Finding Henderson’s Ranch

  a Henderson’s Ranch romance story

  M. L. Buchman

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  My thanks for this story idea go to a fan who asked me to explain why it was Henderson’s Ranch (singular) rather than Hendersons’ Ranch (an unintentional mistake, or so I thought at the time).

  * * *

  Elf, it took me a year to figure out the real answer, but here you go.

  Chapter 1

  Mac Henderson didn’t know whether to hate himself or the Top 40 station coming out of Cheyenne. In Wyoming it was that or country, so the choice of what to listen to wasn’t hard. But the songs were insidious. How was it possible that he knew every word to sing along with John Travolta’s You’re the One That I Want? Mac did have to fake the high notes which perhaps implied he wasn’t a complete “Lost Cause” his mother always accused him of. She said it with a smile, but still, it stung.

  More importantly, how did Travolta get up there? Maybe it was those tight pants.

  Wyoming. Could he get more different than Ohio? He’d left the lush greens of Oberlin right after graduation. Kissed Penny goodbye—nothing serious so no heartache—and headed west.

  “Surfing?” She was an overachiever type and was joining the Peace Corps, headed for Africa with her honors degree in psychology.

  “Sure. Get me some sun and surf.”

  “And surfer babes?” Penny didn’t sound even a little hurt, which meant their time together had been less meaningful than he’d thought. Chump!

  “Sure, why not? What else am I supposed to do with a degree in French Literature?” He suspected that the defensive tone hadn’t served him well.

  “Have you ever surfed?”

  “Now’s my big chance.”

  “That’s a pretty directionless choice, Mac.” She’d shaken her head sadly, her Farrah Fawcett blonde curls wafting about her face. She was as fun as she was trendy and cute. They’d only been together for the last couple months of senior year though, now that he thought about it, she’d always given him the feeling that she was slumming a bit and mostly marking time.

  He’d never been one for high goals. His dad had been a professor of French Lit at Loyola until he’d stroked out (in two ways) in a coed’s arms at forty-eight. Mac had decided to follow in his footsteps, for reasons passing anyone’s understanding—including his own. Even more disillusioning, he’d generally had better luck with the French Lit than the coeds. Penny had been the exception, not the rule. But even if he applied for the Peace Corps now, they’d be all out of sync. Not that he wanted to.

  Wanted to.

  For four years everyone—the entire college experience—had gone on and on about how they could all be anything they “wanted to.” But for the life of him he couldn’t figure out what that might be for him.

  Travolta’s “Oo-oo-oo” croon with perky blonde Newton-John gave way to ABBA’s Take a Chance on Me.

  The job recruiters had taken one look at his long hair, his mastery of Middle French literature, and his liberal arts school attitude, then looked the other way. No chance on him. Oo-oo-oo! Surfing was still the best bet he’d heard in a while. He’d delayed with some buddies who had a cabin on Lake Michigan—to work on building up some swimmer muscles, or maybe to have one last collegiate-style beer blast—and a week with his mom in Chicago. But it reached late July and he was missing summer in the surf. That had finally gotten him heading west again.

  He pulled off in Cheyenne to study his road atlas as he chowed down on a Burger King Double Whopper and fries. Straight west or time to turn south? Holding west for Salt Lake could be a thing, not that he wanted to hang there, but it would be something to see. Or cut down to Denver then climb the Rockies. His Mazda pickup had been making some funny noises lately, so maybe the Rockies wasn’t the best idea. Of course breaking down in the vast emptiness of Wyoming…

  Turning the key, Rocky Mountain High blared out of the radio. Must be a Top Ten of the Past thing, but he’d take it as an omen. Denver it was. The randomness of his directionless life lived on.

  Then he twisted the ignition the rest of the way and got that nasty ratcheting sound he’d heard lately. Except this time the engine didn’t start. Again. No luck.

  A cowboy, complete with boots and a big old hat, strolling by with his own burger bag, stopped and listened. “Yep! You got a cooked starter solenoid. Jason there can fix you up.” He hooked a thumb at a service station across the street. “Need a push?”

  Ten minutes later he was officially stuck in Cheyenne, Wyoming while they waited for parts. “Have it for you in the morning.”

  “C’mon, kid.” Jason couldn’t be more than a couple years older. “See how real people live.” And he’d followed the cowboy back to his truck which was big enough he could have parked his Mazda in the back of it…if the starter had worked.

  Chapter 2

  Ama reluctantly followed her mother into the dance ring at Indian Village. The circle of white teepees had been erected for Cheyenne Frontier Days, just as it had for the last eighty years. Ten days every year that were the bane of her existence. Even private, tribal powwows boasted more RVs than teepees these days, but the truth didn’t mix well with the stereotypes in people’s heads. And RVs definitely weren’t as photogenic as the line of white teepees on the Cheyenne prairie.

  There were cowboys and farmers in the crowd, but there were far more tourists whose beer bellies conflicted badly with the newer, tighter fashions. Some women gave in to the mid-summer’s heat with strapless tops, but many still had jackets so that they could wear their shoulder pads. The crowd sat or stood five deep between the circle of teepees and the grassy dance field.

  Come for the show. Come see the redskin girl dance a blessing to the day—an importance you will never understand. After me, watch my cousin the hoop dancer. A great tradition tracing all of the way back to Tony White Cloud performing it in the Lucille Ball movie Valley of the Sun. Yes, come see the least authentic powwow dance you can imagine, up next.

  Yet Ama knew better than to ever say or show such a thing. She was the good daughter. The youngest lead dancer since Great-grandmother Swooping Bird. Her mother’s scowl and her father’s disdain were for her brother, never for Ama. Like the water that was her name, she flowed around problems, always quiet and level.

  Watch me dance. I know every step perfectly. Not the modern ones, but the way that has been handed down directly by Great-grandmother from her great-grandmother. Leave this world for a moment and see how we tread the Great Plains when they still belonged to the Cheyenne, Crow, and Pawnee.

  She let her vision unfocus as she found the rhythm of the drums and her feet hit the soil in traditionally short, hard steps. But it wasn’t the shaking of the drums that called to her in the dance, it was the tahpeno—the cedar courtship flute. She’d never been able to resist its call and she could feel it capture her arms and let her float.

  See the flight of the tiniest hummingbird greet the opening of the morning flowers in my fingers. Follow the robin and the dove in my hands. See the great eagle soar in my arms high above the family ranch. And watch the swallow swoop and play at dusk in how I float.

  The tourists didn’t matter.

  The other dancers faded aside.

  It was just the flute’s call, the cycle of this day’s bird-flight, and her dance.

  In this moment, for this one precious instant, it felt as if she balanced between two worlds. Her life as a paralegal for a divorce lawyer had nothing to do with this dance, except when she was immersed in it, then it was the whole rest of her life that lost meaning.

  As the swallow returned to her evening nest and the dance came to a close, the path of her feet—still stomping to the unceasing, unceasing rhythm of the drums—led her close to the crowd.

  As Henry Morning Crow’s flute ended the day with the first call of the mista—the great horned owl, the spirit of the night, hoo-h’Hoo hoo hoo—Ama came back into her own body. She planted her feet with the last beat of the drum and looked once more through her own eyes rather than the birds’.

  The crowd’s roar of approval and applause was, as ever, a harsh shock. She could never grow used to it. It was from the wrong world: not herself or the dance, not her tribe. Instead it battered at her, hard and forceful.

  A man stood directly in front of where her dance had led her. A man acting like no other in the crowd. He did not applaud; he did not even appear to breathe.

  His looks didn’t blend into the crowd either. He was her age and lean with strong shoulders; the sort of man who would never need shoulder pads. His collar-long hair, as dark as her own, framed his fair face. It was a good face, a strong one. His eyes were steel gray and seemed to see past the costume and the dancer. She knew her looks were a throwback to Swooping Bird, who had often been declared the most beautiful Cheyenne of her generation. But he didn’t seem to see that either.

  Men always saw her dancing or her beauty. Her parents saw the good girl. Her tribe viewed her as the granddaughter of a great Peace Chief and the great-granddaughter of a still celebrated dancer.

  It was as if this man could see her as no one except the mirror ever had. As herself.

  Chapter 3

  Mac lay on his longboard, letting the swells roll beneath him. The chilly Pacific Ocean was actually pacific for a change. The waves had settled an hour ago and he was content to simply lie in the sun and wait as he was lifted and lowered by their lazy rhythm. This had become his favorite part of surfing. He could stand up and ride a wave now, but he doubted he’d ever be good.

  “There they are again,” Ama spoke lazily from the board beside him. She wasn’t any better at surfing than he was, but at least she was far better looking while doing it. Also, her dancer’s grace always looked so elegant that her lack of skill mattered far less than his own clumsy efforts. Her hair, a straight slash to her waist, now lay over the back of her wetsuit like a soft blanket. Her suit was the same sky blue as the deer hide dress she’d worn at the Frontier Days dance. Out of the wetsuit when ashore, the pure white bikini she favored highlighted her dark skin—and completely scrambled his hormones. She’d taken to wearing dark sunglasses which only added to her mystery.

  He was still unsure why she’d joined him for the drive to California. She hadn’t volunteered her reasons and he’d been afraid to ask. For two months he’d had the most astonishing lover of his life in their little beach shack. They weren’t broke, not yet, but this couldn’t last and that troubled him. Unlike Penny, he’d be majorly bummed when Ama Dances Like Water left to return to her tribe. She’d given no hint of such a plan, but it worried him anyway.

  September had seen the summer surfers retreat except on the weekends. Only the hardcore beach bums still remained afloat under the mid-October sun.

  Ama didn’t speak often, so when she did, he always paid attention. He followed the direction of her gaze.

  Coronado Beach was no longer hazed by the heat as it had been since their arrival, but it was no less bright beneath the midday sun.

  Mac propped his chin on his hands and squinted against the glare.

  Navy SEALs. Only twenty remained in the group of men in green. There had been at least a hundred the first time they ran on the beach a month ago. They never ran where it was easy, down by the waves. Instead, they were always up on the dry beach where the heat burned and every step slipped and dragged in the deep sand. They sang as they ran. Four trainers ran with them. He’d seen the trainers haranguing their every step as their numbers dwindled—the sharp clang of a bell marking another grunt “ringing out” and quitting because he couldn’t make the grade.

  Today was different. Today the trainers sang with the running recruits. A team. Those who remained were becoming a team. In perfect unison, immensely fit, and dependent on one another.

  He lay his head once more on his hands and contemplated the woman stretched beside him, rising and falling on the swells of the Pacific Ocean.

  What would it take to make Ama not flow away from him? To not dismiss him with an easy shrug as Penny had. That struck him as being of desperate importance. Perhaps the first such thing in his entire life.

  Had she pointed out the SEAL team for a reason? He had to think about that.

  Chapter 4

  Ama could only stare at Mac in surprise.

  He had transformed past recognition without changing at all. Not a caterpillar turned into a butterfly, but rather a man transformed into a Man.

  He was so much stronger now than even the surfing had made him; the physical power of his embrace utterly breathtaking in many ways.

  But his eyes still saw her with Eagle’s vision and he heard her with Coyote’s sharp ears. Being with Mac had made her feel closer to her tribe and her heritage than she ever had back in Wyoming. He’d insisted that she return to the next Cheyenne Frontier Days to dance, and he’d been right. It was an important glimpse of her culture that she’d nearly lost all sight of in San Diego.

  Over this year, his gentleness had faded, except towards her. In that he was as unvarying as the Great Spirit itself.

  Living on the inside of his world, she could see how different he had become to the outside world. Mac had pulled on a shroud of power like a dancer who pulled the skin of Buffalo over his head and transformed into the beast.

  All in white, Mac’s uniform shone as brightly as the sun. And like a piece ripped from the sun itself, the golden SEAL trident shone fresh and new upon his left breast.

  Other graduates of the year-long course were surrounded by their families or wives.

  She found herself reluctant to walk up to Mac. He was so transformed that she half wondered if she still belonged in his world. Her dance had led her to stand in front of him. But had his dance of becoming a Navy SEAL led him toward her?

  He often joked that he didn’t believe in such things as something guiding her steps, but she’d had no other way to explain it. He did say often that “he wasn’t complaining about the results.”

  And now?

  He strode up to her, so tall and beautiful in his rugged way.

  Then, without hesitation, not looking to see who of his new SEAL brothers were watching, he went down on bent knee before her. The silence rushed outward through the celebrating SEALs faster than a wave breaking on a reef until all attention was focused upon them.

  “Now, am I finally worthy of you?” His words were so soft.

  “Since the day my dance led me to you.” And she must be worthy of him for he had come to her and that was all that mattered. For though he often said that he would be less of a man without her, she knew that she would also be less of a woman without her Mac.

  Chapter 5

  Mac lay face down and wondered if he’d ever breathe again. The heat drove into his body a thousand times hotter than any mere splash of the San Diego sunshine. Hotter even than Ama could still make his blood race after thirteen years together.

  Why was it now, when they were ten thousand miles away that he could think of nothing but his wife and twelve-year old son? Ama had given him the gift of a son. It focused his thoughts. Even lying face down in the burning sand, so desperate that he wanted to give up or wither away, he knew one thing was true. Only by serving with honor and completing the mission could he face them. They were his strength and he needed to be theirs.

  The dust of the Iraqi soil clogged every pore. Fifty kilometers behind Saddam’s lines, his four-SEAL squad lay unmoving, covered in the sand, waiting out the midday heat.

  Elements of the Iraqi Republican Guard were patrolling the area. A full platoon—ten times their number—and a pair of tanks. A T-72’s treads had missed their hiding position by less than five feet, but if they’d so much as flinched, they’d have been gunned down before they could even raise a weapon. So they’d waited—and been lucky.

  The Guard and their tanks weren’t the real target. The targets were the Scud missiles they guarded. The ones that Saddam was firing at Israel and Saudi Arabia. The start of Operation Desert Storm was delayed for a week while Special Ops hunted and killed the Scud sites. The ones along the Jordanian border to the west and aimed at Israel were being hunted by Delta and SAS, but his SEAL team had been lucky enough to draw the short straw on the wasteland between Kuwait and Nasiriyah in the southeast corner of the country.

  Lying low through the day, they’d gathered valuable intel, including talk of the three other sites hidden in the area. It was finally falling dusk. Come full dark, they’d pull back and pinpoint those other three—calling in simultaneous airstrikes against all four launchers.

  This one—

  Barty grunted.

  “Al’ama!” A mild epithet by Arabic’s typically pornographic curse standards. A Republican Guard, stepping off the path to piss, had stumbled on Barty Hughes—literally.

  The guard struggled to keep his sidearm steady while grabbing for his rapidly sagging pants. He had Barty square in his sights. The hammer was already on the move.

  Mac emerged from his hiding place just a step to the guard’s other side. No other RGs nearby at the moment, but that wouldn’t last.

 

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