# Car 54

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© 2005 / revised 2014
K Pelle

### Chapter 55:
Warning - Merging Traffic

I picked up the binoculars we kept by the front door as I went outside, then watched as a very rusty old truck and an even older looking trailer came down the grade into the valley and shook my head in wonder. I couldn't believe that such a tired, worn out appearing pickup had ever pulled that beat up trailer up the big hill on the county road. When they hit the level stretch about two-thirds of the way down the grade, I saw the truck stop and three figures get out to look down at the ranch. I grinned at that, many people stopped at that spot and I could visualize what they were seeing from the viewpoint we'd built there. If you had good eyesight you could see most of the ranch from that spot and I felt quite proud of what you could see. The yard of the ranch was well cared for and the area was relatively neat, but from that viewpoint you could also see all of the pastures, so you could see our cattle, horses, and now goats. I would have bet they were looking for the goats though and when I saw the old man lift his arm and point part way down the valley, I was certain he'd spotted them.

Then one of those three figures must have seen me standing on the front porch because they all got back into the old pickup and slowly continued down the hill. Just then Sandy came outside and glanced in the same direction I was looking.

"I think we may have visitors here for a while," I said quietly. "At least they brought their own living accomodations with them."

"Didn't you say Carissa told you that it was old Juan, but why would he be coming here and why would they be staying here for very long?"

"Yes, she did say that it was Juan and I'm only guessing, but I think he's here because he missed his goats, so he probably wants to be sure that we're treating them well," I chuckled. "The reason I think they'll be here for a while is because they brought their trailer with them so they're moving somewhere, but they're trying to pull it with that beat-up old truck. If you look at the amount of smoke coming out of the exhaust and listen to the noise that engine is making, I doubt if that truck could ever pull that trailer back up our hill. In fact the way that engine sounds, it wouldn't even pull the empty truck back up the hill, let alone a load of any kind."

"Oh boy, what do we do now?"

"Well, you invited Juan to come visit to check on the goats, so we make them welcome, at least for now," I grinned. "They've obviously got problems though, so I think we may need to help them out a bit before they'll be able to leave. Maybe we can hire them to help for a while or something? Unfortunately, since they're from the States we may have trouble with the government unless they have work visas, but let's not borrow trouble quite yet. We'll see what happens, okay?"

"Well since I was making a big pot of chicken and dumplings, we can at least start off by feeding them supper." Sandy smiled. "I was making enough that I could put some in the freezer for the winter, but I can always make more another day."

We didn't have time to say much more because the old truck came grumbling and clanking into the yard then pulled off to the far side of the driveway. When Juan turned the engine off, it died almost instantly and with a very final sounding clunk that drew a brief grimace to my face, but as Juan got out of the truck I managed a big smile.

"Hello Juan. Did you come to see your goats?" I grinned walking toward him and holding out my hand to shake his.

"Si, si, I am wanting to see las cabras, the goats, but I did, from your hill, Senor Crawford," he looked around and his eyes grew wide, then he threw his arms apart as if trying to embrace the scene "Su rancho es tan grande y tan hermoso!"

"Yeah the ranch is big, but I don't speak Spanish, Juan. Just what does 'tan hermoso' mean in English?"

"Papa said your ranch is very large and very pretty," a young girl's voice answered me. "Sometime when Papa is tired or worried he loses his English."

"That's okay. When I'm tired and worried, I sometimes lose my English too, but in my case that's the only language I speak, so then I'm really lost," I looked at her face framed in the pickup window and winked.

She broke into a giggle and blushed as she and an older woman stepped out of the old beater pickup.

"Oh, oh, I am have the bad manners," Juan spoke then. "Senor Crawford, this is my lil' girl, Maria and mi esposa es Conseula and I am sorry, I now have the trouble with the camión, unh, the truck. On la gran colina, umm, the beeg hill, she have hard time to pull the caravana."

"Easy Juan, I heard the truck and I knew you were having trouble. I'm sure one way or the other we can help you with it, but I don't think you can go anywhere with it tonight, but this isn't a good spot to leave the trailer parked overnight. So why don't we take the truck out of gear and unhitch the trailer, then we'll push the truck ahead and I can use my pickup to move the trailer to a better place for it to sit. If you'd like, I can move it over beside my workshop, then we can hook up the electricity and water. In fact there's a bathroom right next door that you can use if we park it there. It's got hot water and a shower, as well as a flush toilet."

"You are very kind, Senor Crawford," Maria grinned and winked at me. "I think Maman and Papa would like the truck nearby too. We have many things in the back of the truck that they want to keep safe."

"Well then, why don't I go get a tractor and a chain, then we'll pull both the truck and the trailer over to the workshop. If your Papa wants, we can even put the truck inside the equipment shed and close the doors so no animals can get at it, but there won't be anyone else here overnight, just us."

"But what about wild animals?" she demanded.

"Ah, we have dogs that keep those away, but right now at least one of them is herding the goats. Just a second," I whistled then and Duke came tearing across the yard and skidded to a halt at my feet. "This is my dog, Duke. His job is to keep the coyotes and wolves away from my calves, but now he does that for Sandy's goats too."

"Well, before you move the trailer, why don't you all come in and wash up, then we can eat," Sandy called from the porch. "You can move the trailer and get it set up after we've all eaten."

"You wish us to eat with you, Senora Crawford?" Juan's wife, Conseula finally spoke.

"Well, of course. You're our visitors and we often invite our visitors to eat with us," Sandy had come down off the porch and walked over to the truck. "I've never met you before, Mrs. Nunez. I'm Sandy, by the way, not Senora, please."

In about two minutes she had convinced Conseula and Maria that they were completely welcome. So we went inside, washed up and sat down to a farm meal, salad, chicken and dumplings, carrots and peas, all of it from the ranch. Of course the topic of goats came up over coffee when we'd eaten, but then Sandy had to show off a little bit. She'd managed to comb a few ounces of Cashmere from the goats, so she'd washed it, carded it and spun it into a little ball of wool. That got the women talking about knitting and weaving, so I grinned in Juan's direction and gave a jerk of my head to suggest we go outside.

While the women were chatting about wool and all the processes involved with that, Juan and I moved the trailer and even levelled it. Juan kept telling me that I didn't have to do all the things I was doing to make their stay comfortable for them, but I didn't listen well, in fact I pretended to misunderstand him intentionally once or twice. We had the trailer all set up and the truck moved into the equipment shed before the women came outside, so I suggested it was time to walk out into the pasture and see the goats.

As all five of us walked across the barnyard, my stud horse stuck his head over the rail fence and nickered at me, so I had to wander over and scratch his forehead.

"Oh, what a pretty horse," Maria raved as she came up close to my side. "I'd love to ride him."

"Well, that wouldn't be a good idea," I laughed softly. "He hasn't been ridden in a long time and one time, when I tried to ride him after a long break, he managed to put me in the hospital. If you want to ride a horse, we have other horses that are much better for riding. I'll warn you now though what we have are Quarter Horses and if you happen to give them the idea that you want to cut a cow out of a herd they can turn on a dime, so you've got to be ready for a very quick turn or two."

"Un muy buen semental! - He is very nice stallion," Juan said just as quietly. "Un caballo muy bueno pour - Unh, you have very good horse there for make more colts."

"Yeah, I lucked out on him, and he's sired a lot of good colts, but if you look over in the next breeding pen, we have an even better animal, only he's still a bit young."

"You raise the Quarter Horse purebreds?"

"Yep, Purebred Quarter Horse, Purebred Polled Shorthorns and I guess we raise mixed breed Spanish Goats now," I grinned and started to walk further.

"I'll bet in a few years we'll be saying we raise Spanish-Cashmere Goats," Sandy snapped. "Whether they'll be called purebreds is something else, but I'm not really worried about that. Oh look, there's Princess and the goats. She must have decided we wanted to see them and she's herding them back here for us."

"I'll bet she's just hungry and wants to bring the goats back so she can eat," I grinned to tease Sandy.

"You know darn well I fed both dogs while you were feeding the pigs the left over skim milk," Sandy snapped. "Princess is just being a good herd dog."

"She is very good, but las cabras, the goats, they are not hard to herd. They like people and they even like dogs, but best they like los burritos, little donkeys," Juan said with a smile.

"Little donkeys? What kind of little donkeys?" I asked.

"I think Papa means the miniature donkeys that come from the Mediterranean. One of our friends has some of them," Maria giggled. "They have goats too, but funny ones, much bigger goats with big bumps on their noses. The donkeys stay with the goats and boss them around like your dog does."

"The little donkeys are very brave and they keep away the coyotes and the wolves," Juan stated flatly. "They are good as a dog, maybe better because they eat the same things what las cabras do."

I noticed one of the two year old Quarter Horse fillies had gotten caught up with the goats in Princess' herd and I turned to watch Maria as they came closer. She wasn't looking at the goats, instead her eyes were on the horse, so I whistled at Duke and had him help Princess bring the goats and horse toward us, then spoke to Maria.

"Would you like to pet a horse?"

"That one? The one with the goats?"

"Unh huh, that's 'Little Dancer.' She's a two year old filly, and we'll be having her carry a rider soon."

"You break your own horses?" Juan asked, surprising me because Maria and I had walked slightly away from Sandy and Conseula.

"No, we don't 'break' a horse like some other ranches do. We gentle them and teach them very carefully with a lot of kindness and patience. The idea is to make the horse want to carry people and not feel that its being forced to do things it doesn't want to do."

"Oh, I like that," he was nodding his head enthusiastically as he ran his hand along the filly's neck. "Very nice lil' horse, this one - bonita yegua."

Since 'Little Dancer' wasn't skittish and had already been worked with for over a year, she was trusting and gentle. She was also a suck for attention, so having both Juan and Maria petting and scratching her itches was her idea of heaven. I backed off, trusting her and them.

"Is that safe," Conseula asked nodding her head toward the horse as I moved toward her and Sandy, who were surrounded by all the goats.

"Um hmm," I nodded, with a smile. "The horse is very gentle and very quiet. The only horses we have that are skittish are ones that I've bought from others, older mares that weren't treated as well as we treat our horses, but even they're coming around."

"Mr. Crawford, how do you do it? How do just two people look after so much, such a big rancho?"

"We have two men who help us most of the time and we have friends and family who just seem to show up when we need extra help," Sandy offered, but turned her head and winked at me.

"Oh, I thought perhaps Juan and Maria, perhaps even me ... Well, I thought maybe we might help for a while, perhaps to earn enough to have our truck fixed?" she spoke quietly and hesitantly. "The money we got from selling the goats was needed to pay debts, then we thought we'd come back to Canada to see if we could find work, but now ..."

I was listening closely and she had an accent, but it wasn't Mexican like Juan's. Instead she sounded like she might be French, or perhaps French Canadian and she'd said 'come back to Canada,' so ...

"Aren't you American?" Sandy asked, since she must have noticed the same words.

"What? Oh, no, we're all Canadians, but we lived in the States for the last few years. I was born in Montreal, and Maria was born in the Okanagan when we lived there. Juan was born in Mexico, but he became a Canadian citizen many years ago. I have a sister who lives in Manitoba, outside of Winnipeg and we thought we'd try to go there for work, if we didn't find anything sooner."

The fact that there wouldn't be a legal battle over citizenship put a different light on things, but when Sandy looked at me with 'cow eyes,' I rolled mine as if I was being unduly influenced.

"Can we think about it overnight?" I smiled at Conseula. "I can tell you right now, we can't legally hire Maria since she's so young. In fact she'll have to go to school if we do hire you and Juan."

"Oh, she would love to go to a regular school, but can't she help around the ranch too? She's very good with animals, just like Juan who is very good with horses, donkeys and goats. I like to grow things and look after young animals, so I can help with that. I can milk a cow and even drive a tractor though."

"For the next few days, why don't you just relax and we'll think about it," I smiled, trying to sound as noncommital as possible. "One thing you need to know is that in the winter this place can be very isolated."

"You saw where we lived before and that is more isolated than here," she laughed. "We were there for four years and we loved it. This ranch is far from town, but we don't like to be around towns or big cities anyway so ..."

"Okay. We'll think about it," I said firmly.

So later that evening I talked to Sandy and I called Dad to asked him what he thought, then in the morning I talked it over with Matt and John. Now I knew that the two guys weren't the ideal long term workers for the ranch, but they were loyal and I did owe them for that. Both of them enjoyed working with machinery and they liked building things, but since they'd never had any experience with animals, I'd had to teach them how to care for the stock on the ranch. Neither of them really had the patience necessary to train the horses either and on top of that they admitted they didn't like working on the ranch in the winter months, which made me chuckle. I mean, who could possibly enjoy slogging through deep snow and putting up with freezing weather for months at a time, but for me the other seven or eight months of the year made living on the ranch worth the effort.

In the long run I hired Juan, and Sandy talked me into hiring Conseula to help her around the house and yard. Before the month of July was done I had called Charlie Engels, Big Ed Yarowski and Clarence Walker, then arranged to have a basic, single-story, three bedroom log cabin built for Juan and his family. In fact Clarence saved us some money by talking me into buying a 'log home kit' from an outfit in BC and having it trucked in. Everything had been prebuilt and each part was labelled, then it was taken apart and shipped to us, so all Clarence and his crew had to do was assemble it and finish the interior. We had to keep it on the homestead, not the lease, but we wanted it a little distant from the main house so both families could have some privacy. After a lot of discussion we chose a spot on the other side of the creek from the main ranch buildings and built them an access road joining our entrance road just short of the bridge across the creek. In the end it still ended up being a very costly cabin, since it meant we had to install an extension to our electrical service, a new well and a new septic tank, along with a new disposal field. We even built a foot bridge for a short-cut across the creek, but when we were done I felt certain it was one of the best investments we could have made toward the success of the ranch. Both Juan and Maria were wonderful with any of our animals and they noticed things that even I might have missed. At the same time I think Conseula had more than just a green thumb, I'm sure she had completely green hands because she seemed to be able to make anything grow. Clarence and his crew did almost all the work on their house and they finished it very well, but also very quickly. Juan, Conseula and Maria moved into their new house before the last week of August.

Since they now had a house, Juan approached me and asked if I could see if anyone would trade their old trailer for a used pickup truck which would give them some transportation and independence. Truthfully I didn't think the trailer was worth much, but Matt did, so he and John hauled it off one weekend and came back with an old Dodge pickup that looked a bit rough, but seemed to be mechanically sound. John admitted later that they'd taken the trailer out to Sundre and had made the trade there so the 'boys in the bush' would have a better place to sleep. If nothing else that told me a lot about the condition those poor young buggers out there faced, because that old trailer was in rough shape. I wasn't really happy about that deal though, because if the former owners were that broke, I didn't trust the truck.

So I gave the Nunez family a long weekend off, then loaned them my pickup, arranged for a motel for three nights and gave them tickets to see a horse show in Calgary. While they were gone I arranged for Tom and George to give me a hand to give that pickup a quick going over. The power train actually was in decent shape, but we did some work on the steering and brakes, replacing tie-rod ends and brake pads, then I insisted on buying Juan a new set of tires because those on the truck were shot. Of course George got into the act, first finding a new bench seat, because the one in Juan's truck was split and ruined, then he found a set of front fenders to replace the bent and rusty ones on the front of the old Dodge. Once we were satisfied with the mechanical condition of that old pickup, we took it into the shop, sanded down the body and painted it. When Juan, Consuela and Maria came back and found it parked in their driveway, you'd have thought we'd given them a brand new truck and they wouldn't believe us when we said the good fairy must have done it. As a result of having that truck available to them at any time, Juan and Conseula did get out and about more often, which was the point of the whole enterprise.

Of course the Nunez family also gave both Sandy and I more time to do other jobs and even indulge ourselves in a few hobbies. Naturally one of my hobbies was still Car 54, so the last weekend of July I was able to try driving the rebuilt version of the old stock car for the first time. Tom, George and Frank Dolens' crew had virtually built a complete car from the frame up over the winter, but had based the new car on a two year newer version of the same make and model as the old car. Frank had been on my case about taking it out to the track all spring and summer and I couldn't really blame him, since it had been ready to race for months. Since that weekend would be our first time to race it though, we arranged to get to the track several hours before the races in case we needed to make an adjustment or two. Unfortunately when I got into the drivers seat of the new version of Car 54, it simply didn't feel the same to me as the old car had. Once I had it warmed up I'd do a few fast laps, then Tom and George would make an adjustment and I'd do another lap or two, but nothing they did seemed to help. I just didn't have the same control that I'd felt with the other car, I even felt uncomfortable making moves which I thought were second nature to me. Just establishing a controlled slide in the corners was an adventure and I almost put the car into the wall several times. Finally, after wasting several hours as we tried various adjustments in a vain attempt to tame that beast, Tom, George and I had grown extremely frustrated with the car. So, when I saw Frank Dolens drive in, I marched over to talk to him.

"This new car scares hell out of me, Frank," I told him candidly. "It feels too big and too heavy. I don't know exactly what it is, but it's just not set up right. Then too, it feels as if this frame is weaker than the old one and in a corner the car seems to twist itself out of alignment, then the front end wants to go one way and the rear end skates off in another direction. Although Tom understands what I'm feeling out there and can even see it happen, he can't think of any way to correct the problem, but then neither can I. I just don't feel safe driving the damn beast and I'm not about to race it in the shape it's in now. I think that damn thing is an accident looking for a place to happen and I don't want to hurt anyone, but I just might if I can't control the bloody thing at speed."

Frank noticed that Clarence had just pulled back into the pits after doing a few fast laps and since he'd been racing the same model of car all year, Frank and I went over to talk to him. He didn't have any ideas that might help, but he suggested we swap and try each others car for a few laps. When I got behind the wheel of Clarence's car I felt fine and could control his car quite well, but darn if he didn't keep up to me.

Afterward he shook his head and sighed. "It's strange, and I could feel it acting dodgey, but I don't know what causes the problem. It feels as if this frame isn't strong enough or something, perhaps that changes the wheel alignment as you go into a corner, but who knows? I seem to be able to compensate for what happens, but I'd have to say that it isn't going to be an easy car to race because that car almost seems to have a mind of its own. To be honest I wouldn't want to race it either, because I'd be paying too much attention to my car and not enough attention on the other drivers in the race."

He bit his lip and frowned. "Look, Chris, if you really don't like the car and don't feel safe driving it, what would you think of selling it? I mean it is ready to race and there are several guys who'd jump at the idea of buying Car 54, even if they had to fight it around the track every lap. You guys have virtually created a legend with this car and guys will pay a lot just for the name and number."

I looked at Frank and he shrugged his shoulders, "If you don't feel comfortable in it, you won't enjoy racing and that's half of why we're here. Besides, it does take a lot of time for both of us and I think there are other things we could both be doing."

"Yeah, it is getting harder to get here each year, but I don't feel comfortable selling it either, because I'm not the only one involved." I frowned. "You've invested more in it than I have, so what do you think we should do?"

"Well, why not sell it, then turn it into something worthwhile, maybe a donation of some kind?" he suggested.

So he and I talked to Tom and George, then we went and talked to the track officials. In the long run we held an auction after the hot laps, but before the start of the elimination races. Clarence and I put on a bit of a display with our two cars during the hot laps though, each in the other's car, since he handled the new 54 better than I did. It wasn't really a surprise that the bidding for Car 54 was hot and heavy, but to many people's surprise Gary Wagner was the highest bidder and final buyer. We received a huge round of applause from the crowd when we donated the money from Car 54's sale to the track, asking that it was used to buy safety equipment, or perhaps be used to help cover the cost of the EMT's who attended each race.

To my astonishment Gary Wagner won the fifty lap main later in the day, and he did it while driving the new version of Car 54.

The whole rigamarole had left me feeling a bit uncomfortable though. Now you have to understand, not only had Frank given me the original car and gotten me into racing, but besides that he'd approached me only a week before, trying to buy the house I'd inherited, fixed up and rented to Lucille. He wanted to give the house to the new couple as a wedding gift.

"Sorry Frank, that's impossible," I'd shaken my head and grinned. "That house is going to be a wedding gift alright, but from the Crawford side of the Bender clan. Dad and Will approached me over that when Jerry and Lucille first announced their wedding day and Lucille asked Dad to walk her down the aisle."

"But your family just spent a bundle fixing that house, and on top of that it will be the biggest present they'll get from anyone," he frowned. "Jennifer and I can't beat that, so we'd really like to be in on the deal."

"Well, Dad and Will split the cost of the repairs, but as far as I'm concerned the house was a freebie and to me, I've already satisfied my commitment on it. Grampa Bender's will said I had to get someone to move into the house and make a profit on it. Lucille's rent for the first month legally did that, because if you look at the actual facts, I never paid one red cent for the house and her rent easily paid for the inheritance taxes. So, if you can argue Dad and Wil into sharing the cost of the repairs with you, I'll go along with the idea," I grinned. "It will cost you a huge favour to earn a split of my share though."

"What sort of favour is worth half the price of a house?" he looked at me with slightly leery frown.

"Well, you may have heard that I hired a new herdsman, only the truck he was driving died just as he made it to my driveway. He wants to fix the truck, probably for some sentimental reason or other, but I'm having a problem finding parts. I don't mind paying for everything, but you have better contacts than I have, so I'm asking for your help to find things. He owns a 1946 Chevrolet pickup and we need a repairable engine, clutch and transmission, as well as a set of rear fenders and a few other small parts. Juan has worked out so well that I'd like to restore that old wreck so it looks like new, and before you offer to rebuild it for him, he and I want to do the work ourselves during the winter."

"Okay, you need another old truck for parts and you need an engine, probably just a short-block, but how about anything else. What about the tires and rims, how are they?"

"I already ordered the tires from you last week, and while the rims aren't perfect, they're serviceable, so we could use them if necessary," I laughed.

Frank went hunting during the next week and found a complete 1946 Chevy pickup truck, then personally delivered it. All the fenders and box were in great shape, but the cab had been shot so full of bullet holes that it was pretty well useless. The engine in the parts truck looked pretty rough too, but in the pickup's box were two crates containing a rebuilt short-block engine and a transmission. Stacked beside the two crates were four new tires already mounted on brand new rims. I had a hard time accepting that Frank had found so many of the parts we needed and done it so quickly, but Juan and Conseula simply couldn't believe their eyes. Not only that, but Frank had only charged me dealer cost on everything he'd found for us.

But that deal with the truck had happened the week before we went to the stock car race, so after the race, as I was standing next to Frank I felt a bit as if I'd taken advantage of him over the last while.

"Sorry I feel uncomfortable trying to drive that car, Frank. I know you were counting on me racing in it this year," I said apologetically.

"Whatever are you worried about?" he snorted. "Car 54 has been a great advertisement gimmick for me. I've made ten times more from it than I spent and I've had a lot of fun out of being involved with it at the same time. Besides, it's been enjoyable to watch three young boys mature into confident young men that I'm proud to call my friends. Now before we start to sound as if this is the last time we'll ever haggle or deal with each other, let's go down and congratulate Gary. Perhaps with your help I can convince him to keep my dealership name on the car in exchange for a few tires and an occasional paint job?"

Lucille and Jerry's wedding happened on the 8th of August, but it was a relatively small wedding, just friends and family members. All the women looked gorgeous in their new dresses and all the guys looked uncomfortable in their new suits, in other words a perfectly normal wedding. Come to think of it, perhaps that wedding wasn't all that normal for the town of Mountview. After all there were no major faux pas to feed the rumour mill. There were no big fights. No one got overly drunk, then drove into a ditch or smacked into a tree on the way home. In other words it was an extremely tame party considering what normally happened during wedding celebrations in our town. It only rated a couple of lines in the local newspaper, so I suppose the rumour mongers around town felt it must have been a boring wedding. I really don't know, since it was the first wedding I ever remember going to, so I have nothing to compare it with.

Dad and Frank created quite a stir when they presented Lucille and Gerry with a set of symbolic keys and the title to their house at the reception. Then during the dance after the reception Lucille accused me of giving her the house and simply adding everyone else's name to the card, but I had my answer ready for her.

"Hey, I did what Grampa Bender said I had to do. I made a profit on that house and still managed to save back enough of a share that I didn't feel bad about signing the card," I grinned and kissed her cheek. "Of course owning property here makes it official, you know. There's no way you can deny being part of the Mountview portion of the Bender clan, so you're not a Calgary Bender any more. I think that would please Grampa Bender even more."

"Asshole!" she snickered and slapped me on the shoulder. "I'm sure you're going to send my ex-old man a copy of the town's tax records next year, aren't you?"

"Nope," I laughed. "Even I'm not quite that mean."

"Darn, I'll have to do it, but now I'll have to learn how to forge your name," she smirked, almost maliciously.

That made me smile too, but mostly because she could joke about what had to be have been a very painful memory.

The ride home from the wedding was interesting to say the least since Sandy raved about the way people were dressed and how they acted. Then she went on and on about how radiant Lucille looked and how handsome Jerry was in his new suit. In fact she talked about the wedding all the way home and was even bringing up little details late that night after we'd gone to bed.

So I took the hint and the next day I left Juan in charge of chores, then drove to Calgary with Sandy. I hadn't told her where we were going, so when we walked into 'Birks' jewellery store, the look on her face was priceless. I remember the conversation we had after I'd steered her toward the counter where engagement rings were sold.

She turned and stared at me. "Are you asking me to wear your ring?"

"Yeah, I was thinking I should make the offer," I grinned. "After all, you've been suggesting this for a couple of years or more."

"Why now? Is this just because Lucille got married? I thought you were going to wait until you were twenty-one."

"Well, I was, but all my girl friends have been disappearing into the sunset in the last while. I thought if I offered you an engagement ring you might stick around. Besides, I think you've earned it and I always pay my debts."

"Asshole!" she snapped loudly, astounding the salesman that had come to the counter, then I got swarmed as Sandy decided I need a kiss, and when I could see again, the salesman's look of surprise had become a smile.

After I received that kiss, which definitely said yes, she astounded me by insisting that all she wanted was a plain silver band, but I wanted her to have a diamond of some sort. In the long run we compromised, but she still insisted on a silver band with the tiniest diamond possible. (I think the jeweller even called it a 'chip.')

Most people didn't even notice the ring though and Sandy insisted on keeping it quiet, not allowing me to make any announcement other than telling Mom and Dad. I found out later that she felt if we did say anything it would take away some of the lustre of Lucille's marriage which I found to be a bit strange. Besides, she insisted that a wedding ceremony wasn't essential for us, that she already felt married.

Then she proved it by getting pregnant a few months later.

Okay, let's be honest. She didn't get pregnant intentionally; after all, she insists that she was taking her birth control pills quite faithfully each and every day. However, she'd been helping me to rebuild the old pig sty on a rainy day, but as we were working she'd slipped in the mud and accidentally scratched her leg on a rusty nail. We'd taken her to the doctor and he'd insisted on giving both of us tetanus shots. Then a few days later he'd had to put Sandy on a course of antibiotics because an infection had shown up in the wound on her leg. Her wound cleared up fine, but later on we heard rumours that some antibiotics counteract the effects of the birth control pill. So because of one rusty nail, Sandy and I were going to become parents. (The doc insisted that neither antibiotics or a skipped pill could cause a failure of protection, but something darn well did and Sandy blamed that tetanus shot and the antibiotics, so I was wise enough not to argue.)

We decided that wasn't really a bad thing, but tried to keep the news of our upcoming family addition to those people we felt closest to, insisting that it be kept quiet. I continued to try to convince her to marry me though, until Mom took me aside one day and told me to lay off on the pressure. She felt if I pushed too hard, Sandy would rebel and Mom worried that it might hurt our relationship. So I took her advise to heart and backed off.

Since school was coming up about that time, Sandy insisted that she wanted to take Conseula and Maria to Calgary for a two day shopping trip and I convinced Juan to go along. Then at the last moment, Jackie wanted to go shopping too, but Carissa didn't feel like it. I never thought much about that until I headed toward the house after finishing the evening chores and saw Carissa's Jeep sitting in the driveway.

"Hi, Farmer Brown," she grinned and wrapped me in a hug when I walked inside. "Sandy and I talked it over and decided you shouldn't be lonely while she was away. Besides, I know you sleep much better when you have someone to cuddle."

I'll admit I'd missed Carissa's company and I knew that Sandy wouldn't mind that she was there, so I didn't fight the inevitable. We ate and talked for quite a while, then she joined me in bed. Matt and John gave me a rough time the next morning when they arrived to help with the last of the haying, but they seemed to consider Carissa to be one of my women anyway. Sandy managed to extend her shopping trip for a third day, and even then came home after chores were done and we'd eaten, but Carissa was at the door to greet the others when everyone arrived home.

Since Sandy hadn't seem surprised to see Carissa there, I just shook my head, realising that I'd been set up, but I didn't worry that much about it. Instead I shrugged it off as one more attempt by Sandy to work another woman into my life, but right then I was happy that Carissa seemed quite satisfied to spend the majority of her time in her house, not mine. Heck, I'd heard talk that she and Jackie had even been going out on dates with various guys from town. As a result I had high hopes that one day they'd both marry some nice guy and life would become more normal for me and everyone else - after all Lucille had married someone else, hadn't she?

Right then though there were a lot of other things going on that held my attention since Juan and I were really the only workers around the ranch by the second week of September. Matt and John had gone back to Olds to take more courses, while Mark and Luke were again working around town on small construction projects and only helping on the ranch on rare occasions. Tom and George were both off to Calgary, studying at SAIT, the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology. Tom was taking diesel mechanics and George was taking a crash course on residential wiring and farm electrification. Beth, Jackie, Jean and Jess were all taking grade twelve and Maria was going to school in town too. She'd been taking correspondence school before and although she was only fourteen, the school gave her a series of tests, then placed her in grade ten, which was two years ahead of her age group.

Mom and Dad talked to Maria and her parents, offering to let her stay with them once the weather started to look like it might snow. Then Jackie, Jess and Jean decided to stay in town in the McAdam's old house, so Maria decided she'd like to stay there with them. That raised some eyebrows, but since the McAdam house was just down the street from John and Wilma Coulter's and because they offered to keep an eye on the girls, Juan and Conseula agreed to the idea. Actually Maria lived in town during the week, but was home on most weekends, catching a ride home with Jackie on Friday evening and going back to school with her on Monday morning.

All of August and the first week of September were really busy times for us on the ranch. We had to mow, rake, bale and stack all the 'wild' hay from the portion of the ranch we weren't grazing and we had the second crop of alfalfa to take care of as well. Luckily we sold most of the alfalfa bales and about a third of our 'regular' hay bales in the field, so we had a lot less hay than usual to haul and stack in the hay sheds. We still had ample supplies for our winter needs, but that year we didn't have to store or protect any of the hay we planned to sell, instead it was hauled away almost as soon as it dropped out of the baler.

Then right after haying season, it was show time for our horses. At the fall Quarter Horse show and sale in Calgary, Mile High Ranch took home a first prize ribbon for 'Mile High Missy,' a yearling filly and a second place ribbon for 'Little Dancer,' one of our two year old fillys. I had to turn down several very good offers for both horses since I wanted to keep them as a future brood mares, but it was a good omen for the future. Actually I think what made people pay such close attention to our horses was our showman - who just happened to be a fourteen year old girl named Maria. That show must have drawn attention to Mile High Ranch though, because that fall we sold four of our young Quarter Horses, nine of our Polled Shorthorn heifers and one young Polled Shorthorn bull. That added several thousand dollars to the kitty and put Mile High Ranch's finances well into the black for the year.

Between the fact that we had again hit a peak price for our hay, combined with the high prices we got for what stock we sold, we did exceptionally well that year. In fact considering how new the name 'Mile High Ranch' was in purebred stock circles, our animals were selling for almost unbelievable prices. On top of that our share of income from the lower lease was higher than ever before. Part of that extra income was due to changes Grampa Bender had made to the lease agreement, but mostly it was a reflection on my family's management of the lower range. The Bender clan, which now included the Bender, Crawford and Grant families, sold almost a hundred range fed steers and nearly fifty tons of hay, all from the leased land. That didn't include any of the income from their individual farms, which also did extremely well that year.

September was the fall auction season as well and I had the idea of getting some things I wanted to use to improve life around the ranch. On top of that, Sandy had grown to love auction sales as much as I did. At the first auction sale we went to that fall I bought a nearly new 50KW generator to replace the older 24KW generator we already had. We needed that increase in size because we had an additional house and more barns now, but I knew I could sell the older generator to Matt or Carissa. At the same auction I bought a whole pallet of unfinished storm windows, just the panes of glass, with a thin aluminum frame around each pane. Sandy questioned my sanity for buying them, but I just grinned at her since I had plans for that glass. I also bought two kits to build a pair of stock sheds, just the steel frames, the sheet metal roofing and sheets of plywood for the walls. I explained to Sandy that one shed was for our weaned calves and the other for her goats, she chuckled at the idea at first, then changed her mind and decided that I'd made a wonderful deal. Meanwhile Sandy bought a weather vane to put on the old barn roof, and it was my turn to chuckle. Where we lived, the only winds we noticed almost always blew down the valley from the north-northwest, and we seldom felt any winds that blew from other directions. Then she surprised me when she bought another small John Deere garden tractor, but this one had a new mower deck and a pull-behind grass sweeper attachment which meant she and Consuela would be able to care for the lawns much easier. In fact we bought several other items as well, so since we'd come in my pickup I had to come back with Juan the next day and use the two-ton truck to haul our bigger purchases home.

When Carissa heard about the deals we'd made at the auction, she wanted to come with us the next time and since the next auction was a mixed farm sale which included some livestock, I asked Juan to come along. In the long run Juan and I drove there in the two-ton truck with the stock racks on the box, so Sandy, Conseula and Carissa followed along in my pickup, pulling a horse trailer.

At that sale I bought a second Jersey cow that had just freshened, then bought her young heifer calf when it came on the auction block. A pair of little donkeys came up for sale next, both jennies and Juan got quite excited, then insisted that I buy them, telling me they'd be good at keeping the goats safe from coyotes. Since they were scarcely waist high I thought that idea was just wishful thinking, but we had lots of room on the ranch and if Juan wanted a couple of little donkeys around I'd humour him, so I bid and got them quite cheaply. Soon after that Carissa bought a mixed breed gelding and a Thoroughbred mare, but she was also interested in the farmer's chickens. In fact between Carissa and Sandy, they bought four dozen Plymouth Rock hens and a couple of roosters. Sandy insisted they were good additions to the ranch and a match for her flock of Rhode Island Reds which she'd virtually 'inherited' from Grampa Bender and had been slow to abandon. All I knew for sure was that she was going to insist on keeping the two breeds separate, which meant we'd have to build another chicken coop and fence another chicken run.

We bought several other things at that sale too, in fact Carissa and I were the only bidders on all the old tack from the farmer's tack room. We ended up with saddles, bridles, halters, harness and who knows what else. While we were doing that Juan was at the household auction, buying an almost new washer and drier for Conseula. Even Conseula bought two things, a walk behind rototiller and a small lawnmower to use around her little house. In the long run we left for home with both trucks and the trailer fully loaded. On the way home, Juan convinced me he wanted to pay for a fancy saddle and bridle that I'd thought to give to Maria for her birthday. I agreed, after I had convinced him it was okay for Sandy and I to give her a Quarter Horse, but he only went along with that because he knew the gelding I meant to give her was a very quiet, well trained horse.

Then as we were driving further Juan seemed to grow very quiet, but he looked as if he had something he wanted to mention, so I asked him outright what it was. It turned out he had heard there was to be another auction sale the next Tuesday and he understood there were more little donkeys as well as more Spanish goats for sale there. The only thing was the goats probably weren't the same as those we had bought from him, in other words they probably weren't the Cashmere cross goats. So we talked it over a bit, but I thought we should talk to Sandy about the idea of buying more goats and he nodded, then grinned.

"I tell Sandy that billy goat we have is Chinese Xinjiang cross, if he breeds with Spanish nanny, we get lil Cashmere cross goat," Juan nodded his head. "Sandy get more wool, goats eat more brush, you have more pasture for horse and cow. Everybody win something."

I just rolled my eyes at that, because I knew we'd be off to another auction on Tuesday.

Actually we only bought one male donkey and three goats at that next auction, but all three of those goats were females and all of them had been bred. Meanwhile Sandy bought a hand cranked wool carder and I bought an almost new cement mixer, then got carried away and bid on an old Fordson Major tractor with a small backhoe attachment that was sitting on a rather beat-up, goose-neck trailer. I wanted the trailer more than the tractor, but got the whole set-up for peanuts. Then I cursed that darn trailer all the way back home because the darn thing didn't want to tow straight if I drove any faster than thirty miles an hour. I discovered later that the axle wasn't lined up square with the frame so it wanted to 'dog track,' but that was easy enough to fix and in the long run I ended up with a great little trailer. Even that old tractor and it's mini-backhoe came in darn handy several times and soon paid for itself. In fact the next summer we removed the backhoe setup and used the three point hitch unit on the Fordson to operate various haying attachments.

Aside from our weekly grocery runs to town or the occasional trip to an auction, we kept quite busy on the ranch during the last two weeks of September and the first two weeks of October. That was especially true because Juan and I had two jobs we wanted to be certain to finish before we had our first major frost of the fall. To start with we wanted to get those two shelters I'd bought at auction built and fenced in for the winter so both the young stock and the goats would be safely housed when it began to snow heavily. Mostly though I wanted to turn all those window panes I'd bought into something both useful and enjoyable for Sandy and Conseula.

Juan and I built the two shelters and their fences in a hurry, but then we set out to build our women folk a greenhouse, and not just any old greenhouse either. We wanted something that would be easy to heat in the winter and easy to cool in the summer, so we started by excavating into the side of the knoll that rose just off the far corner of Sandy's garden. That's when that little backhoe came in real handy and I considered it paid for in the first eight hours because it excavated the opening we needed in no time flat. We ran in drain tiles, backfilled with gravel, poured foundations and a floor, then concrete walls and eventually a reinforced concrete roof, even adding a separate room for the entrance at one end. The glass front sloped upward from a concrete stub wall in the front, all the way to the roof and we had enough glass to make that glass wall double paned. Once we'd backfilled soil against the concrete walls and had two feet of soil over the roof, the greenhouse was relatively well insulated and could easily be kept at a constant temperature. We even trenched in a water pipe for a faucet and a plastic conduit for an electric feed, then had Bob Grant come up to install lights and a ventilation unit that had a small heater for the winter along with a variable velocity exhaust fan for the summer. Both Sandy and Conseula went nuts over that greenhouse and in no time at all they were growing plants in every possible inch of space they could find or have Juan and I build for them.

Even though we spent several hours each day for two weeks building that greenhouse, Juan and I were still busy with the animals and with the other small jobs that we needed to finish before winter set in. That fall though, we were in very good shape. We had shelters and corrals built for all the stock and we had our hay sheds stacked full. I'd gone down to Dad's and bought several tons of baled straw for bedding and we had already started to use that to bed the animals down at night. On top of that, for the first time ever we had run plastic pipe underground to each and every corral or animal shed and had installed electric lines along the pipes and on the waterers so all of them could be kept from freezing. Then, although all the animals were looking good, we still had Don Taylor, the local veterinarian come out and check them over. He gave them a clean bill of health and congratulated us on our stock setup, saying it looked planned, not built helter-skelter the way most farms were.

Not only the buildings and shelters for the animals were ready that fall though, we'd also readied all the tractors, trucks, and other vehicles for winter. Everything had antifreeze and lighter oil or whatever else was needed for it to work the way it should in the coming cold temperatures. Both the John Deere tractor and the small John Deere crawler were rigged for snow and cold weather. The tractor had a blade rigged on the back and a bucket mounted on the front end loader, while the crawler had it's dozer blade mounted and cleaned, almost polished. We'd even rigged canvas down the sides of the engine compartments of both tractors to direct heat back to the drivers seat. Once the tractors were ready, the snowmobiles had to be checked over and tuned up. Then we'd had time to install snow tires on all four wheels of the Jeep, then rig the canvas top and mount its snow blade, so when the first skiff of snow fell in mid-October it was almost a relief. But then the weather seemed to fall into a holding pattern, cold, but clear, with occasional light snow flurries.

Cold weather and light snowfalls didn't keep visitors from dropping around to the ranch, in fact a couple of inches of snow on the ground seemed to draw visitors. Some of them came to see that we were all ready for winter, some came just to visit, some came to see the scenery and there were a few who came to try out their snowmobiles, since we usually got a little more snow than other places. That year though we had less snowfall in the valley than we did up on the upper plateau, which cut down on the number of snowmobilers we saw.

We still had a multitude of visitors come and go during the early winter. Mom and Dad probably came the most often, but Carissa and Jackie dropped around at least once a week, with Jess and Jean coming by almost as often. Then of course the McAdam brothers dropped by once in a while. Tom came by a few times, usually when he was home for a weekend and wanted to see what we were doing, but if he was there, Jess and Jean were usually along. Of course if Tom was home for the weekend, George was usually home as well and if he was home, he and Beth almost always visited us. Even Lucille and Jerry dropped by once or twice.

It got to the point that if Sandy and I made trips to town or did any grocery shopping we went during the week, so we could be sure to be home in case we had visitors on the weekend. Juan and Conseula thought it was amusing that so many people would drive so far out of their way to come see us, especially considering that I'd warned them we might be cut off during the winter. They did follow our advise though, and stocked up on groceries and supplies, just in case the weather got really bad.

For almost three weeks that fall or early winter, the weather alternated between light snowfalls and bright sunshine, so our parade of visitors continued, but I had a feeling that was going to change soon.

### Chapter 56