!" And then the sun painted a thin line along the distant ridge. "It's up."

Cheryl collapsed the monopod, capped the lens, and turned off the camera. She put it on the camera case and turned to the Hasselblad as I clicked off the first of my shots.

"Shit!" she growled as she examined the slides on the light box. "Yours are better."

"Yeah," I agreed, leaning in for a closer look. "This time. Next session yours might be. The studio gives you great control over all the elements of your photograph. Nature doesn't live in the studio, and she refuses to be put under any type of control. Nature photography is the most frustrating branch because of that, but when you get a great shot, it's also more rewarding. You just have to learn to live with frustration. Like those clouds appearing at exactly the wrong moment."

She turned her head to look at me. "I'm Mandy Kuczynski's daughter, and you won't fuck me when I ask. I think I know a little bit about frustration."

She had me there.

"Cool" didn't begin to describe her fourth shot of the deer. "Awesome" was close, but still inadequate. Maybe the best description was the way she squealed and bounced on the balls of her feet while she looked at it on the light box.

"I'm disappointed," I said.

That stopped the squealing and bouncing. She straightened and faced me. "Why?"

"I shoot a hundred pictures and get maybe one that good. You shoot five and there it is. I'm disappointed in myself for not being as good as my teenaged niece."

She blinked. Twice. "I guess it's just natural female superiority."

What got me wasn't the words or the smirk. It was the way she sounded just like her mother.

I held open the driver's side door for her and handed her the keys. "I'll stand over there and watch. Try not to drive over me, will you?" While she stood there with her mouth open, I added, "Don't forget to put the top down, in case I have to jump in and kill the engine or whatever to keep you from driving it through the barn."