Chapter 11

Lily set down the shotgun by the front door, and made her way over to the car once Rose and Vincent had gotten out of it. She held out her arms to give them big hugs. Donny got out of the car and walked over to the family. After she finished welcoming her children home, she went over to Donny. She gave him a love tap on the side of his head as a greeting.

She asked, “When are you going to make an honest woman out of my daughter?”

“I didn’t realize she was a dishonest woman,” Donny said.

He covered his head in case her initial love tap was followed by another. It wasn’t.

Lily shook her head and said, “You’re just as bad as your father.”

“Thank you,” Donny said peeking out from under his arms.

“It wasn’t a compliment,” Lily said with a grin. “He nearly drove your mother crazy waiting for him to propose.”

“That acorn didn’t fall far from the tree,” Donny said winking at her.

She looked over at him with a smile and said, “You might want to head home. Your mother is waiting for you.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Donny said.

Rose gave him a good send off kiss. She wrapped her body around his and made sure that there wasn’t a part of him that didn’t know he was being kissed. He did not struggle.

Standing off to the side, Lily asked, “Vincent, did he and her kiss like that around Hank?”

“Yes they did,” Vincent answered.

“I’m surprised they aren’t married yet,” Lily said.

Vincent said, “Donny didn’t have much choice about the kiss. Calvin and I were holding him. I think Dad understood, although he did threaten to get the shotgun.”

“That explains it,” Lilly said. She looked over at the young couple and said, “That’s enough of that.”

Rose eased back and winked at Donny.

She said, “You owe me a proposal.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Donny said tipping his hat to her.

Donny eased his way into the car and drove off. When they reached the dirt road, he turned right heading for home.

Pepper asked, “Where is your place?”

“Over there on the left,” Donny answered. “We’ve been driving along it for a couple of minutes now.”

“You’re kidding?” Pepper asked.

A mixture of aspen, birch, pine, cedar, and cottonwood trees filled the area beside the road. The white trunks of the aspen trees stood out from the dark green of the tall pines. The leaves of the cottonwood trees served as a nice intermediate green between the shiny green leaves of the aspen and the dark green needles of the pines. The trees were so thick that you couldn’t see fifty feet into the woods until there was a sudden patch of open meadow filled with lush green grass.

Donny said, “No. I’ve got five sections of land.”

“What’s that in something that I understand?” Pepper asked.

“Five square miles,” Donny answered. “It starts at a mile from the corner and runs about three and quarter miles along this road. It goes from this road to one and a half miles back from the road. Uncle Joe’s place is across the road. Uncle Dan’s place straddles the road at the far end of our places. It was the only way Granddad could see to partition it so that all of his sons got basically the same thing.”

Pepper whistled and asked, “How much is that worth?”

“About eight million,” Donny answered.

Pepper stared at Donny unable to believe that this country hick was worth so much money. He asked, “Why are you working?”

“If I didn’t work, I’d lose the place,” Donny answered.

“If you sold the place you wouldn’t ever have to work,” Pepper said.

Donny countered, “If I sold the place, I would have nothing.”

“You would have eight million dollars,” Pepper said.

There was no way to put into words the way the land made Donny feel. To lose it would rip a hole in his chest the size of the Grand Canyon.

He gestured to his property and said, “Look at what I’d lose. There’s not enough money in the world to replace that.”

“You could be having sex with porn stars,” Pepper said.

“I could. I would also catch something from one of them and have my dick drop off,” Donny said shaking his head.

It seemed sad to him that some people were so shallow. They would settle for glitter instead of demanding gold.

“You could have a mansion,” Pepper said.

He could imagine living in a mansion with fast cars and fast women. He would smoke cigars and get massages all afternoon. He would never work another day in his life.

Turning into the driveway, Donny said, “I’ve got a nice house already. I don’t need anything bigger.”

Pepper looked at the complex of buildings that suddenly appeared in front of them. There was a good sized ranch house, a barn with a corral next to it, an equipment storage shed, a metal Quonset hut that served as a workshop, a greenhouse, and a bunkhouse. Three tractors were parked next to the storage shed. There were almost more buildings there, than in that place they called a town.

Donny said, “You’ve got all this, and you act like you don’t have two dimes to rub together.”

“I’m rich on paper, but this is a working farm. The costs of running it are very high. We have five ranch hands to pay, and we hire companies to come in and do the ‘combining’. We do pretty well, but we’ve got a bit of debt to pay off ... things like equipment, seeds, and building material. We’re maintaining all of the outbuildings and fences. We’ve got four trucks, horse trailers, cattle trailers, flatbeds, eight snowmobiles, and six ATVs,” Donny said.

“Oh,” Pepper said.

“About the time we get something paid off, it needs to be replaced. Mom went through a number of rough years after Dad died. A lot of the credit was in Dad’s name. She inherited the debt, but not the credit rating. The price of beef dropped to nearly nothing, and the timber company cut back their harvest,” Donny said.

Pepper said, “You could sell it all, and be a millionaire.”

“Our dining room is at the back of that house. Every morning I get up, and have a cup of coffee looking at the view from the dining room window. When the weather is good, I sit out on the back porch. Do you know what I see?” Donny asked.

“What?”

Donny answered, “I see God’s handiwork in all its glory.”

“Okay,” Pepper said looking away uncomfortably.

He didn’t like all of that stuff about God and glory. He kept waiting for someone to pull out a Bible, and start reading verses from it.

“I know what you’re thinking. I figure one day, you’ll step out of the bunkhouse, and some sight will just take your breath away. It might be the night sky, the morning light on the mountains, the trees covered with snow, or a magnificent elk standing proudly in a meadow. You’ll stand there, staring at it awestruck, wondering how something so beautiful could possibly exist. That’s the day you’ll become a believer,” Donny said with quiet confidence.

“The day that I can run down to that little shithole you call a hometown and buy a burger from a national chain is the day I’ll be awestruck,” Pepper said shaking his head.

Donny parked the car in front of the house. His mother was waiting for him. They hugged and then split apart.

Donny asked, “How are things around the place?”

“Quiet for the most part,” his mother answered.

Concerned, Donny asked, “For the most part?”

“A bear did wander through here the other day,” his mother answered.

On the verge of panic, Pepper shouted, “A bear! There are bears here?”

Donny’s mother looked at Pepper who was still seated in the car and shook her head. She put two fingers in her mouth and whistled. It was loud enough to carry a half of a mile. A man came out of the barn. She gestured to him and he headed over towards them.

She said, “I take it this is the cretin that tried to kill my baby.”

“He’s not a baby,” Pepper said.

“Yes, Mom. That miserable excuse for a man is Pepper,” Donny said.

“Maybe Dan should have killed him.”

Pepper was tired of hearing people say that he should be killed. He swore, “God Dam...”

Donny slapped Pepper through the window of the car. The angle made it difficult, and the blow ended up being more of smack than a slap.

He said, “Don’t swear in front of my mother.”

The ranch hand arrived in time to see Donny hit Pepper. He knew Donny wasn’t the type to go around hitting people without cause, so there had to be a little more going on than met the eye.

He said, “Is this the fellow that screwed Sonny?”

“Yes, it is, Craig,” Donny said.

Pepper’s ears were ringing and his vision was blurred from the blow. He took two deep breaths trying to recover. They didn’t help.

He said, “Would everyone stop telling me that someone should kill me?”