Chapter 2

I hit the interstate heading west. Searching the internet had shown some large ranches in Wyoming and Montana, but I was not a person who liked cold weather. I was going to search Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. I figured the temperature in these states would not be much colder than my home in North Carolina unless I was in the higher altitudes.

About every two hours I would stop at a rest area to take Blaze out and stretch his legs and let him get a drink of water. Occasionally at these stops Blaze would be covered with hugs and pets from kids who were traveling with their parents and had stopped at the same rest stop. Blaze seemed to give me annoyed looks but was really gentle.

I stopped just outside of Atlanta near the Alabama border on my first night out. I set up a portable pin for Blaze so he wouldn’t have to stand in the horse trailer all night. I had parked at the far end of the parking lot and set his pin where he wouldn’t be seen by other motorist. We made it through the night without visitors.

I would have loved to saddle him up and ride him around the property a few times to give him some exercise but I felt like I was already pushing my luck by letting him graze a little grass and stay in his portable pin.

I’d always heard there was good food in Louisiana so I started looking for a good place to stop after crossing the Mississippi River. There was a small Mom and Pop place just outside of Vicksburg were I had some gumbo and an order of crawdads. Both were great but the crawdads were a lot of work. It reminded me of eating shrimp when you had to peel the shell off. Messy and time consuming.

The owners of the café were kind enough to let me set up in back for the night. The next morning, I respectfully ate breakfast at the same café before heading on my way. The breakfast was good, but then again, it was hard to mess up bacon and eggs.

I decided to take I-35 south from Dallas towards San Antonio and stopped in Austin for the night. I’d been looking for signs of large ranches ever since I’d gotten into Texas but hadn’t really found anything. I’d ask the clerks when I’d fill up with fuel but they were not much help. One clerk did say there were several larger ranches in the western part of the state.

The next morning, I was through San Antonio headed south on I-35 before the morning work traffic. I’d decided to take my time, even getting off the interstates from time to time to search the back roads. I headed west and noticed fencing on my left on US 90 outside Uvalde and followed it for miles before catching sight of what looked like holding pins. I found a dirt drive leading towards the pins and turned in. When I pulled up to the barn, an older man I guessed to be in his mid-sixties, came out to meet me.

“Good day, sir,” I said, exiting my truck.

“And to you,” he answered. “B’for you start, I ain’t buy’in.”

“No sir,” I smiled. “I’m not selling anything. I’m actually looking for work.”

“Well, if this was still a working ranch I’d say yeah,” he laughed, “but this here ranch hasn’t seen cattle for nearly five years.”

“Why is that,” I asked.

“Water,” he said. “The hay fields all turned to dust and we started losing more cattle than we were producing. Sent all the cattle up north to our other ranch. They ain’t doing much better on the hay fields but it seems that they’re gett’in water from their windmill wells. At least enough to water the herd.”

“Where’s this ranch up north,” I asked.

“Just off US 90 north of Marfa,” he said. “If you get to Van Horn, you done gone too far.”

“Much obliged,” I said and turned towards my truck.

“Hey, if you meet Slim, tell him Albert said he ain’t for shit,” he laughed.

“I’ll do that,” I laughed with him and climbed into the truck.

I made my way up US 90 and through Marfa which wasn’t much more than a small college town. I stopped at a small, run down convenience store a few miles west of town to fuel up and asked the clerk about any ranches in the area.

“Right there,” she said, pointing across the road. “That there is the start of the Holland ranch and far as I know it goes north to Van Horn and west to the Rio Grande.”

“You know where I might find the foreman,” I asked.

“That would be Todd, Todd Westbrook,” she said, now pointing towards US 90. “His driveway will be on your left about ten or twelve miles north.”

“Thank you ma’am,” I said with a tip of my hat.

“You tell Todd to be nice to you,” she said. “He can be an ass sometimes.”

“Yes ma’am,” I said with another tip of my hat.

The pastures along the way were barren with only a few patches here and there that looked suitable for grazing. When I found what I thought to be the driveway, I turned in and followed it several miles. After cresting a hill, I saw some holding pins with cattle, a barn and several buildings. One looked like a doublewide modular home and the other was possibly a bunkhouse.

In the yard were two saddled horses being held by a short, fat man with dirty clothes and tobacco juice at both corners of his mouth. Another man was checking the shoes on one of the horses.

I parked far enough away as not to spook the horses and walked up.

“Afternoon,” I said as I approached.

The fat man just glared at me while the other lowered the foot of the horse he was checking. He was tall and slim.

“Howdy,” the tall one said. The fat one just grimaced and spit tobacco juice on the ground.

“I stopped to see if you could take on another hand,” I said to both of them.

The tall one looked at the fat one who grunted. The fat one then said, “You’re mighty young, kid. Ever worked a ranch before?”

“I haven’t actually worked on a ranch,” I said, “but I did some training for a couple years back home.”

The fat one gave out a bellowed laugh and looked at the slim one.

“You hear that, Slim,” he chucked, tobacco juice dribbling from the corners of his mouth. “Says he did some training.”

“Kid,” he said to me. “Ranch work ain’t something you train for. It takes experience. And I sure as hell ain’t got the time to be changing no diapers out there on the trail.”

“I know I don’t have experience,” I told him, “but I’d appreciate the opportunity to prove myself.”

“You go buy yourself a whore or two and come back when you’re shav’in every day,” he said with that sickening laugh.

“Well,” I said, pausing for a moment. “I thank you for your time.”

As I turned to head back to my truck a large black Cadillac crested the hill and pulled into the yard. It parked about half way between where I had been standing and my truck. About the time I got beside the car, the back door opened and a smartly dressed man got out of the back.

“Good afternoon, young man,” he said, holding his hand out. “Trevor Holland. I own this ranch.”

“Jake, Jake McAlister,” I said, shaking his hand. “Very nice to meet you.”

I looked over my shoulder at Slim and the fat man and then back at Mr. Holland. “Well sir, I’ll be on my way.”