Last Chance Llama Ranch (33 page)

S
am's been gone nearly two weeks,” Merry remarked, trying very hard to sound as if it made not the slightest difference to her.

“Eh, he just gets like that,” Dolly said to Merry. They were sitting at her kitchen table, savoring a plate of biscuits and green-chile-smothered scrambled eggs before making their morning rounds around the ranch. “When he does, best to let him walk it off.”

“But, er, he will come back, won't he?” Merry asked. Sam had been “walking it off” for rather a while now. And though
she
might not mind the surly llama wrangler's absence, her readers were beginning to notice. Though a gratifying number of them had followed her when she'd decamped from under the
Pulse
umbrella, and they'd loved her pieces about Jane, and the Happy Hookers, and the other inhabitants of Aguas Milagros these past days since she'd “gone rogue,” her site stats showed a distinct bump whenever Sam's name was mentioned. If she wanted to keep up their interest in Aguas Milagros and crowd-funding Dolly's ranch buyout, she needed the star of the show to make an appearance—or at least, her sanitized version of him.

And, hell, if she were being honest, she
did
mind his absence.
If nothing else, I'd like to apologize
, Merry thought. On reflection, she could see why Sam had taken it amiss when his kids got swept up in the Internet's fickle concern. A man as private as Sam Cassidy, as prickly and proud, must hate to find himself and those he cared for under scrutiny by an uncaring and capricious outside world.
I certainly never meant to drive him away from his own home
, Merry thought. She ached to tell him so. But when Sam went on walkabout, apparently he went on
epic
walkabout. He hadn't left so much as a bare-toed footprint round the ranch since he'd taken off at dawn after their confrontation at Café Con Kvetch. He'd simply packed up a llama, left Dolly a note slipped under her door, and taken to the mountains.

Strange how much she missed seeing his grumpy face around the ranch.

“I miss that fool boy,” said Dolly, sipping her coffee and causing Merry to wonder if she'd read her mind. “But this late in the season, we're hardly taking tourists up into the national forest anymore, so his sulk's not hurting business—least not more than business already hurts. Sam's got a stubborn streak, and he's been touchy as all get-out ever since he and Jessica split, but he's never left me hanging when it counted.”

“Jessica?” Merry blurted out the question before she could call it back.
I don't need to know about his past relationships
, she told herself.
In fact, the less I know about that man, the better for my sanity
. She already found herself thinking of him, wondering what made him tick, far more often than she should. Better to stick with the romance novel fantasy she was creating for her readers than fall for the much more complicated reality.

“His ex-wife,” Dolly said, making a face. “Back east. Did a real number on his head, that gal. He hasn't been the same since, though in a lotta ways
I
think he's better. He's got her to thank for the turn his life took, all those years back.”

Merry leaned forward on her elbows. Her heart, she realized with surprise, was beating faster than even Dolly's highly caffeinated coffee could explain. Maybe, just maybe, Dolly's explanation would allow Merry to understand why Sam seemed to hate her so much. “Could you say more?”

Dolly snorted, shaking her finger at Merry. “No. I couldn't. Not when it's just between you, me, and a million readers on the Internet. Now c'mon, we got fluffies to feed.”

M
erry woke, and wished she hadn't. So long as she'd been sleeping, she could pretend she was warm, and cozy, and not—mere days before the crowd-funding campaign was to end—still nowhere near saving the Last Chance. John Dixon hadn't returned, but he'd had that lawyer send over a raft of legal documents, and it was getting harder and harder to see how Dolly was going to avoid having to sell off the ranch. It was a chilling thought.

Or maybe there was a more practical reason for her shivers. Once her eyes opened, Merry could see her breath, as well as the reason why.

Her nocturnal caller had been by again. The cabin door was open a crack, and Merry's boots had been dragged to the doorstep, as if inviting her outside—or warning her she'd need them. More curious than creeped out by now—her recurring intruder didn't seem intent on any real harm—Merry wrapped herself in Dolly's afghan and penguin-walked to the doorway, toes curling against the cold floorboards. She shivered and blinked in the sudden light.

Whiteness. As far as the eye could see, a soft layer of snow had descended overnight, blanketing the pastures and blunting the outlines of the hacienda and outbuildings. The mountains were shrouded in capes of low-hanging clouds, and more fat flakes fluttered down from the steel-gray skies by the minute. The yellow-blooming autumn chamisa were no more than frosty humps in the crystal-white landscape, and Merry could see Dolly's disparate herds clustering beneath their corrugated steel shelters both to munch on the hay in the mangers and keep their woolly hides from piling up with snow. Merry doubted they'd have to worry much about staying warm, however, what with the eight inches of wool insulation most of them were sporting.

Unlike me
.

Thank God for the Cosby sweater
, Merry thought, shivering again and heading back inside the cabin to dress for the day. Randi had donated the eye-poppingly bright item to Merry's wardrobe upon learning Merry—who hadn't planned to stay more than a couple of weeks—had nothing suitable for the late-fall weather, not even a jacket warmer than her windbreaker. The sweater was an impressive tribute to the eighties in a rainbow array of stripes, swirls, and even, if she wasn't mistaken, a sequin or two. And it wasn't the only new addition to Merry's wardrobe. In the past couple of weeks she'd been deluged with homemade leg warmers, hats, scarves, and post-punk mittens from the Happy Hookers, and she'd been grateful to accept, even if sporting all their largesse made her look like a schizophrenic Christmas tree.

It's not like I'm out to win any beauty contests out here
.
But lord, if Mother could see me now…

Hell
, Merry thought,
maybe she'd even be proud of me.

Stranger things had happened—such as Gwendolyn's tacit support of Merry's efforts to save the ranch.

And speaking of strange
…Something seemed out of place in the pen nearest the barn. It took Merry a moment to realize what it was—three fluffy lumps, where there should have been four. Quickly, Merry layered on socks and leg warmers over her stupid (and increasingly threadbare) skinny jeans, then sweatered up, wrapping a scarf around her neck and plopping a hat with about six too many pom-poms over her messy hair. She stuffed her feet into her boots and headed out the door to investigate.

Snow!
sang a little, gleeful part of Merry that would never get over the delight of a field of untouched powder.
Snow-snitty-snow-snow-snow!
Even with the usual morning stiffness in her left leg, Merry found herself skipping a little as she headed out into the pristine white pasture.

One alpaca, two alpacas, three alpacas…Nope, just three alpacas
.

Jane had sequestered the expectant mothers who required a richer mix of feed in their diets into a pen of their own. Travis McGee, Mike Hammer, and Jack Reacher (all girls) were where they should be, eyeing the brightly colored apparition in their midst with mild interest, but one was missing.

“Dashiell!” Merry gasped. The delicate young mother had been a source of worry for Jane and Dolly, as well as Sam, since she'd lost her cria in childbirth last year. Now her
absence
was a source of worry for Merry.
Alpacas don't just vanish.
And Dashie's coat was a rich, coffee brown. She wasn't likely to blend into the snow, which wasn't deep enough yet to bury her even if she'd been lying down, in distress. Which Merry sincerely hoped she wasn't.

I have to find her!

The snow had swirled up in a dense drift along one edge of the pen where hay had been stacked, Merry saw, creating a natural ramp a determined camelid could have climbed. The two-toed footprints and, more alarmingly, tiny dots of blood in the snow told Merry one
had
. The tracks, already disappearing in the worsening snowfall, headed up and into the mountains beyond Dolly's property.

Oh no…

Merry ran for the hacienda, calling Dolly's name. But when she got there, flinging herself through the mudroom and into the kitchen without even stopping to wipe her boots on the mat, she found a note waiting for her on the table.

Shit.

Merry grabbed Dolly's phone, an old rotary dial that felt like ten pounds of lead in her hand. She found Jane's number taped to the fridge and dialed as fast as her shaking fingers would allow.

“This is Jane Kraslowski, your friendly neighborhood on-call vet. I'm not here to take your call, but if you leave a message, I'll be sure to have your horsies and chickens and assorted fluffsters feeling up to snuff in no time.”

Double shit.

There wasn't time to wait for Dolly to get back, or to go in search of Jane, even if she'd had access to a car. The MINI Cooper would never make it past the driveway in this weather, let alone all the way into town. Within minutes, if Merry was any judge of snow—and she was—the alpaca's tracks would have been completely covered, impossible to follow. She grabbed a pen and scrawled a note to Dolly, telling her what had happened and that she'd gone out after the wayward critter.

On her way out the door, Merry said a quiet prayer.

Then she ran full tilt into the storm.

I
am a woman with vast experience of snow. Over the years I've carved it, crunched it, and cursed it by turns. I probably know more names for the stuff than your average Inuit.

Today I just called it dangerous.

I followed Dashie's trail for at least a couple of miles up into the mountains abutting Dolly's property. For a gal about eleven and a half months into an eleven-month pregnancy, she could really hoof it (I know, I know, alpacas have feet, not hooves). Up and up into the trees her two-toed tracks went, rapidly filling in with the ever-strengthening snow. Up and up into the trees I went after her, like a sweater-clad abominable snow woman. The wind was rising, and there was less light than I'd have liked, especially with the dense ponderosas towering over my head.

In the past couple of weeks, Jane had taken me traipsing about the trails with which Aguas Milagros abounds (visitors, by the way, rhapsodize over their unspoiled beauty, so if you get a chance, and there isn't a monster storm, I recommend hiking them), so I'd come to know my way around a little. But now everything looked unfamiliar. I'm not ashamed to say, I was a little afraid, both for the alpaca and myself. Yet there was nothing for it. Dashie had made a dash for it, and I must dash after.

It was more luck than skill that sent me stumbling into her, in the lee of some tumbled-over trees that had formed a sort of shelter. She was down on her side, legs out, and rolling around in a way that scared me silly. I could see—and pardon me, I know this is a PG column—her vulva doing something one could only associate with imminent birth, and I thought,
Oh, crap. I'm about to be an auntie.

I ran to Dashie, who seemed reasonably glad to see me despite having absconded into the woods to avoid exactly that, and checked her breathing. Having zero veterinary training, I couldn't say whether it was okay or not, but I was relieved to see her rise to her feet and shake the snow off her fleece. She paced around, looking at me with those limpid black eyes, and I knew…

I could not let her down.

The darn creature had made a beeline for the forest as if trying as hard as she could to ditch any possible rescuers.
Probably true
, Merry thought as she caught up to the laboring alpaca about two miles into the trees. Didn't cats and other prey animals tend to hide out when they were in distress, so as not to make themselves a target for predators?

If so, Dashiell was a sterling example of her species. She was shivering in the lee of a clump of trees, breathing hard, trickles of amniotic fluid staining her back legs as she attempted to birth her cria. Merry could see a nose and two tiny forelegs sticking out already.

“Hey there, Dashie,” Merry cooed, trying not to startle the alpaca. The cold air was scraping her laboring lungs, and her voice came out as a rasp. “Hang on, sweetie. This is no place to ‘drop cri,' as Jane would say. Let's find you a proper spot to have this sucker.” Merry scanned the woods. Wind and swirling snow were making it hard to see, and she was, quite frankly, cold as fuck. The layers of woolens were great, but no match for temperatures that had suddenly dipped down into the thirties, with a sharp wind dragging the chill down even further.

Bad as it is for me, it's worse for this poor mama. Better get her somewhere warm and out of the wind
. But where? A darker area in the trees began to look familiar.
I'm on the trail Jane showed me the other day
, she realized.
The one with that historic mine shaft…

Mine shaft!

Ah, the miracle of birth.

No, seriously, it's a miracle anyone manages to ever get birthed. Great googly moogly, what a process. If ever I'd wondered (and I hadn't) why they call it labor, I wondered no more. Dashie stood patiently, stamping occasionally and straining, while from forth her nether regions poked a wee nose, and then spindly little legs I was glad to see had little feltlike caps over the tiny toenails. Not having much experience with motherhood or the impending thereof, I tried to think what might be comforting, and settled upon some old campfire songs.

It was halfway through the third rendition of “Kumbaya” that the young'un was born. A perfect little boy with darling brown curls and a neck like the stalk of a flower seeking the sun, he came sliding into the world in a slop of what I assume was normal mama-made goo, and Dashie began cleaning him almost immediately.

Me? I began cleaning house. Er, cave.

There wasn't much Merry could do about making the mine shaft more hospitable, but she was damn well going to try her best. After the awesome job Dashiell had just done bringing her baby into the world, there was no way she'd do less than full duty as doula. Fire was out of the question at the moment—any wood she might have been able to scrounge up would be wetter than her limited fire-making skills could overcome—but that didn't mean their asses had to hang out in the breeze.

Merry used a scoop made of tree bark to dig away the snow that had accumulated on the cave floor until she'd exposed enough bare earth for them to rest on. She used the snow piles she'd made to build a windbreak by the entrance, leaving room to let in light and air, but sheltering them from the worst of the weather.

Then she set about slicing her sweater to ribbons.

“I don't know much about crias,” she told Dashiell as she ripped the sleeves of the Cosby sweater from their seams, “but I do know babies oughtn't ever be cold.” The alpaca, seeming much more at ease now that she'd expelled her offspring, hummed at Merry, watching her with gentle eyes as she nuzzled her little one. The cria was struggling to rise now, wobbling adorably on twig-like legs, and Merry took the opportunity to rub its damp wool dry with one of the sleeves she'd hacked off. Then she worked the rest of the giant, rainbow-striped sweater over the new baby's body. The cria squirmed a bit at the unaccustomed touch, but it was so woozy from its recent experience that it didn't know up from down, let alone fashion faux pas. In moments it was engulfed in an ode to the eighties.

“Good,” Merry pronounced, seeing the shivers start to subside. For good measure she took the remaining sleeve and slid it over the baby's long neck like a sock. The effect was…awesome. Despite the circumstances and the biting cold, Merry smiled with delight.

“I shall call you Bill,” she announced to the cave at large. Before it even occurred to her how ridiculous it was in this situation, she had her phone out and had snapped several pictures. Dashiell seemed to approve, crowding closer to both Merry and the babe as if wanting to star in her first proud-mama photo. Belatedly, Merry thought to check her reception. No bars, of course, and the battery was winding down fast. She'd find no help from that quarter.
Nope, I think we're stuck here 'til the weather lets up
.
No way Baby Bill there is gonna be able to trot down the mountain in a storm, two hours after making his first appearance on the planet.

Merry wrapped her arms around her torso, feeling the cold keenly now that the sweater had been donated to its worthy cause. She tightened her scarf around her neck and chest, and seated her pom-pom hat more firmly on her head. “Now we just have to wait for the snow to stop,” Merry informed the beasts in a tone far heartier than she was feeling. “Or the cavalry to arrive.”