Page 108 of Rocky Mountain Home

“Which is why you want to run the gully with me. Because that’s nothing extreme,” Jesse teased.

“It’s a challenge,” Travis corrected him. “You’ll see what I mean when we get there, but seriously, I don’t think less of you for being freaked out about having a kid on the way. But maybe you’re going to be okay once he comes along. If you’ve got being an asshole out of your system.”

“I don’t know. Does being an asshole ever really leave someone’s system completely? I mean, look at you.”

Jesse stumbled against the counter with a laugh as Travis smacked him with his shoulder, walking past to hang up clean equipment on the wall.

They worked quickly, discussion moving to the things that had changed on the ranch while Jesse had been gone. He listened most of the time and let Travis talk.

It seemed there’d been a lot of changes to the Six Pack ranch, including combining efforts with the rest of the clan. A movement toward taking the four separate ranches and recombining them into the best use of resources.

It sounded complicated, but as Travis described it, Jesse could see the benefit. The increased ability to improve stock lines would make any geneticist drool.

By the time they had the horses saddled and were heading out down the coulee, Jesse was itching to reconnect with the land in a whole new way. It was late enough in the day that the summer sun had baked the earth, and the rich scent of grass and seeds and new growing things filled his nostrils.

On every exhale he let out some of his tension and confusion, restoring himself with the familiarity of home.

Travis led the way and Jesse let his borrowed horse follow, missing Danger but enjoying the ride anyway. When they broke into the open space that marked the start of the usual wild race forward, Jesse took off before Travis could get his horse ready. Blasting past him to enjoy the full-out sprint toward the edge of the cliffs and the rough-and-tumble trail heading into the more extreme section of Coleman land.

They raced through a rock-bottomed gulch, the horse’s hooves clattering, the sound ringing off the rock walls on either side of them. The wind rushed past, refreshing and cool.

Travis managed to pull up even, an enormous grin on his face as they cut through the final section of the gully and let the horses slow to cool themselves as they walked back up to the top of the flatlands.

Where there used to be hard stone and sharp edges, the land suddenly changed, and Travis pulled to a stop. Jesse looked down into one of his childhood play areas and felt as if he were staring at an ancient temple.

“God, that’s beautiful.”

His brother grinned. “Surprised you, didn’t I?”

In front of them lay a piece of geological history. Ages ago the Whiskey Creek River used to run through the gulch, before time and man had diverted its flow. For all the years of Jesse’s youth, the dry, flat creek bed had been a mess of boulders and dust, the steep banks cutting away with erosion every spring. Dead trees and leaves blown in by the fall winds and winter snows had accumulated in heaps like broken cages.

Walking the horses through the riverbed used to be like taking a trip into Mordor.

“Spring runoff? Seriously, that’s all that happened here?” Jesse was looking into something closer to Paradise. The sharp embankments were smooth curves. Entire chunks of the landscape had crashed into the valley bottom and the sharp change lifted the floor and spread dirt from the top of the embankment.

Everywhere he looked wildflowers bloomed. The dry riverbed flowed with colour, splashes of red, purple and yellow creating a mosaic. A Technicolor Wizard of Oz backdrop.

Travis leaned forward on the saddle horn, absently brushing the neck of his horse as they looked into the changed landscape. “Springtime, and a few forces of nature of the female variety.”

Jesse glanced at Travis in confusion.

His brother pointed to the side where a well-worn path led down into the river valley. “When we had all that rain, the canyon walls collapsed, and most of us wrote off this area as a lost cause. That’s when the Coleman girls started riding here on a regular basis. Blake checked it out—we all did—and we figured it was safe enough. They always stuck to the one path down and up. Ashley and Jaxi stopped riding a few months ago, but the others kept coming.”

The horses had taken their own lead and were following the path without being guided, and suddenly Jesse and Travis were surrounded by what could only be described as the scent of happiness. Blue sky. Sunshine. Heat shimmering off the riot of flowers as they lifted little faces toward the sun.

Jesse looked around him in astonishment. “It’s not possible, though. How could they make this big of a change in such a short time?”

“They didn’t.” Travis glanced over, expression gone thoughtful. “Turns out they started a couple years ago. Allison ordered wildflower seed in bulk, and she and Karen have been gathering seeds from around the Coleman fields for years. Every time they came to this area, the girls would toss down handfuls. Some blew away, some got caught in the rocks. All of it was lying dormant until the growing conditions got right.”

The horse swayed under Jesse in a gentle rocking motion. Travis and he sat in silence as the horses carried them forward through an entirely new section of the land—or at least that’s what it felt like. It was a place he’d seen a million times and still a place Jesse had never been before…

They were brushing down the horses when Travis made an interesting comment. His brother wasn’t even really talking about a specific thing, but the words echoed in Jesse’s head the entire trip back to the trailer where he grabbed a quick shower and got into clean clothes.

“Sometimes things change and we don’t even know it, but the result can be pretty spectacular.”

Jesse headed to the hospital, his thoughts running in circles. Talk about changes—Travis had always been someone Jesse could count on when he wanted to make mischief and raise hell.

When had his brother grown up?