by Kate Whitsby
The glorious red and purple of sunset colored the sky by the time they pulled into the Goodkind ranch. Amelia stopped the wagon in front of the house, tossed the reins to Allegra, and jumped down. “Come on inside with me, Papa,” she called.
Alma leapt to her feet and helped extricate her father from his encampment of blankets. She and Amelia virtually lifted him down from the wagon box and set him on his feet on the ground. Amelia took his arm and guided him into the house.
Once he was clear of the wheels, Allegra set the horses moving again and drove the wagon into the barn. Jude helped her and Alma put the horses and wagon away. “Your father doesn’t look so spry on his feet.”
“Didn’t I tell you he broke his back?” Alma asked. “He was thrown from a horse five years ago and can’t ride anymore. He can’t move much.”
“You told me,” Jude replied. “I just didn’t realize it was so bad until I’ve seen him with my own eyes.”
“He’s a lot better than he used to be,” Allegra put in. “For a long time after the accident, he couldn’t walk at all. We had to carry him everywhere and do everything for him. He had to learn how to walk again.”
Jude looked through the open barn door toward the house. “I don’t think he likes me very much.”
“What do you mean?” Alma cried. “He doesn’t even know you. Besides, you just married his eldest daughter, the first of his daughters to get married. Of course he’s going to be a little stand-offish for a while. But he’ll come around in time.” She laughed. “I’ll whip him, if he doesn’t.”
“What makes you think he doesn’t like you?” Allegra asked. “He didn’t say a single word to you after we left the church.”
“It was just the way he was looking at me on the way back here,” Jude replied. “I don’t think I’ve been stared at like that since the schoolmaster caught me stealing chocolate donuts from Lucy Spangler’s dinner pail.”
“You didn’t!” Alma twittered.
Jude smiled. “All the time. They were the best donuts in town, and no amount of punishment could keep me away from them.”
“You’re a bad man, aren’t you?” Alma teased. “I can see we’re going to have to be very stern with you. Well, you’ll get no chocolate donuts around here, young Mr. McCann. It’s strictly tortillas and roasted meat.”
“I can live with that,” Jude replied. “As long as I don’t go to bed with an empty stomach, I can manage. A man could live on the memory of those donuts.”
“Good,” Alma shot back. “Because from now on, that’s all you’ll have to sustain you. Now, what do you want to do with this horse of yours?”
“Do you have a place for him?” Jude asked. “If you haven’t, I can turn him out. He’s used to sleepin’ rough. He can fend for himself outside until the morning.”
“Fend for himself outside?” Alma gasped. “Nonsense! He’d freeze.”
“Nah,” Jude retorted. “He’d be fine. He’s done it before.”
“He hasn’t done it in this desert,” Allegra replied. “He wouldn’t be walkin’ around today if he had. It drops below freezing out there at night, even in the summer. Here, give him to me. I’ll put him here.”
She showed Jude’s horse to a hook in the wall at the end of the building. Planks of wood suspended on ropes from the ceiling created partitions between the horses’ tethering pins. She tied the horse up in an empty place, dropped grain and hay into his feed trough, and patted him on the flank.
“He’ll be comfortable there until the morning,” Allegra told Jude. “Now, let’s get up to the house. Amelia will have supper on the table for us.”
“Does she do the cooking?” Jude asked.
“We take turns,” Alma told him. “And we also rotate who cleans up afterward. That makes it fair.”
“But someone must be the best cook,” Jude remarked. “You must have noticed which of you does the best job of cooking.”
Alma and Allegra looked at each other. “I can’t say I’ve noticed any difference,” Alma replied.
“Me, neither,” Allegra agreed. “It all tastes pretty much the same to me.”
“You mean,” Jude gasped. “You mean you always eat the same food?”
“Sure,” Alma replied. “We all like it, so why change it?”
“But doesn’t that get….?” Jude stopped.
“Get what?” Allegra asked.
“You know,” Jude continued. “Doesn’t that get a little…you know….boring? Don’t you ever change anything?”
Alma and Allegra looked at each other again. “No. We have the same food every night for supper, and we have the same thing for breakfast in the morning, too.”
Jude stared at them. Then a shudder coursed through his body. After it ended, he turned away. “Okay. I can live with that.”
“Good,” Allegra exclaimed. “’cuz that’s all there is to eat around here.”
“But, wouldn’t you like to learn how to make something else?” Jude turned to Alma. “Wouldn’t you make something else if I asked you to, just to make me happy?”
Alma felt the heat rising in her cheeks, and, at the same time, she became aware of Allegra watching her reaction. So this is how it starts. This is the pointy end of the wedge. She had to draw the line right here and now.
She laughed in Jude’s face. “Oh, darling, if you want me to learn how to cook chocolate donuts just for you, I suppose I could learn how to do it. But you’ll have to order the chocolate special delivery from San Antonio. And unless you want the donuts fried in bull tallow, you’ll have to buy shortening, too.” Allegra joined her in raising the rafters of the barn with their laughter.
Jude frowned at them. “Alright. You win. Forget I even asked.”
Alma wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “You see, I’m sure all of us would love to eat some other food. We only eat the food we eat because it’s the easiest and the cheapest and the most available. The only foods we buy in are flour for the tortillas and salt. Everything else we get from here. The meat comes from our own cattle, the chili’s we grow in the garden, and the…..other stuff we get from the surrounding countryside. That way, we don’t waste our hard-earned money on things we don’t really need.”
“I see,” Jude told her. “You don’t have to worry about me. You won’t ever catch me complaining. As long as I go to sleep with a full stomach, I’m happy.”
“You mentioned that before,” Allegra muttered.
Chapter 12