Lone Star Woman

by CALLAHAN, SADIE

  “That’s no big deal,” she said.

  And it wasn’t. It wasn’t even a challenge. Her knowledge came from her education in biology and genetics. Most of her research and her contacts all over the Southwest and West came via her computer and the telephone. If she decided to go outside the ranch to acquire a bull, she could locate him and spot his quality as a sire with a glance at his registration papers and his statistics. She could make deals to buy with one eye closed and one hand tied behind her back. She kept such thorough records on premium bulls, rarely did she ever have to actually see one standing in a pasture somewhere to know if he was worth considering.

  The corners of Daddy’s mouth lifted into a smile that led to a chuckle. “You might not think so, but if I didn’t have you to do it, I’d have to do it myself. And as you keep reminding me, I’m a klutz on the computer.”

  Jude smiled and shrugged. “You just haven’t tried to learn to use the computer.”

  “If managing the bull herd isn’t enough, look at the work you do at the school, teaching these harebrained kids around here a little science. You work with your horses. You’ve got ol’ Patch in the best shape he’s ever been in. The paint horse show’s coming up in Fort Worth. Why don’t you take him over there and show him off a little?”

  He referred to her paint stallion. Patch’s snow-white coat was marked with large black patches so perfect, he looked as if he had been painted with a brush. A tobiano paint, his bloodline went all the way back to the 1870s and one of the original Circle C stallions her great-great-great-grandfather had purchased from the Comanche. If not for Patch’s illustrious bloodline, he would have been gelded and sold as some dude’s pleasure horse. He was a fine horse all right, and he met the ranch’s criteria for being a good using horse, except for one fact. Ranch hands preferred solid-color horses.

  “He is in good shape, but he can’t compete in those events. I haven’t trained him to be a show horse.”

  “Don’t they have a team penning round? Why, smart as Patch is, he could do that one on three legs.”

  The team penning event required a team of three riders who had practiced together. Jude laughed, rising to her feet. She carried her glass to the bar’s small counter and dumped her ice cubes into the sink. “Oh, Daddy. What am I going to do with you? I can’t compete in team penning. I’m not part of a team. Patch is a cow horse and he knows it. He wants to do real work.” She returned to her father’s chair and wrapped her arms around his shoulders from behind, taking in again the scent of Aramis and cigars, now mixed with good whiskey. “Let me help with the weaning and I’ll show you just how good he’s gotten at cutting calves.”

  Her father patted her forearm. “Jude, honey, weaning’s a hard, dirty job. And sometimes it’s dangerous.”

  Jude didn’t disagree. At the Circle C, weaning was an age-old, fast-moving process that cowhands, under Daddy’s direction, had made as efficient as it could possibly be while dealing with dimwitted animals that had a powerful instinct to bunch together in herds. She had never dwelled on the dangerous part of ranch chores. It was a given that riding or handling animals that outweighed humans several times over carried an element of risk. “Getting dirty has never bothered me, and I’m not afraid.”

  “I know you’re not,” Daddy said. “I didn’t raise you to be afraid of anything. But it makes an awful awkward situation having you out there with the hands. They feel like they need to look out for you and protect you. I don’t want you putting yourself or one of them in harm’s way.”

  The sentiment touched Jude, as it always did. She could even see his point. No ranch had ever had a better manager than J. D. Strayhorn, and no daughter had ever had a kinder, better father, she was certain. And because she was certain, she would go far out of her way never to hurt him. Giving up, she sighed. “Okay. I get the point.”

  A soft rap sounded on the door. “Come in,” Daddy said.

  The door opened and Windy’s kitchen helper announced supper.

  Daddy stood, and his thick, solid arm hooked around Jude’s shoulders, a symbol of the protected life he had provided her. “Let’s go eat, punkin. I’ve had a long day. I’m tired.”

  She didn’t doubt it. He got up at four a.m. every day, seven days a week. They walked side by side through the wide tiled hallway to the dining room, his shielding arm still around her shoulders.

  The dining room was a large, open room, with a high ceiling, a tile floor and rough-finished white plaster walls decorated with original watercolors and oil paintings. The collector of Western art was Jude’s father. He owned originals from many of the better-known Western artists. Some of the canvases had been painted on this ranch as well as other well-known Texas ranches. A few of the artists had dined in this room.

  A long oak table with a dozen leather chairs sat in the center of the room. Above it, a custom-made wrought-iron chandelier gave off a soft golden light and warm ambience.

  Supper at the Circle C was often a surprise—not the menu, but the company. Daddy and Grandpa were always present, but half the time, one of them invited one or several of the hands or someone from town. Or some old friend would stop by just in time for supper.

  Jude believed both Grandpa and Daddy invited people in for supper because they were lonely men. Nowadays, they were lonely old men. They were both in great shape physically, but Daddy was sixty and Grandpa was eighty-four.

  They heard footsteps, and Grandpa came into the room alone. Tonight it appeared only the three of them would be eating. Jude walked over and kissed her grandfather’s crinkled, weathered cheek. “Hey, Grandpa.”

  The patriarch slid an arm around her waist. “Judith Ann. Have you had a busy day? I noticed your truck was gone all day long.”

  Not much gets past Grandpa, Jude thought with amusement. “Yes, sir,” she answered. She had always addressed him as “sir.” Most people did. She straightened his bolo tie. It was a gold horseshoe design. “I was visiting friends in town.”

  They took their seats. Grandpa sat at the head of the table. She usually sat on Grandpa’s left and Daddy sat on his right, unless one of the hands dined with them. In that case, she gave up her seat to the hand.

  Behind Grandpa hung an enlarged blurry and grainy photograph of Jude’s great-great-great-grandfather, Jefferson Davis Campbell, standing shoulder to shoulder with the legendary Comanche chief Quanah Parker. Her ancestor wore a three-piece suit, a tie and a big hat. The Comanche chief wore Native American clothing typical of the day and a long braid. Her ancestor had done something the U.S. government never succeeded in doing—negotiating in good faith and ultimately doing business with the fierce Comanche. Jude had looked upon the photograph every day she had spent in this ranch house, and seeing it never failed to give her a few seconds’ pause.

  The three of them bowed their heads and closed their eyes, and Grandpa gave thanks in his gravelly drawl and asked the Lord to provide rain. None of them were regular churchgoers, but that didn’t mean they were ungrateful for the bounty that had been bestowed upon them. Long ago, Jude’s great-great-grandfather, Roslyn Shaffer Campbell, and his siblings had built the first church building in Lockett.

  After the prayer, Windy and Irene brought out hot platters of sizzling sliced beef, grilled vegetables and condiments, including hot peppers and sliced jalapeños, and they started filling their plates. Grandpa might be old, but he hadn’t lost his taste for spicy food.

  “I heard you hired a new man,” Grandpa said to Daddy as they dug in to the meal.

  Jude was constantly amazed that even at his age, Grandpa continued to concern himself with the ranch hands Daddy hired. For that matter, she was amazed Daddy didn’t allow the wagon boss to hire the help. Strayhorn Corp had all sorts of management types doing different things—an accountant in charge of the money, a wrangler in charge of the remuda, a chuck wagon boss in charge of food and stores, a vet with a sophisticated clinic and lab to oversee the care and insemination of horses and treat sick livestock, and a
wagon boss in charge of the ranch hands and the work with the cattle. Yet for some reason, Daddy and Grandpa involved themselves in the hiring of every individual who worked at the ranch. She couldn’t fault the policy. Many cowhands stayed with the Circle C for years, even lifetimes.

  “Where’d you find him?” Grandpa asked, using his knife to arrange his meal in different sections instead of rolling it into a tortilla the way most people ate fajitas. Ever fascinating to Jude, Grandpa ate with his knife.

  “Margie Wallace’s nephew,” Daddy answered.

  Jude’s stomach lurched and she dropped her fork. It clattered against her plate and fell to the floor. She scooted her chair back quickly and picked it up.

  Daddy held his fajita halfway between his plate and his mouth. “You okay, sweetheart?

  She got to her feet. “Yes, uh, I’m fine. I’ll just go to the kitchen and get another fork.”

  Her heartbeat had kicked up, and she was glad to remove herself from the table. In the kitchen, Irene handed her a clean fork and she drew a quick deep breath before returning to the dining room. Suddenly supper had become more interesting than usual. Typically Jude listened only casually to the conversational back-and-forth between Daddy and Grandpa about the ranch’s employees. Tonight, she intended to take note of every word.

  “He isn’t going to work her place?” Grandpa was asking as Jude reclaimed her seat, the image of Brady Fallon’s smile and perfect teeth vivid in her memory. Her earlier conversation in town with Jake jumped into her mind.

  “Says he is,” Daddy said. “Don’t know how it’s gonna work out. He’s strapped for cash.”

  “He wouldn’t be the one who was around here as a boy, always with Ike’s boy—”

  “Uh, yessir,” Daddy said, laying his fajita on his plate and looking intently at Grandpa. “I didn’t know if you’d remember him.”

  A loud silence followed. Jude waited, almost holding her breath. She couldn’t recall ever hearing her father say his youngest brother’s name, and had rarely heard Grandpa say it. She had never heard a discussion of Ike Strayhorn and his family or of Daddy’s second wife, Karen. Other than the scant information gleaned from Grammy Pen, Jude had no idea what kind of relationship Daddy and his brother might have had before the fatal accident that had altered life at the Circle C.

  “We want to be sure to keep an eye on what happens there,” Grandpa said after a long pause. “Margie damn near let that place go to brush. It’ll take some doin’ to clean it up.”

  Jude had the same opinion of the 6-0 pastures. Fighting back the insidious juniper and mesquite was a job the Circle C’s brush-removal crew worked at year-round. But obviously Margie Wallace hadn’t been able to stay on top of it.

  “The old house ought to be torn down,” Grandpa said.

  “He’s gonna live in it,” Daddy replied.

  “Is he a family man?”

  “No, sir. Says he’s divorced.”

  “Then why isn’t he moving into the bunkhouse? It’s more convenient, Jasper, if the unmarried hands live in the bunkhouse.”

  “I offered that to him,” Daddy said, “but he says he’ll drive over every day.”

  Grandpa shook his head, his eyes hard. Jude had seen the look many times when something displeased him. “Jasper, those hands get their breakfast, pick their mounts and are horseback before daylight. It’ll be a bad situation if they have to wait for somebody to come to work.”

  Her grandfather’s attitude struck Jude as odd and even more narrow-minded than usual. Most of the hands were married, with families. They didn’t live in the bunkhouse. They either lived in one of the ranch’s many houses or drove to work from some other home every day. Some even lived in town. Though breakfast was served at four forty-five a.m., she had rarely heard a complaint about someone being late and holding things up.

  “Dad,” her father said, “I’m on top of it, okay? Just let me handle it. If it becomes a problem, I’ll simply tell Fallon he has to move on. But I think he’ll make a good hand.” He picked up his fajita again, prepared to go on with his meal.

  “He’s been doing some cowboying off and on for a couple of years over in Stephenville, so he’s not afraid of the work. And he’s a college man. Graduated from Tarleton with a BBA. Got some smarts between his ears. He asked me for an opportunity and I gave him one.” Daddy bit into his food again.

  “Just remember this, Jasper,” Grandpa said. “If he decides to sell, we want to be the buyer. That fifteen sections would square up our line on that south side. I tried to buy it from Margie after Harry died, but the cantankerous old woman wouldn’t sell it to me.”

  A light came on in Jude’s mind. This was the root of Grandpa’s displeasure with Daddy’s hiring Brady Fallon and with him not living in the bunkhouse, where Grandpa might be able to keep tabs on what he was doing. Land acquisition was so much a part of the Circle C’s history, Jude supposed it had become almost like a gene. She felt the corner of her mouth quirk at Grandpa calling Margie Wallace an old woman. At her death, she was younger than Grandpa.

  “I know, Dad,” Daddy said.

  “You keep on top of the situation, you hear, Jasper?” Grandpa tapped his forefinger on the table as he talked.

  Jude could see that if she had been the one to acquire the 6-0’s land, it would have caused a much bigger family explosion than she had imagined. A part of her was glad the transaction had fallen on its face.

  “I will, Dad. I understand,” Daddy said.

  And what did that mean? Exactly what did Daddy understand? Did Grandpa want the 6-0’s new owner to fail so he could get the land? The notion wasn’t far-fetched. Time and again Jude had seen him prove his pragmatism. For all of his reputation for doing good works, contributing to the community and being a caring employer, she had seen him be downright ruthless when it came to something that affected the Circle C’s holdings.

  Daddy’s assurance to Grandpa was unclear, but one thing Jude knew was that he and Grandpa were like-minded. She believed her father was a fair man, but if Grandpa wished it, Daddy did it, sometimes even before Grandpa made his wishes known. She also knew that Grandpa and Daddy, though they might appear to be low-key, were both powerful and influential men, with tentacles crawling into unlikely nooks and crannies. And not just in Texas.

  Jude had lost her appetite. What did her grandfather’s attitude really mean? She felt an inexplicable concern for Brady Fallon. Anyone could see he had his hands full trying to put the old 6-0 ranch back together. But now he was facing another harsh reality without even knowing it and an adversary not of his own making.

  5

  At the end of supper, Daddy followed his usual routine by retiring to his suite for some reading, then his usual early bedtime.

  Grandpa invited Jude to accompany him on his evening stroll around the barns and the barn lots. She liked walking with him. Often they walked with long but comfortable silences between them. But sometimes Grandpa would be in a talkative mood and their evening strolls would be rife with information. She traded her sandals for boots, he put on his Stetson and away they went.

  He walked with his wrists crossed behind his back, his step slow and careful. She had noticed lately that he had become smaller in his old age. Once she had thought him as tall as a giant, but now his shoulders slumped and he was the same height as she. She plucked a tall blade of summer grass and adjusted her own step to his, as together they ambled across the backyard, across the wide caliche driveway and on toward the barns.

  The sinking sun had lost some of its heat and light. It painted the sky in slashes of purple and gold and cast the landscape in soft amber. A bank of deep blue clouds bloomed in great billows in the west. “Cloud’s got a bellyful of rain,” Grandpa said. “Looks like it’s coming our way.”

  Spring and early summer often brought violent storms, but along with them came the precious rain that plains ranchers and farmers prayed for and cherished. Grandpa never relied on TV or radio for the weather forecast. He simp
ly looked at the sky and smelled the air. “I see that,” Jude said, hoping to someday be able to look at the sky and sense the oncoming weather.

  Beneath the clouds and off in the distance, long twin mesas rose from the flat plain, a deep gray silhouette at this time of day. Grandpa had told her many times that those tablelands had been sacred sites for the Comanche. Willard County was located well within what the Spanish explorers had called Comanchería and had been the home turf of the Quahadi, Quanah Parker’s band.

  Though the legend of Quanah Parker’s Anglo mother, Cynthia Ann Parker, and his Comanche chief father, Peta Nocona, was a tragic one, Jude loved it. She thought it a true love story that had produced a mighty leader. She might teach high school science rather than history, but if her students hadn’t heard the story, she always told how Cynthia Ann Parker had been kidnapped as a child by the Comanche, then later had fallen deeply in love with Peta Nocona, and how she had starved herself to death after the army’s rescue separated her from him and their son Quanah. Jude believed people should know and respect those who had lived here before them.

  The storm cloud chased a cool breeze toward them that brushed Jude’s cheeks, ruffling her skirt and swirling her hair across her face. It carried the scent of summer grass and unsullied air and even the hoped-for rain. With a pop and a screech, the windmill fan shifted, catching the oncoming wind. The fan began to race, driving the well’s sucker rod frantically up and down, pumping a gush of water from deep within the earth.

  A fierce love of all that surrounded her filled Jude’s chest, like nothing else ever had. She drew a deep breath, as if she could take every sight and sound and smell into her body and her brain and save them forever.

  “It’s a good time of year,” Grandpa said, a dramatic pronouncement from a man of few words.

  Jude knew the love of the land was in her blood. It had come from her grandfather and all of the Scots-Irish family preceding him. She looked over at him, knowing he would soon leave them, and she felt bereft.