Wrangled
Authors: Natasha Stories
Wrangled
By
Natasha Stories
Copyright 2014 by Natasha Stories
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States
of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or
artwork herein is prohibited. This book is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. All rights reserved.
Warning: sexual content. Intended for mature audiences over the age
of 18.
“Cody’s Hank’s nephew, you know,” Janet
said, in response to a remark I’d made while I helped her in the kitchen.
“Oh, no, I didn’t. He doesn’t look anything
like Hank.”
“No, looks like his dad I reckon, but he’s
his sister’s boy. That was a sad case.”
“What, Cody’s mom?” I asked.
“Yeah. Poor little thing got mixed up with
a bad hombre. Hank’s dad was a drug dealer.”
I gasped, clapping my hand over my mouth. I
may have been sheltered, but everyone knew drug dealers were bad news. “What
kind of drugs?”
“Not sure what-all. But meth for sure. I
think he was cookin’ it. It’s a wonder Cody didn’t get mixed up in it.”
“What’s meth?” I asked.
“Crystal meth?” she tried. I shook my head.
“Crank? Ice?” At my blank look, she said, “Girl, don’t you know anything?”
“I guess not,” I said.
“Well, it’s the devil’s own brew,” she
said. “Poor Elsie went all skin and bones, and her skin just about boiled up
into the worst case a’ acne you ever did see. She smelled bad, too. And then,
one day when she was just thirty-eight, she up and had a heart attack. I
thought Hank was gonna murder that bastard she married…what’s wrong, child?”
I had both hands over my mouth, giggling. I
knew it wasn’t right; this wasn’t a funny story. It was tragic, really--but,
Janet had said ‘bastard’ just like it was any other word. I was trying to get
my face straight when I said, “You said ‘bastard’.”
“Oh my great-aunt Harriet,” Janet said.
“You girls have gotta quit gettin’ all silly on us when we say somethin’,
Annalee. Puts the thoughts right outta our heads. Now, what was I talkin’
about?”
“Hank was gonna murder some bastard,” I
said, suppressing another giggle.
Janet gave me a severe look. “This ain’t
funny, girl.”
I took a deep breath and sobered instantly.
“I know, Janet. I’m sorry.”
“So Hank went after his brother-in-law and
the bastard ran off. Ain’t been seen in these parts since.”
“How long ago was that?” I asked, just to
keep her talking.
“’Bout five years, I reckon. Yep, Cody just
turned twenty-one, and he was sixteen when he come here, all prickly and
sullen. ‘Fraid someone was gonna offer him some sympathy. Hank and Russ had
their hands full with that boy.”
“Was he a bad kid?” I asked.
“Naw, not a bad kid, just, had a chip on
his shoulder, y’know? He was okay with the older fellers, but if one a’ the
other young hands give him a look he didn’t like, they’d be down rollin’ in the
dirt an’ tryin’ to gouge each other’s eyes out.”
That sounded like a bad kid to me, but the
Cody I knew hardly said a word, and was always neat and clean, except when he’d
been out working with the others. Now I was more curious than ever, and I hoped
Janet didn’t remember what started this conversation, or she might close up on
me. “So, what changed?”
“Well, near as I can figure, it all changed
when Cody decided he wanted to rodeo, and Russ told him he’d sell him a ropin’
horse if he wanted to work off the price here on the ranch. But, the catch was,
he’d hafta stop fightin’.”
“Oh, so is that why he’s out every evening
training that spotted horse?”
“It’s called a paint. A frame overo, to be
precise. And yes, that’s Cody’s ropin’ horse, though he’s never been in a
rodeo.”
“Why?”
“’Cause, it costs money to enter rodeo
events, girl, and Cody’s not through payin’ off the horse. I guess Russ figured
a little extra practice time would make up for his handicap.”
“He’s handicapped?” I asked, puzzled.
“Not like you’re thinkin’” she said. “When
he does get to a rodeo, he’ll be competin’ against men his age and older who’ve
been ridin’ in rodeo events since they was young’uns. Junior rodeo on up.
They’re experienced in the rodeo, see. Cody’s experienced in real-life
ranchin’, and there’s a difference.”
“Will he be able to win?”
“There’s the question we’re all askin’.
Hank’s money says yes, mine says no. We’ll just hafta wait and see.”
After my kitchen chores, I went to put Al
and Tali down for the night. Tali still wanted to nurse, but I was weaning her
as best I could, with no one to help or advise me. If she was too fussy at
night, I’d nurse her a little, just ‘til she dropped off to sleep, then put her
down as careful as I could, to keep from waking her. In the daytime, I wasn’t
so obliging. She was eighteen months, now, and plenty old enough to be weaned.
Al stopped nursing when he was only twelve months.
When both were asleep, I went out into the
twilight to watch Cody put his horse through his paces. Some of the other hands
were there, too, one foot up on the fence rail, arms folded across the top rail
with their elbows sticking out like wings. Others were letting calves out of
the chute on the other side of the practice ring, one at a time, so Cody could
rope it, jump off his paint horse, wrangle it to the ground and tie the poor
thing up with three of its legs wound up in a short rope.
As sorry as I felt for the calf, I had to
admire the cowboy’s muscles, all ripply under his plaid shirt. Cody was one
fine-looking young man, which was what I’d said to Janet that started her
talking this evening. With his blond hair and light blue eyes, he could have
been my brother. I was real glad he wasn’t.
I was ready to move on with my life, and if
I had my way, Cody would be a part of it.
~~~
Ten months previously
When the federal agents came to arrest my
husband, I was nursing Tali. Suddenly, screams from my sister-wives and some of
the children set Tali crying, and I quickly covered up, but it was too late to
run. Everyone else in the house tried either to run or to hide, but I was
caught immediately. Terrified, I begged the agent who had me by the arm to let
me find my son. Alma had been in the children’s schoolroom with the other
two-year-old toddlers, learning a song for Sunday’s worship service. The agent
was kind; we found Alma among the other children, all waiting for their mothers
to claim them.
They sorted us all into rooms, the younger
ones like me all together in the big family room and the older ones in a
separate room each with their children. Celeste, Ciara, Janey and Amber, all
holding their babies except for Amber, who was just four months pregnant, were
huddled together crying. I wanted to tell them everything would be okay, but I
was busy comforting Al and the baby. And I didn’t know whether it really would
be okay. In fact, I didn’t know anything. Not what would become of our husband,
Jed Nielsen, the Prophet of the Reformed Apostles of Latter Day Saints, nor
what would become of us. Not even whether they would allow us to keep our
babies with us. With the last thought, I broke down and cried, too.
The authorities took us by bus to Kingman,
where they kept us all in a hotel for a few days, each of us in a separate room
with our babies. If I hadn’t been so scared and worried about what came next,
I’d have enjoyed it. Someone came in every day and cleaned the room, made the
bed and everything. They brought disposable diapers for the babies, which was a
luxury I had never known, and food like I’d never had. Pizza was my favorite.
The other girls adjusted each in her own
way, Celeste at seventeen, Ciara and Janey both sixteen, treating it as a lark
and chattering about what they’d tell our sister-wives when we got home, as if
they didn’t understand that we might not go back. Poor little Amber, the baby
among us at fifteen, was so afflicted with morning sickness and terror that
they had to take her to the hospital, but she was back with us in just a couple
of days.
Not long afterward, a woman from the Department
of Family Services came to talk to us. “You girls are a problem,” she told us.
“You won’t fit into the system if you keep your babies with you, and you’re too
young to be set loose to fend for yourselves. But, we have a solution if you
will agree.”
We looked at
each other in fear. This was what I had worried about...our babies being taken
from us. None of us loved Jed, and we weren’t unhappy to be shed of him, but we
did love the kids. The others looked to me to be our spokesperson. “What
solution is that?”
The
representative from DFS told us that a wealthy rancher named Russell White knew
about us because Charity Green had met him and asked him to help us. We didn’t
know the whole story, but he was here with an offer to the state to take us
into his home as his wards, along with our children, until we were eighteen.
The only catch was, his home was a ranch in Wyoming.
We might
never see our older sister-wives again, or our husband, especially if he were
convicted. It was an offer we accepted gratefully. What choice did we have?
Besides, it seemed like a miracle that we’d be able to stay together and our
babies wouldn’t be taken from us or each other. After all, they were
half-brothers and sisters. They deserved a chance to be raised together.
We knew our lives would change, but none of
us understood then just how much. That was the other miracle, the change that
opened up our world, but we didn’t know that then. We didn’t mind being
sister-wives, that’s the way we were raised. But none of us had been happy to
be chosen by the Prophet. When he brought Amber into the covenant, it made
seventeen of us. Seventeen wives, beginning with Sister Nielsen who, at
fifty-six, was old enough to be Amber’s grandmother and was the Prophet’s first
wife.
She was mean, too. Always bossing us, and
if we disobeyed, or didn’t obey fast enough, corporal punishment was the
consequence. That was a big word that meant the Prophet would beat us on our
bare backsides, with his hand sometimes, or with a little whip he had in his office.
It always ended with the one being punished bent over the desk and him driving
into her from behind, shouting about how we were sinners and we’d all go to
hell if we didn’t obey him like our wedding vows said. That’s how Naphtali was
conceived, but I didn’t hold it against her. My sweet daughter was innocent, no
matter what an evil man her father was.
We hadn’t been at the ranch for very long
when Russ, our savior, flew off one day in a chartered plane, and returned a
few days later with Sister Charity. She made us call her just Charity, though.
She didn’t want to hear any RALDS terms like sister, or sister-wives. She
explained that we had never been legally married to the Prophet, but that he
owed us all child support. However, it was unlikely we’d get it, since he was
bound for prison. She was the black sheep at home in Bethel City, but now she
became our big sister, a real sister, not a sister-wife.
Russ told us not to worry, that he would
provide for us. I turned eighteen just a couple of weeks after we got there,
just before Christmas. Russ said I could stay if I wanted, at least until I had
some idea of what I wanted to do with my life. But, I already knew what I
wanted…I wanted to be a wife and mother. Just not with the Prophet. Since
Charity turned out to be pregnant too, we all sort of coasted until after their
baby girl was born, except Russ had a tutor out every day for high school
equivalency prep classes. We were all going to get that GED, at least.
In the meanwhile, we had landed in what most
single girls would have considered Paradise. Two dozen cowboys worked for Russ,
all single, all eligible. Except for a few that were too old, like Hank Miller,
the ranny and cow boss. I had an idea
he
was sweet on Janet, the cook,
anyway. It was too bad that we all still felt sort of married, though. Russ
said that if the Prophet was convicted and went to prison, it would be more
real to us that we weren’t really, and that time would help, too. I had my
doubts. I wanted divorce papers.