Chapter 18
Liz
I never trust days that start out so quiet.
I’ve barely slept. In a few hours a whole bunch of city people will flood the ranch, and I know they’ll drive me crazy. I’m not like my sister. T-Lee walks between both worlds. I’m tied to the land.
Dawn breaks strange for this time of year.
The sky is painted a deep orange, the kind that makes it look like the whole world is glowing from the inside.
Camila is still in bed, mouth open, her right arm hanging off the edge of the mattress.
I just want five more minutes of peace before facing the nightmare I know is coming.
Outside, the air still reeks of last night’s storm, and from the porch you can see the muddy puddles it left at the entrance and around the barn.
I haven’t even finished my scrambled eggs when I hear an engine roar.
A red Ferrari has gotten stuck in one of the mudholes on the road, its wheels spinning with a wet, squelching chuff that splatters mud in every direction without gaining an inch.
The woman driving it is shouting for help, not daring to get out of the car.
Two more high-end vehicles appear right behind and get stuck too. Luckily, T-Lee rallies one of the cowboys and hauls the Ferrari out of the muck with her pickup. The driver, far from angry, seems thoroughly amused as she records the whole thing on her cell phone.
“Shit,” I mutter under my breath as I toss back my coffee. “They’re here.”
Within minutes, the yard is full of influencers shouting for the Wi-Fi password.
A well-known YouTuber steps out of an electric car. His cologne wafts all the way to the porch.
“Wow, T-Lee, this is... this is really rustic!” he admits, greeting my sister. “Do they deliver organic food all the way out here from the city?”
Camila looks in her element, greeting the visitors one by one and explaining the basic rules while directing the ranch hands to take the luggage to the main house.
“Sorry, cowgirl, I think the Wi-Fi isn’t working right,” protests the woman who was driving the Ferrari. “I’m Liv, with a 'V,' like Liv Tyler, but no relation,” she clarifies, handing me her phone with the browser open, as if I knew anything about that sort of thing.
“I think there are too many phones connected,” I explain to her. “Our Wi-Fi is a little slow.”
She stares at me in horror.
Camila hands us a list of the “Ranch Tasks” while Rosie slowly shakes her head and murmurs a prayer.
I’m assigned “animal handling.” The group splits into teams: one for the chickens, another for milking, and the last for the stables.
That last one seems the safest, so I pick it, not knowing these kids were born with a special talent for driving horses crazy.
Luckily, I’ve hidden old Relámpago at the Ortegas’ place, though Diabla looks ready to bite a kid’s little fingers clean off if one gets close enough.
The chicken team is a complete disaster.
Liv won’t listen to instructions and insists on hand-feeding them, saying that’s how she “connects with nature” while the YouTuber from Los Angeles films her.
Five seconds later, the chickens have gone feral and are chasing her around the yard for food while she screams and waves the feed bucket before slipping and face-planting in the dirt. Mrs. Henderson is crying with laughter.
“This is gonna be epic, dude,” says T-Lee, who recorded the whole scene with a drone.
The milking team doesn’t go much better. A dad tries to impress his teenage kids, and all he manages is to get the cow to slap him across the face with her tail and then kick the bucket, soaking his brand-new hiking pants.
In a moment of inattention, the group of kids slips away after one of the barn cats. One of them tries to grab her, and I have to take him back to his parents with his arm bleeding from a scratch.
“This won’t do,” mutters the Ochoas’ grandmother, as horrified as I am.
In the afternoon, the horseback riding part goes much better than I expected. Most of the influencers had ridden before, and even the kids have lost their fear.
Dinner is the easiest part. They’re all exhausted, with a thousand stories to tell, and they devour the food Mrs. Henderson has been cooking.
“Hey, you okay?” Camila whispers, sitting down beside me and wrapping an arm around my waist. “You survived the first day.”
I grunt, but it isn’t even a real complaint.
“They leave Monday, right? I think I can put up with them two more days. I hope it’s worth it.”
“I don’t like this wind. The devil brings it,” murmurs the Ortegas’ grandmother, leaning with difficulty on her cane as she plants herself in front of me.
My stomach knots. Over the years and with experience, this woman has developed a kind of sixth sense for trouble. It’s true she usually links it to some sort of supernatural event, often demons or spirits, but she’s rarely wrong.
“Do you think a fire’s coming?”
She grunts and seems to sniff the air before answering.
“If there isn’t one, there wants to be,” she announces after spitting on the ground, her gaze fixed on the distance. “Keep your eyes wide open, girl. Today’s a day to lose everything.”
I run a hand through my hair and try not to think about her words, though it’s impossible not to.
Fires, this time of year, are devastating.
If one makes it onto the ranch, hundreds of acres could burn before we can react, and with all these people here.
.. things would get a whole lot more complicated.
Luckily, this Liv decides to go live on TikTok to tell her chicken adventure, and soon another influencer joins her, making us all laugh and helping me forget the Ortegas’ grandmother’s bad omen.
In the distance, a coyote howls, and everyone goes quiet before getting back to the live. And then everything happens too fast.
“FIRE!” shouts the Martínez kid brother, waving his arms. “It’s moving through the southern pastures from the Spencer ranch.”
I turn my head. At first, it’s just a line on the horizon, but soon it becomes an orange band, devouring the far hills where our ranch borders the Spencers’.
“The wind is pushing it this way,” I mutter to myself.
People are screaming, running; some try to call 911, but everyone’s started filming.
“We need to get the cattle out and drive them to the north pastures!” I order.
“Ortega, take Jason—one tractor each—I want you to cut bare-earth strips at least 35 feet wide. Rip out all the vegetation. We need to stop that fire until the firefighters get here. Camila, get them to the main house; keep them back. It could be dangerous,” I add, running toward the stable with the rest of the hands to saddle the horses.