“I can smell saccharine a mile away.” Jesse pushed his chair back and carried his plate to the kitchen.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mia followed him.
“Think about it. All that BS you were just putting out wasn’t real sweetness, it was fake. Good try. I’ll give you that much.” Jesse settled his straw hat on his head.
Mia pushed her own chair back, jumped up and took her plate to the sink, then dashed off down the hall.
Jesse leaned around the corner of the utility room and winked at Addy. “See y’all later. Addy, would you please bring Dad out to the corral to see the alpacas when we get them all over here?”
“Just call either me or Sonny when you are ready,” Addy agreed.
Jesse whistled all the way to the barn, where he made a final inspection of the fencing and the stalls. Mia had done a good job in getting them cleaned out and fresh straw put down. He’d checked the books, and according to Dr. Stevie, two of the hembras would be ready to give birth within the next month.
“Things will be ready for them or for any other emergency with them,” he muttered. “I think they’re an unnecessary expense, but if Dad likes them, then the money doesn’t matter.”
“Who are you talking to?” Mia asked as she came up to the stall.
“Myself,” Jesse answered.
“I hope you’re getting good answers.” She picked up two ropes and a couple of halters. “You ever handled alpacas before?”
“Once or twice, and I work through some of my problems by talking to myself,” he said. “You should try it sometime.”
“No, thank you,” she said. “Which vehicle are we taking?”
“We’ll walk over there,” Jesse answered. “I see you’ve got rope and bridles. I figure we can each bring a hembra and baby the first trip, then we’ll have two more trips to get the rest of the ladies over here, and we can bring the macho last.”
“What’d you do? Read up on the alpaca lingo?” Mia headed out of the barn.
“Something like that.” He followed her outside.
Her stride was long, and she walked like she had somewhere to go. There was no lollygagging around with this girl. “Anyone can know what to call them. It takes experience to know how to handle them, and for your information, Tex could help us herd them over here all at once. He’s helped me muster up the sheep before.”
“I prefer to move them slower.” Jesse put a hand on the fence post and hopped over the barbed wire in one easy jump, only to find out that the ditch between him and the road was filled with water from the rain.
“Be careful,” he called out as she made the same jump.
She just gave him one of her famous looks and rolled her eyes. Jesse hopped over the ditch, crossed the road, and jumped over the other fence, then started out on the last quarter mile to the alpaca shed. If the old Hall Ranch had been separated from Sunflower with a dirt road, going from one place to another would have been a lot easier.
“This should have been my ranch,” Mia said. “I am the oldest grandchild, so it should have been passed down to me, not sold off.”
“Your grandparents probably needed the money to buy out your aunts and uncles’ interest in your Granny’s ranch out near Cactus,” he suggested. “Are you angry because of that?”
“Yes. No. Maybe a little,” she said.
“Would you have sold the place if Ricky asked you to?” Jesse asked.
“That’s downright mean and harsh.” She almost gritted her teeth. “Honestly, I don’t know, but we’ll never know, will we?”
“How many cousins do you have?” They weren’t far away from their destination now because Jesse could hear the alpacas’ strange humming noises as they communicated with each other.
“Uncle Nate has twins who are about eight years old. Uncle Quinn has a daughter who is ten now,” she said.
“I remember Nate and Quinn. They were about five years older than us, so they were already gone from home when we were in high school,” Jesse said.
“And yet, their kids are younger than me,” Mia sighed. “You were always her best friend, right?”
“That’s right,” Jesse answered about the time they reached the corral. He climbed over the side, looped an arm around one of the mama hembras, and talked softly to her. “We’re going to a better place for you. We’ve got it all cleaned up and ready, and you’re going to love it.” Mia handed him a bridle, and he gently eased it into place then attached the lead rope.
“Not bad,” she said as she did the same with the other mama.
“Thank you. I did a little research on them last night,” Jesse said.
The animals were tame enough that it didn’t take much to get them separated and out of the corral. Then it was a simple matter of leading them over to their new home. Right up until they reached that ditch full of water, and the hembras set their heels. The crias had been romping behind their mothers like little wind-up toys. When the grown-ups decided that they weren’t wading through water and climbing up a hill to a barbed wire fence, the babies balked, too.
“Let’s take them on down the road a bit to where the gate is,” Jesse suggested.
“If they’d just hop over the puddle, we could lead them down the fence line and we wouldn’t have to be so careful with the crias and the traffic,” Mia said.
“If plan A doesn’t work, we move to plan B. If we hear a car, we may have to carry the babies until it gets past us.” Jesse slipped an arm around his alpaca and whispered in her ear.
“Now you are an alpaca whisperer?” Mia asked.
“Nope, but that mama told me that she’d prefer to go down the road rather than jump the ditch. It’s only a few hundred yards.” Jesse tugged gently on the lead rope, and the animal followed him.
Sure enough, when they got to the place where Jesse could open the gate, the alpaca sailed over the ditch and then turned around and called its baby to it. The cria ran up and down the ditch and then made a jump, landed on the other side, and nuzzled against its mama’s neck. Crazy animals, Jesse thought. but then realized the first place had water in it and that's probably what spooked the alpaca.
Mia hopped over the water, tugged on the lead rope, and her animal made the leap. When the baby started over, it misjudged the distance and landed neck deep in the water. The mother panicked and pulled against her rope, and the other female became agitated.
Jesse handed both ropes to Mia and waded right out in the water to get the baby, put it on his shoulders, and started up the slippery slope. He’d only gone a step or two when he fell backward into the water, but he managed to hold the cria up high enough to keep water from getting in its little nose.
In seconds, Mia had tied the two mother alpacas to a fence post and waded out into the water to get the cria. She managed to get it up onto dry land so it could run to its mama for comfort before she made a misstep and landed firmly on her butt in the water right beside Jesse.
“I’m sure glad this is not mud.” Jesse stood in water nearly to his knees. “I’m cooled off. How about you? Getting those mamas tied up was fast thinking. You did good.”