After Jasper had left, Rose stood back to survey her small kingdom. The coop, when finished, would be strong enough to keep out any predator. It would be wonderful, waking up to the crow of the rooster and gathering fresh eggs for breakfast.
She was glad she’d kept the old camper. It would be useful for storing tools and chicken feed. As for the trailer, now that the generator and tanks had been hooked up, it had become the perfect little home. She could even shower and cook in it. Bull had hired a man in town to come by and service the tanks, freeing her from the worry of maintenance.
To repay a small part of what Bull had done for her, she had given him her most valuable possession, the double-barreled shotgun that had belonged to her grandfather. She knew Bull had long admired the weapon that had killed Hamilton Prescott. For a time in Mexico, it had belonged to Don Ramón, given to him as a gift for taking Rose into his care. After Ramón’s death, Rose had hidden it from the cartel and brought it back to Texas. Now the powerful gun belonged to Bull. He had accepted it as his due, without protest. It seemed right, somehow, that he should have it.
Even so, the thought of all that Bull had done, and continued to do for her, raised a troubling concern. Her dwindling cash reserves were bound to run out in the next few months. She couldn’t be dependent on Bull. She needed her own income—either a job or something she could sell.
Eggs? That was a nonstarter. Three hens wouldn’t lay enough eggs to sell. And people around here already had places to buy eggs. She’d thought about goat cheese, too. María had taught her how to make the wonderful cheese she’d sold on market days back in Río Seco, before the cartel took over. But this wasn’t Río Seco. There were government health and packaging regulations, and the matter of a business license. And of course, she had no goats and no place to set up a cheese-making operation.
On her last trip to town she’d picked up a local newspaper, in the hope of finding a job. But there was nothing suitable for a woman. Nobody was going to hire her as a truck mechanic or a ranch hand.
But one ad in the For Sale section had caught her interest. A farmer in the area was selling off surplus lambs.
Rose knew a lot about sheep. The Ortega family had raised a small flock of sheep in Mexico. The days she’d spent in the saddle, herding sheep in the desert with Don Ramón’s nephews, Raul and Joaquin, had given her some of the happiest memories of her life. She often thought about the two young men who had been like her older brothers. They’d gone off to work and she’d never heard from them again. Had they crossed the border and taken refuge in the United States? Had they gone over to the cartel? Were they even alive?
But back to the lambs. Rose had cared for her share of orphaned and abandoned lambs, teaching them to drink from a bottle, getting up every four hours to feed them at night, snuggling them under a blanket to keep them warm. How much would it cost her to buy several lambs and raise them to sell in the fall?
What would it take? Rose could almost feel her brain whirring into action. She would need a strong, sheltered pen to keep them safe, with plenty of straw for warm bedding. If the lambs weren’t weaned, she would need bottles, nipples, and formula mix. And she would need to pay a veterinarian for services like vaccinations. Could she manage all that and still sell them at a profit at the end of the season? It was a scary prospect but one that excited her.
When the lambs were big enough to graze on their own, she could run them on the federally owned open rangeland that bordered one end of her property. Keeping them safe and getting them in at night would be a full-time job. Maybe that would be the time to get herself a good herding dog. If the plan worked out this year, she could raise even more sheep in the future.
She was surveying her yard, thinking about the best spot for a sheep pen, when another thought slammed her like a cold fist.
Bull.
He wasn’t going to like this. Bull was a cattleman to the bone, and Rose remembered hearing him talk. Like most cattlemen, he had no love for sheep. “Range maggots,” he called them, claiming that they tended to bite grass off all the way to the root, leaving the land barren where they’d grazed. Bull didn’t just dislike sheep. He hated them.
Her agreement on the property transfer gave her the right to use her land any way she wanted. That included raising sheep. But if she chose to do this, she couldn’t expect any more help from Bull, and probably none from Jasper, either. She would be on her own.
It was a heavy decision. But after thinking it over, Rose decided that, before she made up her mind, the least she could do was learn more about the sheep-raising option.
The next morning, she drove into Blanco Springs and used a pay phone to call the number in the newspaper ad. The man who answered her call and gave her directions to the farm sounded elderly and was slightly deaf, but his friendly manner put her at ease.
The farm was on the far side of town, an immaculate place with a pretty white cottage, a big red barn, and spring hay fields waving in the breeze. The aging farmer, who introduced himself as Ezra Perkins, was waiting in the yard when Rose drove in.
“My wife’s not doing so well, so we’re moving to a senior facility next week,” he said. “It’s a nice-enough place, and Merle will have the care she needs, but I’ll never stop missing my farm. Come on, young lady. I’ll show you the lambs.”
Limping slightly, he led her around to the far side of the barn. There, in a metal pen with a built-in shade roof, were four lambs. They appeared to be about six weeks old, an age when they’d still be taking milk but would soon be ready to wean. Their tails and their testicles, if any, were already docked.
“Every year I’ve enjoyed raising a few orphan lambs and selling them in the fall,” the farmer said. “But I won’t be around to finish with these, and the man who bought my farm doesn’t want them. I’ll give you a good price just to get them off my hands. I’ll even throw in their pen. It comes apart, so it’s easy to move. You could haul it in your truck.”
Rose had been prepared to give the lambs a quick look and go her way. But Ezra Perkins’s offer was pure temptation. Four healthy, adorable lambs and a stout pen to put them in. The farmer would probably throw in the milk bottles and a supply of milk replacer, too. She sighed. “Let’s talk price,” she said. “And maybe you can give me an idea of what they’d sell for at the end of the season.”
The numbers made enough sense to convince her. Rose walked away with a deposit paid and a promise to come back tomorrow with the rest of the cash. After the final payment, she would take the pen, along with a box of milk bottles and supplies and some hay and straw, in her truck. Perkins, who had a comfortable trailer for hauling the lambs, would follow her home and help her set up the pen.
As she climbed into her truck and started the engine, she could feel herself shaking. She’d actually done it. She’d committed the money and taken the risk. Tomorrow, come what may, she would be a sheep owner.
What would Bull say? What would Jasper say? She couldn’t imagine they’d be pleased. But she’d taken a step toward real independence, and she couldn’t help feeling proud of herself.
Would Tanner be proud of her, too, if he knew what she’d done? But why wonder? He was out of her life, their lovemaking nothing more than a bittersweet memory.
* * *
By the time Tanner had finished pitching hay for the cows with newborn calves, it was almost suppertime. He washed his hands and face at the outside pump, glad that the long day of work was coming to an end. It had been the right thing to do, taking two weeks off work to help his brother; and it had been decent of Clive to let him go. But he couldn’t help worrying about how the time off would affect his job. And he couldn’t help worrying about Rose and how she was getting along.
Wiping his wet hands on his jeans, he stood for a moment, gazing out across the pastures of long, waving grass toward the snowcapped Wind River Mountains beyond. Was the
re a more beautiful place in the world than this ranch, with its broad meadows, aspen forests, and pine-carpeted slopes? Yet this land could be harsh and unforgiving, with its deep winter snows and frigid winds. It took a special breed to survive here, he thought. The McCades belonged to that breed—a close-knit family of strong, hardworking people. He had been part of their world until grief had driven him out of it. Now he felt almost like a stranger.