The Milch Bride

by J. R. Biery

  His mind closed down on what could have happened. Today when he heard those shots, his only thought was to reach her in time. Maybe he had grabbed her too quickly, held her too tightly. But she had looked so smug and satisfied, with her coyote tails and her prize hen and rabbit, while he was distraught and terrified. He had wanted her to feel the fear that was running through him.

  For some women being manhandled and kissed might be a fantasy. For an eighteen year old girl who had already experienced rape, it could only be a terrifying reminder. Her terror, her panic, had made him regret his action as soon as he’d started it. The kiss had changed from threatening to comforting. But when he had finally stopped that wonderful kiss, had he imagined she was kissing him back? Donna, Donna, what was he doing?

  He had promised Hattie she would always feel safe when she was here, that he would protect her. He realized before he could go to sleep, he needed to apologize to her. Galvanized, he moved swiftly to her door, raising his hand to knock. No, if he knocked he might wake the baby and Rubye, and then reap hellfire and damnation from the already upset housekeeper.

  Gently he held the knob, then slowly turned it. Inside, he was surprised to hear Hattie talking to the baby. The sweet coos coming from the boy sounded like he was talking back. Jackson stood mesmerized at the sight of her snuggled against the baby, crooning a fairy tale to him, while he smiled and crooned back at her. J.D. startled first, turning his head to stare at his Daddy. Hattie half rose in bed next. Before she could say anything, Jackson raised a hand.

  “I couldn’t go to bed,” he whispered.

  She stared at him, warily lifting the baby in front of her as a barrier as she listened.

  “Today, I was frightened, worried about you. When you seemed so carefree, it made me angry. I had no right to manhandle you that way.” He stared at her intently but couldn’t tell what she was thinking.

  “I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.” He was aware of the lamplight on her face and her swiftly changing expression. Her blue eyes looked enormous in the dimly lit room, her hair pulled back and tightly braided only emphasized how small and blonde she was. Where the top three buttons of the yellow gown were open, he could glimpse skin, ghostly pale compared to the golden brown of her face and hands. He remembered coming in early one day, seeing her sitting with a cloth soaked in buttermilk across her face, two hands dipped in a bowl of the same liquid. Rubye’s attempt to bleach her sun burned features of their ’red Indian’ look.

  “Thank you.”

  The words were soft but full in the night. He felt the pull of the woman and the bed. Swallowing hard, he blinked and closed the door.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Rubye continued to be short-tempered with Jackson and Hattie. There was never a moment when the two were left alone or unobserved, as though it mattered. Jackson avoided her all day, seeing her only with the baby after the men were gone. But if Hattie noticed, she didn’t let on, just whistled and worked like a dervish to help with cooking, cleaning, and dishes while taking care of the baby, her garden, and her chickens.

  Rubye reclaimed her kitchen. She planned meals and did all the cooking, unless it was allowing Hattie to prepare vegetables or meat as directed. One day, Hattie insisted on saving some cream that had soured. To Rubye’s horror, she added a little to a small jar, keeping some souring at all times. When she added it to the potatoes one night, all the men were excited about the sweet, tart taste. After that, Rubye let her share some more of her mother’s recipes, but made sure to prepare the majority of the meal.

  Between Hattie and the cowhands they had the dogs broken from ever chasing chickens. Any time they looked at one, somebody would reprimand them and chuck a clod of loose mud or rock toward them.

  The chickens recognized the sound of the screen doors bang and boiled out from the barn, manure pile or pasture to cluck and gather, hoping Hattie would share some fresh kitchen scraps, cracked corn, or stale bread. She now had the dozen surviving hens, plus the thirty young chickens.

  <><><>

  It was a Sunday afternoon, all were relaxing after church and lunch. The cowhands were watching the eight or nine young cocks mock fighting, dusting up into the air over some imaginary insult or scrap of pie crust. The men were joking and placing bets on the winner. Hattie watched too, while she finished stringing and snapping a mess of green beans. She eyed the small warriors to decide who would be her new rooster. When she had him marked, she scattered the bean strings and stems in front of the porch. As the chickens all gathered, she shocked everyone by quietly walking through the flock, grabbing a chicken and twisting his neck. When she had three, she returned to the porch and quickly plucked and singed the pen feathers, then carried the chickens inside to cut them up.

  Hattie put her beans on while the meat soaked in salted water. Then she planned out her meal while she worried with the fussy baby. He had complained during church and fussed while nursing today. After a night when she had woken nearly as often as she had when he was new, she was worn out from holding him. As soon as she handed the baby off to Jackson, he cajoled Rubye into helping him entertain J.D. and to leave the cooking to Hattie. He hadn’t forgotten the day a month before when she had cooked the entire meal and made Rubye furious.

  She came out with a crock of frozen pudding for the hands to crank, then returned to the kitchen. Hattie made buttermilk biscuits and put them in the oven, while she soaked the tender chicken in buttermilk. Then she dredged it in salted and peppered flour before frying it in hot oil. She added bacon crisps and fat to the stewing beans, made thin slices of potato and onion, waiting to fry them when the chicken was done. She made a dish of cold cucumber slices in vinegar and sliced a plate of ripe tomatoes. Finally, she put a dozen eggs on to boil for dressed eggs.

  She served the meal, embarrassed by their complements even before they sat down. By the time the meal was on the table, the boy was once again in full throttle.

  She carried her plate and the baby out to the front porch. Over-heated and exhausted, Hattie retreated to the porch rocker to feed the baby in the evening breeze while everyone else was inside. First she ate and shared the frozen custard with the baby. Then she parked the happy baby against a pillow in the cradle so he was sitting up like a little sailor in a boat, then shooed the dog away that wanted to lick his face.

  She ate, relaxing in the cooling breeze, using one foot to keep the baby rocking. Jackson came out on the porch, patted his tummy, and smiled at her. It was the first time in a month they had found themselves alone. Afraid, he would upset Rubye more or make Hattie uncomfortable the way he did by his actions the day she shot the coyotes, he had kept away. Through the screen door they could hear the satisfied cowboys still talking, arguing about who deserved the ice cream paddle based on who had cranked the longest.

  “I would have argued that your chicken and dumplings dinner was the best I ever had, until tonight. That was definitely the finest chicken dinner ever served to anyone.”

  Hattie looked up from under raised brows. “Well, the next batch will have more meat on them, but the third frying will probably be about the same size. Rooster chicks are cruel, soon many will be frazzled and missing feathers. Of course, in another month there will be the young hens that don’t lay, and just before cold weather, we’ll probably have to stew one of the older hens that quit laying. You can’t keep a strong flock without culling.”

  “And there we thought we would just get to watch them meandering around and settle for fresh eggs. By the way, everyone loved the dressed eggs.”

  Hattie sat quietly, blushing at all the praise. He started to step inside, but J.D. was chortling and waving his arms and Jackson laughed as he scooped him up. “Come on son, let’s go talk to the other cowboys.”

  Hattie sat, sucking on the crisp skin on the chicken wing she’d picked up, studying the tall lean lines of the man as he sauntered back inside. J.D. was greeted by all the cowhands. At four months, he was a lively active baby, already trying to roll fr
om side to side. She was proud of how quickly he was growing, but had given up leaving him in bed beside her. The first time he almost completed a roll he had slipped between the bed and crib, crying frantically and waking her before he fell all the way to the floor. Now she would cuddle and play with him until he went to sleep, but return him to spend the night in the crib, at least four hours at a time.

  According to Dr. Padgett, she was in danger of being an overprotective mother, the type who never let her child take any risks or explore on his own. She shook her head. He wasn’t her child, but Donna’s, and she had promised to take care of him. She didn’t want to think of J.D. getting hurt until he grew bigger and stronger.

  When the first cowboy came out onto the porch to thank her, Hattie quit wool-gathering and hurried to slip inside. The man doffed his hat and stopped her with the words, “Miss Stoddard, I don’t know how such a pretty gal can be such a great cook, but you’re the prettiest and best I’ve ever seen.”

  Hattie blushed, startled by the attention. Looking down she curtsied as she’d seen Irene Dawson do at church to a complement and slipped past and around into the kitchen. Several of the men were telling her “thanks for the fine meal” but Hattie stayed hidden until the last man was gone. She noticed that Jackson looked after her, wondering what the man on the porch had said to send her hiding.

  Rubye glared at her. “You’d think those men had never had fried chicken or fried potatoes the way they went on.”

  Hattie cleared the table and made herself busy washing dishes while Rubye sat with the cranky baby. She could not help the pride she felt as she carried empty plates to the dish pan, every bite of everything was gone. She had finished washing up and grabbed a dishtowel to dry when Rubye came in with a wet and crying baby and traded him for the dishtowel. Hattie took the baby, hurt that there were no words being exchanged. Well, if Rubye wanted to be angry and jealous, so be it. Nothing Hattie could say would change things.

  <><><>

  “Boss, there are cows missing on the south range.”

  Jackson stared at Cliff. “What do you mean cows are missing?”

  “Seven or eight head in that little clump that had two sets of twins. We rode out like you said, to brand everything, not just count heads, and they were gone. We checked that part of the range, compared what we’d seen when we were heading back to the bunkhouse. Nobody saw them. They’re gone.

  “All right, but is there any sign where they might have gone?”

  “No, but it rained the night before. No tracks.”

  He sat there, waiting, knowing Cliff would have more to say.

  In a minute he started again. “At church, I heard a few of the squatters talking. One had a prairie fire, and you know it’s not that dry and we haven’t had a lot of lightning with the rain that’s fallen. It took his silage field. Most have been losing animals, a handful at a time.”

  “Yeah, I heard the same talk.”

  “Tony did what you said when he was in town, nosed around. There was nothing with the Stoddard brand in the feed lots or in back of Thompson’s. He even looked through the hides while Mr. Thompson got his order ready.”

  “Anything with our brand?”

  “Only the ones at the bottom of the back stack. Hides were from the ones you sold Dawson last fall.”

  “Well, if they haven’t sold them, they’re holding them someplace. With everybody watching, I don’t see how they’re able to take the animals.”

  “Hank and I were talking about that, boss. We figure they’re doing it on Sundays, you know, everybody goes to church, takes the day off. It rained last Sunday night, too.”

  “Sounds right. Guess I’ll have to get a backache and beg off church next week.”

  “Hank and I can backslide with you.”

  “Yeah, if we can keep Tony from ‘cowboying it up’ Saturday night, Tony can take the North quarter. I hardly see him at church anyway. We can go talk to them now.”

  <><><>

  Hattie stared at the men still talking on the porch. She wished they would move off for the evening so she could go back outside again before J.D. started calling for her. She realized it was probably too late as Rubye held him, trying to keep him from getting a finger in his hard gums. He had become a drool monster these last few days, gnawing and slobbering on everything. “He needs a toy, doesn’t he?”

  “Yeah, something hard to bite on,” Rubye turned her hand and gave a mock yell of ‘ow.’ J.D. looked up and grinned, then bent, hunting for another knuckle or finger to gnaw on

  “James might whittle something if you asked?”

  “Might if you did the asking. I’m not asking favors of no man.” Rubye shook her head. “Maybe you could sew him a doll.”

  Hattie shook her head. “Momma didn’t like to sew. All I can do is mend and sew on buttons.”

  “There you go. That’s all you need to make a doll.”

  Hattie picked up the old sackcloth diaper, one of J.D.’s burp cloths, that she had handy for after feeding him. Examining the clean cloth, she noted the writing was almost faded, and only faint red checks of the pattern remained. She went to the bedroom and came back with Donna’s sewing basket. Inside were scissors, ribbons, needle and thread and at the bottom of the box, a wire held ten brass jingle bells.

  She found the short kitchen pencil, then traced a horse on the folded towel. Carefully she cut out the pattern.

  Rubye came over and stared down at her. “I never heard of a horse for a doll. But if you sew it like that, he’ll only have two legs.”

  Hattie looked down at it. Then she went to the bedroom and came back with another flour-sack cloth. Opening out the horse, she traced the legs and left a long rectangle between them, shaping the rectangle to a vee in the front and back.

  “Humph, that makes no sense, and you’re wasting all his burp cloths.”

  Before Rubye could persuade her to stop wasting her time, she had it cut out. She held it up to show Rubye the design.

  “It might work, but the fabric is pretty nasty looking to make a toy.”

  Hattie went out to the kitchen and found the jar of beets she had pickled a week ago. The beets were already gone but she had saved the liquid to pickle eggs. Instead, she stuffed the pattern pieces into the jar.

  “There. It should be a pretty red color when I take it out in the morning. The vinegar will make the color set.”

  Rubye snorted. “Doubt it, it’ll just bleed out in the wash water.”

  Hattie reached out to take the fussing baby, surprised at how heavy he had grown. He leaned forward, snagging her braid and pulling it into his slobbery mouth.”

  “Yuck,” she tugged at the braid but he held to it determinedly. “All right slobber man, hold on, but we’re going to bed.”

  She watched as Rubye rolled the scrap cloth and tucked it and the scissors into the box, then carried it to set where it had been since Donna used it last. Then she turned back to move the jar of beet juice into the kitchen. In minutes, the house was dark, it seemed that all life was gone with the light. In the silence, all she heard was the baby breathing soft and fast, then she felt an imaginary arm go around her. “Thank you, keep trying, keep him safe,” she felt the words through her bones.

  With a shiver and a smile she carried the wiggling boy to bed.

  <><><>

  When chores were done and the men were back out working the next day, Hattie carried the dried clothes inside to fold. She placed a quilt on the floor and laid J.D. on it to kick and play while she worked, settled on the settee with the sewing box on the end table. Taking the soft red cloth, she threaded a needle and fought the fabric until she had the main pieces sewn together. Then she wrapped a jingle bell in scrap cloth and then forced one into each hoof. She then rolled scraps of faded sack toweling into tight tubes and forced them down each leg. Satisfied, she sewed the edges, leaving only a small opening, through which she forced and molded the extra toweling to make the body as hard and tight as possible. When she fi
nished fastening the opening, she tied a snug knot and bit the thread loose.

  The red pony was solid and firm, more bitable she hoped then knuckles or braids.

  “Are you going to embroider the face and body?” Rubye asked over her shoulder, as Hattie shook it, watching the legs ring.

  “Wish I could. Think I’ll draw them on.”

  Rubye blew loudly in disgust as usual. “With what, coffee?”

  Hattie went inside the bedroom, not surprised to hear Jackie crying as soon as she disappeared from sight. She came back with her ink pot and pen. Carefully, she painted eyes, nostrils and mouth, and then painted all four little hoofs black. J.D. chortled and grabbed for it, while Hattie held it over him, blowing on the cloth to dry the ink.

  Hattie laughed down at the baby. “Almost ready, big cowboy. We need to get a mane and tail fastened on.”

  Rubye lifted him up, while he kicked and grabbed at the pony. “Goodness, he’s getting to be a handful.”

  “Eighteen pounds, according to Thompson’s vegetable scale. Of course he was wiggling on the scale.

  “Feels more like forty, don’t you bucko?”

  “He’s nice and solid though, no fat folds and wrinkles.”

  “That’s why Mrs. Dawson keeps complaining. No double chins or dumpling arms.”

  “He weighs what Dr. Padgett predicts. That should be good enough for anyone.”

  Hattie sealed the ink bottle, cleaned her quill. Then she hunted through the thread, yarn, ribbon and lace in the sewing basket until she settled on the thin blue ribbon. Making loops around her finger, she cut the end after making ten loops. She sewed the end of the ribbon to the top of the horse’s head, then fastened each loop carefully as she worked down the neck. Finally, she made six loops about twice as long, fastened the top of all of them at the end of his rump, and then cut the loops to make strands for his tail.