Sapphic Cowboi (17 page)

Maggie smiled and nodded “yes, I can’t
wait.”

This pleased Ariana as it meant more time for
them to spend together. She picked up a few odds and ends in the
store as well. They were soon on their way back towards the farm.
“You don’t have a movie theater in town?”

“
Nope, that’s why that one
was the first I’d seen and boy what a movie” Maggie remembered it
all, Rhett Butler and Scarlet O’Hara, what a movie! She also
remembered the feelings it had engendered inside of her, the
feelings for the woman driving this truck. She had suppressed them
for so long that remembering the movie and those feelings suddenly
struck her again and she nearly asked Ariana if she had ever been
attracted to a woman but stifled the impulse immediately. As a
result she was a little quiet on the way home.

“
Something wrong?” Ariana
asked as she pulled up close to the house so they could hurry in
with their purchases and not get too wet.

“
Wrong? Why would anything
be wrong?” she answered but then hopped out quickly carrying her
mail and a few of the packages with her arms full.

Ariana knew she was a tad too quiet but her
arms were full too and she made her way into the house. “Whew, I’m
going to bake tomorrow!” she vowed as she began to put away their
purchases.

Maggie smiled “I’ll look forward to sampling
what you make then!”

“
Maybe I’ll put you to
work!” Ariana threatened.

Maggie was wondering what to do with the
mail, she wanted to know what it said but heading over to Peters in
the rain would bring up unnecessary questions and she didn’t want
Ariana to know she couldn’t read. She put it down on the bench by
the door and helped put away the packages.

“
Why don’t you read your
mail while I put together supper” Ariana offered.

“
You’ve been making supper
almost every night since you got here” Maggie objected, “let me
make you dinner.”

“
That’s okay, I love
learning to cook, and this book is amazing” she pointed to Betty
Crocker’s Cook Book. “It’s taught me a lot!” She opened it to meals
and pointed at a picture “here you read me the ingredients and I’ll
put it together” she offered generously.

Maggie froze for a moment and scooped up the
mail “I’m just going to put this in the office” she said to avoid
the conversation.

Ariana shrugged and went to make dinner not
realizing that Maggie had just avoided a conversation with her.

Dinner was delicious. They had pork chops,
mashed potatoes, and fresh canned corn. “When did you find time to
can all that” Ariana asked as she indicated the lines of canning
jars in the pantry.

“
Well when I had the garden
going full steam I hated to throw anything away so the horses got a
lot but I also canned in the evenings.”

“
I’d read every chance I
got, your mother had a terrific collection” Ariana enthused as she
cut off the meat from her chop.

Maggie nodded and changed the subject. What
she knew, she hadn’t learned from books but from doing. She hadn’t
had time to go to school and both her father and grandfather saw no
point in educating girls. Even if she was brilliant with the horses
they had thought she would have a man to take care of her someday
and what did she need to know those things for?

A couple of days of very cool weather
followed the rain but it was enough to dry out the fields a little
before more rain came, almost torrential rain and they were stuck
inside. Maggie spent time in the barn working on her forge making
shoes for the horses.

“
Is there anything you don’t
know how to do?” Ariana asked admiringly as she watched the muscles
on Maggie’s arms bulge in her shirt as she struck the hot shoe with
her hammer to get it custom fit for Ebony who she was presently
shoeing.

“
You have the animals, you
learn how to take care of them” she told her with a smile through
the soot on her face.

Ariana had often been amazed
at Maggie’s skills, seeing her hot and sweaty behind the forge
though caused her to feel a bit,
hot
under the collar herself as she
watched her expertly fit the shoe to Ebony’s foot.

“
Shhh shhsh,” she calmed him
when he tried to shift away from the hot fitting, the smell of
slightly burnt nail material from the hoof was in the air. She soon
had it in the shape she wanted, trimmed off some of his hoof and
then applied it one last time to measure before nailing it into the
hoof.

“
Have you ever got kicked?”
Ariana asked as she sat on a bale of hay and watched.

“
Sure, plenty of times”
Maggie answered without looking up as she finished nailing on the
shoe.

“
Doesn’t it
hurt?”

Maggie finished off the shoe, gave the hoof a
couple of swipes with her file and felt it before answering “sure
it does” she looked up “but hopefully you have the trust of your
horse when you work on them like this. They could kill you if they
wanted, but mine don’t want to.”

“
I think Perseus could if he
wanted to” she answered with a shudder remembering how he looked at
her when she went into the field to play with the horses and foals
she was so fond of.

Maggie let go of the foot and stood up slowly
from her bent over position, feeling her back as she straightened
it, her breasts pushing against the fabric of her sweaty shirt,
Ariana’s attention was immediately diverted as she watched the play
of Maggie’s body against her clothing. “Well Perseus has a job to
do; taking care of his harem is part of it.” She arched back to
curve her back fully and gave Ariana a fine view of her breasts
tautly against the material. She wanted desperately to take her in
arms and … quickly she tamped that thought down.

“
Are you done for the day?”
she asked instead.

“
Yep, Ebony was the last one
today. I don’t have to do any of the two-year olds yet.” She arched
again to ease her aching back. She checked all four feet once more
and let Ebony out into the pasture where he joined the others,
their heads bobbing in horse greeting.

“
That’s sure a pretty sight”
Ariana commented as she came up beside Maggie to watch
them.

“
Prettiest sight” Maggie
agreed, alert suddenly with smell of Ariana on her nostrils. She
was right there, right at her side, the smell of her was
intoxicating, all she had to do was turn, she was only a few inches
taller, she could turn and… she tamped down the improper thoughts
and looked up at the rain that continued to fall. She turned the
other way “I’ve got to clean up” she said.

Ariana had felt something in
the air as they watched the horses, she felt a vibration from
Maggie, or
thought
she did. She had deliberately barely brushed against her
shoulder as she came up beside her. She wanted desperately to take
her in her arms, to feel her against her, the thought of those
breasts against her made her dizzy with need, want, and desire. She
bit her lip to stop it, the pain giving her some measure of
control. She thought Maggie sensed her thoughts and turned away but
she began to pick up the tools she had used and Ariana realized she
was foolish, she was the one with the problem, Maggie didn’t even
know of her attraction.

“
Hey, you didn’t read
these?” Ariana had been cleaning up the house, room by room. A
couple of the rooms, one that had been Maggie’s brother’s was
spotless and closed off, the other, her grandfathers was as well.
She saw that Maggie kept her own room Spartan and clean but only
functional. No pictures on the wall, no clothes anywhere lying
about. The office was the only room that Ariana hadn’t gone into
and when she saw the pile of mail on the desk she picked it up to
ask Maggie about it.

“
Oh, I forgot it was there”
Maggie said hedging from where she was sitting in the kitchen
oiling some leather leads and being careful not to get the oil
anywhere but on the leather. She looked down at her project nearly
done and rubbed harder.

“
But this might be
important” Ariana stated confused, hadn’t Maggie went to read it
the other night?

Maggie shrugged.

Mail was rare and important in Ariana’s mind
and then it occurred to her, the state of the office, it was messy
and unfunctional, in fact, there were piles of opened mail in piles
of piles all around the office. A suspicion was forming in her head
as it occurred to her. “Maggie?” she called to get her
attention.

Maggie ignored her, knowing what might be
coming.

“
Maggie?” Ariana said
quietly as she came to stand before her.

Maggie studied her shoes, today she was
wearing regular shoes rather than the sandals she preferred. They
had white socks in them and looked nice on her slender small
ankles.

“
Maggie” Ariana said in a
different voice and at this Maggie looked up, her hands slowing
from the rubbing they were giving the leather leads. At the
cautious look in Maggie’s eyes she felt her heart melt, she thought
carefully of how to ask her, how to approach this delicate subject,
she swallowed convulsively “do you know
how
to read?” she asked hesitantly
and feeling bad for her friend, for this wonderful, beautiful soul
who was so fantastic with animals, a great friend, and who was
hurting from what she could see.

Slowly Maggie shook her head, not saying a
word.

“
Not at
all
?” Ariana said tenderly, her heart
going out to her.

Again, Maggie shook her head feeling like an
absolute failure to the more sophisticated Ariana, someone she
admired greatly, loved desperately, and would have bitten out her
own tongue before she told her this bit of news.

“
Can you write?” she asked
now confused and wondering how she had sent the letter to invite
her here.

Maggie shook her head and looked down in
mortification. Her secret was out. This lovely woman would now
think her an idiot.

Ariana’s heart was breaking for her friend,
she desperately wanted to kiss her and make it all better, and
instead she said “would you like to learn?”

Maggie looked up “they don’t teach girls” she
said defiantly.

“
Who says?” Ariana’s
delicate eyebrows frowned.

“
Daddy said, they don’t
teach girls around here.”

Ariana nearly laughed at the statement but
feeling it might be misconstrued she said “well you’re daddy isn’t
around to object now is he?”

Maggie nearly laughed in relief. Ariana was
right. She could learn to read, maybe even write. She looked at the
letters in Ariana’s hand and felt hope. Maybe she was too old
though “don’t you have to learn that when you’re younger
though?”

Ariana shook her head and her face took on a
tender look “I don’t think there is an age limit to learning.”

Maggie gave her a tremulous smile “do you
really think you can teach me?”

Ariana gave her a real smile in return “I
don’t know but I sure would like to try!”

Maggie returned the smile with one of her own
“let me finish this up here” she indicated the leads and oil in her
hand that had stilled.

“
Well, we can start whenever
you want” Ariana said brightly. “In the meantime, you want me to
read these to you?” she indicated the letters.

Maggie nodded feeling too emotional to
speak.

Ariana sat down at the kitchen table and
began with the letter from herself first. It told that she would be
happy to accept Maggie’s invitation and that she should be arriving
shortly, they both laughed since she had been there for weeks
already. It pretty much went over the stories of the towns they had
visited since Maggie had left the circus, they had discussed all
this but to Maggie the words printed on the page held special
meaning to her, they were words she might be able to read, maybe
even write, someday.

“
May I ask you something?”
Ariana asked when she finished her letter.

Maggie nodded feeling a little wary now that
Ariana knew her secret.

“
How did you manage to write
those letters and sign the contract if you don’t know how to read
or write?”

Maggie had thought she knew what was going to
be asked so she explained “I can write my name, that’s all and
Peter helped with the rest. I have a real good memory for those
things so if it’s read to me once or twice I usually can
recall.”

Ariana nodded, that explained a lot. She
opened another letter to read to Maggie as she finished the lead
and cleaned up the oil. The letter was arrangements for the horses
purchased and it had a check inside it. At the amount Ariana
whistled “you’re rich!” she teased.

Maggie laughed as she realized she had to get
the horses up to Jackson and on a train fast, the letter was weeks
old already! She didn’t want the new owners to think she wasn’t
honest!

“
Does this mean you have to
sort out the horses?” Ariana asked when she finished reading it
aloud to Maggie.

“
I have to deposit that
check at the bank, Frank will take care of that part and put it
into my account for me. I’ll ride up and take the horses I sold to
them and get them on the train, the clerk will make those
arrangements for me.”

Ariana realized that Maggie put a lot of
faith in others to do things for her, things that make someone
dishonest take advantage of her. A banker, a clerk, anyone who
realized she couldn’t read could take her for money she could ill
afford. She wondered if any of them had but she didn’t say
anything.