Chapter 9
CHAPTER 9
“Wow,” Ryan said the next day as he opened the door to the main house for Pru to enter before him.
“What?” Pru asked as she kicked her shoes off and headed down the hall.
“I hadn’t expected this many people.”
“It’s just us girls and the men. Oh, and the guys.”
Ryan wore a scowl as he walked up the hall and into the kitchen. He was immediately hit with the sense of homecoming as he saw the men and women interacting. This was the first time he’d seen everyone together in one place. He smiled when he actually recognized the three older men from when he had been there years earlier. He gave a start when Erin looked up and saw him.
“You!” She pointed a finger at him. “My office, now.” She turned on her heel and he looked at the others.
“Don’t look at us,” Reid said as he grinned. “The room at the end of the hall.” He pointed and Ryan slowly made his way there. He saw Erin sitting behind her desk, and he swallowed hard before he entered.
“Have a seat,” she said as she pointed to the two chairs before her desk. He gingerly sat down and looked at her. “You’re not in trouble, but I want to get the paperwork out of the way.”
“What paperwork?”
“When you start working here, I’ll need your information for payroll.”
“Oh, you’re going to hire me?”
“Of course. I don’t expect you to do anything until you’re completely, or moderately healed, but yes, I’m going to hire you. Clark said he and the men showed you what Broken does?”
“Yes.” Ryan answered her payroll questions, and said he’d get her a copy of his license and social security card later, since he’d left his wallet at home. The entire process only took fifteen minutes and the two of them were laughing when they entered the kitchen.
He took a seat at the table to stay out of the way as people got food on the table. Before long, dishes were being passed, and Ryan grinned when the green beans never made it to the end of the table Erin sat at, and the peas didn’t make it to Pru. He put both on his plate, and grinned harder when Pru wrinkled her nose at him.
Halfway through the meal, Ryan perked up when he heard his former teammates talking.
“What are you talking about?” He looked at each of them.
“We’ve been experiencing some problems here on the ranch,” Reid said as he looked down the table at his best friend.
Erin laid her hand on Reid’s arm and looked at Ryan. “Has anyone told you what’s been going on?”
“Not really, other than them showing me the ropes at the barn, the only person who has said anything has been Pru.” He looked at Perry with a scowl. “You were shot?”
Erin shook her head and sighed heavily. “All this shit started about two years ago. Reid has been here for almost a year now, and it started before he arrived.”
“Actually,” Naomi spoke then. “It was almost three years ago when we got Katie.”
“Who’s Katie?”
“A horse.”
“Okay, what happened?”
“You know that Broken rehabilitates rescue horses, right?” Erin asked as she continued eating, as did the others.
“Yes.”
“Well, I get the horses from auctions, or I check them out before they go to the slaughter houses, but most of the time, I get them when there are reports of abuse and the SPCA steps in. That’s how I got Katie.” They all continued to eat for a few minutes, then Erin moved her plate away when she finished.
“I had a verbal contract with the local SPCA office. Since this shit’s been happening, I now have one in writing.”
“You do?” Clark asked in shock.
“Yeah, I finalized it yesterday. Sorry I forgot to tell you.”
“I understand it’s hard for you to share. I forgive you.”
Ryan looked between the two and didn’t see any animosity between the siblings. He was confused, then turned when Clark explained.
“Erin’s been on her own for so long that she’s made all the decisions around here. I know this is going off track, but not only does she operate Erin’s Way, but there’s Broken, and she even has an on-line business. We can get into that later. I’m putting this out there that you can work for any of the three, you don’t have to stay at Broken.”
“I agree,” Erin said. “It wasn’t until January of this year that I had Clark added as half owner to everything.”
“Is that because he was in the military?”
“Yes. I know Clark is equal in this, but I’ve been in charge for so long that it’s hard to discuss my plans with anyone.”
“I’m not mad, Rin.” Clark turned to Ryan. “I agree with everything she’s done so far. Never in a million years would I have suspected that this ranch could be this profitable. I’m not disparaging my ancestors, but Rin has taken Erin’s Way to new heights. I’m proud of her, and her vision isn’t done yet. That’s what I’m doing. I’m working on the other side of the barn to Broken to bring that vision to fruition.”
“Pru told me about some construction going on over there.”
“Yeah, you should come over and see it. But not until you’re completely healed. Again, this is off topic, but will you always use the cane?”
“No, the doctors didn’t even tell me I had to use it. I found it helped me walk better and kept me steady when I was standing still. I had lost so much weight, that I was weak. Since coming here, I’ve been eating more, and getting around better. I think when I put on ten pounds I can ditch the cane.”
“How come you weren’t in the hospital longer?” Reid scowled at his friend.
“Like you were after Operation Gold Rush?” Ryan shot back.
“Touché,” Reid said with a shake of his head. He looked at the others at the table that didn’t know the story. “I walked around for a week with an IV sticking out of my arm. I refused to lie in a bed. I only had a bullet wound in my lower leg.”
“Bullet wound, my ass.” Ryan laughed. “You had a through and through. Besides, you saw my back, if I stayed in bed, I would have lain on the damage and it would have never healed. Denver told me yesterday that I can probably get away with no bandage on my back. My stomach is a different story.”
“What happened to your stomach?” Marcia asked from her place beside Lloyd.
“When I was saving that women from those men, while Pru and I were fighting them off, one of them sliced my stomach. Not enough to go to the hospital, but Denver was able to stitch me up.”
“How many stitches?” Adele asked.
Ryan turned to Denver with a quirked brow. “I have no clue.”
“Fifteen,” Pru answered. When everyone looked at her, she shrugged. “I changed the bandage and counted them.”
“Wow.” No one said anything after that as they finished their meal. The older men rose to their feet and began clearing the table, and Erin sat back with a glass with a small amount of amber liquid inside.
“What’s going on here at the ranch? Should I be worried?”
“Not so much as worried, but definitely wary, and on alert,” Erin said. She shook her head and sat forward. “As I was saying, almost three years ago, I got a call from the local SPCA. I worked with an agent named Paul Miller. He had been out to Broken a few times, and I explained what I wanted. I had a verbal contract that they would contact me if they had any cases where a horse was reported as abused. That contract basically said that I would foster the horse until the case against the abuser was investigated. If the case didn’t have any merit, the horse was returned to the original owner. If the abuser was found guilty, I was given first opportunity to purchase the foster.”
“Why? Wouldn’t they get the animal back after they satisfied the courts?”
“No,” all the women at the table said. Ryan turned to look at Pru when she took up the story.
“I arrived during Katie’s fostering. The previous owner was found guilty of animal cruelty and sentenced to three years in jail. He was also told that he couldn’t own another horse again for the rest of his life. Katie was depressed for months. She barely lifted her head when we talked to her, and it took a long time to get her weight back up and for her to not jerk away from us when we attempted to put a halter on her. Until Reid.”
Ryan looked down the table, and smiled when his best friend broke out into a wide grin. “I didn’t do anything special.” Reid shook his head. “The women kept telling me that horses are slow to trust after being abused. I imagine it’s like that for any animal, but horses can be very stubborn. I had only been here for three or four weeks when I was walking in an aisle and felt someone push me from behind. Well, we all know how we would react. I turned to confront my attacker and found Katie standing there.”
“The horse?”
“Yes, she had an old, dilapidated ball in her mouth. I knew there were some balls in the tack room, so I told that horse to stay where she was and went to get a fully inflated one. When I returned, I didn’t know what to do, so I tossed it out into the pasture. Damn if that horse didn’t go after it and bring it back.”
“Wow, is that normal?”
“Yes, if the horse trusts the person they play with. After that day, Katie perked up, and she lifted her head, her ears weren’t flat against her head, and Tom, our vet, didn’t have to put her on depression medication.”
“To this day, I play ball with Katie every day for two hours. Even if I’m busy here at Erin’s Way, or with the on-line business, I still make time to see her every day. I don’t want her to think I abandoned her, even if I’m not over at Broken every day.”
“Wow.” Ryan shook his head in wonder.
“But,” Pru said from his side, and the tone of the room changed. He straightened and looked at everyone.
“But what?”
“But the asshat who used to own Katie got out of jail early. He only served eighteen months of a three-year sentence. He showed up over at Broken, drunk, honking the horn of his truck, making all kinds of noise, and had a trailer hitched to his truck. He got out calling Erin a horse thief and tried to get Katie back. Cops came, and he was arrested. Thankfully, both Erin and Naomi are meticulous in their paperwork and had proof that Erin owned Katie. He was hauled off to jail, but made bail.”
“Yeah,” Marcia said then. “When Lloyd had been here less than a week, he and I answered a call from Tom.”
“The vet?”
“Yes, he asked us to come get some horses, the cops and SPCA were on scene. We arrived, and after getting permission from the authorities, we loaded up four horses, two donkeys and one mule. Maxine was the most severely damaged. She was so dehydrated and malnourished that she was blind.”
“It broke my heart,” Lloyd said. “After we put them in quarantine, and Tom gave them a thorough exam, that’s when we realized she was blind. It turned out the two donkeys would walk beside her to guide her, while the mule walked ahead as a look out. It’s been several months, but it’s all worked out, and they are healthy, and Erin was able to purchase them legally.”
“But the bitch of it is,” Pru said. “The guy that abused Maxine and her mini herd, is the brother who abused Katie.”
“No way. What’s their name?”
“Last name of Firth. Philip Firth was the one that abused Katie, while Ernie, his brother, abused Maxine.”
“I take it Maxine is your horse now?” Ryan looked at Lloyd with a grin.
“You better believe it.”
“Fast forward a few weeks, and Erin asked us to go out to the summer pasture and bring back the couple dozen head of cattle she had there. It had been an unusually hot summer and fall. She said she was late getting them closer to here.”
“Besides, I wanted to fatten them up because I was sending them to slaughter to fill our freezers.” Erin grinned down the table at him. “I sent my guys, which are Wendel, Floyd, and Virgil, with them, were Reid and his men. Lloyd and Perry.”
“When I arrived,” Perry laughed, “Adele was having trouble with a horse. You saw me when I left the base for the last time, I couldn’t talk in a normal voice.”
“I remember, I see you’re talking normal now. How are the ears?”
“Better. Anyway, this ranch is huge, and it took us three days to get to our destination on horseback. Oh, let me backtrack, because this is important. The day I arrived, Adele was working with a horse, she was trying to get the horse to cooperate, but she wouldn’t.”
“That would be Peaches,” Adele smirked at Ryan and rolled her eyes at Perry.
“Yes, Adele did a quick experiment where she called the horse, but was ignored, then she asked me to call her. The horse responded to my loud voice. We put her in quarantine until Tom could make it out.”
“Why?”
“If a horse has a disease, we don’t want it to spread to the others. All new horses that come in go into quarantine until they are cleared with Tom. He comes out and draws blood, and sends it in. Anyway, after that little demonstration, I suspected Peaches had an ear infection. We separated her from the rest, and called Tom. I was right, she did have an infection. We treated her, and she could return to the others. While she was by herself, Perry would go in every day and talk to her. She became obsessed with him.” Adele reached out and put her hand over Perry’s and looked at him with a sappy smile.
“I can say this with a laugh now, but I was actually jealous of the bitch, the way she would wantonly rub herself all over his chest was disgraceful at times.”
They all laughed at what she had said, then Perry chuckled as he kissed the side of her head. “Anyway, we left to go get the cattle. When we found them, it had been raining lightly for a couple of hours. We were on a ridge, and Wendel looked down on them. That’s when we spotted some cattle rustlers. Reid sent me to look for any vehicles they might have and when I found them, I not only let the air out of the trailer tires, but I also let the air out of their truck tires. At that time, I still had a hard time hearing over the ringing, and over the rain, and the ringing, I thought I heard gun shots. I started back toward the others and sure enough, the rustlers were being chased by Reid and the others. Shots rang out, and I took one in the shoulder.”
“Before they left,” Adele said. “I told Peaches that if anything happened to Daddy, then to bring him to me and I would help him. I did it as a joke, but six days after they left, in the middle of a tremendous thunder and lightning storm, someone almost took my door off its hinges in the middle of the night.”
“What the hell?”
“Yeah, it was Peaches.”
“We knew Perry had been shot,” Reid said. “We were torn as to go after him, or continue our pursuit of the rustlers. When I saw Perry jerk, Peaches took off like a bat out of hell, and the bad guys were running toward the cops that Wendel had called. We knew we could catch up with Perry. He didn’t fall off his horse.”
“When I opened the door, Peaches was in a state. She had run so far and so fast that she had lather dripping off her. When I tried to catch her, she went to Perry’s truck and kept looking inside the bed. I found him and after I removed her saddle and bit, I rubbed her down as best I could and got him to the hospital.”
“When I woke, it turned out that I not only had a bullet in my shoulder, but when Peaches dumped me in the bed of my truck, I hit my head hard enough to bleed from my ears. Turns out I had a blood clot that the military never found. When I woke, I could hear. Don’t get me wrong, the ringing is still there, but not as intense as before. All thanks to Peaches, she saved my life.”
“What happened to the rustlers?”
“The fuckers got out on bail.”