1
Leland
Settling back in the saddle, Leland pulled the reins gently across the mare’s neck to see how she would handle. She had new iron shoes and a borrowed saddle, saddle blanket, and tack. All of this was different from what she was used to, and any of which might throw a horse off, but poor Gwen had to deal with all of this all at once.
When Gwen executed the turn, he patted her neck, clucking in a gentle way to let her know she was a good girl and had done well, then urged her to trot in a wide circle. Again, she did what he asked her to do, and chuffed as she trotted, as though to get him to pay attention to how well she was going.
“I know you’re going good, girl,” he told her, patting her neck again. “You’re so good, you’re going to be perfect for Dorothy.”
Finally satisfied, he pulled up in front of the tall open doors of the big horse barn, where Brody, the ranch’s horse wrangler, waited. Brody was angular and thin inside of his t-shirt and jeans, having not yet grown into the shoulders nature had blessed him with. He was the best horse whisperer Leland had ever encountered and, for all he was so young, there was nobody Leland trusted more to take care of the horses on the ranch.
“Hey, girl,” said Brody, as he came up to them. He lifted quiet hands to pat Gwen’s neck and stroke her soft nose, by habit greeting the horse before the man. “Hey, Leland,” he said now. “I still think Travelle’s a better horse for that lady.”
“It’s not just the horse, Brody,” said Leland. He thought to dismount and get on with other work, but if he stayed astride, he could really make sure Gwen was okay with the borrowed saddle and tack, and then maybe he’d even get his daily ride in. Some days, especially at the tail end of the first week of the season, it was hard to find the time. “It’s everything else.”
“I know it, boss,” said Brody. He looked up at Leland, his cowboy hat perched back on his head, his dark eyes keen as he looked at the horse and at the man. “It was never your fault, eh? Just damn luck that kid disappeared on your watch.”
Leland did not need reminding of the incident that had thrown his pretty comfortable life into the air and dumped it into a metaphorical wood chipper waiting below. Even before he’d graduated high school, all he ever wanted to do was work on some kind of ranch, but the disappearance of Laurie Quinn at the end of last season had threatened to kill that dream dead.
That dream had always been to work out of doors with horses and cattle, and so that’s what he’d done, the life he’d gone after. After years of working on ranches in Yellowstone and Santa Fe and even Durango, his parents realized he was serious and helped him pay for a degree in ranch management at Iowa State University.
When his dad had passed away unexpectedly during his first semester at Iowa State, Leland had come home, telling his mom he’d give it all up. She encouraged him to go back, to finish doing what he loved, telling Leland it was what Dad would have wanted.
With that kind of support, Leland had kept his eye on the prize: to be ranch manager at Farthingdale Dude Ranch, where he’d worked during his summers in high school. As an additional bonus, the ranch was only a thirty-minute drive from his childhood home. Stubborn woman that she was, Mom still lived in the farmhouse she and Dad had shared before he’d passed away.
The farmhouse needed maintenance every season, and while he was happy to do it, he always told her she’d be better off and live with less fuss in a patio home, one of the new ones in Cheyenne, on the outskirts. But she was determined to stay in Chugwater and tend her garden and sell rhubarb compote and sugar-preserved cherries at the farmer’s market in the fall.
So after he graduated, he worked at a few more ranches before finally getting his dream job as ranch manager at Farthingdale Ranch. He’d just turned 30 in the spring, and it had been like coming home after years away.
Tragically, at the end of his first, proud season, Laurie Quinn, and all the strange events surrounding him, had happened. Quinn had gone to sleep near the campfire, like all the other guests, but unlike all the other guests, in the morning he was gone.
Not that Leland had known what havoc the young man would wreak when he’d met Quinn at the first night’s chuck wagon event. As they were getting guests settled for the night, Quinn had come forward, eyes wide in the shadows of the firelight, his movements quick and graceful. He’d wanted to talk to Bill, that much was obvious, so Leland had made his escape, and strode in the darkness to the barn to make sure everything was properly shut down for the night before turning in himself.
Normally, Leland wouldn’t have such a vivid memory of a single, particular guest, but he did of Quinn because after falling asleep on top of his sleeping bag, Quinn had been gone by morning. He’d shown up a week later, only to disappear again into the night, leaving his belongings and a mystery behind.
Quinn had left his cell phone plugged in so the local police were able to track down any known associates. At the same time, the investigation left the ranch after two detectives discovered there was nothing to find. Quinn’s footprints had been discovered heading away from the campsite but then vanished, and the end of the season became a tangle of legal obligations and heartache.
As the ranching community learned of the tragedy, most sent their sympathies, while some expressed misgivings about what kind of ranch Bill Wainwright was running. Curious thrill seekers booked rooms in the bunkhouses and the cabins above the river months in advance, which made a kind of promise that everything would be all right in spite of Quinn.
But then, one by one, so many of the guests had cancelled that only 30 guests had shown up for the first week of the spring season, and only 35 guests were set to arrive on Sunday morning for the second week. This was under half the ranch’s normal number, which dried up most of the money to invest in repairs and upkeep at the ranch.
Leland stayed up many sleepless nights trying to figure a way out, a way back for the ranch from the edge of bankruptcy so they could give guests the quality vacations they’d signed up for.
He needed to make sure every last detail was seen to, so had held meetings about everybody taking on extra tasks. He’d sent out low-ball bids for contractors for painting and basic landscape and other general work, most of which had already come back negative. He even gently fired the ranch’s accountant, and took up the task himself, spending time each evening on the books, making sure the numbers were in good order.
It was a lot of extra work he’d not counted on, but for Farthingdale Ranch to come back from the brink, it needed to be done. Luckily the staff that he had kept, including ranch hands, the cook, the wrangler, the blacksmith, were willing to wash dishes or paint fence posts, doing chores completely outside the scope of their job descriptions, whatever was needed. He had a good team, and they were willing to do the hard work necessary to keep the ranch running.
Everything else on the ranch had been pared down to the essentials. He’d auctioned off all but 100 head of even-tempered, sweet-faced cattle. He’d sold half of the horses, and farmed some of the horses that remained at his mom’s ten-acre backyard, keeping only the best, people-friendly horses for guests. He was going to save the ranch and his job. Then, come the next season, they could think about expanding.
In addition to all that, he intended to review each and every horse to make sure they’d be a perfect fit for a specific guest. Which was why he needed Brody’s input all that morning, even as the first week’s guests were still checking out.
“That guy was fey,” said Brody. He patted Gwen’s neck in long, slow pats, telling Leland his opinion in his matter-of-fact way.
“Fey?” asked Leland.
“You know,” said Brody. “Like he was switched at birth and the fairies took the real one.”
“I know what it means,” said Leland, doing his best to keep the irritation out of his voice.
