Chapter 4 #2
“Tell me about yourself. I didn’t mean to go on and on about my late husband, but I thought you should know that I loved him, even though he didn’t do the typical male dominated role in the marriage.”
“That doesn’t bother me. I’m just glad that you found something that worked for the two of you. What I’m about to tell you, not a lot of people know. I didn’t do anything bad, or at least I don’t think I did.”
“Tell me,” Lois encouraged as he continued to eat in silence. He didn’t speak again until his meal was done. He moved the plate away and picked up his coffee cup. Lois knew enough about him to know that he would talk when he was ready, he really was the epitome of ‘the strong silent type’.
“I was put into the foster care system when I was eight years old. I don’t trust my memories enough to think I know why that happened.”
“Do you remember anything?”
“I remembered that my home life was pure hell. I remember the drugs, the alcohol, the bodies passed out and lying around when I’d get up in the mornings.
The loud rock music screaming through the house every night.
I didn’t find out until later that the two people I thought of as my parents weren’t.
” He quickly stood and took both their plates to the sink, got them into the dishwasher, refilled his coffee cup, and settled back at the table.
While he’d done that, Lois had taken care of the leftover food.
“Do you know who they were?”
“The woman I thought was my mother was actually my mother’s third or fourth cousin, and the guy I thought was my father was her boyfriend.
My real parents were killed by a drunk driver when I wasn’t quite a year old, and this cousin was the only blood family I had left.
I later discovered that she only took me in because she could get money from the state for keeping me. ”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be, they received their just rewards in the end.
Anyway, around the time I was eight, there was a new teacher in my school.
I didn’t know until the police showed up that she had moved in across the street, but down a couple of houses from me.
She knew what was going on. She reported it to the police.
See, the extra bodies passed out from the drugs and alcohol were, I’m going to be blunt here, but they were the other men and women my guardians were screwing.
They used the money and food stamps they got to keep me to party.
My teacher felt for me and reported it. It wasn’t until the police arrived, I think it was like the tenth complaint, and it happened to be to a party that got out of hand. ”
“Oh my, how bad?”
“Bad. I abhor to call them my parents, but that was all I knew, but they were fighting. Apparently, he had brought a woman to the house that she hated. Like I just mentioned, they were screwing other people, something about an open relationship, and they had set boundaries on the one person they couldn’t mess with.
He brought home that one person she said no to.
They fought, guns were involved, and though no one was killed, they did fire at a police officer that arrived because of the complaint.
I remember hearing a gun go off, I slipped out of my bedroom window and hid behind the neighbor’s house.
Not the teacher. This neighbor worked nights, he knew of my home situation, and though he didn’t want to become involved, he did help me as much as he could by setting up a little area for me to go if I needed to.
After everything calmed down, I saw my teacher on the sidewalk watching everything and I ran over to her.
She hugged me, and cried. It took some time to tell the police who I was.
It was a mess.” He sipped his coffee, and shook his head.
“I mean a mess. It took damn near a year to sort everything out. During that time, I was placed in temporary foster care, and when it was all said and done, my guardians were arrested because of the drugs, and the illegal firearms they had in their home.”
“What happened to you?”
“I was sent to that emergency foster care family, but after the year was up, I was sent to another family. That went on for about four years, I think I was twelve by that time. I went to another home, and this was the best one by far. The family had a grandfather that they didn’t want to take care of, and they only tolerated him. I loved that man.”
“Why didn’t they like him?”
“He had dementia, and he would talk about the past all the time. They wouldn’t believe him because he wasn’t around when they grew up, they didn’t know whether his stories were true or not.
It didn’t help that he grew up in a different part of the country from them, so they didn’t know his lifestyle.
” Cole looked at Lois with a nostalgia look.
“I believed him, I even took notes. Like I said, I was around twelve when I went to that home, and I think they only kept me around because I was the only one that could deal with the grandfather. I ended up having to feed, bathe, and dress him. They even kept me from school just so I could keep an eye on him. They made up some excuse and I was only physically in the classroom once or twice a month.”
“That wasn’t right.”
“I know, but I think I learned more from taking care of that old man than I would have in the classroom. In the end, it worked out for me.”
They were both quiet for several minutes before Lois reached out and gently laid her hand over his. She didn’t know whether it made her happy or sad when he turned his hand and entwined their fingers. She felt he was using her as a lifeline, and she was okay with that.
“What happened?”
“Three days before my sixteenth birthday, he passed away. We went through the funeral and everything, and when everything settled, the family was pissed at me. They tried to say I manipulated him to change his will. However, the lawyer was clear that Thomas wasn’t coerced by anyone.
” Cole chuckled as he shook his head and rose to get a bottle of water from the refrigerator.
He settled back down with another chuckle.
“What?”
“He played up his dementia for the first couple of years. Yes, his mind was slipping, but not as badly as he led his family to believe. See, he was rich, and his family thought that if they took him in, they would inherit his wealth when he died. I didn’t go to school, not only because I was taking care of him, but he homeschooled me.
It wasn’t until the last six months of his life that the dementia was real and progressed that I fed him, and bathed him.
It was well before that when he changed his will. The lawyer came to the house to do it.”
“Behind the family’s back?”
“Yes. See, I don’t know whether this is important or not, but they would take some of his money and go on vacations and leave me home to take care of him.
He knew this was happening, and expected it.
Before he moved in with them, he had set up this special account that they would have access to.
It wasn’t the bulk of his money though.”
“Oh crap, he set them up? He knew this might happen, and he allowed it?”
“Yes. When he changed his will, he put more money into that account, and when he passed, his family had to share the balance left from the account they had been pilfering from. That was all they got. He left me roughly three hundred thousand dollars, and the rest of his wealth was given away in donations. When his family tried to say I stole from them, they couldn’t say anything because they were left money.
The balance of the account they had been stealing from was almost four million dollars. ”
“Holy crap, they had millions and they wanted your three-hundred-thousand?”
“Yes. They didn’t get it. Because they couldn’t take it from me, they kicked me out of their house.
Instead of going back into the foster care system, I still had roughly a year-and-a-half before I could age out, I took off.
But not before I called my case worker and told them all about these people.
I didn’t stick around to see the outcome of that phone call.
I do know that I gave them Thomas’ lawyer’s number.
See, Thomas said he had been a rodeo rider back in the day.
That’s what we talked about. The notes I took were of some of the people he worked with, and the ranches he worked on.
I made my way through that list until I found someone that knew him.
It didn’t take long, I think it was the second ranch I stopped at.
It was a long list. Anyway, because I knew Thomas, they took me under their wing and taught me everything there was to know about ranching.
I worked my ass off, and with the help of one of the cowboys, I was able to finish school, I only got my GED, but later, I was able to take some college courses.
I didn’t graduate college, but I took courses in what I felt I would need if I ever wanted to own my own ranch. ”
“May I ask what they were?”
“Business, finance, I didn’t want to throw my money away. In the end, I didn’t have to worry.”
“What did you mean by that?”
“I don’t know if I told you this, but everything that happened to me happened in San Diego.
We were so close to the border of Mexico, that it was nothing to walk over said border and get the drugs to bring home.
Hell, we could see the border from the windows in the house, we were that close.
Anyway, when I left that last family, I headed to Idaho, where Thomas said he had been a rodeo rider.
That was my plan, to ride in the rodeo. On the way, I stopped and saw several events.
The second I watched those cowboys riding those horses and bulls, I knew it wasn’t for me.
I know that I didn’t have the heart to ride the wild broncos or bulls.
Thomas warned me that if you didn’t have it in your heart, then you would hate it.
I knew after watching it that I enjoyed watching, but would never want to participate.
That’s when I sought out the ranchers to teach me how to ranch. ”
“That was smart of you. What sixteen or seventeen-year-old do you know today that would have done something like that?”
“None. Anyway, when I was twenty, I thought I had learned enough to strike out on my own. I still had my inheritance, not all of it,” he said with a grin. “I had to have a new truck after all.” They shared a laugh and both drank from their water bottles before he continued,
“Anyway, I heard through the grapevine that there was a rancher looking to hire a manager for his spread. With the help of the ranchers I worked with, they got me an interview, and though I was young, I was only twenty or twenty-one, I was hired on the spot.”
“Where was this, and how long did you work there?”
“It was in Wyoming, and technically, at the age of sixty-eight, I am still working for them.”
“Really? I thought you worked for Erin Riceman?”
“Not technically,” he sighed and scrubbed his face.
“The people I went to work for were the Alcotts. It was a husband-and-wife team, their son was a worthless piece of shit, that didn’t do jack shit around the ranch except to have his hand out every month for his allowance.
With the help of their horse trainer, this couple was getting their granddaughter into the rodeo world.
They needed someone to manage the ranch while they were away.
” He looked at her and grinned. “Naomi Alcott is the granddaughter. Some shit went down recently and because of Erin Riceman, Naomi was able to move her entire ranch from Wyoming to Colorado. The horses are safe, they have more room to roam, we only had five hundred acres, but moved to close to fourteen hundred. We don’t have to deal with her piece of shit father, thank god, he’s still in jail, and because I had no family, nor any place to go, when Naomi asked me to continue being the ranch manger, I moved with them. ”
He saw the emotions flit across her face and took her hands in his. “The only thing Erin owns is the land and buildings New Double is using.” He then went on to explain what had happened years ago and how Erin had come into possession of Ducky’s ranch.
“Holy shit, that is one enterprising woman. She not only has her original ranch, but she built another one on it, took possession of Ducky’s, and now she has The Old Atherton ranch.”
“Don’t forget about Broken Two.” Cole laughed at her expression as he told her what Erin had planned for that side of the ranch.
“And to think,” Lois said with a sigh. “When Lorissa was off doing what she was during her interview with Erin, and meeting everyone at Broken, I was sitting in the cabin wondering why I was even there. Back then, I had absolutely no plans on moving with Lorissa. I had planned to come home, and wait a couple of days before calling Erin and saying thanks but no thanks.”
“But now? What changed your mind?”
“Erin showed me the greenhouses, and told me what she wanted planned for a garden and community pantry.” She paused then looked directly at him. “Then I met you.”