From that day she was more thoughtful, quieter and less hurried when she worked with horses. Even when their cattle business started to decline, the ranch was gaining a reputation for good-minded, settled, saddle horses. Jessie and Jed spent more time gentling horses, and less around the cattle. It wasn’t too much of a surprise when they started gentling mustangs to pack guests around the ranch. These horses were cheap, plentiful and needed homes. Jed and Jessie would often find small groups of these wild horses in amongst their own herds, so it wasn’t very difficult to drive the whole herd to the ranch and sort out the ones they wanted to keep and let the rest of the wild ones back out to roam. They would work with the mustangs in their quiet way, keep some and sell some to folks in states as far away as New Hampshire and Maryland. The horses were quiet, sound-minded and sturdy and were a large part of keeping the ranch afloat.

Jed soon decided that it was easier to focus on giving rides to “guests” (so they called them when they were out among the people who would pay for a ride—“dudes” when the staff was talking out of Jed King’s hearing) than to keep the cattle. Their herd had been whittled down to a couple of bulls that were easy to look after and some older, well-producing cows. Even at that, Jed was surprised if they turned any kind of profit in a given year.

It was, oddly enough, the cattle that drove Jessie to leave for Denver. That spring, her father had finally sold off the prized bulls and cows. He had not sold them to another ranch, however, but to slaughter. When Jessie found out, she had stood toe to toe with her father, shouting up at him at the top of her lungs. She berated her father for selling the cattle to a slaughterhouse, for letting them get on a crowded truck reeking of filth and fear. Why couldn’t they drive them to slaughter themselves? Why couldn’t he consider that maybe they were afraid, after having lived on the ranch their whole lives? Why did they have to betray them? Why, why, why? This time, Jed King didn’t throw up his hands in exasperation and smile. This time he told Jessie she was overstepping her bounds, and that if she kept going that way, she may as well move to a city. So she did.

In between the odd jobs waitressing, or clerking or being a secretary to faceless executives (some of them boyfriends), she thought of her parents as though she was reading a book about someone else’s life. They had met quite naturally. Gloria was the daughter of a successful cattleman and Jed the youngest son of a newly rich rancher.

Owen and Edith Taylor, distressed once they realized how serious their only daughter was about him, pleaded with her to slow down, and let these city folk have their ranch fantasy and go back to their office buildings. How would she be supported by a man who had spent the early part of his life riding pavement on his bicycle, and playing cowboy with other boys in a dirt lot? But Gloria didn’t see what they saw. All she saw was a strong, supple young man who’s blue eyes danced every time they saw her. All she saw was Jed King, a once city boy who had now been ranching for over twelve years and ready to handle it as easily as he guided her through the weaving cattle trails that criss-crossed his parent’s land. They were married in a quiet ceremony, both in their late twenties, and five years later had Jessica, their only child. By that time they had been running the ranch for a year. Though it was hard going, and uneasy at times, they called it their own.