Yellowstone: Love and Cowboys

Stay Here

"Stay here." It took less than two minutes for her to decide that she needed to ignore what Travis had told her and confront Katie herself. After all, did they know her sister? No, not the way she did. They'd confront her like men, and try to be rational and reasonable when this was a situation where being rational and reasonable was not going to work. What did they know about how Katie was feeling? She remembered what her mother had told her. Men think they are good at being reasonable, but when it comes to understanding and feeling they have nothing on women.

The puppy crawled into her crate and Coralee shut the door, Shelly would be falling asleep soon anyway. She looked out the window and could see the lights from the bunkhouse, but it was too far away to spot Rip and Travis. She wished right now she possessed an owl's night vision so she could see in the dark.

She put on a coat and ran across the lawn and let herself into the pasture. With the light coming out of the bunkhouse windows she was able to see Travis and Rip confronting Katie by corral.

She couldn't hear what they were saying, but it was the two of them against her sister and that was unfair odds. The three of them were arguing and to her, it seemed that a cooler head should prevail and for right now it was hers.

"Hey, arguing isn't going to help," she called out, and the men turned, surprised to see her standing there. Travis looked bewildered, he'd told her to stay back at the house and that was where he expected her to be. Didn't he know her by now, she thought? Nothing surprised Rip--she could see the ghost of a smile forming beneath his beard. Katie looked relieved.

Ignoring all of them she asked Katie point blank, "What are you doing with that pistol?"

Katie no longer felt cornered by the men, so it was easy to answer her sister. "I got it for protection after Bob left, it was just me and I felt scared, it made me feel safer."

Coralee moved closer to her, "Why Katie, why did you feel scared? When it was just you and me we never felt the need to have a firearm to protect us! Remember how Dad wanted to get us a gun to take with us and we turned him down? You don't even like guns, Katie, that's what you've always said. And if you needed it for protection, why did you have it hidden in your suitcase? Mom carried a little twenty-two and she kept it in her purse."

"Well, I was afraid Tate might get hold of it," Katie's arguments were growing weaker.

"First of all, Tate would never get into your stuff. Second, every man on this ranch, young or old knows how to handle a firearm. If Tate found it, he knows enough to make sure the safety was on, and he'd bring it to Kayce. That kid is better behaved for his age than we ever were." She looked at Katie, waiting for the truth to finally come out.

"Yes, okay, there was a brief minute, no longer than that, when I considered taking my life," Katie finally broke down and let the tears out, "My relationship with Ryan had failed, or that's what I thought. I thought Bob and I were a good match, we could go on the road and rodeo together, it seemed perfect, at the time. I didn't know who I was marrying and found out the hard way. Then he took off with everything, leaving me stranded and I felt like I couldn't take it anymore."

"Why didn't you call me, Katie, I would have been there in a heartbeat!" Coralee put her arms around her sister and glared at the men. You guys think you're so smart, she thought, you should have left this to me in the first place.

"I was so embarrassed; I didn't want you to know how badly I screwed up. You and Travis, you're so happy, you're so perfect for each other, you know? That's what I wanted for me and when I realized just how stupid I'd been I couldn't face you. I'd reached the lowest point of my life and realized I'd hit bottom. I bought the pistol and brought it back to the motel, then realized what I'd done and couldn't believe that I'd even considered it. I kept it because I was going to be traveling alone and it scared me. That's all it's been for since, protection, I promise."