“Beefalo,” Tessa said.
“Si, Beefalo. Vince say the bull won’t move for anyone else. Jed led him into the barn out of the storm, and afterwards the men watch him fight his way back across through the flood. An hour later, no one dares try. By now . . . who knows?”
Who knows indeed? Tessa wondered despairingly. But as she recalled one of Pop’s more shortsighted economies, she knew on whom the blame should be placed.
A few years back, after the runoff from a hard rain gouged a whole new set of gullies in the ranch road, Jed had wanted to put in a culvert to divert future flows, then build a simple plank bridge across it to connect the barns and corrals to the house.
“Never cut us off for more’n a few hours in all the years we been here!” Pop stubbornly maintained when Jed tried to tell him about the drastic change in drainage conditions caused by Terry Ballou’s wholesale clearing of brush on the mesa above the ranch for one of his vacation house developments. “You young fellers,” Jed had mimicked with sneering accuracy. “Always in a hurry to get someplace other’n where you oughta be.”
I bet Pop’s not sneering now, Tessa thought. In fact, he may not be doing anything now, she suddenly realized.
“Did the doctor see Pop?” she asked Miguel. When he nodded, she reached for the phone. After telling Doc Strunk about the isolation of the Bradburn house and ranch road by flood-water, he expressed alarm.
“Walt’s stroke was severe, Tessa. I told Jed he ought to be in the hospital, but he said he knew his father wouldn’t agree to it. Stubborn old coot! He called someone—a woman up in Ouray, I think, but I never heard— “
“According to his foreman, Jed’s holding the fort alone.”
“Don’t like the sound of that, Tessa . .. no way to get up there, you say?”
“Miguel says no. I gather the road in has turned into a river, and even when the rain stops they’ll have that runoff from the mesa— “ She stopped short. There was a way! Why hadn’t she realized it sooner?
“Tessa? You still there?”
“Gotta go. Doc. Maybe I can’t get over the river to grandma’s house, but there’s always the woods.”
“Whose grandma? What are you talking—”
Tessa slammed the receiver into the hook and turned to Miguel, eyes bright. “Miguel? Saddle up Mackerel. I’ll throw a few things together and meet you outside the door here. Where did I put that duffle ...”
“Miz Wagner? What you thinking of doing? You can’t--”
“I can. Over Hayden’s Bald. Jed needs me, Miguel. I don’t have time to discuss it. Just bring those fence clippers with you.”
Tessa pounded upstairs for a change of clothes and a dry pair of shoes. Returning to the kitchen, she zipped open the waterproof duffle she’d brought in from the truck, dumped her armload in on top of the stuff she’d taken to the horse show, and added a few staples-soup mix, canned tomatoes, peanut butter, crackers, powdered milk— from the kitchen cupboard.
She heard the mud-muffled clip-clop of hooves outside. She started to close the cupboard door, then, rising on her toes, she lifted down a bottle of bourbon from the top shelf. Might come in real handy, she thought grimly as she zipped it into the duffle. She dug in the twine drawer for an elastic cord and secured it through the canvas handles, praying Mackerel wouldn’t get spooked by the feel of it thumping behind the saddle.
Tessa pulled on her slicker and tied the hood close around her face. Catching sight of herself in the mirror, she forced a smile. No point in alarming Miguel any more than she already had.
Miguel helped her fasten the bag to the saddle. He pointed to the leather pouch already in place. “The clippers,” he said. “Please, Miz Wagner. I really wish—”
“Wishes aren’t horses,” she broke in. “How ‘bout a leg up?” Sighing resignedly, he boosted her. “I don’t expect Garland home before this evening, Miguel. Explain the situation. Tell her not—repeat not—to follow me. I want her to wait here until Jed’s phone is back in service. By then we’ll be needing stuff, but at the moment I have no idea what it might be. Okay?”
It was clear from Miguel’s expression that he saw the situation as anything but okay, but knew there was nothing he could do to stop her. His lips moved in silent prayer.
Vaya con Dios.
Chapter Twenty-five
Jed sat dozing in Aggie Bradburn’s old rocker, his chin touching his collarbone, when a noise, a faint tap-tapping, roused him. Thinking it a change in his father’s labored breathing, he pushed himself up, suddenly awake.
“Easy, Jed,” said a quiet voice from the doorway. “It’s only me.”
Jed settled back, but not for long. Me, who? he wondered, turning his head to blink at the figure walking towards him. Despite the rain he saw streaming down the window, it seemed enveloped in sunlight. He blinked again. “Tessa?”
“None other,” she said, shrugging out of her bright yellow slicker. “Be right back,” she added. “I’m dripping all over the floor.”
By the time she returned, Jed was standing by the bed, staring down.
“How is he?” she asked
“Hard to tell. He can’t talk. I’m not sure he recognizes me ... or if he does, wants to. Doc Strunk wasn’t encouraging, but you know Pop, he’s what investors in the stock market call a contrarian.” He adjusted the old man’s covers. “I didn’t think the road was passable.”
Tessa hesitated before answering. “It’s not,” she, said.
He slanted a look at her. “Then how in hell did you get here?”
“Hayden’s Bald,” she said. “I clipped the fence wire to let us through. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not as long as I knew before I let any cattle graze up there.” He led the way out of the bedroom, leaving the door slightly ajar. “Who’s us?”
“Me and Mackerel. I put his saddle on your porch, but I had to leave him standing in the rain. He’s not a happy horse,” she added as they entered the kitchen, “but then these aren’t happy times, are they?” Jed agreed they weren’t. “I thought you might be running low on food,” Tessa said, reaching into the duffle she’d left near the door. “I’m afraid I grabbed what was closest to hand.” Packets and cans and small cartons cluttered the tablet top. “Kind of a strange assortment, now that I look at it.”
Jed picked up the jar of peanut butter with one hand and the bottle of bourbon with the other. “Do we have these together or alternately?”
“Either way . . . whatever suits you.” He was aware of her blue eyes searching his face. “You look like hell, Jed. When did you last sleep?”
He ran his hand through his dark hair. “Well, when you came in I was— “
“Really sleep, I mean,” she said sternly. “A few winks and a catnap now and again don’t count.”
“They do if they’re all you can get.”
“Ah, Jed.”
It was the softness of her voice that undid him. He took a ragged breath. “I don’t know, Tessa. Two days . . . three, maybe.”
“Go lie down. I’ll call you when supper’s ready”
He eyed the odd mix of foodstuffs on the table. “I can hardly wait,” he said. His smile was forced.
Tessa smiled back, probably thinking any smile an improvement, and made impatient little shooing motions with her hands. Jed shuffled down the dark corridor to his room, too tired to lift his feet. The next thing he knew, Tessa was nudging at his shoulder.
“Rise and shine.” He groaned. “Well, rise anyway. I turned on all the lights and started a fire in the stove.” His protest was automatic. “I don’t think this month’s electric bill is going to matter all that much to Pop, Jed.”
“No. Probably not.” The sight of the warmly lit kitchen, a gentle fire glowing in its squat little potbelly stove, cheered him more than he thought possible. “It’s summer, Tessa,” he said, raising his hands to the stove’s warmth.
“It’s cold out there. The wind’s come up since I arrived. Besides, it’s August.”<
br />
Weary as he was, Jed picked up at once on her sly reference to the classic description of Colorado weather. “Winter and July,” he murmured, chuckling.
Tessa cupped a hand to her ear. “Is that a laugh I hear?” She slid a large soup bowl and small plate into one of the two places she had set on the old table. “Ban appe’tit!”
Jed raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything. Taking his seat, he picked up the wine glass. “My, my. All we need are some flowers and a couple of those little watchamacallem lights.”
“Votive,” Tessa said. She brought the open bottle of wine to the table. “I don’t know about the wine, Jed. It was sitting in your fridge God knows how long.”
“No need to bring God into it, Tessa. Three days. I opened it after the doctor left.” He filled their glasses. “I found Pop sprawled on the porch, his wheelchair tipped over, when I came in for lunch Friday. For all I knew, he could have broken something maneuvering through the doorway.” He shook his head. “It took me and two of the guys to get him into bed.”
“Why didn’t you call me?” she asked in a low voice.
Jed sampled the soup. “Not bad. Should I ask what’s in it?”
“I wouldn’t advise it,” she said. “Call it potluck and leave it at that.” She gestured to the crackers. “I bought those for the picnic supper I took to the Bluegrass Festival for Garland and her young man, then forgot to pack them. They were very expensive. The cheese is just plain old rat cheese. You should have called me.”
“Best kind, rat cheese. ‘Her young man’?. I didn’t know mothers said things like that anymore.
“This one does, Jed? Why didn’t you? Call me, I mean.”
Jed carefully put his spoon down on his plate and fixed her with a look of stunning intensity. “I’ve never hit a woman,” he said, “and I didn’t think I ever could, but I swear, Tessa, if you dare tell me you owe me I’ll smack you one.”
“All right then,” she said slowly, “I won’t. In fact, I hadn’t been planning to. It’s just . . . well, that’s what friends do. They call on each other in times of trouble.” She averted her eyes from his, as if realizing how trite that sounded.
He looked at her thoughtfully. “We’re not friends, Tessa ... not the way we were, anyway.” He picked up his spoon and resumed eating. “I don’t know what we are now, do you?” Tessa shook her head fiercely, unable to speak. “Then I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.” He gestured at his empty bowl. “Good soup,” he said. “Could I have some more?”
At six the next morning, when Tessa made her hourly check of Pop Bradburn, his breathing seemed more labored than it had during the night, and it was obvious he needed attentions of an intimate physical sort. When Jed came in, yawning, a half-hour later, she had just finished sponging the old man off. Together they disposed of the soiled sheets and rolled him onto padding made from paper towels. “Fortunately, you still have eleven rolls,” Tessa said.
“I’m a coupon clipper,” he admitted. “I’m not compulsive about it, but this was an offer too good to pass up.”
“Relax, Jed,” she said. “I took advantage of it, too. Together we have enough to supply an army barracks.” They looked at each other, then quickly away. “That’s one of the first things I’ll ask Garland to bring,” she added briskly.
Jed looked at her, astonished. “More paper towels?”
“No, silly. Absorbent bedpads.”
They stood together by the bed staring down at the old man’s slack, distorted face. Stertorous,” Jed said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“His breathing,” Jed explained. “Harsh and gasping. Doc said that might happen.”
“Mmmm-mmm. He’s not going to get better, you know.”
“I know that, Tessa. The trick is to get nourishment into him for as long as— “ Jed stopped abruptly. “For as long as I can,” he finished. “About all he can take now is thickened liquids. I prepared some yesterday.” He looked over at Tessa, catching her in the middle of a huge yawn. “Go to bed, Tessa. The morning shift is mine.”
“Can I have breakfast first?”
“Sure. But leave some of that bourbon for me.”
She cuffed him on the shoulder as she left the room. Breakfast consisted of a slice of peanut butter-smeared bread and a glass of milk she took with her to Jed’s room. The milk, made at the last minute with some of the powder she had brought with her, was lukewarm and nasty; the bed, still warm from Jed’s body, was delicious.
By noon, when Tessa woke, a watery sunlight was making faint leaf shadows on the window-pane. Two hours later, Jed’s foreman knocked at the door, stumbling back astonished, like someone in an old-time silent movie comedy, when Tessa opened it.
“How in hell ... I mean how in heck—”
“Under the circumstances, Vince, hell seems the right word,” Tessa said, grinning. “I rode over yesterday.”
“The Hayden’s Bald way?”
“Only way there was.”
“But there’s a fence up there.” Tessa’s fingers mimicked the act of cutting. “Well, I’ll be, . . . Where’s your horse, Miz Wagner?”
“Around here someplace . . . out in that long grass behind the house probably. Nice-looking gray . . . I’d be obliged if you’d take him back with you to the corral.” He nodded and shifted uneasily from one muddy boot to the other. “You’ll be wanting to talk to Jed, I imagine.”
“Yes, ma’am. The boys and me ... we was wondering how the old man is, and if there’s anything we can do.”
“Not much, I’m afraid. Right now it’s sort of a waiting game. Jed? Vince is here.” She stepped back to make way for him.
“Morning, Vince. Water down enough to get out yet?”
“Not yet. Boss. I waded through,” he said, indicating his mud-caked jeans. “Maybe by the end of the afternoon, though. Leastwise that’s what I told the girl what answers at the phone company. Told her we had a medical emergency up here,” he added gruffly.
Deathwatch is more like it, Tessa thought.
“Do me a favor, Vince?” she interrupted. “Call Miguel for me. Ask him to get word to Garland about bringing us some things this evening. I’ll go make out a list. And Vince? Tell him she’ll need to stop off home for my pickup. Her little car doesn’t have four-wheel drive . . .”
Garland arrived at seven. The doctor had just left, shaking his head, when she pulled in. Tessa’s red truck was now an all-over rosy desert-sand color.
“Sorry about that, Mom. There’s still a lot of water out there, and I didn’t dare slow down.”
Tessa lifted two stuffed-full canvas bags from the bench seat. “Actually, it looks better that way . . . hides all those scrapes and rust spots.” They carried their load into the kitchen. “Come see what Garland brung us, Jed!” Tessa crowed. “Steak! Fresh tomatoes! Tater-Tots!”
“I have a bottle of red wine in my shoulder bag,” Garland said, “and there should be some brownies somewhere in there, too.”
“Nell’s?” Tessa asked.
“Not mine, certainly. I made it very plain to Rick that he wouldn’t be getting much of a cook . . . not much of a bottle-washer either.”
Before Tessa had a chance to digest that, Jed appeared.
“Did I hear someone mention steak?”
“Uncle Jed!” Garland whirled to hug him. “How’s it going? With Pop, I mean.”
“Not so good. He’s not in any pain ... at least that’s what Doc thinks. Hard to tell, really.”
Garland nodded. They all knew there was nothing to say. “Mind if I join you for supper? I brought enough for three.”
“We’d have wanted you to even if you hadn’t,” Jed said. “I’m sure your mother would have been happy to sacrifice her share to you.”
* * * *
“So, Garland,” Tessa began with elaborate casualness after they sat down. “What’s this about cooks and bottle-washers? She spent the weekend at the Chavez ranch in New Mexico,” she added for Jed’s benefit, wh
o looked up puzzled from pouring the wine.
“Well, I guess it begins with Rick’s mother . . . I mean, actually it began with Rick, but I’m talking about after that.” Jed and Tessa exchanged bewildered looks. “C’mon, guys,” Garland protested, “it’s complicated. For starters, I finally admitted to myself that I’m in love with him.”
“Surprise, surprise,” Tessa murmured.
Garland thumbed her nose at her. “It was that festival weekend that finally did it, Mom. But these days there’s a lot more to a relationship than just being in love.”
“Just being in love?” Tessa blurted. “Just?”
“Please, Mom. The thing is, Rick had trouble understanding that my wanting to be a veterinarian, and his wanting me to be his wife needn’t be an either-or proposition. Not in my mind, anyway. So he came up with all these alternatives. I could look after the Chavez sheep, he said. Help with the lambing and keep the sheepdogs’ shots up-to-date, he said. So I told him I needed more than endless flocks of black-faced Suffolks and a few ill-tempered border collies. We’d have children, he said. Surely kids would satisfy this ministering angel urge of mine, he said. I swear, I felt like socking him, only I didn’t want to mar that gorgeous olive skin.”
“Isn’t there a practice down there that might take you on?” Jed asked.
“Yeah, I thought of that, but it was Rick’s mom, of all people, who told me to stand firm. God! You guys’ll love her! She’s this tiny, slender wisp of a woman, with long dark hair wound up in a knot and skewered to the back of her head with this huge silver pin that must weigh almost as much she does. Her eyes are big and black, just like Rick’s, and boy, can they snap when she gets her dander up!
“Anyway, she tells me Chavez men will stretch an inch to a mile in a second if you let them, so I told her what I had in mind after I get my VMD— buying into that Telluride practice I told you about. Mom?— and she said she bet that by then Rick could run the greenhouse business from up there, via computer. They already have the basic software, and as long as he has good people doing the growing and shipping, he’d only have to come by every couple of weeks or so. Costing out the product and selling it is what he’s best at, she says, and he’d be closer to an airport and good contacts in Telluride than down at their ranch.”
Colorado High Page 27