Stars Always Shine

by Rick Rivera

  “Why don’t we just take her to a vet?” Place asked.

  “Because I don’t want to move her around too much,” Mitch answered. “Besides, she may not make it, and just think how much it would cost. Does Salvador have the money to pay for what it would cost to fix her?”

  “¿Tienes dinero para el doctor?” Place asked Salvador.

  “No,” he answered, and looked down at his dying cat, ashamed at not having taken better care of her.

  “Tell him we’ll do our best to save her,” Mitch said. Then, attempting to clear the air of gloom added, “You never know, she might make it.”

  “How weird, huh?” Place mused at the developments of the morning. “And that damn Rosa was sitting there like she was guarding her. It was like she called us over there.”

  “Where is that prodigal mutt, anyway?” Mitch asked. “We’re going to have to clean her up too. She’s a mess. Or did she leave again?”

  As the suffering cat lay on the thick blanket, Salvador, Place, and Mitch walked out to the deck where Rosa was stretched out in a leisurely way, convalescing in a swath of sunlight. Patches of fur were torn from her hide and clumps of dried mud were mortared to her legs and sides. Her eyes twitched as she fell deeper into the darkness of sleep. The two men walked back to the pastures while Mitch rolled up her sleeves and prepared to scrub the tired terrier clean.

  Each day was a tentative one for the injured cat. Her eyes remained glassy and tired, at times seeming to ask for death. She ate slowly and very little, but drank gratefully from a bowl of water tipped toward her to ease the pain of movement. Daily, Mitch cleaned the gaping wounds with peroxide and then applied drawing salve to extract some of the infection. She also groomed the rest of Gatita’s fragile body, gently pulling mud from her and fluffing the spade of fur that represented a tail. She took some time to slowly stroke her, scratch her head, and whisper soothing words to her. And often Gatita responded by looking up at Mitch and opening her mouth to mew a silent cry.

  As the week progressed, Place and Salvador asked about Gatita each morning before they headed out to the pastures. They popped their heads into the washroom to take quick looks and tell her she was not going to die. Each morning Gatita stared with fixed eyes gazing into a vacuous future.

  “What do you think?” Place asked. “You think she’ll pull through?”

  “She’s a survivor,” Mitch said, shaking her head in disbelief. “She’s eating more every day. And she drinks a lot of water. I think she’ll make it. But we just have to wait and see.”

  “Salvador thanked Rosa for saving his cat,” Place said. “He says cats and dogs get along better than most pet owners think. It’s people who mess up the relationship.”

  5

  It was a pleasant first week for Mitch and Place on StarRidge Ranch. Salvador had offered his services for free and introduced the couple to the immediate needs of the property. He was eager in his willingness to teach and help, and Mitch and Place concluded that he was simply lonely. It had been over a month since the previous owners had fled the ranch, and Salvador had remained in his little house alone during that time. He did not bother to look for work because the harvest season had ended a few weeks earlier, and winter would soon chill the county as well as the job market. Farms and ranches would be settling into the long nights and hibernating months.

  He was meticulous in his instructions. Irrigating the eighteen pastures was a synchronic art. The intent of irrigating was to release the treated sewage water more than to grow pasture. Salvador explained that the green pasture grass was not that nutritious anyway due to overgrazing and a general lack of proper management over the years. Of course, the water they constantly soaked it with didn’t help, but the grass was primarily something that kept the horses preoccupied between feedings—it was not their main source of sustenance and it kept them from chewing the fence posts.

  He also told Place that the local water district maintained holding ponds which filled with, after being chemically treated, the effluent of the encroaching settlements known as housing developments that were cropping up and consuming what was once ranch and farmland. More recently, so many new homes were affecting the ponds that regular relief through irrigation was vital. After the wastewater was treated and the ponds became full, it was then circulated through its own pipelines to various ranches. The ranchers received the water for free as long as they agreed to certain stipulations. One of those stipulations was that ranchers and farmers who did not strive to be marketed as organic growers agreed to use a specific minimum amount of water each day during most of the year except some winter months. The goal was to constantly diminish the levels of treated water in the holding ponds so that the winter rains could be accommodated as well as the continual human waste that flowed through the sewer lines.

  But irrigating pastures was not as Place had presumed it would be. It was not merely a matter of turning on a sprinkler as one watered a lawn. This was especially true when the main purpose was just to use up the water. Salvador explained that the hoses, which were each a hundred fifty feet long and had a sprinkler about every fifty feet, needed to be strategically placed before the water was turned on. For StarRidge Ranch, an important stipulation was that runoff from the irrigation could not, must not, run into Miwok Creek. Nor could there be any ponding left by the watering, as this attracted mosquitoes and other vermin. Irrigating the ranch required a diligent eye and a sharp mind.

  Salvador and Place started in one of the bigger pastures—five-acre squares of which there were six. These pastures required three hoses each, and the method was to water one side of a pasture for a day and then pull and tug and trudge with the hoses to the other side of the pasture, and hook them up for the next day’s watering. The smaller pastures used fewer hoses, but the same monotonous and moiling one-side-at-a-time method was employed. This allowed for horses in pastures to remain and graze on the unwatered side while the other was being soaked. To add to the task of hooking and unhooking hoses, there was the constant strain on the legs, as Place found out, from hopping over the six-foot fences into the adjacent pastures. It was too time-consuming to walk out of a pasture, slip through the gate, and then walk into the next pasture. Salvador pointed out that that luxury was not available. Working half-days on a ranch could reasonably mean working twelve hours.

  Since it was StarRidge Ranch’s commitment to use up twenty-five hundred gallons of water a day, the pastures were watered for approximately seven hours each day. On each sabbath, the effluvial rains subsided.

  It took Salvador hours to teach Place about the proper placement of the irrigation hoses and to explain to him how to set the timer at the pump house. There was also a logbook at the pump house, and the figures of the meter on the pump had to be recorded daily. The water district had full privileges to check the logbook at any time on any day.

  When they broke for lunch, Salvador assured Place that within a few weeks he would have the sequence of moving and setting hoses completed in two to three hours. He would show Place how to repair sprinkler heads and patch hoses as the need arose.

  After lunch, Salvador showed Place that sweeping a barn did not mean literally or traditionally sweeping a barn. It was more like raking the barn, but after the cobwebbed ceiling and walls were first swept. As a neat-looking touch for the center of the barn where vehicles could drive through and horses’ tack was put on, Salvador showed Place how to rake from the center of the drive-through, raking from the left and then from the right. When the job was completed, there would be uniform lines in the hard-packed ground. Hundreds of chevron-lined strokes added order and symmetry to the insides of the barns.

  Place was amazed by the details with which Salvador worked. He taught and worked with Place in an exuberant manner. He had a dignity about how he approached his tasks, and to him, they were important chores. They sustained the ranch, and if the ranch were sustained, that meant livelihoods would be too. “Todos tenemos que vivir,” Salvador explained. “La
gente y la tierra también. Todo está unido. Y ellos que no tienen respeto por eso no van a sobrevivir.” Place listened attentively to Salvador’s postulations of living evenly.

  On another day, Salvador suggested that it would be a good idea to prune some of the unkempt shrubs and trees. They spent the better part of one day carefully pruning the three tall pine trees, and when they had finished, Salvador remarked that they looked like three skinny teenage boys who had just had their hair cut.

  The entire week they cleaned and raked and wiped and yes, they irrigated. Hoses burst, and Salvador taught Place how to patch up or splice a blown hose by attaching glue and plastic couplers to it. Sprinklers became spasmodic, and a pebble that made its way up the water line had to be removed or a spring reattached to the slapping mechanism that splash-sprayed the water onto the thick, long grass. When the hoses were fixed, Salvador waved an emphatic finger at Place, warning him that the tool kit with couplers, glue, springs, wrenches, and cutters had to be returned to its place in the hay barn. It was time-consuming to walk all the way back to the barn, Salvador pointed out, but the tool kit could not be left in a pasture for curious horses to hurt themselves on. Plus, he added, it was considerate to the other workers who found a burst hose and needed to use the kit. As long as tools were returned to their usual place, things ran more smoothly.

  It was hard work, as Salvador had promised.

  As he worked, Place paid attention to the cars that did not appear on Sweet Wine Road. He listened for the clangor of more progressive and civilized city life, which he did not hear and did not miss. He noticed too that when a vehicle did drive by, it was usually a slow, chugging tractor or an old truck loaded with hay or pulling a trailer with animals in it. And the drivers of these vehicles, if a person was in sight, always raised an acknowledging hand, usually a rough and worked hand. The wave alone said so much to Place.

  In the silent moments of steady shoveling or symmetrical sweeping, Place found himself wondering about Salvador. How peculiar, he thought, that Salvador could look so primitive, so simple, and yet know so much. He possessed an uncanny, naturalistic wisdom with animals, and his philosophy was rooted in a common sense that expressed that it was much easier for a human to know what an animal needs than it is for an animal to tell a human what it needs. In this way, you work with and not against each other. And since many of the people that Salvador had dealt with acted only a little better than animals, it was quite relevant to apply the same approach to them too. Place was also impressed by how much Salvador knew about his own language. He had been educated in Mexico but nothing close to the level or equivalence of education Place had received. He could explain and teach with an encouraging effectiveness that kept his pupil interested, immersed, and enthusiastic.

  And Salvador also wondered about Place. He appeared to deny the conventional patterns and paradigms of what it meant to attain and succeed in this country. He asked many questions, and it was important to him to do things the right way as far as the ranch chores were concerned. How strange too that this blue-eyed Mexican with such an impressive American accent could pronounce his Spanish words, once he learned them, with such authenticity and fluidity. He had no problem, eventually, rolling the first r or the double r in a word—Rápido ruedan las ruedas del ferrocarril—was the exercise Salvador had tried to drill into Place to get him to consistently trill that vibratory consonant. When that idiomatic exercise made his tongue twist, Salvador offered the ringing singing song that was taught to children and that Place picked up more quickly:

  r con r cigarro

  r con r barril

  rápido corren los carros

  cargados de azúcar pa’l ferrocarril

  And Place could also slide the n with a tilde as smoothly as a gliding, silent hawk floated in the air.

  Salvador’s teaching was bringing Place back to what he felt he had lost. In a way, Salvador was Place’s cultural guide, and learning to speak Spanish more fluently was a step in a southern direction. It gave Place less of a feeling of being on the cusp of two cultures, of feeling homeless in an ethnic sort of way, and of always receiving only marginal acceptance from both Americans and Mexicans. Place’s identity seemed to come with an asterisk, a footnote of difference but not distinction, and as they worked, Salvador would insert other aspects that he felt would cultivate Place’s assimilation. One day it was an explanation of pan mexicano, Mexican bread. He told Place about two types of Mexican bread, one called calzones, that was shaped like underpants, and another called besos or kisses. Then he recounted the joke about the woman who goes into the panadería and asks first for the underpants and then for the baker to remove them and give her two kisses. On another day, it was a song: “Mis caballos y mis perros están tristes porque ayer me vieron llorar, yo sé bien que los hombres no lloran, pero yo no me pude aguantar.” With this song, Salvador taught Place that animals know how their owners feel. They know when their owners are sad or mad or happy. “¿Y cómo saben, Plácido?” he asked Place and without waiting for his response, answered convicingly and with mysterious awe, “Sí, saben. ¡Es una cosa muy extraña!”

  At the end of the week, Mitch and Place invited Salvador over for dinner. He ate ravenously and commented on the satisfying meal of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, gravy, cooked carrots, and warm dinner rolls. He had never had such a tasty meal. Place reminded him that perhaps he had never had such a gabacho meal, and Salvador agreed.

  After dinner, the three of them went out to the deck and sat at an old picnic table where they ate fruit and cheese and talked. Mitch talked, Place listened, and Salvador stared. When a convenient break occurred in the conversation, Place interpreted in stalling and stammering Spanish the more important points and caught Salvador up to the discussion.

  “Jacqueline and Mickey will be here early tomorrow. They’re only staying the weekend, but she said there’s a lot of stuff they want to get done while they’re here.”

  Place interpreted, and Salvador commented that the ranch certainly looked better than it had just a week ago. Jacqueline and Mickey would appreciate the quick improvement. He added that he would stay out of the way, as he sensed that Jacqueline and Mickey did not like him. Place interpreted back to Mitch.

  “Tell him I’m going to suggest to Jacqueline and Mickey that they keep him on for awhile. I’m going to tell her that he had a lot to do with the improvement of the place this week. He’s just too valuable to cut loose right away. They should realize that.”

  Place interpreted, and Salvador was grateful.

  That night, as Mitch and Place settled into bed, they heard the Kittles’ pickup slowly drive onto the property.

  “It’s them!” Mitch said in a spooky voice.

  “Hurry, get under the covers!” Place whispered. “You’re always safe under the covers.” They laughed and tickled each other and squiggled under the covers like kids at a slumber party. Then they listened for sounds that would provide clues to what Jacqueline and Mickey might be up to.

  Place fell asleep quickly. As she entered the subconscious fringes of her own sleep, Mitch could hear the faint bawling of calves in the distance. Sleepily she figured that some young ones at Sweet Milk Dairy had lost their mothers.

  At eight the next morning, Jacqueline Kittle strode from the antiquated milk barn up to the ranch house. She knocked loudly on the back door, setting off an alarmed ranch dog in the form of Rosa. Mitch answered the door, and Jacqueline apologized for her abruptness.

  “Hi. I didn’t think you’d be up yet,” she explained. “But we gotta get going early around here.”

  “Oh, no problem, Jacqueline,” Mitch answered as she walked out to the deck. “We’ve been up since five. Place starts working at six. We figured you’d be up here sooner.”

  “Well, I would’ve been,” she began, and she did not offer the expected reason, cutting her statement down to an unexplained clause. “So how did it go this week? Do you two think you’ll be able to handle it?”

  “O
h, I think so,” Mitch answered. “This has been an interesting week. We’ve really learned a lot about what needs to be done around here. Salvador was especially helpful. He worked all week with Place. They got a lot done, didn’t they?”

  “Hmmm. Yeah, I guess,” Jacqueline responded. She was preoccupied with some of what she had just heard, and then said, “He better not expect to be getting paid. I didn’t agree to give him anything. In fact I want him out of here as soon as—”

  “Who, Place?” Mitch asked, knowing just when to interrupt and that Jacqueline was really talking about Salvador. She was finding her peaceful morning unnecessarily and irrationally inflicted with Jacqueline’s scowling demeanor and attempted to return some of that nettlesome feeling.

  “No! I’m talking about Salvador. He better not expect—”

  Mitch interrupted again by clearing her throat assertively. She looked at Jacqueline with piercing eyes. Jacqueline stared back, but her eyes were not as pointed. Mitch let a few seconds of silence preface what she wanted to say, and then she began: “Jacqueline, nobody’s asking you to pay them for anything. Please don’t worry. Salvador’s not going to ask you for a cent. But I think you should seriously consider keeping him on for a while. He knows this ranch better than any of us. He’s a good worker. And you wouldn’t have to pay him much. This place could use the extra help, especially now. I can do some, but a lot of my time is going to be spent getting this house into shape.”

  Jacqueline was not accustomed to straightforward talk. She was hoping to warm to Mitch this weekend, but there was something about her self-assurance that irritated Jacqueline.

  Mitch was irritated too, and it was Jacqueline more than Mickey that created that irritation. Mitch searched for the causes and effects that directed her perception of Jacqueline and she cued them up to form her reasoning: “It’s Jacqueline’s money, her means that got them this ranch. Since the ranch is hers, she gets to call the shots. It’s Jacqueline’s ignorance that guides the shots she calls. Therefore, the shots she calls are stupid ones. It’s Jacqueline’s stupid ideas that keep things inert, but she wouldn’t recognize progress if it walked up to her and stepped on those clean, fancy boots of hers.” This much Mitch understood, and as she understood it she liked it even less. Jacqueline was coarse, another cause, and she was really deep down—but not too deep to be hidden—trash, a blatant effect. Add her ignorance and insolence to that and almost any reasonable thinker could see she was easy to classify, starting with order and going down through family, genus, and species. Mitch knew that Jacqueline held the reins and Mitch was simply another saddled beast in her eyes. This startling realization led Mitch to shudder momentarily, jarring her ego. At least with Place, they both agreed, even if it was a tacit understanding, that Mitch knew how things should progress and that she would guide Place through those things. He understood the nature of cause and effect and acknowledged that that was how things should work. It eased his burden. It allowed him to float along in a world that confused him and was one he often regretted living in. Mitch waited for Jacqueline to respond, and as she waited she recalled some lines from Othello: “It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul. Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars! It is the cause.”