Epilogue - Ty
T heir shared Christmas had been a small affair, with a tabletop Christmas tree (a real one) in Michelle’s apartment, and a bit of real pine boughs circled around a red candle in Ty and Hudson’s apartment. The candle had never gotten lit because it was a fire hazard, so they’d put it in a box and tucked it away for another year.
As for presents, they used some of the money to buy the boys warmer coats, and to get Michelle a trip to the salon for a massage, and something called a mani-pedi. She’d cried when she’d seen the gift certificate, and Ty thought that was money well spent.
As for himself and Hudson, they purchased a used car so they wouldn’t have to borrow Michelle’s all the time. It was only an old blue Ford Escape that they’d gotten from a liquidator, but it was dependable and it was theirs. It had room to carry groceries and wasn’t too bad on gas mileage either.
The majority of the money was in a local bank, in a combined account for all of them to use. Hardly anybody touched it, and the three of them staggered along on what they could make, paycheck to paycheck. Pretending the money wasn’t there until they really needed to use it.
He and Hudson had gone to the thrift store to buy rings for each other, two solid gold bands to wear. The bands were scratched, and not antique enough to be valuable, a little worn from some hand wearing them for years. This’ll do for now, Hudson had said. I don’t want to go through the ceremony until I feel we’re more settled.
As to what Hudson meant by that, Ty had no idea. Which was the problem. Ever since before Christmas, Hudson had been withdrawn. In spite of Ty asking him to share what was going on with him, Hudson was tight-lipped, walking around with a stick up his ass as if he meant to save them all, and without any assistance from anyone.
So it had been a quiet January, with Trevor in half-day kindergarten and Gareth in the second grade. Ty still had no real job to speak of, so he took to hanging around the laundromat with Michelle, helping her out while waiting until it was time to pick up each boy, Trevor at noon, and Gareth at two thirty.
In between, he shoveled snow for the whole block, laundromat, bakery, the beauty salon, and the little deli that had seen better days but was hanging on as best it could. He did this every day, as January had been quite snowy.
Hudson had switched to driving a snowplow, and seemed to enjoy getting out to plow roads as far as they would let him. All the way to Minatare on Highway 26 some days. He was usually late getting back to the apartment each day, as if being on the road was the only thing that saved him, and being inside the walls of the cramped apartment was too much to bear.
Ty also ran errands, when asked, or took out trash, helped unload bags of flour or whatever, just to stay busy. He’d given up looking for a regular job, and Michelle didn’t seem to mind the company.
All of this was better than being in prison, wasn’t it? At least they had money in the bank, though beyond the few things they really needed, they hadn’t spent any of it. It was as if they didn’t dare spend any of it, in case the bank wanted it back.
On a snowy day in February, when the sky was low and gray, and the sunlight barely filtered through like dingy soapsuds, the phone in Ty’s back pocket rang. He reached for it absently, looking out of the large windows of the Luna Bean Cafe to the wide street beyond.
As he was seated at one of the brown tables, he could lean forward, hunched like the call was important and the conversation top secret. There was nobody in the place but him and he didn’t recognize the number, but it was better than doing nothing but staring out the window for another hour, nursing a coffee until it grew cold and it was time to pick up the boys.
“Hello?” he said.
“This is Augustus Odell calling,” said a voice that sounded like an older man who’d seen a lot and done most of it. Rough, but with a slight softness around the edges, as if he came from Virginia or another southern state. “You can call me Gus, though. All the folks around here do.”
“Hello, Gus,” said Ty, completely puzzled. “What can I do for you?”
“Right to business, I see,” said Gus. “Well, I heard it from Zeke Molloy that you know all about regenerative ranching.”
“Regenerative?” asked Ty, just on the edges of wondering if this was some kind of prank call and he the unlucky recipient.
“You know. Moving the cattle around to keep the grass good. To keep the riverbanks sturdy.”
“Oh.” Ty sat up, every muscle taut. “I didn’t know it had a name. We just called it moving the cattle around.”
“Best excuse to sleep under the stars I ever heard of,” said Gus.
“That’s true,” said Ty, though he had not one single idea in his head as to how to move the conversation forward to a point where he understood what Gus wanted. It felt like he was crawling out from under an old sheet of cardboard, and could barely lift it to see out from under it.
“Since my wife died, I needed something to do,” said Gus.
“Your wife?” asked Ty.
“My beloved Philomena,” said Gus, his words thick. “My little filly.” He coughed. “She passed away in October and it’s all so new without her. New and messy and horrible. My old friend Nolan got fed up with me dragging my heels, I expect, so he told me to try something new. So I did.”
“Excuse me, Gus,” said Ty. “Mr. Odell, I’m sorry, but I’m a little lost. And I guess I don’t know who Nolan is.”
“Why, that’s Nolan Thackery,” said Gus in a voice that announced his complete surprise that Ty wasn’t up on all of Gus’s friends. “He lives down the road, about an hour or so. Raises the finest paints the Lord ever did see fit to decorate. And I think you know his grandson, Royce. Smart as a blade, that one.”
“I know Royce,” said Ty slowly. “Didn’t his grandpa have a sprained wrist, and they went up to see him?”
“The very one,” said Gus with satisfaction, as if pleased that Ty was coming around. “Damn fool is too old to be riding a horse that was nearly green, but does he listen to me, his oldest friend? No, he did not, and I’m coming to regret listening to him about this newfangled way of ranching, on account of I can’t find a single wrangler who hasn’t already been hired for the season.”
“Gus,” said Ty, breaking into what was turning out to be a very lengthy story. “I’m sorry to hear about your wife, but I don’t—I don’t know what you want from me. I guess I need to go now.”
“Hang on,” said Gus, bluster in the words. “I think she would have approved of this, my little project, to turn the ranch into something to be proud of. Right now, I’ve got cattle in a pen. Granted, it’s a large pen, but they’ve trampled everything to mud and now I’ve got to bring in hay. Hay’s expensive in winter. I knew that, but I didn’t know that, you see. Started in the cattle farming business in late December, and already, it’s not working.”
“Gus—”
“I’m looking to hire you, son,” said Gus, quite firmly, cutting off anything Ty had meant to say. “Put you in charge of teaching some wranglers how to do cattle ranching this new way.
Ty went quite still, but as he looked through the large window to the street beyond, he wasn’t seeing it. He was seeing the apartment that he and Hudson shared. Saw the long, dingy corridor and cement steps that led to Michelle’s apartment. Saw their life together, a never-ending slog. But while this might be a bright thing, an idea that wanted to fill him with hope, he knew he had to turn it down.
“With regards to your wife, Mr. Odell,” said Ty. “I can’t leave Hudson. I can’t leave Michelle and the kids.”
“She your wife? Well, bring her.”
Ty could almost hear Gus nodding with satisfaction that he’d solved Ty’s apparent problem with one stroke.
“Hudson is my partner ,” said Ty. “Michelle is his sister-in-law, and the kids are her sons. Hudson’s nephews.” He took a sharp breath and felt like his breastbone was pushing into his heart. “I can’t leave them. Where did you say you were?”
“Just north of Hysham,” said Gus. “A place on the Yellowstone River called the Wandering Willow Ranch. There’s only three willows now, at the bend of the river, but I aim to plant more on account of my filly loved them so.”
“Ah,” said Ty, though he didn’t know what to say in response to that. He knew the Yellowstone River was quite pretty, as he’d seen pictures of it. Since ranches up in that area went for millions, he knew Gus had money.
But none of that mattered. Hudson and Michelle and Trevor and Gareth were what mattered. No matter the temptation, he could not leave them. Not even for a job doing what he loved.
“Also,” said Gus. “I got a horse here that goes by the name of Honey. When I bought her for a cow pony, I didn’t know she was yours. Zeke failed to mention that to me.”
“Honey?” Ty’s voice rose to a pitch, and he felt the eyes of the woman behind the counter pointing at him, as if she was worried he was going to become troublesome. “You have Honey?”
“Sure do,” said Gus. “Sweet little horse. Color of spun sunshine. She seems a little lost, though, so I reckon while I find other horses—how many do you think I’ll need for this type of ranching?—I’ll keep her in the field with Snowball. That’s my stable pony.”
“Sir—” began Ty, but Gus cut him off.
“I need you sooner rather than later,” said Gus. “Or this whole mess is going to get way out of hand.”
Sooner rather than later did not mean a thing, not when Ty couldn’t possibly go anywhere without Hudson. And there was no way he could use the money in the bank to offer to buy her because, for a man like Gus, no money would be enough.
Ty thumbed the phone to end the call without even saying goodbye, then buried his head in his arms to shut out the light.
He heard the phone clunk when his elbow hit it, and maybe the phone fell to merely a chair, or maybe all the way to the floor. Maybe it was broken now and would never work again. Which did not matter. Nothing did. His beautiful life, which he’d held so close, a precious thing, was lost to him now.
He wasn’t crying. He didn’t have tears in him for that, nor the energy to complain. Or move. Or think. At the very least, Gus sounded nice, so Honey would have a nice home, and she and Snowball would become best horse friends.
“Uncle Ty.”
He felt a small tug on his arm and struggled to focus.
“Uncle Ty,” said the voice again. A small voice. A young boy’s voice. Gareth’s voice.
Blinking, Ty lifted his head from his arms. And saw Gareth in his new winter coat, a puffy red thing that looked warm and just a bit too big, room enough to grow into. The red made his russet hair look dark, and his brown eyes were solemn.
Gareth was holding his backpack in one hand, and the hand of his little brother in the other. Trevor looked a bit wide eyed in his matching red down-filled coat as he looked at Ty, as if some great event was about to unfold and he had no idea what any of it meant.
Ty barely remembered being that young, but he did know the world could be a scary place, so he struggled to sit up. Scraped his hair back from his face, scrubbed his face with his fingers.
“Hey, my little men,” he said, making his voice as bright as possible.
“You forgot to pick us up,” said Gareth.
Ty sat straight up, his mouth going dry. Longfellow Elementary was a twenty-minute walk from the Luna Bean and it was a twenty-minute walk from the apartment on 17 th Street. Ty made a point to do the whole circuit each day, just to keep busy. The main route, 20 th Street, wasn’t too busy, but it was a street with regular traffic on it, and basically Ty’s job was to make sure those boys never walked it by themselves. Frankly, it was his most important job, and he’d just messed up.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You walked all that way? Why didn’t you go straight home?”
“Because home is dark with Mama at work, and we knew you’d be here,” said Gareth, and he actually looked proud of himself. “I held Trevor’s hand the whole way, and we looked both ways and only crossed at the light. Like you taught us.” He paused, then said. “You look sad.”
Trevor bent and picked up Ty’s phone from the floor and handed it to him. There was a crack along one corner of the glass, but it looked like the phone was still functional, so he supposed he should be grateful for small miracles.
“Uncle Hudson,” said Trevor, quite solemn. “It’s ringing.”
Ty answered the phone, and then said to Hudson, “Hang on a minute,” and went to the counter. “I’d like two hot chocolates, please. With whipped cream.”
“You’ve got it, hon,” said the woman. “Everything all right?”
“As good as it’s going to be,” he said. He didn’t want to explain anything to anyone, but Hudson was waiting.
“Have your boys sit,” she said. “I’ll bring them over. It’s not busy.”
The boys sat at the table, knowing the treat was coming, and Ty sat down and brought the phone to his ear.
“Hudson,” he said, pretending he was fine. Hudson didn’t need to be alerted to the fact that all of Ty’s dreams were shattered. He already knew.
“Ty, I just got a call,” said Hudson, charging into it the way he usually did. It was as if he felt the conversation would be less painful that way. “Some guy by the name of Gus Odell. Says you two got cut off, and he sounded desperate for me to have you call him back. What’s it all about? Is it a job?”
“Yes and no,” said Ty, unable to fix the fact that his voice came out flat and the words sounded broken.
“Where are you?” Hudson asked. “Are you at the Luna? Where are the boys? School’s been out?—”
“They’re here with me,” said Ty, then in a rush to confess, he added, “They walked here because I lost track of time.”
“Well,” said Hudson slowly. “It’s done snowing for the day, so they’re letting me go early. I’ll come by and pick you up.”
A hot tear streaked down Ty’s face, and he wiped it away as fast as he could.
He didn’t like the boys seeing him cry, but maybe it was too late for that, because both of them had the biggest, saddest brown eyes as they looked at him. As if they knew all wasn’t right in the world and that their Uncle Ty was having a meltdown.
“No,” said Ty. “We can walk home.”
“You’ll stay put,” said Hudson, sounding fierce. “It’s growing colder. I’ll be there in five minutes. And give that guy a call, would you? Find out what he wants.”
“No,” said Ty again.
Talking to the man that owned Honey would just make things worse than they already were. But he waited for Hudson and watched the boys enjoy their hot chocolates and planned to leave money on the tip jar, which he usually never did, because the woman came over with even more whipped cream and put it on the half-drunk hot chocolates without even being asked.
He resolved to be firm and strong, but when Hudson showed up behind the wheel of the blue Ford Escape, he ran out, trusting the boys to follow, and flung himself in Hudson’s arms before Hudson had even two feet on the ground.
“Hey, now,” said Hudson, his arms wrapping around Ty, a warm cloak of safety. “What’s wrong, Ty? Was it not a job offer?”
Ty buried his face in the warm, knitted red scarf around Hudson’s neck and didn’t speak. He wanted to stay like that forever, safe and warm and still, but he knew he needed to deal with this, to explain to Hudson, before Hudson grew truly worried.
“Some guy with a ranch in Montana called,” said Ty, wiping his nose with the back of his hand as he pulled back and looked up at Hudson. At those concerned brown eyes. “He’s got a ranching job, for me, he says. Regenerative ranching. Says he needs wranglers, only it’s so late in the season, and would I be interested.”
Hudson’s eyebrows flew up as he took all of this in.
“That’s a good thing, right?” he asked.
“It’s only a job for one,” said Ty. “Even if he actually owns Honey now, I couldn’t leave you. Or Michelle or the boys.”
“He has Honey?” asked Hudson. “He’s a rancher who owns Honey? That rancher? Your Honey?”
“Not mine anymore,” said Ty, completely unsure why Hudson looked so pleased about this fact.
“He lives in Montana, right?” asked Hudson. “And he’s offering you a job, and he owns Honey.” He shook his head as he gave Ty a quick, fierce hug. “This is Zeke and Royce’s doing. Get in the truck. I’ll left the heater running. I’ll get the boys. Then I’ll explain.”
Ty did as he was told, at the end of being able to make decisions for himself, it seemed. Once in the truck, he turned up the heat a little, and settled into the seat while watching Hudson round up two boys now jacked up on sugar and chocolate and attention from the very nice lady from behind the counter.
But once Hudson had the boys buckled in the back seat, and once he was ensconced in the driver’s seat, he didn’t back up and start driving in the direction of home. Instead, he merely looked at Ty.
“So,” said Hudson. And then he explained, finally, what was going on with him. How he’d thought to spend the money on a ranch and called Royce, and when that fell through, he’d called Zeke about Honey. And when that had fallen through, he’d felt defeated because he couldn’t imagine the rancher selling Honey back to them.
“So that’s why you stopped sharing,” said Ty.
“And now,” said Hudson, pulling Ty’s cell phone from beneath his clenched fingers. “You’re going to call him and tell him yes to that job.”
“It’s a one-man job,” said Ty. “And I’m not leaving you here. Not you. Not Michelle. Not the boys. You’re my family.”
“Call him and tell him that,” said Hudson. “He sounded nice. He’s got a job for you. He’s got Honey, and even if you can’t own her, at least you can ride her while doing the kind of ranching that you love. That’s the life you wanted. Isn’t it?”
The expression on Hudson’s face just about killed him, full of hope, with love shining in those brown eyes. A smile waiting around that kind, generous mouth.
“Tell him you’d like some recommendations as to an apartment we can rent up there. Maybe if he knows of jobs.”
“What’ll Michelle say?” asked Ty, because he couldn’t imagine her wanting to pull up stakes and move so far north. Or would she be willing?
“Scottsbluff isn’t horrible,” said Hudson. “But it’s not for us. We need to move on. This might be the shove we need.”
Ty opened his phone, found the most recent call, and called it back. His fingers did not feel the glass and he could barely hear the phone ringing or the slight click on the other end of the line when the call was answered.
“Mr. Odell?” asked Ty. “This is Ty Donovan. We spoke just a little while ago. About that job?—”
He paused and took a breath, and spoke as clearly as he could. With his thoughts all lined up as if the outcome of this conversation simply didn’t matter, when it mattered a great deal indeed.
“I’d love to take it. I can be there right away, but I’ve got a family and I can’t leave them behind. They need me. And I need them.”
He needed this little family like he needed air. He needed Hudson with him or there was no reason to continue with anything. No reason to spend energy hoping that things would get better.
“I reckon we could work something out,” said Gus, puzzlement in his voice as if he could simply not understand why Ty didn’t already know that. “What does Hudson do?”
“He drives a truck,” said Ty. “Any truck known to man. He’s got the kind of license that covers everything.”
“And Michelle?” asked Gus.
“She currently works in a laundromat,” said Ty, as if he knew where the conversation was going when he most assuredly did not. “But she was in school to be an accountant.”
“Now tell me about them boys,” said Gus. “I bet they’re a handful.”
“No,” said Ty, slowly. “Gareth’s seven, and he always looks after his little brother Trevor, who is five. And they’re both very well behaved.”
“They’d need a school to go to, I reckon,” said Gus slowly. “They could go to Hysham Elementary. It’s so small it’s almost a one-room schoolhouse, but folks in town speak of it well.”
“Mr. Odell,” said Ty, doing his best to make sense of all this and failing. “Gus?—”
“Torgerson’s Equipment on the edge of town is always looking for good men, though, hell—excuse me, son—heck, I could use a good man here, if he doesn’t mind hauling hay and trailering horses and checking those fence lines. You don’t mind doing any of that work, do you, Ty?” Gus sounded so hopeful that although Ty was on the verge of saying yes, he couldn’t. Not yet.
“Hudson’s not a horseman,” said Ty. “But he’s a very hard worker and can fix any engine you’d care to give him. But then there’s Michelle?—”
“I could use a gal to keep my books straight.” Hudson coughed. “Come to that, I need someone to run the house. Hire staff. You have any idea what it takes to run a place that’s almost four-thousand square feet?”
“No,” said Ty in a very small voice.
“Philly always managed that for me and I said to myself, I said self, you can take that on and it’ll be good to keep you busy. But I can’t. My staff is gone to better jobs. The place is dusty and disorganized, and all I can do is walk down to the willow trees at the bend of the river and cry and watch the geese settle at sunset. That ain’t no life for a grown man, and I know my wife would agree with me. If she were here. But she ain’t and now I gots to make new beginnings all on my lonesome.”
Ty heard Gus swallow on the other end of the line and knew that if Gus started to cry that he, Ty, would personally lose it.
“When do you need me there?” asked Ty. True ranching season didn’t begin until the end of February, and even as his mind began scouring all the routes between Scottsbluff and Montana, he wondered what Michelle would say.
“Soon as you can,” said Gus. “There're all kinds of stuff I don’t know and I’m already behind.”
There was one more thing.
“Gus,” said Ty. “You need to know that I’m a felon. And so is Hudson. We’ve both done time.”
“I know you are, son,” said Gus in a warm, fatherly way that just about did Ty in. “Zeke told me about it, and I just spoke to my pal Nolan. I’ve never met Leland Tate, though I hope to one day, but both Zeke and Nolan speak so highly of him and his rehab program. If you were selected for it, and if you made it through, then that means Tate thought very highly of you. And that, dear boy, is enough for me.”
Which was enough for Ty, at least to be starting with.
“I say yes,” said Ty. “I still need to check with Michelle, to make sure she says yes, too. And then we can figure how to get up there.”
“Rent a truck,” said Gus. “I’ll reimburse you.”
“We don’t have that much stuff,” said Ty. “We have a car.”
“Sounds fine, then,” said Gus. “Send word when you’ll be here, and I’ll be ready for you. But sooner rather than later, yes? Don’t make an old man look foolish in front of his rancher friends.”
“No, sir, I won’t.”
“Talk soon,” said Gus. And then he hung up.
Ty intended to do everything to make Wandering Willow Ranch the best ranch in the whole state of Montana, everything in his power.
“Well,” he said, looking at Hudson, who was smiling at him. “Looks like we’re moving. He says he’ll help with the jobs, just like you said. If Michelle says yes, that is.”
“She will,” said Hudson. “I know she will.”