Things seemed greener the around the Pepper ranch after the storm that had hit the afternoon before. It had been a big storm, powerful, with lots of lightning and thunder, and a hard rain that lasted half an hour or more. Gerald and Leah had gotten back from the funeral well before it hit, and had seen it coming from miles away. Leah had been scared by the thunder and lightning, and she’d cuddled up close to her father, but he told her that it was a spectacular sky show, and something to watch and enjoy rather than to be scared of. He could tell she hadn’t much believed him as she’d clung close to him watching until the first big drops of oncoming rain finally drove them into the house.

Gerald thought it had been a good show. He’d seen storms often enough in his life, but seeing a big thunderstorm out over the open prairie was a different experience than anything within the confines of the city. In the clear air he could see the clouds from miles away, perhaps a hundred miles or more, and they were huge, towering white monsters that gave him respect for the power of nature. When the storm had passed, it left behind a quiet, damp countryside that smelled sweet and fresh.

Gerald and Leah had been making progress on his grandfather’s house, although there was still a lot to do. He wasn’t sure if they were getting used to the unpleasant odor or if they’d managed to drive it down a little, but either way it wasn’t as oppressive as it had been a few days before. In any case, they were making a dent in the mess, and he felt like he ought to be getting near the end after another couple weeks of work on the place.

Back on Monday, Leah had told him that she wanted to get back into school so she could have some other kids to play with, and he didn’t blame her a bit. Though he enjoyed having Leah around and thought she felt the same way, he had to admit that it was pretty lonely out here and she had a point, so on Tuesday the two of them loaded up the van and drove to the school in Tyler.

Registering her for school proved to be easy. The principal at the elementary school said they’d have to send for her records, and they might not arrive until after school got out, but she would still be welcome in the second grade class anyway. There was only a handful of kids in the class and it was the only class of second graders in the school. They seemed happy to have someone new join them.

Although it was expensive to drive back and forth to Tyler from the ranch twice each day, he decided it would be best, at least for the first few days until she got used to the new surroundings. The principal had offered to find some older kid who lived nearby to watch over her while she was on the bus, and Gerald was grateful for the suggestion. Leah had never ridden a school bus so it would be a new experience for her, but they’d decided to put off the experiment until the next week, especially since she wouldn’t be in school on Thursday for the funeral.

It had somehow seemed strange to drive away from the school with the car seat next to him sitting empty, but it was something of a relief, too. Leah had been very good about keeping still when he’d been in the attorney’s office and the funeral home on Monday, and also during all the driving time, but he could see that she had been getting fidgety. He had many things he needed to do where not having to watch over her would be a blessing, so on Tuesday he’d taken advantage of her being in school to do some of them.

He stopped off at the hardware store in Tyler to get a few things, which included a new knob and lock set for the back door; after he got it installed he’d finally be able to lock the place up. It had made him feel very uneasy to go away from the place and leave it unlocked, and now he wouldn’t have to. While he was at the hardware store he also got some things he would need to clean the place up, including a couple of big boxes of garbage bags.

The next stop had been at the bank in Tyler. The “personal administrator” paperwork and death certificate that Gerald had gotten from McGill were all that was needed to get access to the account, but it was disappointing. There was no safe deposit box, no savings account, and the only checking account had just a couple of hundred dollars in it, which Gerald took with him – it would keep him going for a while longer, though nowhere near enough to last until the will was probated. He found out that the ranch was fully paid for, and had been for decades; if there were liens against it, the banker didn’t know anything about them.

It wasn’t all bad news, though. The banker told him that yes, it was possible to get a small loan against the value of the property under the circumstances, with the note due when the title was actually handed over in a few months. It would take a while to get set up, and he’d probably have to work with his attorney some more, but the situation wasn’t impossible.

With that done, he’d gotten up his gumption and driven out to the junkyard where his grandfather’s pickup truck had been taken. After a brief talk with the owner, he had been told where it sat. Gerald went out there to retrieve any personal effects he could find. The pickup looked as if it could be driven, but it was as the sheriff had said, a mess inside and no attempt had been made to clean it up. It was stomach churning to have to go through it, but Gerald forced himself, because it was a place that his grandfather could have hidden some money.

He went through the pickup carefully, but didn’t find anything to speak of. He grabbed some paperwork from the glove compartment and looked under the seat, but there was no money to be found there. There was a toolbox behind the seat, and Gerald took it with him since tools were always useful. He looked through the whole vehicle as best he could, but didn’t find anything that might be a hiding place for money.

With that much done, Gerald told the junkyard owner that while he couldn’t transfer the title until the will was probated, as far as he was concerned the truck was his to do with as he wished. It probably wouldn’t have been worth much before his grandfather killed himself in it, and now was nearly valueless. At least, Gerald wouldn’t have wanted to drive it; it had been creepy enough to just go through it, and it was one chore he was glad to have completed.

On his way back out to the ranch, Gerald thought a lot about what he had learned. More and more, McGill’s suggestion that his grandfather must have not trusted banks very much seemed to hit home. He could remember seeing older guys, usually wearing coveralls, come into the auto parts store and convenience stores where he had worked, and paying cash for their purchases, at times to the tune of several hundred bucks. Usually he thought they had to have been carrying a big wad of hard cash around with them. Could his grandfather have been like that? It seemed likely.

The part that really got him to wondering was that he knew from Art that his grandfather had sold off all his livestock a couple of years before, and Art had mentioned that it was about fifty steers. Art had said that he had run even more in the distant past, but a few years ago his grandfather had felt that fifty was about all he could handle then, and soon even that was getting to be too much for him.

Although Gerald didn’t know the terms of the sale, he knew that each steer had most likely been worth thousands of dollars, so fifty steers had added up to a lot of money. What had his grandfather done with the money? He must have lived off of it for the last couple of years, but Gerald couldn’t see any evidence of extravagant purchases. Unless there was something he hadn’t seen – and there was a lot he didn’t know – the money still ought to be around somewhere, and most likely not in a bank.

That made McGill’s suggestion to go through his grandfather’s things seem sound indeed.

One of the things Gerald had learned from Art was that while in the past most ranchers had a place somewhere on the spread where they dumped their trash, that practice was frowned on these days. Even this far out of town they had to have their trash taken care of at a landfill. It was a pain in the neck, and most ranchers let stuff pile up in a barn or somewhere until they had a good truckload to haul off, usually in one of their own trucks. Art warned that it wasn’t a good idea to let edible trash lay around or coyotes or other pests could get into it – and their idea of edible was a lot broader than a human’s.

There was a lot of trash at the Pepper ranch, and there would be more, so the best thing he could think of to do was to go through the things that had already been hauled out to the back porch. Much of it was pure junk, he knew, but there had been things he and Leah had hauled out that might have been hiding places for money. All he could think of to do was to go through it again, then haul it out to the empty barn to store until he had a truckload. But he didn’t want to let Leah see him going through things again looking for hidden items or cash, so he would have to do it out of her sight – which meant that it was good that she would be in school the next few days.

By the time he had to pick up Leah on Tuesday Gerald had managed to get through most of the trash bags on the back porch, but he hadn’t found any money, not that he had expected to. Most of what they’d hauled out there already had been just things left out on the surface, pure trash that his grandfather just hadn’t had the energy or the ambition to deal with.

It turned out that Leah had had a good time at school and was all bubbly about her teacher and her classmates, none of whom seemed to live out this way. That wasn’t surprising – there was only one other ranch in view, the Gamble’s place he now knew, and that was a couple of miles off. It seemed strange to be so alone, and occasionally he wondered how his grandfather must have felt to be alone out here all those years. Gerald thought it had to have made him a little nuts, but apparently it was what he wanted or he wouldn’t have stayed here by himself all these years.

But Gerald was pretty sure he didn’t want to live like this forever. Oh, he could manage it for a while, and he would have to until the will was probated. Assuming the ranch was as free and clear as he’d been led to believe by the banker, it seemed likely that he would lease it out or put it up for sale when he could; whether the house would be worth anything remained to be seen. As before, it seemed like the money could go a long way to setting himself and Leah up in a place that was a little more hospitable.

Wednesday was more of the same, with the exception of the extra stops in Tyler; he just dropped Leah off at school and headed back out to the ranch, where he started going through the clothes in Elmer’s old room. Every time he hauled a bag of old clothes or something out to the growing pile in the barn, he came back in with something from the van. Of course, he went through all the pockets in his grandfather’s clothes, but again didn’t find any hidden cache of money.

That was disappointing, but perhaps it wasn’t a total loss; once he got the house under control he would have little to do but look after Leah. Art had mentioned there might be some day-labor jobs that would bring in a little money, and it would at least give him something to do, if he could find someone who could look after the little girl. It was something he knew he’d have to look into.

Thursday was the day of the funeral; it was understood that he would be keeping Leah home from school for that and she didn’t put up a fuss about it. In the morning they worked on cleaning the place up some more and made some visible progress. There was a lot of work to be done but they were slowly getting there.

They knocked off early to get cleaned up for the funeral. Though it was just going to be a graveside service, Gerald thought it showed some respect for his grandfather. In spite of everything, his grandfather’s death was going to mean an improvement in life for Leah and himself, so he thought he ought to be proper about it. Besides, it was going to be an opportunity to meet a few of his neighbors, and that might be important in the months to come.

He got to the cemetery early – he’d had to use his map to find it, too, even though it wasn’t far as distances went out in this empty country. Art and his wife Shirley were already there; they really seemed to be on top of things out in this end of the county They stood around talking for a while, mostly about more things Gerald needed to know. Art told him he would probably be needing an extra set of hands for a couple of days the next week, and Gerald told him he’d be glad to help, although it would have to be while Leah was in school.

They were just finishing up talking about that when Art looked up and said, “Well, here’s the minister now.”

Gerald watched as an older Toyota turned into the cemetery; a short blonde woman wearing a long gray skirt, a black shirt, and a clerical collar got out, carrying a Bible in one hand. “I didn’t know you had a woman minister,” Gerald said to Art softly. “Mr. Burton didn’t mention that.”

“First one we’ve ever had here,” Art smiled, “and she’s a good one. She really seems to take it seriously, but she’s still easy to talk to.” As Nanci came closer, Art greeted her, “Afternoon, Reverend. How are you today?”

“Not bad,” she replied. “So how are you?”

“’Bout the same as yesterday,” the older man smiled. “Have you met Gerald Pepper yet? He’s Elmer’s grandson.”

Gerald thought later that his short conversation with her as well as her service went off wonderfully, especially having some of the neighbors talk about their memories of his grandfather. He learned things about the old man he’d never known before, and it had made him seem a little more human. While the reverend kept the formal parts formal, she also had done it with a focus on Elmer and the man he had been. The service had gone on for a while, longer than he had expected, and he found it interesting and uplifting, a strong tribute to his grandfather, no matter that the reverend admitted she’d never met him.

Gerald was no stranger to a church, though he hadn’t had time in the last couple of years, as working and having to deal with Leah on his own made it a little bit awkward, and he’d also run across several ministers back in the city who were Bible-thumpers, a bit too strong for his taste. But this woman seemed easy-going and likeable, and he resolved that next Sunday he and Leah were going to go to Conestoga Methodist.

After the service, he got the chance to talk to Reverend Chladek some more, and though his offer to pay her for her efforts had been turned down, she reversed the favor by inviting him and Leah to dinner after school the next day.

It was an easy one to accept, and not just because he found himself instinctively liking the intense young woman. She did not seem to be a self-centered airhead like Kasie had been; there was something much deeper in her, and he looked forward to finding out more about her.

Thus it was that shortly after school on Friday Gerald found himself knocking on the door of the Methodist Parsonage in Tyler, Leah by his side. The reverend came to the door, dressed a lot more casually than she had been out at the cemetery the day before. “Hi, Gerald, Leah,” she smiled. “It’s good to see you here.”

“I hope we’re not too early.”

“No, no way. I knew you’d be early when I asked you, but there was no point in making you drive out to the ranch just to have to turn around and come back here. We’ve got plenty of time to talk, and Amber ought to be home from school soon herself.”

Gerald let Leah walk ahead of him into the house. It seemed a little empty in the front room, but maybe that was only because he was getting used to the clutter his grandfather had left behind him at the ranch. “Leah,” the reverend said, “Would you like a little after-school snack, or maybe some juice? I don’t want to spoil your supper, but it’ll probably be a while before we eat.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the little girl replied quietly.

“How about some juice and a couple of cookies? I have some packaged ones, they ought to be fine.”

“Yes, please.”

The reverend disappeared to the kitchen, returning with a small glass of juice and a couple of store cookies. “Why don’t you take a seat,” she said. “So I understand you’re from Kansas City. I’ll bet you’re finding things a little different out here.”

“How about a lot different?” Gerald said, taking a seat on an overstuffed sofa, while Leah sat down next to him. “I’m used to having a lot of people around, and it’s amazing how empty things are around here.”

“I know just what you’re talking about,” she smiled. “You could say I’m from Flagstaff, Arizona, these days, and that’s a big city compared to Tyler, but I’ve spent the majority of my life in Chicago and Phoenix, and I still can’t get over how different things are here. Though I haven’t been here long myself, I find I’m starting to like it.”

“It’s taking some getting used to, but at least everyone here has been helpful and friendly, with the exception of one person, of course.”

“I simply can’t understand that,” she said, shaking her head. “Well, it could be a case of personal preference or belief or something, but I still think it wasn’t the proper thing to do. I think that funerals are for the living, and not the dead. I take it you’re getting settled in.”

“Reverend, I’m afraid it’s going to be a lot of work to get things back under control out there.”

“I imagine it will, and by the way, this is a friendly dinner, not a formal church service, so you don’t have to call me by my title. Just calling me Nanci will be fine.”

“It’s fine with me. I’m a little more comfortable calling you by your name, anyway. So how did you wind up here?”

“I’m a Methodist, so I was assigned here by the conference,” she explained. “The Rocky Mountain Conference had the charge here open up unexpectedly. They didn’t have a candidate available, so I’m sort of on loan from the Desert Southwest Conference, which is based in Phoenix. It was fine with me. I’d rather be here than doing my previous job if this hadn’t come up.”

“What was that?”

“Oh, I was a raft guide in the Grand Canyon,” she smiled. “Not that I didn’t like it, because I loved it, but the time had come in my life to move on.”

“I have to admit, that sounds like a different background for a minister.”

“It is the family business but was just a summer job for me,” she explained. “I spent six summers doing it while I was going to college, and then to seminary. I sort of miss it, but I feel like this job is what I’m supposed to be doing. So what is it that you do?”

“I have to tell you the truth, and that it’s not much of anything. I worked in an auto parts store for several years, but when the store closed I just did whatever I could. I was working in two different convenience stores when I got the word my grandfather had died, and then I had to come here to deal with his estate. While I’m here I’m discovering I should think some about what I want to do when I grow up.”

“Sometimes it’s not easy to figure out,” she agreed. “I spent three years trying to make up my mind about whether I wanted to get into the ministry.”

The door opened, and a young teenager walked in; she was a little shorter than Nanci, with brown hair and a nice smile. Gerald looked at her for a moment – if she was Nanci’s daughter, which she certainly didn’t look like, either the reverend was older than she looked or she had started out awful young. “Hi, Nanci,” she said. “I see our guests are here.”

“Yes, they are. Amber, this is Gerald Pepper and his daughter, Leah. They’re the grandson and great-granddaughter of the man whose funeral I did yesterday. Gerald, this is Amber Wallace. She’s a local girl I’ve taken in while some things are sorted out in her family, and in a short time she’s shown that she’s a very good kid.”

That settled the daughter issue for Gerald. “Pleased to meet you, Amber,” he replied.

“So Amber, how was school today?”

“Pretty much the same,” the girl replied. “Boy, that pot roast really smells good.”

“I just put the potatoes and carrots in a few minutes ago,” Nanci told her. “So it’s going to be a while before we eat. You’re welcome to sit down and talk with us, unless you have homework you’d really rather do.”

“Not much, and nothing that I can’t get done over the weekend,” Amber told them. “I think I’m going to go get something to drink, though.”

“Suit yourself. Now that we’re all here, dinner just needs to finish cooking.”

“We’re all here?” Gerald frowned as Amber headed for the kitchen. “You’re not married?”

“No, I’ve never been married,” Nanci explained. “Honestly, I’ve never had time to look for someone the past several years, what with college and seminary and working on the river. While I’m getting settled into the ministry I’m not sure how anxious I am to get married in the first place. When the time comes, I’m sure God will show the way. How about you, Gerald?”

“I guess I’m still married, though my wife left Leah and me several years ago, and I haven’t heard a word from her since. I ought to get a divorce for abandonment, but I haven’t had the money. That’s one of those things I need to deal with sooner or later.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Well, she left me with Leah, which has been the good part of the deal. I’ve tried to be a good father to her, but it’s hard to raise a daughter when you’re a guy.”

“I can imagine, but you seem to have done a good job with her.”

Amber came back from the kitchen. “Hey, Leah,” she said. “There’s a swing set outside. Would you like me to go out and push you for a bit?”

“Sure,” the little girl said brightly. “Let’s go.”

“I’ll keep her out of mischief for a while,” Amber promised. “That’ll give the two of you a chance to talk.” The two were out the door quickly.

“Seems like a nice kid,” Gerald said.

“She continually amazes me. Her mother disappeared a couple weeks ago, and no one seems to know if she left the area or if something else happened. They were living very rough in an old shack out on the edge of town, but Amber seems to be very resilient and competent, though she has some real issues. We’ve been working on them.”

They continued talking, first about Amber, but soon enough about the hurt that Gerald felt over Kasie leaving him and Leah. The reverend proved to be a good conversationalist and one who listened well, but she wasn’t above slipping a verse from the Bible in every now and then to make a point.

After a while, Amber and Leah came back in. While Gerald continued to talk with Nanci, without prompting, Amber finished the dinner and set the table with Leah’s help. The dinner was wonderful, the best that Gerald and Leah had enjoyed in a while, on par with the past Sunday’s meal at the Gamble’s. The conversation flowed pleasurably right on through the meal, the after dinner clean up, and even for a while afterward. In fact, it was getting near Leah’s bedtime when they finally realized they had to call it an evening.

“Nanci,” Gerald said as he got ready to leave. “It’s been a real pleasure being here with you and Amber tonight. I can’t tell you when I’ve enjoyed an evening as much, but it’s been a long, long time.”

“I’ve enjoyed it myself,” Nanci smiled. “Maybe we’ll have to do it again sometime.”

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