Wrangled Read online

  Wrangled

  By

  Natasha Stories

  Copyright 2014 by Natasha Stories

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. All rights reserved.

  Warning: sexual content. Intended for mature audiences over the age of 18.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 1

  “Cody’s Hank’s nephew, you know,” Janet said, in response to a remark I’d made while I helped her in the kitchen.

  “Oh, no, I didn’t. He doesn’t look anything like Hank.”

  “No, looks like his dad I reckon, but he’s his sister’s boy. That was a sad case.”

  “What, Cody’s mom?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Poor little thing got mixed up with a bad hombre. Hank’s dad was a drug dealer.”

  I gasped, clapping my hand over my mouth. I may have been sheltered, but everyone knew drug dealers were bad news. “What kind of drugs?”

  “Not sure what-all. But meth for sure. I think he was cookin’ it. It’s a wonder Cody didn’t get mixed up in it.”

  “What’s meth?” I asked.

  “Crystal meth?” she tried. I shook my head. “Crank? Ice?” At my blank look, she said, “Girl, don’t you know anything?”

  “I guess not,” I said.

  “Well, it’s the devil’s own brew,” she said. “Poor Elsie went all skin and bones, and her skin just about boiled up into the worst case a’ acne you ever did see. She smelled bad, too. And then, one day when she was just thirty-eight, she up and had a heart attack. I thought Hank was gonna murder that bastard she married…what’s wrong, child?”

  I had both hands over my mouth, giggling. I knew it wasn’t right; this wasn’t a funny story. It was tragic, really--but, Janet had said ‘bastard’ just like it was any other word. I was trying to get my face straight when I said, “You said ‘bastard’.”

  “Oh my great-aunt Harriet,” Janet said. “You girls have gotta quit gettin’ all silly on us when we say somethin’, Annalee. Puts the thoughts right outta our heads. Now, what was I talkin’ about?”

  “Hank was gonna murder some bastard,” I said, suppressing another giggle.

  Janet gave me a severe look. “This ain’t funny, girl.”

  I took a deep breath and sobered instantly. “I know, Janet. I’m sorry.”

  “So Hank went after his brother-in-law and the bastard ran off. Ain’t been seen in these parts since.”

  “How long ago was that?” I asked, just to keep her talking.

  “’Bout five years, I reckon. Yep, Cody just turned twenty-one, and he was sixteen when he come here, all prickly and sullen. ‘Fraid someone was gonna offer him some sympathy. Hank and Russ had their hands full with that boy.”

  “Was he a bad kid?” I asked.

  “Naw, not a bad kid, just, had a chip on his shoulder, y’know? He was okay with the older fellers, but if one a’ the other young hands give him a look he didn’t like, they’d be down rollin’ in the dirt an’ tryin’ to gouge each other’s eyes out.”

  That sounded like a bad kid to me, but the Cody I knew hardly said a word, and was always neat and clean, except when he’d been out working with the others. Now I was more curious than ever, and I hoped Janet didn’t remember what started this conversation, or she might close up on me. “So, what changed?”

  “Well, near as I can figure, it all changed when Cody decided he wanted to rodeo, and Russ told him he’d sell him a ropin’ horse if he wanted to work off the price here on the ranch. But, the catch was, he’d hafta stop fightin’.”

  “Oh, so is that why he’s out every evening training that spotted horse?”

  “It’s called a paint. A frame overo, to be precise. And yes, that’s Cody’s ropin’ horse, though he’s never been in a rodeo.”

  “Why?”

  “’Cause, it costs money to enter rodeo events, girl, and Cody’s not through payin’ off the horse. I guess Russ figured a little extra practice time would make up for his handicap.”

  “He’s handicapped?” I asked, puzzled.

  “Not like you’re thinkin’” she said. “When he does get to a rodeo, he’ll be competin’ against men his age and older who’ve been ridin’ in rodeo events since they was young’uns. Junior rodeo on up. They’re experienced in the rodeo, see. Cody’s experienced in real-life ranchin’, and there’s a difference.”

  “Will he be able to win?”

  “There’s the question we’re all askin’. Hank’s money says yes, mine says no. We’ll just hafta wait and see.”

  After my kitchen chores, I went to put Al and Tali down for the night. Tali still wanted to nurse, but I was weaning her as best I could, with no one to help or advise me. If she was too fussy at night, I’d nurse her a little, just ‘til she dropped off to sleep, then put her down as careful as I could, to keep from waking her. In the daytime, I wasn’t so obliging. She was eighteen months, now, and plenty old enough to be weaned. Al stopped nursing when he was only twelve months.

  When both were asleep, I went out into the twilight to watch Cody put his horse through his paces. Some of the other hands were there, too, one foot up on the fence rail, arms folded across the top rail with their elbows sticking out like wings. Others were letting calves out of the chute on the other side of the practice ring, one at a time, so Cody could rope it, jump off his paint horse, wrangle it to the ground and tie the poor thing up with three of its legs wound up in a short rope.

  As sorry as I felt for the calf, I had to admire the cowboy’s muscles, all ripply under his plaid shirt. Cody was one fine-looking young man, which was what I’d said to Janet that started her talking this evening. With his blond hair and light blue eyes, he could have been my brother. I was real glad he wasn’t.

  I was ready to move on with my life, and if I had my way, Cody would be a part of it.

  ~~~

  Ten months previously

  When the federal agents came to arrest my husband, I was nursing Tali. Suddenly, screams from my sister-wives and some of the children set Tali crying, and I quickly covered up, but it was too late to run. Everyone else in the house tried either to run or to hide, but I was caught immediately. Terrified, I begged the agent who had me by the arm to let me find my son. Alma had been in the children’s schoolroom with the other two-year-old toddlers, learning a song for Sunday’s worship service. The agent was kind; we found Alma among the other children, all waiting for their mothers to claim them.

  They sorted us all into rooms, the younger ones like me all together in the big family room and the older ones in a separate room each with their children. Celeste, Ciara, Janey and Amber, all holding their babies except for Amber, who was just four months pregnant, were huddled together crying. I wanted to tell them everything would be okay, but I was busy comforting Al and the baby. And I didn’t know whether it really would be okay. In fact, I didn’t know anything. Not what would become of our husband, Jed Nielsen, the Prophet of the Reformed Apostles of Latter Day Saints, nor what would become of us. Not even whether they would allow us to k
eep our babies with us. With the last thought, I broke down and cried, too.

  The authorities took us by bus to Kingman, where they kept us all in a hotel for a few days, each of us in a separate room with our babies. If I hadn’t been so scared and worried about what came next, I’d have enjoyed it. Someone came in every day and cleaned the room, made the bed and everything. They brought disposable diapers for the babies, which was a luxury I had never known, and food like I’d never had. Pizza was my favorite.

  The other girls adjusted each in her own way, Celeste at seventeen, Ciara and Janey both sixteen, treating it as a lark and chattering about what they’d tell our sister-wives when we got home, as if they didn’t understand that we might not go back. Poor little Amber, the baby among us at fifteen, was so afflicted with morning sickness and terror that they had to take her to the hospital, but she was back with us in just a couple of days.

  Not long afterward, a woman from the Department of Family Services came to talk to us. “You girls are a problem,” she told us. “You won’t fit into the system if you keep your babies with you, and you’re too young to be set loose to fend for yourselves. But, we have a solution if you will agree.”

  We looked at each other in fear. This was what I had worried about...our babies being taken from us. None of us loved Jed, and we weren’t unhappy to be shed of him, but we did love the kids. The others looked to me to be our spokesperson. “What solution is that?”

  The representative from DFS told us that a wealthy rancher named Russell White knew about us because Charity Green had met him and asked him to help us. We didn’t know the whole story, but he was here with an offer to the state to take us into his home as his wards, along with our children, until we were eighteen. The only catch was, his home was a ranch in Wyoming.

  We might never see our older sister-wives again, or our husband, especially if he were convicted. It was an offer we accepted gratefully. What choice did we have? Besides, it seemed like a miracle that we’d be able to stay together and our babies wouldn’t be taken from us or each other. After all, they were half-brothers and sisters. They deserved a chance to be raised together.

  We knew our lives would change, but none of us understood then just how much. That was the other miracle, the change that opened up our world, but we didn’t know that then. We didn’t mind being sister-wives, that’s the way we were raised. But none of us had been happy to be chosen by the Prophet. When he brought Amber into the covenant, it made seventeen of us. Seventeen wives, beginning with Sister Nielsen who, at fifty-six, was old enough to be Amber’s grandmother and was the Prophet’s first wife.

  She was mean, too. Always bossing us, and if we disobeyed, or didn’t obey fast enough, corporal punishment was the consequence. That was a big word that meant the Prophet would beat us on our bare backsides, with his hand sometimes, or with a little whip he had in his office. It always ended with the one being punished bent over the desk and him driving into her from behind, shouting about how we were sinners and we’d all go to hell if we didn’t obey him like our wedding vows said. That’s how Naphtali was conceived, but I didn’t hold it against her. My sweet daughter was innocent, no matter what an evil man her father was.

  We hadn’t been at the ranch for very long when Russ, our savior, flew off one day in a chartered plane, and returned a few days later with Sister Charity. She made us call her just Charity, though. She didn’t want to hear any RALDS terms like sister, or sister-wives. She explained that we had never been legally married to the Prophet, but that he owed us all child support. However, it was unlikely we’d get it, since he was bound for prison. She was the black sheep at home in Bethel City, but now she became our big sister, a real sister, not a sister-wife.

  Russ told us not to worry, that he would provide for us. I turned eighteen just a couple of weeks after we got there, just before Christmas. Russ said I could stay if I wanted, at least until I had some idea of what I wanted to do with my life. But, I already knew what I wanted…I wanted to be a wife and mother. Just not with the Prophet. Since Charity turned out to be pregnant too, we all sort of coasted until after their baby girl was born, except Russ had a tutor out every day for high school equivalency prep classes. We were all going to get that GED, at least.

  In the meanwhile, we had landed in what most single girls would have considered Paradise. Two dozen cowboys worked for Russ, all single, all eligible. Except for a few that were too old, like Hank Miller, the ranny and cow boss. I had an idea he was sweet on Janet, the cook, anyway. It was too bad that we all still felt sort of married, though. Russ said that if the Prophet was convicted and went to prison, it would be more real to us that we weren’t really, and that time would help, too. I had my doubts. I wanted divorce papers.

  Chapter 2

  Almost from the time we all got to the ranch, Russ had a plan for us. He had that tutor all ready to come out every day the weather was good, and he made one of the bedrooms in his big house into a playroom for the babies. The tutor brought two ladies out from Rawlins with him, and one watched the babies while we studied. The other one made up all our beds until we told Russ we needed something to do, too. Then she just cleaned Russ’s part of the house and we cleaned ours, taking turns with the playroom and schoolroom and doing our own rooms ourselves. I didn’t blame the younger girls for stopping at that. Their babies were younger even than Tali, and of course Amber’s baby wasn’t born until we’d been there for almost six months.

  I felt like an adult, though, and for a while I was afraid Russ was going to tell me to go soon, since I turned eighteen almost as soon as we got there. It got a little better when Charity came back. She’d had a terrible time with morning sickness, and though it had stopped by the time she got back, she was still so skinny and wore out that we all pampered her and little Amber, who was a month further along but still puking.

  When we were all about crazy with being cooped up together in that house, even if it was big, there was some trouble with the Prophet and some other men. Russ wouldn’t tell us exactly what happened, and Charity went around looking scared and white-eyed for a long time. Then it was all over, and they sat us down to tell us that Russ had bought up the whole town of Bethel City and was running out the men who had plural wives. We didn’t know what to make of it, but Charity said that they were turning all the houses into shelters for plural wives who wanted to escape the life. She said I had a choice; I could stay there with the others or go back home, since I was of age, and they’d put me up in the shelter, help me get educated and find a job.

  My mind screamed NO! But what came out of my mouth was, “Oh, Charity, there’s nothing left for me there. My parents took off for Mexico right after the Prophet took me to wife, and my only friends are here. Please, can I stay with you?”

  Without even looking at Russ for his agreement, she said, “Of course you can, honey! This is your home until you want to find another.” I hoped she meant that, because I didn’t see any reason to ever find another, unless it was one of my own with a husband. And right here was the best place I could think of to find a husband. Me and the other girls, too.

  Next thing we knew, Amber was in labor and Russ and Charity took her to Rawlins to a hospital to have her baby. She came home with the cutest little boy I’d ever seen next to Al. To tell the truth, we all looked kind of alike, and any of us could have claimed any of the children. Some were shorter and some were taller, but we all had blue eyes and long blonde hair that we kept done up in a topknot in front with the long tail swirled around and pinned into a bun. At home, that would have showed everyone we were married. Here, it just kept it out of the way. Then, Celeste said she didn’t want those cute cowboys thinking she was married, so she started keeping hers in a long braid down her back instead of a bun. The others, all but me, started doing the same. I don’t know why I didn’t, maybe because I’d been married longer.

  One night when it was warmer than usual, Celeste came and asked me to watch her little Daniel, who was Tal
i’s age less a couple of weeks. She was going to step out with one of the cowboys, a boy not much younger than the one I had my eye on, Cody.

  “Be careful,” I said. “You don’t know him very well. Don’t you think you should ask permission from Russ or Charity?”

  Her eyes flashed at me, and with a toss of her head, she said, “They aren’t my parents. I’m a grown woman with a child. I can do whatever I want.”

  I shook my head, but I agreed to watch Daniel. If I hadn’t she’d have gotten one of the others to do it, and I didn’t want them to get any ideas. I also wanted to have a talk with Charity about it. Everything was so confusing! We were young, and we were just beginning to understand how wrong our marriages had been. But at the same time, we were responsible for our kids, and that made us feel grown up. Charity was always willing to talk to us when these thoughts got to be too much to figure out on our own. As soon as Celeste left, I told Al to watch a movie on the TV in our room and took Tali and Daniel with me to find Charity.

  “Charity, I need to talk to you.”

  “Sure, Annalee, what can I do for you? And why do you have Daniel? Where’s Celeste?”

  “That’s what I want to talk about. I don’t want to get her in trouble, though.”

  “Don’t worry about that. What’s going on?”

  “Well, she’s out visiting with one of the cowboys,” I started.

  “Visiting?”

  “Charity, I don’t know what they’re doing, maybe just talking. But we need to figure this out. All of us are grown women with babies, but the law says we’re not grown. And there are all those cowboys here, that look pretty good to us. It’s bound to cause some trouble.”

  “I see. Let me have a talk with Russ about it. What about you, Annalee? Do you have your eye on a cowboy?”

  “I’ll keep that to myself if you don’t mind,” I said. Already, I’d decided that Cody was for me, but I wasn’t in a hurry. Still, I kept my eyes on the other girls so I could set them straight if one of them started looking at Cody that way.