The Loves of Ruby Dee

by Curtiss Ann Matlock

  Sally was waiting in the hallway. She got up and followed Ruby Dee up the stairs, hopped up on the bed, made a circle and lay down. Ruby Dee wiped her hands with a cloth and replaced her bottle of castor oil into her medical box. Confident that Hardy Starr would sleep more comfortably now, she closed her door.

  The room was already a lot prettier, more welcoming as a place of her own. It hadn’t taken much to make it so. Ruby Dee’s own pillows with lace-edged cases were on the bed—four of them. Ruby Dee could hardly sleep with fewer than four feather pillows. She had run an oiled rag over the dresser and placed Miss Edna’s urn and Bible and the framed photographs of her mother and father there, along with her small jewel box and the Webster’s dictionary that Miss Edna had bought for her. It had a zippered genuine leather covering. Atop the dictionary was the paper of pasted cutouts, which she’d unfolded and straightened as best she could.

  The room was lit with a warm, coral glow, because she had draped a red printed scarf over the bedside lamp. Ever since reading that lighting tip in a woman’s magazine, Ruby Dee had followed it.

  Once, however, a scarf she had draped over a lamp had caught on fire. Ruby Dee had thrown a glass of ice tea on it, which dampened the fire but caused the light bulb to explode. For a week she had found glass splinters and sticky spots from the sugar in the tea all over the lamp base, the table, the wall and the floor. Not wanting to repeat that disaster, she had never again tossed a scarf over a small lamp. This particular lamp being enormous, with plenty of space between the shade and the bulb, she considered it safe.

  The room was a little stuffy, so she opened the window. It was stiff, and she had to tug hard, but then it suddenly flew upward quickly, startling her.

  The fragrant summer air came through the screen, and Ruby Dee breathed deeply. Cicadas were kicking up a ruckus in the trees and bushes, and birds were calling, too—a chuck-will’s-widow far out in the trees, she guessed. The sky was bright with diamond stars. The moon was a half curve and bright. It was amazing that only half a moon could light so much—it lit the leaves of the big elm in the backyard, the roofs of all the buildings, the white pipe fencing, even the wooden fencing.

  She saw a figure then, out in the small pen, way over to the side. It was so far over that she could see it well only with her head just about resting on the screen.

  It was Will Starr, and he was still on that horse. He was just sitting there on it, in the middle of the pen. Bathed in the moonlight, both of them, man and horse, looked like ghosts. The horse’s tail swished once, twice. The animal blew through his nose, and the sound came all the way up to her.

  Will Starr’s hat came up slightly. After a moment, Ruby Dee realized he was looking at the house. Ruby Dee had the feeling that he looked at her window. Looked right at her.

  She went very still. He couldn’t clearly see her, not in the muted glow of the lamp, but she believed that he was looking at her, just as she was looking at him. Ruby Dee knew this clear and strong in that moment, when she continued to look at him and remember his intense blue-gray eyes, and the way he had looked at her that afternoon.

  Then she pulled back inside the room. Leaving the window open, she slipped into bed and turned out the lamp. After she got settled, she could still hear the night sounds coming through the window, among them the thudding of the horse’s hooves way out in the pen.

  She wondered if Will Starr was going to stay out there all night.

  * * * *

  Will sat the horse, quiet now, worn out. Up above, the stars twinkled like glitter and a bright half moon was on the rise. Over at the house the light was on above the kitchen sink. Lonnie’s window was dark. There had been a faint glow from the gal’s room, but it was dark now, too. The old man’s window was on the opposite side of the house, and Will couldn’t see it.

  Will had told Lonnie that he might stay out in the pen all night just to get Lonnie’s goat, and because he had been gripped by the rare euphoria of recklessness. Recklessness had been his refuge. He had wanted to run clear away from the ranch and the old man and Lonnie, but he hadn’t been able to, so he’d run off into recklessness, and damn, it had felt good.

  But when a man has lived a life of responsibility for forty-two years, it’s hard for recklessness to get much of a foothold. At around midnight the recklessness faded, leaving him high and dry.

  He started to feel bad about the way he had talked to the old man, and to worry about him, too. Maybe the old man needed something, and Lonnie wasn’t any good at seeing to it. Will believed the gal should be good at seeing to it, but he didn’t know for sure. He also worried that the old man might have another stroke. He wanted to go up to the house to check everything out—and to have the meal Lonnie had talked of, and take a shower.

  But he didn’t want to step back into any of it. He felt like he just couldn’t take anymore, and he was afraid that by now the gal would have had her fill of the old man, and if he went up to the house, she would be ready to leave.

  He pulled the saddle off the roan and set it on the ground, then threw the saddle blanket over the fence rail to dry. The scent of sweat and dust was familiar, even comforting. Gingerly, his legs stiff, he crouched beside the saddle to have his last cigarette. The colt didn’t move off but stretched his neck and sniffed the cigarette. Will broke off the tip end and gave the tobacco to the horse.

  What he’d said to the old man played through his mind. He’d told him he would send him to a home, but that had been anger talking. Still, no matter how much he didn’t want to do it, if Miss D’Angelo didn’t work out, he knew he’d probably have to, because he just couldn’t take care of him.

  He’d also said he would be leaving.

  That stood out in his mind. He’d been thinking about leaving for some time now...for years, he guessed, but these last months, the prospect had been tugging at him. He’d even checked out places to buy and lease.

  It tore him apart to think about leaving this place, made his throat get all tight so he could hardly swallow. But the fact remained that he didn’t want to go on with the ranch the way he had been. No, he couldn’t continue like this.

  The desire for something all his own burned inside him. He wanted a home of his own, and a family, too, as farfetched as that was beginning to seem. He was forty-two and not married, and the one woman he’d thought he might marry had married someone else. The years were ticking away. If he didn’t get something of his own now, he’d soon be too old.

  He raised his eyes to the gal’s window. He wondered if she was asleep. Wondered if she slept in a gown, or in the nude. Wondered if she was very experienced with sex. She’d pretty well said she didn’t want anything to do with a man.

  The sexual thoughts he kept having about her rather startled him. He hadn’t had such thoughts in a long time.

  With a deep sigh, Will slid to the ground, propped his back against the saddle and stretched out a leg. Feelings he didn’t understand—didn’t care to understand, by damn—twisted like a cyclone inside him.

  But the sand was cool now and quite comfortable. In the distance he heard coyotes calling, and the sounds of critters filled the air. The country could be a noisy place, but it all lulled him to sleep.

  Chapter 8

  From a habit of long standing, Ruby Dee awoke before dawn. She got up and hurried to wash and dress and go downstairs. Activity gave her mind something to think about, instead of how lonesome she was. And she wanted to prove to Will Starr that she was good at what she did. She wanted to make him glad he had hired her.

  Then she might just quit on him, she thought righteously and laughing to herself, sweetly feeling God laughing with her, too.

  “Come on, Sally, You need to go outside.”

  Casting her a mildly reproachful look, the dog slowly rose and followed.

  The men’s bedroom doors were open. She couldn’t tell in the dimness if they were in their rooms, and she resisted the impulse to peer into Will Starr’s bedroom. She certainly didn’t wan
t him to see her doing that.

  All was quiet, except for Hardy Starr’s robust snoring—he was most definitely in his room. By just the glow from the light above the kitchen sink, Ruby Dee and Sally made their way through the house.

  Ruby Dee let Sally out into the fresh morning, turned on the coffee maker and then switched off the light, so she could look out the window. The eastern horizon was just turning rosy, the dark of night lifted enough to allow her to see the buildings and outlines of fences. Stars were still visible in the clear sky.

  “Good mornin’, Miss Edna....Where are you?” she whispered.

  “Watchin’ the sun come up. There’s a good view from up here.”

  “I guess I’m happy for you,” Ruby Dee murmured, not feeling happy at all.

  Talking to Miss Edna didn’t seem to help much this morning. She hugged herself, rubbing her arms hard.

  Ruby Dee guessed she would have this scared, lonesome feeling for all of her life. One of the times her daddy had gone off and left her had been at dawn. At the Tulsa bus station. Her daddy had driven there when it was still dark, and he had sat her in a row of chairs, while he went to find a friend. But he hadn’t come back. She had only been four, but she could still remember sitting there, her feet dangling, seeing the sun come peeking through the windows, while a pinched-faced lady hollered at her for crying. A policeman took her down to the police station, and that was where her daddy had come to get her. He’d forgotten her, and only remembered her when he was halfway to Ponca City. To this day, Ruby Dee couldn’t go into a bus station.

  Miss Edna had always found humor in this story, because she said it showed how strong Ruby Dee was to have survived the adversities of her youth. Miss Edna could find something good in a person drowning in mud.

  A movement caught Ruby Dee’s eye—Sally running into the horse-training pen. She was wagging her tail in greeting at someone.

  Why, it was Will Starr... straightening and dusting himself off. Ruby Dee stared, shifting herself around to accept the idea that he had actually been out there all night. His anger had been that deep.

  Sally received a touch and then she was off, running across the pen and out of it. Will Starr banged his hat against his thigh. He moved as if he were stiff as a board, which of course he would be, having foolishly stayed out there all night. Ruby Dee turned from the window, stood with her hands braced on the counter.

  Well.

  In quick motion, she got two mugs and filled them with coffee, added a bit of honey to her own and then, on a second thought, put some in Will Starr’s cup. A man who had slept on the hard ground all night would surely need a little sweetening. Carrying the two mugs, she headed out the back door.

  The cicadas in the bushes and trees were loud, calling up another hot summer day. They stopped their racket when the screen door slammed. The morning air was fresh and cool on her face as Ruby Dee strode across the sloping lawn and gravel drive. Will Starr’s head came around, and then slowly his whole body followed. His gaze straight upon her, he walked to meet her at the fence rails. If he was surprised, he had covered it by the time she reached him and could clearly see his face.

  He looked like a fighting rooster who had lost and been abandoned alongside the road. His hair stuck up, and his cheeks were shadowed by a beard and dirt. The wound high on his cheek was an angry purple and swollen like a goose egg. Though his eyes seemed sunk deeply into their sockets, they were sharp, luminous pinpoints.

  “Good mornin’,” she said and stuck his cup through the fence rail.

  “‘Mornin’.” His voice came low and gravelly.

  He hooked his hat on a fence post and reached to take the cup. Then he lifted it to his lips and took a deep swallow, while Ruby Dee watched in wonder, because the coffee was steaming hot.

  She said, “I hope you like it with honey,” which was really a silly thing to say, because if he could drink coffee that hot, he wasn’t going to be bothered by a little sweetening. Tough, she thought. He was tough.

  “Fine.”

  He drank again, and she watched, thinking that he couldn’t possibly taste the coffee at all. It could as well have been swamp water she gave him.

  Then his steely eyes focused on her, settled on her like a light beam. “You wouldn’t happen to have a cigarette on you, would you?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t smoke.”

  He eyed her and said tiredly, “No, I didn’t imagine that you did.” Raking a hand through his hair, he leaned against the fence rail and turned to look at the horse.

  Holding her coffee carefully, Ruby Dee climbed up on the bottom rail, in order to lean upon the top one. “It is amazin’ that days so hot can start out so cool.”

  Will Starr gave a little grunt.

  Ruby Dee sipped her coffee, and her gaze fell on his saddle, which lay in the sand. “That doesn’t look like such a comfortable bed.”

  He said flatly, “May’ve been hard, but it was peaceful.”

  Their eyes met, and then his shifted away. She looked for a moment at his tousled dark hair. Thick hair. Warm and lush-looking. Her hands had the urge to reach out and touch it, pull his head to her and run her cheek over its softness.

  Well, goodness! Silliness could sure take hold of a person. Firmly, she turned her eyes in the direction he did—to the horse. The animal appeared as battered and worn as the man. Tough, too.

  She said, “I suppose you’ve been told that horse isn’t very pretty.”

  “He’s a wild mustang,” he said, as if that explained it all.

  “He has a chest on him...and he has good, strong legs.” She was trying to look at the horse in a positive light.

  “He’ll go the distance and have some left over.”

  “Only if he has good feet.” She looked down, to see him looking up at her.

  “What would a city girl know about horses’ feet?”

  “I never said I was a city girl.”

  He stared at her, and she stared at him. Something sparked between them, quickly, flying away yet leaving the feeling lingering.

  She said, “I’ve lived off and on in the city, but I happen to have been born right over alongside Highway 283.” She gestured with her cup. “I was a bit of a surprise, comin’ a month early. Daddy was on his way to a rodeo at Cheyenne. I came so quick, there wasn’t time to get to the hospital... Mama and Daddy wouldn’t have had the money, anyway.

  She sipped her coffee and gazed off at the land. “My daddy was a bronc rider, and we went to a lot of small country rodeos. I was on a horse before I could walk, and I spent a lot of my childhood at country homes with farm animals—horses, cows, goats.”

  She looked at him again. “One reason I took the job when Maggie Parsons called me was that I wanted to see where I was born. I didn’t know the exact place, of course, but I just looked at all the highway to the south of town and got a feel for how it would have been. It’s really pretty out this way, isn’t it?”

  “There’s some that think it’s just barren.”

  “It isn’t barren, it’s”—she thought and then spoke with satisfaction—”spacious. You can see the sky so clear. It’s like there’s more of heaven, and there’s nothing to crowd out a person’s prayers.”

  Will looked at her. She was dead earnest and gazing up at the sky. Will looked upward too. He had never been quite certain there was a heaven, mostly because if he had been, he would have had to be certain about hell, and he didn’t like the idea of that. He had committed too many sins to like the idea. He mostly didn’t think about it, because then he had to think about what would happen when he died, and the way he saw it, he was struggling enough just to live.

  He looked back at the gal. She leaned on the rail, sipping her coffee out of the mug she held with both hands. Fingers long and slender, bright rose fingernails. Earrings, small silver feathers, dangled from her ears. She had on a dress this morning, too, like the one from the day before, made of a light, flowery fabric that flowed and fluttered over her
body, and those red boots. He didn’t think he had ever seen a woman wearing a dress like that and climbing up on a fence rail. Of course, he couldn’t say he had seen everything in this world.

  Her gaze came swinging down to him. “Have you ever heard of my daddy—Jaime D’Angelo? He used to ride both saddle and bareback broncs and did pretty well.”

  Will knew the type of man her daddy would have been—the kind who was addicted to the rodeo, who never could leave it, and just went further and further down. He’d seen lots of men like that; Lonnie might have been one, had he not had the ranch to fall back on.

  Will shook his head. “I only did some high school rodeo. Lonnie might know of him, though. He’s the rodeo rider and winner.”

  She gave a little shrug, and a heavy, sad look came over her face as she took a drink of coffee. “It was a silly question anyway. It was twenty years ago, when Daddy was doin’ well in the rodeo. I just asked you about him on an off-chance. You know how odd coincidences can happen.”

  Will felt very awkward. She had told him some personal stuff and now she was sad, so sad she was near to crying, he saw, slipping a furtive glance at her. The prospect of any sort of crying unnerved him. It made him feel as he would if a bull came after him in the middle of a pasture.

  He downed the rest of the coffee, and then he thought to tell her how good it was. “I appreciate the coffee, Miss D’Angelo. I don’t think I’ve tasted better.”

  It relieved him to see pleasure come into her eyes. Every emotion the gal had came right out her eyes, and she was fairly bursting with emotion.

  “Don’t you think you should call me Ruby Dee? I mean, if you go on callin’ me Miss D’Angelo, I’m gonna have to keep callin’ you Mr. Starr, and there are three of you Mr. Starrs. That’s gonna get awfully confusing. Maybe I could call you Mr. Will.”

  He gazed at her, studying her eyes. She sure sounded like she was staying.

  “You can call me Will, no Mr. needed.”