Page 35 of Whirlwind

“What’s not to like about waking up at 4:30 in the morning to saddle your horse and sort cattle on your summer vacation?”

He laughed out loud. A rich belly laugh. The one that made all of us smile, the sound of home. “A rite of passage for every Hildebrand.” His leathery bronzed face crinkled in the glare of the hot sun under his worn cowboy hat. “You never complained.”

“I may have huffed and puffed a few times, but there’s nothing like being out at sunrise, all of us together on our horses. It was the only time no one spoke.”

“Because y’all were numb!” He chuckled, raising his chin at me and winking. Cattle bellowed, snorted, and grunted as Jeb, one of the cowboys, shoved at an obstinate calf, guiding it through the shoot. We used no stress techniques. Pressure, not electric prods. Great-Grandpa had insisted on working with the animals, not against them.

The Hildebrand Ranch or “The Great H” as the family called it, was a cow calf stocker and feedlot business that spanned over 40,000 acres of rangeland. Dad’s brother, Uncle Maddox, managed the ranch now. With backseat guidance from Grandpa, of course.

“What brings you here, honey?”

“Paperwork from Dad for Uncle Maddox to look at about the auction coming up. I left it for him on his desk. Wanted to come out here and see you, say hello.”

“Glad you did.” He slung an arm around my shoulders and brushed the top of my head with a kiss. Gramps was tall, taller than Dad. “It’ll be good to have that land. Never thought I’d see the day the Fricks would be selling. The biggest and oldest ranch in our area about to be chopped up on the auction block and sold off. Shame.” His gaze settled on the eastern ridge where the historic Frick Ranch lay.

The very first Mr. Frick, who’d landed in the Dakota Territory in the late 1800s, had managed to buy up over twenty abandoned and failed homesteads, amassing a huge property over the years. After marrying a Danish immigrant whose family knew a thing or two about cows, he’d turned the land into a successful dairy farm and cattle ranch, selling his goods to all the hungry gold rush miners and new families who’d settled in the area.

The last Mr. Frick, who had no children, had passed away last year, leaving his widow with lots of debt and unpaid taxes. We’d all been waiting like patient but ravenous vampires for news of a sale ever since.

“Too big to handle, and no family to handle it anymore. End of an era,” I murmured.

“Sure is.”

I leaned my head on Grandpa’s arm. We’d managed to retain our ranch, and it filled me with pride.

“I want those two pastures that abut my property. Good grazing land,” he said.

Grandpa, his brother, and Uncle Maddox had developed a grazing rotation system over the years where cattle were moved rapidly through pastures, giving each pasture rest time. This system enabled the Great H to remain operating at full capacity even in tough drought years when others struggled. And it not only kept the cattle healthy, but it improved the quality of our land. Last year the Great H had been awarded a special state conservation award. It was a fine moment for the Hildebrands.

“Didn’t get much rain again this year,” Grandpa muttered.

“You always taught me drought’s inevitable in our parts.”

“It is. Still bothers me though. Even if there comes a downpour and you get steady rain and green grass, you can’t get excited ‘cause it won’t last too long. The dry times will be back, and all this grass could burn up, like it did at the Frick last year.”

My gaze swept over the rolling hills of burnished gold, dull brown and rich green, the odd butte jagging the horizon. I’d known this land since I was born, run in the fields, driven cattle, cleaned stalls, galloped up the hills. It was home. Demanding, smelly, messy, prosperous. A grave responsibility, that, yes, had driven many Hildebrands before us to their graves much too early. It had been our way of life since forever. I knew in my very blood and bones that it took family working together for it to thrive.

“Your dad’s confident he’ll be able to get those pieces of Frick land he wants for his development. I hope he gets ‘em.” Grandad sniffed in air, his jaw flexing. Difficult emotions were tamped down, always. “I know it means a lot to him.”

My fingers tightened over the steel pen railing, hot in the afternoon sun. “He’ll get them.”

Dad and Five had always loved that northwestern edge of our property, the Frick on one side, the gold mine’s land on the other. There, on a remote area, stood three tiny brick houses that one of the mining companies had built just after World War I to store their dynamite and fuses. There were also tracks from a railway line they’d used to deliver the explosives to the mines. But once the mines stopped using dynamite, the three brick “powder houses” had been abandoned and the rail corridor vacated.

When we were little, we’d ride out there on our horses with Dad and play, pretending we were in the wild west, hunting for gold, robbing trains and stagecoaches, taking prisoners. Five would always claim the “dynamite” for himself and blow us all up at the end of every game, and we’d let him.

We all loved the view of Centennial Valley and Bear Butte from up there. It was spectacular, breathtaking. “I’m going to build my own castle right here and we’ll all live here together forever!” Five would declare, his toy rifle in hand.

“We’ll build it together, Five,” Dad had said. ”One day, you’ll see.”

Now, Dad was determined to make that “one day, you’ll see” come true. And I was determined to help him.

“Dad has lots of breathing room now with Ladd and Mrs. Jeffries’s investment. They’ll get the land. Anyhow, everyone knows we want it and can afford it, those pieces are next to our land so…”

“Golf course, huh?”

“And a club lodge.”

He let out a scornful grunt. “A fancy shmancy club is going to be built where the last sod dugouts and shanties in the Dakotas are still standing from the homestead days. Rich people will be coming from all over and paying big bucks to smack little white balls around. Progress.”

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