Buffalo Gal

by Mary Connealy

  He shook his head to clear it of the way she looked and smiled and smelled. He’d do it, and he’d get out before either of them could make it worse. And then that would be the end. He’d make it a point to never see that snippy little city girl again.

  He said to his rioting boys, “I’ll call the secondhand store in town in the morning and make sure they’ll take the stuff. We can load the stock trailer now then move your stuff in. No reason you can’t sleep in here tonight.”

  “Uncle Wyatt?” Anna said doubtfully.

  “Huh?”

  “Uh, the room is kind of. . .pink for the boys.”

  The boys froze as they studied the pink walls. They looked at their father in horror.

  Pink! What had his wife been thinking? There were frills and flowers everywhere. She’d created a room so out of place on a ranch that no one could be comfortable in it.

  Wyatt looked at his sons’ faces, alive with dread that they’d have to choose between a new room with pink walls or no new room at all. For a man who was feeling sick from having to slither on his belly to tell a woman he was sorry for being a jerk, he almost smiled. It was just as well he did feel like smiling. He didn’t think he’d be doing much smiling once the Buffalo Gal had her say.

  “Okay. We paint as soon as the furniture goes. If the store can take this old stuff tomorrow morning, I’ll run it into town and buy paint. We’ll paint tomorrow afternoon, and you move in here Tuesday.”

  The boys resumed their joyful ruckus, and Wyatt thought grumpily of the helping of crow he was going to have to swallow.

  Three

  “Somebody ought to lock me up.” Buffy sat in the front seat of her truck, resting her forehead against the steering wheel.

  “I can’t believe I said that. God, why did I say that?” She’d been praying the same prayer nonstop since Wyatt Shaw had slammed his door in her face. She wasn’t any closer to an answer beyond she was stupid and rude.

  She’d always believed that when someone did something truly awful to her, she could chalk it up to “stupid or rude.” It was a simple test that satisfied a person’s hurt feelings because either answer left one feeling superior. Now she had to use the test on herself.

  “Am I stupid or rude?”

  God was silent.

  She heard a snuffling sound and looked over at Bill nosing his little corral. Bill’s nose poked through the massive timbers that stretched for miles across the prairie, penning in over a thousand head of buffalo in a 54,000-acre pasture that wound along the edges of the Black Hills National Park. She tried to absorb Bill’s strength and let it soothe her soul.

  Instead, she remembered telling Wyatt to move to Siberia. She had told him she wanted all the other people in South Dakota and the rest of the Midwest to go away, too. She’d driven past Omaha on her way out here. A million people living in the metro area according to the road map. Where in Siberia were they supposed to go? Instead of fencing buffalo in, she’d have to slap up a fence around a million people so a herd of buffalo wouldn’t come stampeding down the interstate during rush hour.

  When she’d heard about the Buffalo Commons, she’d looked at the map and the vast open spaces, and she hadn’t really thought about these few little towns in the Midwest. Now she’d figured out there were ten thousand little towns, and where were the people living in them supposed to go? Somewhere. They’d move. Big deal.

  She banged her head on the steering wheel. “Stupid? Rude? Stupid? Rude? Easy.” She looked up at the roof of her truck. “You don’t need to bother answering, God. It’s easy. I’m both.”

  She tried to remember what else she’d said. She was sure she hadn’t plumbed the depths of this afternoon’s stupidity and rudeness. Of course, first, last, and always, she’d insulted his boys. He’d taken everything else pretty well. He’d seemed to hate her no matter what she said or did, but besides that, he’d taken it well. And then she’d taken a shot at his children. She banged her head on the steering wheel for a while longer.

  “Aunt Buffy?”

  Buffy turned her head and looked through her open window. Sally, outside alone again. She hesitated, thinking maybe she was too stupid and rude to be this close to little children. In the end, she risked Sally’s welfare and opened the door, because she needed a hug.

  So that made her stupid, rude, and selfish. Buffy moaned.

  “Are you all right?” Sally said with a little furrow between her brows.

  “C’mere, honey.” Buffy reached out her arms, and Sally scrambled up onto the seat. Buffy scooted over so Sally wasn’t squished between her and the steering wheel.

  “What’za matter, Aunt Buffy?” Sally laid her chubby hands on Buffy’s face and held her head so she couldn’t look away.

  Buffy smiled at the little sweetheart. She was a mirror image of Jeanie, with her white blond ringlets and perfect pink cheeks and blue eyes that showed everything she felt.

  “I’m feeling bad about letting that buffalo get away today.” Suddenly Buffy remembered Sally’s screams. Her heart lurched, and she clutched Sally tight to her. The image of Sally, crushed and dead under Bill’s heels, was almost too much to bear. “I’m so glad you weren’t hurt, honey. So glad.”

  She gave Sally a kiss on the top of her head and made her decision between stupid and rude. She knew exactly how bad it could have been. And she knew what she’d do to prevent it from happening again. She was not stupid.

  That left rude. She decided that was better. A person could learn some manners, but stupid was forever.

  With a hefty sigh, she knew she needed to go apologize yet again. But not tonight. She was too tired and frazzled. She’d probably just end up being rude again and digging herself in deeper. Besides, Wyatt might shoot her on sight.

  Sally said, “Can we go inside, Aunt Buffy? I’m hungry.”

  Buffy looked at the darkened sky. It was midsummer, and the days were long. It had to be after nine o’clock. How long had she sat there talking at the Shaws’? She’d actually been having fun for a while. Then she’d come home, changed into work clothes, and done chores alongside her hired men, her conscience poking at her for being away from the job.

  Because she didn’t want to go in and listen to Jeanie whine anymore, she’d climbed back in her truck and sat, feeling sorry for herself. “Didn’t you get any supper?”

  “Nope, Mommy was tired after the long drive. She said for me to find something in the refrigerator, but there’s nothing there.”

  Buffy slid out of the pickup with Sally still in her arms. She began walking toward the house. “Of course there’s nothing there. We just moved in today. But we’ll figure something out, or else we’ll run out and get burgers.”

  “Is there a McDonald’s around here?”

  Buffy stopped short. She looked in all directions. She knew the main road led to a town, but it was tiny. No doubt the sidewalks rolled up at nine o’clock—if they had sidewalks. She shook her head and started for the house again. “We’ll just find something here. We don’t want to drive a long way this late at night anyway.”

  “Okay,” Sally said with perfect trust.

  Buffy carried her into the house, so tired and demoralized she was having trouble lifting her feet.

  Supper ended up being a can of tomato soup—the only thing Buffy could rustle up from the bare pantry shelves. She started a grocery list and helped Sally with a bath. Then she found the room Sally was to sleep in with boxes piled everywhere and no sheets on the bed. She’d asked Jeanie to take care of this.

  Afraid of what she’d say if she found Jeanie, she made the bed herself, digging for Sally’s pajamas and ferreting out a set of sheets and a blanket. Sally was falling asleep before Buffy finished. Digging out the baby monitor, Buffy took it to her room, not surprised to find out she had to make her own bed. She took another quick shower to rinse the sweat off her body so she could sleep. She was near collapse when she lay down.

  She assumed Jeanie had gone to bed without a thought to Sa
lly’s supper or sleeping arrangements, let alone Buffy’s. She also knew it wasn’t safe to assume anything with Jeanie, but she didn’t check on her sister. As she adjusted the volume on the monitor, it hit her anew as she lay there that she’d insulted Wyatt’s children. She covered her face with both hands and wondered if the moan was the Holy Spirit praying for her.

  There was a Bible verse that said, “We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.” She hoped the Spirit was praying for her now, because Buffy couldn’t put it all into words, all that she’d done wrong today.

  “Maybe I am stupid after all,” she suggested to God.

  She got an idea then. It wasn’t a still, small voice or a bolt of lightning, but she thought it came from God all the same because it was 180 degrees from the direction of her thoughts. It was simple.

  She was forgiven.

  She’d start over tomorrow. She’d apologize to everyone, maybe even Jeanie for being forced to live a hundred feet from the end of the earth because of a buffalo obsession.

  “God, what other choice do I have anyway?”

  The turmoil in her soul settled, and she slept.

  ❧

  Wyatt felt differently about apologizing to Buffy by the time he’d tossed and turned all night, rehearsing.

  She hated him.

  He hated her.

  It was a system he could live with.

  Then Cody kicked Anna in the shin and told her she was an educated idiot. The fistfight that followed between his boys was their usual exaggerated reenactment of everything their father said and did, which meant he’d better start setting a good example.

  Wyatt took the boys with him to buy paint and pitched in on the painting until noon.

  While they ate, Wyatt said, “I’ve got to quit helping with the room for a while, guys. I’ve got to go over and apologize to the Buffalo Gal. I was rude to her yesterday, and when a man is rude, he’s got to say he’s sorry.”

  Cody and Colt looked at him, blinking.

  Wyatt doubted they got the lesson.

  Then they went nuts, begging to come, and started tearing around the room hunting imaginary buffalo.

  “We want to see Mrs. Buffalo again,” Cody kept shouting.

  Colt rushed up to him and grabbed his hand then went back to attacking Cody.

  Wyatt didn’t want them along. They would open themselves up to more insults, and they’d fall further in love with that East-Coast-liberal, PETA-freak, buffalo-loving neighbor of theirs, who would no doubt dress up like a carrot and picket his ranch on her days off.

  “Please take them, Uncle Wyatt. They’re driving me nuts with all their help,” Anna added good-naturedly, holding up a paintbrush in the room, now so empty it echoed. “You two have got to quit shooting at each other all the time.”

  Wyatt didn’t feel so much as a twinge of anger at Anna for the exactly same insult that he had refused to forgive Buffy for, so he was all the more aware of his need to grovel.

  A cowardly streak Wyatt wasn’t proud of prompted him to let the boys come. Buffy might not leave as deep of bite marks when she bit his head off if the boys were witnesses.

  He loaded them in the truck, having to wage a war to keep them out of the back end and another one to get them in their seat belts. Then he took off to crawl on his belly.

  ❧

  “Buffy, Bill came up lame this morning. You’d better have a look at that cut on his leg.”

  Wolf and three hired men were crowding Bill with a heavy panel until he stepped through the head gate, which snapped on his neck. There was a bucket of corn under his nose, and although some buffalo fought the gate until they were a danger to themselves, Bill just started munching.

  Buffy climbed in with her vet bag and found a deep gouge on his hind leg. Bill did his best to kick her head off while she and Wolf tied the leg so she could stitch it. She gave Bill a shot of antibiotics and measured his height and weight on the underground scale he stood on, all data she needed for her doctoral research.

  “Bill survived both the trip and his wild run across the prairie with no serious injuries and no weight loss.” She flinched when Bill’s leg slipped loose and whipped past Wolf’s head, even though the buffalo never quit gobbling the corn.

  “And no loss of his bad attitude.” Wolf centered his hat back on his head.

  Buffy peered around Bill’s side, smiled, and checked her clipboard to compare Bill’s vital statistics against the data she’d been given at the animal preserve in Oklahoma.

  By the time she was done, she was soaked with sweat, Bill had slammed her into the fence a dozen times, and she’d eaten half her weight in dirt.

  She moved away, and Wolf released Bill from the gate. Once he was free, Bill just stayed in the same spot eating until the corn was gone.

  Wolf laughed as they climbed the fence. “Bill spent the last half hour trying to kill us, and now he’s loose, and he doesn’t even bother to run away.”

  Buffy looked down at her filthy clothes and sure-to-be-bruised arms; then she smiled fondly at the stubborn bull. “I suppose it makes me weird, but I love buffalo and I love this life.”

  “Me, too.” Wolf leaned against the fence. Buffy stood beside Wolf and looked through the heavy wooden fence, listening to the quiet crunch of Bill cropping grass. Then Wolf got back to work. “We’ve already separated out the other old bull so it’s safe to turn Bill into the herd. Bill has the makings of an alpha male, but he might need a couple of years to grow into it. The old bull will sense that.”

  “Yeah, they’d fight, and there’s no reason to risk one of them getting hurt.” Buffy made a few more notations on her clipboard; then she looked up at Wolf and smiled. “We’ll ship the old bull down to Mr. Leonard’s Oklahoma ranch and let him run with that herd for the next couple of years. It reduces the risk of narrowing the gene pool.”

  Wolf shrugged, and his leathered face almost curved into a smile. “I don’t know about genetics, but I know it’s not a good idea to let a herd get inbred.”

  Buffy handed the clipboard to Wolf, jerked her leather gloves off, and tucked them behind her belt buckle. She wiped the sleeve of her blue chambray shirt across her dripping forehead. “We’re just putting scientific lingo to something any good rancher has known for centuries.”

  Wolf nodded at the herd of buffalo milling across the fence from Bill.

  Resting her arms on the rugged boards, Buffy felt a slight breeze ruffling in the July heat cool the back of her sweat-soaked shirt. She and Wolf shared a moment of harmony as they watched the big animals.

  “Listen, Wolf, I want you to know I respect what you’re doing here. They call me the boss, but it’s only on paper because Mr. Leonard likes college degrees on his staff. Even the guy who’s coming to replace me doesn’t have your experience. You run this place. You should have the house.”

  “I don’t need it and you do. I’m happy in that fancy trailer Mr. Leonard pulled in.”

  “So I was told. But, well, we both know who’s in charge. Don’t doubt it. I know where I went wrong yesterday, not wiring those gates and working where the footing was wet, but I want you to tell me how you’ve done all of this before. I don’t plan to change anything. The reports I’ve gotten on the Commons are too good. I want to document it. It’s all going into my doctoral dissertation. I’m doing a case study of how to reintroduce buffalo to the wild.”

  “I’m not going to be a good sport about it if I hit one with my truck.”

  Buffy spun around at the intrusive voice.

  Of course it was Shaw, come to hand her her head, no doubt.

  She squared her shoulders, determined to take whatever he dished out and not say a word. Cody and Colt hit her with hurricane force, and she staggered back against the fence. She felt the hot puff of Bill’s breath on her neck.

  “Hi, Mrs. Buffalo.”

  “Hi, Colt.” She smiled at his impish face. Cody tried to get ou
t of her arms and run toward Bill. She sighed.

  “You knew me again!” Colt shouted just inches from her face.

  Bill snorted at the commotion.

  “Cody, you stay away from that fence!” Buffy said. “Can’t you look at Bill and know he’s nobody you should be messing with?”

  “Bill? This is Bill? The buffalo Dad chased across the open prairie while he tried to kill a hundred people?”

  Buffy glanced at Wyatt.

  He shrugged. “You’re the one who made it into a stage production.”

  She had to admit that was right. “Yes, this is Bill.”

  “He’s in the pen. He can’t hurt me,” Cody announced, squirming away from her.

  Just as he slipped through her grasp, Wyatt caught him by the back of his shirt and hoisted him high in the air to settle on his shoulders.

  “I want a ride, Dad!” Colt left Buffy and jumped on his father.

  Wolf laughed.

  Bill slammed his head into the timbers. Although the fence was rock solid and it would hold, Buffy hated to see Bill’s head take a pounding.

  “Let’s go inside, shall we?” She snagged Colt halfway up Wyatt and swung him up on her own shoulders. She grunted as he landed in place. “You’re huge!”

  Colt leaned so suddenly that he almost tipped Buffy over forward. Colt looked her in the eye, only his head was upside down because he was leaning, vulturelike, over her. He was wearing a cowboy hat that was a miniature of his father’s, and it didn’t fall off. “You’re strong!”

  “Well, I wrestle big, ol’ mean buffalo every day of my life. I had to get strong so I could whip ’em in a fair fight.”

  Cody said from his perch on Wyatt’s shoulders, “You rassled ’em?” He spun his body around to look at Bill. He almost pitched himself off Wyatt.

  Wyatt swatted him on his thigh. “Be careful up there!”