Ranchland – Chapter 1

Ranchland – Chapter 1

It was cool outside Ben Calhoun‘s small ranch house, even for June. This had been a wetter than usual spring, and the summer didn’t look like it was going to be any better. Well, he wouldn’t have to be as concerned with forest fires as he had the previous year, when one of the fires had leapt out of control and almost burned down everything in its path, including the birch and aspen trees that were indigenous to the area, and a lot of the range grass as well. Ben depended on that range grass to graze the growing herd of cattle that provided him with a marketable commodity. Without his cattle, he had nothing except the ranch he had inherited from an unfamiliar relative ten years ago.

His was a relatively simple existence in that most of his time and energy was spent raising and developing the herd of Herefords that had become Ben’s pride and joy. Sure, it was a lot of work, and there weren’t too many opportunities to escape the isolated ranch, except for the odd Saturday evening when he’d slip into the small town of Cremona, about twenty miles to the east of him. A trip into town would allow him to pick up necessary supplies, and maybe spend a few mindless hours in the Hawk’s Nest bar. There was always the possibility of an evening’s liaison with one or another of the local women, most of whom were interested in nothing more than a casual one-night encounter with somebody new or different. That suited Ben just fine. He had had some bad experiences with long-term relationships in the past, and had promised himself that he would never allow another one to complicate his life again.

The Ranchlands house wasn’t large, but Ben had made it comfortable for his needs. Built from logs that he had harvested from the property, it consisted of a small kitchen with an included eating area, and occupied a footprint of about thirteen feet by sixteen feet. There was a small but separate diningroom, approximately ten by sixteen that Ben rarely used. It connected to the livingroom, which measured a little over sixteen by twenty. He had built a natural stone fireplace at one end, and this was his major source of heat during the clod Albertan winters. A hallway off the kitchen on the side opposite the eating area led to an out-of-place luxurious bathroom and two bedrooms. The larger of the two, somewhere in the neighbourhood of sixteen feet square, had a separate fireplace that heated both bedrooms and the bathroom, and was fashioned from the same river rock as the livingroom one. The bathroom had been a winter project, and Ben had gotten most of the ideas from various interior design magazines. He had included a whirlpool bathtub, a separate shower, a pair of porcelain sinks, and a lot of ceramic tile work that tied the design elements together. Even the shower stall was enclosed with a frameless glass enclosure, complete with brass-plated hardware. Compared to the rest of the structure, it was definitely out of place, but Ben enjoyed its luxurious escape from the realities of his everyday world.

Across the front of the house was a full-width veranda that shaded the livingroom and diningroom from the heat of the Albertan summer, yet allowed sunlight to enter the rooms during the cold winter months. Over the years, Ben had replaced the sealed glazing units with triple-pane ones, thus permitting some solar heating of the area in the winter while keeping that same heat in check during the summer. There had been many long summer evenings that he’d spent sitting on that veranda as he waited for the cool of the night to cool the interior to a tolerable temperature.

The only two outbuildings were a combination shed and workshop, approximately twenty by forty feet, and a large barn where he stored the tack and equipment for the horses that had become mandatory to patrol the three thousand acre spread, and winter forage for his beloved cattle. At the back of the barn was an addition that housed his diesel generator, the only source of electricity that he had. With no power service in the area, it was either that or nothing. Many days, Ben resented the noise from the diesel engine, but tolerated it solely for the convenience that electricity provided.

In the morning air, Ben woke slowly, easing himself out of bed after much procrastination, and wandered down the hall to the kitchen, where he started his morning pot of coffee. While waiting for it to perk, he returned to the bathroom for an invigorating shower, spoiling himself with the warm water until the tank ran out. Dressing in his work clothes, he returned to the kitchen eating area, poured himself a cup, and sat at the small table, and started to read the local newspaper that had been sitting for the last two weeks awaiting his attention. Even though the issue was long out of date, it made for a diversion in the otherwise routine start to another routine day.

As he read the paper and savoured the freshly-brewed coffee, there was a loud pounding on the front door. Despite being fabricated from solid two-inch alderwood, the strength of the banging on that door threatened to separate the door’s wooden components. Usually that was a sign of someone in trouble, and Ben hurried to answer the call, both because of the urgency of the need to offer assistance if someone was in trouble, and to keep the door from breaking apart should there be another assault on it. Opening the door quickly, Ben was met by the sight of a young girl of approximately eighteen, five-foot- six tall, with dirty blonde hair that reached down to her shoulders. She had a slightly better than average figure, and he made a casual note of her features, including her rather prominent breasts, her smooth tummy that bulged ever so slightly, and slim but long legs that seemed to start at her ankles and go on forever. It was her face that got Ben’s attention, though. He’d never seen this girl before, but she looked vaguely familiar, somehow. He’d seen a similar face, somewhere in his travels, but couldn’t remember when or where.

“Excuse me, but are you Ben Calhoun?” the girl inquired.

“Who wants to know?” Ben answered.

“Umm, my name’s Amy. Amy Morrison. I believe my mother, Janine Morrison, was your sister. Does that name ring a bell?” she queried.

Janine Anderson. No, he couldn’t recall anyone by that name, and was about to tell the girl that she had the wrong house, and the wrong person, but something stopped him. Janine? He had a sister named Janine, but hadn’t seen or heard from her for almost twenty years. At the time, he was all of nineteen, and his sister was three years younger than he. Had his sister gotten married and changed her name? Was it possible that this was his niece? And if so, what the hell was she doing here, now, especially at this time of day, and in one of the ore remote areas of western Alberta?

“Janine Anderson? She’s your mother? What’s her maiden name?” Ben interrogated the girl.

”Mum’s name used to be Calhoun, I think, but she never said for sure. I got the name from going through some old legal papers, and combined with Mum’s mentioning that, if I was ever in trouble, I should look up her brother Ben. Unfortunately, either she never told me her brother’s last name, or I never made a note of it. So now, I’m kind of shooting blanks in the dark, looking for my uncle. I was hoping that you would be him, but I guess not. I apologize for the intrusion” and she turned to depart the way she came.

Ben looked past her into the yard, but saw no vehicle, and no hint as to how this girl had gotten to his place, other than to maybe have walked in. But she had two very large suitcases that must have weight thirty pounds a piece, minimum, and it was twenty miles to the nearest highway. His curiosity was growing as to how she’d got there, and why she’d strike out to such a remote location in the first place.

“Hold on,” Ben said with both a determined and questioning tone to his voice, “how’d you get here? I don’t see a car or pickup anywhere, and if you caught a ride in from the highway, I’d have heard the sound of a vehicle. And while we’re at it, what makes you think I might be your uncle? Come to think of it, why would it matter?”

The girl turned again to face Ben, setting the heavy suitcases down as she returned to his gaze. He could see a look of fear and loneliness in her eyes, the redness of pending tears, and an undefinable something else in her gaze.

“I walked in here from Cremona. A farmer gave me a ride up from Cochrane, and someone in town showed me the road to your place. That’s how I got here. As for why I thought you might be my uncle, my Mum described you to me when I was growing up. At the time, I never really paid attention, and I wish I had now. You see, both my Mum and my Dad were killed a couple of months back. So now, I’m trying to find my uncle, because he’s the only family I have left. I had hoped that I’d find him here in Alberta, but it looks like I’ve been chasing down the wrong road. If you’re not my Mum’s brother, I apologize for intruding. So, you have a great day, and I’ll be out of your hair” she explained.

“Let’s see if I’ve got this right” Ben started off. “You’ve just walked twenty miles while packing somewhere around sixty or seventy pounds, banged my door half off its hinges, and now you’re planning on walking another twenty miles back? I’d say that unless you’re Super-woman, you’re not going to make it half way back before you run into trouble. In fact, I’d lay odds that you won’t make it back. So how about you set those suitcases down, come on inside and have something to eat, and let’s see if I can help you out at all.”

Amy set the two heavy burdens down on the veranda, a look of gratitude sweeping across her face momentarily, and accepted Ben’s invitation. While she sat at the table, he poured her a cup of coffee, then started to fry up some diced potatoes, toast some bread in the same skillet, and began a second skillet with slices of beef steak. There would be more than enough to feed both of them. Besides, he had so little company arrive on his ranch that this young girl would be a welcome change of pace. Hell, with the way she looked, she was more than a welcome sight to his lonely eyes. In Ben’s mind, Amy represented a small piece of pure wonder and beauty akin to the reputation of the Mona Lisa!

“So. Tell me about your mother. Where was she born? Who were her parents? Anything you can think of. Maybe I can come up with an idea or two to help you on your search” Ben suggested as he focussed his attentions on the kitchen chores. He was becoming intrigued with the possibility that this young girl might actually be a connection to a part of his past, and his almost forgotten sister.

“Well,“ Amy started, “I think Mum was born in Vancouver, but she never told me for sure. I also only met my grandparents once, when I was very little. I don’t remember much about them. But Mum once said that she was adopted, and when her aunt died, both her and her brother were intentionally left out of the family tree because they weren’t blood relatives. Mum put that slight behind her, but her brother apparently never did. I guess that would be about fifteen years ago now, or something like that.”

The information had Ben feeling uneasy, for what Amy was describing was a part of his past, and one that he wasn’t comfortable revisiting. But there was only one more question in his mind that needed to be answered, and then he’d know for sure that this girl was, in fact, his niece.

“Did your mother happen to have a birth mark?” he asked slowly, and in a quiet voice as though he dreaded an affirmative answer.

“Yes, she did. It was a small brownish blotch behind her left shoulder. Why do you . . . “ and Amy understood both the reason for the question, and the significance of the answer. “You are my uncle, aren’t you?” she almost screamed at Ben.

“It sure is starting to look that way” Ben admitted, both to Amy and to himself. “I haven’t heard from your mother for . . . well, for longer than you’ve been alive, anyway. But I can see her looks in you, although it’s been a long, long time since I’ve seen her face. I guess that’s part of why I didn’t recognize you when you arrived.” Ben grabbed the coffee pot and offered Amy a refill, which she happily accepted. Then he filled his own cup again and took a seat at the small kitchen table. “I guess you and I have a lot of catching up to do, don’t we?” he suggested. Slowly, Amy nodded her head in agreement.

For the next two hours, the reunited relatives shared their stories with each other. Amy had been born and raised in eastern Montana where her parents had tried to establish a small cattle ranch. As a result, the girl had almost grown up on the back of a horse, and had chased cows over hundreds of square miles for most of her nineteen years. Because of her mother’s Canadian citizenship and her father’s American roots, Amy carried registered dual citizenship, which allowed her almost free access to both sides of the forty-ninth parallel’s border between the two nations.

Ben then filled Amy in on some of the details of his own life. He had been working in the transportation industry in Vancouver when he had inherited the Ranchland from a cousin of his mothers that he’d met once in his life. The original plan was to sell the place and invest the proceeds as part of his retirement funds. His financial advisor had heartily agreed with the idea, and Ben had come to the ranch to assess the value, marketability, and desirability of the property.