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Wes Boyd’s Spearfish Lake Tales Contemporary Mainstream Books and Serials Online |
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Wes Boyd’s Spearfish Lake Tales Contemporary Mainstream Books and Serials Online |
They spent much of the next hour going through both houses and the barn. Jennifer had seen them before, but she wanted Will to go through them carefully too, in the likelihood that he would see something she hadn’t. There were a few minor things, certainly nothing bad enough to wreck the deal.
Finally, under a sunshade in the bunkhouse, Will summed things up. “I can see a few things that need attention, but nothin’ real major. Miz Hoffman, in the end it’s your money, but if you want to spend it, I’m for it.”
She turned to the man from the property management company who had accompanied them. “All right, I guess we have a deal in general, so long as we can work out some details. If we can agree on a price, how soon can we have the keys?”
“It’s unoccupied, as you can see,” the man replied. “We’re ready to go now, but it’ll be up to you and your bank to come up with the paperwork. I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes a while to get all that worked out. Banks may say that they’re eager to loan money, but it sure takes them a while to get all the loose ends picked up. Don’t be surprised if it takes six weeks to two months.”
“You’re probably right,” she agreed. “I’d be happy with sooner but I think we have time enough if we can come to an agreement on price. Considering the amount of work needed on the main house and on the pasturage, I think you’re a little high.”
In the end they wound up at a price a few thousand dollars under the asking price. Both of them knew it was about where they were going to come out when they started dickering, but they had to go through the motions just to go through the motions. They wound up spending twenty minutes or so getting there, but by the time they drove off of the property the offer had been made and accepted.
Finally they all got back in their cars. “So that’s that,” Jennifer said to Will as they drove off the property. “It’s going to be a while in the making, but I think we’ll wind up having a pretty nice place.”
“I think we will too,” he replied. “It sure ain’t what I was expectin’ when I got up this mornin’, I think it’s better. I don’t suppose there’s much else we can do about it this weekend.”
“Not really,” she shrugged. “It’s Labor Day weekend, so there’s nothing official we can do like talk to a bank. That’ll have to wait until Tuesday at least, but I can do it without you. I want to get Stan’s wife involved a little bit to get whatever bank it is to hurry up on the paperwork. I may have to bring you back here a couple of times to deal with some piece of it, but maybe it can be done by fax. I don’t know for sure on that.”
“I sure will be glad to have all this flyin’ back and forth done with,” he sighed. “It’s been a pain in the neck for both of us, and an expensive one for you.”
“Yes, but it’s been worth it, and now it’s almost over with. Now we can quit spinning our wheels and get on with our lives. We won’t be able to do much about the new place except make plans until the closing is finalized, but then I think we need to be ready to work quickly.”
“I can see that there’s not much we can do ’til then. There’s not much we can do but talk about it this weekend, so why don’t we take a little time off?”
“What do you have in mind?”
“What would you say to loadin’ up in Magic Carpet and flyin’ up to the ranch? I wouldn’t mind seein’ the folks a bit, if for no more reason than to tell ’em we ain’t gonna be movin’ up there after all. But mostly, I’d like to spend some time at the cabin, and maybe up in the waterpocket.”
“You know, that sounds like a good idea to me. I could stand some time in the waterpocket with you. We could fly back early Monday, then change over to Skyhook to take you back to Keesler.”
They drove back to the condo for her to gather a few things, but within a couple of hours Magic Carpet was in the air and heading for the ranch, with Will flying just to keep his hand in. While they were on their way they talked of some of the things that they could do on the new ranch, and what order things would have to come in.
Several hours later they could see the cabin looming through Magic Carpet’s propeller disk. Jennifer just sat back and let Will land the plane, and he did a perfect job of it. Soon they were unloading a few things from the back of the plane and hauling them up to the cabin. As luck had it, the last time she had been there she’d forgotten to unhook the cooler boxes – it didn’t matter since they were solar powered – and there were several bottles of cold soda in them. They each grabbed one and headed up to the waterpocket, which was full, and warmer than they were used to.
It didn’t take long for them to get their clothes off and be in the water like they had first done years before. “You know, I’m a little sorry we ain’t campin’ out like we did the first time we come here,” he said.
“I am too, Will. But we have our cabin, and that’s almost as good.”
“You know, in a way I’m a little sorry we’re not gonna be livin’ here, and I mean here, not at the ranch, but I guess that was never gonna be. But I think I’m goin’ to like it better the way we’re settin’ things up. This’ll make a fine place for us to get away to when we want to.”
“I agree. I think it’ll be better than living here.”
Since it was late in the day, they spent the night at the cabin. After breakfast the next morning they got in the little plane again and flew over to the main ranch. Will landed it on the narrow little track they used when they went there, then taxied up to the house where Robin, riding Mudfoot as she did whenever she could get the chance, met them as they got out of the plane. “I thought I heard Magic Carpet last evening,” she announced. “Jennifer, who’s this you have with you?”
“Oh, this is my husband, Will. You’ve heard me talk about him. Will, this is your new little sister or something, Robin.”
“Good to meet you Will. I’ve heard a lot about you. Duane and Ellen are around here somewhere.”
The two soon showed up, and they headed into the main ranch building. “Will, what brings you up this way?” his father asked.
“We had the time and we thought we ought to see you,” he explained. “To make a long story short, I found out a few days ago that I’m getting reassigned to Luke in December, so Miz Hoffman found us a place to buy down there, and we started gettin’ the paperwork goin’ yesterday.”
“A house, or something?” Ellen asked.
“Or something. She found us a whole horse ranch to buy. Not a big one, but we figure we can board and train horses there. So I guess that takes care of the chance of us movin’ up here next spring.”
“Well, that’s good to hear,” Duane said. “I know that coming up here was what you were planning on, but I was wondering how you were going to fit in after being away all this time. Now I guess it won’t be an issue.”
“It’s not sayin’ that we might not move up here sometime, but it’s going to be a ways off in the future.”
“Well, that’s probably for the best. I don’t think your mother and I are anywhere near ready to quit workin’ this place, and I can’t think of anything else that I’d want to do. If you can make a go of your new operation, you’d probably be best to stay there. If the time comes you have to take over this place, maybe you’d be best to find a manager to run it. I can think of a couple of young guys who might be able to make a go of it, but it could be twenty years before that happens.”
“That’s a possibility, I suppose,” Will shrugged. “Guess we’ll have to see what happens when the time comes.”
The weekend at the Bar H Bar went by quickly; early Monday morning Jennifer and Will got back into Magic Carpet and flew back to Phoenix, where they changed planes so they could go on to Keesler.
“I’m sure glad this runnin’ back and forth is about over with,” Will said as they were high over Texas. “It’s gotten mighty old, and I’m lookin’ forward to bein’ together with you. This whole weekend has not been anythin’ like I expected, but it sure has changed things.”
“Changed them for the better, I think. I’m just glad you’re not mad at me for springing this on you so suddenly.”
“I couldn’t be mad at you for that. You were just about readin’ my mind, and you come up with something that I’d dreamed about but could never see how we could get to do it.”
“Like I said the other day, I think we’re going to have to learn to be more open with each other. We’ve both been living alone for so long that it’s going to be hard to learn to live together. We’ve had some fun times on our weekends, but that’s probably not going to be how it’ll be when we’re doing it every day.”
“Yeah, I can see you’re right on that, but you know, Miz Hoffman, I think we’re gonna be able to make it work just fine. At least we’re gonna find out in three months or so.”
After the heady weekend it was a little hard for Jennifer to get back to her normal schedule on Tuesday. There were things she had to do like arranging for financing, and she quickly enlisted Stan’s wife in the project. Stan had known about the ranch idea, of course, and had been very supportive of it. “It’ll keep you here in Phoenix,” he said flatly. “I was not looking forward to you trying to work marooned up there in the boondocks. I don’t think it would have worked for very long.”
“I’m still going to try to work from home, at least some,” she explained. “It’s going to be a tough commute to get in here from the ranch every day, close to an hour even if the traffic goes my way.”
“Maybe it’ll work in your favor,” he smiled. “You have to work on your mindset to do it, but a comfortably long drive will help you transition from your home life to your work one and the other way around. That’s part of why I don’t live real close to here, since I find I do my best thinking when I’m behind the wheel.”
“It’s kind of like that for me when I’m flying,” she agreed. “But I don’t know how well I’d be able to make it work when I’m dealing with some of those idiots on the road. You know, I thought about it when I was on the way back from Biloxi last night. Maybe I ought to think of buying a helicopter and getting a rating in it.”
“That would simplify the commute, all right,” he said. “I mean, you have a Learjet already, so what’s the big deal?”
“I’ll think about it, and maybe I’ll deal with the commute for a while before I jump on that idea,” she told him. “I’ve got enough new stuff to complicate my life for a while.”
The financing went a little easier than she had feared, but it wasn’t something that got accomplished overnight, either. In the beginning Jennifer had plans to keep the condo near Lambdatron where she had lived since moving to Phoenix over a decade before, but in the end she decided to sell it. Not only would it make for a good down payment on the ranch, keeping the condo would mean there would be times she would decide to just go there and crash rather than heading back out to the ranch to be with Will. They had been apart enough, so perhaps it would be better to remove the temptation.
Even though they were still a long way from moving into the ranch, there was a lot to be done. There were a number of things that needed to be done to both the main house and the bunkhouse, so she made arrangements for a contractor to come in and work on them as soon as the deal was closed. She contacted a decorator who Norma recommended – the woman was a Redlite veteran who had built a successful business – and after some discussion and consultation with Will, they decided on a Western theme without being overwhelming about it. This would be a house to live in and work out of, not a magazine showpiece.
Norma was involved with the plans for the bunkhouse, but this was nothing as elaborate as the main house. It was not yet clear how many clients they would have living there at one time, but she hoped it would only rarely be more than half a dozen or so. There was still a staff to be found, although she had some leads. She now had her doctorate, and had had it for a couple of months, so she was putting together some of the support she would need for when Hearts of Gold went into actual operations.
Just to keep life interesting, they got into a busy patch at Lambdatron, and that ate up time, along with the other things Jennifer had going on in her life right then. It was good that Mike and Nancy Hanneman could keep Skyhook Aviation going without much input from her; about all the contact she had with the company for a while was to call Nancy to arrange to take Skyhook to Biloxi to see Will.
As if that weren’t enough, there was still the television documentary on prostitution that Jennifer was working on with Brenda. Once Jennifer and Norma had to take Skyhook to meet with Brenda in Miami to shoot a segment; another time they had to go to San Francisco for the same thing.
“It sure would be nice to find some teenager who’s gotten swept up in things, but made it out,” Brenda commented while they were shooting the latter segment. “It’d be tricky to do, and we couldn’t reveal her face, but it could be a powerful segment.”
“I know of several women who got involved when they were young teenagers, but made it out,” Norma replied. “In fact, I’m one of them. But I suppose you want someone who looks young.”
“Yes,” Brenda said. “I think it would bring home a lot of the perils young kids face.”
“I know of someone who might fit the bill,” Jennifer replied. “Whether she’d be willing to do it is another story. All I can do is ask.”
“I know who Jennifer is talking about,” Norma agreed. “She’d do well for what you want, but I’m not sure it’d be wise since she’s still recovering from a pretty horrible experience. But I can probably find someone in the Phoenix area if she doesn’t work out.”
The next week Jennifer had to pick up Robin to take her to Lonnie’s trial in Piute Wells. Norma wanted to go along in case the girl had some troubles with it, and so did Ellen, so this time Jennifer flew Songbird up to the cabin, where Ellen and Robin were waiting for them, having ridden horses over from the main ranch. Robin had ridden Mudfoot, who now didn’t look like an ordinary ranch work horse, but appeared almost ready for a horse show; Ellen said it had all been Robin’s doing.
Robin had changed considerably from the frightened, battered girl who they’d met at the Redlite Ranch only a few months before. Her bruises were all gone and there was no trace of her ordeal; she was a good-looking, happy teenager in western clothes and a broad-brimmed hat.
They left the horses in the corral at the cabin and made the relatively short flight to the Redlite Ranch, where they borrowed a car from George and drove on into Piute Wells.
Lonnie may have rolled over on the other charges, but both he and his attorney had realized he faced serious time over the new statutory rape charge, so this time it came down to a jury trial. Robin was confident when she went on the stand, and her testimony was solid. The pictures of her injuries that had been taken at the Redlite Ranch on the day that she’d been rescued probably were what were needed to put the jury over the top. Although sentencing would be a while off, it appeared that Lonnie would be going away for a long, long time.
“I’m glad that’s over with,” she said as they left the courthouse and started back to Songbird. “At least I know he’s not going to come for me or after some other girl again for a while.”
“If the stories I hear about life in prison are correct,” Norma smiled, “I’m pretty sure he’s going to have a hard time of it. Maybe he’ll learn what it’s like to be on the short end of the stick.”
“Good. Maybe he’ll feel a bit of what he put me through.”
Jennifer thought that maybe this was the time to ask her about Brenda’s wanting to interview someone like her. “Robin,” she said, “it would be good if people knew about it. Not you, so much, but what someone who gets swept up in things like that have to face. I’m working with a woman who’s putting together a television documentary, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d like you to do a segment with her.”
“If it’ll warn one girl of what I had to go through, it’ll be worth it,” she replied flatly.
“All right, I’ll set it up.”
After discussions of places to shoot the interview, which included at the ranch, it was decided to do it at an anonymous studio in Las Vegas, although some second-unit shots were made in places where Robin had worked the streets; she didn’t have to be there for those. Since Ellen wanted to be present for that, once again she and Robin rode horses over to the cabin, where Jennifer again picked them up in Songbird and took them to town.
The interview went well; it took a couple of hours, of which Brenda said only a few minutes would be used, and then with her face not being shown. Robin held up well through it, and it looked like it would be a key to the whole documentary.
“I think that about wraps it up,” Brenda said after they were done shooting. “Like I’ve said from the beginning, this is one of those things that gets worked on when there aren’t other things of higher priority. I’m guessing it will be on WNN Newsmagazine after the first of the year.”
“Well, I told you it wouldn’t be any rush, since the problem isn’t going away anytime soon,” Jennifer agreed. “I know it took a while to work out, but I think it will be worth it. Brenda, call on me again if you need help sometime.”
“I’m not going to say there’s going to be a follow-up piece,” Brenda went on. “But there could be, and there could be requests to interview you.”
“I’ve always turned those down in the past, but maybe the time for that is over,” Jennifer said. “I don’t want to be interviewed as Jennifer Hoffman, but Learjet Jenn is going to have the book I told you about coming out soon, and I wouldn’t mind chances to promote it. I’m not taking any money for that, by the way. It’s all being turned over to the organization Norma and I have been working on, Hearts of Gold.”
“Yes, you’ve talked about that before. Maybe sometime up the road we could do a story on that.”
“It might be a good idea, but I’d just as soon we had a chance to get our feet under us first. I’m sure there will be bugs and kinks to work out as we get going.”
After a good dinner, later that afternoon Jennifer flew Robin and Ellen back out to the cabin, where the horses were waiting to take them back to the main ranch. “I haven’t talked to Will about it much,” Jennifer said as she watched Ellen and Robin saddle up Suzy and Mudfoot. “I suspect he’s going to want to get a horse or two from here to take down to the new place in Phoenix I mean, it’d be hard to have a horse ranch without horses, and we need a couple to ride just to ride them.”
“I suppose there’s no reason you can’t do it,” Ellen smiled. “The only thing is that if you want to take Mudfoot with you, you’d better plan on taking Robin along with you too. She’s become her horse, and she’d be ready to show her in a horse show if there was a place to do it here. She sure doesn’t seem like the same old lazybones that she was before Robin started working with her. Robin doesn’t have much experience, but she seems to have the same kind of touch with horses that Will has. It just needs to be developed more.”
“You know,” Robin piped up, “that might be an idea. While I like it here a lot, I’d still like to finish high school at least, and maybe go on a bit if I can work out how. Jennifer, I sure like Will’s folks a lot, and they’re better parents to me than my real parents ever were, but I miss being able to see kids my own age once in a while.”
“I have heard dumber ideas,” Ellen said. “It’s not that Robin isn’t any use around here, because she has been and she’s learned a lot along the way. But I can see how her being out of here would do her some good.”
“It’s something to think about,” Jennifer agreed. “We probably couldn’t do much about it until we actually move onto the new ranch, which won’t be much before the end of the year.”
“That would work,” Robin said. “I need another year and a half of high school, so that would work out just about right.”
“If you want to do it, we have no objections,” Ellen said. “It would be good for Robin, and you’d have an extra set of hands to deal with setting up your new horse operation.”
“Well, unless something comes up, it’d be fine with me,” Jennifer replied. She didn’t say anything, but wondered a little smugly what Norma would say when she heard that Robin would be living on the new place. Although she was no counselor, even Jennifer could see that having the girl around to serve as an inspiration to younger girls could make a big difference for them. Robin might still be a little young to be a housemother in the bunkhouse, but she’d make a great house-sister and horse wrangler.
