(Part 2 of CHAPTER 1
“Just two more days.” Cale patted the steering wheel of his faithful, yet older-than-dirt red Ford pickup, urging it toward home past a slow-moving green combine. He was eager to be done for the day.
Of course, ‘done’ wouldn’t happen for a few more hours. He still had to make sure the cows got milked, the horses stabled, and do at least twenty other things before he slid into his bed for the night. But done sounded good.
Cale grimaced. After five days of juggling housework, ranch chores, and refereeing his three younger brothers, he looked forward to his folks’ return. Being the adult in charge hadn’t been as cool as he had thought it would be.
No way am I doing this again. This is your deal, Dad. You can have it. I’ll catch ya in a decade or two. Until then, I’m gonna have a real life.
His truck wheezed a complaint while going around the combine. Cale guided it in front of the tractor, only to have a white-tailed doe leap into the lane.
“Hey!” Cale pumped the brake and swerved. The pickup’s tires crunched the gravel before he jerked the truck back onto the black top. He slammed his fist on the steering wheel. “No problem, Bambi. Just make your own crosswalk.”
The doe bounded across the county road, seeming unconcerned with her near miss. She sprang into the Van Hoose’s pumpkin patch, deftly jumping over the orange orbs dotting the field.
Remembering the combine, Cale glanced in his rear-view mirror and froze for exactly one point three seconds before stomping on the accelerator.
The combine grew huge in the mirror, its enormous reel and cutter bar mimicking a ravenous mouth.
Cale had no desire to be chomped to bits and spit out like a mouthful of Brussel sprouts. He scanned the road ahead, waved an apology to the driver, and exited at his turnoff.
Two giant red maple trees stood as sentinels welcoming him home to Recompense Ryder Ranch, just as they had for the last five generations of Ryders.
He down-shifted over the protests of his pickup and drove it to the dirt lane. His belly rumbled. He ignored his growing hunger, knowing Luke had planned to start dinner before Cale left on a quick errand to the feed store.
Mom’s ham-and-cheese potato casserole was the best. Cale licked his lips. The food Mom had prepared and frozen before she’d left almost made the stress of the last few days worthwhile.
Well, the casserole and her homemade caramel-apple pie. That was worth a little heap of tension.
But not the whole pile of stress served up during yesterday’s fiasco when Jesse left the east pasture gate open. The three ranch hands, Luke, and Cale spent nearly three hours rounding up their herd of two hundred Angus and Herefords after they stampeded halfway to the next county. A calf got stuck in a ravine and the mama wasn’t too happy about it.
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Ryding Through Troubled Waters
General Fiction19 year-old Cale Ryder is forced onto the fast track to fatherhood when his parents come home from their second honeymoon in caskets. Along with the family ranch, Cale inherits his 3 teenage brothers and his kid sister, Brandi, AKA "the princess."...
