Fine Lines
Maureen’s mother, even though the sun has spent more time with her face. The first summer at the KbarH was like being in the most beautiful movie ever filmed. Seeing Brad at every meal and in her room every night made up for the previous year apart, when she was first away at college. The sky at the ranch was big and blue and almost dwarfed the mountains. They rose up right behind the ranch and made the evening sky only half as big as during the day. In June, there were butterflies and flowers in the meadows near the lodge, and in July, after the snow left, the horses took Maureen and Brad to the tops of the mountains where the butterflies and the flowers happened again. The work was long but not hard. Their co-workers complained about there being only one way to do things right and about getting up early and working until late. Every week, there was some dude who made unfair demands. Brad said the horses tended not to like those guests, either. Doing things right was not a big chore for Brad or her, and new people arrived every Sunday. They stayed past the first summer because the owners asked. Brad worked hard through fall and into winter moving cows, pulling horseshoes and repairing tack. As the snow deepened, his work tapered off. Maureen wrote e-mails and letters and talked to customers on the phone. On a Saturday in December, the neighbor families came over to help butcher three pigs that Maureen had spent the summer fattening with the dude ranch leftovers. Each person seemed to have an assigned task like an assembly line. Maureen helped with wrapping the meat cuts into meal portions, sized right for each family. Brad sat at a big round table with the men trimming the coarser cuts before grinding. All day long, the talk was about cattle prices, the moisture levels next spring, and life’s changes for everyone up and down the valley. Spring came, and getting ready for the next season took front and center. Soon a whole year passed, but this time there was no school waiting in early fall. There was not much waiting in a twelve month summer job doing work on other people’s dreams, either. Late in August, the owners started talking about Brad and her moving to the ranch house down the valley for a second winter. In response, Brad asked Maureen, “Isn’t it time to get real jobs in town and our own place to live?” “The best way to get a ‘real job’ is to go back to school. Both of 59