Fateful Waters

by Jackie Anton

  Maria handed Skip a cookie, much to Lexie’s surprise. He looked at his mistress for direction, drooling the whole time.

  “It’s okay, Skip.”

  “He is very well trained to wait for your permission. Can the puppy have some?”

  “Just a small piece. She hasn’t been eating solid food very long, and she is still on medication.”

  Lexie set Alex on the floor next to Skip. She had an easier time on the small braided carpet beneath the table than she did on the hard flooring in what Maria called the big house. Little Alex mouthed the small morsel, decided it was yummy, and made quick work of it. Maria laughed at her hopeful expression.

  The dogs settled down, and Skip sprawled out on the floor, resting his head on the blue and green braided oval where Alex snuggled up next to him.

  Lexie sipped her warm tea, and then got to the point of her visit. “Maria, I came here today to apologize for breaking your nose. It is no excuse, but I was upset about the injury to Alex, and lost my temper.”

  “I did not mean to hurt the puppy. She was just a small shadow scampering across the floor and I thought it was a rat when I swatted at it. I swear to you that I would never deliberately hit a dog.”

  Lexie believed her. Maria was wiping at the copious tears streaming down her face; she left the table to snatch a couple of tissues from the blue Formica counter behind her. While Maria pulled herself together and carefully blew her ouchy nose, Lexie scanned the kitchen. She was looking for some insight into her adversary. The light blue vinyl floor tiles were splattered with shades of gray and white, giving it a marbled look. The color scheme was carried through to a robin’s egg blue paint that contrasted nicely with the white cabinets. The same shade of blue wall tile filled the space between the upper cupboards and the blue counter. Sheer café-style curtains dressed the window next to the glass-topped table with baked white enamel supports and legs. The short ladder-back chair she occupied was obviously made for the table, but the blue seat cover looked homemade, as did the rug the dogs were snoozing on.

  Maria’s kitchen was very modern, right up to the lighted white ceiling fan. It contrasted with the living area where she had entered. There, a large area rug in shades of tan and brown sported what looked like an oriental pattern. The lower walls were paneled with an oak finish topped by a one-inch chair rail that matched the bookcase on the wall opposite where the Christmas tree stood. An armchair, recliner, and small sofa were all tan-hued leather. The end tables, coffee tables, and the small writing desk with a matching tall ladder-backed chair all looked like well-kept antiques, the color of aged oak. Stationed opposite the door she’d just entered was a black iron wood burner on a raised brick platform. It was about half the size of the one in Cutter’s kitchen, but like it in addition to providing heat it had burners on the top to allow for cooking in a power outage. What she could see of the house was immaculate and beautifully decorated. Maria obviously took a lot of pride in making a home for her husband and herself.

  Maria returned to the table to pour more tea from the small white ceramic teapot, and picked up her apology.

  “Maria, I believe you. It seems not a soul on this ranch, other than myself, think you capable of such malice, including my husband. Since I had been on the receiving end of your malevolence, you may be able to understand my viewpoint.”

  “Jim said the reason Cutter fired me was because you told him it was you or me.”

  “That’s true, I was angry. I was tired of trying to stay out of your way, and felt like an outsider in the house, and the incident with Alex caused me to snap. That aside, if you can keep your hatred of me under control, I would like you to come back to work.”

  “You want me to come back to work?” Maria was astonished.

  “Yes, but there are some conditions. Your kitchen duties are confined to five days, and I will cook on your days off. If I have an uncontrollable urge to bake at night, I will use the kitchen. Since the fact that I do my laundry in Lubbock is a big issue with my husband, I will use the washer and dryer when you are not there. Hopefully, this will lighten the guilt Cutter seems to be suffering since he terminated your long-time service.”

  “Thank you. I would like to return to work for you and Cutter. I do not hate you, Mrs. Ross.”

  “You could have fooled me, Maria.”

  She had the grace to look embarrassed. “When do you want me to start, Mrs. Ross?”

  Lexie ignored the reference to her as Mrs. Ross when Maria called Cutter by his first name like an old friend. Since she had in effect rehired her nemesis, the employer-employee boundary might serve them better.

  “You can resume your duties whenever you feel up to it, and your pay will remain the same since it is my choice that you limit your days. If you feel well enough to come over later this afternoon or tomorrow to show me where the Christmas decorations are stored, I would appreciate it.”

  Maria showed up later that afternoon to help her find and sort through the Christmas stash. Having her job back loosened Maria’s tongue considerably, and Lexie found some of the missing pieces to the puzzle of her husband’s background.

  21

  Lexie just had a bowl of soup for dinner, while she admired their handiwork. A lot had been accomplished during the afternoon, including the decorating of the large artificial tree in the front corner of the dining room. It seemed that Cutter had banned the use of real trees on the Rocking R until the drought ended. Disposing of the tinder-dry pines posed a potential fire hazard. Though it had rained, even snowed most recently, the welcome moisture was a long way from ending the drought.

  She took the dogs out for a while, and checked on the progress of the dog pen she had requisitioned. Pete, with the occasional help of a younger man, had leveled and formed a spot for the cyclone fence dog enclosure that she’d purchased when she had picked up the doggie beds. She’d chosen a spot toward the back of the house well past the mudroom entrance and behind the vehicle parking area. The concrete pad looked dry enough for the construction of the pen to begin within the next day or two.

  It had been a long, stressful day, and she found herself nodding off over the computer entries. She backed up her work, potted the dogs once more, moved their little beds from the office to the back bedroom, closed them in, showered, and then crawled under Grandma’s quilt.

  Cutter was beat. It was well past midnight when he entered the dark house. Upon reaching the bedroom, he hesitated to turn on the light until he realized his wife was not in their shared bed. Her Suburban was still in its usual spot, so he assumed she was again in the adjoining room.

  That was where he found her when he finished showering. Skip just gave him a once over and returned to his doggie dreams. The little dog with the cast hanging over her red plaid dog bed gave him more scrutiny, and Bib was hopping up and down in front of him like a little windup toy. He picked her up, scratched her ears and tummy, then deposited her back in her cozy green-and-blue sleeping quarters.

  He continued over to his sleeping wife, guided by the diffused light from the attached bath. As soon as he sat on the bed, she opened her eyes and smiled at him. He kissed her with all the passion he had bottled up. When he broke off to let them both come up for air, she chose to get in a little dig at him.

  “Hi stranger, where have you been all my life? It’s only fair to warn you that I am married to a man who doesn’t allow me to even talk to other men, let alone kiss one like that.”

  He didn’t say a word, but scooped her up to carry her back to their bed, closing the door that effectively confined the canine menagerie. He placed her on the bed and resumed where they had left off. Several hours later, he dozed off with his wife sprawled across his chest sound asleep.

  Loud yelping and scraping noises woke them. Lexie groaned, yawned, and rolled over to her back. “The puppies have to go out.”

  He kissed her forehead. “Go back to sleep. I’ll take care of them.”

  Lexie didn’t think that her husband returned
to bed after potting the dogs. He was probably out working already. She had a breakfast of fruit, a western omelet, and blueberry muffins ready when he returned just past eight. He wolfed down his breakfast without comment, but frowned at the contents of his coffee mug. He didn’t complain, but her efforts to brew it obviously didn’t come up to his standards. She would have to ask Maria how she made it. Tea was their meal beverage of choice at home, so she didn’t have much experience at making coffee. Mom usually did that when she wanted a cup, or when they had coffee drinking company. Lexie just followed the directions on the can.

  “What is going on with the concrete pad out back, Lex?”

  “I bought a large dog pen for the puppies, and thought it would be easier to keep it clean with a cement pad beneath it.”

  “You did that yourself?”

  He already knew better, and was just messing with her. “I asked Sam to lend me Pete for the project, since he was feeling guilty about the hazard pay thing.”

  “Don’t you think you should have consulted me about a project like this?”

  “Are you trying to pick a fight with me this morning?”

  He didn’t answer her. He just growled deep in his throat, and snatched up a couple of muffins as he exited through the mudroom. Well, he might not like her coffee, but he sure did scarf down the muffins.

  Maria showed up shortly after Cutter left, ready to go back to work. Coffee was the first topic. Lexie couldn’t believe that brewing to Cutter’s liking required two additional heaping scoops to the directions on the can. Maria began lunch preparations before turning her attention to the housekeeping chores.

  Lexie took the morning to resume the bookkeeping task that she had abandoned the night before.

  Cutter entered through the mudroom, shucking off his jacket, gloves, and boots, and washing up before entering the kitchen. There, going about her duties, was Maria. He thought he had made it clear that she was no longer employed as his cook and housekeeper. “Maria, what are you doing here? I know you understood that I terminated your employment.”

  “I know Cutter, but Mrs. Ross came to see me yesterday, and hired me back.”

  “She did?”

  “Yes, and I am only allowed to cook five days a week, but I still get the same pay.”

  He sat down at the kitchen table with a mug of strong coffee, and contemplated the turn of events. It appeared that when he was absent, Lexie just picked up the reins and did things her way. He was glad that Maria was back, but he wisely decided to keep out of whatever agreement they had reached. Maybe peace on earth would begin in his kitchen.

  Cutter had eaten his lunch and gone back to work by the time she got caught up on the books. Maria had made chili for lunch. She was busy cleaning somewhere down the hall, so Lexie gathered the ingredients for a salad, topped it off with a ladle of chili, and added a few taco chips. She was only halfway into her salad when she heard the sounds of a large truck. She ignored it, thinking it was a hay or grain delivery. A loud pounding on the side door sent Skip flying across the kitchen through the mudroom to display his razor sharp teeth. She put her fork down to see who was at the door. The deliveryman had backed down the steps; he was obviously concerned the large dog would crash the barrier between them.

  Lexie put her dog at ease by ordering him to sit, but he kept his eyes on the stranger who was now talking to his mistress.

  “I have a delivery for Ross at the Rocking R.”

  “What kind of delivery?”

  “Fifty turkeys.”

  My God. She didn’t know anything about the delivery of turkeys. She hollered for Maria.

  “Do you know anything about the delivery of fifty turkeys?”

  It turned out that Maria did know about the turkey order, and thank God, they weren’t the live birds, but frozen holiday gifts for the employees. Annually, the Rocking R supplied turkeys to the married hands and their families. A good number of the frozen gobblers would end up in the cookhouse for Ollie to prepare for the rest of the crew, and the remainder would stay in the largest freezer chest in the larder off the back of the kitchen until distribution. Thus the mystery of the Thanksgiving turkey was solved, and another puzzle piece fell into place. Between the two of them, they were able to make short work of cramming the frozen holiday offerings into their temporary home to maintain their frigid state until delivery.

  They still had some time before dinner to finish decorating the house. Jim accompanied Cutter to dinner, and she learned this was the case on the days Maria worked. It only made sense as Jim was often in Cutter’s company, and Maria only had to prepare one meal. She was sure it also provided Cutter with company. Other than Jim and Sam, he kept an employer’s distance from most of the rest of the crew.

  The following day, Lexie accompanied her husband on his turkey delivery route, where she met a few more women that she hadn’t known existed on the ranch. The last stop was to a church in a small town to the north of the ranch. There he dropped off ten of the turkeys, as well as a hefty donation. Hard times in the town had swelled the need for the meals provided by the church volunteers.

  During that outing, Lexie found herself reflecting on the events in his life that Maria had shared with her over the last couple of days, and how they contributed to the personality quirks of her husband.

  Sam had told her that Maria was hysterical about having killed another dog, so Lexie asked her about it. The story that the cook related sent a chill up Lexie’s spine.

  “Cutter’s mom died in childbirth with a little girl less than eighteen months from the time of his brother Ben’s birth. Ben was breech, so he was a C-section delivery. My mother said that Lynette was on birth control, but evidently they weren’t effective enough, ’cause she had a miscarriage only six months after delivering. Mom said that her husband Rod killed her by not leaving her alone long enough to heal. Cutter was maybe five or six then. One of Lynette’s last gifts to Cutter was a little beagle type puppy. I guess his father blamed himself for her death. My mother said that he withdrew from life and took to drink. I remember that he never had a kind word for his sons. Maybe he could see her in their inherited gray eyes, and couldn’t cope. I was a couple of years younger than Cutter, and my mother was almost as hard and unforgiving as Rod Ross. All Cutter, Ben, and I had were each other. When I turned five, it became my assigned chore to gather the eggs from the chicken coop. I hated the chickens because they would peck at my hands and arms until they often bled. Momma would wring the necks of the ones that didn’t lay anymore, then she made me help her pluck them. I hated that, too.

  “After about a year of that, while collecting eggs, the nasty rooster attacked me; I kicked him across the hen house and then wrung his neck, like I had seen my mother do. Some of the hens got worked up and started flapping and pecking at me, so three of them followed the rooster. Mom came out to see what all of the ruckus was. She dragged me into the house and used a switch on me, and warned me that if I ever told anyone she would give me a real beating. She told Cutter’s father that Red Baron killed the chickens, and he shot the little dog.”

  “Cutter was devastated. He used to sit on the porch at night with the little dog on his lap and talk to it, like he used to talk to his mother. Cutter had been at school, but Ben had been standing at the mudroom door when his father blew the dog’s head off. He would wake up with terrible nightmares, and climb in bed with Cutter for comfort. I didn’t have anyone to comfort me from my nightmares and guilt. I never went in that henhouse again. My mother threatened me with the switch, and I told her I hated her, and if she hit me again that I would tell everyone that she lied and killed Cutter’s dog. So, that is the other dog I hurt, without meaning to.”

  Lexie told Maria that she was only a child and not responsible for her mother’s lies or Cutter’s dad’s knee-jerk response. But the story had shed light on the bizarre absence of chicken on the menu at the Rocking R. She had to assume that the absence of turkeys in the story was the reason they were legitimate h
oliday fare. She asked, “Maria, what happened to Cutter’s little brother?”

  “Little Ben died of a snake bite when he was only ten. Cutter wasn’t the same after that. He rarely smiled, and his once warm gray eyes took on a glacial appearance. There was no love lost between him and his father. Cutter had heard the gossip about his mother’s death, and he knew his dad had shot his dog. He laid the blame squarely in his dad’s lap for little Ben’s death. Mr. Ross had sent his ten-year-old son to bring in firewood, and the child never saw the rattler. Ben was too terrified of his father and my mother to tell them that he had been bitten. He might have told Cutter, but his brother was mucking out stalls, and Ben couldn’t make it that far. He collapsed and died not even halfway to the old horse barn.”

  That explained quite a bit about her husband’s possessiveness and his inability to express his feelings. Yet he was very articulate in his ranch and business dealings. Most business decisions didn’t require an investment of emotion or heart, and a loss was not likely to injure an already battered soul.

  She was probably just as guilty in regards to guarding her heart, and if she hadn’t reached out to Maria she still wouldn’t have a clue to the extent of her husband’s emotional baggage.

  When they returned form the turkey delivery, Maria had steaks, Spanish rice, and a mixed vegetable medley ready. After dinner, they took the dogs out for a while, and checked on the progress of the run. It was up and fully functional. Pete had done a splendid job.

  “I will probably have to find a dog house so they can have shelter from the hot sun or inclement weather, if they are in there any length of time.”

  The weather was a little cool on Saturday, but pleasantly so. The kitchen didn’t heat up excessively while she and Maria worked on Christmas cookies. Sunday was another story. A light rain was the leading edge of a cold front, and the precipitation turned to snow. Almost an inch of the white stuff blanketed the area one week before Christmas. Temperatures yo-yoed for the next few days, bringing alternating rain and a sleet-snow mix. The circling weather front and the resulting moisture were an early Christmas gift for the parched land and those who lived on it. Christmas day saw another bout of snowflakes, but by the day after, the whole system was on its way to the Tennessee and Ohio valleys.