Chapter 1 - Dale
He was also grateful that after a quick stop at the Torrington Livestock Market to check on potential breeding stock and putting a bid on slots for the next yearling and calf sale come January, he was headed home.
The errand could have waited till after Christmas, but but the owners of the Yellow Bee Ranch, Mr. and Mrs. Palmer, who lived in New Jersey and liked to imagine themselves real ranchers but were really only hobby ranchers, wanted to stay on top of the market.
Probably so they could brag to their friends at the Elks Club or whatever elite watering hole they belonged to.
The pictures along the large staircase in the main house at the Yellow Bee, where Dale was shacked up for the winter, housesitting, testified to the family’s love of large cowboy hats, Ariat and Lucchese cowboy boots, belt buckles with enough shine on them to send signals to the space station.
The photos of Mr. and Mrs., sons and daughters, and a host of smiling grandchildren, also inevitably included brand new lariats artfully draped over carefully weathered hay bales, lariats that, as Dale could plainly see, still had the plastic bands on them, keeping them in place, and that had not a single cow hair on them, horse hair, or even human hair.
They were just for show. As was the whole of the Yellow Bee.
The one thing Dale could say was that the Yellow Bee, in spite of being a hobby ranch run distantly by sunshine ranchers, had up-market everything.
Brand new barn, painted a cheery red, sparkling new paddock, painted a glowing white, standing out among the wild grasses and short, flinted hills that surrounded it.
The property, a few miles from Chugwater was south of the train tracks, situated in the prettiest valley with rich, fertile bottom land, fed by Chugwater Creek.
Maybe in someone else’s book, probably most people’s, the area would have been considered a gully, and from Iron Mountain Road, that ran past the ranch, the place didn’t look like much.
That was the beauty of the ranch because once you crossed the tidy wooden bridge, the low slope of the land showed the glory of twenty-five thousand acres spreading out along the wide creek, and you could just about smell money in the air.
The main complex didn’t slouch either, being made up of an enormous white painted house, a guest house which was a mini version of the main house, plus there was a shiny metal-roofed sorting barn, a supply barn, another barn for whatever ATVs and trailers they might own.
At the very far end of the main complex was the brand new pair of double-wides, four bedrooms each, where the hired help resided.
Normally, that’s where Dale would have unpacked his things for the winter, but the Palmers were concerned that with the hard winter coming, the pipes might be at risk.
So, consequently, he was staying at the main house, in one of the guest rooms, the one with the pale blue paint and white everything else that faced east, which, at least, spared him from the winter gales that often rattled the window panes, no matter how well they’d been installed.
This was fine by him. He didn’t mind being a temporary resident, feeling entirely out of place amidst the soft surroundings, because, come spring, he’d be headed back to his job at Farthingdale Guest Ranch.
There, his ranch hand duties, including helping guests, working in the barn, and taking long trail rides into the hills, suited him just fine.
Leland Tate, the manager of the ranch, was a good man, and knew the value of hiring and keeping good men and women to give guests who came to the ranch a top-notch experience for their money.
Which was a lot. Dale knew that guests paid four hundred, even five hundred dollars a night to stay at the ranch, which was a testament to the fact that some people had more money than sense.
But what did he care? The tips were good, and Dale was saving to buy his own cattle ranch someday. One day.
In the meantime, he turned north up Lone Tree Road so he could skirt across Chugwater, go under the bridge to the 211 and get home before the roads got really bad.
Right now they were wet with slatted snow.
In another hour, they’d be freezing over.
Fine by him. He’d be tucked in, snug, ready for the blizzard, doing his best to ignore Christmas and everything to do with it.
Unlike for most folks, the guys and gals at the stock yard, the lone attendant at the Stop ’n Go in Torrington, pretty much everybody he’d chanced to meet up with for weeks, there was no magic for him in the thought of a white Christmas.
What was the point when there was nobody to share it with?
At twenty-nine his prospects were the ranch he hoped someday to purchase and run and that was about it. He’d given up on dreams years ago.
Driving slow through town, he passed the Chug Chug Gas and Go and slipped under the bridge for I-25, and started along Highway 211, known to locals as Iron Mountain Road. He’d be home and unpacked in under ten minutes.