Epilogue - Dalton
The wedding was as pretty as a picture. The rain held back all that morning, and a cool breeze wafted through Buddy’s black mane and tail, and Snowball’s gray-and-white mane and tail.
We managed to hire an officiant from Ft.
Collins who was willing to come out to the foothills at such an early hour and on such short notice.
Her voice was clear and sweet beneath the cottonwood leaves fluttering overhead, in the bend of the river where the air smelled like willows and warm pine.
And it smelled of wildflowers, dripping from basket panniers set over the horses’ backs.
(The wildflowers were hand-collected by the LGBTQ kids at the ranch.)
Our two witnesses were Lucas and Jesse. Xander brought both wedding rings held tight in his fist and, with a solemn expression, handed the rings over at the appropriate time. And thus Jake and I were married.
The party that followed at the barn was much like you might expect, full of joy and flowing with beer. Toward the middle of the party, Jake and I slipped away for a quiet, two-night honeymoon at an old pioneer cabin just south of Raven Rock, which was just north of Snow Creek Ranch.
And when I say old, I mean on the outside, which was warped plank wood, bleached by the sun, and a sagging metal roof—probably for effect.
On the inside, it was clean and cool, and had been done up with a coffeemaker, a stocked fridge, a mini-dishwasher, a bed with a thousand pillows, and outside there was a covered porch, and a hot tub, and the most amazing view of miles of blue sky and, most beautiful, a star-filled sky at night.
We made love in the bed, drifting off afterwards, dozing in the peace and quiet.
Then we went outside and made love on the hard wooden planks next to the hot tub, with towels beneath our knees, and said again our vows to each other in whispered words and tender touches.
Watching over Jake as he fell asleep in my arms was true bliss.
We stayed two nights only because Jake had to get back to work—at his own insistence—and I needed to return to Denver to pack up my apartment, hand in my notice about the lease, and figure out where I was going to put everything in the small bunkhouse.
Once at the apartment, amidst a litter of packing paper and piles of boxes I’d laboriously assembled, I wasn’t sure I needed any of what I owned.
Except maybe the fancy coffee maker, because Jake would like it.
Or the electric foot warmer, because I suspected Jake would like it.
And my small book collection which, oddly, included a paperback copy of Lonesome Dove, which I had never read. Maybe I would now.
Girding my loins, I packed two suitcases full of clothes and sundry items that I would probably end up getting rid of, but which, in that moment, I couldn’t imagine living without.
I also packed up the books and my winter boots and winter sweaters in boxes, taped those shut, and arranged for movers to come get the rest and haul it to the U-Store-It that I’d found at short notice.
All of which seemed dry and uninteresting when compared to my life with Jake.
Upcoming. New. Scary. At least a little scary.
Jake’s voice over the phone during our daily calls was a lifeline, the conversation full of updates about the calves and the barn cats, and how Jake had been looking at properties in the area, though they were way above what he could afford, and when I got back, would I like to take a drive around and see one or two of them?
“Yes, of course,” I said, thinking of the salary I used to earn but which I no longer did and the nice 401K nest-egg I’d put by and whether or not Jake would like it if I put down the lion’s share of the down payment were we to find a place we both liked?
I’d never looked for a place to buy, let alone property in the country, though I suspected Jake had been keeping watch for years.
“Will I see you tonight?” Jake asked, and all of a sudden every other worry or concern melted away.
“I’ll leave at four,” I said. “Maybe we can get burgers at the saloon?”
“You can count on it,” Jake said, his voice strong and sure in a way that made me feel comfortable that everything was going to work out.
I finished packing and waited for the moving team. When they arrived, I tipped them each twenty bucks, even though they’d not yet started work, because they offered to haul my suitcases and five small boxes down to my car.
I supervised the loading of my furniture and all the boxes into their mid-sized truck, and handed them the keys to the storage place and the code to get into the gate. The owner of the storage place was aware that the movers were coming, and I could wash my hands of the rest of it.
“Thank you, guys,” I said, and waved them off. Got in my car, stuffed to the brim, and drove back to Snow Creek Ranch. Drove home to Jake.
The drive seemed to take forever, as I’d hit rush hour traffic rather than avoiding it, and by the time the familiar loops in the road and the low, pine-tree covered hills came into view, I was just about hyperventilating.
My body settled down when I arrived at the five-mile section of the road that led up to the entrance to Snow Creek. And there, standing in the shadow of the barn, was Jake. I parked my car, even though it really wasn’t an area for parking, and fell out of the car and raced into his arms.
“Bring all your stuff?” he asked me, whispering against my neck, his arms around me like warm steel bands.
“Too much stuff,” I huffed against his chest.
“No such thing,” he said, a laugh behind the words.
“Missed you,” he whispered.
“Missed you, too,” I whispered back.
Jake helped me unload my car (I re-parked it near the bunkhouse); he put the boxes on a wooden pallet by his bunkhouse and secured a tarp over the pile to keep it safe from rain and weather.
Then we got into Daybreak and went into town to get triple-patty cheeseburgers and tall glasses of ice-cold beer.
“Got something to show you,” Jake said after he’d wiped his mouth on a napkin, and we flipped a coin to see who would pay the bill.
“Oh, yeah?” I asked. Next time, I would fight harder to be the one paying the tab, but for right now, I was willing to go anywhere Jake wanted to lead.
Outside the saloon, the shadows were long between the trees.
We got into Daybreak and Jake started driving west of town, up a narrow two-lane blacktop road.
The foothills rose gently around us, and the puffy clouds over them signaled a maybe-kind-of-rain, which, though holding back for now, added a nice, green scent to the air.
“Where we headed?” I asked him. The windows were rolled down, as usual, and the breeze in the cabin swirled my hair around and tugged at Jake’s cowboy hat.
“I lied,” he said, casting a glance at me that let me know he was rather ashamed, though he shouldn’t be.
“About what?” I asked.
“There’s only one place I been looking at.” He sighed, as though troubled by the fact that maybe he’d let me down, only wanting this one place.
My heart beat a little faster at that thought, that Jake had focused in on the place he wanted, and when he took a left onto a little dirt road, I knew what that place was. Land. Just land. Not a house, not even one that needed fixing up. Just land.
Which, in this case, as he shortly pulled up to another dirt road, this one fence-lined on one side, was a beautiful piece of land that was topped at the north end by a craggy, granite outcrop, and which sloped south into a small valley of green grasses speckled with Columbine flowers.
“This here’s it,” he said. He turned off Daybreak’s engine, worked the steering wheel with his fingers, and then looked at me fully. “Twenty-three acres. Not good for crops beyond a small garden. Maybe some alfalfa hay. We could graze horses, cattle, goats, even, if you wanted ‘em.”
“I just want you,” I said. “And whatever you want.”
“It’s got a year-round well,” he said. “And access to Gordon River, if we needed to irrigate.” As if this were the most important thing, and not what was actually important, which was that he wanted me to agree with him. Which I already did. “Feels like I kind of made this decision without you.”
“That’s fine,” I said. “I don’t know anything about land.
Get me into a discussion about thread-count and whether linen sheets are better than cotton, and I’m your man.
But land? I don’t know a thing about it.
” I cast my eyes over the sweep of green, the dots of purple and white flowers, and how the blue sky shot up into forever at the horizon, with not a building in sight.
“This looks good to me.” I reach out to circle my fingers around his forearm.
“As we go forward, we’ll learn to work together better.
But for now?” I swept my other hand over the view. “This is what you know. So, how much?”
“Ten percent down is twenty-three thousand.” He swallowed hard.
“The land is 238,000 dollars. It’s twenty minutes from Snow Creek, so I don’t gotta go far—” His voice broke off and I realized the depth of everything he was feeling.
And why he wanted this place so much. Twenty minutes of driving wouldn’t matter at all to a star’s light.
He would still be beneath the stars that he knew, and when he looked up, their familiar pattern would dance for him.
“Let’s do it,” I said without a moment’s hesitation. Whatever happened to the Scottsbluff property and those water rights as a problem for Future Dalton and Future Jake. “Call the agent.”
“You got that kind of money for a down payment?” His eyes were wide as he looked at me, working the steering wheel again. “I have twenty thousand saved up.”
“I have twenty and then some,” I said. “What if we put down forty thousand to lower our payments and so on?”
I laughed a bit because I guess the banker in me was here to stay, and got out of the car, mostly to step into the shadow-streaked sunshine, but also so Jake would get out of the truck, and move around, and not look so shellshocked that his dream of owning land was about to come true.
He followed me to stand in front of Daybreak, and for a moment we were quiet, listening to the wind whistle through the tall prairie grasses, and to feel the heat of the earth soaking into coolness as the sun went down.
He slipped an arm around my waist, and I slipped mine around his.
“This is it, then,” he said. “I’ll build you a house near the bend of the river.” He kissed my temple and said, “Though there ain’t no cottonwoods, not on the whole place.”
“We’ll plant them,” I said, though I didn’t have any idea what that entailed.
“In the fall,” he said, nodding, his eye bright as he scanned the landscape. “That’s when you plant trees. We’ll plant river willows and we’ll get cottonwood seedlings, male and female.”
“What?” I asked.
“Females have seeds that disperse in the wind. They look like bits of cotton, hence the name.”
“And the males?” I asked.
“They’re strong and sturdy,” he said. “They’ll stabilize the soil on the riverbanks and provide habitat for rabbits and nesting birds. Foxes, too.”
Overwhelmed, I buried my face in his chest and, with his arms around me, I felt him shudder. When I looked up, he was wiping tears from his face.
“It’s almost too much,” he said, half to himself, half to the low wind that had picked up.
“It is,” I agreed, a lump growing in my throat. “Maybe dreams are like that. And sometimes they come true.”
“You’re my dream,” he said, turning his attention to me. He held me close and brushed my chin with his fingers to make me look up at him. To make sure I was paying attention. “The land is just a backdrop to how I feel about you.”
My face grew hot. I dipped my chin and looked at the land and the grass and felt the wind tug at my shirt and my hair and closed my eyes to brand the memory on my brain.
I’d not thought, when I said yes to Lucas’ request of bringing a few kids from the city out to the ranch, that it would turn out like it had.
But it had. And here I was, standing on the top of a south-facing slope, with its rocky outcrop giving the land a bit of definition, and the sweep of grass making it look pretty as hell.
I could see the river, Gordon River, in the distance, sunlight sparkles on slow-moving water.
Most importantly, Jake was at my side. Tall, broad-shouldered, bruised by his past, but still brave enough to face his future.
Our future. We’d tend the land and graze the horses and do those things that cowboy and frontier people did in places like this.
And I would never be alone. Never be second, because in Jake’s eyes, I was the most important thing.
After that came the land. But what about Daybreak?
“Will Daybreak feel jealous that you have a new love in your life? Loves, I mean. Me and this land?”
“Daybreak will not feel jealous,” Jake said stoutly, running his palm over his mouth. “Daybreak has always known how important she is to me, and when she drives her last mile and can’t go no more, I’ll bury her right on this slope.”
“I’ll help you,” I said, blinking back tears.
I didn’t mention that I could buy him a brand new truck this very day.
Whatever he needed, whenever he wanted it.
I had that 401K after all, and though it wouldn’t last forever, it would be enough to get us well and truly started.
But on a day like today, with the smell of rain in the air and the cool wind all around, talk of money would be left for another day.
“Now, let’s call that agent. And I could use another beer, if you’re up for it. ”
“Yes, please,” he said. He let out a breath and kissed me full on the mouth. Then jingled the keys in his pocket. “Got your phone?”
“Yeah.”
“You can call as I drive.”
“That’s a plan,” I said. I kissed him before I got into the passenger side, and pulled out my phone and dialed the number as Jake recited it, because, of course, he’d memorized it.
I shook my phone when the call didn’t go through.
Our lives were just starting, but we didn’t have enough bars. Of course.
“No bars,” I said.
“We’ll get a signal booster,” he said, surprising me.
Daybreak picked up speed as she headed back toward Snow Creek.
“And then pretend it doesn’t work when we don’t want to answer the phone.
” He laughed at this, a silent, open-mouthed laugh.
And I swore then and there to find all the ways to make him laugh so I could see that sparkle in his eyes each and every day.