Stars Always Shine (15 page)

At the end of the busy work week, as the milk barn was quickly transformed into a very trendy apartment, everybody on the ranch looked forward to the weekend for various reasons.

Jacqueline drove the right angles as she approached StarRidge Ranch and thought about the next few days she and Mickey would spend in her cozy cabin. She would suggest to Mickey that maybe they could move onto the ranch after the new year as soon as the rains subsided. Together they would work the ranch as she had seen Mitch and Place do. And together they could do the things that she had daydreamed about and was imagining as she turned onto her property.

Mickey was exhausted as he walked around the new apartment applying some finishing touches. He was excited too. He looked forward to his hunting trip and thought about all the fun he had had the year before. He still had the address of a female friend, and he was anxious to see her. He even missed her, and a few times during the week he had called her to assure her that they would spend as much time together as possible. She was a wiry young cowgirl who had caught his eye one night in a bar the previous year. She had made him court her for the rest of the week before giving herself up to him the day before his hunting trip was over. This courtship impressed Mickey. It was a more romantic relationship than he felt he had with Jacqueline, who offered no challenge on their first date, and since, often blamed her lack of steaming passion on the interferences of economics and the demands of a busy schedule.

Place was looking forward to watching the Kittles’ red truck drive off and knowing that they would be gone for the rest of the year and possibly longer. He knew that he, Mitch, and Salvador could work without meaningless distractions, and at least for a little while it would be as if the ranch was theirs. He was also looking forward to the new year. He felt good about knowing that they would not stay on the ranch as long as they had anticipated. It had been a good learning experience thus far, but the pressure, both physical and emotional, was disproportionate to the setting; country living had not seemed to be much different from city life.

Mitch stood in the kitchen looking out at the ranch as she peeled some carrots. Rosa and Coquette sat at supreme attention in the kitchen waiting for anything that might be offered to them or fumbled onto the floor. Mitch imagined the ranch as her own. She pictured many horses in the pastures languishing with their heads down and switching their tails casually. She dreamed about how she and Place, and Salvador too, could run a successful boarding business and seldom need to leave the ranch to earn their money. She listened to the birds as they chirped and sang and nestled in the trees to roost for the evening. She watched Gatita walk lazily from the stall barn to her home with Salvador where she knew food was more reliable. The donkeys paced in their pastures nervously, expecting to be fed just as the calves were, but were left disappointed and expressed that frustration with braying crescendos as they strained with their necks and pointed their pleading snouts upward to a negligent god. Mitch and Place had come to find the donkeys’ early morning braying more effective than a rooster’s crow. But the donkeys’ honking had a certain quirkiness to it as it developed slowly and then screamed with operatic effort. The corralled ducks huddled in a corner like frightened immigrants, and tried to stay away from the brutish donkeys. Mitch looked at the waning sun as it shot the last of its glistening rays and illuminated the green of the pastures, and she thought about how she would make some changes as soon as Jacqueline and Mickey were out of the county.

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. Until 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.”