Page 5 of Ride With Me
I drove the SUV up to the main house. My grandparents had built the original log-cabin structure, and then they—and later, my parents—had added on to the structure. The original modest cabin now stood two stories high, with three bedrooms, a modern kitchen, and a living room with a cozy fireplace. My BMW seemed out of place on the dusty ranch.
I let myself in and looked around. The kitchen fixtures were gleaming, with not a speck of dust in sight. The only mud seemed to be confined to the mud room—always a goal, but rarely a reality on a working ranch. Huh. Dad must have hired a cleaner. I knew he had’t done this himself.
A pile of papers sat on the kitchen table. I picked one up. An electric bill, due next week. I looked at the next one. Gas bill. I flipped through the pile. All bills, none of which appeared to have been paid. At the bottom of the pile, I found my dad’s check book.
It looked like paying bills was going to be high on my to-do list.
The mud room off the living room held most of the proof that this was still a ranch. My dad’s worn work gloves and dirty muck boots sat beside the back door, and his coveralls and jacket hung on a hook.
I kicked off my sneakers and stepped into my dad’s muck boots. We’d been the same size since I was in high school, but this was the first time I’d actually borrowed his shoes. I pulled open the back door. A couple of old trucks sat next to the barn. There were at least six horses out in the pasture, so someone was here. I made my way to the barn, sliding open the door a crack to let myself slip inside.
“Hello?” I called out.
“Hi there! Be right down!” A familiar voice sounded from the hay loft above. Heavy footsteps landed on the stairs, and Craig appeared. “Hey, Logan. Long time, no see. How are you, son?”
I grasped Craig’s offered hand. “Good, considering. Thanks for bringing my dad to the hospital. It sounds like you getting him there quickly made a big difference.”
Craig shook my hand, then pulled me into a tight hug. “I’m glad we got there in time. The doctors sounded pretty optimistic, but it seems like we’ve got our work cut out for us without him here. The old man did an awful lot around here. Any chance you can spend some time here? Help us out?”
I considered, running a hand over my jaw. I had plenty of vacation time saved up. My job as a corporate lawyer paid well, and I’d been there long enough that FMLA should kick in to protect my job if I needed to take extra time.
The nurses had said a few weeks, right?
“Sure, Craig. Happy to help out. What can I do?”
Running a ranch turned out to be an entirely different proposition from what I’d anticipated. I’d imagined mucking some stalls, tossing some hay. The kind of stuff I’d done as a teenager when my dad had me help out.
But here I was, a week later, buried under a pile of bills and on hold with the vet. Some of the invoices here didn’t make any sense, but they seemed to reference something medical, so the vet seemed to be the logical choice.
Finally, Dr. Vaughn picked up. “Hi there. What can I do for you?”
“Hi, Dr. Vaughn. It’s Logan Wilder, Tom’s son. I’m taking care of some things on the ranch while he’s in the hospital. I had a question for you about—”
“Ben, please. What happened to Tom? Is he okay?”
“He had a stroke. He’s okay, but he’s got some rehab ahead of him. I’m trying to manage things until he’s back, but I’m trying to make sense of a few papers here. I’m seeing some invoices for a stud? Like $500? It was stapled to one of your invoices, so figured you might know.”
Ben chuckled. “Yep, stud fees aren’t cheap. That was probably the cost for the, shall we say, genetic material to breed Lena.”
What the fuck?
“Breed Lena? Like have a baby?”
“Yep, a baby horse. She’s in foal, due in a couple weeks. Tom seemed to have a handle on how to deliver the foal, the early care for it. You up for that if he’s not back by then?”
Deliver a foal?
Law school had, somehow, not prepared me for that.
“I….” I searched for the right response. I wasn’t sure there was an appropriate response for this situation.
Ben seemed to sense my apprehension. “Oh boy. Well, here’s the deal. Horses can go into labor any time day or night, just like people. You need to be ready to deliver the foal when it comes. I’ll come as soon as I can, but I’ll be honest, I often don’t make it there until after the foal is born, and if things go smoothly, I don’t even come until the next day. I’ll stop by later today and check on Lena, see if I can estimate how much time she’s got left. I’ll bring you some info on the whole process. But you might want to talk to some folks and see if you can find someone who’s comfortable with the birthing process and get them to stay on the ranch until she delivers. Do you have anyone in mind?”
I drew a blank. I was in way over my head here. “Maybe Craig, or one of the other ranch hands. I’ll ask around. I’ll see you when you stop by. Thanks, Doc.”
Thirty minutes later, it had become apparent that none of the ranch hands were comfortable with delivering a foal. It turned out that my dad had been somewhat controlling with his breeding, and had insisted on doing every aspect himself. Even Craig, who’d been around the ranch forever, didn’t have any experience with it.
“Sorry, son. Foaling was your dad’s baby, pun intended. He never let any of us near it. Pretty sure he thought we’d screw it up. I can call some folks from the farms nearby, see if any of them have experience.” Craig shrugged apologetically.
