“Yes,” Libby said. “To some of the cowboys, and it’s reflected in our salaries.”
“Sure,” Lila Mae said. “So others might not live here, but make the drive out.”
“Yep.” Libby pointed to the cabin they walked in front of, the third one from the end of the row. “Our veterinarian lives right here, in fact, and right next to him is one of our long-time cowboys, and on the end is the foreman’s cabin. You can see it’s bigger than the others.”
Hailey looked at the cowboy cabins here, and they sure did seem nicer than the ones at Shiloh Ridge. Lila Mae seemed tobe drinking it all in, and she scribbled something else into her notebook.
They came to a road which crossed in front of them, and Libby continued over it. “This is our Administration Building here,” she said, indicating the big trailer in front of them. “And yes, we have people who drive out to the ranch every day, including our controller and a couple of secretaries.”
“I think I need to hire another secretary,” Lila Mae said, and Hailey nodded in an exaggerated way. Her boss and friend caught her eye, and Lila Mae grinned at her. “I do, right?”
“I think so,” Hailey said. “And as the general manager of Feline Friends, I would know.”
Lila Mae nodded and scratched a note onto her paper. “I’ll see what I can find.”
“We have a lot more people coming in now,” Hailey said. “Both to drop off cats and to adopt them. Which is good, that’s what you want, but that just means you need people to be able to manage the intake of cats and outflow of adoptions.”
“Yeah.” Lila Mae sighed and gazed at the horizon in front of them. “Do you have any type of organizational system you can show me?” She looked hopefully at Libby.
“Sure,” Libby said. “I can put you in touch with a couple of our secretaries. They do all of our filing, management of our sales of cattle, scheduling, lots of stuff like that.”
“I’d love to talk to one of them,” Lila Mae said. “Even if I just got their number, and they were willing to let me call them.”
“Sure,” Libby said. The baby squawked from the sling on her chest, and Libby put her hand on his bottom and bounced him.
When that didn’t calm him, she tried a more vigorous approach and then apologized. “I fed him early, so I’d be able to do this meeting, and he usually goes right to sleep after that. I do most of my work with him asleep in this sling.”
“Are you still working the ranch a lot?” Lila Mae asked over Gavin’s whines.
“Yeah,” Libby said. “My husband has picked up a lot of what I normally do, and I kind of like it.” She grinned at Hailey and linked her arm through hers. “I might not come back to full-time management if I don’t have to.”
“Why would you?” Hailey grinned at her. “Rusty’s great.” She looked over to Lila Mae. “That’s her husband.”
“He is great,” Libby said. “He came from a corn farm in Oklahoma, which is quite a bit different than a cattle ranch in Texas, but he stepped right into the role and has learned everything he needed to.”
“And this is a generational ranch too, right?” Lila Mae asked.
“Yes,” Libby said, and she frowned down toward her baby as he let loose another wail. “I think I know what the problem is.” She leaned closer and took a deep breath, then grimaced, groaned, and pulled back. “Yep, he needs his diaper changed.”
The smell hit Hailey then, even from several feet away, and as much as she loved babies, she didn’t love that smell.
“Okay,” Lila Mae said. “We can go back.”
“No, no,” Libby said. “You guys go on and head into the admin building. Be sure to check out our vaccination chutes too. They’re just behind the building to the south. Our vets are out there today, and you can ask them anything you want.”
With that, she turned around and headed back toward the house, her long strides crunching over the gravel. Hailey looked at Lila Mae, and Lila Mae looked at her. Theyhadcome all this way, so Hailey continued on toward the admin building.
Hailey acknowledged a couple of cowboys coming out as she climbed the metal steps to the entrance. They tipped their hats, said, “Howdy, ladies,” and continued on their way. Since they’d come in the afternoon, surely everyone had their daily assignments and knew what needed to be done that day.
“Hey, there,” a woman said, and she sat at a desk positioned only a few paces inside the door.
“Hi,” Hailey said. “Libby was showing us around. I’m Hailey Winters, and this is Lila Mae Dixon.”
“Yes, of course,” the woman said. “Libby said you were coming today.”
“Lila Mae’s opening a cat sanctuary in town,” Hailey said. “She just wants to see how things are run.”
“Sure. My name is Clancy,” she said. “I run all the operations here.”
