Chapter 2
Liz
Still barefoot, I press my heel against the adobe wall.
Even in August, every morning there are a few minutes when night blurs into day. But today it’s much more complicated. Fear, maybe. Or the aftertaste of knowing that in a few hours everything could change forever.
The cattle know when I arrive. They shift in the dark. The younger heifers crowd the wire, trying to lick my hand. I tap one lightly on the muzzle, and the rest startle.
“Shit, Rosa,” I murmur into the pre-dawn silence. “I hope you knew what you were doing. Because I have no idea.”
The will. The appointment with that lawyer in Alamogordo at ten. And the granddaughter who hasn’t set foot here in years coming to claim what she thinks is hers. I tense up just thinking about it.
When I get back to the main house, the sky is already bleeding, and the clouds are taking on a gorgeous hue. Inside, the Hendersons are moving around the kitchen earlier than usual. They’re worried, too. Today’s the day.
“Good morning, Eliza,” Mrs. Henderson greets without even turning to look at me. She’s the only one who calls me that. To everyone else, I’m Liz.
She’s facing away, kneading flour tortillas harder than usual. Her son Diego is already at the table, but not with his usual novel, the one he never manages to finish.
“Eliza,” she mutters, still kneading, and I’d swear it’s the first time I hear her voice break. “This ranch... it’s all we have. My family has worked here for three generations. The Ochoas, the Martínez, the Sandovals... twelve families in all, Liz. Twelve families who depend on this place.”
“I know,” I sigh.
“If that city girl sells... if she sells, they’ll throw us all out. You know what happened to the Miller ranch. It’s a golf course now.”
I drop into one of the chairs as Mrs. Henderson sets a plate in front of me with two fried eggs and a lot of bacon.
“Rosa wouldn’t do that,” I assure her, though I think I’m saying it more to convince myself than her. “She promised... she told me the ranch would be mine if I took good care of it.”
“Promises aren’t worth a thing without paperwork,” Mr. Henderson protests, his hands still full of tractor grease.
“Fight for us, Eliza,” he reminds me.
“I’m not losing the ranch,” I growl. “I don’t know how, but I’m not losing it.”
Mrs. Henderson nods and goes back to her tortillas, though her hands are shaking. We eat breakfast in silence; the rest of the families have already sat down at the table, but no one talks today.
At nine, I put on a clean shirt and my least beat-up boots. The old pickup complains when it turns over, as if it knows it would rather not make this trip to Alamogordo either.
Ochoa’s office is in a building that has seen better days. Camila Mendoza sits very straight in her chair. Her bun is so tight it must hurt. Dressed in a navy suit and heels, she’s completely out of place in a setting like this.
It’s been years since I last saw her, but she still has that way of moving through life like the universe owes her something. As if her mother and she hadn’t abandoned Rosa when she needed them most.
When she finally lifts her eyes from her phone screen, our gazes meet, and a brief flash of that summer during her last vacation comes back to me, when we were still teenagers, before she decided we were too small town for her.
The lawyer talks, though I don’t hear most of it. Only the important words: “Rancho Vega,” “five thousand acres,” “Camila Mendoza and Eliza Harper.”
And then comes the bombshell.
“The property will transfer to Ms. Mendoza, but only after she successfully completes a sixty-day period of continuous residence at Rancho Vega. Any interruption will be considered a breach, whereupon the inheritance passes to... Ms. Eliza Harper, as the successor.”
Camila looks like she’s about to have a heart attack any second. She protests, goes white and then very red, but the lawyer reminds her she can go back to Chicago whenever she wants if she doesn’t agree, forfeiting all her rights to her grandmother’s ranch.
The situation almost makes me laugh, enough that for a moment I even forget she’ll be in the way for sixty days, or however long she lasts before heading back to the city.
Stepping out of the office, the midday heat is brutal. Camila stops by her rental car, takes off her jacket, folds it perfectly, and arches a brow as she addresses me.
“I guess I’ll see you at the ranch,” she announces, like we were going to have tea or something.
“Do you even know how to get there?”
“I’ve got GPS,” she answers without hesitation, climbing into the car.
I just let out a snort. She’ll soon find out the GPS stops working once you leave the main road.
Back at the ranch, I lay out the situation to the rest of the workers. We vote. Out of respect for her grandmother, we decide not to make her life hell so she’ll leave, but not easy either. She’ll be one of us. Everybody works here. Nothing’s handed to you.
Her rental car shows up almost four hours later, kicking up a great cloud of dust as it approaches the ranch. It stops for a moment in front of the sign at the entrance, maybe talking herself into handling this, and when she sees me, she comes over.
When she gets out of the car, it’s almost comical. Her heels sink into the dry earth as she tries to drag a rolling suitcase over uneven ground. The bun’s already half undone, and a few strands have stuck to her forehead with sweat.
I stay right where I am, leaning against my pickup, letting her struggle on her own. I want her to know this isn’t Chicago, to feel this place. To understand that life here isn’t easy.
“You need help,” I mutter through my teeth. It’s a statement, not a question.
The main house still smells like Rosa. Like strong coffee, like that violet perfume she wore on Sundays.
We’ve kept everything the same since she died two weeks ago.
We didn’t want to move anything important.
The ledgers are still on her desk; she refused to use a computer.
Her favorite mug sits by the coffee maker, the leather boots by the door, like she might walk back in any minute.
“Your room is still upstairs, second door on the right,” I announce.
“I remember.”
“The bathroom’s at the end of the hall. The hot water takes about three minutes to get there. Dinner’s at six. Don’t be late, or there won’t be any left,” I warn her.
I pivot on my heel without even looking at her, but she catches me by the elbow to stop me.
“Liz. I know you don’t want me here...”
“You got that right,” I cut her off. “I don’t want you here. This ranch is my life and twelve families’. It’s my work. My people. You’re just a tourist coming to play cowboy for two months.”
“While I was driving, I thought about it. My grandmother left that clause in the will for a reason.”
“Your grandmother,” I pause and bite my lower lip to keep from saying what I really think. “Your grandmother was alone when she died, with her employees but without her family. Where was your mother? Where were you? In Chicago, making a fortune while she was dying?”
“You don’t know the whole story,” she protests.
“You’re the one who doesn’t know the whole story,” I snap.
“I know every fence I fixed while you weren’t here.
Every calf I helped bring into the world.
Every night Rosa and I sat on the porch, worried about how we’d keep the ranch afloat.
This place isn’t yours just because your last name shows up on a piece of paper. ”
“Legally...”
“Screw your laws,” I growl before walking out. “You’ve got sixty days, lawyer. Try not to break anything, because it’s going to be the longest fucking summer of your life.”
“You think I won’t last, don’t you? Well, let me tell you, you’re wrong. You think you’re tough, but I go up against finance sharks every day. Besides, this place is gorgeous,” she adds, and her words make my blood boil.
“It’s not a damn painting. This is hard work, sweat, and a lot of shit. Literally.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t,” I snort, stepping so close we’re inches apart.
“You don’t know what it’s like to spend a night knee-deep in mud because a first-calf heifer can’t deliver.
You’ve never had to put a horse down because it broke a leg.
You’ve never watched whole families lose everything they have because a drought wiped out the pasture. ”
“No,” she admits. “But I can learn.”
“You don’t learn shit in sixty days. In sixty days, at best, you’ll learn how not to die of heatstroke.”
I leave before she can answer. I’m not in the mood to keep talking about nonsense. The night wind carries the smell of rain. The cattle are restless. There’ll be extra work.
From my window, I see a light in Camila’s room, and, for the first time since Rosa died, I don’t know what’s going to happen. And that scares me. Because that woman never did anything without a reason. And if she left that damned sixty-day clause, it’s because she saw something I can’t see.
Or because she wanted to punish me for something.
I just hope that old woman knew exactly what she was doing.