ELLEN WOKE WITH A SENSE OF
URGENCY. She sat up and looked
around. It didn’t seem too late. The gray of early morning filled the loft. She rubbed both hands over her face and
pushed the sleep from her eyes.
Aaah! They had guests! And probably guests who were used to rising
with the sun! She piled out of bed,
flipping the covers back in place and pulling her night dress over her
head. Very shortly she was dressed and
dragging the comb through her hair without her usual carefulness. She twisted the hair into a long coil and
secured it on the back of her head with the stick.
She hurried down the ladder to
find Joseph sitting at the table with Slade chatting over coffee.
“Why didn’t you wake me!” She cried to them. “I had no idea you were up!”
“We didn’t wake you because we
were being very careful not to.” Slade
told her. “Joseph filled the coffee pot
and I ground the beans. When the water
boiled we added the ground coffee and it cooked all by itself.” Slade’s eyes twinkled and Joseph had a grin
on his thin face.
“Then Joseph got the milk and
sugar so we could fix our cups.
“And before you ask, the last
time he checked a few minutes ago, the grandparents are still sleeping. They were exhausted from the last few days.
“So, any more questions? Coffee, maybe?” He poured a cup and offered it to her.
Ellen accepted the coffee and
poured milk and sugar into it. “What are
your grandparents used to eating?” She asked Joseph. “I want to fix them things they will like.”
“We have been eating whatever we
could find,” he told her. “They have not
been feeling too good because their stomach is old for some things. They like corn, boiled corn, ground corn,
baked corn, almost any way you can fix it. I will find them rabbits and maybe prairie
dogs. Those are easy to eat for them. If you can cook them. Or I will cook them.” Joseph stopped, worried that he had been too
bold.
“I want to fix them whatever they
can get strong again on. If you bring me
rabbits, I will cook rabbits for them, but we have plenty of beef and still
some bacon. They shouldn’t have to worry
about food.” Ellen said.
“This morning I have ground
corn. I can make them some cooked mush
and they can put milk on it. We like it
that way.” She set her coffee cup on the
table and went to put water on to boil for the mush. In a few minutes she was
ready to stir the moistened cornmeal into the bubbling water.
As the cornmeal thickened she
thought to add some milk and sugar to the mixture. She wasn’t sure they would like the milk on
the mush, but the milk in the cooked meal would give them extra energy and
strength. The sugar would give extra flavor, too.
“I will scoop some out for Mr.
Slade and myself,” she told Joseph, “and you can carry the pot to the
house. That way it will stay warm by the
fire if they aren’t awake yet. Shall I
make more coffee for them or can you do that over there?”
“I can make coffee.” Joseph
answered. “They will be happy with the
food, I know. I will come back to help
with the barn.” Joseph hurried out
carrying the heavy kettle of mush.
Ellen sat down across from
Slade. Company was good, but having only
the two of them was better. They joined hands for prayer. Breakfast went down quickly and Ellen jumped
up to tend to the barn work, leaving the breakfast clutter to be cleaned up
later. Sarah was waiting. She had been a most patient cow for the last
few weeks.
Joseph met her on the steps of
the porch. She noticed he was wearing only his shirt and pants without any kind
of jacket or coat. He had evidently given all the warm clothes for his
grandparents.
Ellen made a mental note to ask Slade if there
was another coat or shirt someplace they could give him.
They released the home horses to
the field where they could fend for themselves.
Ellen hesitated to give the thin mare any more of their corn supply but
with the other stock going out each day they could afford to be generous with
the hay. Before Ellen milked she showed
Joseph how they cleaned the pens and stacked the refuse to freeze into hard
pats for distributing to the garden.
Perhaps, she thought, that could be a task for Joseph later in the
day-after she found something warmer for him to wear. Quite a pile of barn waste had accumulated and
only the shade of the barn kept it frozen during the day.
While Joseph cleaned the barn,
Ellen milked Sarah and then lowered the rails and herded her and the calf out
the doors. The last task for the morning
was giving the Thin Horse a supply of water.
Ellen suspected that part of the thinness was due to dehydration rather
than a lack of food. There was grass
available everywhere, but water was sometimes hard to find,
ELLEN looked up as she heard the
sound of feet on the porch. It wasn’t
yet daylight but Joseph and his grandfather, called Slim Man, were ready to
head out for their bi-weekly trip to check on the cattle. The first week Ellen had accompanied Joseph
and Fetcher on the trek around the cattle sites. After that Joseph had gone alone with only
Fetcher for company. Then one morning, Slim Man had shown up to go along.
True to her determination the
first day of his stay with them, Ellen had searched through the house and with
Slade’s direction had found two heavy shirts that Jacob had left when he
started his summer trip back to Indiana
For outer wear, Slim Man used his
blanket with the slit cut in the center for his head. She and Slade had sacrificed one of the house
blankets to make a heavy vest for Joseph.
He asked for her to make that instead of a coat; he liked his arms free
and preferred only the heavy shirt for protection against the wind. Ellen had cut the garment with a high wide
collar to pull up around his ears and cut out the wind. The hem reached below
his hips for additional warmth. She made
it with a double thickness for better insulation.
Now with their warm clothes, they
were accomplished hands and faced weather, wildlife and cows without
reservation.
Ellen poured them coffee from her
pot and shoved the plate of cornbread toward them. “I know The One who Laughs made you
breakfast, but surely you can eat some cornbread with some coffee.” She teased
them, knowing that they were almost as partial to the combination as Slade was. “I almost have your lunches ready.” Ellen always packed them a mid-day lunch as
she had for Slade on his trips.
Slim Man took his coffee and
crumbled the cornbread into it. Then he picked
up a spoon and took it to squat by the fireplace. Joseph sat down in the chair beside Ellen to
eat his coffee soup.
Slade stood propped against his
staff, pouring hot coffee into the canteens.
He added milk and sugar and pushed the plugs in tightly. While Ellen wrapped the tortillas and meat in
a cloth he moved around to sit in the big chair opposite Slim Man.
When their coffee was finished,
Joseph shoved the packet of tortillas under his vest, above his belt. They hung
the canteens over their heads.
Ellen and Slade stepped out on
the porch to watch them as they rode off toward the rising sun. Ellen peeked around the corner of the house
to the doorway of the ‘dobe where the One Who Laughs stood watching the
men.
Ellen’s mind went back to the day
after they had arrived. One Who Laughs,
Ellen hadn’t known her name then, had asked Joseph to bring Ellen to her
bedside. According to the tradition of her people she wanted to make
arrangements for their stay. Joseph translated what the lady had to say: She thanked Ellen for her kindness and
expressed her gratitude for the food and warm house. The ‘dobe, she said, was so good that she
felt much at home, but she would not be able to return to her house until she
had re-gained much strength.
“I realize,” she said, “that your
man is crippled…” Ellen lost track of
everything that was said after that. Two
things hit her at the same time: first Slade wasn’t really crippled, he was
injured and second, he wasn’t ‘her’ man.
Then in an overwhelming flash of
insight, she realized that he was her
man. He had taken her in out of the
storm and cold when she was nearly dead.
He had given her safety and security after her months of fear and
pain. She had braved the unknown dangers
of the dark going find him when he hadn’t returned from his cattle round. She had struggled home with his broken body through
the black of deep night following Fetcher’s flash of white leading her. She had coped with getting him to bed where
she bandaged his broken bones and cared for him until he was recovered.
They had become a team without
planning it. She would fight to stay
beside him regardless of circumstances. Without
vows or a wedding ring, he was her
man in a deeper way than Alejandro had ever been!
Ellen returned to reality in time
to hear Joseph relaying his grandmother’s proposal that they remain in the
little house until they were strong again.
They had no white man money but she wanted to know if Joseph could work
on the ranch in pay for their house some food.
Too preoccupied with her new realization to
even spend more time talking, Ellen agreed without a second thought. That was
what she and Slade had proposed. It Joseph had been doing already.
She had hurried back to the house
to share her new awareness with Slade, but when she came in to the room and saw
him sitting at the table carving, she was overcome with shyness and lost her
enthusiasm. Instead she had related the arrangements
she had just agreed with and kept her amazing secret hidden away.
The weeks had followed one after
the other. Joseph kept to their agreement faithfully; he had more than
fulfilled his end of the bargain.
Between his cattle herding trips, he repaired the buildings; he had
fixed the fences and even extended them in some places to enlarge the pasture
lands. He had taken the poles stacked by
the barn and begun the fence on the northwest of the garden. From time to time
he brought meat he had hunted along the way—not only rabbits and prairie dogs
for his grandparents, but venison and wild sheep or goats from the mountain. Ellen had remonstrated with him a couple
times because of his hard work, but he continued to find things to do around
the ranch. When he regained his
strength Slim Man had begun finding things to do that helped around the barn
and garden.
When Joseph and his grandfather
had disappeared around the rise, Ellen and Slade went back inside. She had a skillet of chopped meat and
tomatoes that she had simmering for their breakfast. She moved the candles to the side of the table
to put the skillet in the center with the plate of tortillas and the coffee
pot.
Slade smiled as he sat down.
“Cornbread and coffee for Joseph
and Slim Man.
“I do have an ulterior motive for
your favorite dish.” She told him when
they had finished. “I want to remind you
that I need to get into Santa Fe Spain
‘You said that you would try to
take me there in the spring. So… This is
a small bribe.” She motioned toward the
tortilla wrapped meat she had just prepared for him. “Will you begin to think
about it? I mean I know you aren’t
walking yet, but maybe before too long?
“Ahhh I see.” Slade said. He took a big bite of his tortilla and
scooped a couple pieces of meat from his plate, giving himself time to pull his
heart back up from his toes. He chewed
carefully and sipped his coffee. “The
weather has been holding clear now for a while, the cattle are doing well and
Joseph has been bringing the fresh cows and new calves in to the natural
reservoir to the southeast. They should do well there. They won’t wander from the good grazing and
water.
“We will have to get those to the
west trailed down the little river to the lowlands. I think Joseph may have already started
that. Once they are in the bottoms they
will stay for most of the summer close to water and good grass.
“Let’s give it two weeks and we
should make our trip to Santa Fe
Slade hated to say the
words. They meant Ellen was leaving. He
knew she had a responsibility to her dead husband and the holdings in the
Aguilar name. There was no one else to
carry them out. Even though the holding had been ravaged by the bandits the
land, the house and the out buildings still had tremendous value. It would be
possible to rebuild the Rancho without too much effort on the part of the new
proprietors.
Ellen needed to be there to
notify the appropriate people.
And yet. . . Yet it meant she
would leave this little cluster of buildings against the hills. And probably
not return. There was the sticking
point—His Ellie would leave.
His pleasure went out of the special
dish. The rising sun did nothing to lighten his day. Slade sat silent while Ellen spoke of what
they would need for the trip and how soon it could happen.
When Ellen had hurried through
straightening the kitchen she pulled her old skirt from the hook. She swung the big coat around her shoulders
but neglected to close it. The weather
had cleared, but it was far from warm.
Slade stood and went to put his own coat on.
“What are you doing!?” Ellen exclaimed.
“I’m going to the barn to help
with the work.” Slade calmly continued
getting his jacket.
“You can’t do that! You’ll strain your leg!” The memory of their ‘Christmas’ night ordeal
and the extra days it required to regain the progress he’d already made in the
healing of his leg was her recurring nightmare. What if the damage had been too
severe? What if he had to use the stick
indefinitely? What if he walked with a
permanent limp? What if he couldn’t sit a horse? What if, What if? “Stay here! I’ll do the barn work! You will hurt your leg again.”
Ellen clung to his arm, but Slade
took both of her hands in his, leaning the staff against the wall.
“No, Ellie. I’ve taken a lot of extra days with that
staff just to keep from worrying you, but my leg is fine. There is no pain. I’ve been walking to the
outhouse on my own now for a couple weeks.
I can get around the house without the staff at all. I’m sure you’ve seen me, if you will only
think back."
He took her face in his
hands. “Look at me. You do remember, don’t you? You have noticed me walking without that
stick. Haven’t you? And I don’t limp. You will know that if you just think.”
Tears welled in Ellen’s eyes. Now
that she thought of it she had seen him walking. And she had seen that he had
no limp. She was afraid to see him
walking. It meant he was healthy. It meant she didn’t have any more reason to
stay here. In spite of her words
earlier, she hated to leave the little house. She hated to leave Eli!
“All right.” She conceded. “But use you staff, please?”
Slade moved his hands from her
face to her shoulders and then hugged her briefly.
“I promise,” he said.
They took the milk bucket and
went to the barn. Slade carried his staff; he didn’t lean on it, but used it
with a jaunty swagger emphasizing his walk.
Slade set his staff aside to
clean Sarah’s pen while Ellen milked.
She watched him move out of the corner of her eye. The leg was strong and there was no
limp.
When she straightened from
milking she turned to Slade.
“Look at this,” she held the
bucket out to him. “This is hardly worth working for.” There were about two pints in the bottom of
the bucket.
Slade shook his head. “I should have been keeping track of
this. Poor Sarah, she is due to have her
calf in a few weeks. We should have let
her go dry long ago. We’ll have to make
this her last milking.” He grinned
ruefully. “I’ll hate to lose the fresh
milk.”
“Turn her out. She’ll enjoy the
freedom.” He pulled the bar from the
stall and Ellen slapped Sarah’s rump. They watched her sway out the door and
into the freedom of the pasture with the bull calf following.
“I’ll have Joseph drive one of
those young bulls in so we can get her bred a while after she calves.” He grinned.
“Maybe next year we’ll have two cows to milk.” And he stopped. It didn’t matter how many cows; Ellen
wouldn’t be here.
He turned and picked up the bar
to replace it.
Ellen had taken the milk to the
house.
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