# Car 54

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© 2005 / revised 2014
K Pelle

### Chapter 58:
Caution - Industrial Zone - Heavy Traffic

Actually I didn't have that much time to worry about those idiots that fall anyway. I had been lucky enough to have the last of the hay cut before Bill McAdam's murderous attack. Juan and Tom had managed to find time to get it baled before it was damaged by the weather, but after Tom was injured I'd had to hire labourers to help Juan get it off the field and stored for the winter. While they'd been doing that, I'd been involved with funerals and other crap, so it's a good thing we'd managed to get many of our fall preparations done early. In the long run I was literally 'missing from action' for almost three weeks. It was also a good thing that we'd done so much planning and preparation around the farm the previous year, because in many ways we were able to get by on the work we'd done over previous years.

Thankfully Maria was there as well, since she was staying on the ranch and taking grade eleven by correspondence, so she could help if an emergency cropped up. She'd decided that she'd rather do that than stay in town with any of Sandy's or my friends because she'd seldom be able to come home on weekends. When Jackie had been killed, she lost her ride home each weekend and since Jess and Jean were studying nursing in Calgary by then, she no longer had any close friends to live with in town. So Maria was already filling in as Conseula and Sandy's second set of hands, besides being my primary rider who exercised the mares and geldings.

I wouldn't let her work with the stud horses though - I drew the line there. Instead, since we had relatively few stallions that we were raising for sale at that time, I did my best to ride at least one of them each day, but I tried to sell our studs as young as I could, before riding age if possible. As for the herd studs - well let's be honest, I usually let them save their energy for the mares. I had far too many responsibilities by that time to take the risk of being injured by a fall from a bucking horse. In other words while any horse on the farm was trained to allow us to handle them by the time they were six months old, our herd studs weren't often ridden. In fact I avoided that job if possible, but I did feed and groom them each day. So while Juan and Maria were both excellent at gentling horses, they had little to do with our studs, but that was mainly because I preferred to handle the stallions myself.

We didn't attend the fall show and sale in Calgary that year, but we did advertise and we sold a fair amount of stock, so I suppose the Mile High Ranch name didn't suffer that badly. Actually all things considered we did relatively well that fall, but it was all because of previous good management. There was no way I felt prepared for the first storm when it did come, but with Juan and Maria's help, we muddled through. In fact by late November we were in decent shape and we were fully prepared for the next storm, but luckily neither of the first two storms was all that bad. By mid December we were fully stocked up for a long siege of bad weather if necessary and we had all of our Christmas shopping done. That was a darn good thing because we had a snowfall a few days later that dumped more than a foot of snow on the ranch and even more on the upper plateau, then the winds came up. Even our caragana hedges didn't stop the drifts from forming on many stretches of the road across the upper plateau since the hedges there hadn't grown a lot, so they were virtually buried. That meant we weren't going anywhere and no one was going to be visiting us, but luckily the phone and the power didn't die, so I didn't even bother to try to plow out the roads. I left that job to Charlie Engels and his crew, but I did wonder if I should have tried.

Sandy put in her two cents worth though and told me, "Don't be an ass! You damn near froze the last time you did that, and the snow is worse this time, so don't bother starting on the roads. If you absolutely have to go out and plow something, I'm sure there are drifts around the buildings you can work on."

Once the initial winds died down I did use Sandy's little garden tractor and snow blower to clear a path over to Juan and Conseula's house. Then I used the front end loader to clear out access to all the buildings and stock pens, but that was just to make it easier for Juan and I to do the chores and look after everything without having to fight our way through chest-deep drifts.

Needless to say we anticipated having a quiet Christmas that year. We had only put up a small tree and we didn't go crazy on the decorations because we didn't expect that we were going to have a lot of guests. Juan and Conseula didn't even bother with a tree that year since we'd invited them to have Christmas with us, but I brought in our tree just after lunch on Christmas Eve. The snow was still melting off the branches when Sandy brought down Toby and Kristina fresh from their afternoon nap and our two kids simply stared at the tree that had suddenly grown in the middle of our living room floor. The look on their faces was simply marvellous and I caught it with a quick photo, then Sandy carried them over near the tree, so I got one of her holding them close enough that they were reaching out to touch the branches. After that Maria took the camera and she got one of Sandy holding Toby and me holding Kristina with the tree in the background. That was about the limit of our duo's patience though because they got fussy, so I think they'd had enough flashing lights from the camera. Besides, they'd seen trees before and the new tree in our house wasn't doing anything, so they lost interest in it rather quickly, and after all, it was afternoon snack time. In fact by the time they were put to bed that night the tree was old hat and they virtually ignored it.

It was a different story the next morning though, because Santa Claus had come, so the tree was covered in bright lights and fancy decorations. Not only that but there were presents under the tree, many of them unwrapped so they could see their new teddy bears, dolls and toy cars. Then they had their pictures taken many more times as the gifts were unwrapped, but then so did everyone else. Both of the kids even managed to open one or two presents themselves, but like all kids everywhere, the wrapping paper and boxes that the toys came in were much more fun than the toys were.

The grownups got toys and other gifts as well, but for Sandy and me, the most important gift that year happened when Toby started to crawl on Christmas morning. Then we got a second gift late on Christmas afternoon because Kristina took after her mother (Nobody is going to one-up me, dammit!) so she started crawling too. Within a month they could both crawl as fast or faster than I could walk. Two month after that they were toddling and in six weeks they were running, so we had to put up baby gates to keep them off the stairs and out of my office.

Our road wasn't plowed out until the middle of January and it was a good thing it happened as soon as it did, because by then everyone was just a bit cabin happy. Juan and I agreed that it wasn't a good thing for both of us to be off the ranch at one time, but Sandy needed to take Toby and Kristina in for a checkup at the doctors, so we went to town first. Just so I could be sure Sandy could make it home again if the wind came up and the snow stated to drift again, I led the way out with my truck and she followed in her car. Then the next morning I handed Juan the keys to my truck and he took his family to town. Both Sandy and Conseula loaded up on groceries when they were in town, then wouldn't you know it, we had a two day chinook, so on the third morning the roads were relatively bare.

I was darn happy about that because it was Maria's birthday and she'd turned sixteen. Since she'd been so much help to us around the ranch I'd bought her a birthday present, a five year old two-door Ford that Frank had taken as a trade in from an old lady, so it was in great shape. Unfortunately she never had much chance to drive it right then because two days later another storm blew in and piled drifts even higher than the previous storm had managed. Once again Charlie Engels' crew had barely cleared the road before we were hit by another chinook.

Actually those first two major storms were a good example of how the next few months went, because the rest of the winter, the whole spring and most of the summer became one weird weather happening after another. We'd have cold wet weather for two weeks, then a week or two of decent weather, but we did our best to work around it. Between the weather and the fact that I wasn't able to hire any decent workers over the summer, I was almost going nuts. Oh, we worked around the weather, but the ranch wasn't anywhere as productive as usual. Our hay crops were slow to grow at first, then grew like weeds and we'd barely gotten the first crop of alfalfa baled and off the field before we had a week of rain and a flood in the creek that once more threatened to take out the bridge.

Not only that, but the workers we had that year were just plain strange - okay they weren't all strange, but if they were decent workers, then their situations were wierd. We had a fellow who knew what he was doing and worked for about a week, then his brother fell off a roof and he had to leave to help his family. The next guy we had working for us lasted three days and then quit because we were too far from town and he missed his girlfriend. A third fellow started work on a Monday morning, but had twisted his leg and cracked a bone in his foot by early afternoon. The fellow after him developed a crush on Maria and began to waste his time trying to 'court' her instead of working, then I had to ask him to leave because he got pushy with her, but she wasn't interested. He's the only worker I've ever told not to come back to the ranch under any circumstances. Actually I phoned the RCMP after he left to let them know that I didn't think he was mentally stable and warned them he was heading their way.

But, just when I didn't think my year could get any stranger, I started getting calls about renting, selling or leasing the two places up on the 'Frenchmen's' half section again. However the McAdam brothers still didn't know what they wanted to do and legally I had still had a tenant leasing Carissa's old place, since John Coulter insisted on maintaining the lease payments. By that time no one had lived in those two houses for a year, but since I didn't know what was going on myself, I told anyone who called that both places were in legal limbo at the moment.

Besides right then Juan and I were up to our eyebrows in work, trying to get the second crop of alfalfa mowed raked and baled, so I really didn't have time to even think about that. Once more the two of us were literally working from sunup to sunset and my patience with people was not exactly equitable. If we had been able to hire one decent worker who had stayed all summer long, life would have been so much better.

Then one Sunday in the late summer or early fall, John and Wilma, along with Frank and Jennifer Dolens, came out to the ranch for a visit to discuss those dang leases. I was surprised that they brought Art Dumfries and Debbie Yarowski along with them, but Frank and John explained that Art and Debbie were getting married and were going to need a place to live. Debbie was a nut about Thoroughbred horses, and she knew that both Frank and John had previous experience at buying and racing horses. She wanted to keep and breed two of the mares that Carissa had bought, then raise the colts, and both John and Frank were willing to back her financially if she wanted to expand her herd. Of course Art was drawn to the area because it meant he'd live much closer to his brother's ranch in the foothills. They weren't worried about being snowed in either, since Art was working on a contract basis at Frank Dolens' shop. He only worked for Frank when there was a car that needed body work or painting, so it wasn't going to be a major problem if he was snowed in for a few days during the winter.

Sandy and I both got along well with both Art and Debbie as well as Frank and John, but there was another complication. The group wanted to lease another twenty acres of land as pasture for their horses, which meant reducing the acreage where I'd planned to grow hay.

"Oh, don't be silly!" Sandy snapped when I mentioned my reluctance. "You haven't even taken a decent crop of hay off that land yet, so you don't know how much you'd make if you did grow a crop there. Besides, the amount of hay you might get wouldn't be worth anywhere near as much as the lease will bring in and the rent from the lease isn't dependent on the weather the way a hay crop would be. All you need to do is have them sign a long term lease and while you shouldn't overcharge for it, you should make sure you tie in any possible tax increases and other costs of that sort. That way if they build another barn or add fences and improvements you've covered your butt concerning any possible increase in your expenses just like you did on the original leases. As well as that if they raise very many horses you're going to have a ready customer for any extra hay you do grow."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," I nodded, then couldn't help grinning.

"Okay, what's so funny now?" she snapped.

"I was just thinking what Grampa Bender would have said about my reluctance to lease out more of his 'dry dirt.' Then I was remembering that he paid taxes on that acreage for years just so he could have a road across it."

"Yeah, but just think how proud he'd be that you're making money on the place," she smiled as she hugged me, but I could see a tear in her eye and I knew she was thinking of Grampa Bender.

A few seconds later she developed a calculating look in her eye and she grinned, "Besides, if Art is living there, you could have him come down here in his spare time and repaint that ugly coloured car you bought for me."

I just nodded and left it at that for the time being, but I'll admit that comment lightened my mood.

So I called up Mark Jackson, my friendly surveyor, and talked to him along with John and Frank, then had him lay out an additional twenty acres to add to the lease. Art was so pleased about the fact that I'd leased the place to him and Debbie that he repainted Sandy's car for the price of the supplies. Then he even gave Juan and me a hand around the ranch for a few days, but I insisted on paying him for his help. Art and Debbie were married on October 2nd and moved into the house on the 16th. In other words they moved in the day before we got hit by our first major blizzard of the winter - at least being snowed in gave them lots of time to unpack their possessions and arrange the furniture they'd brought with them.

When Mark had come out and asked me to help him with the survey, it was just one more reminder of the reasons I missed having the McAdam brothers living close by though. I was not only missing those guys as friends and neighbours, but I had really missed John and Matt's help on the ranch that fall. They had been my extra labour when I'd needed them previous years and during main haying season that year I'd felt almost lost without them. Oh, we'd managed to get through the winter and had even made it through that summer by hiring temporary help, but I've already mentioned the problems we'd had. Besides the men I'd been able to hire weren't accustomed to using our equipment or familiar with our methods, which meant they'd had to be trained and taking the time to train people slowed us down. It seemed to me that the haying season was almost finished before we'd trained our last helper to be a decent worker. It was quite plain that I needed to find more reliable help and I needed to find it soon. So I spread the word that I was looking for reliable, year-round workers, but let's face it, it was coming on toward fall and every reliable farm or ranch worker in the area already had a job.

Now don't get me wrong, I wasn't unhappy with Juan in any way. My problem was that fact that the work on the ranch had increased exponentially and I was missing the reliable workers that Matt and John had become before they were shot. Those two brothers were the people I needed to replace, not Juan, not since he had become so much more than just a helper around the ranch. He was a good friend and an energetic helper, as well as a dependable observer who noticed problems before they grew too large to handle, so there was no way I was going to replace him. He had become an exceptional ranch hand and an excellent workman who helped out with almost all the jobs on the ranch, but he was much more than that to me because he loved the job. Both Juan and I were involved with the cattle and horses, but I think our horse herd was Juan's second love at best. While he had become absolutely marvellous at gentling a young horse and working with the mares, his first love was obviously split between Sandy's goats and his donkeys. Once Sandy and I became involved with raising Toby and Kristina, he took over the care and breeding of the goats, but he still made time to lavish care and attention on his donkeys and my horses.

While Juan had virtually taken over raising the goats, Conseula and Maria had taken charge of combing, cleaning, carding and selling the Cashmere wool from them each year. Sandy did work at the job part of the time, but she just had too many other duties now with Toby and Kristina still needing constant care and attention. As well as the Cashmere business, Conseula looked after her family, helped out with our family and still found time to work in Sandy's garden and greenhouse, but after all that she still spent hours in her own garden. Meanwhile Maria seemed to be involved with everything on the ranch, but she loved being around horses and liked driving a tractor in the fields, so she'd been involved with one or the other almost every day that fall.

Actually one of luckiest things to happen to Sandy and me since we'd lived at Mile High Ranch had been having Juan's old truck die in our driveway. But then, I suppose we were good luck for Juan and his family as well. He had lived much of his life as a 'bracero,' but he became my 'capataz' and he regarded me as his 'jefe' or even his 'patrón' - in English that sentence means he'd been a migrant worker, but now he grew to be my foreman and I became his boss. (At least I think that's the approximate translation, but even after several years I'm still not comfortable with my attempts to use Spanish.)

Still our herds of cattle and horses had grown so our work load had increased, then we'd lost the help of the McAdam brothers, and I knew we had to find some decent permanent workers. By mid September of the second year he was there, Juan was working with me for fourteen to sixteen hours a day just to get ready for winter. As a result we'd head to our houses at night so tired that we'd almost fall asleep at the supper table. Consuela, Maria and Sandy weren't in much better shape though, because they were working just as long and probably almost as hard as Juan and I were. Tom, Wil, George and Beth were just as busy with work or school, so they couldn't help out, but something had to be done about finding and hiring more help and everyone on the farm knew it, not just me.

When Conseula casually mentioned that her brother and his family were going to lose their jobs in Manitoba at the end of the month and that they were looking for work, my ears perked up instantly. In fact since I assumed that her brother and his sons were good workers, I just handed her the phone and told her to call her brother to tell him that I was offering them jobs and I'd build them a house in the spring. I'd even pay their moving costs from Manitoba, in advance if necessary. Her reaction was priceless, because she gasped, then hugged me so hard it hurt. Seconds later she was releasing me, then grabbing the phone and dialling her brother's phone number.

While she was talking to her brother, I was considering ways to convince the McAdam brothers to rent or sell their house so I'd have a place for her brother's family to live that winter. It turned out I didn't need to do that though, because her brother and his family lived in a mobile home and they planned to bring it along when they came. We headed to town that afternoon and I bought a traveller's cheque for fifteen-hundred bucks and had Conseula mail it to her brother. Then I kiddingly told her to write a note to send along with the cheque that if they could find Juan and Sandy a Cashmere billy goat to buy it and bring it along - I'd pay them a bonus for that.

Marco and Antoinette Chavez, with their sons, Édouard and Emmanuel, as well as their daughter, Gabrielle, arrived on Mile High Ranch in mid October, just in time to be snowed in by a three day blizzard. (Actually it was the very same blizzard that greeted Art and Debbie Dumfries when they moved onto the lease.) The Chavez family had driven all the way from eastern Manitoba in two old trucks and an even older four-door sedan. The first truck was a pickup with a canopy on the back which was loaded with a large portion of their belongings. The second truck was a two ton with a fully enclosed box on the back and was loaded with their furniture and more belongings, but that second truck was also towing a thirty-six foot long house-trailer.

Not only that, but there was a horse trailer being towed behind the old car and it was full of Cashmere goats and miniature donkeys for Juan and Sandy. I'd only been teasing Conseula when I'd suggested to write that note, but it seemed the joke was on me! I still found it funny though, even if we had to herd five goats and two miniature donkeys in high winds and blowing snow to get them into a pen in the barn for the night. Juan didn't mind that job at all though, not since Marco had found five Cashmere goats, four Xinjiang does and a Zhongwei buck. As far as Juan was concerned the two pregnant female donkeys were icing on the cake.

Needless to say moving the goats and donkeys was the easy job, because it was no fun getting that trailer moved over near my machine shop during a blizzard, then hooking it up to power and water, but we managed. I got out the little front end loader and cleared a path first. Then while Juan and Marco shifted the two trucks into the machine shed to protect their contents from the weather, the boys and I hooked the tractor to the trailer and moved it near my shop. Then we had to level the dang thing in freezing weather and laying on ice and snow to set up blocking was no picnic. Only once we had it set up, we discovered that the pipes in the trailer hadn't been properly drained, so they had frozen solid during the trip, then on top of that the propane heater in the trailer wasn't working at all. The Chavez family obviously weren't going to be sleeping in their trailer that night or any night in the near future, at least not until we could thaw out and repair those pipes, not to mention getting the heater to work.

But what the heck, Sandy and I had a big house with several spare rooms, so we'd make do for the time being. However, by the time we'd moved and set up that house-trailer, it was time to do the evening chores. Marco, Édouard and Emmanuel joined Juan and me as we set out to look after the animals and we left it to our women folk to decide who was sleeping where. In only a few minutes the new men were digging in and helping with our evening chores as if they'd worked on the ranch all their lives. Marco went nuts over our cattle and the boys were completely enamoured with the horses, but all three of them were experienced farm workers, willing to tackle any job that came to hand. Inside of the first hour they were on the ranch I was extremely impressed with those three men - all I had to do was mention a job and they were working on it. I didn't have to explain the job, I didn't have to explain how the equipment worked and I didn't have to check that the work was finished properly when they said it was done.

Meanwhile in the house, Sandy was getting to know Antoinette, who fell in love with Toby and Kristina the moment she met them. It turned out that Antoinette had been working as a teacher when she met Marco and she had home-schooled their three from the time they were old enough to read. In just minutes she had our two lying in front of her on the carpet before the fireplace, listening attentively as she read them a story. Now eighteen months old, those two kids were extremely active, so having them stay in one place and remain relatively quiet for any amount of time was a miracle. Besides, Sandy was pregnant again, but this time she was having minor bouts of morning sickness so her patience with Toby and Kristina suffered to some extent. Needless to say Sandy was overjoyed at the way our two little monkeys reacted to Antoinette, so Sandy happily left the kids in her care while she and Conseula set out to prepare a big meal for everyone.

By the time I and the other men came into the house to eat, the women had a meal ready and waiting on our fully extended kitchen table. They'd also made up their minds who was sleeping where and Sandy had decided that we'd call our new workers by their family nicknames. In other words using a mixture of French, Spanish and English, we men were soon given our household orders by the women in our lives. Antoinette was being called Netty, Édouard and Emmanuel became Eddy and Manny and Gabrielle was being teased and called Gabby, but she didn't seem to mind at all. The one confusing issue for me concerning their names was that Netty and Marco often called Conseula by the nickname; Connie. Both Sandy and I refused to call her that though since both of us liked the sound of her full name.

Since Juan and Conseula hadn't seen Marco and Netty for almost two years, Marco and Netty were going to be sleeping over at Juan and Conseula's house. Only since Juan and Conseula didn't have a bed in the spare bedroom, they'd be staying in Maria's room. That meant Maria and Gabby were going to be sleeping in one of our upstairs bedrooms, the one with two single beds, which also happened to be the furthest from the master bedroom. Eddy and Manny were going to be sleeping on the main floor in Grampa Bender's old bedroom. Surprisingly, that arrangement worked out relatively well and for the next few months the four kids lived with us. Of course being teenagers there was some fuss and bother, but we handled it. In the first place Grampa Bender's old bedroom only had a double bed and the two boys weren't accustomed to sleeping in the same bed, so they complained about it. Sandy and I handled that quickly by having them carry that bed upstairs and swap it with the two single beds the girls had been using. Of course the girls weren't happy about sleeping in one bed either, so Sandy split them up and put each of them into a bedroom of their own.

Actually the Chavez family settled in and worked out so well it was nearly unbelievable. In the first place all three men knew Canadian farming practices and since they'd lived in Manitoba they knew how to manage their jobs in cold weather. Then too they accepted Juan as my 'capataz' or foreman, so there was no conflict on that front. If I wasn't handy to show them my methods of handling a job, Juan was able to guide them, which meant I had much more time to plan essential work and manage finicky details while they handled the day to day labour. Even more important to me was the fact that all three men were mechanically inclined and could help Juan or me to repair damaged or worn equipment over winter. For once I had the time to be fully prepared for tax day and was able to account for almost ever dollar of the former year's expenses. By early December I already knew that while we would still be in the black, that year was not going to be anywhere near as profitable as the previous two years had been.

Meanwhile Netty and Gabby fell into the routine around the house as if they belonged there, but I will admit that our meals sometimes took me by surprise as they grew to have a distinct Mexican flavour. With the added help around the house, Sandy had both the time and inclination to pull her loom and spinning wheel out of storage and soon she even had Maria and Gabby knitting and weaving up a storm. Of course that took second place to their schooling, because both of the girls were taking their grade twelve courses by correspondence. Maria had easily finished grade eleven by correspondence the year before and she couldn't see why grade twelve would be all that much more difficult. For Gabby, her mother had made the arrangements for the correspondence courses while they were still living in Manitoba, so Gabby's books and course work were waiting for her when she'd arrived. The only times either of them would be attending school in town was to take a few tests and their final exams. Neither of those girls were slouches either because Sandy and I kept track - they each averaged only about four hours a day on their studies and yet they'd aced any tests they had taken. That blew me away, considering how much time I had spent taking virtually the same courses in high school.

Before long both Sandy and I had decided that hiring the Chavez family had worked out extremely well for everyone involved. By the end of the first major snowstorm of the year, Marco, Netty, Eddy, Manny and Gabby had adapted to our lifestyle so well that it almost seemed as if they'd been with us for years. They never did move back into that trailer because of all the damage it had suffered when the pipes froze, instead they sold it the next spring. That's because shortly after they came to the ranch, actually in the first week of November, I'd called up Clarence and told him to order another log house kit so the Chavez family would have a permanent home.

For them the fact that we were willing to build them a brand new house seemed to blow their minds and I'm not sure if they believed me. Then when Clarence sent us some information and a catalogue for the homes that were available and I had them choose their new home from the kits displayed in the catalogue, the truth of the situation became real. From the way they treated Sandy and me for the next few weeks, you'd have thought we were royalty. I had to call them all together and explain that since we lived in an isolated area, I was responsible for their housing. Then I mentioned that it would probably cost almost half as much to repair their trailer as it would to build a new house, which was untrue, but made a good argument. What that also did was remind them how much nicer it would be to live in a new house rather than an old trailer. Quite soon they realised that they weren't going to talk me out of building that house, so either they would live in it, or it would sit empty. Right at that moment I think they accepted that they were arguing against the boss and the boss was going to win - period! From then on for some reason though, all the members of both the Nunez and Chavez families started to call me 'Patrón.' At the time I felt if that made them happy to call me 'the Big Boss' I wasn't about to argue, not as long as that dang arguing stopped, because that was getting annoying. (Of course at the time I didn't understand some of the implications and complications which they felt came along with that title.)

That complication arose simply because we had the girls sleeping on the same floor as Sandy and me. At the time Sandy was still quite protective with Toby and Kristina, so their cribs were still in our bedroom. Now that might not have been a major complication under most circumstances, but somehow both of the kids had the sniffles and became fussy. As a result they weren't sleeping well and if one woke up at night, they both awoke, then they both wanted attention. Even that shouldn't have been a problem except that neither Sandy or I wore any clothing to bed, but we now had two keen-eared, teenage girls sleeping just down the hall. It seemed to me that Sandy and I would scarcely get out of bed to pick up the two kids when two scantily clad teenagers would come dashing in, offering to help. Now you'd think I would have been immune to the charms of nubile females by that time, but my body didn't agree, so I was often caught in a somewhat embarrassing situation. Of course at sixteen years old, those two gals had bodies that could have earned them a fortune posing for photos that could have been used in men's magazines and they knew it. Not only that, but they delighted in teasing men in general, but especially me.

I was sorely tempted by those two little minxes and they soon saw the physical evidence of that fact. As well as that when Maria and her folks had first come to the ranch I'd been involved with three women, so she knew Sandy wasn't adverse to me having a lover or two. In fact she certainly realized exactly how Sandy felt about having multiple women in a marriage and she had probably explained her understanding of Sandy's opinion to Gabby. Actually Sandy was delighted with the situation and she'd reached the point in her pregnancy where sex wasn't a major need in her life, but she felt it was something I needed, so she probably encouraged the girls. Not only that, but for some reason that I'll never understand, Consuela didn't seem all that upset by the idea either. The real conundrum though was why Netty or Marco weren't upset about what the girls were doing.

I simply couldn't understand their attitudes and felt I had to talk to someone about the problem, only we were having a bad winter and were snowed in again. That storm took down the phone lines again and I certainly wasn't going to discuss my problem on the radio or CB, so the only people I could talk to were those on the ranch. I knew talking to the Juan or Marco wouldn't get me anywhere because I couldn't seem to break them of their habit of treating my word as law. Even the two boys weren't much better, and besides that I knew better than to bring up a touchy subject during an extended blizzard, because tempers get touchy then. Finally though the weather broke and the sky cleared, so I got up the nerve to talk to Conseula and Netty and called them into my office so we could talk, yet be undisturbed. To my surprise it was Netty who explained things so I could understand their feelings on the subject.

"What you may not understand is that we are not just Hispanics, but we are followers of an older form of belief which has blended some old native mexicano customs with the creed of Catholismo, the beliefs of the Catholic Church. Because of our beliefs, we follow some customs which are much different than those that you and Senora Crawford follow. Conseula has explained your family tradition, how you, your father and even your grandfather have all followed the crencia Mormónico fundamentalista, the creed of the Mormon Fundamentalists, which has the matrimonio múltiple, where one man has many wives. We are aware that in fact Kristina is the child of your second wife who was killed by a madman, who was the father of a third wife," she smiled knowingly. "The major complication comes then because of the blending of your beliefs with those beliefs and customs which we follow. According to our family custom, both girls have had their fifteenth birthday, their Quinceanera, which is when they become adults. Since they feel they are adult and we accept them as adults, we have little to say about their actions in this situation.

"You are a kind man, Patrón and you and the Senora give us so much." Conseula sighed softly. "I have the house, the garden and so much more. Juan still has his goats to care for and you have the kindness to buy more, even though they are of little importance to you. You pay us well and yet there are always the extra gifts that you and Senora Sandy give, gifts of love and kindness that show you care. Is it any wonder that Maria sees you as a hidalgo and dreams of you being her lover?"

"In truth I would prefer Gabrielle to find a man of her own and not join you and Senora Crawford in a multiple marriage. Indeed I would prefer that she remain a virgin until her marriage, but if she has chosen you as her first man to introduce her to the art of making love I can understand. After all, Patrón, you and the Senora have treated us as family, welcomed us into your home and are even arranging to have a home built for us. To have her ask you to practise what the French call 'droit de seigneur' is really not such a strange thing either, for it is little different to what the Spanish conquistadors did with our ancestors. In fact that is partly why we use the name Patrón as we do, for here as owner of this ranch you are virtually lord of the valley, a hidalgo, just as the feudal lords of the Europe were the nobles who held their lands. To all of us your word is literally regarded as the law while we live here on the ranch. If Gabrielle were to bear your child it would be an honour, for since we have come you have treated us far better than any other man we have ever worked for. You are a true hidalgo, a nobleman in all ways.

All I could do was stare at those two women in amazement, because I couldn't believe my ears. Somehow the people I had considered friends, as well as employees, followed a code of conduct that I thought had died out centuries before. They even thought I was a Mormon fundamentalist, a creed I disliked intensely. To say that her words had shaken me was putting things mildly and I sat there in stunned silence, scarcely able to comprehend the reasoning behind the words I had heard.

I don't recall what I finally said, but I tried to be polite as I excused myself, because just then I wanted to be alone to get my thoughts in order. I went outside, got on a snowmobile and drove to the lookout on the heights of western edge of the valley so I could see the whole ranch. Once I was there, I sat and stared down at what our hard work had built up in the last few years. It was cold that day, but the sky was clear and the sun was shining, so the ranch looked like a picture postcard lying there in the valley below me. Yet I knew that all the effort to build up that ranch could be for nothing if I didn't put a stop to the nonsense I was facing. If I did act on the girls' desires, then anyone at all heard about it, I could be criminally charged with statutory rape simply over the difference in ages between them and me. Just one wrong word, said at the wrong time, to the wrong person and I could not only lose everything I had worked to build, but I could lose my family as well. I simply wasn't going to allow that to happen.

Having made up my mind what I had to do I went back down the hill and since the roads had been cleared, I paused at the house and told Sandy I was heading into town, then I went to see Cyrus Ambrose, our lawyer. Once I was in his office, I managed to explain the situation to Cyrus without directly implicating anyone, but I knew he could read between the lines. So when I asked him if he could get me a copy of the pertinent law, but one worded so normal people could understand it, he just smiled, then reached for a file folder he had on a table near his desk. Just by coincidence he and several other lawyers were working on a book that would explain most Canadian laws, only simplifying the wording so ordinary people could use the book as a guide.

"What my compatriots and I are trying to do is to create a condensed version of Canadian Law, which will be written in common English where possible," he smiled rather ruefully and gestured to the table where all many file folders were stacked. "Those folders on that table represent a tiny section of the work others have done, but I asked to review these because of the recent happenings hereabouts when Miss Coulter and the members of the McAdam family were attacked. I suspect that there will be legal ramifications in the near future due to that unresolved situation and I am not at all surprised to have you ask me about it. Might I ask why you are approaching it from that particular reference point?"

"Hell, that's easy to answer, but give me a second to arrange my thoughts," I paused and frowned as I got my lies straight, then shrugged my shoulders. "When I first got to know the local McAdam family, the girls were all under the age of eighteen and even then they mentioned that they suspected they were being groomed to have secret marriages to older men. Then when Jackie arrived here, I learned even more, but once her brothers were working for me, I learned far more. Now I can't see a way to stop those idiots from having their secret marriages, but there has to be a way to stop old men from preying on innocent children. I doubt if there is anything I can do about it, but I still worry about Sandy or her sisters being attacked, even though they are all over eighteen. If those bastards did come out here, I have two families working on my ranch who have daughters under the age of eighteen and I know it's stretching things, but I worry about them too. Now when the McAdam boys came to town and tried to kidnap their sister from the hospital, Don Davis gave me pretty good understanding of the laws concerning abduction and kidnapping, but I want to know a bit more about this underage crap. I know there's probably nothing I can do, but I want to understand what the law says, just in case it crops up."

"You know, you just might have something there, that might well be their 'Achilles heel.' Only like you said, I doubt if any of this will concern you any further. However I know there is a section covering just what you asked for and I am certainly willing to provide you with a copy. Well, first I'll have to find the pertinent passage, so why don't I do that while you go have a coffee. I'll meet you at the Chinese café in a short while.

"Okay, but bill me for the time it takes," I told him as I stood to leave, but he just waved a hand as if brushing off my suggestion.

Since there was a huge stack of file folders on that desk and each folder was an inch or two thick, I wasn't surprised when he suggested I go have a coffee while he found the passages I wanted copied. So I nodded and headed for the Chinese café. He met me there before I was finished my first cup of coffee and handed me a file folder of my own, which held were six copies of the law I had asked about, all neatly typed out and with several pertinent sections underlined in red.

"Six copies?" I questioned.

"Umm hmm," he mumbled, having to swallow a sip of coffee. "I know you, and you're thorough. You'll want a copy for you and Sandy, another for each of your hired hand's families, one for your father, one for your uncle and one for Bob Grant. After all, you're all involved. I will also be reviewing the laws concerning abduction, kidnapping and any other laws I might find pertinent to the situation. I would also suggest that you keep your eyes open for the book and buy a copy once it is available, but that might take a year or two."

"I'll definitely keep an eye open for it, because that would be handy to have." I nodded, then changed the subject.

We talked for a while as he had a coffee, then he went back to his office and I drove down to talk to Frank and picked up some parts to repair one of my trucks. While I was there I asked him to come out and top up my diesel tank, since we'd been running the generator quite a bit that winter, which led to a discussion of my fuel needs for the next year. Then we just sat and chatted, which took a while since we spent some time catching up on each others lives. Of course he tried to talk me into trading in my pickup on a newer model, but I just chuckled and turned that down for the time being. I wasn't about to tell him that almost all my profits for the previous year were already earmarked for the expenses I'd have the next spring. Not only was I going to need money for normal springtime operations, but I'd ordered another house and that wasn't going to come cheap.

After leaving Frank's sales office and while I was still thinking of financial matters, I headed back uptown to the bank and had a short talk with my bank manager. As I told him, I was planning for my expected expenses that would crop up during the next six months and explained that I'd need to increase my line of credit, just in case. When he questioned that, I described my previous year's labour problems and told him of hiring the Chavez family, then explained their need for a decent home. He just nodded and told me that with the collateral I had in property and stock I could easily borrow a million if I needed it, which virtually floored me. He seemed to find that amusing, but for me it was a sobering thought. In under five years I had gone from being a pennyless high-school graduate to a successful rancher and landowner who had enough collateral to obtain a loan of a million bucks just on my reputation. That conversation was definitely an eye-opener for me and along with the other discussions aand events of the day, I slipped into a rather introspective mood.

During the drive back to the ranch I was having some very deep thoughts about the situation and was trying my best to wrap my head around all the day's disclosures. The people who worked for me saw me as some sort of noble. Cyrus, my lawyer, and Frank, a respected businessman, both treated me as a friend. My banker had virtually told me that I was wealthy. I suppose you could say I was going through an epiphany of sorts as the realities of my life caught up to me. I was no longer a snotty-nosed kid just out of high-school, but for some reason that was the mental vision I'd been falling back on. Only that day I'd had a kick in the pants and had been awakened to the fact that I was now a respected member of the community, a successful rancher with a family and had the responsibilities that came with that fact. I didn't go through any form of physical change that day, but my mental image of myself was certainly modified.

When I got home I gave a copy of the simplified law to Sandy, Maria and Gabby, then laid down the law about the girls racing into our bedroom late at night while skimpily dressed.

"Because of the difference in our ages and the possible results of someone outside of this valley hearing of your actions, your nighttime shenanigans have got to stop. All it would take would be an innocent comment in the wrong ear, then one complaint by someone who was jealous of what Sandy and I have here and we could all kiss this place goodbye," I said quietly. "Grampa Bender would roll over in his grave if that happened and the rest of my family would be extremely irate, so it ain't gonna happen. That means you two girls will no longer be charging into our bedroom wearing little or no clothing. If Sandy and I do need your help, we'll call you. Oh, by the way Sandy, no more attempts to seduce me into another multiple woman relationship, because that ain't gonna happen neither, I have one wife, period! I refuse to play any of those games from now on, because I refuse to take the chance that someone will destroy what I and several others have worked so hard to build."

Things got very quiet around the house for a few days after that, but luckily Christmas was coming and it wasn't long before everyone was involved in preparations for that celebration. This year I had two trees to bring back, a large one for our house and a small one for Consuela and Netty, so once more I went out with two young girls on two snowmobiles, but this time I rode alone. Once more the girls were calling out and pointing at various trees, but once more I was ignoring them until we came to the little Christmas tree orchard that I had begun by transplanting small white spruce trees into a special area. Then both of them simply stared at my miniature forest of future Christmas trees and had a hard time deciding which trees we should take. I'd already chosen the one I wanted, but I insisted that Maria should choose the one for her mother, then I advised her to pick one that was larger than what they needed so we could trim it to size. Eventually she took my advice and chose a tree that had some scraggly branches on the bottom, but was almost nine feet tall, but we could easily trim it to four or five feet. Meanwhile I'd chosen one that was almost fifteen feet from base to tip, knowing I'd be clipping a foot or so from the top and five feet or more from the bottom. Then on the way back to the house I stopped at a stand of lodgepole pins and cut several branches, since Sandy would use those as trim around the house for added greenery and for the smell they gave off.

When we got back home Sandy was ready for us, so the middle of the living room floor was clear. Other than that, setting up the tree was my problem, but after several years practise I had the routine down pat. Half an hour later the tree was gradually thawing and dripping on old towels.

I won't bore you with a repeat of all the rigamarole that went on with the decorating of the tree and the house itself. Instead I'll just say that it was as overdone as our first Christmas had been in the 'new' log house and leave it at that. That morning when the kids came into the room and saw all the decorations they were astonished and delighted by the glittering decorations and bright lights, but they were soon ignoring those and concentrating on the presents. Then later on Christmas day we had a party that was even bigger than the one we'd had the first time we'd had Christmas dinner up at the ranch. My family were all there, including the local Crawfords, Benders and Grants, but so were the Dolens, including Lucille and Jerry with Jenny, who was already walking - okay, she was running most of the time, just like our two. Corrina, Wil and young Willy were late arriving, but came with the Coulters who had stopped off to see Art and Debbie at their place before coming down to the ranch. Of course the Nunez and Chavez families were there as well, so we had a very full house. In fact there were so many people there that we couldn't arrange for a large enough table to fit everyone, instead Sandy, Consuela and Netty served dinner buffet style, with people eating wherever they could find a seat.

As far as presents were concerned the kids made out like bandits, but then everyone else did too. There were two special presents that I will mention though, my folks, the Coulters and the Dolens had paid to have two paintings done and gave them to Sandy and me. I hadn't known that Debbie Dumfreys was an artist, but working from a pair of old photos, she'd painted two oil paintings for us. One is a portrait of Grampa Bender, which now smiles down from above the fireplace mantle and a second is of Grampa Bender and old Duke standing on the porch of the old cabin, that one hangs in my office.

From January second until the first week of March the following year, the weather went nuts. It alternated between blizzards and chinooks, so you never knew just what you were going to face when you awoke in the morning. The weather was rough on all of our stock, but it was just as hard or harder on me and my crew. Not only that, but we had a brief visit from a pack of wolves, but the Nunez boys had run into that problem in Manitoba and they were crack shots. Four wolves died in that early morning session, but Marco caught a cold afterward and was confined to bed for several days. We got through the winter with all of our stock though and two weeks after coming down sick, Marco was back at work.

Meanwhile Sandy's belly was much larger than it had been with Toby and by mid February even her doctor was convinced that she was going to have twins. He suggested rather strongly that she should stay in town from then on, but she was stubborn and insisted on going back to the ranch to care for Toby and Kristina. Finally in early March Mrs. Coulter and Lucille insisted that Sandy absolutely had to move to Mountview for safety if nothing else. So with my complete approval, Sandy and Maria, along with Toby and Kristina, were moved into town to stay with the Coulters. I knew I'd be lonely, but it was far safer for Sandy and the babies she was carrying in town rather than out on the ranch in case she went into labour during a blizzard or something.

What I didn't expect and didn't really approve of was Sandy and Lucille's idea that I wouldn't be able to care for myself and the house with both her and Maria away. Between the two of them, they decided Lucille and little Jenny would come out and look after the house while Sandy and the kids were away. Needless to say that led to further complications, because although Lucille and Jerry had been trying for almost three year's, she hadn't become pregnant. Another thing I hadn't known was that Jerry had guessed that I was Jenny's father, but he was there the day his wife and daughter moved in with me 'to help out while Sandy was staying in town.' While Jerry was there that day he told me that he'd had mumps as a teenager, but he didn't specifically say I should screw his wife - he left that up to Lucille. She and I had a very, heavy-duty argument that evening, but she brought out the heavy artillery, she broke into tears. Not only that, but over the years Sandy had discovered I had several 'hot buttons' that turned on my libido and thanks to Sandy's coaching, Lucille knew them all. On top of that on the first night of her visit, she played the 'Cuz' routine on me, waiting until I was in bed and nearly asleep, then slipping under the covers and cuddling her nude body against mine. I could argue all I wanted, but my body had other ideas and let's face it, Lucille was a very sexy woman.

Now, I'm not at all proud of the fact that I gave in to their tactics and I'm somewhat disgusted with myself that I slept with another man's wife, but the fact is I doubt if many men would have resisted. Besides that, Lucille must have really wanted more kids since I was rocked to sleep almost every night, but at least I awoke alone and relatively well rested each morning. In fact I'm fairly certain that Lucille managed to preserve the fiction to both the Nunez and Chavez families that she was staying with her favourite cousin to help out during an 'emergency.' Of course knowing the women of those two families they might have had other ideas, but even then I doubt if they'd ever repeat their suspicions to anyone from outside the valley.

At three o'clock in the morning on the seventh of April, I was awakened by a telephone call from Wilma Coulter and rushed to the hospital. Sandy was in full labour by four in the morning and by seven I was told I had twin sons. Considering that they were twins, they were huge - each weighing in at just over six pounds, so they only spent a little over a week in the hospital natal care unit. All of my family, including the twins - Josh and John, came home on the sixteenth of April, but Lucille and Jenny moved back to town the same day. With four kids under two years old, our house began to feel like Grand Central Station and I was demoted to nothing more than a superfluous figure who got in the way. Okay, that's not true, because Toby and Kristina seemed to feel that they were left out and were somewhat jealous of their two new brothers at that stage, so Papa became their special buddy. I have to admit that right then I extremely thankful to the Nunez and Chavez families, because they stepped up and helped us out in every way possible. Mom, Beth and Corinna, along with Lucille, Jennifer Dolens and Wilma Coulter were all frequent visitors to the ranch as well, so my family's lives weren't totally chaotic, but we were all exceptionally busy.

Then to complicate matters Clarence and his crew arrived on the eighth of May and started building a four bedroom house on the other side of the creek for the Nunez family. He and his crew worked like beavers though, so they had that house finished by mid June. The Nunez house sits about two hundred yards upstream of Juan and Conseula's house with room between their houses for two decent sized vegetable gardens. That spring Sandy, Conseula, Netty and the girls went to work and soon had all three houses, as well as the yards near the houses looking like showplaces. That seemed to stir up Juan, Marco and the boys, who must have decided they wanted to make the whole ranch look neat and tidy, so by the time haying season came along the whole ranch looked almost picture perfect.

Early that spring I heard that we'd had some strangers from the city in town once more, and once again they were looking for Sandy or her sisters. I suspected that Bill McAdam's church buddies were trying to find any and all of the remaining McAdam family. That wasn't good news for me or for Art and Debbie Dumfries because they weren't really the sort to tangle with any thugs who might be out to make trouble. On top of that Debbie was pregnant.

The McAdam boys were still in rehabilitation at that time, but they were almost at the point where they'd be released. In fact Matt was in the worst shape and might have been released, but for the fact that he was wheelchair bound and was having trouble adapting to his new limitations,so the three of them thought it would be better if they all moved back as a group. Since the lease was quite far from town and doctors or hospitals, they didn't want to live out there though. So I talked it over with Sandy, Jess and Jean and they decided they wanted to auction off all the furniture in their old house, then they'd rent it to the McAdam boys. Only the guys asked them to reconsider the idea of the auction for now, saying that they didn't plan on staying in Mountview that long, instead they suggested that the girl's furniture would do for them for the short while they'd be there. The girls didn't mind that, they'd long since moved their personal possessions out of the house and in one afternoon they cleaned up anything else they might want to store away or save. After that Matt and the guys moved in their personal possessions and arranged to have a moving company store the furniture that had been in their house on the acreage. That way they'd have it available when they decided where they finally wanted to live.

The McAdam boys only lived in Sandy's parents' old house for a few weeks, and they certainly weren't happy to be there, not even for that short time. In all honesty they weren't in any condition to handle all the rumours that had arisen after their father's crazy killing spree, so as soon as they could arrange it, they moved away from Mountview. By then I had cancelled their lease on the ten acres, then paid them for the house they'd built and the improvements they'd made to the place. I even helped the movers load the McAdam's personal possessions and waved goodbye as they drove away.

From a few bits and pieces of information that John, Frank and Clarence let slip over the next while I understand the three brothers lived in Calgary for a short time after leaving Mountview. All I really learned was that they were there long enough to form a holding company and arrange to have their parents' home and their father's rental buildings sold, then had the money deposited into their holding company's coffers. After the last of their father's property was sold, they fired everyone in his real-estate office and closed it down. It was almost two years after that before any of us heard a word from them, not until we received a letter in the mail just before Christmas one year. There was a card enclosed wishing us a Merry Christmas and signed by the three of them as well as a short letter asking us to tell everyone Hi and to wish them all well. There was a phone number included, so on Christmas Eve Sandy and I called them and talked for a while Since their reaction seemed rather distant, almost as if they were disturbed by our call, we felt it wasn't smart to call them too often. As a result we didn't call often after that, not unless we had important family news that we felt they needed to know.

The last time I did talk to them, they were living in Creston, BC and fighting a losing battle in an attempt to have the FLDS enclave at Bountiful declared illegal. I think they'd convinced themselves to blame that group for all of their family's troubles. But then after what their father and uncle had done in and around Mountview, I'm not sure if they were right or wrong.

At that point I still suspected we'd end up having to tangle with those assholes, at least the ones from Calgary, but if we did, I made up my mind to make it the last time. I wasn't certain that anything drastic would happen, but if it did I planned to play hard ball and put an end to all their stupidity.

### Chapter 59