Part Two begins with our heroine leaving the gathering at the family farm after receiving a startling offer and returning to her mountain hideout to something even more startling. Due to that terrible and never to be sufficiently damned author and her penchant for reading stories instead of writing them, it has been a while between chapters so I would recommend a refresher but I swear the next ones will be coming on a more or less weekly basis going forward.

My sister’s husband had the good sense to mind his manners the next little while. And I went to bed the last night of my stay with the thought that the issue had been put safely to rest. I woke up the next morning, or rather, was woken up, to something else. God invented 5AM so that we could be grateful for the opportunity to sleep in till 8AM. I wasn’t going to have that opportunity this day though because grandpa knocked on my door with a pair of waders and his old side by side inviting me to a mornings duck hunting.

Now there are two things you need to understand here, one you don’t say no to a man with enough shotgun to put a hole in a decent sized armored truck, and two, July is NOT duck hunting season in Nebraska. September maybe, October, November sure sure, but July is when most civilized mallards are up in Canada where the temperature doesn’t reach 90 degrees before even the sun comes up. If there were 10 decent sized ducks between the Dakota’s and the Rio Grande this time of year it would be a miracle. So it didn’t take a superior intellect to figure out that some duck hunting was not the number one priority on my grandfather’s mind.

The duck blind was built on a midsized sandbank in the middle of the creek. Access to it was pretty much how you think; usually a person was grateful for wader, little half wetsuit things that kept you mostly dry. I probably should have done without though as all it did now was keep my sweat trapped in with me. Needless to say I was pleased that my Grandfather got quickly to the point once we were settled in.

“Christine,” he said without preamble. “Your grandmother asked me to have a little talk with you. She’s worried about you… and so am I.”

“So am I Grandpa,” I replied tersely. “It hasn’t all been sunshine and roses this last year.”

“I didn’t think it was, I can only imagine the things that you must have gone through. I’ll not bore you with long drawn out stories of ‘it wouldn’t happen in my day’ though from what you parents have been telling me it probably did happen in my day just no one talked about it. That you have come through this whole and reasonably sane is something that you should be proud of and I want you to know that I share that pride. It would have broken lesser men… lesser women.”

“Well thanks, message received, can we get the hell out of here before the sun REALLY starts cooking?”

“Not just yet, I still have some questions for you young lady and I want straight goods, understand?”

“Yes sir,”

“How long you figure on living among all those Buffaloes?”

“The University of Colorado is in Boulder, hell and gone the other side of the state from where I am.”

“It’s still too close for my comfort, I’ve been around the world twice one of them in a damn war and the only scar I have from another human being is a beer bottle I took to the face at an away game. And you still haven’t answered the question.”

“It’s peaceful on top of my mountain, hardly anyone bothers me, I can still get work done there. I’ll leave when I have reason enough too.”

“Well then, if all you need is peace and quiet and no one bothering you, I, and you grandmother, want you to move back here and live on the ranch. Your family misses you.”

“Thanks for the offer gramps, but I have a nice little setup and…”

“You’ve only heard half of it,” he interrupted. “I want you to live on the ranch because you need to.”

“Need to?”

“Yup, someday my girl, all this will be yours,” he said with a sweeping wave and a smile.

“Wait… what! You gotta be shitting me?”

“Mind your mouth missy, I don’t mind all that much but your grandmother still has a bar of soap she keeps special just for washing out children’s yaps.

“But why? I didn’t even think you liked me all that much. I know you still haven’t forgiven me for the summer I set the south barn on fire.”

“And I won’t neither, not even if I live to be a hundred, which ain’t all that far, now that I think about it.”

“What about Uncle Harry?”

“My eldest boy, your uncle, is dying.” My grandfather let that sit for a while. If I didn’t know any better I could have sworn I saw a tear. “No one knows, not even his wife. Cancer, the big casino. It’s in his blood, the doctors say that I’ll have to bury my son before he has to bury me. He and Susan never had any kids of their own, something wrong with her plumbing. Your mothers other elder brother Frank went into the priesthood. Bernie, you never knew him, he went to Vietnam and never came back. Teds a good boy, he looks after his family but he couldn’t keep anything I gave him, not for long anyway. Of my sons and daughters and their sons and daughters I’ve been measuring and finding wanting.”

“And I’ve been found worthy why.”

“First off, you already own 7% of my spread. In the late 80’s things were getting bad as I’d ever seen and I’d seen em pretty damn bad. Your father and mother sent me every cent they could spare when they were hardly spending any of it on themselves, the Air Force having taken care of most of their personal needs. They sent that money, including taking out a few personal loans when the rest of my children were doing their best to spend every last dollar I didn’t have. When things got better I made sure they were taken care of. Your parents signed everything over to you and Julie, something about tax avoidance, not tax evasion. Second you’re smart and you’ve got guts. I have other descendents who have one or the other but not both.”

“And my, my own PLUMBING problems don’t bother you. “

“It bothers me a little, but only because I don’t like the idea of any of my children or grandchildren suffering.”

“There will be some suffering hither and yon when word of this gets out. No one likes being cut out of the will.”

“My lands and my wealth are two separate things. I want you to take over because you have a good chance of keeping the ranch together as a business and three dozen families around these parts depend upon that ranch for their livelihoods. When I die, you get the land, and as of market closing Friday each family member gets $97,000 that’s about three times what the average American took home last year. There will be enough cash on the Ranch’s books to keep things going for a year and after that it will be up to you.”

“I’m not ready, I don’t want it.”

“I think you are, and well, I’m not in any all fired hurry to meet my just reward, but once I’m gone, if you don’t want it. And you can stomach putting good men and woman out of a job you can sell out. Conagra offered me a good price three years ago and they would likely offer you a better one. Christine, this is the best thing for you, givin your situation.”

“What does my situation have to do with this.”

“A fair amount, you stay in Colorado, or you head back to Omaha it doesn’t make any difference world will get out of what you are. Most folk are simple people, they like things black or white, right or wrong. Male of female and never the twain shall meet. Wasn’t that long ago gays were chained up and drug behind a pickup truck. Hell even a commie city like Omaha supported that defense of marriage bullshit.”

“And it’s supposed to be better out here in Cherry County?”

“Damn right! I’m the He-bull round these parts. And no one else forgets it. When I’m gone and you have control, people for a hundred miles in every direction may hate your guts and the slight differences in same, but they would be too damn scared to do anything about it.”

“It’s a lot to think about Grandpa, and that’s no lie, now that you have said what you needed to say lets head inside for Grandma’s breakfast. The only ducks were going to get today will be on Nintendo.”

I had a little on my mind that day. Despite what gramps might have said it wasn’t going to be easy being a new woman of property hereabouts. There were only four thousand people in the whole damn county and I knew almost every last one of them and they me. Hell I had swam shirtless with some of them in the local watering hole and wasn’t THAT embarrassing now that I thought about it. I wasn’t at all certain I could make people head me if they got a burr in their saddle to stand against the tranny. Range wars had gone out style a few years back, I couldn’t exactly rally the outriders and storm over to the neighboring spread for vengeance anymore.

Still

There is a story they tell in the borderlands, where Nebraska meets South Dakota and Indian country of the Res. Yes, my people were scoundrels, cutthroats and other assorted evil doers. And this is the way I use to hear it told when I was younger. My grandfathers, great-grandfather was a sailor, who ranged the world over from the Pillars of Heracles to beyond Worlds End. Round about the fifth time he got hiself shipwrecked he swore a holy oath before all gods and… some devils, that if his sorry soul could be saved one last time from a watery grave he would forever more lead a chaste and virtuous life. Thankfully enough for me and my other antecedents one or another of the deities granted his wish and he made port in New York, penniless but alive.

Penniless is no place to be for a young man with a bit of fire in his blood, and soon enough a fun time was had mostly at the expense of amateur gamblers optimism and young ladies virtue. A few weeks later, by and large sober, he was asked if he would ship out again on a steamer to the South Pacific he was all ready to board when a piece of unsecured cargo broke loose and set off a chain of explosions that sent the ship to the bottom of the Hudson river along with dozens of her crew.

My family can sometimes take a subtle hint. We just usually have to be hit over the head with it.

Nebraska was about as far as he could get from the ocean without heading to Siberia, which would have required him to cross the Atlantic anyway. This was the time when the federal government, having inherited, by fair means or foul a mostly empty continent, was giving away free land to everyone and their brother who was willing to homestead the wilderness. By the time he got his act together the best land had been taken, as well as most of even the mediocre stuff. All that was left on the high plains were the semi-arid sand hills that tolerated the cow but hated the plow. Most of his neighbors were other assorted riff raff which at this point in history were mostly new non-English speaking immigrants and a fair portion of freed slaves fleeing what was optimistically referred to as reconstruction.

Jim Crow hadn’t gotten started yet, and never really took off in that part of the country anyway. That didn’t mean though that it was all fellowship and goodwill for blacks then, and if you couldn’t even speak English, well, the local land agents had a nasty habit of saying your little claim was now suddenly part of Mr. Anglo-Saxon’s holdings. My honored elder carved himself a little empire by being the go between. Not having a lick of work in his bones, he was happy enough to live off the labor of others. But it served a useful enough purpose, people got a fair enough deal because he was looking out for them. Not out of any real sense of altruism you must understand, but because if anyone was gonna shear the sheep it was going to be him.

1919 or so, around when it was getting difficult to sneak out of second story windows ahead of unexpected husbands, the Ku Klux Klan in its second incarnation was starting to get uppity in the Midwest. They began burning out the children and grandchildren of the people he had helped carve civilization out of the wilderness. He had a sit down with the local Grand Wizard and ever so politely asked him to move a little further on down the road.

He was rebuffed.

Now what happened next, never got written down in any history books, but you ask anyone fifty miles in any direction from our place, and after a little hemming and hawing they will say how a man was found half dead on the outskirts of Valentine at night during the second worst winter ever, covered only in a black ink that forever gave a once milky white man a chocolate tint. I won’t say it was particularly subtle or elegant... But the Klan hasn’t been seen in Cherry County from that day to this.

I suppose if I was to stand up and be counted among the LGBT, people would remember what happened to the last intolerant sort that tried to fuck with us.

I drove west again, a slightly different person than I was a year ago when I made the last such journey. My grandparents were pleased enough that I hadn’t told them no right away and understood that I had affairs of my own to settle up. I still had commitments to my clients and decided it was time to end my exile. And if I was going to be responsible for keeping the ranch a going concern it was probably a good idea for me to sign up for some agribusiness classes in the fall.

Sigh… I am never going to finish school.

I got back to cabin well into evening, much later than I had originally planned. I hadn’t driven at night in the country in some time, too many years in the warm embrace of city lights had caused me to lose my confidence so I had to inch up the last two miles of my mountain road and it took me almost an hour and half to cover that distance. The summer rains had washed out some of my dirt road and my faithful jeep had received a few more scratches to the undercarriage which wasn’t going to be very helpful for its already threatened longevity.

I opened the door to the cabin and began dragging luggage inside, when I was a boy I could get along with a carryon and a wallet for a week’s journey. But since my promotion it seemed like I went through four or five times the amount of clothes. The worst part is I needed all of them! My Sherpa duties were not helped by my mother and sister depositing a metric ton of apparel that they both positively insisted I needed and I hadn’t the experience to refuse.

“Well shit,” I said as I saw the state of my kitchen.

That never to be sufficiently damned bear! My front door was still sturdy and fine but my back door leading toward the woodpile was hanging on its hinges. I had thought I’d been a smart little homesteader and dealt with my trash pile, but bereft of his usual dinner and not having an indigenous human to scare him away for the last week, the bear had smashed into where he could smell some food and had his way with my storage larder.

Bears are messy eaters it appeared and he hadn’t cared about cleaning up after himself. It was all more than I was emotionally ready to handle after a long day and a hard day’s night driving so after nailing the door back on to its hinges and barricading it as best I could I dug out my phone and called my friendly neighborhood Forest Ranger, but of course it went straight to voicemail.

“Tony,” I said doing my best to use modern cellular technology to force my hand through the phone and strangle him. “The local wildlife broke into my cabin while I was away. I need to file that report thingy you talked about a couple weeks ago and this is starting to get excessive, If you don’t tell me how to stop that Yogi wannabee I’m gonna agent orange the whole forest just so he knows who is boss on my mountain. I’m going to kick his ass so hard when he wakes up from his Christina enforced hibernation there is going to be another president, in 2020!... call me, thanks sweetie.”

Sweetie, ugh I’m such a girl.

The next morning I contemplated my options. In Nebraska, and other civilized states, you don’t need a special license to hunt a dangerous predator and there is no “season” for nuisance animals. Colorado however had been brainwashed by too many Discovery Channel shows and to be fair the little bear cubs sure were cute when they were looking out at you from your living room TV. But sister, let me tell you the cute little bears grow up into not so cute and not so little walking wrecking crews, with an appetite for all the things we humans say we should stop eating but never do. If I went out and shot the villain in July and was found out I would be in violation of several laws and covenants. If I waited till September however it would be all hunky dory. I somehow suspected that by the time black bear season rolled around in this particular jurisdiction my nemesis would be safely ensconced in his lair dreaming about what he would steal from me in the spring.

There was however a loophole, I could hunt it, but let it live. Hidden among the copious gear my Boy Scout tendencies required I stock for my sojourn up this mountain was a high power tranquilizer with enough bite to knock down an elephant. Assuming elephants were part of the local fauna which I wasn’t about to presume against. Why I had it is not something you really want to ask but I will say it involved sex, drugs, money and very…VERY large man named Tiny. Once dropped I could secure my miscreant and the rangers would transport him deep into the forest far enough away from his feeding habits that he might remember he’s a wild animal again and not pester humans for his sustenance. It was one of those green hug the world initiatives that made me so glad I hardly paid any taxes but I was willing to take advantage of any card I could.

Just to be safe, I brought along my wrist breaker and loaded it with the armor piercing bullets I’m fairly certain were illegal round here. My civil obedience only went so far you understand.

“Tony,” I said to my cell phone as I finished packing my gear. “I’m heading out to track and trap my bear, out amongst the lions and tigers oh my. If you get this message sometime in the next few hours I could use your help I’m not 100% sure five hundred feet of rope is enough to restrain him.”

What does the well dressed young lady chose to wear out in the wild and wide? Well don’t laugh…much, but pink. I’m sure you have seen hunters on television. Well fed unshaven WASP types carrying fully automatic battle rifles in camouflage and bright orange all over. The point of the orange, aside from making the hunter look like an idiot, is to stand out, since orange seldom occurs in nature particularly in a deciduous forest. By standing out it helps point out to the other well lubricated unshaven WASP types that HERE I AM! DON’T SHOOT ME!

The orange became popular about thirty years ago after too many hunters were falling to friendly fire. I could firmly get behind the whole not dying part, but even when I was technically speaking a male I could never understand wearing the camouflage with it. It just seemed to be mildly schizophrenic, HERE I AM! And YOU CAN’T SEE ME.

Bears see mostly with their nose, so after taking a very long shower with no soap, no shampoo, no conditioner, no lotion or perfume afterward, no, well, anything I was as fragrant free as could be and felt no shame what so ever in sallying forth into battle with my second worse pair of designer blue jeans and a bright pink top with “trust me I’m a girl” written on it. I didn’t own much orange, one fuzzy sweater that was counter-indicated in July and If I had worn it anyway would have probably led to me turning the tranq on myself.

My nemesis was helpful enough to leave paw prints in the ground leading away from my cabin. The rain the last few days had helped keep the ground wet enough for the trail to be marked, and the dense foliage was disturbed on a regular basis in a northwest direction. His helpfulness ended there however, instead of a nice leisurely stroll down the mountain I had a long trudge up a steep incline.

The scenery was beautiful though, it reminded me why I chose this location for my exile. Every once in a while as the game trail passed too close to the ridge I peeked out of the trees and saw the green valley below and it was breathtaking. It has a special place in a flatlander’s heart to look out lady and mistress of all she surveys. Well, not really, it was national forest land, but there was currently no one there to tell me otherwise so a girl can dream cant she. And I was a taxpayer right, so this was technically part mine right?

Half the morning later I finally came to my target, I wished the bear had taken as much care with his grooming as I had, frankly he stank. Not having opposable thumbs must suck particularly when it comes time to brush your teeth. He was facing in the opposite direction so I had a good look at his haunch, I wasn’t going to get a better shot than that. My tranquilizer rifle was a one shot, reloading took about ten seconds which meant if the first shot missed and the second didn’t drop him in time I could look forward to a short career in studying wildlife up close. I lined up for my shot, holding the rifle iron steady to my right shoulder. I was about to fire when I saw something horrible.

I blame television

I never really got into the whole violent video game thing. So it must have been televisions fault. Tony Soprano and Dexter Morgan had hardened me to the scene before me. I didn’t lose my mind, or my breakfast, much as I might have wanted too. I instead calmly lowered my rifle and drew my 1911 pistol from the holster on my side and chambered a round.

Bears are messy eaters I remember saying, the carnivore was still working on the majority of its kill. But a booted foot attached to a leg severed above the knee several feet away was testament to what he was enjoying.

My .45 has eight bullets in the clip, you can stretch your ammo by caring around a ninth already loaded in the chamber but that’s a good way of shooting yourself in sensitive areas. I didn’t really even think about it, afterwards I’d have said it was like it was someone else was in charge of my body at that moment. I emptied all eight into the back of the bear, ejected the empty clip and quickly replaced it with a fresh one in seconds with another eight bullets. When those were done, I grabbed my third clip and felt confident enough to approach within ten feet of the animal, close enough to fire the last set directly into its head.

When I was done, shortly after my ears stopped ringing I chided myself for not keeping a few shots in reserve in case he had friends. But was comforted by remembering that I still had the loaded tranq rifle with several extra shots, the chances of two man-eaters on my mountain was very small. I would have bet good money I didn’t even have one, but it appears I would have lost that bet. The bear had gone to town on this guy, there wasn’t much of a head left, let alone a face, he was well tanned though and the tattered but sturdy clothing was testament to a man who spent his time outdoors.

I also realized the smell I had previously attributed to the bear itself was not entirely accurate. The human remains were not fresh, it had already started to decompose, I guess that just meant it added flavor to the meal. And with that thought I was almost ill again. I started looking around the part of the body that contained the pants and was about to search for the victim’s wallet when I noticed two holes in the chest. Now my killer bear had some big monster teeth on him, and someday I hope to live long enough to forget how they looked covered in human blood. But the two holes in the chest of exactly the same circumference positioned right over the man’s heart were too precise to be found in nature.

They were bullet holes.

I spent a few guilt ridden moments fearing that I had desecrated this poor man’s remains before I realized that my hand cannon made much bigger holes than that. As evidenced by the several dozen craters that were present on the bears bullet ridden corpse. These were much smaller than a .45 caliber more like a .22 Long Rifle, the little bullet one step up from a BB gun that all farm boys start off with before moving on to the heaver stuff. And anyway, there was crusted blood around the wounds, any holes I mistakenly put in him would be long past the point of being able to bleed.

I think I already said we were not in hunting season in this part of the world. And at any rate a .22 is just strong enough to take out rabbits and squirrels but wouldn’t be enough to hunt even the smallest of trophy animals. My phone had service this far into the woods, modern technology is wonderful. Even out here I still had two bars and the computers that ran the world were smart enough to route my call into Steamboat Springs when I dialed 911.

“This is Christina Weaver, I own the old Brown cabin at 401 Rural Route 3. I’m about a mile northwest of my place approximately 1200 yards from the summit and I wish to report a murder. I will leave my phones GPS turned on so that you can home in on my signal…”