Last Chance Llama Ranch (8 page)

Dolly snorted. “Never mind Sam. Boy's got a bee up his butt this morning, though I don't know why. He gets ornery every now 'n' then, but that's his own business. Moody so-and-so.” Dolly passed Merry a worn but scrupulously clean cotton napkin. “Eat up, hon. We can talk after we chaw. I wanna get to know you a bit too, and the fluffies can wait awhile—there's plenty of natural grazing right now with the good monsoon rains we've been having, and they ain't too high-maintenance, not really.”

Five minutes later Merry had
divorciadoed
her
huevos
from the plate, and relocated the to-die-for dish to her stomach. “Oh,
man
, that's good,” she sighed, patting her tum. “With food like that, you could make this place a major tourist destination if you wanted to.”

Dolly beamed. “I do cook for the guests we take on overnight adventures,” she said modestly. “And I send along picnic baskets for the ‘lunch with the llamas' tours. Haven't heard any complaints yet.”

Merry had seen the Cassidys' ancient, cringe-worthy website, so she had an idea what they offered tourists. But she—and her readers—needed to know more. “I'd love to hear all about it,” she encouraged. “What you do here, I mean, and how you came to run the ranch.”

Dolly waggled a finger at her guest. “Not without more coffee.” She poured Merry a second cup of spoon-could-stand-up-in-it sludge, handing over the mug with a jerk of her head to indicate Merry should precede her out the door. Merry, who never messed with a woman who had perfected the secret to effective caffeination, did as bid and stepped out onto a porch guarded by a row of rattan rocking chairs.

Her breath caught in a totally wham-out-of-the-blue sob.

“Oh,” she said, a bare wisp of sound. Merry's butt thumped onto the seat of one of the chairs. Her eyes filled with tears that didn't quite spill over, blurring the very sight that had started the waterworks. What she'd seen last night had been impressive enough. But out back…

Dorothy Cassidy had a million-dollar view.

A hundred miles of painters and poets' inspiration rolled and rollicked from Dolly's humble stoop all the way to the horizon. A field of rough southwestern scrub grass, saturated a rare deep mint from the recent monsoons, was rimmed on either side by stately cottonwoods, their boles wrinkly as Shar-Peis and their bushy canopies teased into music by the breeze. A little creek could be seen to one side, glinting in the morning light. And straight ahead? Heaven.

Even the clouds, gold-limned at the edges by the climbing sun, couldn't steal the thunder of the vermillion sandstone bluffs and distant blue-purple mountains that created an abrupt and magnificent stop for the eye. It was like every western movie come to life, like God had painted his wisdom in stone and sand with the brush of time, wind, and water. Striations of cream, salmon, rust, and bloodred were set off by sagebrush and the occasional piñon, the whole flat-topped, with tall spires calved off the main mesa to stand like natural chimneys against the ever-blue sky.

The creak of the screen door told Merry her hostess was joining her.

“
Damn
, Dolly.”

“I know.” There was an understandable helping of smugness in the older woman's voice. “I get to grouching over my lot in life, I come out here and I shaddup.”

Though she was loath to turn away from the stunning view, Merry angled her rocking chair for a better view of her host, who had settled into the seat to Merry's right. “Tell me about it,” she invited. “How did you get started running the ranch?”

So Dolly told.

“My husband John and I bought the Last Chance about eight years back,” she began, “thinking we'd run some cattle or just raise horses. John had some money from the oil fields, and I was ready as hell to leave Texas—I'm from Alamogordo, New Mexico, originally, and Texans ain't exactly our bosom buddies—so we came out here, figuring to spend our golden years. Only the years weren't so golden. Once we were out here in the ass end of Eden, John not off working and me with barely anyone to talk to, we started getting on each other's nerves. Imagine,” she marveled, “a man who won't so much as read a Stephen King novel to pass the time. Pretty soon, he was passing the time with a senorita from the village, and that was all she wrote. John vamoosed after about a year, leaving me with a pile of debts and this little slice of picturesque pie. There was no way I was up to wrangling a herd of beef on my own, and I couldn't afford to hire a lot of help.”

“That must have been scary,” Merry said. Her own debts were daunting enough. If she'd been left high and dry in a place as isolated as Aguas Milagros, she'd have lost her mind.

“Nah, not scary, really,” Dolly demurred. “But those were tough times, I'll admit. And I made a few questionable choices, let a few choose me.” A smile lifted her lips.

“Oh, really?” Merry asked. She sensed the story was about to get good.

“Yup.” Dolly settled more comfortably in her seat. “I fell for the fool alpacas around the time John lit out, and getting myself a passel of them was nutty enough, but it was the damn llamas that really sealed my fate. A
friend
,” she said darkly after a sip of her sludge, “saddled me with the first of them. What can I say; I was feeling a bit vulnerable at the time.” She shook her head ruefully. “Well, let me back up.” She took a deep breath, let out a smoker's hack, and launched into her tale. “It began with one particular llama named Mario, who turned out to be
Marianne
, and who turned out to be pregnant, the sneaky so-and-so.”

Merry lifted a brow—the more piratical one, since it was already higher than the other. “A sneakily pregnant llama named Marianne?”

Dolly nodded. “I'd bought the first of the alpacas already—a herd sire, a couple promising pedigreed females. Spent way too much on them—this was before the great alpaca bubble of '09 burst, and back then us fiber farmers all thought we'd struck woolly gold. I was still learning about spinning and grading fleece—I've always been a keen crocheter, but I couldn't tell my grade one from the kind that's only good for stuffing and rug weaving, never mind guess the microns just by eyeball.”

Merry decided an explanation of “microns” could wait. “Mm,” she said encouragingly.

Dolly obviously sensed she'd digressed. “Anyhoo, I was just getting started with my alpaca breeding program, though they were mostly pets at that time. Then Needlepoint Bob swings by the hacienda one afternoon, all hangdog with those soulful brown eyes. He's hauling Mario behind him on a lead.” She scowled. “And ol' Bob, he starts in with the sales pitch. ‘Oh Dolly, you'll love him.'” She made her deep voice even deeper, imitating this oddly named mystery man. “‘Llamas are great guard dogs. They're so low-maintenance. They carry your packs. And so friendly!'”

Dolly sighed. “Well, Mario
was
pretty cute, and Needlepoint Bob swore he couldn't keep him, since he was selling his acreage and moving into the trailer behind the café. So I said, sure, put him in the high pasture, and then Bob really turns on the charm. ‘Mario's got a few buddies—just a couple!' he swears. ‘They all grew up together, so it wouldn't really be fair to separate them.' As if they were kittens.” Dolly shook her head, remembering.

“So how many was a couple?” Merry asked.

“Six.” Dolly laughed ruefully. “And five of them pregnant, by the last. Didn't find out until eleven months later—they gestate for nearly a year, you know, and I hadn't thought to second-guess Bob on the subject of their sex. Now, they
were
good guard dogs, I'll admit—they'll set to stamping and squealing if any predator comes near. I've seen 'em scare off a mountain lion, if you can believe.”

Merry had never seen a mountain lion in action outside of the odd National Geo channel special, but she guessed from Dolly's tone they were fairly fierce. “Wow,” she said. “So what happened?”

“Once you get a reputation for being a llama lover, you're really in for it. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry comes out of the woodwork; ‘Oh please, won't you take Tweedledum and Tweedledee?' ‘Oh, Dolly, you're such a saint. Can't you care for this poor, broken-down boy my grandma left me?'” She sucked back the last of her coffee. “And what was I gonna say? They were all headed for slaughter if I couldn't take 'em in. So next thing I know, I got sixteen of the critters, all munching their weight in hay and looking to me to love 'em. Which I did, even though it wasn't doing my wallet any favors. I'd always thought I'd spend my later years traveling the world,” she said with a wistful look in her eyes. “Had all the brochures ordered—Paris to the Pyramids, Thailand to Timbuktu—but after Bob stuck me with the damn llamas, well, all that went out the window, along with every spare cent I had. The money my alpaca yarn brought in couldn't begin to cover their keep. If it weren't for Sam coming to live with me just when I was about to go bust, and him coming up with the idea to run llama tours, we'd have gone under years ago. Least now the buggers work for a living.”

Hearing the obvious love and pride in her hostess's tone, Merry began to see Sam Cassidy in a slightly more charitable light.
Slightly
. “You can't use llama fur for yarn?” she asked, leaning one arm over the porch rail, mostly empty coffee cup dangling from her hand.

“Wool. Not fur,” Dolly corrected with a smile. “Oh no, hon. I mean, you
can
, but you wouldn't wanna wear a sweater made out of it. Maybe a wall hanging or a jacket if it had a thick lining. But a working llama's bred with the kinda coat that doesn't make great yarn—least, the ones I adopted are. And alpaca's just a whole 'nother ball game—once you go 'pac, we like to say, you never go back.”

And it was at that moment that Merry learned why.

Something stuck its nose in her coffee cup.

And snuffled.

Merry jumped, the last drizzle of her coffee leaping from the cup…and onto the muzzle of one very innocent-looking alpaca.

“Oh. My. God,” Merry breathed.

Want.

Want.

Want. Want. Want. Want. Want.

B
oudicca polished off the last of my coffee with a slurp, then shook her head as if to say, “You coulda added some sugar.” I apologized as best I could. After all, I didn't want to get on my new bestie's bad side.

Boudie is a little gray gal with an Afro, absurdly long lashes, and an attitude that plainly says, “I'm the cutest thing in three counties.” And folks, she isn't wrong. Despite—or perhaps because of—a slight limp Dolly tells me came from a recent encounter with some stray barbed wire (the leg is now festively bandaged with bright pink stretchy tape), the lass stole my heart like a thief in a Hollywood heist movie…which is to say, with preternatural ease. Apparently, she didn't object to my company either, for she proceeded to escort me and my hostess for much of my first day, gamboling along at our sides and generally proving a worthy tour guide. I can only hope to do as well for you, dear readers.

So let me set the scene.

Now, a fiber farm is much like any other farm, except way, way cuter. One's first impression of the Last Chance is of just how vast, lonely, and unspoiled it is. Situated a little less than forty-five minutes' drive from the world-class skiing of Taos, and just about seventy from the state capital of Santa Fe (where I hear you can get some really tasty baked goods), the flyspeck of Aguas Milagros, NM, (named for some hot springs I'll be checking out ASAP), may not have traffic lights, or Whole Foods, but it has got a lot of Wild West charm going on. And the Last Chance, I'll wager, is its crowning jewel. Or sharpest spur, or whatever the appropriate cowboy-town metaphor is. Nestled in a valley ringed with mountains that stay snowcapped practically all
year round, the property spreads out in an unending carpet of seedy green grasses, scrubby sagebrush, and the occasional cactus, everywhere dotted by cotton balls that aren't cotton balls at all, but wool. And these cotton balls are quite curious about strangers.

The llamas had already gone with Studly Sam by the time we got out there, off to rendezvous with some tourists for a trek in the mountains. So it was just us and the alpacas, which suited me fine.

Because alpacas are The. Bomb.

Imagine you shrink a llama down mini, about, say, waist high to most women—or hip high on a Merry. (This is not including its ridiculously long neck, which makes it about shoulder height when it stretches to the fullest. Shorten its nose, make its ears stick out a bit more to the sides, and then you blow-dry the everlasting shit out of the critter until it turns into an Ewok/camel/sheep/Shmoo that is so foofy it can barely see out of its own woolly face.

I died. Like thirty times. One for each alpaca, I'm pretty sure.

And if that weren't adorable enough, get this: Dolly theme names all her beasties. Each year's “crop” of babies gets named after whatever idea takes her fancy—last year, since all the offspring happened to be female, it was Tough Women in History, so in addition to Boudicca, she's also got Anne Bonny, Catherine the Great (Cathy for short), and Hillary Clinton. The llamas and goats get their own themes too, I'm told.

Now, get ready for some research, kids. I looked a buncha this stuff up before I arrived, and Dolly filled in some blanks as we took our tour, strolling the pastures and getting the lay of the land. It's actually interesting stuff—shut up, it is! So let's get to it:

Both alpacas and llamas are classified as camelids, along with the vicuna and something called a guanaco that only abides in South America. While regular, humpy camels (like the one that nearly ran off with me that time in Abu Simbel) died out in the Americas umpty-bump
millennia ago, these hardy, astoundingly useful critters have been domesticated by indigenous peoples for centuries—llamas primarily as pack animals, while alpacas are prized for their fantastic fleece.

Like its larger cousin, the alpaca has no upper teeth (and a good thing too, as one cannot resist feeding the importunate little mooshy-moos when they turn their pleading eyes up to you, and one doesn't want to get nipped). Instead, as Dolly showed me, they and their llama buddies have this weird bite plate for a palate and squarish bottom teeth that keep growing continually and sometimes—eek!—have to be filed down. Like, with a power tool. Anyhow, enough about their dental drama. Fact is, they're cute enough to bring tears to your eyes, set your maternal instincts kicking, and they're soft enough to sink your arm halfway up to the elbow in their fleece when you pet them. Their wool is much coveted for the yarn trade, about which I'm to learn quite a lot in the coming days, as my hostess assures me.

Best of all, I'm not even allergic.

You've no idea how annoying it was to be a winter sportsperson when you're allergic to most of the clothing you need. With the kindest of motives, people were always handing me woolen hats, woolen scarves, woolen socks, sweaters, and ski masks. They've no notion they were essentially handing me hives. Wool and I, you might say, have a contentious relationship. This caused me a certain degree of trepidation when first you folks voted for this mission, but the heavens have heard my entreaties, and, miraculously, it turns out that alpacas are hypoallergenic. You can wear their wool all day long, and, due to the distinct lack of lanolin and impressively long “staple length” that characterizes their fiber (you caught me; I've no idea what “staple length” means), you'll experience only the pleasure of excellent insulation and superior softness.

Salutary animals, indeed.

Under Dolly's direction, I discovered the joys of hefting hay bales (each can weigh anywhere from forty to seventy or eighty pounds, so I think I can safely let my gym membership lapse) and pumping spring water into troughs for the fluffies to slurp (they can't live on coffee alone). As part of my introduction to my new duties, we walked much of the perimeter of the farm today, visiting with Boudicca's buddies and inspecting them for everything from burrs to birthmarks. Dolly tells me she has a sort of sense for when an alpaca's “feeling poorly,” but when she can't figure out what ails them, she calls on her friend Jane, who is—I shit you not—a holistic vet. I'll be meeting her soon, as it's “cria season” and she'll be on hand to help with the births.

“Cria?” you cry? Yes, cria. That's what you call the even more unbearably adorable offspring of alpacas. I haven't been able to determine who's pregnant or not due to the extreme fluffiness of the animals (I mean, they're just about spherical, barring limbs, neck, and head), but Dolly says there's a surefire way to tell. “How?” you howl? Well, they call it the “spit test.” Apparently all you have to do is put a male in with a female. If they canoodle…not preggers. If she spits a wad at the poor randy fella, she's had quite enough, thank you. Seeing as she'll stay pregnant for almost a full year, I can see where she might be a mite irascible when Daddy comes looking for seconds.

Well, it's about time I wind down my tale for the day. And speaking of winding, Dolly promises me I'm to learn all about fiber before my mission ends. Fleecy fun, my friends! She's got a shop full of fancy yarn she spins herself, and she's even threatened to teach me to crochet. So stay tuned for tangled times.

Anyhow, that was Day One of “DDWID,” Farmer Merry edition. Haulin' hay, sayin' howdy-do to the world's awesomest animals.

How was yours?