Introduction: What is discovery? Perhaps it’s finding something that you didn’t know existed. Maybe it’s finding a hidden treasure. Maybe it’s finding out something about yourself that many were aware of but you just didn’t know it.

Manny takes four days to make the trip to his uncle’s ranch. He listens to Sirius-XM most of the way; however, it’s mostly background music. His mind wanders over many things including something Maria, the wife of his uncle’s foreman said to him years before. She had said he was “Two Spirited”. He had done some research and learned what it meant. It bothered him a bit, but then, it didn’t.

This work is copyrighted by the author and any publication or distribution without the written consent of the author is strictly prohibited. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of the characters to persons living or dead is coincidental.

Chapter 2

Maybe they hadn’t set the academic world on fire, but they’d been solid B students. Now that he had his diploma figuratively in his pocket he was ready to conquer the world; well, sort of. The actual diploma would be mailed to his home in San Antonio.

Manny had given himself three weeks to unwind on the road. That would probably be plus or minus a few days depending on how things went in Tagus, North Dakota. He hadn’t been to his Uncle Ben’s ranch since he was twelve; when he and his mother had made the long journey from Texas to North Dakota. They’d done it once before when he’d been six. His uncle had visited them several times in San Antonio. Uncle Ben was ten years older than his mother, and may or may not have ever been married.

The ranch consisted of several thousand acres of bottomland along a tributary of the Missouri River. The bottomland ran into some low scrub covered hills. The only trees of any significance were some cottonwoods that bordered the creek bed. There were also some poplars that grew around the ranch houses. There probably wasn’t another tree between there and the North Pole. At least his uncle had said that was true. Actually, in the town of Tagus, there were quite a few trees.

It had been a good ride, he’d taken four days for clearing his mind; maybe not actually clearing it, but trying to figure out where his life was going. What did he really want or need to do. Those thoughts had been with him since early childhood. Maria Williams, his uncle’s housekeeper and wife of his ranch foreman, had told him years before that he was “two-spirited”. She was probably a full-blooded Sioux, as was her husband. They had several children, he wasn’t sure exactly how many. From what he could remember, Robert Williams pretty much ran the show at the ranch as his uncle was frequently away doing whatever he did when he was away. Anyway, Maria had told him he was two-spirited. He hadn’t thought too much about it until he was in high school when he ran across the phrase while doing research for a psychology paper.

Among the many explanations of the term was the idea it meant gender variant; that is the two-spirited person might be both male and female in spite of how they appeared to be externally. In fact, a person might appear to be female when they were actually male, or vice versa. Maybe that explained his problem. At 22 Manny was still a virgin. He hadn’t been close to losing it. He wasn’t gay. At least he didn’t think he was. He was attracted to woman. He loved the female form. He’d just never been able to get past one or two dates with anyone. The chemistry never happened.

He wasn’t sure it was actually a problem. It was more like just trying to find out who he was. There had been an active LGBT community at Humboldt, and he had several friends who were gay. Someone was rumored to be transgender; however, he wasn’t sure whether that person was a female to male or male to female, and he wasn’t sure it was any of his business. At that time he’d not felt any great desire to be identified with any group. Besides his roommate and his intramural softball teammates, he had few friends. He had no real friends from high school.

Somehow his mother, Allison, had acquired a nice ranch house at the end of an unpaved road on the outskirts of Helotes northwest of San Antonio. That had happened when he was about five or six. Prior to that, the only thing he could remember was living in an apartment near Castle Hills. His mother would leave him at a daycare center in the morning, and pick him up in the late afternoon. When they moved into the house, his mother moved her job into the spare bedroom. She did legal searches for several real estate companies and title companies. They were comfortable.

A few other families lived along the road leading to his home; however, there were no children Manny’s age among them. He’d spend much of his free time walking through the live oak and laurel covered hills at the edge of the Hill Country. Communed with the roadrunners, wild turkey, white tail deer, and rabbits. He didn’t try to talk to the rattlesnakes. He just left them alone. If he heard the feral pigs rooting through the area he’d do a 180. One did not want to mess with them.

Speaking of roadrunners, he might have gone to the University of Texas at San Antonio; however, when it came time to select a university, he determined he would get as far away from San Antonio and Texas as he could. He didn’t hate Texas. It was just that the only part of the country he’d ever seen was what lay between Texas and North Dakota, and that was mostly flat. He’d never seen the ‘purple mountain majesty’ or the shining sea. The Gulf hardly counted; at least what one could see at Corpus Christi and Padre Island. He wanted to see a real OCEAN. That being said, he applied to Humboldt State in Arcata, California. As near as he could tell, it had quite a bit of everything he hadn’t seen in the first eighteen years of his life.

His mother wasn’t pleased that he hadn’t applied for any of the Texas schools, and frankly, not one interested him. He did apply to several prestigious schools where he knew he didn’t have a snow ball’s chance in hell of being admitted. He didn’t think they would be able to afford them, anyway, however, his mother told him not to worry about the money. Well, that was all past now.

He stopped on the last rise before dropping down to the entrance of his uncle’s ranch. Little had changed since his last trip. The missile silos looked just the same as he remembered them. There had been that one guarded facility that his uncle told housed a missile crew in their underground capsule. There had been one noticeable change. He’d seen several drilling rigs off in the distance. He assumed they were drilling for water, or maybe even oil; although he’d never heard about any oil in the area. The big sprinkler systems were operating in the distance and he could smell the alfalfa. His uncle had acquired some buffalo, and he could see a herd of dark cattle that he assumed was them.

Turning onto the road leading to the ranch headquarters, he carefully crossed the cattle grate before accelerating down the paved drive. It had been dirt the last time he’d been there. His uncle must have been doing alright he thought. The cattle must have been startled by the loud cycle; however, several buffalo just chewed their cud and eyed him as he sped by. He slowed for a second and third cattle grate before pulling up to the low sprawling ranch house. His uncle was waiting in the shade of the porch. He had a beer in hand.

“Well, that surprised the hell outta me. You’re the last guy in the world I’d ever expect to be riding one,” he said giving his nephew a hug.

“Sit down and have a beer. I got a bunch in that cooler.”

“Not lite beer, I hope.”

“Shit no, I wouldn’t drink that crap if you paid me. I learned many years ago what real beer is.

“So how you been? Your mom was real sorry about not being able to get to your graduation. I talked to her a couple of days ago. She said she was feeling better, but I’m not sure. The doctors are still trying to figure out what’s wrong. She’ll be real glad to see you, but she’s not real happy about you moving to Arkansas.”

“She knew I was going to do it. I’ve worked at that winery for two summers. I did my senior project there.

“I’m not saying that I want to work there forever, but I do think I want to work in the wine industry.”

“I don’t think that’s a bad idea,” his uncle said. “I’m just not sure Arkansas is the best place to start out in the wine industry.”

“Well, I’m going to take it one step at a time. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll work on getting my master’s degree and teach school somewhere. I just want to give this a shot.

“Is Maria around?” Manny said changing the subject.

“Yeah, she had to take her newest in to get her shots. She should be back in a while. She said she was looking forward to seeing you. I think she wants to talk to you about something.”

“Say, when I was coming in I noticed there is some drilling going on. Are they going after a deeper water table?”

“Naw, we got plenty of water. It’s not a problem at all. I’m sure you didn’t take a close look; them is oil rigs.”

“I didn’t know there was oil around here.”

“It’s always been here. It just wasn’t economically feasible until some new technology came around. They call it fracking. That’s short for hydraulic fracturing. They drill down to the oil bearing rock and they do what is called horizontal drilling. They can drill out like the spokes of a wheel. Once they got the drilling done, they hook up this machine that fills the cavity with water and some other chemicals. The machine starts sending pressure waves at very high pressure, like many thousands of PSI. That breaks up the rock and allows the oil that was locked up in the rock to be recovered.

“They want me to sell them my mineral rights for a lot of money plus the residuals. They’re offering me a half mil plus a percentage of what they get. I could probably get a million or more before the wells run dry.”

“You going to do it?”

“Shit no!”

“That fucking fracking fucks everything up. The fluid gets into the water table and who knows where it’s going to end up. It’s impossible for them to recover all that shit. Down in Arkansas, right where you’re going, and Oklahoma, it’s causing earthquakes. It’s not easy to get rid of that shit, and they pump it right back into the ground. They say it won’t cause earthquakes around here. The geology is different. But they still have to get rid of that shit, and I don’t want any of that crap going on around my land.”

“What about the economy?” Manny asked already knowing the answer. He’d studied the problem in his environmental geology class. He was pleased to see which side his uncle was on.

“There’s going to be a big oil boom. People are starting to flood in from all over. There’s a housing boom starting. Maybe I’m being a hypocrite, but I bought out Sam Sturgis. He had that big bar down on Fargo. I figure I might as well put their money to work while I can. They’re going to spend it somewhere. I pay my people top wages. We’re barely breaking even and that’s fine.

“This boom won’t last ten years, fifteen at the most. The oil bearing rock is not very thick. There will be a big surge of oil at first and then it will slow to a trickle. In twenty years half the houses around here will be empty. Then we can get back to some semblance of normal. I probably won’t be around to enjoy it, though. I might even buy the empty houses and give them away if I could. Some of the Native Americans around here have been getting fucked over for too long as it is. I’ll sell them to them and carry the notes. Screw the banks.”

Manny opened up two more beers and gave one to his uncle. He wasn’t sure how many his uncle had consumed before he’d arrived. He never recalled seeing his uncle intoxicated.

“Say, that sure is a nice looking bike. Too bad about the scratches. You have a little wreck?”

“No, I bought it that way.” Manny proceeded to tell his uncle how he acquired the bike.

“Mind if I try it.”

“Of course not. Let me disconnect the trailer first.” That took about two minutes and seconds later Uncle Ben was off down the drive. He had to dodge Maria’s pickup truck as she pulled into the open parking area.

Manny watched his uncle disappear down the drive. He couldn’t see him, but he could hear him go through the gears as he headed down the main road.

Maria stood next to him, holding her youngest daughter, as they watched his uncle disappear. Then she gave him a hug with her free arm before asking, “Have you decided to do anything about your problem?”

Nothing like cutting to the chase, but as we will find out, Maria doesn’t waste words. Well educated, she splits her time between her family and the Sioux Nation. She is an RN and has a BS and MS in Clinical Psychology. She also specialized in gender studies. She might be just what the doctor ordered.