The Last Letter

The mail was here. Alexa announced it, and Sandy sounded off. Short of mealtime and shadowing me, it was her only job. Not the right type of work for a cattle dog, but I don’t have horses anymore. They’re such a smart breed and loyal to a fault. Their personality is very distinctive, they’re not everyone’s cup of tea. I’ve had them for years, and I can’t imagine having any other type of dog. Anyway, Sandy’s old now. I don’t think she’ll last another year. She was an adorable puppy, all white except for that black mask. She would fall asleep on Travis’s boots, and she loved carrots. As she got older, she’d herd the chickens. Thankfully, she never went after them. Even that crazy 20-bird science project we inherited from a friend that wouldn’t stay in the pen with ours. We never needed a roof over our own chicken pen. One winter evening, a hen from that bunch decided to escape and move her nest of chicks beside the horses’ water bucket. In the morning, she was nowhere to be found, and all the chicks were frozen. At one point, there were at least half a dozen of those errant roosters in the neighbor's trees, sounding off at three in the morning. And no, they don’t just crow at dawn. Needless to say, the neighbors were none too happy. It didn’t last more than a couple of months, though. The coyotes took care of them. The dogs hated coyotes and would run them off. We had one dog that would run full blast straight for them, headfirst into their belly, the way dolphins ram sharks. The dogs hated the ravens, too. My dad always said that when it’s time to get another dog, it’s important to get your pup while your old dog is still young enough to teach them. They learn so much from each other, like how to defend their home and know its boundaries. Following that basic rule, we never needed a fence. Though our dogs were a canny bunch, we really didn’t get Sandy soon enough for the other dogs to train her up. They were old and gone by the time she was a year old. So, Travis and I trained her. She went everywhere with us. She followed us on trail rides and fought the urge to heel on roping nights. But she stayed home with me while Travis was bull-riding. We had livestock and a garden that needed tending. She always mourned the first day he was gone. She is truly a pack animal, and all was not right with the world when someone was missing. 

Travis loved bull riding and spent many weekends away. He started with mutton busting when he was six, and he was hooked. We met in Little Britches, him bull-riding and me barrel racing. We saw each other at events and started dating in high school. After that, we traveled the circuit together and eventually got married. I stopped barrel racing to manage the ranch, and he made it to the circuit finals 3 years in a row. It was a dangerous sport. He went down the well one time and got hung up for only a second or two, but it nearly ripped his arm from its socket. He ended up with a torn rotator cuff on that one and was out for the rest of the year. It could have been worse.

***

Sandy nudged Cassie out of her reverie. She had been staring at the crumpled letter as memories poured through her mind like the rushing of the Big Thompson River in spring. There was no return address. Travis never put a return address on his letters from the road. There really wasn’t any point. He made a habit of writing her a note after each ride. Most of the time, he got home before the letter arrived. She had his letters stored in a beautiful mesquite box he’d made for her their first Christmas together. It was a rectangle with golden edges and the red heart of the wood in the center. No hinges, just a carved top expertly crafted to fit. She had it tucked into the bottom of the hope chest at the foot of her bed. All that remained of her former life was hidden away there. Many years had passed since it had been opened. It was full of ribbons won from events in sleepy little cowboy towns and championship buckles lovingly wrapped in Travis’s old t-shirts and as bright as the day they were first won. Newspaper clippings were carefully mounted in photo albums, and if you opened one, you’d see Travis smiling for the camera while accepting his award or an action shot of him on a bucking bull captured by some attentive photographer. It pained Cassie to open that chest. She never did get over losing him. They had big plans. They wanted a family full of kids. They wanted to pass on their love of rodeo and ranching. Despite 14 years together, the children never came.

They lived on 30 acres just north of Longmont. It was lovely then before all the city people moved in. Rolling green and yellow hills of agriculture and prairie dogs had been replaced with housing tracts. 

One night while Travis was out rodeoing, Cassie got a phone call. She dreaded phone calls when he was away. He only called if there was an emergency. He’d drawn a rank bull that go round. He was too old for bull-riding, and she’d asked him to retire. She wanted to focus on the ranch and the horse breeding program they had started. Every rodeo, he swore that it would be his last, but he just couldn’t give it up. She always thought it would be a bull that would take him from her. The roads were icy that night, and on the way home, he’d had a blowout on his old Ford truck. He lost control, and it rolled a number of times before coming to rest on its cab. He was pinned inside. That time of night, the highway was desolate. It was an hour or so before someone drove by and saw his truck. When he finally arrived at the hospital, it was too late.

She couldn’t bear to live there without him, but she didn’t have the heart to let go of the old farmhouse they had renovated together. So, she sold off most of the land to the farmer next door and rented the house to a nice young couple with three kids. She sold the livestock, the equipment, and the furniture and bought a cabin in the Wet Mountains southeast of Westcliffe. The Sangre de Cristos fourteeners spread out before her, a high-country salve to soothe the painful days.

She left ranching behind and completed an IT degree at Colorado Community College in Salida. After graduation, she was able to work from home and was grateful for the remoteness the job offered. She spent 10 years in the mountains with Sandy before the couple renting her house gave notice. They had found a place to buy and would be moving out. She boarded up the cabin and moved back just as winter set in. Sandy was grateful. The snow was hard for her now. The young couple had made updates during their time there. It was good and helped erase the painful memories. She’d been back home for about a year when the letter arrived.

Cassie wasn’t sure how she ended up sitting on the floor and leaning against the front door, but Sandy brought her back to the moment, licking the salty tears from her face. She slowly ripped open the yellowed envelope and removed the letter. She gently unfolded it and began to read:

Hi Darlin,

I hope you’re doing all right. Supposed to be cold and stormy tonight. I wish I were there to help.

I had a good ride. You would’ve been proud. I’m coming home with a nice fat check and a buckle. It was a great way to go out. I promised this would be my last ride, and I aim to keep my word. I’m sorry I put you through this for so many years.

I’m headed home tonight. I’ll probably be there before you get this letter.

Love you,

T