The Milch Bride (8 page)

Rubye stood up, went inside, and then came back a few
minutes later. She handed Hattie the large box that until minutes ago had held
kitchen sulfurs. Hattie solemnly removed the finger, studying its broken, dirty
nail, and passed it to Rubye.

“Just two knuckles. He’ll still have a stub.”

She passed the index finger back and Hattie dropped it into
the match box. Slowly she closed it. “Don’t say anything to Jackson,” Hattie
pleaded.

“Don’t be silly. I have to tell him. He’ll want to keep more
men here to protect you.”

Hattie laughed. “I’m already boxed up. That would be one or
more men who couldn’t do their job, just hanging around to ‘guard’ me.” She
stared up at Rubye. “Please don’t tell him.”

The older woman shook her head. “I can’t lie to him. What if
he or one of the men heard the shots and asks me? I’ll have to tell him then.”

“I’m not saying lie if he asks you, but don’t tell him
anything if he doesn’t ask.”

Rubye stood up, shaking her head as they both heard the
baby’s first cry. “What about J.D.?”

“It was me they were after. The baby is safe.”

Rubye gave her usual snort as both entered the house.

<><><> 

The men came in that evening and nothing was said about the
incident in the barn. They all wanted to talk about the little chicks milling
around the yard. The biggest worry was the dogs. All but the oldest hound were
always gone to work with the men, with the cowboys barking orders at them when
home. But the hens had settled them down quickly, circling to protect the chicks,
taking turns at pecking any part of the hounds that came forward.

“I’d feel better if they were in a coop. Boyd, I thought you
were going to put wire around the garden,” Jackson said.

“I think they’d be better off if I put it around the empty
corral for now. Maybe set some boxes in for nesting. They might eat the seeds
and the ladies plants if we keep them fenced in the garden.”

“You could, but you’d have the chore of moving boxes and
chickens if and when we need it for horses,” Cliff added.

“We’ll think about it, and then Saturday when we’re in town,
we can get the supplies,” Jackson concluded.

Two months later, there was still no coop. Hattie was
resting on the porch, rocking the sleepy baby after doing laundry and hanging
it. She looked up at the squawk of a hen and stared as a red blur squeezed out
from under the rail, a sagging bundle of feathers dangling from his jaws.

She gently dropped the baby into the cradle, then picked up
the rifle and rested the barrel on the rail. The first shot set up dust behind
him, the animal was moving so fast. The second she aimed ahead and to the left
of the last shot and was thrilled when he zagged into her bullet.

Rubye came running out. “Are they back again?”

“It’s a different kind of varmint. I’m walking out for the
coyote.”

“Wait,” Rubye ran back out, with a small knife. “For the
tail, there’s a bounty.”

Hattie slipped the knife beneath her apron belt, grabbed the
rifle and walked out toward the fallen animal, hoping her hen might still be
alive in the coyote’s grip.

As she approached, she saw a red form darting toward the
fallen animal, another prey clenched in his jaws. She knelt and fired,
overjoyed when the second animal dropped, a few feet from the first.

She made quick work, detaching tails and stabbing the
animals in the neck to make sure they were dead. Disappointed, she lifted the
still warm hen by the feet, her neck broken, probably in the fall. The second
animal had caught a jack rabbit, clearly planning to trade up to the fat
chicken.

She tucked the dusty red tails and knife back in her belt,
made sure the safety was on the rifle, then clutched an animal in each hand.

A pair of riders appeared over the horizon. Hattie was relieved
to recognize Cliff and one of the younger hands. She lifted her rifle and the
game and grinned in salute, then marched back toward the house.

The third rider came up in a blur. For a moment Hattie
raised the gun, then lowered it when he hollered. Jackson stopped quickly, his
horse rearing beside her before dropping down. She saw the worry in his face
and knew she should say something.

“Hand me the gun he,” he barked

She swallowed at the look of anger in his eyes. She checked
the knife and coyote tails at her waist, switched so she held the rabbit and
chicken in the same hand and handed up the rifle.

He leaned over, grabbed her by the waist and lifted her up
before him, his arm around her waist like an iron band.

“The coyote grabbed one of the hens, so I shot it. This one
came in to trade his rabbit for her and I shot him too.”

He pulled her back hard against him, his voice a fierce
whisper in her ear as he slowly walked the horse back to the house. “I thought
it was one of those two legged coyotes again. Or did you think Rubye wouldn’t
show me that finger and tell me what happened?”

She felt a shiver of fear at the accusation in his voice.
“She promised not to tell. It was all right. We chased them off.”

“But it could have gone the other way, if Rubye hadn’t been
there.”

Hattie swiveled in the seat, trying to look up at him. “I’m
not helpless.” She spat, trying to hold back the rage she felt.

“You are when you’re out here away from the house.”

She started to protest, but felt his arm shift, his hand grasping
her shoulder to trap her other arm by her side. He planted his hand in her hair
and forced her face up to his. Angrily he kissed her, his lips punishing. For a
minute she struggled, pushing at him in panic. As she shrank in fear, he
loosened his grip, softened the kiss, held her gently.

Panic and fear vanished as he gentled his hold and Hattie
lost her breath in the fierce soft sweetness of it. She stared up at him,
confused. When she saw the same confusion in his eyes, she turned away. Face flaming
she faced forward as he rode into the yard, setting her off on the porch. Hattie
stood there, her legs shaky, as he stared down at her. “Remember to stay close
to this house to be safe.” Then he handed her the gun and turned his horse. In
minutes he was gone.

<><><> 

She had plucked and cut up the chicken, adding the meat to
the skinned and cut up rabbit. She cut the little puff tail to use to powder
the baby. He was already big enough to need things to distract him. Not her,
her mind kept returning to Jackson. She hung two tail feathers from the handle
of the cradle where they could flutter above him. According to Dr. Padgett,
babies needed distractions for mental exercise when awake, especially after
three months of age.

She wasn’t sure if everything the man wrote was true, but
she found it comforting to read what to expect the baby to be able to do at
each age. So far he had been right. Just in the last two weeks, Jackie had
begun to make sounds and faces back at her when she talked.

She focused on the baby, noticing how he was staring up, as
though watching the fluttering feathers. Even as she watched, he waved a fist
as though he would grab the feathers fluttering overhead.

He had definitely smiled at her, she knew they were real
smiles, not gas, as Rubye stated. Any day now she expected a real laugh. Three
months last week.

Rubye stood on the porch, staring at the baby reaching up
for the floating feathers. “You want me to fry that up?”

Hattie shook her head. “It’s too tough. I was thinking dumplings.”

Rubye put her hands on her hips. “Never heard of dumplings
and rabbit.”

“Dad liked dumplings with any kind of stew, we often added
them to rabbit stew. I’ll cook it, if you’ll watch the baby?”

“Humph. What else you going to cook with it?”

“Wilted salad, from the lettuce and garden thinnings.”

“Maybe you want to do a peach cobbler, with those canned
peaches.”

“Sounds perfect.”

Hattie browned all the meat in the heavy stock pot, then
added three quarts of liquid to cover the meat while it boiled. She prepared
vegetables to add, potatoes, onions, carrots, and while the meat continued to
boil, slipped out to the garden to pick herbs and fresh lettuce, along with
young carrots, pea plants and turnips as she worked and thinned each row.

By the time the meat was starting to fall off the bone, she
scooped it out to cool, dropped in the vegetables to boil, and then stopped to
feed J.D. As soon as he was asleep, she hurried back to finish her cooking. She
pulled all the meat loose, added it, herbs, salt and pepper to the boiling
vegetables. She cracked three eggs, added a splash of oil, and two tablespoons
of buttermilk into a pile of flour on the dough board, quickly stirring the
liquids, then folding flour in until she had soft dough ready to roll out. She
rolled it out into a huge rectangle and cut it in thirds, then rolled each
smaller rectangle and cut long strips. Using a big spoon, she dropped dumplings
into the broth, letting them spiral out into the boiling stew.

She quickly thickened the peaches, poured them into a pan
and stirred up a different batter, one sweetened with sugar, and dropped it by
spoonfuls into the peaches and liquid, sprinkling it with sugar and cinnamon before
adding it to the oven.

While the cobbler and biscuits baked, she moved the dumplings
to a back-eye to stay warm, and then cut bacon into the skillet. When it was
fried, she added three tablespoons of sugar to the hot grease, then added a
half cup of vinegar to the pan, finally adding all the washed lettuce and
snipped greens to the pan, tossing them in the hot spicy liquid. She diced a
hard- boiled egg, crumbled the bacon, and added both on top of the wilted
greens as soon as she lifted them to the big flat bowl.

Hattie was back in the bedroom, the window open and a cool
breeze fluttering the curtains, when she heard the men ride in. She could hear
them at the well washing up, talking excitedly about the good smells from the
kitchen.

As the men came to the table and started to eat, all were
complementary about the food. Rubye took all the accolades in stride, saying
nothing until one of the men asked how she had talked Miss Stoddard into
killing one of her prized hens.

“Coyote did it for her. Thank her for the dumplings. But,
half of its rabbit and you boys didn’t even know it.”

“Not mine, I et chicken. Best I ever had,” Boyd said.

“How’d she get a rabbit, if the coyote caught her chicken?”

  She listened to Rubye tell the story of the two coyotes,
making Hattie sound like a real sharp-shooter. The men were laughing, trying to
imagine the young girl chasing after her hen.

The men were nearly as complementary of her biscuits and the
peach cobbler. For a moment she was remembering her Dad and the hands
complementing her on her cooking, felt the pride she had felt then.

But when she closed her eyes, she felt that iron band and
breathless feeling from Jackson’s kiss, and was instantly awake. What had he
meant by kissing her?

When Hattie came out after the voices finally left, Rubye
was busy clearing dishes. Hattie walked over and handed Jackson the baby, then
sat down at the empty table. Rubye bustled in with her plate, dumplings with a
mouthful of wilted greens on the side and a cold biscuit on the edge of a small
dish of cobbler.

“You’re lucky they left any for you. Sweet or buttermilk?”

“Sweet, thank you Rubye, I can get it.”

“Sit, you did all the cooking.”

 He raised an eyebrow, stared at Hattie then smiled at
Rubye. He was holding the baby under the arms, letting him push against his lap
to stretch out with his little bowed legs. When J.D. pushed too hard in the
wrong place, Jackson made a face and let out an ‘ow.’ The baby laughed and
Hattie smiled.

Rubye walked in from the kitchen, smiling and laughing too. J.D.
looked over at her and made a happy gurgle. “Do it again, make him laugh.”

Jackson sat the baby on the edge of the cleaned table and
laughed at him as he pretended to bite his neck. The baby laughed and rolled
his head against him, trying to bite back.

“Now, that’s a right sweet sound. Here let me take him.”

Hattie sat mesmerized by the look on Jackson’s face as he
stared at the baby. When he looked over at her, she felt his eyes studying her
face.

Rubye sank down, drying her hands in her apron to take him.
“Here you silly goose,” she teased, laughing when the baby cooed up at her. At
her laugh, he laughed too. “There, did you hear it? Donna’s laugh?”

He nodded and Hattie felt a sharp pang in her heart. No
wonder he looked so enchanted. The baby laughed like the woman he loved.

Rubye looked from one to the other. “Humph, you’d best eat
up. This little man needs changing.” She handed him back to Jackson and left
the room.

Hattie ate, barely tasting the food. When she rose to take
the baby she said. “He’s right on schedule, according to Dr. Padgett. I wish I
knew how much he weighs. He is getting bigger isn’t he?”

“Bigger every day. Irene Dawson will be pleased when she
sees him tomorrow. He’s looking pudgy, and that’s the way she likes them.”

At Hattie’s scowl he laughed. “Of course, you don’t know
what he weighed at birth, but Doc Jenkins put down seven pounds. Next time
we’re in town, you can weigh him at Thompson’s store. Bet he’s more than
fifteen pounds.”

She remembered how enormous the newborn J.D. had felt when
she first lifted him. Of course, the tiny scrap that had been her son still was
the baby she compared him too.

That night as she gave him a sponge bath in the washtub on
top of the dresser, she was careful as Dr. Padgett advised not to remove the
protective oils found in every baby’s skin. She studied the chunky legs and
arms, the round pink tummy with its perfect little innie-belly-button. There
were dimples on each knee and elbow. She kissed each then lifted him out over
the chamber pot as Dr. Padgett directed she do every day. For only the second
time, there was the little tinkle of success.

She wasn’t sure if there were anyway the baby could know or
control the event, but according to the good doctor, this repeated process
would lead to a well-trained child by age one. She had promised Irene Dawson
that she would follow the good doctor’s advice. No matter how silly much of it
seemed to her, she did it because she knew it was what Donna would want, would
have done if she were still here. Smiling, she recorded the laugh and the
successful potty experience in the baby book.

Clean and diapered, she deposited J.D. into his crib, where
he could watch her getting ready for bed. He did so with the usual kicking of
feet, waving of fists, and range of coos and gurgles. When ready, she stared
down at him, trying to see his mother. Rubye claimed he looked just like Donna.
Hattie loved the soft blue eyes, button nose and decidedly pointed chin. Even
though he didn’t look like Donna or Jackson in the tintype, Hattie loved his
sweet face. “Your momma made a wonderful son, Jackie.”

She picked up the baby to lie playing beside her, despite
what Dr. Padgett said about never allowing a child into your bed. She could
remember climbing into bed with her parents, even the year that her mother had
died, she would let Hattie curl up beside her to read and talk about recipes
and things she had seen that day working with her Daddy. She loved the shared
time then, and she loved it now.

With pillows and crib fencing him in on one side, she played
peek-a-boo and talked lovingly to the baby until they were both sleepy, then
she blew out the light.

<><><> 

“What’s going on?”

Jackson stared at his housekeeper, surprised at her tone of
voice. He studied the tall, rangy woman, a friend of the Harper family and his
neighbor all his life. When he bought the ranch and needed a housekeeper, she
was the first person he asked. Single, the typical spinster, she had remained
behind to care for her parents when the rest of the family married one-by-one and
moved out. Mid-thirties, cantankerous as an old goat, her chances in life
seemed limited. He tried to remember why she was bitter and tolerate her
caustic tongue.