She smiled to herself as she
stretched and shoved the warm blankets back.
How long had it been since she had been able to awaken without a sense
of dread or fear? The knitted stockings were wadded in her bed where they had
come off during the night. She pulled
them back on, folding and twisting them snuggly just below her knee. She tucked the knot into the fold. Her hair seemed even wilder this morning than
it had been the night before. Its slight
dampness then had given her some control. Now it was fully dry and the curls
coiled wildly in every direction. She pulled
her braid apart and took up the comb the man had given her. She began combing
each section until finally there was a semblance of order. Lacking any pins she braided it again into a
heavy plait over one shoulder. The tight curls held the strands in place.
Standing up she straightened her
shift and shook her gown out from where it had been folded during the night. After the bother of bringing her hair to
order, the chill was beginning to seep into her. Shivering, she pulled the
heavy gown over her head and again wrapped the shawl around her shoulders and
crossed it in front. Once the ends were
secure behind her back she was warmer and ready to go down the ladder.
The Man, as she still
unconsciously considered him, was sitting at the table. In front of him were a
cup of coffee and a plate of cornbread.
To one side there was an empty bowl and spoon. He also had the heavy pitcher of milk sitting
on the table. There was an open book
lying to his left.
“Good morning,” came his
surprised voice. “I was expecting you to
sleep longer! The snow is still falling
and we’ll have no company today to worry about.
You should rest longer.” As she
came across the room he was collecting a cup of coffee for her. Warmth radiated from both the stove and the
fire place. Usually he allowed one to
die down after the first chill was off the cabin, but this morning he had kept
both burning in anticipation of driving out her deep chill from the night
before.
“Sit here. I’ve made corn bread. It isn’t the best, but only what I can
do. It fills the cold spot in my stomach
when I come in from taking care of the animals.” Slade slid the iron spider across the table and
placed a plate beside it.
Ellen stood undecidedly to the
end of the table. It had been months
since she had sat a table and been given food.
She was accustomed to serving Viejo and his men then eating the scraps
and the leavings. She had spent her days
in fear of their sudden appearances coming and going. Although her days with her father and
Alejandro had been gracious and pleasant, the memory of them was buried beneath
the abuse and horror of the past months.
She found her self uncomfortable and anxious now that the desperation and
cold of her trip was past. When she felt that further hesitation on her part
would be impolite she forced herself to sit down.
“You can help yourself. I don’t know how much you will want. Go ahead.
I’ll get some butter for your cornbread.” He left for the pantry again and returned
with a small covered crock.
Ellen stared in amazement at the
butter. She hadn’t seen butter for many,
many months maybe a few years!
Alejandro’s family wasn’t given to making or eating butter and milk cows
had been few and far between. The half
wild rangy beef cattle they raised were not partial to sharing their milk with
humans and it had little cream to it anyway.
She wrapped her hands around the
hot cup and sipped at the black coffee. Within seconds she realized that before she
could do anything else she would have to find the outhouse. Her face flushed a deep red. How on earth could she ask this stranger
where she could go to use the toilet?
“A-a-a-h. I’m going to need,” she stopped gulped and
finished in a rush. “I’m going to need the facility to relieve myself before
anything else,” she finished as carefully as possible, praying he would
understand her meaning.
As embarrassed as Ellen was,
Slade was even more ill at ease. Men and
women of brief acquaintance simply did not discuss private bodily needs.
“Oh, of course! I should have thought--” He looked out the window for a quick
moment. “We will have to go out—Let me
find you--.” Slade realized that he was speaking in fragments and simply closed
his mouth. He hurried to the armoire and
rummaged in the bottom. From its depths
he pulled a pair of sturdy women’s boots.
They looked to be too large for his guest’s small feet, but perhaps the
heavy socks-- He gave up in despair. He
wasn’t even able to think complete thoughts.
In all of his twenty-nine years, Slade had never been so ill at ease and
confused by a woman.
“See if these will work. You can’t wear the shoes you had when you
arrived. The snow is simply too
deep. These aren’t very high but they
will tie tight enough to protect your feet maybe.”
Ellen accepted the boots with
relief. She had dreaded wading through
the deep snow in her light footwear but her need for the toilet simply couldn’t
be put off. After tying the boots, she stood and went to
the pile of clothes she had left by the fireplace. The one skirt was filthy; one of the other
two was perhaps clean enough for her to put them over her night dress and protect
it from the wet. She buttoned the skirt
around her waist, keeping her back to the room.
Although she was adding clothing, rather than removing it, the process
still seemed immodest.
Slade took her heavy coat from
the hook where he had replaced it. It had
dried well in the heat of the fire. He
shook it thoroughly again and held it for Ellen to slip into. There was room for two of her in its folds,
but it wrapped warmly around her and she secured the sash. While she was tying her scarf around her head
and neck, Slade shrugged into his own long jacket. He tied a loop of the muffler up over the
crown of his hat to prevent the wind from taking it and wrapped the ends around
his neck. Finally he tucked them inside his coat collar.
“Wait,” he said. “Two birds with one stone…” Again a fragment of thought, taking a deep
breath he tried again and said, “I’ll take along some more water for the stock
as we go.” He suited action to words and
appeared a few minutes later with two buckets of water.
He set them outside the
door. A blast of wind-blown snow cooled
the room. Ellen hurried through the
door without being asked.
“You’ll have to hold to my
jacket.” He told her. “We have to walk straight across the yard
here to the barn. I can’t risk you
getting separated in the snow.
Visibility is not good at all.”
This last was patently obvious to
Ellen. Even though she knew the barn was
not far off, she could not make it out in the morning glare of whirling of
snow. She grasped a fold of his jacket.
The boots were every bit as
effective as they appeared. The heavy
knitted stockings protected her legs from the bite of the piles of snow. They stepped off the porch down into the deep
snow.
Slade walked ahead, kicking the
drifts to the left and right making a narrow path for her to walk in behind
him. When he suddenly stopped, Ellen
realized they had come to the barn.
“Now, we turn left here and
follow the fence until we come to the outhouse.” He leapt into the awkwardness with both feet. There was no helping some things. There were any number of euphemisms for the
out house and the processes that took place inside, but straightforwardness was
perhaps the best course. Setting the
buckets before the barn door, he led the way down the fence. He stopped when the little building was just visible
through the snow.
“I need to give the animals water
and throw down a bit more hay. Can you
find your way back to the barn? Just
keep your hand on the wall and then the fence.
You’ll soon come to the barn and then the door. Can you do that?”
Ellen was beyond words. Not only had she asked a virtual stranger to
take her to a toilet, but now he was politely leaving her to take care of her
needs there. She could only nod her
understanding. She watched Slade turn
and hurry back along the fence before she slipped around the corner and into
the shelter of the tiny building. She
had evidently embarrassed him, too.
It was the work of only a few
minutes to finish up in the outhouse.
She came out with a tremendous feeling of relief. At least she would not have to speak to Mr.
Slade again regarding her personal needs in this area. True to her instructions, she slid her hand
along the wall of the building until she felt the fence. Touching the fence as she stepped in the already
almost hidden path, she soon came to the barn and easily found the door.
Slade was adding another small
forkful of hay to the pile already in the corner of the new horse pen. Someday soon he would have to make another manger
for them if this sort of winter continued.
They wasted too much hay feeding from the floor. The extra horses and
any more snow would use his stock of hay too fast. He was startled from his thoughts by the
rattle of the latch. His self absorption
had been disturbed by the arrival of another human being. He leaned on the fork and grinned as Ellen
came in.
A sense of orneriness took over
his courtesy and common sense. “Feel
better?” He teased her and then
regretted his words as they left his mouth
To his amusement, she blushed,
but returned his joking in kind. “You
will never know,” she answered.
“How are my girls?” She asked, changing the subject. “Are they doing all right?” Ellen walked to the makeshift stall where her
horses had their heads over the bar nibbling at the hay. Their
covers had been shed during the night but their backs were dry and warm. They appeared to have suffered no permanent
damage from their hard trek through the cold.
As Ellen ducked under the bar and continued patting them and rubbing the
roughness from their coats she stopped suddenly.
“Look at this!” She exclaimed
pointing to the packhorse’s shoulder.
“This is the Aguilar brand! The
big A! Viejo brought home one of our own
horses! I don’t even have to worry he
will accuse me of horse stealing!
Maybe he even had it put away in some little canyon hiding it from his
men! But here she is!
“And my own horse found her way
home one night. I don’t know how those greedy men missed finding her. My little
bahia. My little Bay! That’s what I call her, Bay, my Roja.” She
patted the horse a bit more vigorously and scratched her ears.
She continued patting the horses
and then moved to the red and white cow who accepted her attention with the
aplomb of a dowered queen. Slade picked
up the soil in the various pens and piled it near the door to be hauled out
when the weather broke. He laid each
pile separately to allow it to freeze in small pats. The few that were already frozen he stacked
together.
The two talked
companionably. Although Ellen had lived
on the big rancho, she had never done anything in caring for any of the animals
except her horse. Even then the day to
day routines of the stable had not been her responsibility. The Aguilar ranch had kept no cattle inside although
they had a few pigs in an attached pen and Tia Margarita had demanded that her
chickens be cared for scrupulously. They
were the source of the eggs she used in special dishes for their table.
As a result, Ellen was full of questions
about the work and why various things were as they were. She tried her hand at scooping the manure
from the pens and carrying each pile to the door of the barn. Eli guarded his precious supply of corn and
would not give in to her good humored pestering for treats to give the
animals. She joked over the thin film of
ice forming on the buckets still sitting by the door and broke it with the
handle of a shovel. She picked up one
bucket and carried it to her horses refusing to admit that the large full
bucket was almost more than she could carry.
Her reward was seeing the horses sip politely from the bucket. There
was still a bit left which she offered to the horses in the other pen.
“I thought they would drink more,
eating all this hay!” she told Slade.
“They already had a bucket full
apiece before you woke up.” He grinned
at her. “Some people were up working
before dawn, you know.”
She took his joking in good turn,
laughing up at him. “Just wait! Tomorrow, I’ll be up with you! I’m not used to sleeping in. I’ll have coffee ready before you even get up
tomorrow.”
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