If you decide to take on just one or two of them, perhaps as a start, that’s fine.” Noah extended his hand, forcing Ethan to take it again. “Thanks for hearing me out.”
He tipped his hat to Kayla, turned and sauntered back to his truck.
WHEN ETHAN TOLD Kayla Monday afternoon after his lesson with the children that he was calling off Wednesday’s session, he offered no explanation, and she didn’t ask for one. He was, after all, entitled to a personal life, plus running a horse ranch was probably a lot more complicated than just feeding horses and cleaning stalls. But she was curious.
Her father furnished the answer later that night by handing her the Homestead Herald.
“Page two,” he said and shuffled off to bed.
The local newspaper was small, only a few folds and seemed to contain the same advertisements for the feed store, the general store, the hardware and drugstore in the same spots every week. Why not? Not likely to find many sales or bargains in a town of fewer than fifteen hundred people. The closest competition was in San Antonio, thirty miles away.
The heart of the paper was local news and gossip. Because the Home Free program was so important to the community, legal notices were also posted—along with the names of the people who were getting land, where their property was located, what the new owners intended to use the land for, and perhaps most importantly, how many children they had. One of the reasons behind the program had been to lure families back to the shrinking town, since its schools were in danger of being closed. Nobody wanted their kids bussed miles away to other communities.
The brief article on page two announced that Ethan Ritter had been granted official permission to transfer his father’s remains from the public cemetery in Homestead to the family plot on the Broken Spoke, and that the reinterment was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.
The revelation came as a shock to Kayla. It meant the ranch had previously been owned by the Ritters, undoubtedly for a long time, since there was a family graveyard on it. Yet she was sure she’d been told Ethan was part of the land giveaway program.
Time for research, and who better than Millicent Niebauer, who seemed to know everything about everybody and had few qualms about sharing it.
THE NIEBAUER PRESS, which published the Homestead Herald, was a throwback to a bygone era. Its ancient offset printing presses were still in place, too big to be moved. Except as collector’s items, they probably weren’t worth more than their weight in scrap iron. Nowadays, Millicent Niebauer, a sparrow of a woman, wrote all the articles for the newspaper on a computer, and they were printed in the back by her husband, Hiram. The tall, scrawny man was as taciturn as she was talkative.
Kayla was well aware that her exploratory visit to the paper would require tit for tat. Smiling, she entered the old-fashioned print shop fully prepared.
“Mrs. Price—” Millicent didn’t have to pause a heartbeat to remember Kayla’s name “—how very nice to see you. I’ve been hearing all sorts of wonderful things about that vineyard you’re planting.”
“Please, call me Kayla.”
“Heard your daughter is taking riding lessons from Ethan Ritter, too, even though he wouldn’t sell you Birdsong. Can’t say I’m really surprised, of course.”
“He said he couldn’t in good conscience sell me a thirty-year-old horse.”
Millicent’s right brow went up. “Yes, I reckon that’s as good an excuse as any.”
Kayla was sure there was a specific reason for her choice of words, but she let it pass, confident she’d learn what it was eventually.
“I stopped by, Mrs. Niebauer, to tell you how much I enjoy the Herald. You do such a wonderful job making it informative and friendly. I feel like a member of the community just reading it.”
The older woman preened. “Why thank you, dear, and call me Millie. Everybody does. We don’t have a big paper, but I do my best with it.”
“It shows. It’s really good. I noticed Ethan’s going to be moving his dad’s remains to the Broken Spoke. Is that common here in Texas, to bury family members on private property?”
“Oh, my, no. You have to obtain special permission from the state, but the Broken Spoke was in the Ritter family for well over a hundred years. His mama and sister are buried there, you know, along with other members of the family.”
Kayla was confused. “But I thought he just bought the place in the same land deal I did.”
“Well, yes, that’s true, but his family owned it before that.”
Kayla tilted her head. “I don’t understand.”
Millie smiled, please to be the source of fresh information. “I forget that everybody doesn’t know the history. Well, it started a dozen years ago now, when the K-bar-C went into bankruptcy after Clyde Braxton died. He was in his eighties by then and having a hard time keeping the place going. His children, the ungrateful lot…well, they weren’t any help. Spent money like it was going out of style. After he died, it did, too. Served them right, if you ask me, but it’s not for me to judge.”
She rearranged the announcement cards on the long counter between them, cards that had been on display for some time, considering the way they were yellowing around the edges.
“Anyway,” she continued, “when the place came up for sale at auction a bunch of the local ranchers decided to pool their resources and buy it. Ethan’s daddy, Zeb, merged the Broken Spoke into KC Enterprises, as they called their consortium, and, since his place was more or less in the middle of it all, he became the foreman. Did a good job, too, but times were against them.”
She went over to the end of the counter, poured coffee into two ceramic mugs emblazoned with Don’t Mess With Texas and handed Kayla one. “Don’t know how much you know about ranching—”
“Very little, I’m afraid,” Kayla conceded. And as Ethan had pointed out, nothing about horses.
“Well, it’s a hard life, despite all the glamour them fools out in Hollywood make it look like. Hard on men and harder on the women, if you ask me. There’s no oil around here, as you might have noticed, so you have to work for what you get.”
She sipped her coffee and made a face. “Reckon I need to make a fresh pot.”
She shoved the two cups aside, went to a small refrigerator behind a filing cabinet and brought over two soft drinks.
“These are the real Dr Pepper,” she said proudly. “Was up in Dallas last week and stopped off in Dublin. That’s the only plant still bottling the original recipe, using cane sugar instead of corn sweeteners.” She took a slug, smacked her lips and set the bottle on the counter.
“Things went fine for a couple of years,” she continued. “Like I said, old Zeb knew his stuff. Trouble is, the drought hit and they found themselves over-extended. The bank refused them any more credit.”
She leaned closer, as if anyone else were around. “Mind you, I don’t know if it’s true, but they say Clint Gallagher blocked them loans.”
“The state senator?”
“Can’t prove it, of course, and wouldn’t dare print a word of it, but that’s what some folks say. Anyway, KC Enterprises went bottom up two years ago. You would’ve expected the place to go on the auction block again, but Miranda convinced the city council to foreclose for taxes and take it over.”
“And that’s the land being given away now,” Kayla concluded.
“Yep. Old Clint wasn’t too happy about it, I can tell you. Probably figured he had a right to pick the spread up for a song and back taxes and add it to his empire.”
“So what happened to Ethan’s father?”
“Lost the Broken Spoke when KC Enterprises went bust.