Chapter 3

I walked across the frozen ground in the predawn cold, my breath steaming as I headed to the barn. Yesterday's brief warm spell had been quickly defeated by the arctic cold that marked winter in western Montana.

Most days I felt like the "ghost" in the Allison Krauss song that was playing in my head, barely making it from day to day. I thanked God every day for giving me, us, Amelia. She was my reason for living as I stumbled each day through the fog that enveloped my soul.

Jack had followed me out, but after he took care of his morning dog business, he beat a hasty retreat to the house. I couldn't blame him, even bundled up the wind seemed to cut through several layers of clothing and my heavy canvas barn coat. Anyway, Jack's knew he belonged in the house with Amelia, not out here with me.

I stopped for a few moments and watched the sky. Without the spill-light of the cities, the display of stars in the Montana late autumn sky was something to savor. Abigail and I had loved to watch them as we held each other out here in the yard or as we sat side by side in our rockers on the wide porch.

A shooting star streaked the dark sky, and then winked out. Was it a message from Abigail? Was she reminding me of our brief love and happiness? I didn't need reminding. Every waking moment contained the sharp ache of loss. Even my dreams were filled with her. Five years of shared happiness and companionship had been torn from me. I ached.

I stood half way to the barn shivering watching the sky. For the next couple of months Amelia and I would be gone but there was no doubt we would be back. It wasn't just the fact my wife was buried nearby, it was the effect this place had on me. From the beginning I felt that this majestic land was my home. For five years I had loved a magnificent woman and raised a wonderful child while putting down deep roots in this Montana soil. It was easy to do if you abided by the rules. Here the work ethic ruled. People didn't care about your past; you had to prove your worth through hard work and dedication to family and community. I had joined Abigail here and had worked hard to become an accepted adult in the community. A pair of beat up cowboy boots and a Stetson did not make you a man. Abigail, fatherhood, and the hard work that comes from owning a cattle ranch ended my adolescence and made me strong ... at least I thought so. Now I wasn't so sure.

I watched the sky, but there were no more streaks of light. Tears formed as I whispered.

"I miss you so much Abigail."

She was the bravest person I ever met. In the face of her killer disease she kept going until she just couldn't anymore.

At the end Abigail insisted on coming home to "our land". She wanted nothing more of hospitals. The Hospice nurse came every day. A wonderful woman named Alice.

Ellen and Dan came out from Indiana and spent the final month. I wondered what I would have done without them those final weeks. Dan left right after the funeral, because of harvest but Ellen stayed on. They had become surrogate parents to us both and Amelia called them, "Grandma" and "Grandpa". They loved Abigail and Amelia and never brought up the fact I should reconcile with my parents, even though I knew they were in contact, forwarding photos and keeping them up to date with emails.

One night Abigail asked me to take her outside to see the stars. She woke me about two from a light sleep. I slept on the sofa near the hospital bed we had set up in the living room near the fireplace. Each night we went to sleep holding hands. She was in too much pain for me to sleep on the bed with her. We longed to just hold each other through the night but we settled for having me next to her on the sofa.

It didn't matter what time it was, I was happy to grant her wish. I just wanted to spend every moment with her trying to make her happy. It was late September and fall was in the air. I lifted her seemingly weightless form from the bed and wrapped her in a warm wool blanket and carried her outside where she could see the stars.

She lay in my arms as she looked up. Tears glistened. In her small voice she said,

"I love you Bret ... I have since I first met you."

She stroked my face as she looked at me, brushing at my tears

"Do you remember that day?" She smiled with the memory.

I nodded ... my heart breaking.

"You looked like the abominable snowman as you jumped into the road."

We were both lost in the memory for a moment and she said,

"I'm glad I was there to rescue you..."

Her smile disappeared.

"I'm so sorry I have to leave you ... I wanted us to be together always ... I thought we would ... you made me very happy"

I buried my face in her short, soft newly grown hair ... my heart breaking.

I moved us to the big rocker on the porch and I held her close, never wanting to let her go

"Bret ... I love you so much." she whispered.

It took all her strength just to talk. I held her trying to give her some of the strength and warmth from my body. I wanted her to keep fighting but she knew her body had nothing left.

She looked at me with her green eyes. Those eyes that had enthralled me from our first meeting.

"Take good care of our darling Amelia"

I only nodded in the darkness, too choked up to speak.

"Promise me something, my Love?"

"Anything."

"Go and see your parents ... for me ... will you?"

"Yes ... I promise."

Abigail smiled slightly, as if she had settled something.

Finally she said,

"I'm so sorry to leave you my darling Bret. I'll be waiting for you."

She looked once again at the stars and then closed her eyes.

Those were the last words she spoke.

I held my love Abigail until the dawn came up. That's where Ellen found us. Abigail just seemed to be sleeping, a slight smile on her lips. I held her for a long time, refusing to let her go.

I continued my walk to the barn not knowing whether the cold I felt was from the wind or the permanent chill in my bones since Abigail died.

I entered through the small side door and smelled all those comforting smells of our large barn ... mostly straw and horses. Unheated, but many degrees warmer, out of the gusting north wind. I flipped on the lights only to see the empty stalls. The horses were gone now. They were over at JT's place for the next couple of months.

Our big diesel F-250 sat in the middle of the barn like a scarred white whale. It was packed and fueled for our trip to Indiana for Thanksgiving and Georgia for Christmas. It was seven years old and bashed about but mechanically it was sound and would carry us easily the two-thousand miles to Georgia and then back again.

. Its paint and body work bore the marks of encounters with fence posts and barb wire and obstinate horses and cows, and too many miles on dirt and gravel roads. I looked at my scared hands and thought that was a pretty good description of me.

That big bruiser of a truck was a far cry from that immaculate black F-150 I had as a boy. I didn't care. Here your truck represented your livelihood. It wasn't a toy. Five years on a ranch in western Montana certainly changed my perspective about a lot of things.

The only time I threw a football these days was at the annual church picnic. I could still throw a decent spiral but the long scar across the palm of my right hand extending to my index and middle fingers certainly precluded any chance of playing football at any level. Not that I cared. My high school football days seemed so long ago that it was like those experiences happened to someone else.

I walked into the bunkhouse which was built on the side of the barn. It wasn't much ... a room maybe twenty feet long with three double bunks, five of the mattresses rolled up on the bunks, and a small kitchen on one end and a bathroom with two toilets, three sinks and two showers on the other. It was heated by a propane heater, although there was a potbellied stove near the kitchen end for emergencies.

When I turned on the lights I was greeted by two yawning cats that looked at me sleepily from the lower bunk, the only mattress that was still unrolled. They made a large ball of orange stripes as they curled together in a nest of old wool blanket. I sat on the bunk next to them as they looked at me expectantly hoping for an early breakfast.

Amelia named them Kit and Kat when she saw them for the first time a year ago, on the day they were born. Their mother who never had a name, other than "Mom Cat" had shown up in the fall last year, pregnant, starved and abandoned. I sincerely hope God has made a special place in Hell for people who abandon their pets. A week later Mom Cat gave us five kittens. Only two survived the first twenty four hours. She had been on her own too long. That left Kit and Kat. They were tough survivors.

Mom Cat hung on for a couple of months giving whatever milk she could produce to her kittens. We kept them in the house and helped her as much as we could. Jack was not very happy about that situation, especially the affection Amelia heaped on them. When our local vet made his rounds he just shook his head. Mom Cat was failing. She was old and tired and had done her duty finding a safe place for her kittens. We buried her in a sunny spot near the back garden.

To Jack's disgust the kittens decided this giant dog was not a threat and everywhere he went they followed. They also discovered that a dog is a constant heat generator, so it was not uncommon to see Jack lying on the hearth rug with two ever-growing kittens snuggled blissfully against him. I smiled as I remembered the long-suffering looks he gave Amelia as she lovingly fell on the three of them giggling with delight.

To Jack's apparent relief the kittens discovered the barn and became the lords of the place and mouse terminators. I put a cat door in the door to the bunkhouse from the barn and when it wasn't occupied by our seasonal help, it was their sleeping quarters.

I stroked their heads and listened to their affectionate buzzing as I thought about how I came to be in this place.

As I walked away from Dan and Ellen's I was determined to go to California and see what the "Left Coast" had to offer. I figured California was as far from Georgia as I could get and the likelihood of being found was remote.

I got a ride west as far as Champagne Urbana from three students from the University of Illinois. They let me spend the night and then I was offered a ride with three other students to Chicago. They were going up there to visit friends and tour the city. I decided I could detour a bit on my journey to California. I ended up in an attic room in a big old house near the campus of the University of Chicago. I bought groceries and they were happy to have me stay. They also thought I was quite a novelty having never met a real "Reb" before.

For a week I wandered Chicago mostly in the company of a couple of other students. The natives loved showing off their city. I discovered Chicago is a different kind of big city, one that has a Midwestern attitude — an attitude that is warm and welcoming.

One blustery late October day I decided I needed to resume my journey since I figured my limited money would be gone in a short time if I stayed put. And being a Georgia boy I craved warmer weather. I bought a bus ticket going west.

I picked the northern route through the Dakotas and Montana to Seattle. I would head south from there. It looked more interesting than the flat plains of the Midwest.

Two days later I got off the bus in Missoula Montana. It hardly had the feel of the old west. It's a college town with every big box store there is. The weather had warmed and I decided I wanted to see more of the state so I bought a ticket for the town of Great Falls some 160 miles north and east.

I sat in a small café on the main street of Great Falls having second thoughts about much of what I'd done. I had ninety-three dollars in my pocket plus a bus ticket that was still good to get me from Missoula to Seattle. Maybe I could find a job. I was pretty sure the money I had left would not get me to California.

I grabbed a paper off the large pile of old newspapers near the front door and turned to the want ads. Like most places employers wanted people with experience. I certainly had no skills other than throwing a football and smiled ruefully as I scanned the ads thinking there probably wouldn't be one looking for an "experienced high school quarterback".

There was one that said "Ranch Hand" and I figured I had enough experience on a farm that I might qualify. There was no phone number listed. It just said, "Apply in person at Three Stars Ranch, Choteau".

The waitress gave me a funny look when I asked her how to get to Choteau. I discovered it was sixty miles west and the next bus wasn't until the next day. After a six dollar bus ticket and an over night in a cheap hotel in Great Falls, I arrived in Choteau at 10 am with sixty five dollars in my pocket. I tried to tell myself it was more money than when I had left home, but with winter coming and no place to go I was feeling a bit desperate. So determined to be on my own, I didn't even consider calling my parents and heading for Georgia. I had severed those ties and made a mess of my relationship with Becky so in my addled eighteen year-old brain there was no going back. I just had to get to the Three Star Ranch and convince them that I would work hard and accept whatever they paid.

I walked down the short main street enjoying the warmth of the mid-morning autumn sun. The air was fresh and I felt better, knowing I was on my own and dependent on no one. I had the breakfast special in a café that was almost a duplicate of the one I'd been in the day before in Great Falls. The booths were worn red vinyl and it had the delicious smell of strong coffee and fried food. I took my time over breakfast.

The waitress, a pleasant looking woman long past forty, wore a quizzical look as she gave me directions to "Three Stars".

"Honey ... its about ten miles out ... you just take the main highway out of town going west until you see the turn off called Grizzle Road. You turn right there ... and it's about ... oh, I'd say another three miles. You'll see the big mailbox and the drive on the left. You'll be able to see the house and barn from there ... it's about a mile up the driveway up against a hill."

My heart sank as she told me the distance. She seemed to think I had a car. I left a two dollar tip, grabbed my back pack and headed out into the sunshine. It was already after noon but I was young and fit and I figured I could walk the ten miles in about three hours or less, and maybe I could catch a ride.

The wind picked up as I reached the edge of town and I noticed the unmistakable signs of storm clouds to the north. I picked up my pace as I walked west toward the mountains. The early afternoon sun reflected off the snow at their peaks.

A little over three hours later I reached the turn for Grizzle Road. It was, or had been a gravel road. Now it was simply dirt that was well worn and rutted. As I walked northward I stopped to put on a parka I had bought in Chicago. Soon I added a wool hat and gloves. The wind was gusting so hard it was difficult to walk, with every icy blast trying to push me back down the road. The clouds overtook the sun and the temperature dropped perceptibly. Soon the same gusts that had blown dirt in my eyes brought snow.

I almost laughed at the insanity of my position. Here I was in western Montana, in the high plains, trudging up a windswept road going to a place I'd never been before, trying to reach it before I froze to death.

"Douglas boy found dead in Montana snow drift!!" the hometown headline would read.

As the fierce wind numbed my face I thought about Becky. Would she care if I died out here? Would she ever know?

Enough! I only had a few miles to go and I was determined to make it.

An hour later, feet and fingers numb I was beginning to have serious doubts. The snow was very heavy and blown horizontal by the wind. I had ceased my attempts to brush it off and I shivered with each step. The road was completely covered. I wondered if I had missed seeing the mailbox for the driveway to the ranch, knowing if I had, I could be in serious trouble. There were no houses anywhere around. I walked the left shoulder of the road praying to see a large mailbox. The sky was gray and the snow blanketed everything. Soon the gray skies turned darker as the daylight faded. I had not seen a car or truck in hours.

With the shriek of the wind and the blowing snow, plus my own miserable condition, I never heard the truck come up behind me. At the last moment I saw the headlights reflect off the snow in front of me. I turned quickly, knowing I had to stop whatever was behind me or I might not survive.

I jumped into the middle of the road and raised my arms, uncertain how close the car was.

I caught the look of fright on the driver's face as she bore down on me and I barely registered the screech of hard slammed breaks and thrown dirt and gravel as she tried to stop. Had she not had the presence of mind and good antilock brakes to be able to swerve around me I would have become a hood ornament on a Ford pickup.

I ran to the big white truck and stood outside the driver's window. I saw a young woman, maybe late twenties, beautiful face, high Nordic looking cheekbones, and magnificent green eyes. Those eyes looked at me with a mixture of anger and fright.

"What the hell are you doing out here!" she yelled over the noise of the wind as she rolled the window about half way down.

At that point I noticed a very large black and tan dog standing behind her seat. He looked more curious than angry.

"I'm trying to reach the Three Stars Ranch."

"Well you found it."

She looked me over for a few moments.