Ivy Takes Care

by Rosemary Wells

  Ivy carried the turtle to a shaded grass pen behind the barn, once home to a litter of farm pups. She filled a dish with water and broke an egg, leaving the yolk in half a shell not far from the water. The tortoise would either be dead or dig himself out by morning. Ivy knew that.

  As she checked the patched-up shell one more time, a head with a shock of uncombed red hair appeared from around the barn. It was Billy Joe Butterworth.

  “We gotta serve dinner,” he said. “Your mom said to come get you.”

  “It’s you that wants me, Billy Joe,” said Ivy, “ ’cause you’re too lazy to do any chores alone. I know you. I’m taking care of this turtle, so go on and peel carrots and shell peas. ’S good for you.”

  “Well, you better come soon,” he said. “There’s more than one person’s share of kitchen prep to do. And there’s blood all over your shirt.”

  Ivy knew that Billy Joe would deliberately leave all the onions for her to weep over.

  When Billy Joe left, Ivy grabbed a plain T-shirt from the clothesline. In the barn she ripped her worn-out Sears Roebuck blouse with the turtle blood into angry shreds and hid the pieces in an old feed sack where her mother would never find them. She cried there, in the darkness of the barn. Angry loud sobs. Through the cobwebbed window she saw the turtle extend its legs, then its head, and move to the dish of water, where it drank deeply. Ivy dried her red and smarting eyes on her sleeve and headed for the kitchen. She’d start right away on the onions, and no one would ask her what the matter was.

  While Ivy chopped Vidalias into fryable chunks, she skimmed yesterday’s Carson City Star, which was folded under the onions to catch the juice. The paper ran a story about the rodeo, coming soon to town. Billy Joe would want to go to that. Billy Joe wanted to be a rodeo rider when he grew up, even though his mama would allow no such thing in the world. The newspaper ran the usual graduation speeches, reported from Carson City High. There had been a robbery at a pawn shop at the edge of town. She flipped through the sports and the obits pages. There was a full-page advertisement for a sale on birthstone friendship rings at Steinway’s department store.

  Ivy read the ad with interest.

  Just three days before, on the final day of school, Mary Louise Merriweather had jounced into the fifth-grade classroom sporting one of those friendship rings with a honey-colored topaz in the setting. Blond and bouncy Mary Louise was the head of the popular girls. Ivy figured she’d been born to that destiny.

  The idea was to buy a ring with your best friend’s birthstone and give it to her. Then she’d buy one for you.

  At the time Ivy had whispered, “Fakest things I’ve ever seen!” within earshot of Mary Louise, who was making one of her bubble-bath fusses over someone’s ring. For a second Mary Louise had turned and bounced her curls in Ivy’s direction, giving her a look that said, I’ll get you back for that remark! But there hadn’t been time for Mary Louise’s revenge because school was out the very next day.

  Tourmaline was Annie’s birthstone. Maybe, just maybe, Annie would forgive me if I sent her one of those rings while she’s at camp! thought Ivy. But how will I ever get the five dollars?

  Money was scarce in Ivy’s household. Her mother had ten marked envelopes that she kept for each of the household expenses. Into these envelopes went dollars that could never be spent for anything other than what was written on the envelope: groceries, electric bill, and so on.

  Asking her mother about a raise in her allowance would likely only get her another twenty-five cents a week, if that. She asked anyway.

  “My Ivy wants something,” said Ivy’s mother, forking the frying chicken around in a pan.

  “I want to buy a ring,” Ivy answered. “A sterling silver Tru-Friendship ring. They’re on sale for five dollars at Steinway’s. All the girls have them.”

  “Wait a few years, dear heart,” said her mother. “The day may come when you marry a millionaire! Then you can buy a diamond ring set in platinum.”

  But Ivy didn’t want to marry a millionaire. She didn’t want to marry anyone. And she didn’t want to wait.

  Her father had no money to spare for a ring, either. Ivy pushed the coins from her last allowance across the kitchen table.

  “Dad,” she whispered hoarsely, “could you maybe put this in the slots at the gas station and see what happens? Maybe you’ll get lucky and win a jackpot! Please?”

  Her father smiled and pushed the money back. Nevada, of course, was the gambling state. There was a slot machine or two in every corner store. But Ivy’s parents frowned on gambling, as did most of her classmates’ families. The house odds were heavily stacked against every tourist with a cup full of nickels. Everyone in Nevada knew it.

  “You don’t want to ever start that, honey,” Ivy’s dad said, shaking his head. “Start with a dime, and an hour later you’re broke.” He finished his root beer and put the glass in the sink. “Whyn’t you go on over to the Methodist church? Take a peek at the community board. See if anyone maybe needs a babysitter. You can make twenty-five cents an hour rockin’ some cradle.” He smiled sweetly at Ivy and held his rough rancher’s hand against her cheek for a moment, as if the hand could say something that he could not.

  Ivy couldn’t explain to her parents how important this ring would be. Not only had Mary Louise Merriweather given the rings her popular-girl blessing, but Annie would surely forgive her if Ivy were to give her one. What’s more, when school began again, Annie might return the favor and get Ivy a ring of her own. That would make the turtle blood, Italian shoes, and rattlesnakes go away.

  Ivy’s mother and father were not inclined to listen to fifth-grade anguish. “They’ll forget all about those silly rings by September,” Ivy’s mother would say. But Ivy needed that ring for Annie more than anything in the world, and she had to find a way to get her hands on five dollars.

  After supper was served and cleaned up, and her mother’s feet were soaking in an Epsom-salt footbath, Ivy wandered outside to the near paddock. She was a terrible babysitter. More than once she’d gotten lost in a book while the baby howled at her to play with rubber blocks. She hated babysitting.

  Instead, maybe she could stick the price labels on dry goods at Mr. Strunk’s general store and sweep out the back room. The thought of indoor work in Mr. Strunk’s dusty stockroom made Ivy’s eyes close.

  “If I had one wish on a magic lamp to start a business of my own, what would I want it to be?” she said aloud to Texas, one of the Red Star Ranch’s best trail horses. Texas plodded over to Ivy and nudged her shoulder. As she went back inside to get him a carrot, the answer came to her.

  When she was finished, Ivy showed her advertisement, carefully typed on Billy Joe’s mother’s typewriter, to her mom and dad.

  “Good girl!” they said.

  On Monday, Ivy tacked up one advertisement on the town hall bulletin board, posted one in the feed store, one in the A & P, and one on the post-office door.

  Ivy waited a week. The phone in their house was on a party line of six families. All the calls seemed to be for somebody else. But Tuesday morning at breakfast, when she wasn’t even listening for it to ring anymore, a call came for Ivy.

  “This is Mrs. Pratt calling,” said a cheerful voice on the other end. “We live on Indian Springs Road, two miles from Mule Canyon. I saw your sign in the post office.”

  “How can I help you, Mrs. Pratt?” asked Ivy.

  “Next week, Mr. Pratt and I are going to Mexico,” Mrs. Pratt explained. “Our pony, Chestnut, will need care while we are away. Do you have experience with horses?”

  “I learned to ride before I could walk, Mrs. Pratt,” answered Ivy. “My dad’s the stable manager at Red Star Ranch.” Ivy liked the sound of stable manager better than stable man of all work.

  Ivy knew just where Indian Springs Road met Mule Canyon. That afternoon she got out her bicycle. As she was about to go, Billy Joe Butterworth poked his head around the side of the house.

  “Where are you going so
fast, Little Miss Climbing Vine?” he asked.

  “That’s for me to know and you to find out!” Ivy snapped back.

  Billy Joe had to know everything in the world. He couldn’t stand it if he was out of the hearing zone of every detail of everyone’s business. He even listened in on the party line to other people’s phone calls. At least he did until his mother caught him one day, yanked the receiver out of his hand, and slammed down the telephone. Billy Joe was now careful only to lift the receiver when his mother was out of the house.

  Ivy sped off. She knew Billy Joe could not follow her because he had left his expensive Schwinn bike out in the rain one too many times and the gears had rusted beyond his riding it ever again.

  Mrs. Pratt opened her white picket gate for Ivy. Ivy parked her bicycle neatly, using the kickstand, although she usually just leaned it up on a fence. She gave Mrs. Pratt her letter of recommendation.

  Ivy gave Chestnut a sugar lump off the flat of her hand. Chestnut breathed right into Ivy’s face and nudged her with his snowy, velvet nose.

  Mrs. Pratt showed Ivy all the things she had to know about Chestnut. “And if you ever need help, why, you just call Dr. Rinaldi, the veterinarian down in Carson,” said Mrs. Pratt. “You can’t call us in Mexico. The phones down there are not something I would ask you to tackle.”

  Ivy smiled in relief. Calling Dr. Rinaldi in town was just fine by her. The vet often came up to the Red Star Ranch to give a horse a shot of bute or look at a split hoof.

  Mrs. Pratt ran her hand down Chestnut’s ample belly. “He’s a little on the stout side. He needs some exercise,” she said. “And don’t forget to leave the radio on near his stall at night. He likes the radio. Especially Music from the Stars at six o’clock on KNEV.”

  Ivy wrote down every word Mrs. Pratt said and pinned her list neatly to the tack-room door.

  “Do you think you can handle Chestnut?” asked Mrs. Pratt.

  “A piece of cake, ma’am,” said Ivy.

  “How much do you charge?” asked Mrs. Pratt.

  “I don’t know,” said Ivy.

  “How about fifty cents a day?” asked Mrs. Pratt.

  “That’ll do fine!” said Ivy.

  “Here is an advance payment,” said Mrs. Pratt. “Don’t spend it all in one place!”

  Ivy did not mention the Tru-Friendship ring.

  “I will see you next week, Chestnut!” said Ivy. The pony nickered at her. She gave him a palmful of sweet feed.

  The following Monday, Ivy awoke early to the crow of the rooster. Mourning doves coo-rooed in the cottonwood trees. In the distance, she heard the whistle of the train as it raced west across Nevada on its way to California. Mr. and Mrs. Pratt were on that train for the first leg of their trip to Mexico. For three weeks Ivy would be in charge.

  The Pratts trust me completely, Ivy thought. Without me, Chestnut would be alone in the world.

  She jumped out of bed and checked her shirt pocket for the sugar lumps she’d put there the night before. After she ate the breakfast that her mother had laid out the night before, Ivy went off to work on her bike. It was too early for slugabed Billy Joe Butterworth next door to have opened even one eye.

  Chestnut was happy to see Ivy. Having smelled the sugar in her pocket, he made umpy noises. Ivy gave him one lump.

  “Tomorrow you go on a diet, Chestnut,” said Ivy. “I’m only going to bring you carrots from now on. We’re going to slim you down a little!”

  Chestnut lifted his hooves nicely while Ivy cleaned them. He stood patiently while she checked for bumps or scratches on his legs. He ate a flake of hay while Ivy brushed him. He made no trouble when Ivy put his blanket on his back, and he opened his mouth just so when she put in the bit of his bridle.

  “Exercise time!” said Ivy.

  Chestnut trotted gamely around his paddock, but when they got out of the gate, he stopped dead. No matter what Ivy did or said, the pony just stood his ground, flicking flies with his tail.

  “I think it’s because you are a fatty,” said Ivy, “and you don’t want to go uphill carrying me.”

  So instead of riding, Ivy walked beside Chestnut, leading him up the trail that wound over Mule Canyon. Chestnut made more umpy noises.

  When they could see Washoe Lake sparkling in the rising sunlight from between the piñon pines, Ivy stopped. She let Chestnut drink from a stream that rippled down the mountain between the manzanita trees. They went home before the morning sun got too hot and the flies got too bad. Chestnut let Ivy ride downhill through the sage and yellow mallows.

  Ivy put Chestnut’s fly mask on and left him in his paddock.

  In the late afternoon, Ivy returned and found Chestnut waiting for her in the shade of a stand of large cottonwood trees. In the shade there were no flies.

  “Smart boy!” said Ivy. Ivy checked Chestnut for insect bites, and when she found one, she put purple gentian on it so it would heal. Then she washed the day’s dust off him and brought him into his stall. She cleaned his water bucket and gave him another flake of hay while she checked his legs and feet.

  Before lights-out, Chestnut got a handful of sweet feed and Ivy turned on the radio, tuned to station KNEV.

  “Good night, Chestnut,” said Ivy. “You are never really alone, because I will always come back.”

  Ivy made sure all the gates and stall door were closed before she bicycled home.

  On the fifth day of work, Ivy got up the courage to spend Mrs. Pratt’s five-dollar advance payment. After her Chestnut chores were finished for the day, Ivy went through town and stopped at Steinway’s.

  Ivy chose the ring with a tourmaline, which was Annie’s birthstone. Her heart tripped as the precious money skidded out of her fingers and into Steinway’s cash register. The Steinway’s jewelry box felt hot in her pocket.

  Ivy wore the ring home. For a moment after supper, she rested her hand on the windowsill where the stone caught the outside light and sparkled.

  “Fancy ring,” said Billy Joe, noticing, as he noticed everything. “Where’d you get the bucks for that little bangle?”

  Ivy’s hand disappeared into her pocket. “I don’t see you wearing your fancy-dancy cowboy boots, Billy Joe!” she said. “Why not?”

  Billy Joe gave Ivy a dark look and didn’t answer. His uncle had given him a pair of hand-tooled western boots with silver tips for his tenth birthday. Because his feet were hot, Billy Joe had kicked the boots off while sitting in the grandstand at a rodeo. The boots dropped to the soft dirt under the grandstand, where they stayed for about ten minutes before someone snatched them. Billy Joe had been made to string five hundred yards of barbed wire fence for losing the boots. It took him three days and some nasty cuts, into which his mom poured iodine. Ivy knew the whole story because the Butterworths’ kitchen window was about ten feet from her bedroom window. She had the advantage of hearing all kinds of personal conversations, but Billy Joe had no such luck because Ivy’s family’s kitchen opened out onto the horse paddock.

  The next day, Ivy put the ring into its box and the box into an envelope she swiped from the Red Star Ranch office. She addressed it to Annie at Camp Allegro, Crawford Notch, New Hampshire.

  The moment it went into the mailbox, Ivy was hit with the thought that if Camp Allegro forbade its campers from getting hair curlers and nail polish and candy bars in the mail, it would surely confiscate jewelry. Her heart sank, but it was too late. There was nothing she could do except wait for Annie’s reply.

  Each day brought new flowers to Mule Canyon and new weather to the sky. Ivy lost herself in the smells of horse and leather, and the memory of the turtle day faded. Along the stony Mule Canyon trail, bright claret-cup cacti opened their flowers. One day, Ivy found mule deer antlers behind a stretch of pines.

  “A four-point rack!” said Ivy. “Dad’ll like that for sure.” She strapped the antlers to the back of her saddle. Mr. Coleman collected them for ranch guests.

  Each evening, Ivy mucked out Chestnut’s stall. She cleane
d his hooves, treated his fly bites, and gave him his sweet feed. Chestnut nuzzled her shoulder when she brushed him and talked to her in little horse grunts and sighs.

  One night, just before she turned on Chestnut’s radio, Ivy heard a squeak coming from an unused stall in the back of the stable. The mountains were full of critters of one kind or another, and Ivy knew that any number of them could creep into the barn if they liked and raid the sweet feed bin. Some creatures, like rattlers, were dangerous. Some, like skunks, were a nuisance, especially if your dog messed with them. Some, like coyotes, who stole lambs and anything else they could get their teeth into, were threats. Most other critters, like jackrabbits, raccoons, and prairie dogs, were just out there, harmless and making a living like everyone else.

  Quietly, Ivy edged down the sluiceway to the unused stall. She peered over its wall. On a heap of hay in the corner lay a red fox — a vixen — and six kits. A hole in one of the boards at the base of the stall must have been her way in, and there she had had her babies.

  The fox’s coat was the color of fire. She studied Ivy and showed her sharp teeth. Ivy studied her back and sensed the fear in her.

  “What’s wrong with that front foot, Mama Fox?” she asked.

  On the floor, Ivy could see drops of blackened blood. She looked back at the fox’s foot and spotted a blood-caked mass between the swollen pads.

  Ivy looked deep into the fox’s bright brown eyes. She longed to lay a hand, for one second, on the snow-white hair in the creature’s ears. This little red mother was needy, but she was also determined to take care of her kits.

  Caring for wild critters was not something Ivy had been raised to do. Coyotes and foxes preyed on chickens and lambs. There was an Agriculture Department bounty paid to anyone who brought in a pair of ears and a tail. Still, Ivy believed the little fox family had a right to live, too.

  “You beauty!” she whispered to the mother fox. “You beauty with your little kits, you’ll have trouble finding food with that bad leg. I’ll bring you something to eat and drink and get you through this.” Ivy hoped her voice carried the same kind of comfort to the fox that it had for Chestnut. This time, the fox did not bare her teeth.