Spit and Grit

by Jeanie P Johnson

  “You need some of that innocence replaced with knowledge,” he tells me, and he leads me out to a corral where I see a beautiful black mare dancing around.

  Two of Granger’s brothers are holding a lead rope on either side of the Stallion’s halter. The stallion is black as well, and he has a long flowing mane which is being whipped around by the breeze as he tosses his head and paws at the ground. He is screaming when the mare comes up to the fence, and they smell each other’s noses. Then they both toss their heads and scream.

  “Better get her, before she starts getting too excited,” Granger calls to Butch, and Butch ducks under the rail of the fence with a halter and rope and puts it over the mare’s head.

  “Just let him smell her a bit first,” Granger calls, and Butch backs the mare up to the fence and the stallion puts his nose against her as she lifts her tail. He gives her a little nip on her rump. In return, she kicks at the fence.

  “It’s just love play,” Granger says in my ear, and he pulls my back up against him, putting his arms around my waist like he thinks I am going to try to escape. “She’s just teasing him,” he mumbles against my ear, as he holds me next to him. “Sort of playing hard to get, just like you,” he winks. Only everyone knows she wants it cause she keeps backing up to him and letting him smell her. That smell makes him crazy. If you notice, he’s already getting all excited.”

  I look and I can see the horse’s member starting to extend, and I widen my eyes at the size of him.

  “He’s getting ready,” Granger calls. “Better take him in! But don’t let him hurt her!”

  One of the boys opens the gate, while Butch holds the mare. The other two brothers lead the stallion into the corral. He is about going wild in his eagerness to get near the mare and the two brothers are having a hard time holding him back as they stretch the ropes on either side of him, keeping him lined up with the mare, who is screaming and turning her head, baring her teeth and putting back her ears.

  The stallion rears up and mounts the mare’s withers, as he strains to reach her. For all his efforts, she gives a kick and he slides off again.”

  “Looks like she sort of takes after you,” Granger laughs. “She’s going to try to hold him off as long as she can, even if she does want it as bad as him. You can tell cause she is dripping all over the place! The more he teases her, the more ready she gets. We sometimes take a half cut in just to work her up, so she doesn’t have to go through all this teasing by the Stallion. Their love play can get pretty rough, and we don’t want her or the stallion to get marred.”

  I cannot take my eyes off of the horses. When Granger sees it, he sort of chuckles in my ear.

  “You’re liking this, aren’t you? Maybe I have misjudged you all this time.”

  I don’t say anything because the Stallion is trying to mount her again, then in the next moment he finds his mark, and she lets out a scream, while Butch holds her steady. The Stallion is doing what comes naturally to him, his muscles straining, while she is screaming like she is being killed. Then she starts to calm down and stands there, allowing the Stallion do his thing.

  “See, she’s thinking its feeling pretty darn good right about now, even after all that fuss she put up,” Granger grins. “Her eyes are all calm and she is breathing even, but Old Ebony, he’s doing all the work. See how his nostrils are flaring, and he’s breathing hard? It takes a lot of energy and work to father a foal,” he whispers in my ear, and I start to stiffen. “Don’t get all uppity on me now. Just because you can’t face the truth about how much you are attracted to me, and wouldn’t mind doing something like that with me, doesn’t mean you aren’t!”

  I glare at Granger, then bring my attention back to the horses. Just watching, makes me feel strangely excited inside, and I think Granger can sense it, cause he sort of chuckles in my ear. I wonder if I am attracted to him? Then I feel his mouth against my neck, and chills are running through me.

  “You want it more than you will ever admit,” he says against my neck, sucking my skin into his mouth, which makes me take a shaky breath. “You’re going to have to admit it to yourself someday, crazy Mazy,” Granger whispers.

  The stallion finishes and pulls free. Butch leads the mare away from him, while the other two take the Stallion out of the pen and closes the gate.

  “Guess he feels like a lucky son of a gun right about now,” Granger says.

  Then he turns me to him and looks down into my eyes.

  “I feel like one right now myself,” he whispers, and I feel his mouth closing down on mine.

  I start to stiffen, but something inside of me begins to relax while another side of me comes alive. Against my better judgment, I let Granger kiss me. In fact, I find myself unexpectedly kissing him back.

  When our lips part, Granger gives me a wide grin and whispers, “I knew you had it in you somewhere, Mazy.”

  Then his mouth settles on mine again, and his kiss turns passionate, taking my breath away. His brothers are yelling and clapping. I suddenly come to my senses and pull away. Then slap Granger in the face.

  “Now what did you do that for?” he asks, rubbing his cheek. “You were kissing me back, miss spit, and grit!”

  “You always know how to take advantage of me,” I rasp. “You find my weakest moment, and then you just pounce! I don’t love you, Granger. I don’t even like you, so why should I be kissing you?”

  “You don’t have to love someone to enjoy kissing them,” he tells me. “It is sort of a natural thing that men and women like to do.”

  “According to your view,” I say. “I don’t see it that way.”

  “Well, at least you are educated now. That is what you were wanting me to do in your sleep, and had I been as unfeeling as you make me out to be, I would have been doing to you what that stallion was doing to that mare! So just remember that when you are in a man’s arms and you are feeling all warm and excited by his touch. You go over that line, and he will be taking you quicker than snot! If not me, some other man may take worse advantage of you, Mazy. I’m just trying to warn you here, and get you prepared.”

  “Well, it certainly won’t be you!” I hiss. “That’s for sure,” and I turn and walk out to my horse.

  “I’ll bring your cow and calf over in a couple of days,” Granger calls after me. “You are smelling mighty fine, Mazy. Maybe you are discovering how to be a woman after all!”

  CHAPTER THREE

  I try to put that kiss out of my mind. I wonder that I even let Granger kiss me, or that I kissed him back. He just caught me unawares. Watching that Stallion mating with the mare had done something to me that I couldn’t explain. The way Granger’s kiss made me feel was even more confusing. It was certain, I did not love Granger. He was the last man on earth I ever wanted to get tangled with, I tell myself.

  Two days later, I see Granger coming up with Polly and her calf. Ma comes out to greet him.

  “We can’t thank you enough for watching over our Polly for us,” she says.

  “Well, if you would accept an invitation to dinner tonight, that would be thanks enough,” Granger says. “We’ve been neighbors for some time now, and the boys feel bad about what happened with your husband’s horse. They were just playing around and didn’t mean to cause any trouble. So we want to make amends and have you over if you will come.”

  I am shaking my head at Ma, but she is not looking at me.

  “Go put Polly away,” she says to me, “We will gladly accept your invitation,” she smiles, nodding to Granger. “What time?”

  “Come around six,” he tells her. “See you later, Mazy,” he calls to me.

  I look over my shoulder to see him grinning at me, with that familiar mischievous look in his eye, cause he knows I don’t want to come. When I come out of the barn, I glare at my mother.

  “What did you accept for?” I ask her.

  “It’s time we bury the hatchet,” she says. “Nothing can change what happened, and he did apologize. He is offering the ol
ive branch. Sometimes you just have to swallow your pride and get on with life,” she says. “Go call Billy and get him cleaned up, and you had better take those britches off, take a bath and put on a dress. I haven’t seen you wear a dress since your Pa died, and it’s time you start looking like a woman. You are way past marrying age, Mazy, and I know you have been putting it off, cause you want to help here on the ranch. However, if you found yourself a husband, he could help out around here along with you. Had you ever thought of that?”

  “Why would he want to stay here with us?” I ask. “Usually, when you get married, you go live with your husband,” I tell her.

  Mother ignores my statement.

  “The Snider’s have plenty of young men to choose from, Mazy. It is not like there are a lot of men breaking down our door to court you,” she points out.

  “I don’t want to marry any of the Snider brothers,” I tell her flatly.

  “I think that Granger boy was sort of looking at you softly,” she says.

  “I don’t like Granger,” I tell her, “and I’m sure not ever going to marry him!”

  “Well put a dress on anyway. It would be rude to wear your working clothes to dinner.”

  I go in the house and grab a dress from my clothes-press, and hope it still fits me. Then I go out to the bathhouse. When I put the dress on, after bathing, I barely recognize myself. The neckline seems to be filled out more by my breasts, and I realize they are not as small as Granger claimed they were. My hair is damp and so I just leave it hanging around my shoulders. Once it dries, it will start to wave up around my face. Small blond curls are already starting to turn about my ears. I look closer at myself in the mirror. Granger had called me beautiful when I was hugging Polly’s calf. He usually just calls me spit, and grit. It had caught me off guard since he had told me he was surprised I even had tits.

  I dab on some more of Ma’s cologne and I even put a single string of pearls around my neck, which was the last birthday present Pa gave me before he died. When we are ready, Ma goes out to get the wagon, but just as she does, Granger drives up in a buggy, and we all look at him in surprise.

  “Ma told me I better come pick you up,” he says, and then he stops and his eyes rove over me. His full lips turn up and he gives me a wink. He knows we only have a rickety old wagon, I am thinking, and that we are as poor as church mice. The thought makes me feel even worse.

  Granger gets down and gallantly helps my mother up in the buggy. Then he lifts Billy up as well. Next, he takes my hand and pulls me up on the seat next to him.

  “I see you actually combed your hair,” he whispers in my ear, and he gives it a little kiss as he speaks. “You’re smelling like a woman, and looking like one too. I bet it really galls you to have to put that dress on,” he grins, and then he clicks his tongue and snaps the reigns against the perfectly matched grays that are pulling the buggy.

  He is insulting me with compliments, I think, and I start to pull farther away from him in the seat, but he puts his arm around my waist and pulls me back.

  “I want to have you close enough to smell, in case you turn back into crazy Mazy again the next time I see you,” he chuckles, and he sort of runs his hand back and forth over my waist, as he holds me there. The feel of it makes me nervous.

  “I think your Ma likes me,” he whispers in my ear. “I bet if I asked her if I could marry you, she would jump at the offer.”

  “Well, it won’t do you any good to ask,” I hiss back in his ear, “so don’t waste your time cause you’d be getting a rejection from me.”

  “I wasn’t going to ask,” he says. “I was just saying, is all. It is obvious she wants you to get married. Why else would she accept a dinner invitation from us, when we haven’t spoken two words as neighbors since your Pa died? She knows we got some good-looking men with money under their belts. Butch likes you. Maybe he’ll ask,” he says, and then laughs at the expression on my face.

  He is insulting both me and my mother, I am screaming inside! I am ready to get right out of his buggy and walk back to my house, which I plan to do, as soon as he stops it.

  When he pulls up in front of his house, Mrs. Snider comes out on the porch and greets us with a smile. She is very beautiful, I think. She doesn’t look all warn and overworked like my mother does. I start to think I am going to look like that when I am her age, when I’m all worked to death. Still, in spite of it, Pa loved Ma. I just don’t think anyone would love me that way because, like Granger says, I am just crazy Mazy that everyone, including his brothers, thinks of as a man.

  Mr. Snider comes out and helps Mother out of the buggy and Mrs. Snider starts to talk to her, as she steps up on the porch. Billy is just craning his neck, looking at the house, and I can see Ma is impressed. I am mortified at her obvious awe of the place and of the Snider family.

  Granger takes my hand as he steps down from the buggy, and then he is reaching up and taking my waist in his two strong hands, lifting me down from the conveyance. As he does, he sort of holds me close to him and lets the front of my body slid down over his. He holds my waist against him and looks down at my breasts that are mounded up against the neckline of my dress.

  “Yes, I do believe you are a woman, after all,” he grins, as he lets me free.

  His parents and my mother have already gone into the house, and I step back from him and start to straighten my dress. Then I turn my back to him and begin walking back in the direction that we came.

  “Where in the hell are you going?” he asks.

  “Away from here,” I seethe. “I am not going to be dangled in front of you and your brothers as marriage material by my mother! You are just laughing behind her back, and I will not be a part of it! Maybe she forgives you for what you and your brothers did, but I will never forgive you!”

  Granger grabs my arm.

  “Mazy don’t you do this,” he says. “You are going to embarrass your Ma,”

  “I suppose it is better that she embarrass me,” I say.

  “You can take it, Mazy. You don’t want your Ma to feel bad, do you?”

  I look up at him, and my lower lip starts to tremble when I realize he is looking out for my mother’s feelings.

  “Don’t you start crying, Mazy. I know you got more grit than that! Any one of my brothers would jump at the chance to marry you. After seeing you yesterday, that is all they talked about. In fact, they are all fighting over, who will ask you out first. Only I said I get to ask you out first.” he whispers.

  “I don’t want to step out with them, or you,” I tell him.

  “Okay, so I haven’t made the best impression on you, but you know me better than my brothers, Mazy. Just go out with me, so your Ma will think you are considering it. I’ve found if you pretend that you are doing what your parents want you to do, they will back off a bit,” he smiles. “Now stop that,” he says, as he sees a tear escape my eye. “All that time we were out chasing cows, you didn’t cry once, except during that fight in the mud, and that was out of anger. Now, when you are asked to come to dinner, you act like it is the end of the world.”

  He reaches out and brushes the tear aside and kisses the side of my eye where it fell from.

  “Buck up, girl. You stood me for two days in a rainstorm. Therefore, I think you can put up with me a little while longer. Besides, the way you were kissing me yesterday, tells me you don’t mind my company that much.”

  “Don’t you dare think you can start kissing me all the time,” I growl.

  “Anything you say, spit and grit,” he smiles. “Glad to see you are getting your spirit back.”

  He takes my arm and puts it through his elbow.

  “Just pretend like you only have eyes for me, and my brothers will keep their distance. Then you will only have to deal with me.”

  He pauses a moment.

  “It might help if they see you kissing me again, though,” he tells me. “So when you leave tonight, you could at least kiss me goodbye on the cheek.”

 
; “You’re tricking me again,” I frown.

  “Only if I can get away with it,” he chuckles.

  Granger leads me into his house and I can see why my mother is all flabbergasted by it. I feel flabbergasted myself, only I try not to show it as obviously as Ma did.

  “There they are,” Mrs. Snider says. “We thought you had gotten lost in the driveway,” she jokes.

  “I think he’s lost in love,” Butch pipes up. “You had better give us a chance with her,” he adds.

  “Now you boys stop that,” Mrs. Snider scolds. “You are going to scare her away. You act like she just came on your account. Sorry, Mazy, I have tried to teach them a few manners but it doesn’t look like any of it has sunk in. Maybe I should introduce you to my sons, though. I guess you know Butch, and Granger, of course. The other three are, Sam, Elliot, and Patrick.”

  Each nod as she calls out their names, and I sort of nod back.

  “Just tell us if you are willing to go out with any of us,” Patrick states.

  “She’s already said she will go with me,” Granger tells them.

  “That’s not fair,” Butch complains. “You have already had a chance to be with her. You need to give us a chance to get to know her too.”

  “Well, I have already asked her to marry me,” Granger says, and my eyes widen. “But we want to court for a year first,” he adds. “Isn’t that so, Mazy?” he says, turning to me. “It’s the only way to keep em off of you,” he whispers in my ear.

  I swallow, and give a nervous nod, thinking Granger is once more trying to trick me in someway. When I do, Granger lowers his head and kisses me soft and gently like a brother, and then takes me to my seat and pulls out the chair.

  “Well isn’t that wonderful,” my mother purrs.

  “I told you,” Granger whispers in my ear as he pushes in my chair. “She can’t get you married to one of us soon enough.”

  I am so nervous, I can barely eat. Granger can tell I am upset, and he keeps giving me sideways glances. I can’t wait until the meal is over, and even though everyone is talking happily together, I hardly say anything. Ma probably thinks it is because I am shy about accepting Granger’s proposal.