My stomach sank into my steel-toed boots. Nate. I whipped my hat off my head and slapped it against my thigh. That brother of mine had gone too far this time.
Faint at first, like the pixilated images of an '80s DOS game loading onto a school-grade MacIntosh computer, the domed canvas roof made my fingers itch for a gun to shoot game to keep my party fed and my bowels constrict for fear of dysentery. No one had made it through a game without someone dying along the trail from Independence, Missouri to the Willamette Valley in Oregon from either a disease or a snakebite or some such catastrophe.
The image before me grew in clarity, as if the game had upgraded its CGI. Sure enough, a Conestoga wagon headed up the long driveway, my grinning brother at the reins and—
No. He wouldn’t.
But the proof plodded along toward me. Thunder and Lightning yoked to the wagon. It was all kinds of wrong—taking a man’s reining horses and harnessing them like a pair of dumb oxen to pull the wagon. It was like hitching a Corvette to a U-haul. Or hanging a Rembrandt next to a child’s finger painting. It just wasn’t done!
“Whoa.” Nate pulled back on the reins when he drew even to me, then set the brake. While his lips held a grin, his eyes pinched with wariness.
He should be guarded. Little pup knew better than to mess with a man’s horse. Not to mention whatever stunt he had up his sleeve with the Conestoga.
“Now, before you say no—”
“No.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Take it back to whatever museum you got it from.”
He jumped down from the driver’s bench and planted his feet. “That would be a crying shame seeing how it’s already rented.”
The screen door slapped behind me, followed by a delighted squeal.
Great. Now I’d have to talk reason into both of my siblings. “Don’t get excited,” I cautioned the blur that ran past me and disappeared under the canvas roof. I raised my voice to make sure they both heard me. “It’s not staying.”
Miriam poked her head out the back. “Why not?”
In my mind, seventeen was too old to pout, but she pushed her bottom lip out anyway.
I hated the four words forming on my tongue. I’d had to say them too often of late. “We can’t afford it.”
A rare breeze kicked up, and Nate turned his face into the wind. Scout, our Australian shepherd, trotted from wherever he’d been hiding and pushed his head under Nate’s hand for a scratch. My brother’s long, lean fingers smoothed Scout’s blue-merle coat, the dog panting with pleasure.
Nate turned and nailed me with his piercing black eyes, so like our father’s had been. The cocky tilt his lips had sported as he’d driven the wagon in vanished, replaced with a steadiness I was still getting used to since he’d returned home. He’d yet to tell me all that had transpired over the year he’d spent in Nashville with just his guitar and his dreams. He didn’t seem to want to talk about it, and there was always something on the ranch that needed my attention.
“We can’t afford not to. Like I said, it’s already rented.”
I peered past him and studied the wooden build of the wagon’s bed. “What do you mean, rented?”
“I mean a group of women have booked a reservation to sleep in the Conestoga for two nights. The listing wasn’t even up an hour.”
Reservations meant beds and linens. The revenue from a few nights wouldn’t cover the expenses of mattresses and sheets.
“As is, Malachi.” Nate’s voice broke through my calculations. “The Conestoga is our new ‘roughing it’ option. Guests can now choose between the bunkhouse, the glamping tents set up by the river, or bringing their own sleeping bags and experiencing what a night out on the Oregon trail might have been like.” That self-satisfied smile returned. “Minus starvation and sickness.”
Miriam jumped down from the driver’s bench and brushed the palms of her hands together. “I love it.”
“Well, isn’t she a beauty.” Gran’s voice drifted from the porch behind me.
I shook my head. Even if I wanted to argue, there would be no point now. Outmatched against Nate and Miriam was nothing compared to going head-to-head with Gran. “Fine.”
Nate’s full smile broke free, and he ran his hand over the afro he refused to cover with a hat like a sensible man who worked all day in the sun would. He turned and used the wagon’s wheel to climb back onto the driver’s seat. Thunder and Lightning stepped forward when he made a clucking sound with his tongue.
“But don’t think I haven’t noticed the abomination that is my reining horses hitched to that monstrosity,” I yelled as he steered the wagon toward the river. “There will be consequences, little brother.” I cupped my hand around my mouth. “Too much time in Nashville has muddled your brain.” Next thing I knew, he’d be setting up mechanical bulls and karaoke machines and inviting bachelorette parties or something equally boisterous.
Gran’s chuckle turned me around. She had one veined hand perched on Miriam’s shoulder and the other clasping the railing of the front porch, her gray hair pulled back in a low bun. Seventy-eight years old and as strong and as stubborn as a bull. I’d never met a woman quite her equal and doubted I ever would. Who else could keep a ranch with over three hundred head of cattle running while raising her orphaned grandchildren and mending their broken hearts? At times, I swore she’d kept the family together and the ranch running by sheer willpower.
“I got a feeling in my bones.” Her rheumy gaze lowered to fasten onto mine, a hint of a smile playing at her lips. “You better prepare yourself, Malachi Thomas.”
We’d all better prepare. Because if things didn’t go well with the Whalen group and they didn’t spread the word among their corporate buddies, I wasn’t sure how much longer we could hold on to our ancestral lands before we finally had to sell out.
