Huckleberry Lake

by Catherine Anderson

  Erin wondered whether he was telling the truth or felt she was incapable of doing the job alone. She had little time to worry about that, though. As Wyatt drove her around the ranch, she learned so much she wished she could take notes. One field, which Wyatt called the east pasture, was especially important. It was an area for pregnant cows due to calve late. He explained that Slade’s old-school philosophies on impregnating the cows made it difficult to prevent late births.

  Erin gazed out at the bovines. “So these cows didn’t take when they were supposed to?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Maybe Uncle Slade should consider a March calving season so cows covered during the second bull turnout don’t have their babies so late.”

  He flashed her a grin that made her belly go warm and tingly. “There you go. You’re thinking like a rancher.”

  She returned her attention to the cows, which all looked as if they’d swallowed ginormous bowling balls. “So what do you look for when you’re checking these ladies?”

  Wyatt crawled out of the vehicle and motioned for her to follow him. When they reached the fence, the cows moved closer. “They think I may feed them, which makes this part easier. A cow’s vaginal ligaments loosen up twelve to twenty-four hours prior to giving birth, and her vulva will look swollen and possibly wet with mucus. When we see that, we move her to a calving area and start checking her every couple of hours.”

  It felt weird to stand beside a man to whom she was wildly attracted and listen to him talk about female body parts. She collected her wayward thoughts.

  Just then, Tex rode up on a quad to join them. Erin enjoyed Tex. She could never guess what he might say or do next. He swung off the green four-wheeler as if he were dismounting from a horse, and as he walked toward them, his legs were bowed so badly that it looked as if he had an invisible exercise ball clutched between his knees. He slapped at the legs of his Wrangler jeans and reached up to tug on the grimy bill of his ball cap.

  “You showin’ this pretty gal all our pregnant ladies?” he asked Wyatt.

  Wyatt turned from the fence and smiled. He didn’t respond to Tex’s question, which told Erin he didn’t realize that Tex had asked him anything. She chose to answer for him. “I’m getting a crash course in cattle ranching.”

  The old Texan flashed her a toothy grin, which creased his weather-worn face with so many lines it resembled a crumpled, brown paper bag. “Yep. I already heard you got hired on. That’s why I came out. This young pup thinks he knows ever’thing about calvin’, but I got a lot more knowledge stored in my brain than he does.”

  Erin glanced at Wyatt to see that he was now watching Tex’s lips. She wondered how he felt about being called a pup. Wyatt only smiled as Tex took over Erin’s indoctrination, essentially telling her most of the same things Wyatt just had, only with his own brand of charm. Pregnant cows were apparently one of his favorite topics.

  “The surest sign that a cow’s about to drop her calf is when her udder gets swoled up with cholesterol, honey. Wyatt thinks the most surefire way is to check her Volvo, but that ain’t always an accurate sign.”

  Erin bit back a grin. She translated Tex’s explanation to mean that a cow’s udder might look swollen with colostrum shortly before she gave birth, and obviously Tex had mispronounced the word vulva. Otherwise Erin would have been peering at a cow’s behind, looking for a car. Nevertheless, she would never discount anything Tex told her. He was older and had a lot of experience under his belt.

  “That ain’t to say that the Volvo ain’t important to watch,” he went on. “When you see one slickin’ up, don’t ignore it, no how, no way, cuz sometimes the dang cholesterol don’t come down until after a calf is born.”

  Wyatt turned away and began fiddling with a loose fencing wire. Erin suspected he needed something to do to keep from laughing. Tex had his own way of training a new hire, and Erin learned the hard way that he could be long-winded if he thought of a story to tell. As he began to wear down, he leveled a gnarly forefinger at Erin’s chest.

  “And mind my words, girl. Always carry a cell phone when ye’re out in the field. As much as I hate them damn gadgets, you’ll need one if you find a cow with a baby comin’ out back-assward. The cow and calf can both die if you don’t act fast, and Slade gets a mite upset when that happens.”

  “I can just imagine,” Erin replied. “That’s a double whammy on the pocketbook.”

  “Exac’ly,” Tex agreed. “I heard ye’re gonna be sleepin’ at the main house. I sure hope that don’t mean you won’t be eatin’ supper with us fellas.”

  Erin hadn’t even unpacked yet. She hadn’t had time to think about where she would take her meals. Brody and his family were in the process of moving into the new home that had been built for them on the property. They’d already gotten their beds set up, but they hadn’t yet gotten the kitchen organized and were still taking their evening meals with Vickie and Slade.

  “Is it important that I eat dinner with you?” she asked the old man.

  “Not dinner, darlin’. Fer the midday meal, we eat at all different times. That ain’t the case at supper. Ever’body is at the table. We all go over our day, and a lot of important information is kicked back and forth. You won’t know half of what’s happenin’ on the ranch if you ain’t eatin’ supper with us.”

  Erin tapped her temple. “Note taken. I’ll talk with Uncle Slade about it.”

  “He’ll understand the need. Back afore Vickie came along, he ate supper with us in the bunkhouse a lot to keep on top of things.”

  It didn’t sound like stimulating dinner conversation, but Erin took Tex’s advice to heart, and she would speak to her uncle as soon as possible about taking her evening meal with her coworkers. To be accepted as one of the crew, she should eat whatever they did and take her turns cooking and cleaning up the kitchen, anyway.

  When she and Wyatt got back to the horse barn, Kennedy came out of the stable area to greet them. Though he smiled in welcome, his face looked drawn and a little pale. When Wyatt asked about Jenette’s condition, the younger man said, “She’s still hangin’ on. It’s touch-and-go. They gave her transfusions, but they can’t get her blood pressure back up. They’re running tests tonight to see if she’s still bleeding somewhere internally.”

  Wyatt squeezed his brother’s shoulder. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  Kennedy shrugged. “She’s alive. There’s hope. But her folks are going through hell.”

  Erin guessed they weren’t alone. Kennedy was worried about the girl, too. That touched her heart. “I’m sorry she hasn’t rallied yet.”

  “She will. She’s got to. Otherwise Sorensen wins.”

  Erin bent her head, once again feeling a wave of frustration wash through her. She might be an old woman before she stopped feeling partially responsible for what had happened to Jenette.

  “Okay,” Wyatt said. “Time’s flying. Let’s hit it.” He turned to Erin. “You can tidy up the horse paddocks. Same method as we used in the barn. Fork the manure into the skidder bucket and take it out to the compost pile. Make sure you latch the gates as you go in and out. When a horse gets loose on this ranch, it can run a country mile before we get mounts saddled up to catch it.”

  Kennedy asked, “What should I do?”

  “If you can spare the time from studying, you can help Erin. Then crack open the books.”

  “Okay. I can do that,” Kennedy said.

  Erin was relieved to know Kennedy meant to stay with her. She prided herself on her expertise with vehicles, but she’d never handled ranch equipment.

  An hour later, Erin decided that ranching wasn’t for sissies. She’d never worked so hard. Her back, butt, and legs hurt. Blisters had also popped up on her hands. She consoled herself with the thought that she was working her muscles in a different way than she usually did. Another bright spot was that this kind of labor wou
ld probably eliminate the need for her gym membership. She could probably even quit running and doing planks every morning.

  Kennedy noticed her hands. “Damn it, you’ve got blisters.”

  He disappeared while Erin continued wielding the pitchfork. When he returned, he handed her a pair of oversize leather gloves. “Wear protection from now on. Slade is paranoid about blisters. On a ranch, they get infected. Visits to the ER for work-related injuries jack up his insurance rates. I have student coverage now, which is cheaper, but he still raises hell if he sees me working without gloves.”

  * * *

  * * *

  After finishing the paddocks, Erin had just enough time to grab a shower and talk with Uncle Slade before she walked over to the bunkhouse. Her back and butt were killing her, but she pasted on a smile as she entered the building and then promptly forgot her aches and pains. She’d never seen four men milling around in a kitchen. It was apparently Wyatt’s night to cook, because he stood at the stove while the other men repeatedly bumped into each other trying to unload the dishwasher.

  “That dad-blasted machine don’t work!” Tex complained. “This pot ain’t clean!”

  “That’s because it wasn’t scrubbed out before it was put in the rack,” Kennedy retorted. “You’re the only one who doesn’t prewash, so it’s probably your fault.”

  “I’ll be damned,” Tex blustered. “Don’t make no sense at all to wash dishes twice. Like I don’t got better things to do?”

  “Now you have to wash it twice anyway,” Kennedy pointed out.

  “It’ll be snowin’ in hell when you see me washin’ anything twice! It’s sterile. You told me that’s why we have to use that newfangled contraption, cuz it gets rid of all the germs.”

  “I don’t want to eat dried-up old food!” Kennedy protested. “That pot is nasty. You have to wash it.”

  “You been sniffin’ after that girl so much that you ain’t been here for supper half the time, anyhow!”

  Tex held the pot as if he were thinking about bonking Kennedy over the head with it, and Erin began to feel nervous. She glanced at Wyatt, wondering why he didn’t intervene before an actual fight erupted. He seemed unconcerned about the commotion. Then she remembered he couldn’t hear, and the combatants were behind him. No wonder he always seemed so calm and unruffled. He missed out on a lot of the unpleasant stuff.

  Erin stepped forward. “I’ll wash the pot.”

  For a moment, she half expected Tex to bonk her. “Ain’t nobody gonna wash this here pot twice!” he bellowed. “It’s nothin’ but dad-blamed foolishness to go washin’ stuff twice when we know it’s sterile.”

  Thinking quickly, Erin said, “Sterile or not, that is organic matter in the pot, and there’s nothing to say it won’t become contaminated sitting on a shelf. Have you ever had food poisoning?”

  He lifted the lower plate of his dentures with his tongue and then sucked it back down over his gums, making a clicking noise. “Yes, missy, I have. You don’t eat buckboard food fer over fifty years without gettin’ the heaves and shits a few times.”

  “Do you want to get food poisoning again?” Erin asked.

  “No, I sure don’t.”

  She reached out and wrested the pot handle from his gnarly hand. “In that case, I’ll wash it, and this quarrel will be over.”

  “We ain’t quarrelin’,” he protested. “We’re just discussin’.”

  Kennedy slipped past Erin to grab more plates from the dishwasher. As he turned to put them in a cupboard, he waggled his golden eyebrows at Erin. “Welcome to suppertime at the O.K. Corral.”

  Erin hid a smile as she stepped over to the double-wide sink to scrub the pot. Kennedy was right; the inside was nasty. She couldn’t believe Tex had been about to stick it in a cupboard.

  Wyatt noticed her standing beside him and turned his laser-blue gaze on her. “Slade must have said it’s okay for you to eat with us.”

  She nodded.

  “Good. That gives us one more cook and dishwasher, taking us up to six. It suits me fine to cook only once a week. Before you leave, get your name on the duty list. We rotate.”

  Erin was mildly miffed that Wyatt hadn’t welcomed her, but she quickly forgot about that when another quarrel broke out between the two new hires, whom she hadn’t met. One of them was folding his laundered clothes on what she presumed was his cot when the other newbie yelled from the kitchen, “Damn it, Wade. You stole my wool socks!”

  “I did not! I only borrowed ’em.”

  “You boys hush it,” Tex yelled. “We got a lady on the crew now, and she don’t cotton to boisterosity! We gotta start mindin’ our manners, goddammit!”

  Wade threw the wool socks at his coworker, nailing him on the chest. “There. Keep your stupid socks. I just ran out of clean ones, is all.”

  And so Erin’s first meal in the bunkhouse began. Wyatt had cooked a huge pot of hamburger gravy and two baking sheets full of biscuits. When the food made it to the table, Erin noticed there wasn’t a vegetable in sight. She stood behind her chair because all the men did, and she was mildly startled when Wyatt bent his head and folded his hands.

  “Dear Lord, please bless this food.”

  Tex inserted, “And don’t let none of us get food poison, if you please.”

  Kennedy piped in with, “From your bounty, we are nourished. Thank you, Lord.”

  The two new hires mumbled something Erin couldn’t catch, and then it was her turn. She hadn’t been raised saying a meal blessing and drew a complete blank. She came up with, “Thank you, Lord, for good company and plenty of food for each of us.” In actuality, she wanted to pray that the next supper might include a salad and broccoli. If she had to eat this way for any period of time, she’d get as big as a barn.

  “Amen,” all the men chorused, and then Tex said, “Three beans fer four of us. Thank God there ain’t no more of us. Lay back yer ears and dig in.”

  And to Erin’s amazement, that’s exactly what they did. The huge pot was nearly empty before she could blink. By the time she got ahold of the metal spoon handle to serve herself a portion, the men were already shoveling food into their mouths. She deposited a tidy mound of hamburger gravy on her plate and reached for a biscuit, which she planned to eat separately.

  Tex relieved her of that notion. “That ain’t how you eat shit on shingles. First you butter your biscuit. Then you pile the gravy on top.”

  Erin froze with a forkful of meat halfway to her mouth. Wyatt spoke up and said, “Tex, let Erin eat her food however she likes. It’s none of your concern.”

  “But it don’t taste as good thataway!” Tex objected.

  Erin cleared her throat. “I’m not big on butter, Tex.”

  “You ain’t?”

  “No, I’m not. It’s fattening, and too much of it is bad for the heart.”

  “Well, I’ll be.” Tex looked mystified. “I’m skinny as a fence rail, and I been eatin’ near on a cube a day most of my life. And so far as I know, my ticker must be well greased, cuz it keeps on goin’, kind of like that rabbit in them TV commercials.”

  Erin took a bite of meat gravy, which was surprisingly good. As she chewed, she realized all five men were staring at her, and she wondered if she had gravy on her chin. There were no napkins on the table. Kennedy said, “We’re still hungry. We’re just wondering if you’d like more. You haven’t taken your share yet.”

  “Oh!” Erin swallowed. “Please, help yourselves. This will be plenty for me.”

  Wyatt stood up, grabbed the pot, and began slopping equal measures of gravy on every man’s second helping of already-buttered biscuits, including his own. Then he sat down and began eating again. Erin decided Wyatt was like a father figure who rode herd over a bunch of ill-mannered kids.

  The other men carried on an animated conversation about their days, mentioning things that baffled he
r. What did it mean when a certain horse had a hitch in its get-along? That it was lame, possibly? Then Wyatt filled everyone in on the leaking water main; leveled an uncompromising stare at Wade and Richard, the newbies; and told them the next time they ignored soggy ground, they’d be collecting their last paychecks.

  “Erin and I worked our asses off out there in mud up to our knees,” he added. “When you throw hay, watch for leaks. It’s a very simple thing, and it’s part of your job.”

  Tex said, “Number one-sixty-four is cakin’ up. I dosed her with antibiotics and put balm on her udder, but it’s not lookin’ good.”

  “Do I need to call the vet?” Wyatt asked.

  “Not till mornin’, when I take another look. Might be the medicine will lessen the swellin’, I’ll let you know, cuz we sure as hell don’t want her udder to rupture.”

  Wyatt nodded. Erin felt mildly nauseated.

  Kennedy opened one of his college textbooks at the table. Only glancing at his food, he shoveled it into his mouth as he read. The other men didn’t seem to mind, and Tex gave his blessing by saying to Erin, “Kennedy’s gonna get himself a dee-gree. Not a man amongst us that’s got one. We’re right proud of him for workin’ so hard to get smart.”

  When the meal was finished, the men carried their plates to the sink and then raided the cupboards for what Tex called “dee-zert.” A general complaint arose about Wyatt’s failure to go shopping to keep the snack shelf full, but they settled for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, most of them making two. After they consumed their after-meal sweets, Tex got up to start doing dishes. Erin went over to help. Kennedy resumed reading his book at the table and texting someone on his phone. Wade and Richard sprawled on a well-used leather sofa to watch television with the volume up so loud that it hurt her ears. Wyatt left the bunkhouse, and Erin couldn’t quite blame him. The place was worse than a frat house.

  Erin soon elbowed Tex away from the sink and let him load the dishes into the machine. Kennedy was right. The old man didn’t scrub anything, and she didn’t want to eat food cooked in dirty pans or served on crusty plates.