A Gentle Rain (16 page)

"None currently?"

She looked a little shifty, but I ascribed that to our public circumstance. "Naw. He's been a loner, as far as fallin' in love goes. But I think he's decided to look for Miss Right and settle down." She turned her shrewd gaze back to me. "Why, maybe bere's Miss Right, right in front of me."

A commercial for the national beef council came on the television. Everyone cheered.

When I caught Ben eyeing me I applauded, too, but using just the tips of my fingers against the palm of one hand. I smiled at him gently, fighting tightness in my throat.

He frowned. Mixed messages.

I quickly reformed my expression and applauded the beef industry heartily. No man wants a woman to feel sorry for him because he's been wounded and humiliated by other women.

Not even El Diablo.

"Payday," Ben announced one evening, as Lily and I set the table for dinner. The moment everyone was seated he handed out pristine envelopes to each man and woman, including Joey. And me. I had been there two weeks.

"Eighty hours plus overtime," he said.

I shook my head. "I really don't need that much-"

"Nobody works here without pay." His tone was edgy. "You got a problem with your job?"

"No, of course not. I just ... "

Everyone looked at me worriedly. I put the envelope in a pocket of my shorts. "What I was attempting to say, is: Perhaps I shouldn't be paid overtime before you taste my latest experimental side dish. It's a sweet potato casserole with soy cheese and yogurt topping."

Smiles. Everyone relaxed. Even Ben's broad shoulders eased their stiff posture, though he kept scrutinizing me as he sat down. "Possum, tell Karen what we say about money around here."

Possum recited, "The only good money is earned money."

Miriam smiled. "That's what Ben says. I say, `Everybody should get stinkin' rich any way they can, and more power to `em."

I looked at Ben carefully. "Do you dislike rich people?"

"Nope. I'd like to be one."

"But you're wary of them."

"I'm wary of the ones I'veluiown. Sure. I'm wary of anybodywho has power over my life or the life of these folks here. It's not just about money. It's about influence. Sometimes I've even give Oprah the stink eye."

Dale scowled. "I told you, Ben, Jesus forgave her for sayin' bad things about beef."

I tilted my head and regard Ben somberly. "Is it appropriate for a woman to accept money from her husband, and a husband from his wife?"

"Sure. Anybody who's got a good marriage will tell you it takes both sides to earn a living and make a life. As long as they're equal partners."

"So your definition of `earning' isn't literal?"

Lula chortled. "Any woman who puts up with a husband earns every penny she gets."

Ben tapped a finger on the table. "It all depends on what you have to give up to get the money. Pride, dignity, self-respect."

"What if someone, say, for example, inherits a great deal of money. Should they simply give it away?"

"Give it to me, Si!" Cheech said.

Everyone laughed and nodded.

Ben leveled a dark gaze at me. "Depends on how they earned it."

"I said 'inherited."'

"The question is how the person came to inherit it, and what he does with it next. Or she." He frowned. Being politically correct was arduous. "A person isn't free if he's chained to money he don't feel he's earned. Or she."

"Under your rules, then, gifts of money aren't acceptable? No matter how sincerely and lovingly bestowed?"

"I've never seen a case where a gift of money didn't have some kind of strings attached."

"So you don't abide by the saying, `Never look a gift horse in the mouth?"'

Joey nodded. "It might bite ya, like the gray mare."

Ben smiled grimly. "Yeah. Anything free, it'll usually bite you." He spooned sweet potato casserole onto his plate and lifted a glob of whitish goo from its midst. His mouth quirked. "Let's just say this about money, Karen. If you inherit a whole bunch of it, whatever you do, don't invest in no soy cheese."

Laughter.

I had to let the subject go.

Ben

The saying goes that, `God helps those who help theirselves.' Well, the way I see it, way too many people have helped themselves to way more than God intended them to take, and those people are all too happy to take what the rest of us got from God, too.

"God's a banker," I heard a preacher say, once. "He loans us mortal life and gives us eternity as the interest rate."

Naw. God ain't a banker. God runs a pawn shop, and He sits there waiting to see what we're will n' to sacrifice. How low we'll go before we lose everything we hold dear.

I was determined not to hand Him anything I couldn't redeem later.

When I came home from Mexico I swore I'd never be beholden to anybody-man or woman-again. Then I took on a bunch of ranch hands who needed a whole lot more help than an ordinary job provides if they were gonna live with any dignity. Sure, there's government help for folks like my hands, but it makes people beg for crumbs. They needed help, not to be kept helpless. So I paid `em real wages for real work, and I built `em homes, and I got `em medical insurance.

Before I knew it I needed a loan here, a second mortgage there. Throw in a couple of bad years for beefprices, and I was about busted. But by God, I'd hang on as long as I could, and I'd take as little help as I could.

And I'd keep away from the pawn shop of the Almighty Dollar.

"Fair warning: Karen's only buying organic veggies at the farmer's market in Fountain Springs," Miriam told me one afternoon, poking her head into the door of my office. "I don't know exactly how she decides what qualifies," Miriam went on, "but she's got a system."

I looked up from my desk and grunted. "Maybe there's such a thing as a'free-range' string bean. One that was let to run wild up the bean pole before it got picked."

"And she's workin' out a deal with Louisa Crocker to trade chicken manure for Louisa's homemade pickles and sugar-free muscadine preserves. You know how Louisa loves good chicken shit. Oh, and Karen's negotiatin' a barter with Keeber Jentson. You know, the old hippie with the goat herd."

"Barter? Unless she's got some marijuana plants to trade him-"

"Palmetto berries. He wants to pick your palmetto berries when they come ripe this August."

"Keeber must be smokin' more weed than I figured. Any man who'd go into the palmetto scrub in August to pluck a few berries must be stoned out of his mind."

"He says he can sell `em by the bushel to a health food company. They make `em into pills. Good for the male prostate and all-around pecker performance. Proved true by real doctors. Not the usual horseshit herbal snake oil. Karen can give you a whole run-down on the statistics."

A conversation with Karen about medicinal pecker enhancement? Naw, I didn't need any help in that area around her; in fact, talking to her about the general subject would likely prove that my pecker was working just fine, now.

I cleared my throat. "Well, Miriam, my grandpa's people swore by saw palmetto, but I didn't realize-"

"Karen says you need to diversify your revenue streams."

"Well, I ain't got prostate trouble yet, so just tell her not to worry about my streams. Besides, what would we get from Keeber in return for the berries?"

"Homemade goat cheese."

"Keeber makes goat cheese?" There were a lot ofrumors about Keeber and his love for goats. Cheese wasn't among `em.

"Hell, yeah. He's got a contract with gourmet restaurants and health food stores from Tallahassee to Jacksonville. He's selling goat cheese as fast as he can milk his nannies."

"Do tell. And he'll keep us supplied in return for wild berries?"

"Yep. Ain't that a hoot?"

No, it wasn't. "Does she think I'm too broke to buy groceries?"

"Ben," Miriam said quietly. "I see that look on your face. Your worst trait is stubborn pride. Ben? Any fool can see you're worried about money. Take the damn goat cheese."

"I'm all for budgets and barter and berries and whatever, but-"

"She says these are baby steps towards your ranch becomin' a selfsustaining, community-oriented co-op. Leave her be, Ben. She's a smart girl. She can save you some money. People in town think she's good for you. They like her."

"Awright, awright."

Miriam grinned. "You know, back in the sixties, your mama and I stood on the beach at Key West looking toward Cuba and wondering ifwe were gonna get blown up by Castro and the Russians. Back then, people woulda said Karen was talkie' pinko Commie talk."

"Well, Karen may be pink, but I don't think she's a Communist."

Miriam leaned close and prodded my chest with a fingernail. "She's a Godsend, that's what she is. And you need to lure her into staying here, permanent. Stock up on some saw palmetto pills, if you know what I mean."

She grinned and left me to my thoughts.

Berries, peckers, and Karen. A heady mix.

Kara

One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other, Jane Austen said.

I believed that wholeheartedly. Until now, my life had been an education in appreciating `the other,' but without actually experiencing `the other.' It's one thing to live among people different from yourself, observing but separate; quite another to live with people, sharing their problems as your own. The ranch wasn't a theoretical environment. It was the real world, with everyday issues, surrounded by encroaching development, pounded by economic issues. This was a place in immediate jeopardy. This was the place I had been searching for, and the people. Perhaps this ranch was the small corner of God's good green Earth I could save.

There is nothing more wonderful than being needed.

I had never known the feeling, before.

Chapter 8

Ben

Every meal was an event, now. We just waited to see what Karen was gonna do, next. As me and the hands trailed into the kitchen for lunch one day she said, "Whoops. I need more raw eggs for the Caesar salad dressing."

Raw eggs? Everybody traded a worried look, then looked at me. "It's okay, calm down," I told them. "It'll taste good. It's a fancy recipe. You won't know it's got raw eggs in it."

Karen gave me a nod of appreciation. "I'll be right back." She headed toward the back. porch door, the route to the chicken house.

"Be careful," Bigfoot called. "I saw a rat snake outside there a few minutes ago. It was big enough to eat a ... a rat. And it likes raw eggs!" For all his size, Bigfoot was scared of snakes.

Karen turned at the door and smiled at him. "Have you ever seen a snake large enough to eat a caw?"

Bigfoot turned pale. "No."

"I have."

She went on out the door.

We all looked at each other, again. Mac turned to Lily and asked solemnly, "They have s-snakes that big up n-north?"

"I don't think so. Do they, Ben?"

"Naw. She's talkin' about South America, I think."

Roy gave me a bewildered look. "Isn't this south America?"

"No, this here is ... I tell you what. Tonight, I'll pull up a map on the computer, and I'll show you."

"South America is south of Mexico," Joey told everybody. "Ben used to go there, a lot. To work."

I gave him a little look, and he ducked his head in apology. No talking about wrestling.

All the hands gaped at me. "Ben, did you ever see a snake big enough to eat a cow?" Possum asked. He looked ready to crawl under the table.

"Nope. Look, y'all don't need to worry about giant snakes. I promise. They're not gonna hide on a boat to Miami, or sneak over the border in Texas, or take the bus cross-country from Tijuana. They're not coming here."

The group relaxed a little.

Mac nodded to everyone proudly. "N-nothing scares K-Karen. Not giant s-snakes. Not r-raw eggs. Nothing. She's a special little girl."

Lily smiled and nodded. "She makes her own bed, and she washes her own dishes, and she cleans her own commode. And at night, sometimes, we sit at the kitchen table and I watch her paint pictures. She keeps trying to get me to paint some pictures, too, but I'd rather watch her."