9. Epilogue 1
Elise
Six months later
The Henderson land is fenced, watered, and running its first herd. The north valley is fully operational. The ranch has gone from twelve thousand acres to sixteen thousand and the books look better than they have in a decade because it turns out two ranchers are more effective than one.
Jules calls me tamed. “The woman who had resigned herself to keep moving from ranch to ranch got tamed by a cowboy with a jaw and a flashlight.” She’s not wrong.
I was wild. Not angry wild. Drifting wild.
A woman who thought she wouldn’t have a home like that again, never planting, never staying.
Raiford didn’t chase me. He just stood at the gate and let me come to him.
And I came. And I stayed. And if that’s tamed, I’ll take it.
I’m sitting on the porch of Raiford’s house (our house, he corrects me every time I call it his, but I’m still adjusting to the “our” of it) when I make the call.
“Brynn. It’s Elise.”
“Elise Carter. The woman who abandoned me for a mountain and a cowboy.”
“Elise Wylde, actually. And I have a job for you.”
The silence on the other end is satisfying.
Brynn Hartley does not go silent easily.
I worked with Brynn during my drifting year, six months on a cutting horse operation outside of Amarillo where she was running the breeding and training program and I was managing herd rotations.
She’s the best horse trainer I’ve ever met.
She’s also the most stubborn, opinionated, unapologetically confident woman in the industry.
“Talk to me,” she says.
“Raiford and I are starting a cutting horse program. Breeding and training. We’ve got the land, we’ve got the facilities, we’ve got stock that’s good enough to build on. What we don’t have is someone who knows how to turn good horses into competitive ones.”
“You want me to come to Montana.”
“I want you to come to Montana and build something from scratch. Your program. Your methods. Full authority over the horse operation.”
“Full authority.”
“Full authority. Raiford’s signed off. You’ll have a budget, a facility, and the freedom to do it your way.”
“What’s the catch?”
“No catch.”
“There’s always a catch, Elise.”
There is a catch. The catch is six-foot-two and has been working on this ranch for years and considers the horses his personal domain and is going to lose his mind when he finds out a woman from Texas is coming to reorganize his barn.
“There’s a foreman,” I say. “Beckett. He’s been here longer than I have. He’s good. He’s loyal. He’s also set in his ways.”
“Set in his ways how?”
“He likes things a certain way. And he doesn’t like to change them. And I’m warning you, a cutting horse program is exactly the kind of change that’s going to set him off.”
“Is he good with horses?”
“He’s exceptional with horses. That’s part of the problem. He’s going to see you as someone moving in on his territory.”
“I don’t move in on territory. I build my own.”
“I know. That’s why I’m calling you.”
Brynn is quiet for a beat. I can hear her thinking. Brynn thinks the way she trains horses: with intensity, focus, and the absolute certainty that she’s going to figure it out.
“When do you need me?” she says.
“Two weeks. Can you make that work?”
“I can make anything work. Send me the details. Facility specs, current stock list, and a photo of this Beckett person so I know who I’m dealing with.”
“I don’t have a photo of Beckett.”
“Then describe him.”
“Tall. Dark hair. Scowls a lot. Looks like he was raised by wolves and taught manners by a fence post.”
“Typical cowboy.”
“That’s the point. He’s rude and blunt and stubborn enough to make a mule look cooperative. But he’s also the best hand on this ranch and Raiford trusts him completely. If you can get him on your side, the program will work. If you can’t, it’s going to be a war.”
“I’ve been in wars before. I won.”
“I know. That’s also why I’m calling you.”
We hang up. I sit on the porch and look at the valley and think about what I just set in motion.
Brynn Hartley is coming to Wylde Mountain.
Brynn, who can gentle a horse in twenty minutes and start a fight in ten.
Brynn, who once told a ranch owner in Amarillo that his training methods were “an insult to the horses and a disappointment to the Lord” and then restructured his entire program and tripled his sale prices.
Brynn, who is five-foot-four and has never once backed down from a man twice her size because backing down isn’t in her operating system.
She’s going to walk onto this ranch and Beckett is going to take one look at her and decide she’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to his life.
I give it three days before they’re arguing so loudly the cattle can hear it.
The front door opens. Raiford comes out. He’s got two coffees, because that’s what we do now, coffee on the porch, morning and evening, the bookends of a day spent on the same land doing the same work.
“Did you call her?” he says.
“I called her. She’s coming in two weeks.”
“And you warned her about Beckett?”
“I gave her the highlights. She’s not concerned.”
“She should be concerned. Beckett threatened to quit when I told him about the program.”
“Beckett threatens to quit every time something changes. He threatened to quit when I reorganized the tack room.”
“You reorganized the tack room alphabetically.”
“The tack room needed a system.”
“I’m not disagreeing. I’m saying he took it personally. He’s going to take the horse program personally. He’s going to take the woman running the horse program very personally.”
I look at my husband. My husband, who is sitting on a porch with a coffee and a slight grin that would have been invisible six months ago but which I can now read like fencing from a driveway.
“You’re looking forward to this,” I say.
“I’m not looking forward to it.”
“You’re grinning.”
“I’m drinking coffee. My face does things when I drink coffee.”
“Your face is doing a thing that suggests you think Beckett getting his whole world disrupted by a five-foot-four horse trainer from Texas is going to be entertaining.”
“I think it’s going to be necessary. The ranch needs the program. The program needs Brynn. Beckett needs...” He pauses. Takes a drink. “Beckett needs something he doesn’t know he needs. He’s been on this ranch for years and he’s never taken a day off.”
“Brynn probably hasn’t either.”
“Then it should work out fine.”
He says this with the dry delivery that I’ve come to understand is Raiford Wylde’s version of humor. I get to hear it and it’s one of the best parts of being married to a man who the rest of the world thinks is carved from stone.
I lean against him. His arm goes around me.
The valley is below us and the new section is beyond it and the whole ranch is spread out in the evening light and somewhere on this property Beckett is in the barn with the horses, doing what he does every evening, which is check every animal, every stall, every piece of tack, because the horses are his and the barn is his and the routine is the only thing he trusts.
In two weeks a woman from Texas is going to walk into that barn and rearrange everything.
I text Brynn.
Me: One more thing. The horses are his whole world. Be careful with them.
Brynn: Have you met me?
Me: I meant be careful with HIM. The horses are how he loves. If you respect the horses, you’ll reach the man.
Brynn: Elise, I’m coming to build a cutting horse program, not a relationship.
Me: You’re right.
I put the phone down. Raiford pulls me closer. The evening is warm and the valley is green and the ranch is quiet and somewhere in Texas a woman is packing her bags and somewhere in the barn a man is checking his horses and neither of them knows what’s coming.
The mountain knows. The mountain always knows.