The Rocker A
Maria wasn’t surprised when the Austins weren’t there to meet her off the plane.
They were probably busy, and she doubted any of them were jumping up and down because she was coming to the ranch.
Still, it would have been nice if even one of her relatives had been interested enough to drive over to the airport.
Blaise pointed out various landmarks as he drove.
He was a ranch hand and usually worked with the stock, but they’d been short-handed (it seemed to be a general thing, no matter where Maria went), and he’d gotten sent to pick her up.
Now that she was here, she’d have to use one of the ranch trucks to drive the ten miles into town if she needed anything.
Maria couldn’t believe how big everything was.
The sky, the river, the plains, the mountains—she felt so small.
It must be incredible, riding over these plains and hills.
She could see why someone would want to settle here, in this glorious landscape.
Other parts of Montana, she’d heard, were dry and dusty.
Here, by the river, the grass was lush. They were almost at the ranch, on the eastern side of the valley through which the river ran.
Ahead of them was the gate, with a sign over it: “Rocker A Ranch.” The sign was weather-beaten, clearly hand carved.
Maybe it was the original ranch sign, or a replica.
The road wound through hills and wide empty meadows. “Those are hay meadows,” Blaise said. “This time of year, the cattle are up in the highest part of the ranch. We bring ‘em down when it gets cold.”
“That explains where the cattle are,” Maria said. “I was wondering.”
“You gonna be a wrangler or something?” Blaise asked.
“No, I’m gonna work in the kitchen,” Maria said. “And I’m living at the ranch house.”
“You’re Pat’s granddaughter, aren’t you?”
Pat? Oh, Blaise must mean Patricia Austin. Whoever sent him out to pick Maria up must have filled him in. “Yes,” Maria said.
“Then why are you stuck in the kitchen?” Blaise’s face creased in puzzlement. “I would have thought any Austin relative would be out working on the range. Except Russell. He quit riding. His back bothers him.”
Were the Austins so stuck-up they considered anybody who wasn’t riding the range inferior? Cooking wasn’t an inferior job. Everybody had to eat to live.
They approached a group of barns, other low buildings, and some fences and corrals.
“This is the main operation,” Blaise said. “The kitchen’s here. The guys’ bunkhouse is over there. If you look behind the bunkhouse you can just see the helicopter pad.”
Helicopter pad? That was fancy.
“Want to stop here at the kitchen, or do you wanna go up to the big house?” Blaise asked.
Probably best to meet Grandma Austin before she did anything around the ranch. “Let’s go up to the big house,” Maria said.
The road wound through sun-drenched meadows beside a dancing creek. As the road ascended, mountain peaks drew closer. “That’s the Beartooth Wilderness, with the Absaroka Mountains,” Blaise explained. “The ranch backs up to it.”
“Are those part of the Rockies?” Maria asked.
“Yeah.”
“Wow.”
The road twisted around and came out at the top of a hill in front of one of the largest houses Maria had ever seen.
It was a long, low house—one-story for the most part—with huge windows nearly covering the front of the house and a large stone patio outside.
Behind the house sat tall mountains. Whoever built this must have enjoyed the view.
“Here you are.” Blaise hopped out of the truck. “I’ll get your suitcase.”
Maria got down from the truck slowly, vertigo making her watch her steps. She’d never been up so high in her life.
Slowly, she turned to look the way they had come.
The trout pond Dad had mentioned sat in a winding creek valley, surrounded by wooded hills.
She could barely make out the buildings of the main ranch operation in the distance.
Mom had had that view every morning when she came out her front door. What a sight! Just short of paradise!
“Here’s your bag,” Blaise’s voice said behind Maria. “Need anything else?”
“I don’t think so,” Maria said absently. “Thanks a lot, Blaise.”
“Anytime.” Blaise drove off.
Maria stood there, soaking in the view. How could Mom have turned her back on all this and come to flat Michigan to live in a suburb?
Well, maybe it was family pressure. Even a paradise could be wrecked by family pressure. She had seen the beauty of the Rocker A, but she had yet to meet her grandmother.
Maria squared her shoulders, took a firm grip on her bag, and started for the big house.
Besides the huge windows, the house was built mostly of stone and timbers. The main entrance was off to one side, a hefty wooden door with “Welcome” spelled in horseshoes. Hopefully that “welcome” applied to her. Maria took hold of the brass knocker and knocked, hard.
The door opened, and a tall gray-haired man in his fifties, wearing a blue polo and khaki shorts, looked down at Maria. “Maria! It’s good to meet you. I’m Russell.” He held out a hand.
“Hi, Uncle Russell.” Maria shook his hand. “Good to meet you too.”
“Come in, come in.” Uncle Russell waved Maria past him into the house. “You can meet my wife and your grandma. They’re in the office at the other end of the house. You can leave your suitcase—somebody will take care of it.”
Maria relinquished her grip on the suitcase containing everything she’d brought for the summer and followed Uncle Russell through an enormous living room.
She gawked at the peaked roof, stone walls, and the stuffed buffalo head over the fireplace.
The furnishings were brightly colored, Western themed, with a lot of polished wood and bronze sculpture.
Maria had to hurry to keep up with her uncle’s loafer-shod steps.
For someone whose back bothered him, he moved fast. Well, if you were going to get around such a big house, you probably couldn’t waste too much time.
They passed through a state-of-the-art kitchen, a formal dining room, a cozy family room with a big fireplace, and a covered walkway connecting the main house with a separate house.
“This used to be the guest house,” Uncle Russell explained, “but your grandma turned it into offices.”
They must do a lot of business and not have a lot of guests.
Uncle Russell led the way into the offices, throwing open a door on the right.
Maria tensed with each step closer to meeting Grandma Austin.
What did you say to somebody who had disowned your parents but was inviting you to work on her ranch?
“Hi, Grandma” sounded too chummy. “Hi, I’m Maria” sounded silly, because of course Grandma Austin would know who she was.
“I was wondering why you sent me that letter” got more to the point, but Maria didn’t think she had the nerve to lead with that.
“Russell, is she here?” a brisk female voice said from inside.
“She is.” Russell made way for Maria to come past him. “Your grandma and your Aunt Steph.”
Maria stood in the doorway. At a desk by the window sat an older woman with short iron-gray hair. That must be her grandmother. The tall, thin dark-haired woman leaning over the desk must be Aunt Steph.
“Maria, come in!” Patricia Austin rose. She was an angular woman of medium height, two or three inches taller than Maria, wearing a sensible plaid shirt and jeans. “Let me look at you.”
Patricia’s face was worn from riding the range all her life, and the corners of her mouth were deep frown lines. Did she know how to smile? Aunt Steph looked worried, but pleasant, and the navy flowered dress she wore looked expensive.
“Hello.” Maria came forward shyly.
“Hello.” A thin smile curved Patricia’s face. So she could smile—sort of. “I’m glad you’ve come. My, you take after your father. Russell said you didn’t look a bit like Amy, and I see he was right. How was your trip?”
“It was good,” Maria said truthfully. “This ranch is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.”
“Good!” Patricia looked pleased. “We try hard to keep it that way. Even though some people get ideas into their heads about selling out and moving”—she glanced at Russell—“this ranch has been in the family since the 1880s, and it’s the pride of my life.”
That explained why she was so upset about Mom leaving. Her kids weren’t the pride of her life—the ranch was. Maria kept her mouth closed and tried to look pleasant.
“Did you bring luggage? Russell can bring it up and show you around,” Patricia said. “You’ll be staying in the east bedroom, back in the house. You’ll be next to Savannah, Russell and Steph’s youngest. Annabelle will be across the hall.”
“Thank you,” Maria said.
“You’re going to work in the kitchen, down by the bunkhouse. That’s where the food gets made for the ranch hands and any guests we have. There’s a guesthouse down there. I have no intention of turning the Rocker A into a dude ranch, but it’s good business sense to let a few people vacation here.”
Ah, so they did have guests—paying ones.
“You’ll be working under Jessie and Rob, our kitchen supervisors,” Patricia said. “They’re short-handed—they’ll be glad to have you. I hear you’re quite the cook.”
Uncle Russell must have seen her dad talking her up on social media and passed on the information to his mother. Maria smiled. “Thank you. I love cooking.”
“Good,” Patricia said. “I do too. Although these days Steph does a lot of our cooking. She likes trying out recipes online.”
“Maybe we can swap a few tips,” Aunt Steph said, smiling. Her red lipstick set off her dark hair and flowered dress.
“I’d like that,” Maria told her.
“Well, Russell, why don’t you take Maria to her room?” Patricia asked. “She’s probably tired and wants to unpack. Somebody can show her around the ranch once she’s had some time to decompress. I’ve got to get back to these invoices.”
“Sure, sure,” Uncle Russell said. “Right this way, Maria.”
That was quick for Patricia’s first conversation with her now grown-up granddaughter. Maria’s shoulders drooped. She didn’t need to worry about what to say to Patricia after all—she’d hardly gotten a word in before being dismissed. Well, Patricia had work to do.
Russell led the way up a staircase from the living room, around a corner, and through a hallway into a room on the right-hand side of the house.
It was a white-walled bedroom with a twin bed, a dresser, and a large window looking out toward a brown wooden barn.
Behind the barn the mountains rose so high Maria had to crouch down by the window to see their tops.
The floor was covered with a cheery red rug with a Navajo pattern, and a bright quilt lay on the bed.
A picture of cowboys on horseback hung above the bed.
A picture of a mountain lion hung next to the window.
“Do you get a lot of mountain lions here?” Maria asked.
“Not too many near the house.” Uncle Russell deposited Maria’s suitcase near the dresser. “When we hear of one roaming around, some of our guys hide out and look for it. A few of them have mountain lion licenses.”
Maria wouldn’t have guessed you needed a license to shoot a mountain lion. “Wow,” she said. “I guess I’d better not walk around at night by myself.”
“You’re safe enough if you’re with a couple people,” Uncle Russell said. “They won’t attack a group. Besides, I haven’t seen one in a couple months.”
He went away, whistling, leaving Maria to collect her thoughts. She sat down on the bed. It was soft.
Well, so far, so good. Grandma Austin hadn’t been effusive—no hug, no warmth, no real conversation—but what had Maria expected?
Uncle Russell and Aunt Steph seemed all right.
Maybe getting to know Uncle Russell and Aunt Steph would help bring about some friendliness between the families.
If Maria won all of them over, maybe Patricia would eventually follow.
In the meantime, Maria was here, and she couldn’t wait to explore.
She unpacked her clothes. She felt bad for Uncle Russell lugging her suitcase up the stairs; besides her clothes, she’d brought some kitchen equipment (no real cook ever went to a new job without his or her knife set) and far more books than Dad and Grandma had thought were necessary.
But maybe she’d get bored and want something to read.
The chances of getting bored seemed low, though.
She could lose herself in the gorgeous wooded valley down there after work each day, exploring until dark.
She could go fishing. She’d enjoyed fishing with her dad growing up, and there were so many possible fishing spots on the ranch.
This might be a good summer, after all. Of course, that wasn’t the main reason she’d come.
She had to work that job—and she still didn’t know much about it—and she was going to try her darnedest to become friends with her relatives, both the ones she’d met so far and the ones she hadn’t.