Cowboy Enchantment

Prologue


Near the California-Nevada-Arizona border, 1910

The dry desert air has preserved the scroll well, though the ink has faded to brown.

“What is it?” asks the young rancher, who cannot read a word of Spanish.

“Ah,” answers the elderly priest with a twinkle in his eye. “It contains an old legend telling the reason we call this place Rancho Encantado—the Enchanted Ranch.”

The rancher shuffles his feet in the dust. “Well, Padre Luis, we thought it was a pretty name,” he replies. His bride waves fondly from the window of the old adobe hacienda, one of several buildings on their newly purchased spread in the desert area known as Seven Springs.

“A pretty name? Yes, I suppose it is. But this place received that name because good things happen here. Unusual things, unexplained things.”

“Like what?”

“Just…things. But they are things that touch the soul.”

“Oh. Well, it’s good of you to tell me. But this legend of yours sounds like so much guff.” The rancher is eager to escape the loquacious priest, who arrived unexpectedly to hand over the land deed and the Spanish scroll. He is glad for the school and hospital that Padre Luis founded here, but he and Betsy have no need of the school yet, and he hopes they will never need the hospital.

The priest seems eager to explain. “The legend came about because of what happened at Cedrella Pass. A lot of people died there when the West was being settled. A Shoshone woman took it upon herself to reverse the curse.”

“Yeah, that’s great. So are you telling me there’s something special in the water?”

The priest raises his eyebrows. “Quizas. Perhaps.” He smiles mysteriously and winks. “But more likely, it’s something we always carry with us, something wonderful, something within the human heart.”

While the rancher is mulling over this pronouncement, the priest heaves his bulk up onto his mule. “Remember, this is a special place,” he says.

The rancher stands watching as the rotund priest rides down the long driveway toward the dusty track that serves as a road. Then, with a shrug, he rolls up the parchment and heads for one of the outbuildings, unused at present except for storage.

He’ll toss the parchment scroll into one of the old trunks there. Then he’ll forget about it. He has a ranch to run, after all, enchanted or not.