After all, this was a ranch, not some high-falutin’ restaurant. At worst, Operation Texas could have sent a frumpy old Jewish female. Even though the National Youth Association’s age specification were supposed to be between sixteen to twenty-five, Johnson’s Operation Texas apparently ignored this, as it did everything else in its desperate efforts to foster Jewish refugees.
Next time, he saw Harold, he’d have to ask him what in the hell had he been thinking to fix up a female cook and a bachelor under one roof.
His roof.
His years at sea had taught him that there was a lot to be said about neatness and order, about being ship shape. And this scruffy cat perched next to him, obviously, could not even perceive the word ‘fastidious.’
“Does it never rain here?” Her lips were taut as a bowstring. Her gaze skittered back and forth over the dry, desolate vista.
As his Ford rattled west into mesquite and chaparral territory before heading north to the Hill Country, the southeast Texas piney woods had been left far behind.
“Texas has four seasons – drought, flood, blizzard, and twister, so as for as rain, it just sizzles on the ground and evaporates for the most part. That’s when it does rain. Lately, sand just blows.”
The Dust Bowl storms had about killed off his cattle operations. Their black, sirocco-like winds had laid waste his Blanco River’s fine, dark soils. As drought had exacerbated his plight, cattle prices had plummeted, his debts had boomed, and foreclosure was always an alarming threat.
He tried to relax his heavy-handed grip on his pickup’s timeworn-smooth steering wheel. He might not be as happy as a hog in slop, but, admittedly, the gal had to be feeling a little overwhelmed, as well. “Look, I know this isn’t easy for you. Isn’t for me, either. We need to set up some sort of schedule, so we can stay out of each other’s way. At least, until I can find another place better suited for you.”
“Yuir place suits me fine.”
Sunnufabitch! “This just isn’t going to work.”
She turned those luminous greens on him. “Why not?”
“’ Cause – oh, hell, ‘cause I’ll be wanting a wife soon, and no woman with half a brain is going to stand for another cook in the kitchen.” Especially one that threw him off his feed like this one did.
Everything was suddenly quiet in the pickup. This from a gal who could get out five words in a second and fifty in a gust.
All at once, she seemed to perk up. Twisting her mite of a body on the bench seat, with care to avoid the spring poking through its tuft, she faced him fully. “Then ye need me to help ye go a‘courting.”
“What?!” He had to swerve the steering wheel to keep from drifting off into the bar ditch.
“Aye. Think of all the time ye would waste calling on lass after lass, only to find none of them meet yuir . . . uhhh . . .discerning eye.”
His mind was whirling. A Jewish girl who spoke with the brogue of an Irish maiden? Except this gal was doubtlessly no maiden. Not with that kiss her fiancé had planted on her. Something was off kilter.
Had she belonged to him, and, thank God, he wasn’t saddled with her – well, not in that sense – he would have made damn sure they stayed together come hell or high water. What was his was his.
“And just what do you have in mind?” he muttered. “Accompanying me into Austin when I go a’courting? Picking out a love song for my date? Writing a flowery speech for me to deliver on bended knee?”
“I was thinking, Duke, that – ”
Hell’s bells, he could feel his brows popping up like toast in a toaster. “Duke?”
“Uhh . . . sorry about that. Duke also is – was – my grandfather’s name. Marmaduke Ayres. Irish Traveller,” she added proudly. “Actually, tis not a bad idea – me accompanying ye when ye go a’courting . . . Mr. McClellan.”
“Well, you can forget that harebrained idea, because that’s not gonna happen. And as for writing flowery speeches – ”
“Er, writing . . . or writing flowery speeches, that is . . . tis not what I do best.”
“Then what do you do best?” He ran a finger under this neck’s red bandana, which suddenly seemed too tight, like a hangman’s noose. “I am sure enough hoping to God it’s cooking.” Johnson’s Operation Texas undertaking was looking worse by the moment.
Her short, slender fingers fidgeted with the clasp of her grungy purse. Snapping it. Unsnapping it. Snapping it. Finally, she unsnapped it and drew out a well-worn box of Bicycle playing cards.
“Christ Almighty, don’t tell me you are a card shark.”
“Well, uhhh, not exactly.”
He took his eyes off the road to shoot her a demanding glare. “What do you mean ‘not exactly’?”
“I, uhh . . . if you must know,” she huffed, “I am psychic.”
“Psycho.”
“Nay, psychic. Ye know – like a fortune – ”
“I know what you mean. I mean I must be psycho to be listening to your babble.”
“Just watch.”
As she slipped the deck from its worn cardboard box, he darted a glance. Rapidly, she flipped out three cards on the sand-coated dashboard. A small gasp slipped through those pursed lips. Perspiration suddenly popped out on her upper lip.
He dragged his gaze from it, with its deeply bowed center, to the three cards she had turned over: The Queen of Clubs, the King of Diamonds, and the King of Clubs. “What?”
Quickly, she gathered the three cards and stuffed the deck back into its box. “The layout just says that if ye do not listen to me, ye’ll be sorry.”
He was already sorry that he had listened to Harold.
But he did owe the old Jew at least this – giving it a go. Besides, in three months, come Christmas, he had to head back to Galveston to return the box of books borrowed from the rabbi and pick up a desert cooler for which, even at autumn’s cheaper price, he had paid precious dinero.
At the same time, he could drop off Operation Texas’s cook, for which, at this rate, he would surely lose precious dinero.
And peace of mind in the meantime.
§ CHAPTER FIVE §
Holy Mary, Mother of Jesus, and all the saints!
Romy stood next to the rusty green pickup, one hand clutching Irina’s purse, the other the old Ford’s door handle for support. The pickup was backed up to a paint-peeling red barn, its roof partially caved in.
Her mind reeling with disbelief, she next stared at the ranch house, hunkering a hundred meters in front of her. Early October’s warmish wind kicked up a dust cloud that, unfortunately, did not hide the abysmal adobe abode.
The ranch house, with its crumbling chimney, looked slapped together like a cairn. A dismal pile of rocks it was. Like its owner, it had clearly battled the weather and the elements. Behind it a little distance, against the dying sunlight, a lazily spinning windmill and metal tank were silhouetted.
Aye, the place was larger than her confining vardo. But her vardo had been cozy and colorful. This rock dwelling was as about as appealing as . . . as a concentration barrack. No better were two out-buildings of native stone, their timbered roofs in various stages of reconstruction – one, an even smaller house of stone, and the other, judging by its blackened rocks, most likely a smokehouse.
So much for her wish-upon-a-shooting-star for a lush green and pungently peat-smelling countryside. But of such were fairy tales made.
From the pickup bed, Duke hefted a card board box beneath one arm. “Well? Are you coming?” Leaving her standing, he strode on toward the ramshackle, screened-in front porch.
Drawing back her shoulders, she started to catch up with him – and stopped abruptly.
With ear-deafening rapidly firing barks, a large black dog leapt from the top porch steps and charged across the stretch of fried grass. Fear electrified her. Her body rocketed to cremation temperature. Instantly sweat blistered her pores.
When the dog, a Labrador Retriever, stopped short to slobber in adoration all over Duke’s outst
retched, fondling hand, Romy nearly sagged with relief.
He glanced around at her. Beneath his hat’s shadowy brim, his eyes narrowed in disbelief. “You’re afraid of old Ulysses? Why, hens have more teeth than he does.”
“Dogs and meself aren’t the best of buddies.” It could be worse. She could be back at Sachsenhausen. Her toes a mass of oozing blisters, she began to hobble forward again on Irina’s one good high heel.
“Oh, hell!” He dropped the cardboard box, and books spilled out of it. He strode back toward his pickup.
She stopped. “What?” Had she forgotten something? Was he angry with her about her fear of his mutt?
Without even pausing in his long strides, he scooped her up under one arm like she was a parcel and headed again toward the porch.
Her wits were scattered. She twisted her neck to look up at him and screeched, “Put me down, ye rotter, ye clapperclaw, ye shitehead!”
His mustache twitched suspiciously. Its narrowed ends traced the long pleats at either side of an equally long mouth set in an unrelenting line.
His boots thudded up the porch’s three stone steps. The screen door grinded as he hooked it open with one finger. She could hear Ulysses panting excitedly at the rancher’s heels as they crossed the stone porch, and then the weathered front door moaned.
Inside, resinous air wafted memories of the Black Forest. Next, pine boards creaked as he negotiated semi-dark rooms. And then he was setting her on her feet. All too quickly. As if she were too heavy for his monumental strength. Crikey! Clearly, he bloody well hated having her here.
He moved away to switch on a lamp.
Her eyes darted around the sparse room – an ironwork double bed covered by a shabby quilt made of what appeared to be shirt fragments, a nightstand with its lamp naked of a shade, an old pine armoire – and what looked to be a sea chest. Straw beach matting and a fisherman’s net curtained the single window. So, a seafaring man he had been?
“The bathroom’s to the left, between here and the other bedroom, my office now. Parlor’s just ahead. Kitchen’s to the right. Rustle up something for us to eat, while I get the box of books and check on Lucy.”
“Lucy?”
“The mama cow that’s calving.”
“Oh. Uhh, what do ye want to eat?”
“Whatever. Throw together something quick and easy like. It’s late. Fry up some eggs and bacon. And toast. And, oh, yeah, coffee.” He looked anxious to be as far away from her as possible. Did she smell that badly? She had tried to make do with washing from the ship cabin’s tiny sink.
She sighed, shrugged out of Irina’s soiled coat and tossed off her hat. Espying on the nightstand a red-and-black paisley kerchief meticulously folded, Romy nabbed it and knotted it about her head.
Then, she kicked off the crippling heels. Flexing her freed toes with pure delight, she made her way across the parlor’s creaking, uneven floor boards, one that nearly tripped her, toward the kitchen. At last, she felt a stone floor cool beneath her feet.
Pulling on the light chain, she stared stupefied at the large room, clearly the center of activities. Beneath a kitchen window was a wide and deep, rust-stained porcelain sink. On one side, squatted a huge copper tub, plugged into the wall. What in God’s name was that for? On the other, resided an oven-range such as she had ogled from a Paris restaurant’s alley door.
‘Roper’ she read. But she had no idea what all its knobs did. She knew nothing about electric cooking.
Nor did she have a clue about the room’s other bewildering appliances, all looking brand spanking new. Placed precisely upon a Mexican-tiled counter was a small, shiny metal box with two narrow slits atop it and an electrical wire attaching it to the wall socket. What did that contraption do?
The wood box mounted on the wall, alongside a peg rack, was a telephone, of course – but she had not a clue as how to use it.
Against another wall stood a heavy, white metal cabinet on legs not much longer than hers, which, granted, were short. It made an ominous humming noise, and, warily, she opened it. Her breath caught at the cool air that rushed over her face. Not an ice box, but one of those new-fangled refrigerators.
Aha! Inside, was brown paper-wrapped bacon and a basket of eggs.
A lengthy and rustic trestle table, its slat top looking as if it had been ripped from a dock, did double duty as both a dining and a work table, judging by its knife notches.
Another noise, this one a thumping one, alerted her. Cautiously, she peered underneath the table. Stretched out on the flagstone, Ulysses watched her. His tail beat a syncopated, begging tattoo.
“As long as ye’re not planning on having me for dinner,” she mumbled, “we’ll get along fine.”
No choice but to dig in and begin. She pushed up her blouse sleeves and with the sink’s cake of lye soap lathered to her elbows, drying them on a dish towel. Oh, Sweet Baby Jesus, she longed to soak for hours in that bath tub her sponsor had mentioned.
She went to work, doling out the coffee grinds. Next, she flopped the thick-sliced bacon strips in the cast-iron skillet. And bread? The bread box yielded – pre-sliced bread? Imagine that!
She found a baking pan to layer the slices on, shoved the pan into the oven, and flipped the oven knob as far as she could. Lastly, her mouth ricked to one side, she rotated the knobs beneath the coffee pot and the skillet all the way.
Good to go. Easy as falling off a log. But nature called, and she turned in search of the bathroom. She got no further than the parlor’s rock fireplace, when she smelled smoke. And it wasn’t coming from the fireplace.
Pivoting back, she saw the smoke roiling from the oven. There, as well, from atop the burner with its sizzling bacon. Immediately, she dashed back into the kitchen and started ratcheting knobs. One way, then another.
“Looks like Arturo has Lucy under – what the shit?”
She whipped around to confront Duke McClellan. He had paused in dusting his hat against his thigh to glare at the smoke-hazed kitchen.
In one swift stride, he grabbed the dish towel and snatched the blackened pan with its smoking bread from the oven. Then his hands swiftly spun knobs on the range and jerked the frying pan from the stove top to plop on the broken tiled countertop.
He tossed the burnt-black bread in the trash under the open sink. “You’ve never used a toaster?”
Whatever that was, obviously, she hadn’t. She bit her lip, then shook her head.
“Or an electric stove range before?”
Again, she shook her head, unable to summon her usual repertoire of retorts.
He jerked open a counter drawer and tossed upon the counter some kind of pamphlet. Stunned, she stared at it, unsure at what she was supposed to be looking.
“It’s an oven-range manual.”
“Oh. Of course.” Eyes glazed by both smoke and embarrassment, she began leafing through blurred pages.
Braced on a back leg, his fists jammed on his hips, his gaze scanned her. From her bare feet past her bedraggled, flounced skirt, next her begrimed, yellow peasant blouse, then up to her kerchief-bound hair. “Is that my bandana?”
“Uhh, I thought since you weren’t using – ”
“Sunnufabitch.”
“About the manual – ”
“You can’t read, can you?”
Slowly, she hung her head, painfully ashamed. One bare foot overlapped the other, as if to hide all her deficiencies. She struggled to proffer a smile. “Och, I do read a little, enough to get by.”
“Well, it didn’t ‘get you by’ here, did it? Have you never heard ‘The pen is mightier than the – ‘”
“ – mightier than the pigs.” she chirped in.
His groan could have been a damning expletive. “I’ll fix the dinner tonight. But you’re out of here come Christmas, do you understand?”
“I am not hungry.” She had been. But though her stomach protested loudly her lie, she turned on her heel and marched into his bedroom, slamming the door behind her. She
flopped on the edge of the spring box mattress, hands clasped between her knees, and tried to figure out what she needed to do next.
She was a wild beast out of place in civilized society. She was ashamed of her ignorance. But by now she knew it would do no good to weep for all that she had lost. For her combative parents and irascible Old Duke. For her twin brother, Luca. And for the unfettered life of her childhood, traveling rarely explored roads and encountering exciting adventures beyond imagination.
Though the rubble of a ranch house might be larger than her vardo, open spaces called to her. In less than a minute, she had the bedroom’s single window jimmied open and was wedging her way through it. The grass, sparse though it was, felt wonderfully cool beneath her feet. Twilight’s cool air woke up her lungs and dried her damp eyes.
She was off and running. The gloaming distorted scraggy trees and underbrush that scratched her calves. Stickers pierced the soles of her feet. Did not matter. At last, she ran out of fury at the same time she realized she had run out of options. Her running gradually slowed to a jog, then to a fast walk, and finally she came to a halt and bent over, hands braced on her knees while she caught her breath – and mulled over her plight.
She had no other place to go, and the silence of the faint silver stars just emerging from the deep blue above offered no help.
She would have to go back. Duke McClellan might not want her, but he had complained he was stuck with her until Christmas. Less than three months. She would have to use all her yarn-spinning skills to delay her return. Until she could afford the voyage fare to Ireland – to her people, the Irish Travelers, and a way of life, a freedom, that was rapidly being stamped out across Germany.
However, on her journey back to the ranch house, strummed music coming from the lit barn, sidetracked her footsteps. Curious, she approached the opened, double-wide doors. One tilted crazily from only its top hinge.
Inside, his back against one slatted stall door, a swarthy young man sloped on the straw-layered ground and cradled a guitar against one raised knee. He idly plucked at the strings. As she drew nearer, she could see that his tired face held the handsome stamp of conquistadores of old.
GYPSIES, TRAMPS, AND THIEVES Page 6