Ranching is a dangerous life and not for the faint of heart. Sometimes the pain behind Bea and Trish’s eyes, which I knew was from not being able to have their own children, made the ranch feel like some sort of graveyard of broken dreams, only made beautiful by the breathtaking landscape, the huge, endless dreamlike skies, the millions of stars we saw on clear nights, and of course, Bea and Trish’s strong female drive to carry on and be mothers to us all.
For Jake and me, our hearts and dreams hadn’t been broken yet. We were excited about life and we talked about it all the time. And we wanted kids. Every time Jake would make love to me, he would say, Make a baby with me, Lena. That’s what he called me for short. This time it will work, he would say, though it didn’t for almost a year.
In the meantime, we took refuge in each other. He wasn’t much more experienced in the relationship department than I was, but he was tender and sweet with me and we learned together. We explored each other’s bodies and our own, and we figured out how to feel good while we were tucked under the thick wool blankets in our tiny cabin at the Walker Ranch.
Jake’s parents lived a couple of hours north, near the Canadian border. We didn’t hear from them much except for an occasional phone call from Jake’s mom. Jake didn’t want me to meet them because he said his dad was a mean drunk and his mom had taken the abuse so long that she was just a shell of a woman.
In the summer of 2004 we did the rodeo circuit again, traveling back to California and down to Texas. Neither one of us ever got national attention but it was what we loved doing. In the fall we would drive the cattle back to the ranch and in the spring we would take them out to pasture.
The winters were long and cold in Montana but we had each other and our horses. Jake had bought me a little herding dog. He was an Australian shepherd mix and he hated everyone. He only had one purpose in life and that was to herd the cattle. We named him Pistol.
The following spring Jake and I made a plan to take the cattle out to pasture and then camp for a week or so in the valley before heading back. Once Redman agreed to it, we decided to think of it as a little honeymoon, even though we had been married for more than a year. We would take our time coming back, fish in the streams, and enjoy nature.
“I want to bring Dancer,” I said to Jake as he sat on the steps going up to our cabin.
“No, she’s no good for this type of thing. You know that. She’s got no stamina.”
I sat down next to him. Tucking a strand of my dark hair behind my ear, he squinted his eyes and smiled, revealing his boyish dimples. “We’ll take Bonnie and Elite. They’re good girls. Okay, sweetie?”
He sat there in his tight Wranglers and cowboy hat set low on his head. His legs were spread wide and his chest puffed out, broad and firm. He had such a strong and convincing presence. I could never say no to him. “Okay.”
“Come here, Lena.” He pulled me onto his lap and brushed my hair off my shoulders to fall down my back. The roughness of his jaw tickled my neck as he laid small kisses near my ear. “You’re mine,” he whispered. “No one else can ever have you.”
I kissed him on the mouth, expressing my agreement. I was the luckiest girl in the whole world. I turned in his embrace and pushed my back against his chest. His hands clasped together over my center, holding me tight against his body. I wondered briefly what his hands would feel like clasped over my pregnant belly. “What are you thinking about, angel?”
“I wonder what our kids will look like.”
“I can only imagine precious little girls as beautiful as their mother.”
Turning to look up at him, I smiled. “You mean you don’t want boys?”
“Oh I do. It’s just hard for me to imagine them.”
“What will you teach them?”
He looked up thoughtfully. “Besides the work and the horses, the cattle, I guess. Maybe I’ll teach them how to find the perfect girl and how to be a man.”
I looked up to the sky and rested the back of my head on his shoulder. “Tell me, Jake McCrea, how does one find the perfect girl?”
“You have to look real hard for that sparkle in her eye.”
I began to giggle and then he tickled me and I fell into fits of laughter. “You’re a silly man,” I shouted. “Stop that right now.”
We were quiet for several moments. He turned me in his lap and kissed me softly, holding my bottom lip between his teeth for a second before letting go and murmuring near my ear, “You’re a sexy woman. Come to bed with me, Lena.”
We packed our things in our saddlebags and rode out at dawn. It was a two-day ride to the pasture and one back without the herd. The skies were clear but it was brisk. I wore a thick down coat and heavy jeans over thermals but I was still cold. Jake wore a T-shirt, Carhartt jacket, jeans, and a baseball cap.
On the first night, we set up camp at dusk near a stream. Jake built a fire so I could warm up some tea. I unwrapped sandwiches Bea had made for us while I watched my silly husband strip down to nothing. He was completely naked, standing outside the tent. “What are you doing?” I asked in amusement.
“Going for a swim.”
“Jake, you’ll freeze.”
“No I won’t. Watch me.” He put his cowboy boots back on and ran down the short embankment toward the stream. I grabbed a blanket and chased after him. Before I could reach him, he tore off his boots and quickly walked into the deepest part of the river, shouting back at me the whole way.
“Oh, baby, this feels great!” he yelled. “You have to get in here! Come on, get naked.”
“No way! You’re crazy!” He only lasted about two minutes and then he came jogging out of the water, cupping his hands over himself. “You don’t want to see this, Mrs. McCrea.” He was shaking but still smiling. His abs and chest and biceps flexed as he squeezed his arms in toward his body.
“You are one sexy cowboy, even freezing.” I threw the blanket around him and he laughed, shivering under the wool.
“You gonna warm me up, sweetheart?” he asked, his eyes glimmering with hope.
“I’d love to warm you up, handsome.”
Back in our tent, Jake never got dressed. He climbed into our sleeping bag and just grinned at me as I undressed. There was one small lantern on the floor of the tent but it gave off enough light for me to see the desire in his eyes.
“Hurry, Lena, I need you to warm me up.”
I got undressed and slipped into the sleeping bag, facing toward him. “Should we turn out the lantern?”
“No one will see us; we’re in the middle of nowhere. Let’s leave it on so I can look at you.” He grinned and then sunk down and kissed his way from the hollow of my neck to my breasts. “Your body is perfect,” he said as he continued to kiss every inch of me. We made love twice that night and then we stayed twisted up in each other for a long time after. Sometime later in the night, he stirred at the sound of the wind rushing through the nearby trees.
The temperature had dropped dramatically once the sun went down, and I thought it would be wise to get dressed again. I reluctantly left the warmth of the sleeping bag.
“It’s just the wind,” I said through chattering teeth as my body trembled uncontrollably.
“You’re freezing, Lena. Just get back in here.”
“But . . .”
“Trust me, I’m warm enough to heat you up throughout the night.”
He was right, as usual. I stripped back down to nothing and pressed myself against his warm, naked body. He threw his muscular leg over me and I ran my hand down it, finding the wiry hair on his thighs and the smooth part where his Wranglers had chafed the skin. His big body enveloped me and made me feel loved and protected.
They say that home is where the heart is. Mine was always right there, tucked between Jake’s big arms.
At sunrise we were back to business, packing up our camp and saddling the horses. There was an eerie calm through the valley, as if it were part of a landscape painting, vivid and bright but frozen in time. The hill
s looked one-dimensional. No wind rustling the trees, no sounds from nature, and no vocalizations from the herd, which gave me a foreboding feeling.
I looked to Jake, who was cinching the saddle on Elite, our beautiful black-and-tan bay horse. His face was drawn down in a worried expression.
“Calm before the storm?” I asked.
“I don’t think so,” he said quickly. “The horses would be twitchy.” He kneed Elite in the belly so she would inhale, allowing him to cinch tighter. When he yanked up, she spooked, jumped sideways, and began skittering backward. Jake grabbed the reins, pulling them up and in against her neck. “Sit, sit,” he hissed through gritted teeth. It was his command to stop the horse from moving backward. He was trying to get control but Elite was skittish. She sensed something.
He jumped into the saddle without hesitation and turned her in a circle as she chomped down and tugged at the bit in her mouth. “Get Bonnie ready,” he said to me. “I’m gonna run this one out a bit.”
“There’s a storm coming, right Jake?” I asked in a shaky voice.
He turned the horse once more and stared down at me, gauging my expression. His lips turned up into a self-assured smile. “Don’t worry, baby, everything will be okay.” With that, he let the reins out and gave Elite a little squeeze with his heels. From her back legs, she leapt forward, and they were off.
Horses are beautiful, majestic, and useful, but they’re not intelligent creatures. They have no way of judging a situation—they just react. Jake wanted to tire Elite out so she wouldn’t be so jumpy and endanger us. I would be the one riding her. He was trying to control her so she wouldn’t react to the doom that we all felt looming around us.
Once he was back with Elite, he seemed anxious. He wanted to get going and move the cattle out. He slid off of the saddle and handed me the reins. “She’s good. Let’s go,” he said and then he kissed me on the nose.
We gradually moved through the valley as the weather began to pick up. Jake sat back, relaxed in his saddle as he jogged Bonnie back and forth behind the herd, periodically whistling or clicking commands at her. At times I could hear him growling, “Get, get-up you.” A cow and her calf lagged behind, slowing our progress down. Pistol worked one side, prowling low and keeping the cattle in line while I trotted Elite on the other side. I stole glances at Jake every time I felt the wind pick up. He wore his baseball cap low, shadowing his eyes, but I could see his mouth. Every time I looked back he would flash me his dimpled grin, a piece of straw peeking from the corner of his lips as he chewed on it.
As the sun dropped down in the sky and fell behind the distant mountains, big storm clouds moved in, fast and hauntingly dark. The sky went almost black at three o’clock in the afternoon. I was shivering from the gusty bursts of wind blasting through me. Jake’s expression began to change. His jaw tightened and flexed and he sat upright in the saddle. We found a section of tall grass where the cattle could bunch together.
“We’ll stop here and camp over by the trees,” he shouted to me over the loud, rushing wind. The herd began to react and Elite began jumping nervously. Jake raced Bonnie toward me. “Get down from her!” he yelled.
I tried to pull her in a circle but she only went halfway and then began nervously shifting backward. “Get down!” Jake’s tone was harsher than I had ever heard from him.
Elite sat back on her haunches slightly and pinned her ears back. I slid off the saddle, jumped down, and moved away quickly. Jake was already at her side, grabbing at the reins and pulling her toward the trees. He tied the horses up as I spread the tent out to begin setting up. I was freezing before but then it began snowing. My hands went numb as I fumbled with the tent anchors.
Spring storms were not totally uncommon, but this storm had a fervor and fury to it that I could tell frightened even Jake. The wind was fierce, whipping the tent about as I tried ineffectively to set it up. We weren’t prepared for such a drastic temperature drop or for the several inches of snow. It felt like we were on the top of a mountain in a blizzard.
Jake jammed the last post into the ground and then turned to me. “Get in there, Lena.” He was out of breath.
“No, I’ll wait for you.”
He pulled me toward his chest. “I’m going to check on that calf and bring Pistol back. Just get in there. I’ll be back in a minute.” He touched his freezing lips to my mouth and pressed hard before untying Elite from the tree and jumping into the saddle.
Just as he passed me, one of the tent lines flew off the anchor, forcing the material to fly back and make a sound like a cracking whip. Elite reared right over me, and I saw as fear and panic swept over Jake’s face, almost as if the scene were playing in slow motion. Elite’s hooves fluttered just inches from my head. Stumbling back, I fell on my bottom and looked up to see Jake pulling Elite’s reins tight, forcing her from the reared position to fall backward, on top of him. He was trying to protect me. He had forced a thousand-pound animal to fall backward onto himself, crushing his body, allowing me to escape without a scratch.
“Jake!” I screamed so loudly that Elite immediately rolled over, got to her feet, and took off frantically. My husband, my cowboy, was lying there, nearly lifeless in the snow and the mud. I had seen Jake on a rearing horse and I knew he wouldn’t have pulled her back that way if I hadn’t been standing there.
I ran to him and dropped to my knees. His eyes were closed but he was moaning. “Jake, please, look at me.” For several minutes he stayed that way, moaning as blood began dripping from his nose. Panicking, I quickly secured the loose tent line to the anchor, grabbed him from under the arms, and dragged his six-foot-two massive body into the tent. He moaned and made horrifying guttural sounds as I yanked him across the rough terrain. I had to get him out of the cold or he would die there. After making sure that the tent was stable, I covered him with the sleeping bags.
My mind was racing. What could I do, how could I help, how could I heal him?
I knelt beside him when he began to stir.
“Jake, say something. Are you okay?”
He looked up at me and there were tears in his eyes. “I can’t feel my legs.”
The air rushed from my lungs as if I had been punched in the stomach by a thousand fists. I was gutted and had no words. I could feel myself shaking my head back and forth slowly but I wasn’t making a conscious effort to do so. I was in a state of complete disbelief and shock.
“No,” I said finally, but the word rushing over my lips barely made a sound. Jake grimaced, clearly pained by the realization he saw on my face. “It can’t be,” I said. He nodded and then closed his eyes, pressing tears to the corners before a steady stream began running down his cheeks. That was the first time I ever saw Jake cry. Even then, he tried to turn his head away.
“No, Jake, I won’t believe it, I promise you, it will all be fine. Look at me.”
I turned his head to face me but he wouldn’t look. “Open your eyes and look at me,” I sobbed, then my own tears began dropping into his hair.
God wouldn’t do this to me, I thought. I tried to convince myself that no God would let this kind of tragedy happen to two people so in love with such a long, hopeful future in front of them. But of course, I knew that wasn’t true. I knew that kind of pain and sadness; I was familiar with it and I knew it didn’t discriminate.
I spent that night holding him, counting his breaths and praying. We were a day’s ride away. We had a cell phone but no service in the valley. In the morning he fell in and out of consciousness as I prepared for the ride back. The weather had calmed but it was still snowing and very cold. I was terrified and every time I looked down at him lying there, the sinking feeling I had in my stomach would fall deeper. During one of his more lucid moments, he mumbled something to me as I sat next to him to put my boots on. I bent close to his face. “Tape your feet,” he said in a low voice, barely audible.
I shook my head up and down quickly and then rifled through his bag until I found a roll of duct tape. I ran
the tape over my socks and then taped the outside of my lace-ups.
“Good girl,” he whispered to me.
I grabbed my pack and leaned over to kiss him. When he moved an arm up to touch my face, he winced and sucked air through his teeth. “Don’t move, I’ll be back soon.” I could taste the iron tanginess of blood when I kissed him.
“I love you,” he said.
“I love you, too.” Tears flooded my eyes and dropped onto his face where they mixed with his. “Jake, you’re going to be fine, I promise,” I said slowly, as I took deep, deliberate breaths.
My heart was heavy and thudding along painfully as I watched his expression turn bleak. He swallowed and shook his head. “Get yourself to safety, don’t worry about me. Don’t come back for me. I’m no good,” he said, and then he lost consciousness. I fell apart, sobbing over his chest for several minutes before I could force myself to stand.
Crying hysterically, I stumbled out of the tent and discovered that Bonnie was gone. I fell to my knees again, cursing God and my middle namesake. Both horses were gone. I had no choice but to walk and hope that Redman and Dale would come looking for us. I had little faith that Jake and I would survive.
For the first time in his life, Pistol came up and licked my face, whimpered, and nuzzled his nose into my arm.
“Let’s go, boy.”
I headed back through the familiar snow-covered landscape I had traveled many times before. In parts where the vegetation was dense, the snow had already melted, creating thick, slushy mud. There was water sloshing in my boots, making my feet go numb. I fell several times by midday. On horseback, even at a slow pace, I would have covered twice as much ground.
Pausing near a tree, I hunkered down and called Pistol to me. I tucked him into my chest and tried to use his warmth to heat my body. I dozed off for a minute and dreamt of my horse Dancer coming to me. I woke with a start and realized the weather was getting bad again. To stay warm enough to survive, I would have to keep moving. I got up, whistled, and called out, hoping that Bonnie or Elite would turn up to take me home. As I trudged on against the storm, I kept my head down, trying to shield myself from the snow. At one point the wind was so strong that the snow looked like it was coming toward me, not down on me.