The Milch Bride (13 page)

Whatever needed doing, she did it as soon as she thought of
it, which was part of the secret. She patted Henry lovingly, pulling his long
ears, and then hurried to the house, putting the green beans down beside the
washtub. She used the pail, quickly carrying the dirty water to water the garden
while the air was still cool, then rinsed the washtubs, filling one with clean
water and taking the time to wash the vegetables, before putting them back in
the clean laundry basket. Emptying the rinse water in the garden, she stacked
the tubs on the end of the porch, passed James the clean vegetables and took
the fussing boy from him.

He noticed how she turned the rocker before sitting down, so
her back was to the rail and the rest of her was blocked from view of the
kitchen window. She was always thinking and planning.

Donna had been smart and a good wife, but she only did what
she thought she was expected to do. Hattie acted as though she had it all to do
by herself, and she tried her best to do as much work as efficiently as
possible.

One of the men yelled at him, and Jackson swung around to
open the gate. The black bull wheeled out of the paddock as though fired from a
gun. He motioned to the men to indicate he was ready and one by one, the cows
were hazed out after the bull. Finally they were left with a pen full of calves.
It seemed cruel to brand such little ones, but with rustlers, they didn’t have
the choice. Mavericks could and would be branded by whoever found them first.

The first branded were Harper calves. By lunch, all the
calves had been tended to and released to join the cows. The hands carefully
separated the stock, hazing Harper cows North and Stoddard cattle toward the
south pasture.

Minutes later, they were all washing up for lunch.

Jackson walked toward the house. “Hattie?”

She looked over her shoulder, rapidly buttoning her blouse. She
felt guilty, dozing in the sun just like the contented baby.

As he walked onto the porch, he had to smile at the sleepy
eyed couple. Hattie stretched and extended the baby to place in the cradle. Jackson
noticed with satisfaction that the baby had out-grown it, his head nearly
touching the top, his little feet near the bottom. The air was hot, the day
becoming steamy. He felt sweaty and sticky from the work with the cattle. He
noticed Hattie had left the boy naked, except for his diaper; a little circle
of damp sweat lay underneath his chin. He knew Rubye would have scolded her,
but the baby looked comfortable. Hattie spread out one of the thin diapers over
the cradle to screen the sleeping baby

James stepped out onto the porch and handed both of them
glasses of cool water. Jackson swallowed his in two gulps, Hattie sipped hers
slowly. Jackson nodded toward the two young hands who had stayed behind to help
Boyd build a chicken coup. They were taking turns dunking themselves with
gourds of water from the well.

“All set?” Jackson set his empty glass on the rail.

“Yeah, everything cleared and put away. Reckon I got three
or four hours before they need fed again.”

They walked out into the yard and watched the chickens
scratching through the garden where Hattie had pulled the tired beans, gobbling
any worms or insects that had been exposed.

“Where did you two have in mind?” Jackson asked.

Hattie raised her head, letting the hot summer breeze dry
her throat. She wished it wasn’t deemed necessary to keep her whole body
covered in this hot weather. She felt damp under the arms, under her heavy,
full breasts, and in a line down her back. It would be so wonderful to be J.D.,
innocently open to the air.

James scratched his chin, rubbed a hand across his thinning
hair. “Miss, where do you figure is best?”

Hattie sighed and looked around. The well, garden and
clothesline took up a good part of the yard on this side of the house.
Downhill, the path narrowed toward the privies. The barn and corrals were
within a brisk walk from the house, but on this warm day, she was glad the
familiar barn odors were blowing away from the house. A chicken coop would add
to the odors.

She considered the options, and then pointed to the barn. “I
think leaning against the back side of the barn. You can put up a double ledge
for nesting boxes – keep them out of reach of possums and coyotes so they can
sleep. Save on materials since you’ll just need posts and the chicken wire you
already bought. Of course you’ll need some planks or tin for the roof.”

When she said tin, the men exchanged a glance.

“Would tin be too expensive?”

“No, we have a house worth,” Jackson answered. “Donna hated
the sound of rain on the metal roof. So we redid it with shingles. There’s a
layer of tin in the attic, over the rafters. But you’ll need more than chicken
wire to keep the wind off them come winter, otherwise they’ll just move back
into the barn.”

“How many of those double long rails do we still have?” He
turned to ask James.

“Over twenty, I used four when we extended the garden.

“All right, how big do you think it needs to be?”

She froze, swiveling her head toward the house. “It needs to
be at least big enough for fifty chickens to spread out on the ground. A big
need is a door so I can let them out in the day, coop them up at night.”

She was already heading back to the house, bending to scoop
up J.D. who was complaining and trying to pull himself up by the cradle side. She
lifted the baby and balanced him on her hip as she stepped to the rail.

“Jackson.”

He raised a brow at the summons, and then smiled as J.D.
chortled and waved his plump naked arms at him. He reached for him and Hattie
apologized, “he’s wet.”

“Cleaner than any of those cows I handled this morning.”
Jackson laughed and took him, bending to kiss the soft neck. The laugh made the
other men laugh as well.

Hattie disappeared into the house. She moved the pot of
beans that had boiled over to the back eye, tilting the pot lid. She took a
minute to check the roast that was already starting to brown in the oven. As
the wood burned down, the oven would still be hot enough to cook the meat to
the brown outside, red inside that the men preferred. Satisfied that she could
leave everything, she grabbed a dry diaper, long sleeved gown, and bonnet for
J.D.

When she came out, she was surprised to only find Jackson
sitting in the rocker, a naked J.D. standing on his knees, his little bare bottom
bouncing up and down as he squealed in laughter. She laughed at the two.

“Your Daddy is a brave man.”

J.D. laughed and Jackson patted the little bottom. “You
wouldn’t pee on daddy, would you pardner?”

As though he understood the word, J.D. started to pee but
Jackson laughed and just held him out so the spray hit the porch, not him. When
the stream stopped he lifted the laughing baby back on his lap. “Why fight a
good system?”

“Good for who? He just made two messes instead of one. I was
wondering, if you could, well I was thinking, maybe you would like to fence in
this porch as well.”

Jackson scowled at her and she kept talking while struggling
to get the long sleeved lawn gown over the baby’s head despite his protest and
wiggles. “Why smother him in all that?”

“If I don’t, he’ll cook in the sun.”  She managed the last
sleeve, and then held up the bonnet she had carried outside. “I can make a
little mattress and cover it and if the porch was changed, so the bottom has
another rail so he can’t get through and the top were screened, then when he
gets a little bigger and ready to crawl, he would have a safe place to play
in.”

“And you brought it up, because?”

She finished dressing the baby and pulled him back onto her
hip. “No, Jackie, leave it on.” She sighed as he pulled off the bonnet and
pulled it into his mouth. “I thought while you had the men ready to work, they
might tackle this as their next project.”

He rose towering over her, and Hattie forced herself not to
give way and crouch by the rail. “One thing at a time. You got any more
suggestions; you better come out to the barn and show us.” Ignoring her, he
took the baby back in his arms, letting him ride on his arm as though he were
weightless instead of nearly twenty pounds.

Hattie hurried ahead, eager to get through and back to her
jobs in the kitchen. If she worked quickly, she might have time to make a batch
of yeast bread after sweeping the floor and mopping the kitchen area and the
porch.

The afternoon flew by. Jackson had kept the baby with him,
saying, “No, we’ve got work to do, don’t we boy?” She had nearly an hour with
her hands free, time to make bread and prepare the other vegetables as well as
managing to sweep and mop inside and out. When J.D. grew tired, and curled into
his daddy’s neck, he had carried him back inside and given him to Hattie.

He was pink from the sun and she wanted to scold them both,
but the baby looked so sleepy and content that she took him without protest,
only taking time to wipe his face and neck before feeding him and putting him
down for a long nap.

When she had the table set, meat and bread sliced, she came
out on the porch to ring the cow bell Rubye used to call the gathering men into
dinner.

The room quickly filled up with hot sweaty cowboys and
Hattie would have left to hide, but after this morning and the sympathetic looks
from the men, she felt safe to finish serving the food. She added the cooked
green beans and wilted garden greens drizzled with bacon fat and crumbled bacon.
The real draw was the ice cold tea she had cooled in the cellar and the fresh
baked sliced loaf bread. James Boyd asked if she needed help. When she shook
her head he wearily settled into her place at the table and let her wait table,
refilling glasses of tea and milk as quickly as they drank it.

When J. D. woke, it was Jackson who went and fetched him. He
seemed happy to be passed around from man to man, each one playing and joking
with him, letting him sip their tea or milk, eat their potatoes. They laughed
when he made faces at the wilted greens, shaking his head at the sour, sweet
taste, and then leaning forward to taste it again. He tried to eat bread when
he reached James’ chair, but Hattie had to use a finger to rake it out of his
mouth when he started to cough.

He made a face and bit her.

“Ow,” she pulled her finger out. “Hey you, is there a tooth
in there?”

Jackson reached over, holding out a finger, then gave a loud
“ouch! That’s a sharp little milk tooth.”

He smiled at Hattie, “You’ll be in troub…,” the words faded
away and he blushed scarlet, swallowing hard as the men looked away at Hattie’s
gasp and florid face.

J. D. started at the look on her face, and then began to
wail. She stiffened, set the pitcher of tea down, and took the baby from James
lap. Holding him close, she fled from the room.

As she closed the door, she heard one of the cowboys say. “I
don’t see how it has anything to do with it, calves, kittens and puppies all come
with teeth and their mommas manage just fine.”

“Hush, Tony,” James scolded, and then stood up to take over
the chore of waiting on table and cleaning up.

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By noon the next day, the chicken coop was started and
Jackson and the cowboy carpenters had moved to the porch to work out how to
change it into a playpen for the boy, but still look and work as a porch.

Hattie had laid out a simple lunch. Leftover roast beef,
sliced thin, served with thick sliced bread. The table was loaded with plates
of sliced ripe tomatoes, big onions, and fresh cucumbers, and a big platter of
dressed eggs. Pitchers of water and milk sat at either end of the table and the
huge pot of black coffee sat on the back of the stove. She slipped outside,
leaving the men to serve themselves when Jackson called her name.

“The foods on the table,” Jackson called names and some of
the men went on inside while the young men and James stood waiting.

Jackson stood with his hand as a visible marker for where he
wanted rails to be added. Ben and Tony were arguing that they were too close.
“How close do they need to be to keep him in?”

She disappeared and reappeared with the boy bouncing on her
hip. While she stood there, Jackson measured with his hand the correct width
needed to keep the boy from wiggling through the rails. The last two men rode
up. Neither spoke nor looked her way. Hattie felt the old shame wash over her. Had
they stopped, talked to someone, heard some new rumor that reminded them she
was a scarlet woman?

They removed their hats as they walked past quickly into the
house, not making eye contact. Jackson stepped up onto the porch, his face expressionless
as he walked into the house. Tony and Ben made excuses and walked past her into
the house. Hattie heard frantic whispers, hushed “oh no’s,” then more muffled
voices.

A few minutes later, the men began to stream out, tipping
their hats but quietly drifting away until the two late-comers came out,
carrying plates loaded with food and mugs of coffee. Even James tiptoed past,
“I’ll clean up later,” he said softly.

Hattie folded her arms around Jackie and pulled him close to
her chest and rocked back and forth on her heels, upset, but unsure of why? Such
a small thing, a snub by some of the men. But it brought all her old
insecurities rushing forth. She felt a tightness in her chest. J.D. reached out
a hand to touch her face and she gave a choked laugh, kissing the little nose
and intent face. “Jackie, my love, thank you.” She brought him even closer to
kiss, accepting all the unconditional love.

Jackson stepped out on the porch and she turned her back to
him, hiding against the baby. He waited, giving her a chance to face him but
she didn’t, just stood looking sadly out into the distance. He sank into the
rocker, reached into the cradle to pick up J.D.’s pony and gave it a shake.

When the boy reached for his favorite toy, Hattie
surrendered him to his daddy. Jackson took the boy, nuzzled him, and then set
him into the cradle beside him. Talking softly he began.

“Hank and Cliff saw some buzzards when they were out.”

Hattie looked up, surprising him with her sudden jump to the
conclusion. “They found one of the rustlers dead?”

He shook his head, looking around at the deserted yard. All
the men clearly didn’t want to hear or see her reaction. “It was your horse,
Nugget.”

Hattie felt her lip quiver and her emotions switch again. “He
was getting old.”

“No, he got shot, Sunday when we had the shootout with the
outlaws. We’d looked for him, surprised he wasn’t still with the mules and your
herd.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It was a shot to his chest. He must have run a long time. They
found him, up in the north sector. It looks like it pierced a lung. Eventually,
he wore down. Once he went down, his other lung would have collapsed.”

Hattie pictured her fat old horse, gold coat flecked with
blood, frightened, hurt, and alone to suffer such a long death.

The tears that she had held back for weeks were flowing,
soft and quiet down her cheeks. Jackson held out a hand and pulled her toward
him and she started crying for real. He pulled her onto his lap, lifted her
legs to rest on the arm of the chair so that she was draped against him. J. D.
looked up, his face puckering up in sympathy at the sound of her sobs. Without
hesitation, he pulled the boy up into his arms and together, he and Hattie held
the baby between them. Without thinking, Jackson nuzzled her, kissing the top
of her head, then turning to nuzzle and kiss the baby.