Montana Dreaming
She'll never abandon the landChronically low cattle prices and her father's skyrocketing medical bills may have forced Jessie Weaver to sell the ranch that's been in her family since the mid-1800s, but no way will she let developers wreak havoc with her glorious Montana mountains. So she writes conservation restrictions into the deed of sale–even though that means taking a huge loss in land value.Even though Guthrie Sloane, her boyfriend, thinks she's dead wrong and it will mean the end of them as a couple.He'll never abandon herHotheaded and old-fashioned, Guthrie may have disagreed with Jessie's dreams for her land and stormed off to Alaska in protest, but no way can he quit her.
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âHere we go again.â
Guthrie sighed and laid down his spoon. âSay it. I was stifling you. I was jealous and possessive and all I wanted was for you to be barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen.â
Jessie flushed. âThatâs all true.â
Guthrie pushed aside his bowlâ¦sat very still for a few moments, as if gauging her outburst. He stood. âI was hoping things mightâve changed between us, but I guess they havenât. Iâm sorry you feel the way you do. Iâm sorry you believe I ever meant to stand in your way.â And he moved to leave. âIâll be back to help in the morning.â
âI donât need your help,â Jessie said. âYou ran off to Alaska at the first sign of trouble, didnât you?â
âYou were the one who told me to go, Jess. Remember?â He strode out the door, closing it quietly behind him.
She wanted to cry, but she couldnât. The cataclysmic events of the past year had hollowed her out, emptied her of the ability to feel anything remotely soft or vulnerable.
Anger. Of late, it was the only thing she could feel. Terrible pent-up anger about everything. That her father had gotten ill. That the medical bills had skyrocketed. That the insurance company had raked him over the coals. That the only way she could save the land she so fiercely loved was to give it to someone else.
Worst of all, she felt a terrible anger at Guthrie Sloane for abandoning her when she needed him mostâ¦.
Dear Reader,
On a recent business trip to Montana I snuck away from the structured activities and spent a memorable afternoon riding into the high country with a surly old wrangler who was searching for some stray horses. Once he got used to being saddled with a greenhorn from Maine, he filled the afternoon with wonderful stories about the land and its history. On the ride back to the ranch (driving eight horses ahead of us at a dead gallopâover rough country for the last mile!) the threads of all those stories wove themselves firmly into my imagination.
By the time we reached the corrals, several strong characters and the different dreams they shared in this last great place were already coming to life. This is their story.
Nadia Nichols
For my mother and father,
for encouraging me to follow my dreams
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER ONE
What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night, the breath of the buffalo in the wintertime.
It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the Sunset.
âCrowfoot
IT WAS TEN MILES to town, eight of them on the old dirt track that ran alongside the creekâthe same road that her fatherâs grandfather had ridden back when the Crow Indians still lived in and hunted this valley. Ten miles of gentle descent that curved with the lay of the land and the bend of the creek. Ten miles that traced the path of her childhood and were as familiar to her after twenty-six years of traveling them as were the worn porch steps of the weather-beaten ranch house that sat at the end of that road.
Ten miles on horseback in a late-October rain. A cold rain, too, that mightâve been snow had the wind quartered out of the north. She couldnât begrudge the rain. The only rain theyâd had all summer hadnât amounted to two kicks, as her old friend Badger was so fond of saying: âTwo kicks and youâre down to dust.â
She rode a bay gelding called Billy Budd, which sheâd raised herself and ridden for the past fourteen years. He was a good cow horse, not fast or flashy, but Billy could always be counted on when the chips were down.
Today, the chips were down. Her truck wouldnât startâa chronic fuel-pump problem sheâd put off fixingâand she was late for the signing at the real estate office. Her phone had been disconnected months ago due to nonpayment of bills. But it was no matter that she couldnât call. She knew theyâd be waiting for her when she finally arrived. Theyâd wait all night for her if need be.
Ten miles by truck took a mere twenty minutes. Ten miles on horseback took a good deal longer. By the time the small cluster of buildings came into view through the sheets of cold rain she was nearly an hour late.
Katy Junction sat at a crossroads that connected five outlying ranches with the main road to Emmigrant. It had four buildings: a garage with gas pumps, a general store, a feed store and a tall narrow building that shouldered between the general store and the feed store, and housed the Longhorn Café downstairs and a combination real estateâlawyerâs office up. There were still hitch rails in place fronting the boardwalk, recalling an era when horsepower had nothing to do with a mechanical engine. In fact, not much had changed in Katy Junction for a very long time, but Jessie Weaver was about to alter all that.
