Dove in the Window (7 page)

“He is definitely trouble looking for a place to set itself down,” Dove said about Wade. “But I couldn’t turn the boy away on Thanksgiving. You’d best stay away from him as much as possible.”

“Now what fun is that?” said my Aunt Ruby, Uncle Luke’s wife. He was the ex-rodeo clown and the craziest of my dad’s brothers. And even at forty-nine Ruby was as rabble-rousing as Uncle Luke. They were the ones we kids had loved tagging after because they were always cooking up some zany game or treasure hunt to keep us occupied.

Gabe kept his promise and maintained a watchful distance from Wade through the family Thanksgiving dinner the next day. Wade followed Gabe’s lead and stayed as far from him as possible.

Early Friday morning, when I was out in the backyard putting plastic tablecloths over the picnic tables in preparation for the barbecue that afternoon, Sam walked up. He was dressed in faded sweatpants and a tee shirt that showed a cowboy on horseback gripping a surfboard. The words read, “You Can Lead a Horse to Water but You Can’t Make Him Surf.”

“You’re looking more like the old Sam this morning,” I commented, smoothing out the blue-checkered tablecloth.

He took another tablecloth from the pile on a metal lawn chair and started unfolding it. “Yeah, I haven’t gone completely country. I like working on the ranch, and the guys are all right, but sometimes ...” He let his words drift off as he shook out the cloth over a weathered table.

“They’re just too red-necked and bigoted,” I finished for him.

He grinned at me as he ran his hand across the wrinkled cloth. “I made them shut up last night when they wouldn’t stop making stupid cracks about your cousin. They’re kinda pissed at me right now.”

My heart softened as I looked at my stepson’s flushed, handsome face. He was so much like his father, and though Gabe felt guilty about he and Lydia breaking up before Sam had turned twelve, they’d managed between the two of them to raise a fine boy. I hadn’t yet met Gabe’s ex-wife, a successful attorney down in Orange County, but I had to admit, when I observed snippets of Sam’s good and kind character, I was very curious about her.

“They’re going to start looking for calves in about an hour,” he said after we’d finished covering the last of the twelve picnic tables we’d hauled out from the barn a few days ago. “You gonna ride with us or are you staying in the kitchen with the womenfolk?”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear you use that western male condescending tone you’ve picked up so rapidly,” I said.

“I guess that means you’re riding,” he said, shooting me his drop-the-women-in-their-tracks smile.

“Save the smile, I’m immune. And by the way, Badger’s mine today.”

“Man, that’s tweeked. I’ll probably get stuck with Rebel. He’s so slow. The only time he hurries is when he’s heading back to the barn to eat.”

“There’s a Southerner for you,” Emory said, walking up. He was dressed in his loose definition of ranchwear—perfectly pressed two-hundred-dollar khakis, a Ralph Lauren chambray work shirt, and Lucchese deerskin boots. He looked like an ad in
GQ
magazine. “We do like our vittles.”

“Hey, Emory,” I said. “How’d you sleep?”

“Fine.” He nodded at Sam. “Your daddy’s awful proud of you, Sam. He has a right to be.”

Embarrassed, Sam ducked his head, murmuring some inaudible answer. “I’ll see you in a few minutes,” he said to me.

“If you saddle up Badger for me, I’ll hide you a piece of Dove’s devil’s food cake,” I called after him.

“Deal,” he said.

Emory and I watched him walk toward the barn. “He is a good kid,” I said. “There’s been a lot of changes in his life these last few months. He’s still trying to find out where he fits in and to sort out his relationship with his dad.”

“Speaking of his dad, I noticed a bit of tension between him and that brother-in-law of yours.”

“Former brother-in-law. Technically, we’re not related anymore.”

His green eyes crinkled at the corners.

I pointed a finger at him. “You just keep quiet.” Emory did know me better than anyone else. “Yes, he does still feel related to me and yes, I think of Jack every time I look at him. I’m confused enough without your nonverbal comments, thank you very much.”

“Just enjoying the show. Better than
General Hospital.”

“There will be no show. Gabe has agreed to keep his distance, and I’ll try to see Wade as little as possible. Things will be fine.”

Emory just nodded and smiled that irritating, superior smile.

I showed him a fist.

“Oh, go play, cowgirl.” He shooed me away with his hand. “I myself have no need to prove my masculinity by emasculating young bovines, so I’ll visit the kitchen ladies and offer my superlative taste-testing abilities.”

I headed out to the barn where all the men and a few of my girl cousins were congregated. Most of my relatives had brought their own horses, and for a little while there was a flurry of activity while everyone tacked up and received their assignments from Daddy. With this many people riding, gathering fifty or so calves would be a cinch—finding them in a couple of hours instead of all day as it would have taken three or four riders. Plenty of time to play cowboy without getting too dirty for the barbecue at two o‘clock.

Gabe was talking to my uncle Clarence and Sam, discussing the price of some Black Angus yearlings Clarence had just sold at auction. That showed how hard Gabe was trying to get along with my relatives, because he hadn’t eaten beef for years and found my family’s obsession with it a bit tedious at times.

“Hi,” I said, going up and giving him a kiss. “Going to ride with us?” He knew I was just teasing. Gabe was an excellent horseman, a talent that had surprised me when I found out about it, but he disliked riding and, like Emory, didn’t care for any ranch work that involved cattle.

“Think I will,” he said.

My eyes widened in surprise.

“I’ll take the Honda ATV, then,” Sam said. “You can have Rebel.”

“Thanks a lot,” Gabe said. “Does he come with AAA coverage and a cellular phone in case we need a tow truck?”

“I see you’ve heard about him,” Sam said, laughing.

Wade rode up on Gigi, Dove’s quarterhorse, then quickly moved into a group of my relatives when Gabe gave him a hard look.

“That was rude,” I told Gabe as we adjusted our saddles and found out our assigned area, the old hunter’s cabin and barn at the back of my dad’s two-thousand-acre ranch. A creek ran across the back of the cabin where certain mama cows liked to hide among the overgrown brush. Gullies and washes were Badger’s specialty. An eight-year-old, quick-footed paint gelding I’d bought six years ago and trained myself, he loved to climb up and down hills so much that I’d threatened to rename him Jeep.

“What?” Gabe asked innocently and smiled his devastating smile.

“You wouldn’t get away with near what you do if you weren’t so good looking,” I grumbled, tightening Badger’s girth.

Before we could argue further, a brand-new shiny black Ford half-ton pickup pulled up beside us with Bobby Sanchez driving. His two female passengers were members of the artist’s co-op. They slid out of the front seat and walked over to us.

“Hey, Parker, Olivia,” I said. “Isn’t this a little early for you guys? Nice truck.”

“Hey, cow-woman, where’s the beef?” Parker twisted a piece of her straight brown hair around one long finger. Cut in a shoulder-length pageboy with thick, even bangs, her hair was as nondescript as she was. From the first time we met, she reminded me of that girl in everyone’s school who was always the teacher’s pet because she was so obedient and quiet. But anyone who got to know Parker Leona Williams (so named because her mother loved Parker House rolls) came to realize that all her creativity was focused on her art. Known to her rapidly growing and fanatically loyal cache of collectors as P.L. Williams, she was a recent addition to our artist’s co-op. Her specialties were meticulous pencil renderings and autumn-toned watercolors of various aspects of western life. She worked part time at Roland Bennett’s gallery downtown, barely subsisting on her meager salary and on the money from the occasional sale of her work. A native of Bakersfield, she often used migrant farm workers as subjects in her paintings because she herself was only one generation removed from the Okie migrant workers who had settled the Central Valley in the thirties.

“You’ll see plenty of beef today,” I assured her. “Bovine and otherwise.” I grinned at Olivia, who gave me a thumbs up. She wore a bright red flannel shirt, tight Levi’s, and an electric blue down vest. A dark sketching pencil was tucked inside the thick knot of black hair piled haphazardly on her head.

Olivia Contreras specialized in western Latino life with a personal affinity for the Latino cowboy. Her acrylic paintings were bright, bold, and big—just like Olivia herself. She’d recently made a sale to a small museum in Santa Fe, which was an important addition to her portfolio. She’d also won the very sought-after commission for the Heritage Days poster. Her colorful painting depicted the Mission Santa Celine, the Sinclair Hacienda, the Chumash Indian petroglyphs at Painted Rock, the old Sam Lee store in what was once San Celina’s bustling Chinatown district, and the Ruiz-Simon Victorian house in downtown San Celina. The poster hung in every business downtown and would be on sale all next week. Both artists were here at my invitation—to view the roundup and to experience a real ranch barbecue.

I gestured at the glossy truck that, if my estimation was right, cost at least twenty-five thousand dollars. “Who’d you steal the truck from?”

“It’s mine,” Olivia said, leaning against it. “I couldn’t resist.”

I nodded but couldn’t help wondering where she got the money to buy the truck. She was one of the more vocal complainers of poverty at the co-op. I scanned the large group of people milling around.

“Have you seen Shelby?” I asked. “We talked earlier this morning, but she’s disappeared. She’s supposed to be riding with us today.”

“I saw her and Kip at the bunkhouse about fifteen minutes ago,” Parker said. Her voice lowered. “They were having one horrendous fight.”

“She ought to tell that red-necked
cretino
to take a hike,” Olivia said. “I just hope if she’s putting out that she’s protecting herself ‘cause I’d bet fifty bucks he’s screwing around on her.”

Parker shrugged. “I think she’s a pretty sharp lady.”

I didn’t comment. I’d been, with great determination and only a modicum of success, trying not to get involved in the gossip that flew like swift little sparrows around the co-op and museum.

“Anything in particular either of you are looking to observe today?” I asked, trying to change the subject. Ignoring their tempting tidbit of gossip was almost physically painful for someone as nosy as me.

“I’m thinking about starting a new series of renderings,” Parker said. “I’m concentrating on the younger women today. I’ve been thinking about how the role of women has changed in agriculture in the last few years. The older women are back at the ranch house cooking our food, while you young women are out here gathering cattle. That’s liberation, for sure, but the question is, who’s going to feed everyone when this older generation passes away? Anyway, I’ve got my trusty old Minolta and a ton of black-and-white film. But you know me, I don’t really know what I want until I see it, so just act natural.”

“Oh, great,” I said. “In other words, you and Shelby both will be attempting to catch me in my most awkward, embarrassing moments.”

A quiet, understated laugh came from the back of her throat. Her watery brown eyes had lashes so pale they reminded me of a rabbit, as did her quick, tentative movements. Mimicking her watercolor paintings, Parker almost always dressed in browns, tans, or soft golds. Perfect camouflage for the honey-colored hills surrounding us.

“I’m concentrating on the men, as usual,” Olivia said with a wink. “I’ll be riding shotgun in the truck with Bobby all day.”

Olivia and my dad’s ranch hand had apparently established a close friendship in the last few months. It had been speculated among the artists that their relationship had become more than professional. The age difference between Bobby and Olivia was at least fifteen years, but no one bat-ted an eyelash among the artists. These days relationships between younger men and older women were almost a cliché.

“I’ll be interested in seeing what all of you come up with after today,” I said, mounting Badger.

By noon we had filled the pen next to the big barn with about fifty mama cows and their hundred-pound babies, some bearing Daddy’s brand, some mine. Not wanting to get any more sweaty and dusty before the barbecue, I sat up on the fence with Shelby, Parker, Olivia, and some of my girl cousins and let the men separate the nervous calves from their protective mamas. Passing a huge bag of peanuts between us, we hollered and rooted for the cows more than the cowboys. Gabe stayed on horseback and let Rebel do the one thing he did well once you could convince him to work——cutting. He was an experienced cow-pony and could almost do it without a rider, and the one thing that kept him working was he knew dinner always followed.

One particularly smart and stubborn mama took a half hour and seven men to separate her from her baby. We cheered her tenacity—“Go, cow. Go, mama”—until the sweating and cursing men on horseback and foot finally separated her from her calf. Her angry call could be heard above all the other cows crowding the fence separating them from their babies.

“That mama definitely deserves a ten,” Olivia said.

Over the bawling of the calves, the men threw jokes like horseshoes as a couple of them drove each calf down the wooden chute into the Teco cattle squeeze, locked them in the metal cage, and flipped it over to attach the plastic Y-Tex ear tags marked with either my or Daddy’s brand. At the same time other men would vaccinate, notch the ear, and castrate if called for, all in perfect synchronization. Cowboy ballet, Dove called it. Sam held the calves heads as they were being done, covering their eyes and talking to them in a low, soothing voice like I’d taught him. Just like Dove and Daddy had taught me. Anyone who worked the Ramsey Ranch was trained right off to treat our cattle with kindness and dignity. We were rewarded by having the calmest cattle in San Celina County.