Chapter 25: A Sudden Change
For an American boy like Dan who was born in the 80s and grew up watching "Flying Wolf", the two Bell 222s in front of him are simply dream machines.
Jamie's offer, Dan couldn't refuse.
Against the whirring rotor wind, he was the first to board one of the helicopters and couldn't wait to sit in the co-pilot's seat.
After fastening his seat belt, the driver handed over a flight helmet of the same style as the "Flying Wolf" TV series.
Although there is no advanced observation and sighting fire control system like the TV series after wearing it, it also satisfies Dan's childhood wishes.
On the lawn, Serena walked up to Jamie and hugged her boyfriend affectionately.
"These two planes are the coolest peripherals I've ever seen, are they your big toys?"
Serena turned to ask Jamie.
Jamie shrugged and replied with a smile:
"When I was about thirteen years old, John came to me one day and said that the ranch needed to buy a few new helicopters, and asked me if I had any special models, and I told him without hesitation that I wanted to fly wolves, which was of course just a joke, but I didn't expect him to actually buy them."
Chuck listened to the conversation between the two and suddenly interjected.
"It's two big expensive toys."
There is a bit of a sour feeling to say this.
It is not these two helicopters that Chuck envies, although they are really not cheap.
At present, a Bell 222 is sold for about $2 million to $3 million, which is not expensive compared to other civilian helicopters.
But this kind of thing is not bought as a collectible, and the maintenance cost in actual use is the real expense.
Especially for this discontinued model, the maintenance cost of various parts is higher in the later stage.
What really makes Chuck envious is the care and importance that Jamie's father, John, has for his son.
Unlike his father, Bart, who never cared about what his son really wanted except for money.
Jamie turned around and looked at the others behind him.
"There's still an empty co-pilot of an airplane, who wants to try it?"
He actually said this to Chuck and Nate, but Rebecca was the first to raise her hand.
So she got into the passenger seat of another helicopter.
Each Bell 222 can carry 6 passengers in the aft cabin.
Blair didn't want to be in the same helicopter with Rebecca, so he pulled Nate on another one.
Vanessa and Jenny sat down as well.
Jamie, Serena, and Chuck were left on the Rebecca plane.
The two helicopters took off one after the other, first circling around the Vale Manor, and then turned around and flew in the direction of the ranch.
Vast fields, meandering rivers, mirror-like lakes, towering mountains, and lush and colourful jungles are all clearly displayed in the view of the passengers on board.
Previously, many people, including Serena, did not have a clear idea of how big the 3,000 square kilometre pasture was.
It wasn't until I flew around in a helicopter that I realized the vastness of the ranch.
Especially when the helicopter flew over the herds of Angus cattle, the scene below was more shocking than the collective migration of the bison herds in the African savannah.
Yellowstone Ranch currently houses more than 20,000 Angus cattle, accounting for almost half of the global premium beef market.
Every year, it brings extremely rich profits to the ranch.
Dan even turned his head to joke with Wanasha on the same plane, and the ones on the ground were not cows at all, but walking dollars.
After visiting the ranch by helicopter, Jamie took everyone to the ranch for a tour in the afternoon.
John went to the State Livestock Fair and didn't see anyone.
It was Jamie's eldest brother Lee who came forward to receive everyone.
At dinner, they also meet Jamie's sister Beth.
She's here to get Serena to drink.
As for Dan, Chuck, and Nate who were present, Beth glanced at it and showed no interest.
Sure enough, what she likes is still Rip's tough guy cowboy.
Blair, Rebecca, and Vanessa are all invited to join the party.
Jenny had also received the invitation, but Dan glared back with a warning look.
Originally, Beth had come to fight Serena, but after drinking, Blair and Rebecca fought each other, and in the end, they both succeeded in getting themselves drunk.
Ned, who arrives at the news, takes the drunk Blair away, and Vanessa helps the drunk Rebecca back to her room.
Beth left in a hurry after receiving a text message, and Serena had to return to her room early.
Over the next three days, Jamie took everyone through what it's like to hunt on horseback in the Montana forest.
Rebecca was unsurprisingly absent from the entire trip.
She had already gotten the first three copies of Percy Jackson from Jamie and was eager to lock herself in her room all the time to read.
John asks Rip to take six cowboys with him to keep everyone safe.
This proved to be necessary, as on the first day of going up the mountain, Jamie and his party encountered a grizzly bear that was out foraging.
Rip shoots along with two other cowboys, which scares the big guy away.
Species that can be hunted in Montana include long-eared deer, white-tailed deer, American antelope, red deer, moose, ibex, bighorn argali, turkey, and wolf.
It's a pity that except for Jamie, everyone else in the team is a hunting layman.
In the end, only Serena shot a turkey under Jamie's hand-in-hand guidance, and as soon as the others raised their shotguns, the prey was scared away.
Over the course of three days, it was Rip and his six cowboys who caught the most prey.
However, this did not dampen everyone's interest.
At the end of the last day of hunting, at the dinner table, Blair carefully selected a few photos of himself and Serena next to the prey and sent them to the gossip queen.
There is no doubt that this is a demonstration to Rebecca.
However, the first person to leave the table was Dan.
He put down his napkin and stood up to indicate that he was full.
Not long after Dan left, everyone present received an update on the gossip diva blog's mobile phones.
As the only two insiders present, Jamie and Rebecca both pretended that nothing had happened.
The next day, as had been agreed at the beginning, everyone was ready to leave for Yellowstone, next door to the ranch, but Blair suddenly announced that she and Nate had an urgent need to return to New York immediately.
At first, everyone thought that this was Blair's deliberate act against Rebecca to retaliate for Rebecca's failure to participate in the hunt with everyone before.
Eventually, under Serena's questioning, Blair told the truth.
It turned out that something had happened to Nate's family.
Nate's dad was sued by the bank because he couldn't repay a huge amount of money, and he lost the lawsuit and will face more than ten years in prison.
Nate must rush back now.