Montana Dreaming Read online

  “He kept a journal, which my father donated to the Montana Historical Society. In it he wrote often of his wife. When I was young I read that journal a whole passel of times, but it wasn’t until I was in my early teens that my father told me my great-grandmother had been a full-blooded Crow Indian. My great-grandfather never made mention of that except for one brief passage in the journal, where he regretted that they couldn’t communicate better.

  “Which was probably quite an understatement, considering she probably didn’t speak one word of English, nor he of Crow. From the way he wrote about her, it was plain that he loved her a great deal, so they somehow managed to overcome the language barrier. She bore him two sons. One died when he was fifteen, thrown from a rough bronc. The other was my grandfather.” Jessie glanced at McCutcheon and then let her eyes drop to her mug of coffee.

  “My grandfather was a half-breed destined to inherit one of the largest ranches in Montana at a time when people looked darkly on all things Indian, and particularly despised half-breeds. He married another half-breed, a girl from the Blackfeet tribe, whose mother had married a Scottish trapper. She was very beautiful and kind. Her name was Elsa, and she was my father’s mother. She is one of my earliest memories. A good memory.” Jessie glanced again at McCutcheon, mortified at her unnatural wordiness. “Sorry. I guess I’m giving you the lowdown on the Weaver women.”

  “Please, continue,” McCutcheon urged. “I want to hear it. All of it. Everything that made this place what it is. Tell me about your earliest memory. Tell me about your grandmother.”

  Jessie held his gaze for a few moments and then nodded slowly. “It was a horseback ride. I was young, maybe four years old, and the horse was as tall as the mountains and as swift as the wind that blew down the valley. The horse was running hard, but I wasn’t afraid. I was in my grandmother’s strong arms and she held me safe upon that horse as it flew homeward. Over the thundering wind I heard her singing a song in her native tongue. It was joyous and full of life. She sang into the wind as we galloped home from someplace away. That was a good memory!

  “I remember that when we got back home my mother was very angry. She was afraid I might have been hurt. She took me from Grandmother and told me I was never to go with her again.” Jessie paused and smiled a faint, bitter smile. “That was a bad memory. My mother was white. She loved my father but never understood his heritage, and she feared what she didn’t understand. Life out here was hard for her. She came from Denver and she was never happy. My grandparents frightened her. The land frightened her. She hated the sound of the wind, the size of the mountains, the stillness at dawn.

  “My father tried to make her happy. He built her this place of boards so she could have the house painted any color she wanted. But the wind and the weather stripped the paint away, and in one bad winter all her rosebushes froze. If she hadn’t died of the bad pneumonia, I think she would have left us.” Jessie ran her palm over the table. “She died because I brought home a bad flu from school when I was in the second grade and she caught it. I got sick and should have died too, but I didn’t. I was seven years old when she died.”

  McCutcheon sat in silence for a long moment. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That must have been a hard time.”

  “Harder on my father. He loved her so. He never got over her death. My grandparents died not many years after that, just months apart. And then it was just my father and me.”

  “Any hired hands?”

  Jessie nodded. “At first. In the good times we kept three full-timers down at the old cabin and a handful of part-timers during branding and roundup. Then, one by one, we had to let them go. Cattle prices kept falling. Land taxes and living costs kept rising. My father wanted me to go to college, so he took a second mortgage on the ranch to pay my tuition. I finished my four years of college and was in my third year of vet school, when he got sick. The medical bills were staggering, debts piled up, the bank sent notices. I quit school two years ago, Dad died last year…and here we are.”

  McCutcheon drew a deep breath and released it slowly. “I’m sorry.”

  She shrugged. “Not your fault. Nobody’s fault, really. I’m just glad you came along when you did. Otherwise the bulldozers would already be at work carving out a golf course along the creek.”

  “I guess we have Steven Brown to thank for that.” McCutcheon hesitated. “I have a question about the brand your horses and cattle wear. It looks like a D with a long bar through the middle. Is that what you call this place? The Bar D? Everyone just refers to it as the Weaver ranch, but don’t most ranches have names?”

  “Most ranches aren’t owned by half-breed Indians,” Jessie replied. “The brand you’re referring to symbolizes a bow and arrow. If you look sharp, you’ll see there’s an arrowhead on one end of that bar. It was a pretty radical brand one hundred years ago, so we always just called it the Weaver ranch and let people scratch their heads and wonder.”

  McCutcheon sat back in his chair. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “The Bow and Arrow.”

  Jessie nodded. “Yessir. Big secret. Might get you scalped if you let it out. What about your wife? You’re married, aren’t you?”

  “Twenty-odd years, no children. She didn’t want them. Wanted to be free to travel. She’s in Paris right now. Spends six months a year there. She’d never come out here, not in a million years. Not her kind of place. She likes bright lights and big cities. It’s not her fault that her husband’s a throwback to a different time and place. I can’t blame that on her. She’s smart, funny, beautiful, well educated. She should’ve been a politician. Maybe then we’d have a decent president someday.”

  “Her?”

  He laughed. “That wouldn’t surprise me in the least. She’d be right at home in the Oval Office, and she’d do a damn fine job of running this country, too.” He finished his coffee, pushed to his feet. “That was good, thanks. Now, if you’ll tell me where to find that fuel pump, I’ll get down to business.”

  Jessie rose. “Mr. McCutcheon, really, I can fix the truck myself or hire someone to fix it. I have a little money now, in case you forgot.”

  “I realize that,” he said. “But I’m going to fix it for you and you’re going to let me. And there’s something else.” He paused while he phrased his next announcement and shored himself up with a slow deep breath. “I need a caretaker for this place.” She shook her head fiercely and he raised a hand. “Yes, you have enough money to buy yourself a moderate spread and continue breeding your Spanish horses, but listen to what I have to say, because I’ve thought about this a long time.

  “Nobody loves this place the way you do. Nobody would ever care about it as much or look after it as well. I’m asking you to stay on as my caretaker. Right here. In this house. I won’t be around much for a while, and when I come I’ll stay in the old cabin. I’ll pay you a good salary and all I ask is that you keep the place in good repair. You’d do that anyhow, without being asked, without being told. You know how to do what needs to be done.”

  “No.”

  “You don’t have to give me an answer right now. Think on it. And think on this. If you don’t stay I’ll have to hire someone else to do what you were born to do. I’d hate to do that. This place belongs to you in a way that all the money in the world and countless legal documents can’t change, and even more than that, you belong to this place. So please, I’m asking you to seriously consider my offer.”

  Jessie shook her head before he had even finished speaking. “No,” she repeated. “This isn’t my home anymore. I have to move on. There’s no other way for me.”

  “I wish you’d at least consider it.”

  “I already have,” she said. “The answer is no, Mr. McCutcheon.”

  STEVEN TOOK the call in his office. It was Caleb McCutcheon, speaking on his car phone as he drove from the Weaver ranch back to Katy Junction.

  “Listen,” he began without preamble. “I need your advice….”

  Steven sat at his desk while
McCutcheon told him about the job offer he had made Jessie Weaver. “She refused me flat out,” McCutcheon finished. “I was hoping maybe you could talk to her. Get her to change her mind and stay on. She has to stay. Somehow we have to convince her!”

  Steven closed his eyes and kneaded the band of tension between his eyes. He was silent for several long moments. “I’ll try,” he said. “But she has to walk her own path.”

  After he hung up he sat in stillness and reflected that, in hindsight, they should have stipulated in deed that Jessie Weaver stay on at least another five years to manage the ranch and make the transition an easier one. Too late now. He stared out the window at the city below, but he was seeing Jessie’s mountains.

  They were everywhere, those mountains. Rearing up in every direction, walling off the horizon in hues of blue and purple and slate gray, except at dawn or dusk, when they glowed as if lit from within. There was snow on some of the higher peaks—snow that remained nearly year-round, a constant reminder of the harsher life in mountain country. Yet, for all their violent moods, the mountains were heartbreakingly beautiful.

  Seemingly rugged and yet so fragile. So vulnerable to the predation of mankind. He understood why Jessie had done as she had. He had seen the ugly urban sprawl, the housing developments, the new roads, the encroachment of a wealthy and burgeoning population into sacred areas that one once thought would never be sullied.

  Thanks to Jessie Weaver’s sacrifice some of the land was safe. But how was he going to convince her to remain? McCutcheon’s plea had aggravated an anguish of his own: the prospect of Jessie leaving this place and the incomprehensible reality that he might never see her again. In their times together Jessie had never led him to believe that anything other than friendship existed between them; still, he felt closer to her than he had to any other woman.

  McCutcheon could hire other caretakers, men or women with environmental acumen, who had the good sense to manage the land largely by diplomatic non-interference with Mother Nature. Yet clearly the best of them wouldn’t be enough.

  So Jessie Weaver had to stay. The fact was as elemental as the sun rising in the east. Without her presence, the very spirit and soul of the land she loved would wither and die; he was as convinced of this as McCutcheon was. Somehow, they had to convince her of the same thing.

  But how?

  CALEB MCCUTCHEON HAD her truck fixed by midmorning and departed for Katy Junction, but it seemed as though the better part of the day was gone. The best part was early morning, because then the whole of the day stretched before her, as long and golden as the sun’s early rays slanting across the valley. There were always half a million tasks to complete before the sun disappeared behind the westward mountain range. So many things to do, and only so many hours of daylight. These had been her days for as long as she could remember, an earthy ferment of timeless cycles, and it was hard to imagine that only three more remained. Time, which had always been immeasurable here, was quickly running out.

  She had to bring the broodmares down from the high country. She’d gotten four of them into the home corral already, including the one that had broken her arm, but seven still ranged up in the foothills where the graze was good, although hard frosts had already yellowed the grass. She sorely missed old Gray, that big handsome stallion that had kept the mares under close guard and brought them down each fall to the safety of the valley. Lightning had killed him in an early-summer thunderstorm—just one more blow to send her reeling, one more wrenching pain to twist an already broken heart.

  One of the mares would be hard to root out, a wily mare called Fox, who had lived up to her name on more than one occasion. She was with foal, and impending motherhood made her even cannier. Fox just plain didn’t like being fenced in. She was wild at heart, wild to the core, and to run free in the high country was all she asked of life. Jessie would gladly have gifted her that freedom, but those days had ended for Fox. No more the high lonesome for that tough Spanish mare. It was time for both of them to adjust to a new life. Jessie didn’t know which of them would take it the harder—her or Fox.

  She saddled Billy, and with the little cow dog trotting at heel, she set out along the river, keeping to the river trail until she intersected the old Indian trace that led up into the foothills. Centuries ago the Crow Indians had worn this trail from the river up over the shoulder of Montana Mountain, through Dead Woman Pass and down to their winter encampment on the eastern flanks of the Beartooth. Some said their ghosts still haunted this trail, though Jessie had never chanced upon one. Nonetheless, she felt a deep connection to the storied mysteries of the historic trace, and rarely followed it without remembering a distant and very different time.

  A crash in the brush nearby caused her heart to leap. The dog dashed in pursuit and she caught a blur of mahogany, a flash of horn, before dog and steer disappeared into the thicket. She gave a short, sharp whistle. “Blue! Come heel!” She wasn’t for chasing after longhorn steers. They were as wild as the deer, and she held them in the same esteem as the other wild creatures of the land. They had come up from Texas and remnants of her great-great-grandfather’s herd still roamed, shy and reclusive, as tough and enduring as the harsh wilds in which they lived. Over the past century they’d interbred with the eastern breeds, but there was no mistaking a cow with longhorn blood running in its veins.

  “Come on, Blue. Never mind them wild steers. Find Fox. Find that wily old mustang!” The dog looked up at her bright eyed, ears cocked and head tipped to one side. Fox. She knew the name. That little cow dog was smarter than most humans. “Find Fox, Blue! The rest of ’em’ll be real close.”

  The dog spun around and dashed off. Jessie reined Billy to follow. Two hours later they had climbed nearly one thousand feet up into the pass, and still no sign of the broodmares. Worse, more clouds were building over the mountain range to the west and the air had a keen edge. It tasted of snow and promised an early winter. “Damn that mare!” she muttered, reining Billy around an outcrop of rock as the trail climbed higher. “She knows! Somehow she knows I’m after her, and she’s on the run!”

  Past noon and Jessie was wishing she’d had the fore-thought to pack a thermos of hot coffee and a sandwich. Normally she would have, but nothing had been normal of late, including the fact that the ranch’s larder was bare. If Steven hadn’t brought that food by last night, she’d have gone to bed on an empty stomach. He was such a sweet and thoughtful man.

  She paused to rest Billy in a sheltered hollow, swinging down out of the saddle and loosening the cinch. Lord, but it was getting chilly! The wind had picked up and the sun had long disappeared. She shrugged more deeply into her coat and led Billy, keening her eyes for any movement as they climbed, scanning for tracks and wondering where Blue had gotten to. They’d have to turn back soon if they were going to make it to the ranch by dark. She hated to give up the search, but she hated worse the idea of spending a night out unprepared with another storm blowing in.

  Another mile passed, another chilly hour. Jessie tightened the saddle cinch and again swung aboard Billy. “Blue!” she shouted. She put two fingers in her mouth and let loose a piercing whistle that was whipped away on the strong wind. “C’mon, Blue! Time to head home!” Blue knew better than to range too far afield, but something had lured her astray. Still and all, that dog could find her way home in a blizzard. Jessie wasn’t overly worried. She was reining Billy around, when she heard the dog’s faint barking. She stood in the stirrups, craning to place the sound so shredded by the wind. There—down in that draw!

  Billy was as surefooted as a mountain goat, and when Jessie pointed him down the slope he sat back on his haunches like a giant dog and slid in a scatter of loose gravel until the slope flattened out into a thick coniferous forest that darkened the ravine. Blue’s barking became much clearer once they were out of the wind. It had a frightened, desperate pitch, and Jessie kept Billy moving as quickly as she dared as apprehension tightened her stomach. “Blue? Hang on, girl! I’m comin
g!”

  Suddenly, Billy shied and blew like a deer. “Easy, easy now… Whoa now…” Jessie soothed, swinging out of the saddle before he could jump again. “It’s all right.” She tried to lead him forward, but he threw his head back and balked. This was unusual behavior for an old pro like Billy, and Jessie didn’t force him. She knew that a horse could hear and smell far better than a human. She ground-tied him and continued toward Blue’s bark. Not too far beyond where she’d left the horse, she spotted the dog. Blue was lying in a small gravelly clearing fringed with dense growth. She was lying very still, with her front paws stretched out in front of her. Behind her the ground was scuffed. At the sight of Jessie the dog struggled to rise but failed.

  “Blue!” Jessie crossed to her quickly and dropped to her knees. “Oh Blue! What’s happened to you!” But even as she spoke, she intuitively knew. Blue had tangled with something—mountain lion, bear?—and had come out the poorer. Why had she attacked it, and more to the point, where was the creature now? Even as she rapidly assessed the dog’s injuries, Jessie was taking in her immediate surroundings, the hair on her nape prickling with fear.

  Blue was badly hurt. She had half a dozen deep wounds to her side and flank where claws had raked her. The span of the claw marks was far bigger than what a mountain lion would have inflicted. It had to have been a bear. The dog had lost a great deal of blood and was too injured to move any farther—it looked to Jessie as if Blue had dragged herself quite a ways before finally collapsing. “It’s okay, Blue. Easy, old girl. I’ll take care of you. You’ll be all right. We’ll get you back home safe.”

  She needed the supplies in Billy’s saddlebags. There was a good first-aid kit, and her rifle was in the saddle scabbard, where it always rode snugly, just in case. She rose to her feet, scooping the cow dog into her arms as she did. “Hold on, Blue. We’ll get you home. You’ll be okay!” Then she walked swiftly back to Billy.