by J. R. Biery
Rubye came running out. “Are they back again?”
“It’s a different kind of varmint. I’m walking out for the coyote.”
“Wait,” Rubye ran back out, with a small knife. “For the tail, there’s a bounty.”
Hattie slipped the knife beneath her apron belt, grabbed the rifle and walked out toward the fallen animal, hoping her hen might still be alive in the coyote’s grip.
As she approached, she saw a red form darting toward the fallen animal, another prey clenched in his jaws. She knelt and fired, overjoyed when the second animal dropped, a few feet from the first.
She made quick work, detaching tails and stabbing the animals in the neck to make sure they were dead. Disappointed, she lifted the still warm hen by the feet, her neck broken, probably in the fall. The second animal had caught a jack rabbit, clearly planning to trade up to the fat chicken.
She tucked the dusty red tails and knife back in her belt, made sure the safety was on the rifle, then clutched an animal in each hand.
A pair of riders appeared over the horizon. Hattie was relieved to recognize Cliff and one of the younger hands. She lifted her rifle and the game and grinned in salute, then marched back toward the house.
The third rider came up in a blur. For a moment Hattie raised the gun, then lowered it when he hollered. Jackson stopped quickly, his horse rearing beside her before dropping down. She saw the worry in his face and knew she should say something.
“Hand me the gun he,” he barked
She swallowed at the look of anger in his eyes. She checked the knife and coyote tails at her waist, switched so she held the rabbit and chicken in the same hand and handed up the rifle.
He leaned over, grabbed her by the waist and lifted her up before him, his arm around her waist like an iron band.
“The coyote grabbed one of the hens, so I shot it. This one came in to trade his rabbit for her and I shot him too.”
He pulled her back hard against him, his voice a fierce whisper in her ear as he slowly walked the horse back to the house. “I thought it was one of those two legged coyotes again. Or did you think Rubye wouldn’t show me that finger and tell me what happened?”
She felt a shiver of fear at the accusation in his voice. “She promised not to tell. It was all right. We chased them off.”
“But it could have gone the other way, if Rubye hadn’t been there.”
Hattie swiveled in the seat, trying to look up at him. “I’m not helpless.” She spat, trying to hold back the rage she felt.
“You are when you’re out here away from the house.”
She started to protest, but felt his arm shift, his hand grasping her shoulder to trap her other arm by her side. He planted his hand in her hair and forced her face up to his. Angrily he kissed her, his lips punishing. For a minute she struggled, pushing at him in panic. As she shrank in fear, he loosened his grip, softened the kiss, held her gently.
Panic and fear vanished as he gentled his hold and Hattie lost her breath in the fierce soft sweetness of it. She stared up at him, confused. When she saw the same confusion in his eyes, she turned away. Face flaming she faced forward as he rode into the yard, setting her off on the porch. Hattie stood there, her legs shaky, as he stared down at her. “Remember to stay close to this house to be safe.” Then he handed her the gun and turned his horse. In minutes he was gone.
<><><>
She had plucked and cut up the chicken, adding the meat to the skinned and cut up rabbit. She cut the little puff tail to use to powder the baby. He was already big enough to need things to distract him. Not her, her mind kept returning to Jackson. She hung two tail feathers from the handle of the cradle where they could flutter above him. According to Dr. Padgett, babies needed distractions for mental exercise when awake, especially after three months of age.
She wasn’t sure if everything the man wrote was true, but she found it comforting to read what to expect the baby to be able to do at each age. So far he had been right. Just in the last two weeks, Jackie had begun to make sounds and faces back at her when she talked.
She focused on the baby, noticing how he was staring up, as though watching the fluttering feathers. Even as she watched, he waved a fist as though he would grab the feathers fluttering overhead.
He had definitely smiled at her, she knew they were real smiles, not gas, as Rubye stated. Any day now she expected a real laugh. Three months last week.
Rubye stood on the porch, staring at the baby reaching up for the floating feathers. “You want me to fry that up?”
Hattie shook her head. “It’s too tough. I was thinking dumplings.”
Rubye put her hands on her hips. “Never heard of dumplings and rabbit.”
“Dad liked dumplings with any kind of stew, we often added them to rabbit stew. I’ll cook it, if you’ll watch the baby?”
“Humph. What else you going to cook with it?”
“Wilted salad, from the lettuce and garden thinnings.”
“Maybe you want to do a peach cobbler, with those canned peaches.”
“Sounds perfect.”
Hattie browned all the meat in the heavy stock pot, then added three quarts of liquid to cover the meat while it boiled. She prepared vegetables to add, potatoes, onions, carrots, and while the meat continued to boil, slipped out to the garden to pick herbs and fresh lettuce, along with young carrots, pea plants and turnips as she worked and thinned each row.
By the time the meat was starting to fall off the bone, she scooped it out to cool, dropped in the vegetables to boil, and then stopped to feed J.D. As soon as he was asleep, she hurried back to finish her cooking. She pulled all the meat loose, added it, herbs, salt and pepper to the boiling vegetables. She cracked three eggs, added a splash of oil, and two tablespoons of buttermilk into a pile of flour on the dough board, quickly stirring the liquids, then folding flour in until she had soft dough ready to roll out. She rolled it out into a huge rectangle and cut it in thirds, then rolled each smaller rectangle and cut long strips. Using a big spoon, she dropped dumplings into the broth, letting them spiral out into the boiling stew.
She quickly thickened the peaches, poured them into a pan and stirred up a different batter, one sweetened with sugar, and dropped it by spoonfuls into the peaches and liquid, sprinkling it with sugar and cinnamon before adding it to the oven.
While the cobbler and biscuits baked, she moved the dumplings to a back-eye to stay warm, and then cut bacon into the skillet. When it was fried, she added three tablespoons of sugar to the hot grease, then added a half cup of vinegar to the pan, finally adding all the washed lettuce and snipped greens to the pan, tossing them in the hot spicy liquid. She diced a hard- boiled egg, crumbled the bacon, and added both on top of the wilted greens as soon as she lifted them to the big flat bowl.
Hattie was back in the bedroom, the window open and a cool breeze fluttering the curtains, when she heard the men ride in. She could hear them at the well washing up, talking excitedly about the good smells from the kitchen.
As the men came to the table and started to eat, all were complementary about the food. Rubye took all the accolades in stride, saying nothing until one of the men asked how she had talked Miss Stoddard into killing one of her prized hens.
“Coyote did it for her. Thank her for the dumplings. But, half of its rabbit and you boys didn’t even know it.”
“Not mine, I et chicken. Best I ever had,” Boyd said.
“How’d she get a rabbit, if the coyote caught her chicken?”
She listened to Rubye tell the story of the two coyotes, making Hattie sound like a real sharp-shooter. The men were laughing, trying to imagine the young girl chasing after her hen.
The men were nearly as complementary of her biscuits and the peach cobbler. For a moment she was remembering her Dad and the hands complementing her on her cooking, felt the pride she had felt then.
But when she closed her eyes, she felt that iron band and breathless feeling from Jackson’s kiss,
and was instantly awake. What had he meant by kissing her?
When Hattie came out after the voices finally left, Rubye was busy clearing dishes. Hattie walked over and handed Jackson the baby, then sat down at the empty table. Rubye bustled in with her plate, dumplings with a mouthful of wilted greens on the side and a cold biscuit on the edge of a small dish of cobbler.
“You’re lucky they left any for you. Sweet or buttermilk?”
“Sweet, thank you Rubye, I can get it.”
“Sit, you did all the cooking.”
He raised an eyebrow, stared at Hattie then smiled at Rubye. He was holding the baby under the arms, letting him push against his lap to stretch out with his little bowed legs. When J.D. pushed too hard in the wrong place, Jackson made a face and let out an ‘ow.’ The baby laughed and Hattie smiled.
Rubye walked in from the kitchen, smiling and laughing too. J.D. looked over at her and made a happy gurgle. “Do it again, make him laugh.”
Jackson sat the baby on the edge of the cleaned table and laughed at him as he pretended to bite his neck. The baby laughed and rolled his head against him, trying to bite back.
“Now, that’s a right sweet sound. Here let me take him.”
Hattie sat mesmerized by the look on Jackson’s face as he stared at the baby. When he looked over at her, she felt his eyes studying her face.
Rubye sank down, drying her hands in her apron to take him. “Here you silly goose,” she teased, laughing when the baby cooed up at her. At her laugh, he laughed too. “There, did you hear it? Donna’s laugh?”
He nodded and Hattie felt a sharp pang in her heart. No wonder he looked so enchanted. The baby laughed like the woman he loved.
Rubye looked from one to the other. “Humph, you’d best eat up. This little man needs changing.” She handed him back to Jackson and left the room.
Hattie ate, barely tasting the food. When she rose to take the baby she said. “He’s right on schedule, according to Dr. Padgett. I wish I knew how much he weighs. He is getting bigger isn’t he?”
“Bigger every day. Irene Dawson will be pleased when she sees him tomorrow. He’s looking pudgy, and that’s the way she likes them.”
At Hattie’s scowl he laughed. “Of course, you don’t know what he weighed at birth, but Doc Jenkins put down seven pounds. Next time we’re in town, you can weigh him at Thompson’s store. Bet he’s more than fifteen pounds.”
She remembered how enormous the newborn J.D. had felt when she first lifted him. Of course, the tiny scrap that had been her son still was the baby she compared him too.
That night as she gave him a sponge bath in the washtub on top of the dresser, she was careful as Dr. Padgett advised not to remove the protective oils found in every baby’s skin. She studied the chunky legs and arms, the round pink tummy with its perfect little innie-belly-button. There were dimples on each knee and elbow. She kissed each then lifted him out over the chamber pot as Dr. Padgett directed she do every day. For only the second time, there was the little tinkle of success.
She wasn’t sure if there were anyway the baby could know or control the event, but according to the good doctor, this repeated process would lead to a well-trained child by age one. She had promised Irene Dawson that she would follow the good doctor’s advice. No matter how silly much of it seemed to her, she did it because she knew it was what Donna would want, would have done if she were still here. Smiling, she recorded the laugh and the successful potty experience in the baby book.
Clean and diapered, she deposited J.D. into his crib, where he could watch her getting ready for bed. He did so with the usual kicking of feet, waving of fists, and range of coos and gurgles. When ready, she stared down at him, trying to see his mother. Rubye claimed he looked just like Donna. Hattie loved the soft blue eyes, button nose and decidedly pointed chin. Even though he didn’t look like Donna or Jackson in the tintype, Hattie loved his sweet face. “Your momma made a wonderful son, Jackie.”
She picked up the baby to lie playing beside her, despite what Dr. Padgett said about never allowing a child into your bed. She could remember climbing into bed with her parents, even the year that her mother had died, she would let Hattie curl up beside her to read and talk about recipes and things she had seen that day working with her Daddy. She loved the shared time then, and she loved it now.
With pillows and crib fencing him in on one side, she played peek-a-boo and talked lovingly to the baby until they were both sleepy, then she blew out the light.
<><><>
“What’s going on?”
Jackson stared at his housekeeper, surprised at her tone of voice. He studied the tall, rangy woman, a friend of the Harper family and his neighbor all his life. When he bought the ranch and needed a housekeeper, she was the first person he asked. Single, the typical spinster, she had remained behind to care for her parents when the rest of the family married one-by-one and moved out. Mid-thirties, cantankerous as an old goat, her chances in life seemed limited. He tried to remember why she was bitter and tolerate her caustic tongue.
“What’s going on between you and that girl?”
“You’re asking me if there’s something improper between me and Miss Stoddard.” He felt the muscle in his jaw flex, he was gritting his teeth so hard. “Nothing.”
“Nothing,” she said the word with disgust, her hands on her flat hips. “Don’t tell me nothing. I saw you two making eyes at each other.”
“Making eyes? We shared a smile when the baby laughed. You smiled and laughed too.”
“You weren’t smiling at the baby. You were looking at each other, smiling and looking away. What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” he growled. “You’re here every day with us, you know nothing is going on, for God’s sake.”
“Don’t swear at me, Jackson Harper. Then why were you on one horse?”
He wondered if it was possible that Rubye had seen him kissing Hattie. He shook his head in disbelief. No, he had been in a swale below sight of the ranch. No one saw it.
Rubye was one cagey old bird. Somehow she knew about it.
“I heard the shots. Worried those no counts were back and rode in to help you ladies…”
“She was shooting coyotes. What kind of woman shoots coyotes?”
“Quiet down. Give me a chance to answer. She was out walking, and I only had one horse. I was bringing her back to the house to be safe.”
“Donna would never shoot at coyotes. She was a lady. This girl is strange. You’ve heard all the whispers and talk at church. Mrs. Dawson says she can send for someone suitable, we don’t have to have that trollop.”
“Irene Dawson needs to back-off. She seems plenty pleased at how big and handsome J.D. looks when she ‘s showing him off at church services as her wonderful grandson.”
“When have you ever seen any lady act like she does?”
“No, she’s not Donna. Her Dad taught her to shoot and ride and chase cattle,” he continued.
“She’s strange. Donna would never have scrubbed dirty clothes, or harnessed a mule to plow a garden, or skinned a rabbit. She was a lady.”
“Her manners may be lacking, but you can help her with that. She’s young and has grown-up with just her dad these last ten years.”
Angrily he whispered as he stood over her, determined to shut her up. “Donna never chased or fed chickens, cooked a meal for a table full of cowhands or did any real work. She would plan meals, read Dr. Padgett, sew baby clothes, and read the catalog for things to order for the house or for herself. Hattie’s a prairie girl. She’s had to learn it all, do it all. But she can read and write and does every single day. She works hard, and judging from that meal tonight, she can cook as good as any woman in Texas.”
“Humph,” Rubye snorted and turned toward her room. “I’m watching you,” she hissed before slamming her door.
Jackson paced angrily back and forth in the living room. Even after three months of working closely with her, Rubye still resented Hattie. He k
new part of it was that the younger girl had beaten her in the kitchen today. It would be hard for most women to hear another woman praised as Hattie had been tonight by all the men present.
What would his mother have thought of Hattie? He believed she would have liked her. After all, his mom could ride and shoot, perhaps not as well as Hattie, but it was only a few years since every western woman needed to learn to shoot to survive. He would never know what they thought since it had been six years since he lost both his parents to Typhoid fever, following the big flood. He paused to stare at their framed portrait. He felt sure his parents would have admired Hattie’s ‘spunk.’
Rubye was jealous. The more the men bragged about their dinner, the more it got her goat. She’d been in a real lather all evening. Almost as bad as the day Hattie had commented about how dirty the windows were and then spent the day cleaning them.
It might have passed if the men hadn’t come in, not knowing, and bragged about how bright and wonderful everything looked. Rubye had been furious.
Hattie was clueless to the woman’s resentment. If she had not been, then she would never have offered to mop the floors real good and maybe wax them for Rubye. He had been afraid that Rubye would go up in flames.
For a girl who had been orphaned so young, she knew a heck of a lot about housework, gardening, and cooking. When you added in what she knew about animals and ranching, well, she might not be a lady like Donna, not knowing when to curtsy and simper, how to use a complement to insult, not up-to-date on proper clothes and who and what was acceptable, but neither was he. She was still a remarkable woman.
His actions today had been wrong. But the thought of her being confronted by those trashy low-lifes had panicked him. He’d been furious when Rubye finally told him about the last encounter in the barn. The fact that the grisly trophy had sat on the mantle for two months before Rubye mentioned it didn’t help. She had seemed proud of Hattie for sticking up for herself, but he knew if the housekeeper hadn’t backed her with her shotgun, they might have…