7. Chapter 7
Elise
We’ve been together for three weeks. Together in the way that means I sleep in his bed more nights than I sleep in the cabin.
Together in the way that means his crew knows, his mother knows (she made me the Sunday pot roast, which Dane says is the highest honor a Wylde woman can bestow), and Jules has been composing a victory narration that she’s threatened to publish as a podcast episode.
The north valley is running. A hundred head on grass I’ve been managing, behind fences I built, drinking from a spring I found. The handling facility is framed, southwest corner, east-facing chute. The section is operational and it’s working.
I wake up in his bed on a Tuesday and the house smells like coffee and the morning light is coming through the window and I can hear him on the phone in the kitchen. His voice is low and tense, which is different from his normal low. He sounds stressed.
I get dressed and walk to the kitchen. He’s at the table with coffee and papers and his jaw is set tighter than I’ve ever seen it. The tendons in his neck are visible. His hands on the table are fists.
“What’s wrong?” I say.
He looks up. For a second he doesn’t answer. He does the thing he does when he’s processing something heavy: he goes still. His whole body stops. A man deciding what to carry and what to share.
“The Henderson Trust is selling.”
“What’s the Henderson Trust?”
“The trust that owns the four thousand acres on the north and west boundaries. The land that borders our north valley and our west pastures. They’ve owned it for thirty years. We have grazing leases on two sections of it. A developer from Bozeman put in an offer.”
I sit down. I understand immediately. I don’t need the spreadsheet.
Four thousand acres of bordering land sold to a developer means the ranch loses its grazing leases.
It means development on the boundary. It means the character of the land around the ranch changes from rangeland to whatever a developer from Bozeman wants to build.
Houses. A resort. Something that turns a working landscape into a product.
“How much?” I say.
“More than I should spend.”
“But you could.”
“I could. But it would stretch the operation thin. We’re already expanding into the north valley. Taking on four thousand more acres plus the purchase price plus the taxes.” He pushes his hair back. “It’s the right move and it’s the wrong time.”
“If you don’t buy it, someone else does. And someone else doesn’t care about grazing leases or buffer land or what happens to the watershed when you develop four thousand acres of rangeland.”
“I know.”
“So buy it.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Why not?”
He stands up. He walks to the window. The valley is outside, green and steady, the same valley that’s been here for five generations of Wyldes. The valley that’s about to have a new neighbor if he doesn’t act.
“Because this ranch has been family-funded for a hundred years. We’ve never taken on outside debt. My father built this operation on what the land produces. No investors. No loans. No outside money. That’s how Wyldes do it. The land pays for itself.”
“Your father didn’t face a developer on his boundary.”
“My father would have found another way.”
“Your father had your grandfather. And your grandfather had your great-grandfather. They did it together. You’re doing it alone.”
He turns. His jaw is rigid.
“I don’t need help,” he says.
“I didn’t say you need help. I said you’re alone.”
“Elise.”
“You’re going to lose the buffer land. You’re going to lose the grazing leases. You’re going to wake up in two years with a housing development on your north boundary and the watershed compromised and you’re going to wish you’d taken the debt.”
“You don’t understand.”
“I grew up on a ranch. I understand everything about this.”
“You grew up on a ranch that your parents SOLD. You don’t understand what it means to hold a legacy that can’t be sold. That can NEVER be sold. That has to be carried forward or it dies with me.”
The words land exactly where he didn’t mean them to.
He knows it too. I see the regret immediately.
“Elise. I didn’t mean…”
“You meant it.” My voice is steady. Flat.
The voice I use when I’m holding something that wants to break.
“You’re right. My parents sold. I understand selling.
I understand loss. I understand what it feels like when the land that’s supposed to be yours isn’t.
But you’re wrong about one thing. I’m not telling you to sell.
I’m telling you to fight. And fighting sometimes means accepting help. ”
“I don’t know how to accept help.”
“And that’s the problem.”
I pick up my jacket. I walk to the door.
“Where are you going?” he says.
“The cabin. I have work to do.”
“Elise.”
“You need to think about the Henderson land. You need to think about it without me in the room because I can see you want to handle this alone and handling things alone is what you do.”
“I don’t want you to leave.”
“I’m not leaving. I’m giving you space.”
I close the door. I drive to the cabin. I sit on the porch with the valley below me and I don’t cry.
He said my parents sold. He said it like it was a weakness.
Like the selling was a failure and the failure was mine.
He didn’t mean it. I know he didn’t mean it.
I know it came from the fear of losing his own land and the terror of being the last Wylde and the pressure of carrying something this heavy with no one to share it.
But it landed. It landed on the scar that’s been there since the moving truck pulled into my parents’ driveway and someone else’s furniture replaced ours and I stood in the yard and understood that home isn’t permanent.
That land you love can be taken from you.
That belonging to a place doesn’t mean the place belongs to you.
He doesn’t call that night. He doesn’t text.
Good.
I’m still angry enough that hearing his voice would probably make it worse.
But I’m not going anywhere.
I meant what I said. The north valley is mine to manage. The fences are mine to finish. The cattle still need me tomorrow whether Raiford Wylde has figured out how to get his head out of his ass or not.
The question isn’t whether I’m leaving. The question is whether he’s willing to make room beside him instead of insisting on carrying everything alone.
My phone buzzes. Not Raiford. Jules.
Jules: Dane says Raiford’s been sitting on his porch for three hours staring at the valley. He hasn’t spoken. He told Dane he drove to the Henderson property boundary and sat in his truck for an hour and came back. What happened?
Me: They are selling. Possibly to a developer. It’s complicated and he’s stressed. He said something about my parents selling. It was the wrong thing to say and he knows it.
Jules: Oh. Oh, Elise.
Me: I’m fine.
Jules: You’re not fine. But you’re strong.
And he’s an idiot. A well-meaning idiot who’s scared of losing his land and took it out on the person closest to him, which is you, apparently.
And he doesn’t know how to handle that because he’s been alone for five years and alone people forget how to be careful with other people.
Me: That’s very insightful for a woman who screenshotted her own love story.
Jules: Yes, I know. So let him sit there and think. That man has been carrying everything alone. Maybe he finally needs to realize he doesn’t have to.
Me: He could’ve realized it without being an asshole.
Jules: Oh absolutely. I’m not defending the asshole portion of tonight’s program. Call me if you need me. Love you.
Me: You too.
I put my phone down.
I’m not leaving. Not over one terrible sentence from a scared man who already knows he said the wrong thing.
But I’m not fixing it for him either.
Tomorrow I’ll be at the north gate at 5:45. With my thermos and my notebook. Doing my job.
If he wants me beside him, he can figure out how to meet me there.