Yellowstone: Love and Cowboys

Home Sweet Almost Home

As they drew closer to the ranch the familiar pastures fenced with barbed wire dominated the scenery. This was Yellowstone territory; she'd spent her life on it. In one of the larger pastures, she could see the cowboys working the cattle, circling them, chasing after strays, and watching over them. She envied them, cowboying was hard work but she loved it. It had been the best part of her life growing up.

Finally, her uncle left the highway and turned onto the road that led to the big house they called the lodge. She loved seeing the pastures and the outbuildings; then the big white barn came into view with the big "Y" on its front. Now, at last, she was home.

Uncle John would have taken both suitcases, but she insisted on carrying one. They left the parking strip and walked up to the lodge and brought her bags into the house. She wondered how long it had taken her ancestors to build a structure that was half house, half cabin. She wondered if any traces had been left of the original building, if so they were long gone.

She tried to imagine what the Yellowstone had looked like before her ancestors settled it. When the army had yet to destroy the buffalo and the forest not been had cleared for pasture land. A part of her could sympathize with the tribes for wanting to take the land back, but did they understand that it could never happen. Maybe it was progress, maybe it was not, but what had happened had happened. The task now was to learn to work with each other but was that possible or was the old hatred too strong?

She let Uncle John carry her suitcases up the stairs to her room. He came back down and hung his hat on a peg near the door.

"Lunch is ready, I think," he told her, "Let's go into the dining room and see what Gator had waiting for us."

She went into the dining room with its antler chandelier and saw that Gator had made bacon cheeseburgers with steak fries. "So this is my welcome home," she murmured. In true Gator fashion, the burgers were so thick she could barely get her mouth around them. How long had it been since she had a burger, anyway? Elena would make Mexican food as a treat, but never burgers. If this was Gator's welcome home, then she couldn't wait to see what was in store for her.

Monica came downstairs holding a baby carrier. Gator quickly cleared a spot on the table so she could set the baby carrier down.

"Welcome home," she said and kissed Coralee's cheek, "Meet your new cousin Michael Lee Dutton."

"Can I hold him?" asked Coralee, and Monica removed the baby from the carrier and placed him in Coralee's arms. She made nonsense sounds as she admired him, he had Monica's eyes, but she could not tell if his hair would be the color of hers or Kayce's. His features were a mixture of both, but only time would reveal who he'd favor. He seemed to resemble Monica for now, but that could change. She wondered what Tate thought of his new little brother.

"Do you know if you're expecting a boy or a girl," Monica asked her, "Have you settled on a name?"

"It's a girl and we're calling her Lucy Mara. Travis was set on a boy so he could have a Travis, Jr. which I didn't want, but I'll give in. I don't even know if I want to have a second one, this pregnancy has been killing me. First, it was morning sickness, now it's my back. Since I'm here I'm going to try to find a chiropractor who treats pregnant women. Our ranch is three hours from Fort Worth, doctors, or any kind of services. To see a doctor I have to spend the night in Fort Worth or deal with a six-hour round trip."

"It's the price you pay," Monica said, "I'd rather live here than in a city. We're lucky to have the rez clinic closer than town, but it's isolated. Tell me, would you rather live in Fort Worth, or is it better to live on the ranch?

"Well, right now I'm worrying about playmates and schools. I don't want her to feel isolated, I want her to have a happy social life with lots of friends. My parents made sure that we were involved in school and 4-H activities. We went to school with ranch kids so we never lacked for company." She sighed, "I know I worry too much, Travis tells me it's probably just being pregnant. I'm sure things will be okay, I just need for this to be over."