by Rick Rivera
Salvador popped a beer open as he poked at a piece of meat. He turned the flames of his camp stove, situated on the old stove, down and prepared to eat his quick supper before venturing into town. He liked Mitch and Place more than he had liked the previous owners of the ranch. They were industrious; they worked hard, and they could work long days. They showed Salvador a respect that very few people, especially Americans, had ever shown him. They never looked at him with wide eyes that spoke of fear or indicated a bizarre strangeness in the man’s appearance. They spoke to him and worked with him as if they were all equal partners in the effort of living. And now that effort seemed more worthwhile. Salvador felt that he was slowly, poco a poco, moving toward what he wanted from the world. He saw himself becoming a good American. He fantasized about a job that didn’t make his body ache. He imagined buying a truck and retiring his bicycle. He envisioned his own home, something modest, maybe even an apartment. He thought about how he could be happy with Gatita and he pictured in his mind the elaborate scratching post he would buy her, the kind he had seen in the window of a pet store that had cubicles with holes and platforms at different levels, situated at the ends of branchlike appendages. For Salvador, this was not too much to ask, and his effort should yield at least those simple things he limited his thinking to.
Jacqueline hoped that Mitch and Place would appreciate the fact that she hauled Mickey’s and her horses up especially for their use. As they turned the horses out into a pasture, Jacqueline looked at Mitch and nodded her head proudly and tightened her jaw noticeably. It was a defiant look, and with it, she seemed to be indicating to Mitch that her country life was complete now that there were horses on StarRidge Ranch.
Mitch watched the horses, unimpressed. “That’s a nice-looking little trail pony you have there,” she said to Jacqueline, not really liking the looks of the animal, but trying to be as cordial as the relationship allowed. “Is that horse of yours trained for cuttin’?” she asked Mickey as he watched his horse with the pride of a parent watching an athletic son.
“Huh? Oh, yeah. You bet!” Mickey said after finally catching on to Mitch’s question. “My boy’s trained for roping.”
Probably more than you’ll ever be, Mitch thought to herself before responding out loud. “He’s kind of tall for a rope horse. What’s he top out at? He looks close to seventeen hands.”
“Almost,” Mickey replied. “He’s about sixteen-five, sixteen-six.”
Mitch wondered why Jacqueline had even bothered at their first meeting to mention that she was a trainer. She wondered why Jacqueline had not just said she was interested in being a trainer or that she liked horses and hoped to ride one day. Mitch didn’t bother to tell Mickey that horses are not measured like inches on a ruler. After say, sixteen-three, seventeen hands followed the sequence. There was no such thing as sixteen-four or five. Mitch knew that anybody who even had a small sense of horsemanship would see that both horses were not suited for immediate riding. Jacqueline’s horse had splayed and cracked hoofs, and a shoer would have a respectable project in getting that horse’s hoofs trimmed and shod. Mickey’s horse, although pumped with grace and a western flair of its own, was showing signs of not having been ridden in awhile. Besides being too fat, it ran wildly around its new pasture. Whenever it ran close to the fence where Mitch, Jacqueline, and Mickey were, it swung its head frantically at them and shied away from Mickey’s hands as he reached out to pet his horse as one would pet a dog. This horse would need some ground work before anybody dared to mount it, although Mitch was interested to see if Mickey would try. It would benefit the horses immensely to be better cared for, more fit, and trained, but that would cost time and money, and Mitch’s plan for this weekend was to say as little as possible. She was willing to allow that it was the Kittles’ show.
Place and Salvador grappled with hoses that burst and exploded water into the air like aquatic fireworks. They too thought it would be wise not to mention to Jacqueline and Mickey that the worn hoses were needing more and more attention, and they figured that soon the irrigation period would end, offering a few months of respite. The ranch would also benefit from this. During the week that Mickey worked on the apartment, he had decided that the irrigation hoses did not need to be moved as was the custom. Salvador’s labor could be put to better use helping with the new apartment. Enormous opaque ponds developed. Flowing rivulets of turgid water ran into Miwok Creek, and communities of bothersome mosquitoes were founded as the ponding created a noisome odor.
In the hay barn, Jacqueline stood with her arms akimbo and admired the empty expanse. “This will be filled with forty tons of hay by the end of next week,” she said. “But remember, I don’t want the stock fed until the first of December. They only have to wait about a month.”
Again, Mitch did not bother to interject what her many years of ranch management and two intensive years of working toward her horsemaster’s certificate had taught her. Much of the hay would mildew by the time they would be allowed to feed it to the animals. Livestock was not fed by the calendar, but by sight and need. As the winter months approached, it was vital to see to it that the calves, donkeys, horses—even the flightless ducks—had an ample coat of flesh on them to withstand the longer and colder nights.
Mickey pointed to a boxed area off to one side of the barn. It was a rectangular section with a railing built a few yards from the wall that formed a chute. He put his arm around Jacqueline, and in a fatherly tone explained, “You see that there? That’s a breeding chute. You bring your horses in here and fix them up in that chute and have them go at it until they’re done making a baby.” Mickey was proud of his biological knowledge. Jacqueline whispered seductively into his ear, and they both giggled and pinched at each other for a few seconds.
Mitch wanted to laugh profoundly, but then she thought about the serious and dangerous implications of what Mickey had explained about the breeding chute. She was surprised that he knew what the rectangular area was, and she wondered where he had picked up that bit of information. She thought back about the day—and the way—she explained the breeding chute to Place when he puzzled over it.
“It’s a breeding chute,” she started, “but don’t let the nomenclature fool you. What you do is, you bring the mare in and guide her into the chute. She should be in the early stages of estrus. She’ll be haltered, so you’re holding her while somebody else brings the stallion in beside her. He starts to nibble at her neck and withers, and the purpose is to stir the mare’s hormones up; it’s like foreplay. It really should be called a teasing chute. You do this for a few days until the mare shows that she’s ready. The actual conception takes place in the pasture in front of God and the rest of the world. It’s really interesting to watch. But you would never ever have the stallion mount the mare in the chute. It’s too dangerous.”
Mitch remembered too how peculiarly interested Place was in learning about the breeding chute. He tilted his head, and periodically uttered “Wow!” and “Really?” and “Isn’t that something?” That day Mitch had taught Place about other animal-related incidentals and trivia. “You know, when a cow is lying down and it starts to get up, it raises its hind end first. But when a horse is lying down, it raises its front end first to get up.” Place had marveled at the bovine and equine comparison and said, “Yeah, there’s something about that in Huckleberry Finn.” “That’s right,” Mitch had said. “And the part about when cows are eating on a hillside and they’re all facing the same direction, that’s what cows usually do. They can also tell you when a storm’s approaching. They’ll huddle around a tree and hunker down until it passes. You can learn a lot from literature—and animals.” During dinner or lunch, Mitch would enlighten Place with other things she knew would fascinate him. “Did you know that a cow is not technically a cow until it has given birth? You know a dairy cow, like those up at Sweet Milk Dairy, have to have a calf first. Cows don’t just give milk automatically as many people tend to think. They need a reason to give milk. U
ntil they do have a calf, they’re called heifers.” And in horse terminology and lore: “A female horse can be a filly, if it’s young, or a mare if it’s an adult. A male horse is, if it’s young, a colt. A lot of people think a colt is just a young horse and gender doesn’t matter. But if you refer to a colt in ranch talk, you should be talking about a young male horse. A stallion is an adult male horse with his equipment still intact. A gelding is a male horse who’s met the vet’s knife and has had his mind changed from ass to grass. And did you know a horse can’t vomit? That’s why it’s important to keep an eye on your horses. They have a sensitive internal system, mainly because of our domesticating them. But they need to be able to expel the bad stuff they might ingest, and unlike a dog, they can’t just throw that bad stuff up. It can only come out of one end.”
Jacqueline and Mickey brought Mitch back to the immediacy of the hay barn, and Jacqueline continued with her instructions. “When you do feed the horses and donkeys, just give them about this much.” Jacqueline held her hands in front of her a few inches apart and indicated what Mitch interpreted as extreme underfeeding. As the couple and Mitch walked around the ranch, other instructions were pointed out that would involve the ranch personnel and keep them busy for the two months that the owners would be away. “And don’t bother trying to put all the donkeys together. You guys put the two that go together, Gin and Tonic, in the same pasture with the ducks, so that worked out good. But keep Joker in that back pasture by himself. He deserves to be alone for leading the other two out when they ran away.”
After a long Sunday of listening to more of Jacqueline and Mickey’s last-minute instructions and riffling through a dozen pages listing other chores and comments, Mitch and Place stood at the entrance of the ranch and waved good-bye to the departing couple. A wave of relief rushed over them as they watched the truck grow smaller and smaller. The late October sunset was closing the curtain of human activity on another day. As they walked back to their house, Salvador emerged from his boxed home with three cans of beer, handing one each to Mitch and Place.
“¿Ya se fueron?” He asked. “¿Y para dos meses?”
“Sí,” Place answered. “Qué suerte, huh?”
Salvador looked into the distant angles of Sweet Wine Road, watching the tiny starlike orange cab lights of the truck twinkling as it moved north and then east. He took a draining drink from his beer and said as if to affirm their collective luck, “Sí, qué suerte. Gracias a Dios.”
10
And it was a Dios that Mitch, Place, and Salvador gave thanks, each in his or her own way. As November approached, the Indian summer offered a warm, temperate climate for the ranch work that remained before the rains limited the scope of outside activity.
Place watched with amazement as the forty tons of hay were unloaded from the two-trailered truck and stacked neatly in the hay barn with a forklift suited specifically to grab and move many bales of hay at one time. The barn stood stuffed with hay, and the last few tons remained on the truck.
“Well, where are you going to want the rest of this?” The forklift driver asked as he sat looking down at Place. “You have almost ten ton here yet.”
“Just offload it right outside the entrance to the barn here,” Mitch pointed, answering the question that was not directed at her. “We’ll have to shift some things around to make room for it.”
“You have about as much hay as I deliver to the fairgrounds when the county fair is in town,” the driver said. “The only thing is, I don’t see too many hay-eating animals around this spread. You all must be extreme vegetarians!”
Mitch shrugged her shoulders at the driver, not offering an explanation and looking, as Place and Salvador did, at the hay stacked high in the barn. There was a space from the top of the towering hay to the roof of the barn that could accommodate individual bales, but getting those extra bales up to the top would be difficult. Salvador, reading Mitch’s face, explained to Place that with a ladder and teamwork, they could squeeze the remaining hay all the way to the rafters of the barn.
Place interpreted to Mitch and added his own observations in the process. “Why can’t we just put the rest of these bales in the stall barn? There aren’t any animals in there, anyway.”
“Because,” Mitch responded, “Jacqueline gave specific orders not to put any hay in that barn. She has other plans for that space. Plus, I don’t trust them. They could show up any day just to check on us.”
Salvador leaned the tall ladder against the piled hay. He tested the ladder for stability and told Place to climb to the top of the amassed hay. He handed two hay hooks to Place before he ascended and by the time Place was situated high under the roof of the barn, Salvador was slowly making his way up the ladder with a bale perched on his shoulder. He stood sideways on the ladder as he balanced the awkward bale and took careful, calculated steps, leaning his body as close to the ladder as physics allowed.
Mitch watched worrisomely as she clutched the ladder and looked up. Hay dust floated slowly down toward her and she visored her eyes with a hand as she wondered about the possibility of spontaneous combustion once the barn was bloated with every morseled bale. Place craned his neck downward as he held the top of the ladder.
“Be careful,” Mitch offered.
“I think that’s a given,” Place retorted, and then said to Salvador, “Yeah, cuidado.”
“Yes, mexicanito, voy con cuidado,” Salvador grunted as he approached the top rungs of the ladder. When he neared the top, Place sunk the hay hooks into the bale and pulled it up toward him. As he stood at the top of the ladder with his head and shoulders poking up over the immense pile, Salvador pointed to the farthest corner of the stacked hay and told Place to begin there with each bale until the back rows were filled in, gradually working his way closer to the edge. They planned to place half of the excess hay up to the rafters on the one side of the barn, then switching to the other side to fill in that stack.
“If we still have some bales left over,” Mitch said, “we’re just going to fill in the aisle. That’s the best we can do. And when we feed, we’ll take from there first, then pare down these stacks as soon as we can.”
Mitch dragged the bales of hay to the bottom of the ladder where Salvador would lump one onto his shoulder and start the long, slow climb. Place knelt at the top with hooks in each hand, ready to relieve Salvador of the bale as soon as he was close enough.
They worked steadily and quietly for most of the day. The only sounds that echoed through the hay barn were the swishing drag of the bales that Mitch pulled toward the ladder, the accomplished grunts of Salvador heaving a bale on his shoulders, and the crunching jabs of Place’s hay hooks stabbing into the bale.
“Somos como hormigas,” Salvador said as one side of the hay barn grew plump with the bales that were locked into the last spaces like a completed puzzle.
“He said we’re like ants,” Place informed Mitch as they stood in the middle of the hay barn and assessed the remaining side to be filled in.
Salvador continued with his analogy, explaining that ants were a lot smarter in the way they worked than what the trio was presently experiencing. Ants, Salvador said as he looked at both Mitch and Place while catching his breath, work in the opposite way that we do. When they dig out their ant holes, they take each grain a measured distance away and gradually work closer and closer to their entrance. So the more they work, the shorter the distance they have to go with each grain of dirt. But we started out carrying our grains of baled hay farther than we should, and we’ll end up carrying them just as far when we finish. We don’t get that much of a break with dragging, lifting, and squeezing these bales into the rafters. Too bad we aren’t as smart as ants, he concluded as he motioned for Place to climb up to his hooking position.
Place hooked and lifted the last bale of hay, and with the precarious, limited space, he pushed the bale tight against the others. He looked at Salvador for approval, who looked past Place wide-eyed and silent. Place slowly look
ed over his shoulder, and in the deepest corner of the packed rafters an owl squatted, its wings tight to its body and looking back at the men with its own wide eyes. The owl slowly opened its beaked mouth and released no noise, no screech, no warning.
Salvador climbed down quickly, and Place followed.
The early morning offered a teasing promise of a summerlike day. The clear sky blazed a clean, brilliant blue as the sun began its slow scaling of the eastern horizon. The usually cooling ocean breeze remained out to sea, and Place thought about the beauty of time and location. As he stood on the deck rolling up his sleeves, Salvador walked up to him with his usual deliberate steps.
“Buenos días, americanito. ¿Qué tal?” Place said.
“Bien, gracias,” Salvador responded hastily. “Se salió un caballo!” And he pointed to Mickey’s horse feasting on forbidden hay at the entrance of the hay barn.
“Mitch!” Place yelled as he took a last gulp from his cup of coffee.
Mitch emerged from the house pulling tight on her ponytail. “What a beautiful day,” she said and then greeted Salvador.
“Look,” Place said, pointing to Mickey’s horse as it stood leisurely chewing and occasionally looking around.
“How did he get out?” Mitch asked.
And Salvador explained that he didn’t know. He had found the gate opened only enough for the horse to escape, while Jacqueline’s horse remained in the pasture, hesitant to leave its new habitat.
“Did anybody else get loose?” Mitch asked.
“No. No más el caballo de Mi-ke,” Salvador answered quickly.
“That’s strange,” Mitch said. The trio walked toward Mickey’s horse as they discussed how to pry him from his buffet of hay. Mitch carefully slipped the halter around the horse’s head as it fidgeted like a little boy whose face is being scrubbed while distracted from what he had been doing. She looked at the tightly packed hay, and then looked out at the pastures she could see from where she stood. “It’s so warm already,” she said to no one in particular as she buckled the halter securely and began leading the horse back to its pasture. “Let’s make the rounds. I want to check the gates and fences.”