A Happier Life
an excerpt

She’d come out one morning to find a hawk in the chicken pen attacking one of her chickens. She’d become so angry she’d gone in a gotten Wolf’s hunting rifle and shot at the bird. Wolf had come running from the barn with Sam hot on his heels. When they saw her laying flat on her back need the chicken pen they thought she’d been shot, until she told them what had happened….then they couldn’t stop laughing. When they had finally calmed down Wolf told her she’d have to fix the hole in the fence she’d blown and put a cover on the top before the hawk came back. She just looked at them, she had no clue where to begin doing what they were telling her to. That had just brought back the laughter. But it had led to a wonderful day with her and Wolf working side by side.

Cassie stared in the mirror at her self, she was smiling. Smiling, she wasn’t sure how the smile got on her face, most of the time lately she was frowning or just …..just nothing. ‘I guess it’s time I got on with living,’ she thought to herself. Picking up her keys she headed for the truck and the ranch.

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Cassie sat in the truck after she got to the ranch. Her stomach was doing more flips than it had the first time she’d arrived here. She looked at her home the one she’d not been able to bring her self to come back to. Looking out toward the stable she noticed that no one was around. The horses were in the corral and the field behind. The yard was empty, no one around straightening things up for the buyer that was due back at any minute.

Getting out of the truck she called, “Mike! Dave!” ‘Where the heck is everyone?’ she thought as she headed toward the house. She turned her head to call again and missed seeing Jake’s old skateboard at the bottom of the steps. As she put her foot down she felt the board slip out from under and herself begin to fall. she put her hands out to break her fall. They did break her fall but her head hit the next step up the same way it had before.
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“Damn,” the man said as he bent down to check the body laying on the ground in front of him. He’d been out checking the horses in the back pasture when he’d come across the body before him. He wonder what the tramp, since that was what the clothes on the body told him the person was, was doing on the Lonestar.

Rolling the body over, he jerked his hand back as he realized this was no man he was touching but a woman. A very badly injuried woman. She was pale and very cold to the touch. He wondered just how long she’d been out in the cooler air of fall in this part of the territory, as he hurried back to his horse to get a blanket to wrap her in before figuring out a way to get her back to the main house.

Figuring a trovios was the best way to accomplish his task he looked around to see if there were any poles near by to use. Reaching the young woman he wrapped her in the blanket thinking as he did so how pretty she was. Beautiful really to him, not many women in this part of the country, unless they were just reaching adulthood could claim beauty such as hers.

She looked very pretty and strong, which was why he couldn’t figure out what she was doing out here on in the upper pasture. Shaking his head he spoke softly to his horse, “I’m going to get some poles to make a trovious to get her back to the house. You watch over her, there’s some aspens right other there.”

A short time later he had the trivous rigged up and was picking the woman up when he heard her whisper something. “Wolf, don’t leave me,” she said. He figured her family much have been attacked by a rabied pack of wolver or her man had had left to hunt them leaving her behind. Just why she was dressed as a man he’d not figured out yet. Maybe it was because she’d had to leave her home and had nothing else to wear. ‘Right,” he laughed to hisself as he mounted his horse, ‘a woman with nothing better to wear than men’s clothes, that’d be the day.”

He turned the horse back toward the ranch and the main house. It’d been a long day and Denny and Molly would know what to do about the young woman. He took the easy way back skipping the run he’d planned for the return trip. He’d wanted to practice for the Fourth of July Race but it didn’t look like he was going to get that chance today.

Arriving back at the main house he called out to his employer and the housekeeper-cook he employed. He noticed his best friend coming toward the house from the small bunkhouse they shared.

“Whatcha got there on that trivous,” Denny called out from the rocker on the front porch of the house. It wasn’t really a house just are really nice log cabin. Granted it had a front porch that reached around to both sides of the house and more than a few rooms. There was the parlor, the dining room, the kitchen-Molly’s kitchen, and four other rooms. There was even a nice back porch off of the kitchen for Molly to do her chores on, they’d added it just this past summer as a birthday present for her.

“Found her out in the north pasture,” Buck said as he climbed down off of his horse. Wind stood still as his owner walked behind him and loosened the rope that held the girl on the trovious. As he lifted he her hair fell back over his arm and he noticed just pretty she appeared to be.

“Bring her here,” Molly said holding the door of the house open. He followed Molly through the house to one of the upstairs rooms. Denny had built the house hoping to find a wife and have a large family. Well, he’d made himself a family of the only two hands he had, Buck and Zach, and his cook Molly. Denny was a god fearing man and said that the good Lord had seen fit for him to make a family of the people around him and not one of his flesh and blood.

Buck followed Molly to one of the front rooms in the house. It was decorated beautifully with greens and blues. They tucked the young woman in to bed under a quilt that was made by one of the ladies in town. Denny had bought it at the last county fair paying an exorborant price for it. Buck had to admit though it went perfect in the room with the rest of the blues and greens. The young woman’s golden hair fanned out on the pillow next to her.