Page 19 of The Cowboy Who Came Home
“Are you talking to the other ranch owners?” she asked, a bit of surprise running through her.
“Yep.”
A measure of pride filled her, because Alex had always wanted to own a ranch, and here he was, doing it. Talking to ranch owners twice his age like equals. She was so glad he was living his dream, and she thanked God for her small role in helping him do that.
“Will they come help us?”
“If we need it.” Alex lifted his head and faced the dripping wet ranch. “Let’s go see if we need it.” His phone continued to chime, but he tucked it away and led the way out of the barn. “Stay behind me, Edee. Be careful.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, and she wasn’t mocking him. She stepped where he stepped, and it didn’t take long for them to pick their way through debris. Logs. Fence poles. Chicken wire. Pieces of metal roofing. More wood, this the chopped kind that someone would keep near their house to take in to build a cozy fire.
The noise of the river got louder and louder, and though Edith generally had a terrible sense of direction, she knew the river had never been this close to the barn before.
All at once, Alex came to a complete stop, and he threw out his hand in case Edith tried to go by him. She didn’t, but came to his side and stopped too.
“Dear Lord in Heaven,” she whispered. In front of her, a brown river raged, and it looked as if it were the thickness and viscosity of chocolate milk. Chocolate milk with tree branches and trunks in it, as well as other various items that obviously came from homes and farms.
Edith looked up, her eyes traveling across the width of the river. She’d come out to the footbridge many times, and it took her maybe five strides to cross it. If there had been a bridge here, it would’ve taken her fifty strides to cross it. Maybe one hundred.
“I think we’re gonna need some help,” she managed to say.
“Yep,” Alex said, his voice grim. “And we don’t need to be standin’ here.” He turned back to the front of the ranch, and as Edith did, she saw with perfect clarity how much clearance they’d been given.
They’d only walked about fifty yards from the stable. Beyond that sat the barn, and within a football field’s length sat the she-shed and the farmhouse. Behind her, floodwaters raged. In front of her, she saw the hand of God.
As Alex started to walk away, Edith pulled out her phone and took pictures in all directions. Then she could send them to Finn and show him how close they’d come to being washed off the face of the earth.
Chapter Six
Finn’s fingers flew as fast as his father’s over his phone. “Edith’s sent pictures, Momma. Look at this.” He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Of course, he had no experience with Coyote Pass or what it should look like, but Edith said she usually had to walk twenty or twenty-five minutes to get to the river.
Now it’s less than a hundred yards from our back deck, she told him.
His momma looked over his shoulder at his phone, and Finn swiped through the few photos Edith had sent. “My goodness.” She turned and called, “Squire, the Baxters at Coyote Pass will need help.”
She moved away from Finn, who was already typing out another message to Edith. Has your brother asked for help? My daddy is coordinating a lot of it. He and Britt Bellamore. I can give you their numbers.
He was texting them, Edith said. But he put his phone away so we could check things out. We’re getting the pets and heading back to the house.
Do you have power? Finn asked, because theirs had gone out a couple of hours ago. They had blankets and bean bags and plenty of places to sit and lounge. Food and water both packed a six-foot-long folding table, and as Finn looked around, he saw so much abundance.
He’d been six years old when his momma had married Squire Ackerman, and they’d moved to College Station for Daddy to go to veterinary school. They’d lived there for four years, and Finn had done most of his elementary school there, so he had memories away from this ranch. He had memories of when they didn’t have the abundance he saw surrounding him.
Times when Momma made pancakes and spaghetti for every meal, and packages came from both sets of grandparents in Three Rivers that kept him clothed and with new shoes on his feet. His parents hadn’t bought anything like that for Finn until they’d returned to Three Rivers Ranch and Daddy started working as the lead vet for the ranch. He also ran the ranch as a whole, as his parents had retired and moved to town by then.
“Daddy’s talking to Alex now,” Momma told him. “Can you come help Uncle Pete and Beau with the chore sheet, please?”
“Sure thing.” Finn didn’t want to put his phone away, but he’d been using it for hours, and it could use some time plugged in. He took a moment to text Edith one more time—I’m going to be there later today, okay? I’ll call you before I come.
He hoped he hadn’t just overpromised something he couldn’t deliver, but the quick way that Edith responded with, I’d like that, Finn. Thank you, told him he better do whatever it took to get out to Coyote Pass today.
“Can I plug in my phone somewhere?” he asked his father, and his daddy gestured in the general direction of the chest-high counter.
“Uncle Pete has a mini-generator there for devices.”
Finn headed that way, and once he’d secured a cord for his phone and it had chimed at him that it was indeed charging, he turned and faced the room where about forty or fifty people had spent the last several hours together.
He really wanted to get out of this room, but he took a deep breath and headed over to the table where Reese Sanders, Uncle Pete, and Beau Peterson bent over several sheets of paper. They filled the whole table, and as Finn arrived, so did Cal Hodgkins, the other vet here at the ranch.
