by Kate Whitsby
“What’s got into her?” Jude asked. “I thought she had it in for me.”
“I don’t think she ever had it in for you,” Alma returned. “And, anyway, this celebration she’s planning is as much for her as it is for us. She’s always on the look-out for anything to break the monotony. She usually comes up with some wild idea every day just to occupy her interest.”
“Still,” Jude continued. “I wouldn’t expect her to come up with a way to celebrate our marriage, no matter how much it occupied her interest. I’d sooner expect her to organize a wake or something.”
Alma gasped. “What? No! She isn’t in mourning over us getting married, and she doesn’t dislike you. You know, I think she feels the same way about you that you feel about her.”
“And what is that?” he asked. “How do I feel about her?”
“You don’t know how to take her. You haven’t had to deal with anyone like her before. You don’t know whether to like her or hate her. As a matter of fact,” Alma pointed her finger at him. “If you and Allegra decide to hate each other, it’s because you’re so much alike.”
“What?” Jude exclaimed. “We are not alike! I’m nothing like her.”
“Sure, you are,” Alma maintained. “You like the same things, you react to things the same way, you find the same things interesting. You even walk and talk the same way.”
“You’re makin’ that up,” Jude declared. “I’m nothing like her.”
“You see what I mean?” Alma pointed at him again. “You don’t want to admit you’re anything like her. That’s why you would dislike her, and she feels the same way about you. I think if you both made up your minds to like each other, you could be good friends.”
“I couldn’t be friends with a woman who dresses like a man,” Jude growled.
“But you could marry one?” Alma shot back.
Jude grumbled something inarticulate, but they cut their conversation short when Amelia got up and came across the room. At the same time, Alma put the plate of tortillas on the table, and they got through their breakfast without any confrontation between the menfolk.
Allegra didn’t come back for breakfast, and they didn’t find her in the barn, either.
“Should we wait for her?” Jude asked as they got their horses saddled.
“No,” Alma told him. “She’ll be out on the range already, picking out which steer to cut. She’s probably waiting for you to show up to help her.”
“Why doesn’t she get one of you to help her cut it?” Jude asked. “Why the sudden interest in me?”
“She probably just got the idea that this is something you two could do together,” Alma told him. “If you want to know the truth, I think she wanted you to go shooting with her yesterday. She’s trying to find a way to be friends with you by coming up with ways for you to do things together—things that interest both of you.”
“Cutting and butchering steers doesn’t particularly interest me,” Jude replied. “If it has to be done, I’ll do it. But it’s not something I do for fun.”
Alma chuckled. “Living out here so far away from everything and everyone else, just about anything that breaks the daily routine gets to be fun. Just think about it. Allegra wants to do things with you so you two will be friends. She hasn’t had many friends in her life. Just give her a chance. I think you might like each other if you try.”
“I’ll think about it,” Jude muttered.
They saddled their horses and led them out of the barn into the crisp morning. The cool of night had already passed, and the warmth of the day settled over the landscape. Amelia rode out first, with Jude and Alma riding side by side a little way behind her.
“If you want me to,” Alma offered. “I can explain to Allegra that you aren’t holding back from doing things with her to slight her. I can explain to her that you’re still trying to settle in here, and that you might be more interested in doing things with her later on, after you two get to know each other better.”
“Don’t tell her anything!” Jude shot back. “I don’t want to get to know her, and I don’t want to do things with her, and I don’t want to be friends with her.”
Alma regarded him without answering for a moment. “Alright. I won’t say anything to her about it. But I think you ought to help her cut the steer. She’d be very offended if you didn’t. You might not want to be friends with her, but you don’t want to make an enemy of her, either.”
“Yeah, I was planning on helping her,” Jude told her. “I wouldn’t let her do it alone. That’s a job for several people at the best of times.”
“She’ll be happy for your help,” Alma replied.
They mounted the crest of the hill and pulled their horses up next to Amelia. “There she is.” Amelia pointed down into the plain. A tiny black dot trotted around the periphery of the herd, driving some of the stock toward the hill and others away from it.
“It looks like she has her eye on something,” Alma remarked.
“What’s she after?” Jude asked.
“It looks like she’s going after that brown and white speckled steer there under the trees,” Amelia replied. “He’s a mean one, but he’s good and fat. He’ll make a good roast.”
Jude chuckled to himself. “Let’s go. Let’s go cut him out.”
“Just wait a minute,” Amelia told him. “Wait until Allegra brings him a little closer. She’ll signal us when she’s ready.”
“Once she brings him closer to the hill,” Alma added. “We’ll cut him from the herd and rope him. Then we’ll walk him back to the house and tie him up. We’ll leave him there and come back here to take the rest of the herd down to the river.”
“Why don’t you butcher him here?” Jude asked. “Why do you have to take him all the way back to the house?”
“All the gear is there,” Amelia explained. “It just saves us hauling all the meat back home when the butchering’s done. And there’s a water supply there for cleaning up. There’s no water here except down at the river. Wherever we butcher him, we’d have to haul the water there. It’s easier to do it at the house where the water’s already nearby, and all our knives and buckets and salt barrel are there.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Jude replied. “You people have done this more often than I have, so we’ll do it your way.”
Alma’s eyes widened. “You must have cut out cattle and butchered them before. Don’t tell me you haven’t.”
“Of course I have,” Jude replied. “But I haven’t done it here. You know better than I do what works, where the water is, and what’s the easiest way to do everything. I’m happy with that.”
Alma flashed him a glorious smile.
Amelia shifted in her saddle and turned back to watch Allegra driving their steer toward them. She moved at an easy pace, carefully moving the other cattle away from him and steadily moving him in the direction she wanted him to go without alarming him or the rest of the animals.
Jude and Alma watched her work. “She’s really good, isn’t she?” Jude remarked. “This is the first time I’ve had a chance to watch her. She’s top notch. She could work on any of the big ranches if she wanted to. But I guess she wouldn’t want to.”
“What makes you say that?” Alma asked.
Jude made a face. “Well, for one thing, she’s a woman. They probably wouldn’t hire her, and even if they did, she would have to put up with some pretty rough treatment from the other cowboys. That’s the way it usually is with anyone who’s different. They make it as hard as they can for the new man—I mean, the new person—until they get to know them.”
Alma and Amelia listened to him in silence. Allegra’s whistle pierced the still air from the distance.
“And then,” Jude continued. “There are cowboys who just flat wouldn’t ride with her. They wouldn’t even talk to her, and they would refuse to ride at all until the boss got rid of her. The end. They wouldn’t work with her for a million dollars. That’s the way some a’ the old fellers are. It’s a shame, to
o, because anyone can see from the way she’s workin’ that steer that she’s blame good—almost like she was born to it. You don’t see a cattle puncher like that every day of the week.”
Chapter 28
