Page 8

B-Lazy-U Ranch Interlude

The Waitress

The new waitress stood shoulder to shoulder with other B-Lazy-U Ranch employees on the loading dock behind the towering and magnificent central lodge. They’d been called to assemble there because the refrigerated semitrailer filled with food for Centurions Week had arrived. It was a cool but sunny morning, and the air smelled sharply of pine and woodsmoke. Breath condensation puffed from the mouths and nostrils of the assembled as they waited. The new waitress stood in the second row and didn’t engage in small talk with the others.

She’d learned that the lodge was built in the 1920s by a silver baron who had struck it rich on the eastern slope of Battle Mountain. The massive logs used for the construction of the central lodge had been harvested from the Encampment River Canyon and floated downstream by tie hacks. From where the logs had piled up near the confluence of the Encampment and Upper North Platte Rivers, teamsters transported them through a mountain pass to where the ranch was now located.

The B-Lazy-U Ranch, which had once been frequented by railroad tycoons, New York financial titans, Chicago gangsters, and politicians, had been the most modern and extravagant dude ranch in the Rocky Mountains at the time. Because of the long airstrip constructed through the sagebrush two miles away from the ranch, the B-Lazy-U was a frequent destination for pilots and guests who owned private planes. There were black-and-white photos of biplanes landing in the early years, as well as “borrowed” military fighters in the 1940s and ’50s.

As the years went by, the luster faded somewhat as the elites moved on to other more accessible resorts, and guests were now primarily extended families from the Eastern Seaboard and Deep South who came every year and bequeathed their annual weeklong stays to their next generation of faux-cowboys and -cowgirls.

Now, over a century since the B-Lazy-U had been founded, the place had been restored to its former glory. Although the lodge itself had been fully renovated, while maintaining its character—big-game animals from the area adorned its interior walls, all the hanging chandeliers were made of intertwined antlers or wagon wheels, the rooms and public spaces were still dark and clubby—everything else had been thoroughly modernized. The many guest cabins throughout the property were individual pods of luxury, with high-speed broadband internet, twenty-four-hour room service, and ranch staff on call to accommodate every request a guest could make.

Not everything had been upgraded, though. The only television available for guests was a small one located on the wall above the backbar in the saloon, where the Weather Channel, without volume, played nonstop.

The waitress had recently learned all about the history of the ranch—as well as the expectations the management demanded of its staff—at a mandatory two-day new-hire orientation conducted by the general manager.

There had been fewer than thirty “tenderfoots” in the room, which was the name they gave to new employees. She was a tenderfoot, and as the GM had informed them all, she was damned lucky to have been hired.

Any warm body could find a job in the hospitality industry, he’d said. There were more jobs available than people who would take them. But very few applicants could make the cut to become a team member of the B-Lazy-U Ranch.

“So consider yourself one of the chosen ones,” he’d said as he passed out nondisclosure agreements that required every tenderfoot’s signature.

She did consider herself one of the chosen ones, and she readily signed the NDA. The new waitress had been confident she’d be hired for Centurions Week. She not only had experience in the high-end luxury resort business, but her entire résumé just sang . There was never a doubt she’d get the job.

Eighty-five percent of the staff were longtime employees. Many of them came from three specific universities in the Deep South, where the ranch owners had long before established relationships, and others were the offspring of longtime guests. It was a very inbred atmosphere, and it was hard for new people to break into. Not that befriending the rest of the staff was her goal.

The staff was huge, she’d learned. They outnumbered the guests, six to one. It was more like working on a super-exclusive private yacht than a ranch. In addition to food and beverage, housekeeping, maintenance, groundskeeping, and transportation staff, there were horse wranglers, fishing guides, yoga instructors, hiking and climbing guides, shooting instructors, and personal concierges assigned to every cabin.

—

Like every resort with longtime staff, there was a well-established hierarchy and a social structure that was byzantine and often cruel. HR would be of little help if new employees complained, because they had so much on their plate already. The new waitress knew to listen, observe, say little, keep her head down, and work hard.

She’d learned from experience how important it was to establish good rapport with the host, the head of food and beverage, and the chief bartender. Others, despite how much seniority or self-importance they had, simply didn’t matter that much.

But as always, there was an exception to that rule. In this case, it was a waitress named Peaches Tyrell. Peaches, originally from somewhere in rural Georgia, was stout, but surprisingly nimble and quick. Now in her late sixties, she was the longest-serving employee on the ranch, and she knew everything and everybody. Guests hugged her first when they arrived, and she doted on them.

Peaches could also get an employee fired on the spot with a quick word to the F&B director.

Stay close to Peaches , the new waitress had told herself. Be kind to her. Respect her.

—

The hours were brutal for the staff at the B-Lazy-U. Everyone was expected to work sixteen-hour shifts, followed by downtime in the middle of nowhere. It wasn’t like the ranch staff could go clubbing or shopping on their days off, because there were no actual clubs except for cowboy bars in the tiny towns of Riverside and Encampment.

Although some team members made forays across the border to Steamboat Springs or beyond that to Fort Collins or even Denver on their off days, the new waitress had yet to join them.

She had places to go, but she didn’t speak of them to anyone. Especially not to Peaches.

—

But the pay was good, employee housing and food was decent, and there were real advantages to interacting with well-heeled guests from around the country and the world. Relationships, both business and personal, were fostered in the close-in environment. Ranch employees on the make shared success stores late at night in the employee bar.

The new waitress had no stories to tell yet.

But she would.

—

So, she stood on the loading dock in a group of servers, bussers, and several sous-chefs. The sous-chefs were allowed out of the kitchen to do manual labor because the actual chefs were crazy and paranoid, and they never left except to go on multiday benders.

—

Everyone was dressed in street clothes, or what could be referred to as street clothes at a mountain ranch resort. There were lots of fleece vests and ball caps, as they weren’t required to don their uniforms of snap-button, red-checked western-style shirts, tight jeans, cowboy hats, and aprons until the guests began to arrive.

The semitruck and refrigerated trailer maneuvered on a narrow circular path that cut through a grass meadow. Team members from the transportation department walked alongside the cab and shouted to the driver to stay on the pavement and not veer off into the grass. It would not do to have tire tracks in the turf when the guests arrived.

It took a while. The new waitress was patient, unlike others on the dock.

Tension was high.

“I heard the first jets arrived in Warm Springs this morning,” someone said. “We can expect the first Centurions to show up at dinnertime.”

“Then we better get this goddamn truck unloaded,” another team member groused.

“Language,” Peaches cautioned sweetly from the back. “Language.”

—

At last, the trailer of the vehicle inched up to the dock and blocked the new waitress’s view of Battle Mountain. The driver of the truck swung out and directed the transportation guys how to open the back doors so they wouldn’t damage the dock when they swung open.

“It’d be nice if they had a forklift for all of this stuff,” a busser standing next to the new waitress complained. “But no, we have to carry every box in one by one.”

“Ridiculous,” someone else said. “This is fucked up.”

“It’s the way we do things around here,” Peaches said in a honey-coated southern accent. Her comment quieted the complainers because they realized who she was, and that there was no advantage to pissing her off.

The trailer was full. Each box was cold. There were boxes of steaks, seafood, chicken, ice cream, and every other kind of frozen food imaginable. The boxes were stacked from the floor of the trailer to the ceiling.

The new waitress joined the line and slowly advanced forward. When she was in the cold trailer, she lifted a box of steaks and turned and carried it into the lodge to where the walk-in freezers were. The chefs were there to direct her where to place it.

She made dozens of trips. There was no break, and she didn’t need one. The waitress had no doubt she was more fit than anyone else on the loading dock.

—

The unloading took two hours. She made a point of being one of the last employees to enter the trailer for the few remaining containers. It was cold inside, and cavernous, by the time she did it.

One of the other servers trudged behind her, breathing heavily. It was Peaches. Sweat beaded on the woman’s forehead and wetted the armpits of her smock.

The new waitress turned to her and said, “Don’t worry about this. I’ve got it.”

“Are you sure?” Peaches asked. There was no doubt she was relieved.

“There’s only three boxes left,” the new waitress said. “I can handle it.”

“Bless you,” Peaches said. She turned and trudged toward the loading dock.

—

The three remaining boxes were unmarked except for an X on the side of them in black marker. They were in the left corner of the trailer. Each was no bigger than the food boxes she’d already carried.

As she approached them, the driver swung up into the trailer behind her. She turned and nodded to him. He curtly nodded back. The driver was fit and young with dark eyes and a prominent handlebar mustache. A jagged scar marked his right cheek.

“They’re heavy,” he said.

“I know,” she said. “Was there any problem getting through security at the gate?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” the driver said.

“You are.”

“I’ll help you.”

“Good. That way we can get them out of here.”

“Do you have a place for them?”

She said she did, but it wasn’t in the lodge. “I found an old vegetable cellar back in the woods. No one uses it for anything.”

“Perfect,” he said. He grunted as he lifted the first box.

“Follow me,” she said.