About that time several hundred miles to the east, Gerald Pepper was trying to make some sense of the news that a policeman had brought to him a few minutes before.

When the policeman knocked on his door that afternoon, Gerald was sleeping, hoping to get a little rest before he had to work the four-to-midnight at the gas station/convenience store that was his main job these days. It was a lousy job, in an armored cubicle in a crappy section of town, but at least the pay was regular. It took him a minute to pull himself together, before he opened the door and saw the cop standing there. Well, this is it, he thought. I didn’t know they sent cops to do evictions.

“Hi, are you Gerald Pepper?” the cop asked.

“That’s me,” he conceded.

“I have a message for you from the Walke County, Colorado Sheriff’s Office. If your grandfather is Elmer Pepper of Lexington, Colorado, we’re to inform you that he died.”

“Wow, thanks. I haven’t seen him for years, and I pretty much thought that he was already dead.”

“Apparently not,” the cop smiled. “I’ve got a number for you to call, since the Walke County Sheriff has some questions about disposition of the body and those kinds of things.” He passed along the number, written on a business card.

“All right, I’ll give him a call. Hey, thanks for letting me know about this.”

“It’s not part of our regular job, but these things happen. Sorry to hear about your grandfather.”

“That’s all right, and thanks again.”

It had been many years since he’d been at his grandfather’s ranch – it was before his father died, and that was almost twenty years before. In fact, now that he thought about it, it had been when his grandmother died.

Gerald really couldn’t remember much about the ranch; he had barely been a teenager when the visit happened, if that old – he wasn’t sure. He could remember a ranch house, some outbuildings, a lot of cows, and a corral with some horses that he would have liked to ride. The horses might have been fun to ride, but his dad said that they could be dangerous for a beginner, and there wasn’t time to teach him on the short visit. Besides, if he got horse dander all over his clothes it would set off his mother’s allergies. They’d had to stop in some little town on the way back and wash all his clothes so they could even go home.

The chance had never come to ride a horse again, or even go out to his grandfather’s ranch. His dad had died in a car wreck not long after that trip, and he and his mother had to struggle for years after that. There was no money to go to college; he’d had to go to work to support her, and there hadn’t even been the time or the inclination to do much dating. It wasn’t until after his mother died that he met Kasie, which in the long run hadn’t turned out to be a good deal. They’d struggled along for a couple of years, while she worked in a McDonald’s and he worked as a counterman in an auto parts store, but when Kasie got pregnant with Leah things got worse.

Kasie proved to be a lousy mother. Oh, she liked sex well enough, but she didn’t like the consequences. She didn’t like being pregnant, didn’t like caring for Leah, and didn’t like the way raising the little girl disrupted her life. She mostly saw Leah as being an unwanted pain in the neck. On the other hand, Gerald was delighted with the little girl, and gave her a lot of attention during babyhood. It was he who got up in the middle of the night, changed diapers, and fed her; it was he who read her stories and cuddled her when she needed it.

By then it was clear that hooking up with Kasie had been the biggest mistake of his life. He often wondered what things would have been like if he’d kept his head when he’d met her and let her go by, but that wasn’t what had happened.

One night Kasie accused him of loving the little girl more than he did her. On thinking about it – and pretty tired of Kasie’s whining anyway – he made the mistake of agreeing with her. Things went downhill quickly from that point onward; one day he came home from work at the auto parts store to discover Kasie’s bags were packed and loaded into her car. “I’m moving out and leaving you with your favorite girl,” she said sharply, and before he could even figure out what was happening she was gone. He’d never heard from her again, and most of the time he was just as glad.

Kasie was still his wife, at least technically, since he’d never gotten a divorce. He could have, and probably should have, but there had never been enough money to do it, or at least the need to spend the money when there were other much more important uses for it. Babysitting and day care were expensive, but he had to do it so he could keep his job, keep food on the table, and provide clothes for the growing little girl. He could never have managed it if it hadn’t been for help from an older neighbor who had never had children of her own and who had always wanted them.

He had been looking forward to Leah starting school, since it looked like it would ease the child-care costs a little. His take-home pay was also helped when he was promoted to assistant manager at the store. In a few more years things might be even easier.

But it hadn’t worked out that way. The auto parts store was part of a chain, and it was bought out by another chain. There was another, larger auto parts store from the chain a short distance up the street, and the new owners decided there was no point in having two stores so close together. The store closed, leaving everyone there from the manager on down out of a job.

Gerald liked to think that he was a good worker, even though he conceded he wasn’t the smartest person to ever come down the block. He just hadn’t had any luck yet in finding another job that would provide enough for Leah and him. Oh, he’d found jobs, but they were lousy – short term, bad hours, low pay, or a combination of all of the above. There were times when he had worked twelve to sixteen hours a day, and that didn’t leave much time to be a father to Leah, but he felt like he had to make it somehow, and there still wasn’t enough money to go around.

One of the things that had fallen behind was his rent payment, even if it was a crappy place. His landlord didn’t care that he worked two jobs and had a little girl to care for – he just wanted his money and he wanted it on time, not that he ever did anything to care for the tiny apartment. With luck and a little scratching, he might be able to hold on to it for another month or two, but probably not any longer – and then he and Leah would be out on the street.

With all that in mind, Gerald pulled out his cheap cell phone to dial the number the cop had given him. In only a few seconds, a man answered, “Walke County Sheriff.”

“Hi, my name is Gerald Pepper, and I had a message to call you.”

“Oh, hi,” the man said in a friendly fashion. “I’m Sheriff Bert Shoemaker. Your grandfather was Elmer Pepper, right?”

“Yes, though it’s been many years since I’ve seen him.”

“I have to inform you that your grandfather is dead. Actually, we think he died Sunday morning, but his body wasn’t found until late Monday. According to a note he left, you are his only living heir, so there are a number of things that we need your assistance on. I mean, things like disposition of the body. The body is at the funeral home in Carondelet, since they have the facilities to hold a body and we don’t.”

“I wouldn’t know where to start with that, and honestly, I’m so broke right now I couldn’t afford a funeral.”

“I can’t help you with that, other than to say that he also left you his ranch, so I presume that there are some funds that could cover the costs. I have no idea what the details would be, but since you probably own the ranch now those are the kinds of things you’re going to have to sort out.”

“He left me his ranch? I had no idea. I haven’t been there in, oh hell, at least twenty years.”

“Well, that was what it said in his note, which for practical purposes would be a will. Look, Mr. Pepper, I hate say this, but your grandfather committed suicide. His note said that he had cancer real bad, and he couldn’t take the pain any longer. Did you know anything about that?”

“Not a thing. I haven’t talked to him in years. If I’d known he was that bad off, I would have been willing to come out and help.” Even as he said it, Gerald wondered just how true that was. It would have been very difficult to break away from his job – well, such a job as he had – to go care for an elderly relative. “I don’t even know how he could have found me.”

“It took accessing driver’s license records to find you,” the sheriff replied. “Fortunately your local police department was helpful in locating you.”

“I can see that would account for not being able to find me himself,” Gerald sighed. “Look, you said he had his ranch. Are there things that need to be done there in a hurry? I mean, animals to feed, or something like that? I wouldn’t have the slightest idea of what would have to be done.”

“No, no animals. I talked to a neighbor, Art Gamble, and he said that all the animals had been sold off a year or two ago, so Elmer was just living out there all by himself. The buildings are in fair shape, but the house needs cleaning. I guess as sick as he was he wasn’t up to doing it himself. I know it was a fair-sized ranch, but I don’t know the details, or whether it had been leased out for income, or what. That’s something you’re going to have to deal with, but I’ll be willing to help you where I can. It’s not like there’s really that much to do out here.”

“I appreciate the offer. I can come out there to deal with things. I can’t tell you how long it’s going to be, but it ought to be soon. Thanks for your help.”

“Glad to help where I can. These things happen, and it’s usually difficult.”

Gerald clicked off the phone, realizing that this was going to change things, and with any kind of luck, change them for the better.

Like he’d told the sheriff, he didn’t have the slightest idea of what had to be done around a ranch. Oh, there had been times when he was younger that he had wished that he could leave his life behind and go live with his grandfather. It would mean that he could be a cowboy, ride a horse, and not be stuck in this godforsaken city with all the hassles. If he’d done that before he met Kasie, things would have been a lot different. A vision crossed his mind of riding a horse out around some cattle, doing whatever it was that cowboys did with cattle – he wasn’t sure, other than from what he’d seen on TV now and then. Whatever it was, it was probably a lot different than they showed it on TV.

It was probably too late to learn – certainly too late to learn from his grandfather – but it seemed likely that the ranch was still worth something. He didn’t think his grandfather had been rich, but if he owned the ranch, at least maybe it could be sold to give him a new start on life, maybe well away from here. This could be his chance to get away, to start a new life, to finally be a good father to his little girl.

In any case, it was a good excuse to get out of this town and start over. He was supposed to get his paycheck from the station on Friday; that ought to give him enough cash to at least get to Lexington, Colorado.

It didn’t take much thought for him to conclude that the smart thing to do would be to go out there and check things out before he made the big jump, but that wasn’t practical. He would have to take Leah with him, and that meant he might as well load up the minivan with everything he could get in it and pray to Christ things would work out. If nothing else, he and Leah could probably live at the ranch house while things got sorted out. Besides, if he left his and Leah’s things here, there was a good chance they would come back to find everything out on the curb, picked over by the neighborhood scavengers who would likely not leave anything at all. They didn’t have a lot but there was no point in throwing it away, either.

Maybe this would work out for the best.

He realized that he was wasting time. There was barely enough time for him to get over to the school to pick up Leah, take her to the sitter, and then get to work. It might not be real busy at the station tonight, and that would give him time to think through some of the details. He finished getting dressed to go out, locked the apartment, then got into the minivan to go pick up Leah. When he worked second shift like this, picking her up and driving her to the sitter was the only chance he got to see her, except for a few minutes in the morning.

The minivan was an old one, and it had seen better days – much better days. But it still ran reliably, and he figured it ought to make it out to Colorado. Naturally, when Kasie left she had taken the better car, but at least this one still served the purpose.

He was waiting at the school when Leah came out. She was still the best thing that had ever happened to him, a thin little second grader with long brown hair; while she was capable of doing it herself, brushing her hair out was one of the joys of his life. It was too bad she didn’t have a mother, since it often made things awkward, but perhaps it was just as well that Kasie was gone, since she wouldn’t have done anything like that for her daughter.

“Hi, Leah,” he said as she came up to the minivan, where he was holding the door open for her. “So how was school today?”

“It was fun,” she said with her sweet smile as she got into the car seat and buckled herself in. “Mrs. Robinson read to us from The Boxcar Children, and we worked on spelling and ’rithmetic. I did real good on my spelling test, Daddy.”

Gerald checked the fastening of the belts on her car seat, like he always did. She was proud that she knew how to do it, but he still checked, anyway, mostly because she was his daughter and he wanted to keep her as safe as he could. He debated telling her about his grandfather and that there was a good chance they’d be moving to Colorado soon, but he didn’t want to spring it on her and then just drop her off, leaving Josie the sitter with questions from her that she couldn’t answer.

It was just a short drive to Josie’s. He hated to have to leave her there so much, which happened when he worked evening shifts, but there was nothing else he could do. At least Leah liked Josie, and the other way around – Josie had gone a long way toward filling in for Kasie as something of a mother.

As he drove along, he realized that Josie needed a head’s-up about what was happening, even though it would be on short notice. Probably the best time to do it would be when he picked Leah up; it would be after midnight, and at least the little girl would be asleep. Fortunately, Leah was used to being dropped off at the sitter’s and going to sleep in one bed but waking up in another. Once again, it was far from being the ideal solution, but it was one that worked about as well as could be managed under the circumstances.

With Leah dropped off, Gerald drove to the station. It was in a bad part of town, and there was a good reason that he spent the eight hours in the armored cubicle, but at least it was a job, and while the pay was inadequate for his needs it was better than no job at all.

It took a few minutes to take over from the outgoing clerk, but soon he was by himself. He really didn’t like the job – it could be boring, and occasionally dangerous. The owners knew he had the child-care problem, but he wasn’t the only clerk who did. He had to give them credit in that they tried to switch the shifts around to make it less of a problem.

Because they did treat him well in that regard, it really wasn’t fair for him to leave them on short notice, not that he had any real choice in the matter. At least there was an hour yet before the main office closed, so he called and talked to his boss. After identifying himself, he said, “Look, I hate to have to do this to you, but my grandfather just died out in Colorado, and I have to go out there to arrange for a funeral and settle up his things.”

“How soon do you have to leave?”

“Really, as soon as possible. I’m scheduled for work tonight and tomorrow night, but I’m off for three days after that.”

“Well, I’m sorry to hear about your grandfather. Sometimes you do what you have to do. If you’ll drop by the office on Friday morning, we’ll have your check ready for you. How long do you think you’ll be gone?”

“I don’t know for sure, or when I’ll be back,” he admitted. “As far as I know there are no other relatives, so it might take a while, and I have to say there’s a possibility I won’t be back at all.” That was shading the truth a little bit; he hoped that with any kind of luck he would never be back. There had to be something better out there for him and Leah, and this might give him the breathing room he needed to find it.

“It sounds like it can’t be helped under the circumstances. You’ve been real reliable for us so far, so give us a call when you get back, and we’ll work you into the schedule somewhere. It may take a few days before we can get you back to work.”

“That will be all right. Like I said, I hate to drop this on you on short notice, but it can’t be helped.”

“At least you gave us some notice,” his boss said. “I shouldn’t have to tell you that sometimes all the notice I get is someone telling me to go right straight to hell. You’re at least giving me five days to diddle with the schedule.”

That was a load off his mind, Gerald thought as he hung up the phone. While he disliked the job immensely, it provided some income, and the boss had been fair with him, and that was more than he’d gotten from some of the jobs he’d held to try to keep things going since the auto parts store had closed.

He sat back in the rather rickety chair behind the register and tried to think about what needed to be done. If he could get his check Friday morning, there didn’t seem to be any reason he couldn’t get on the road immediately afterwards. It would be most of a day to drive out to Lexington, and he couldn’t even imagine what would be needed to arrange things for a place to stay. He might not even be able to get the keys to the house until the first of the week, but there ought to be enough money in his check to at least see him through that long. The sheriff had seemed helpful, and maybe he would help some more.

Could he get everything packed up and ready to go Friday? It seemed likely; he and Leah didn’t have much stuff, and he didn’t have to work at his other convenience store job that morning, which was only four hours anyway. He and Leah ought to be able to get everything in the minivan, and what they couldn’t get in it they could just leave behind. It would be a new start, after all.

The hours dragged, as they often did, but at least nothing untoward happened. He spent most of his time trying to think about all he would have to do. His replacement showed up at midnight, and he was glad to be out of there as he drove to Josie’s to pick up Leah. “So how was my girl tonight?” he asked the sitter.

“Nice as always,” Josie replied. “She went right to sleep and didn’t make a fuss. You’ve got a good girl, Jerry.”

“It’s always good to know that. Look, something has come up. My grandfather died out in Colorado, and I have to go deal with everything. I’ve thought about it, and I’m going to take Leah with me since it looks like I’ll be able to move into his house. I haven’t told her this yet, though I will in the morning, but we may not be coming back.”

“I’m sorry, Gerald. You’re telling me I’m not going to be seeing her any more. I’m going to miss her.”

“I’m going to miss your help in taking care of her, but this gives me a chance to start over in a new place. I don’t know any details, but there may be a little money involved, and it ought to mean that I can be a better daddy for her.”

“I can understand that, and I’m glad for you. I know things have been rough, but maybe they’ll work out much better now.”

“I hope so,” he said. “I’ll be leaving Leah again tomorrow night, but that will probably be the end of it unless we do wind up coming back here.”

It was hard to tell Leah about it the next morning. It took a while of being gentle, but he’d already decided there was no point in her going to school that day – she could be of help getting things packed up. There were a bunch of broken-down cardboard boxes at the station, and he’d loaded them into the minivan the night before, along with a couple of rolls of tape. It looked like it might be enough.

The two of them packed up their apartment that day, and yes, Leah was of a lot of help. She didn’t like the thought of having to give up her classmates and having to look for new friends, but, as he told her, it also meant that he was likely going to be able to spend a lot more time with her. She seemed especially thrilled to find out that they might be living on a ranch. “You mean that there are going to be horses and cows and stuff?”

“There aren’t any there now, but there were in the past,” he told her. “And maybe there will be again. I just don’t know, Leah.”

“Could we maybe get a doggy or a kitty?”

“I don’t know that, either. All I can say is that we might be able to have one there. We can’t have one here, and you know that.”

During the middle of the day they made a brief stop at the school to tell the principal that Leah wouldn’t be coming back, and that they’d have the new school write for her records when they got settled. The principal said that would be all right.

Everything was pretty well packed up by the time he had to take Leah to Josie’s, then go to work. He didn’t want anything sitting in the van at work, so he put off loading it until the next morning. The rear seat had disappeared long before he bought the minivan, so he unshipped the middle seat, shoved it far to the back, and then loaded everything in the space left in the middle. That at least meant that he could have Leah in the front passenger seat in her car seat, which would be better for a long drive.

Once they had the minivan loaded, the two of them went to pick up his paycheck, cash it, and then drop the apartment keys off in the drop box at the landlord’s. He was behind on his rent, and there was nothing he could do about that, but he made up his mind that he’d catch up when he knew he had some money, just to be fair to the man. Then he got back in the minivan and turned it toward Colorado.

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