Bittersweet

by Susan Wittig Albert

  She might have said more, but Derek had turned away. She started her truck and drove away, thinking with painful regret how much you could learn about a person when it came to dealing with six dead deer.

  And about what Karen had said earlier that day. It’s going to take a really special guy to love you and love what you do—because you very much are what you do, you know. In ways other women probably aren’t.

  By the time she got home, her regret had turned to a nagging exasperation. Derek had irrationally blamed her for doing her job. Doc Masters was being uncooperative when he knew that she had to do her job.

  And she had missed another phone call from that PETA woman, Amy Roth. This time, however, she had left a more detailed message.

  “This is Amy Roth,” she’d said in a businesslike tone. “With the holiday tomorrow, we may keep missing each other, so here’s what I’m calling about. My colleague, Chris Griffin, is a graduate student in environmental studies at the University of Texas in San Antonio. The two of you met at a regional wildlife conservation conference last year, and he mentioned to you that he was building a surveillance drone. At the time, you seemed interested and said you’d maybe like to see it. The drone is ready for a demo. Would you have some time on Friday to take a look at what it can do? Name the time and place, whatever is convenient for you. We’ll be glad to meet you there.” She signed off with a telephone number.

  Now that she was prompted, Mack remembered Griffin, a dark-haired, intense young man who had waylaid her for fifteen minutes with a rambling, disjointed description of a project that had something to do with using a drone to monitor wildlife. She picked up the phone and punched in the number. To her surprise, she connected with Amy and made a date to meet her and Chris Griffin at ten on Friday morning, at the rodeo grounds in Utopia. There was plenty of open space there, and nobody would be around to bother them or ask questions.

  She glanced at her watch. A cold front was blowing down from the north, and the wind was picking up, but there was still an hour or two of daylight left. She pulled on a parka and went outdoors to the paddock. She would saddle Cheyenne and whistle for Molly and they would go for a brisk canter along one of the gravel roads that led out of town.

  Maybe the exercise in the chilly air would clear whatever lingering regret she might be feeling about Derek.

  Chapter Five

  Ashe juniper (Juniperus ashei) is a drought-tolerant shrubby tree native to the south-central United States, and especially to the Texas Hill Country, where it can be seen everywhere. In the wildlife garden, its berries, foliage, canopy, and bark serve many animals and birds. The endangered golden-cheeked warbler uses soft strips of bark for nest material, and the tree is a larval host for the beautiful Juniper Hairstreak butterfly. Deer prefer not to eat it if they can find anything else.

  Native Americans used the smoke from juniper foliage for cleansing and purification rituals, and the bark for baskets and mats. They employed the berries medicinally, as a diuretic, a treatment for canker sores, and (brewed in tea) as a remedy for indigestion. Southwestern tribes used the berries to treat diabetes and as a female contraceptive. Dioscorides, a Roman physician in the time of Nero, also noted that the crushed berries, placed on the penis or in the vagina, were used as a contraceptive.

  Juniper berries have long been used in cooking and in drinks. Native Americans used them to counteract the gaminess of wild buffalo and venison. German immigrants used them to flavor sauerkraut, sauces, and stews. In Europe, they are used in marinades for wild boar, venison, and pork, and in poultry stuffing. The berry of Juniperus communis still provides the predominant flavoring of gin.

  Junipers also have another use. According to legend, a juniper planted beside the front door will keep witches away, for in order to pass by a juniper, the witch must stop and count every needle—a job that would keep her busy for a while.

  China Bayles

  “Native Plants for Wildlife Gardens”

  Pecan Springs Enterprise

  While we were waiting for Sue Ellen Krause to arrive for supper and the evening, Caitie and I put on our jackets and caps and went for a walk beside the Sabinal River, which flows at the foot of a long, grassy slope about fifty yards in front of the ranch house.

  The Sabinal is twenty feet wide at the place where it meets the smaller Bittersweet Creek, and the water is shallow and so clear that you can see the tiny minnows darting like glimmers of silver among the rocks and the crawdads peering out of their holes in the gravelly banks. If you’re lucky, you may even see the shimmer and flash of a rainbow trout—and if you’re a fisherman, you’ll itch to cast your favorite fly onto the glimmering surface. Spring-fed, beautiful, and one of the best-kept secrets in Texas, the river rises in Bandera County, about forty miles to the north of the ranch, and flows into the Frio some ten miles south of Sabinal. Much of its sixty-mile length is bordered on both sides by bald cypress trees, so intensely green in the summer that their color seems to saturate the water itself, turning it into a shimmering green ribbon. The early Spanish called the river Arroyo de la Soledad, Stream of Solitude, which has always seemed to me to describe it beautifully.

  But this wasn’t summer. It was late November, and a cold front was blowing briskly down from the north, shuttering the sun with bands of scudding gray clouds. A month or so before, the cypress trees had turned from green to a bright russet and dropped their needles into the river. Now, their bare branches were like witches’ fingers clawing the darkening sky. The tall grasses, hit by a killing frost, were bleached to the color of bones, and as the wind blew, they rubbed together with a hard, dry rasp, like an old man’s cough. On the other side of the river, beyond the cypress trees, the Ashe junipers clothed the steep hills in their somber green.

  The landscape was beautiful, but it was a subdued, sober turn-of-the-seasons beauty that reminded me that the cheerful, eager joys of spring had slipped into a forgotten past and the year was growing inexorably grayer, colder, older. Or was it that my mother and her dear Sam were growing older, and more fragile, and less able to do what they wanted to do, and that I was worried about them? Lives have seasons, too, and we grow gray, and colder, and older with the years.

  But despite my feeling that winter was already blowing down our necks, there were plenty of birds to brighten the landscape. Caitie had brought her binoculars and delighted in naming as many as she recognized and pointing out those she didn’t. A golden-fronted woodpecker, beating a rapid tattoo on the rough bark of a nearby hackberry tree. A raucous scrub jay, bright blue with black eye patches. (“And white eyebrows!” Caitie cried ecstatically. “Look at his white eyebrows!”) A tidy brown cactus wren, busy among the leaves. A dapper gray and red pyrrhuloxia, a cousin of the northern cardinal, but with a parrotlike yellow bill and an elegant crest that looked like it had been dipped in bright red paint.

  And many, many more. There were birds in the trees that I had never seen before, and birds wading in the shallows along the banks, and birds soaring high overhead. Downstream, I glimpsed the outline of the wooden observation tower that Sam had built—Caitie and I would explore it tomorrow. I had no doubt that Leatha and Sam could attract a throng of birders to Bittersweet, who would flock there in large numbers for the sheer pleasure of adding another dozen birds to their life lists.

  But then the worry came back again, and I couldn’t push it away. Sam was in the hospital, with an uncertain prognosis for the weeks ahead. Sue Ellen Krause would be around to lend a hand for a while; after several years working at Three Gates she probably had the kind of experience that was necessary to ensure that Bittersweet’s first birding year got off to a smooth start. But if Sue Ellen was planning to enroll in college, she wouldn’t be staying long. And if Sam’s heart condition meant that he had to take things easy for the rest of his life, Leatha was going to need more than short-term or part-time help. I’m her only child, and I couldn’t help feeling responsible. I could
n’t offer anything more than moral support, however, for I have a business and a family and a house back in Pecan Springs. Where would the help come from? It was an unsettling question, as sharp as the wintry wind that was blowing down my neck.

  Caitie tugged at my sleeve. “There’s the lodge over there,” she said, pointing. “I haven’t been inside since Gramma and Sam fixed it up. Can we go in and look around?”

  “I’m curious, too,” I said. “I’m sure it will be okay, as long as it’s not locked.”

  It wasn’t. The lodge sat back from the river about forty yards downstream from the ranch house. It was a long, low log building with a green metal roof and a wide covered porch across the front. Roof-high dark green junipers sheltered each end of the building, and rosemary bushes skirted the front. (Strongly resinous, rosemary is one of the shrubs deer don’t like, which makes it an ideal landscaping plant in deer-traffic areas.)

  There were seven individual guest suites in the lodge, and on this side, each suite had a front door and a wide front window so the guests could enjoy a view of the river. A large wooden sign painted with the words Bittersweet Lodge hung in the center of the long front porch, and each of the suites was named: Sandpiper, Indigo Bunting, Blue Heron, and so on. There was a framed photo of the bird beside each door.

  The lodge’s exterior logs were well weathered—as they should be, since the lodge had been built by Sam’s father when he opened the ranch to hunting some decades before. But the interiors had been completely remodeled, and very nicely. Gone were the small, dark rooms with their lingering odors of tobacco smoke and wet shoes and fried fish. Newly pine-paneled, the air-conditioned and heated suites featured tidy kitchenettes with microwave ovens, cook-top ranges, mini refrigerators, and dining tables and chairs. Each had a carpeted sitting-sleeping area with a sofa bed, upholstered chair, and coffee table, and a television set. Twin beds were made up with colorful quilts, and there was a folding cot in the closet. The compact bath had a large mirror over the sink and pine cupboards stocked with fluffy towels. The glass door in the back of each sitting area opened onto a private deck furnished with comfortable chairs, tables, and a barbecue grill.

  The accommodations seemed just right to me—comfortable, attractive, and perfect for a single, a couple, or even a small family. The thought popped into my mind that maybe McQuaid and I could squeeze in some time to come and relax, but with it came another thought. I wouldn’t be relaxing. I’d be here to help my mother. After the guests checked out, somebody was going to have to clean all those kitchenettes and bathrooms and put fresh sheets on the beds and fresh towels on the shelves and run the vacuum over the carpets. (I know about this, because I rent out the stone cottage behind my shop as a B&B, when it’s not in use for workshops and other activities. And I’m the one who does the housekeeping.) Seeing that this place was clean and tidy would be a ten-hour-a-week job, at least. Sam and Leatha could handle it. But if Sam couldn’t help, could my mother handle it alone? Another thing for me to worry about.

  Caitie and I had left the lodge and were heading back to the ranch house when a banged-up red Ford Focus pulled up in the driveway, piled high with boxes and bags. A pretty young woman got out—Sue Ellen Krause, I guessed. A few moments later, we were taking off our coats in the kitchen and my mother was introducing us.

  Sue Ellen had the look of a country-and-western singer—a younger version of Reba McEntire, maybe—sparky blue eyes, deep dimples, a sassy mouth, and long auburn hair falling in loose, tousled curls down to her shoulders. She wore a western shirt in a muted blue plaid with pearl snaps down the front, tight Wranglers, and filigreed, fancy-dancin’ cowgirl boots. Her complexion was flawless, except for a pale bruise at the corner of her jaw, and she had the kind of figure that most women secretly covet and most men openly lust after. She looked to be in her middle twenties.

  “I have been dyin’ to meet you, China,” she said, extending a hand and briefly clasping mine. Her voice was low and warm and there was a muted chuckle in it. “Your mom has told me so much about you—I feel like I just about know you already. I do truly want to be friends.” She held up a bottle of red wine. “And today’s a great big red-letter day for me, so I brought this Merlot. Let’s all have a glass right now.”

  “You know I can’t do that,” Leatha said in a matter-of-fact tone. “But you and China go right ahead, dear. Caitie and I will have iced tea.”

  Sue Ellen planted a noisy smooch on my mother’s cheek. “You can have some of this,” she chirped merrily. “And so can Caitie. It’s totally nonalcoholic. We can drink as much as we want!” With an easy familiarity, she found wineglasses on the top shelf of the cupboard and a corkscrew in a drawer, and she poured for the four of us, including a half glass for Caitie.

  “Here’s to new friends,” she said, and tipped her glass against mine with that sassy smile. She lifted her glass to Leatha. “And to old and dear ones!”

  And by some magic, we became friends almost immediately. While Caitie bustled around, helping my mother get the venison chili, salad, deviled eggs, and hot garlic bread on the table, Sue Ellen and I sat across from each other and sipped our wine. To tell the truth, I was a little surprised at her high spirits. Leatha had said that she had sounded terribly unhappy that morning on the phone, so I was expecting gloom—maybe even tears.

  “You said it’s a red-letter day for you,” I said. “What’s going on?”

  “I left my husband for good today, and I do mean good.” Sue Ellen shook her head and her long curls bounced over her shoulder. “I feel so relieved. It’s like I’m about to get to the end of a long, hard road.” She paused, reflecting, and added in a more sober tone, “At least, I hope it’s the end.” Over her shoulder to Leatha, she said, “I crammed as much of my stuff in the car as I could and brought it with me, Leatha. You’ll have to tell me where you want me to bunk.”

  “I thought we’d put you in the lodge, in Sandpiper, which is the suite nearest the ranch house,” Leatha said, putting down a plate of hot garlic bread. “If you want to invite friends over, or play music or whatever, you’ll have plenty of privacy there. China can help you move in after supper.” She began ladling chili into our bowls. “I didn’t use much chili powder in this, because I know Caitie doesn’t like spicy stuff. But I did use a couple of secret ingredients. Tell me what you think, China.”

  “Oh, let me guess!” Caitie cried, sitting down beside me and picking up her spoon. She tasted, then tasted again, frowning intently. “It’s . . . something,” she said, puzzled. “But I don’t know what it is.” She tasted again, and wrinkled her nose. “Cinnamon?” she ventured.

  “Good for you, Caitie!” Leatha said, taking her place next to Sue Ellen. “You’re right, cinnamon is one of the secret ingredients. She looked inquiringly at me. “What’s the other, China?”

  I tasted. I frowned. I tasted again. “Juniper berries,” I said. “But they’re more . . . citrusy than usual.” Piney, peppery dried juniper berries are great with wild game, but sometimes the pepper dominates the other flavors.

  “That’s because they’re fresh,” Leatha said, pleased. “Right off one of the junipers next to the lodge. What do you think of the chili?”

  “I love it,” I said promptly, and dug in. “And you’re right—fresh makes a big difference. I’ve always used dried berries in the cabbage and sausage soup that McQuaid likes. I’ll make it next week and try the fresh berries. We’ve certainly got plenty on the trees right now.” The dried juniper berries in the grocery store come from the European juniper. Our Texas junipers are Juniperus ashei and their berries are more tart. I’d try just two.

  “It’s great chili, Gran!” Caitie said enthusiastically.

  “It’s wonderful,” Sue Ellen said, and turned to Leatha. “How’s Sam? I’ll bet he was glad to see you. Is he feeling better?”

  “Some,” Leatha said guardedly. “We’re just taking it day by day.” She lea
ned forward. “Caitie, your mom tells me that you’re going to be in your teacher’s winter recital. You brought your violin with you, I hope. Will you play your recital piece for me?”

  “I won’t play that one,” Caitie said, very seriously, “because I need the piano accompaniment. But I’ve been practicing a couple of other pieces to play for you.” She helped herself to a piece of garlic bread. “And could we talk about maybe getting me a full-size violin?” she asked tentatively. “Dr. Trevor says I’m ready for it. I’ve been saving my egg money, but at the rate the girls are laying, it’ll be years before I can afford it myself.”

  Leatha had given Caitie the three-quarter-size violin I scorned when I was her age, and she had done so well with it that her teacher, Sandra Trevor, thought it was time to move up to a full-size instrument. Her grandmother had offered to get it for her, but Caitie had wanted to earn the money herself. Now, Leatha leaned across the table and patted her hand. “You keep on saving your egg money, dear. Christmas is coming in a few weeks, and I’m sure that Santa will be able to get his elves to make a violin just for you.”

  Caitie clapped her hands with delight. “That’s super!” she cried. “I can’t wait to tell Dr. Trevor!” She gave up on Santa last year, but that didn’t stop her from playing along with her grandmother’s little tale.

  From there, the conversation turned to family matters. Caitie reported on her ant farm, her project for the science fair. I reported on Brian’s first semester at the university, where he was majoring in Personal Independence and minoring in Doing His Own Laundry, and on the holiday events that Ruby and I were planning at the shops and the tearoom. Sue Ellen wanted to hear all about that, since it was her dream to own her own business.

  “Did your mom tell you I’m going to college?” she asked eagerly. “I know it’s a big dream, but I’m determined. I’m going to get my degree in . . . oh, I don’t know—interior design or something like that. I love to change rooms around and have everything nice. I couldn’t do that, living over at Three Gates. I’m looking forward to having my own apartment, where I can fix things up however I want.” Then she patted my mother’s arm. “But I’m going to be right here for a while, helping out. We need to get Sam back on his feet first.” She leaned toward me, her blue eyes warm. “I just can’t tell you how sweet your mom and dad have been to me in my time of troubles, China. It means the world, having somebody I can talk to and someplace I can come and know I’m safe.” She waved her hand. “Oh, heavens. That sounds so silly and dramatic. It’s just that— Well, things have been a little rough lately.”