by Rick Rivera
Turning the pickup off Sweet Wine Road and into StarRidge Ranch, Mitch whispered slowly and squinted into the darkness as she forced her eyes to focus. The pickup idled quietly as Mitch looked past Place and Salvador. “Ah, shit!” she uttered softly.
Off to the side, to their right and tucked alongside the milk barn apartment, sat Jacqueline and Mickey’s conspicuous truck.
16
Jacqueline and Mickey’s arrival surprised Mitch in many ways. Yes, it was unexpected—something that at first perturbed Mitch more than it bothered Place and Salvador, who had separately decided to work together in safe silence regardless of the demands—but Mitch was also caught off guard by the company the Kittles had brought along with them to live on the ranch.
First, there was the old paint cayuse, Duchess, a black-and-white splattered mare that had seen decades of riders and miles of trails and was now, in her senescent stage, facing the tribulations brought on by living too long. Duchess was Jacqueline’s first horse from a time when she was a younger, more exuberant woman. When Mitch first set eyes on the decaying pony she wondered why the Kittles had even bothered to transport the animal to its new rest home at StarRidge Ranch. Duchess seemed long overdue to be packaged neatly and efficiently as Rosa and Coquette’s food. Once at the ranch, Duchess was given her own private accommodations, a corral closest to Jacqueline and Mickey’s milk barn apartment.
Duchess’s bloom had long since abandoned her now cadaverous body, and her hide was splotchy with bald patches where hair refused to grow. Her sides were sunken, not from malnourishment—Mitch could see that, even if she did suspect underfeeding—but from years of gravity that tugged at the horse’s once straight spine that was gerontologically swayed and a meager appetite brought on by boredom when one lives longer than even God may have intended. Her hip bones protruded, pointing outward against skin that seemed to hang and drawing her hide taut over a shrinking frame. Her body appeared dented like a well-used tube of glue. Her mane was mangy now, no longer possessing the full and long curtain of hair that had once draped her neck. Her forelock was completely gone. Her hoofs were free of the weight of horseshoes because there was no need for her to be shod, but Jacqueline had made sure that the horse’s hoofs were regularly trimmed and well-cared for. The mare’s teeth were tentative ones now, with her grinders worn close to the gum line; she was on a steady diet of soft, nourishing feed.
Mitch could see as Jacqueline stroked her old friend that the horse’s eyes were dull; there was little life left in them. But it wasn’t Duchess that Mitch observed as Jacqueline scratched her horse’s neck and held her muzzle gently.
Jacqueline seemed to truly care for Duchess. She was devoted to the horse, and in the week since the Kittles had moved on the ranch permanently it was clear that only Jacqueline would feed this dying horse. Even when Mitch had offered to take care of Duchess to free Jacqueline up so she might be able to tend to less mundane chores and business, Jacqueline had declined the offer. Mitch noticed too that Jacqueline was proud of Duchess, and she admired the fact that the horse was meaningful enough to keep alive and be allowed to finish her days in dignity in a bucolic pasture on StarRidge Ranch. The halcyon care served as a tranquilizer for the feeble horse, and as a side effect medicated the scowling surliness that had been Jacqueline’s primary symptoms.
Duchess’s presence seemed to somehow draw Mitch closer to Jacqueline. During free moments of a busy work day, Mitch and Jacqueline would lean against a fence or sit on a deck and talk about the aging animal, with those conversations often drifting off into other areas concerning the ranch, the community, and the county.
Mickey’s new pet was a gigantic, powerful Clydesdale named Bunny. When Bunny arrived two days after the Kittles had settled in, Mitch, Place, Salvador, Jacqueline, and Mickey watched as the professional transporters eased the huge horse out of a long slip of a trailer. Slowly they backed the behemoth from the trailer and down a wide, slight, short ramp. The two handlers worked like tugboats carefully and methodically pushing a large vessel out to sea. With each deliberate backward step, the handlers leaned away from Bunny, surveying the open ocean of land behind and around him. Once Bunny hit the dry dock of solid earth, he craned his neck, reaching high and somewhat nervously scanning the new environment before and around him. His ponderous steps sent radiating waves that rumbled and vibrated through the feet and upward to those who looked on. He was fully developed, and his body blossomed with massive muscles. Bunny’s high, straight back, wide hips, and loglike legs were punctuated by big, brawny bones. The unique full feathers on his lower legs hung loosely and swayed like hula skirts as he strode alert but relaxed toward his new pasture. He was oddly controlled by only a lead rope attached to a halter that looked like a string compared to the vastness of the animal. Holding the lead rope cautiously, Mickey walked carefully beside Bunny, the handlers on the opposite side guiding him delicately with outstretched arms. Bunny drifted compliantly into the harbor of his new home. Easy, swaggering steps affected cut and plated muscles that armored the draft horse’s body, which shifted and slid slickly with each movement.
Bunny was a brontosaurus of a horse whose capable musculature interested Mickey. His goal was to someday hitch the workhorse up to a plow to work the pastures as had been done a century earlier. Reaching easily over the fence, Bunny sucked up a whole carrot from Mickey’s hand and chewed it with the same nonchalant pace that his movements indicated.
Although Mitch found both new tenants to be peculiar choices for the Kittles to have, she was also slightly impressed with the concern that Mickey and Jacqueline showed for Duchess and Bunny. This made Mitch feel a little foolish, and she wondered why she hadn’t realized months earlier that much of what she disliked about the Kittles, and had experienced because of them, may have been due to the tremendous strain they had been under. After all, it was Mitch who once tried to explain to Place that StarRidge Ranch was a tremendous responsibility with many demands. Mitch herself had told Place that should they some day own their own StarRidge Ranch, she would not want a spread even half that size. Place had agreed, along with Salvador, that a property the size of this ranch was simply too much work with little satisfaction in return. As she watched Jacqueline one morning lovingly feeding her first Duchess, Mitch scolded herself for not being more understanding and tolerant of the Kittles. She questioned her ability, honed by her professional training but now left to grow dull with little verbal sparring to keep her in disputative shape, and wondered if for some self-centered reason she was slipping when it came to reading and knowing people, clients, criminals, and critters and the motivations that drove them. In her pensive moment, Mitch thought that she had perhaps been too quick to judge what she and Place had experienced with the limitations of fleeting events and occurrences. She had taken such pride in being compassionate and fair-minded—sometimes to a fault. Now she felt ashamed and admonished herself for forgetting one of the vital tenets of introductory law. Mitch had fallen into the stifling quicksand of making murky assumptions.
Place, however, was not impressed. If anything, he was gleefully, almost arrogantly suspicious, and he advanced his position in elaborate detail as he tried one night to persuade Mitch that the Duchesses and Bunnies of the world were distractions for deeper, more dysfunctional attributes. Many families had those distractions; they made things appear normal in an abnormal world. They were necessary links in the social chain of human interaction and discourse. Those distractions came in many, often subtle, forms. Going to church was one. Obvious displays of volunteerism and community service were another. Social recognition—an effective diversion for those other things that were happening behind the barn, Place theorized. “I think the mind does that,” he stated matter-of-factly, “as a way for us to convince ourselves that we are really okay as people, even though we are, for the most part, contradictory and hypocritical animals.” To show how credible he was, he added: “I do it all the time. We both know I have a lot to resolve with mysel
f.”
There was too much charm in what was developing and how it was developing, Place argued. The actions were too pastoral, too affected, and he wondered who it was that the Kittles might be trying to impress. Certainly, he propounded, it couldn’t be him and Mitch. Also, Place suggested, as he pointed a knowing finger at Mitch while she sat up in bed listening to her postulating husband as he paced back and forth, what had been the Kittles’, especially Jacqueline’s, reaction to the murdered ducks? What kind of sympathy had they shown after Mitch pointed out the dried blood on the pipe fencing and the embedded feathers that lay scattered in the dirt? Pounding a fist into a palm he shouted dramatically, “Nothing! No reaction! Nada.” Now lowering his voice almost to a whisper and showing that he had paid close attention on those now faraway nights when Mitch had asked him to critique her closing arguments, judging for artistic performance as well as content, Place ingratiated himself by elaborating on his own ignorance, his own confusion, which really was a seductive move that indicated he wasn’t buying any of it.
“Ms. Stanton,” he said formally, “wouldn’t someone who is truly concerned about life, someone who truly cares about the welfare of all creatures, especially when you own those creatures, when those creatures who are your very subjects, under your care, and it’s faith and trust that causes them to care—wouldn’t that person show a little more emotion and concern for what happened to those flightless, helpless ducks, ducks as capable as a dodo bird, ducks bound to the ground and restricted in their survival like immigrants with their own foreign language, than what you yourself admit was a dismissing reaction on the part of Jacqueline Kittle?”
Mitch was taken by the argument. Her skin itched and seemed to undulate like the slow movements of an exploring snake, and a warm, comforting glow soothed her stomach as it turned into a blue flame that reached for her heart. She sat straighter and prepared her statement, grateful for the rational jousting Place had incited in her. She dissected his argument; she charitably acknowledged the strong points of his position; she formulated careful equations with ideas, assumptions, and values. She explained to her husband that there were very few common denominators that could be clearly factored in, and finally she showed Place how in the mathematics of language and thought, “You’re always going to have that annoying remainder of one. It doesn’t fit neatly, Mr. Moreno. Not at all. Not at all.”
In the tentative early spring days, the two owners and the three ranch hands worked side by side reviving the fences, pastures, sheds, and other structures of the ranch from the long, wet winter. In the evenings Mitch and Jacqueline visited with Duchess and talked informally and even amiably about things each would like to do with various aspects of their lives. In the calming quiet that seemed to emanate from Duchess’s aura, the two women of the ranch shared more and more with one another.
Mickey too appeared to be more settled, and each afternoon when the work day was declared over he visited Bunny, often combing the burrs and twigs from the long, white feathers on his legs and feeding him carrots as a possessed gambler feeds a slot machine.
Salvador had wondered one early morning before beginning another day of work if the Kittles’ new animals were having a therapeutic effect on them. From the first day they had moved in, the Kittles no longer exuded such a strict sense of urgency or desperation. Duchess’s aged wisdom and Bunny’s complacent presence were like doses of comforting sedatives, and more work was accomplished with less stress now that Jacqueline and Mickey could benefit from the calming vibrations of their animals. Surveying the couple from a safe distance, Salvador reminded Mitch and Place how important it was to have someone or something to care for. There was a sense of humble pride in knowing that one animal, whether a biped or quadruped, had another to rely on, to care for, to cry to, and to comfort.
Standing short, bent, and haggard, Duchess displayed a sense of patient fortitude and faith. She was an example of constancy and a chamomile of an animal. Indirectly she reminded those who cared for her that long-range goals were vital to doing and being. Bunny, standing tall, straight, and vigorous, foretold of promise in what the future could bring, and residually his presence meant effort and reward. He was an animal that represented potential and possibility.
As the two new members of StarRidge Ranch modestly assumed center stage and Jacqueline and Mickey’s focused attention, the calves, burros, and other horses paid homage to Duchess’s fortitude and Bunny’s size. Calves bellowed in a chorusing tribute, burros blasted trumpets of praise, and gregarious horses whinnied in royal pride at the arrival of their new ranch mates.
The spring days became longer and StarRidge Ranch grew greener. White fences sparkled brightly, announcing who belonged where and who owned what. From the balance that Duchess and Bunny brought to the ranch and especially to the Kittles, the scales of sensibility and interaction evened out more reasonably than they ever had since the day the sixty-acre spread had oozed into the lives of Mitch, Place, Jacqueline, Mickey, and Salvador.
17
The three men stood clear as the third and final pine tree came crashing to the ground. Seismic vibrations shook the earth around the fallen trees, and shards of shattered branches cracked, snapped, and burst in explosions of long life cut dead by the unfeeling bite of Mickey’s chain saw with its long, phallic blade. Flat-topped stumps sat like warts, skinned blemishes that would remain rooted in the body of StarRidge Ranch. As soon as the earth settled and it was clearly safe to move on, Place and Salvador attacked the trees with hand saws and pruning shears, amputating dying limbs from their corpses. A high pile of entangled branches grew as the trees were turned into tapered logs.
Bunny stood in workmanlike devotion as he waited for Mickey and Salvador to adjust the choker of chain to one of the trees. Place held Bunny’s harness loosely. He looked closely into the enormous horse’s eyes and could see a distorted reflection of himself. Bunny stared back knowingly. Mickey checked the chains that ran on either side of Bunny, and once he was sure the log was secure, he clicked softly with his tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth. Click, click, click and slowly, Bunny marched forward, dragging the lifeless log to an open space on the ranch. A skid road beveled into the earth as the last log was dragged to where Place and Salvador would begin incremental cuts of rounds that would later be split into fireplace-ready wedges.
Cutting logs would have to wait, however, and as Place and Salvador walked away from the death camp of dead wood, Mickey inspected Salvador’s round help house.
The plans were elaborate. Mickey spelled out carefully to Place as he translated to Salvador how the squat house would be transformed into a functional unit, complete with its own toilet and a new roof. Windows would have new panes of glass; the floors would be linoleumed and carpeted; walls would be painted and bordered “in farm colors” as Mickey explained, and new tenants would be able to rent this Cinderella of a house. Salvador, who was granted an extended but vague stay of employment by the Kittles, would be moved to a stall in the stall barn. His outhouse would follow him as they repositioned it closer to the backside of the barn.
Mickey was an artisan. Place and Salvador stood like eager apprentices while Mickey worked out problems on plywood with a broad, flat pencil. Salvador was impressed as Mickey circled the answer to an algebraic or geometric problem and then declared to himself that they would need this many two-by-fours, and that many sheets of sheetrock. From an ancient Aztec inheritance, Salvador explained to Place what and how Mickey was calculating. Mickey estimated the amount of linoleum and carpet that would be sufficient. They climbed to the top of the house, and Mickey figured out how many rolls of tarpaper and bales of shingles would patch up the perforated roof. He determined what types of nails would bring the little house into the current century. With his hammer, Mickey knocked on various parts of bearing walls, testing for stoutness and stability. He listened carefully, lightly tapping, reaching high and low—his hammer serving as a stethoscope and his diagnosis confirming what
he suspected. They would proceed immediately with surgical diligence and precision.
Almost daily, Jacqueline and Mitch visited hardware stores, furniture lobbies, and specialty shops as they looked for just the right porcelain knobs, brass fixtures, appropriate doors, thick enough carpet, and a linoleum pattern that was ranch ready. Jacqueline ran her fingers and thumb over material that could be cut and sewn into tasteful curtains. Together, they judged various designs of wallpaper. At a paint store, Jacqueline held a swatch of curtain material against a panel of various colors. She asked Mitch for her opinion, and gratefully yet carefully, Mitch offered her point of view, always reminding herself to measure her words, to restrict a true judgment, deferring to Jacqueline the private pleasure of being the one who really knew how to appoint and furnish her own homes.
Over fluffy croissants and fancy, foamy coffee served in petite cups, Jacqueline and Mitch sat at an umbrellaed table in front of a fashionable European-style bakery. Men with sweaters draping their shoulders and women wearing riding boots sat at their own tables talking about wine, polo, and good years. Blondes with big teeth laughed indifferently, and men whose muscles were developed from “working out” rather than “working at” gave serious consideration to a menu that listed flavors and blends of chic coffees. Jacqueline explained in architectural detail the plans she had for StarRidge Ranch. The Kittles would bring two trailers onto the property—one was really a mid-sized mobile home—and they would situate them behind the remodeled help house. Mickey’s skills in eclectic plumbing would allow him, with the help of Salvador and Place, to tap the new dwelling’s plumbing into the aged septic system of the remodeled help house. More tenants—human ones—would move in to help offset the ranch mortgage by renting the trailers. A well-written ad using phrases like “country charm” and “quiet living” would bring them in.