A Tech Billionaire’s Family Rented My Entire Guest Ranch for a Week. By Wednesday, Their Lawyers Had Arrived by Helicopter

“Mr. Lowe, I run a guest ranch. I’m not a lawyer.”

“I have eleven lawyers,” he said. “They arrive Wednesday. What I don’t have is anyone who can tell me what my children are like when they’re not trying to impress me.”

“Why me?”

“Because you’ve spent thirty years watching rich people on horses,” he said. “I imagine you know exactly who they are by the second day.”

He wasn’t wrong.

So I did what I always do. I put them to work.

Monday, I put Whitney and Brooks on the same crew to move forty head of cattle up to the summer pasture. Neither of them had been on a horse in twenty years. Brooks tried to manage the cattle like a board meeting. Whitney tried to save every calf personally. They yelled at each other for six miles.

Tuesday, I had them shoe a horse together with my farrier, an old cowboy named Hoyt who doesn’t take nonsense from anybody. By noon they were both covered in dirt and laughing at Hoyt’s jokes. Not at each other’s. But it was a start.

Wednesday morning, the helicopter came in over the ridge and landed in my north pasture. Four lawyers in loafers stepped out into the horse manure.

Bernard met them at the lodge. The doors closed.

That afternoon, Whitney found me in the tack room.

“Can I ask you something?” she said. “Has my father told you what he’s doing?”

“Some of it.”

“Did he tell you he already signed the trust?” Her jaw was tight. “Last month. I saw the papers on his desk. Every dollar goes to a foundation. Neither of us gets anything.”

She crossed her arms.

“So what exactly is this week, Mr. Montague? A test?”