by Anna Jeffrey
Joanna battled bobcats, feral cats, raccoons, weasels and coyotes, and the damn snakes, which could eat a dozen eggs faster than she could chase them off. But worst of all were the hawks. The ever-loving, relentless, ruthless, bastard hawks that liked nothing better than a fat hen for lunch. She had read about all of that before plunging with both feet into a business that provided ideal food for predators, but reality hadn’t set in until it touched her.
Beyond those everyday hazards were the bizarre ones—last spring, for instance, when fire ants attacked and murdered a whole batch of baby chicks. More recently, she had even heard that marauding feral hogs might be moving into West Texas. Feral hogs? She had never seen a feral hog.
Listening to the radio, she drove slowly with the windows down, taking in the cool, pleasant temperature and the clear blue sky that always followed a storm. Last night’s expected tempest had passed through as a lamb rather than a lion, but it had sprinkled Wacker County’s parched earth with moisture and blown away the heat temporarily. The smells of the earth rejuvenated by rain filled the cab of her truck. Even the ever-present west wind seemed to have taken a respite.
On either side of the highway, ripening cotton bolls stood in neatly plowed rows of brown earth that marched straight as a ruler’s edge until they disappeared into the distant horizon. Occasionally she passed working pump jacks and she thought of the little surge of new activity in the oil business. Amazing what doubling the price of oil per barrel could do to lift spirits and hope. In West Texas, the price for a barrel of oil was far more important than the cost of a gallon of gasoline.
Soon the windmill in her chicken yard came into view. A few miles later, she came to the beginning of the Parker ranch and the fenced pastures holding grazing cattle with their freeze-dried Lazy P brands. By Texas standards, at roughly seventeen sections, the Lazy P wasn’t a big ranch. It wasn’t even the biggest ranch in Wacker County. But eleven thousand acres was still a heck of a lot of land to someone who had never owned more than a house on a city lot. Joanna wasn’t a jealous-hearted person, but she sometimes wondered how it would feel to own acres and acres of land.
On Sundays Joanna did chores such as making sure the feeders and waterers worked properly, and repairing the fence, roosts and nests. Since becoming an egg farmer, she had become adept with a hammer and saw and tools in general. She couldn’t complain about that. Who knew when those skills would come in handy somewhere besides the chicken yard? Since her dad’s passing, she hadn’t always been able to find some man to do those kinds of chores.
Often, when she arrived at the Parker ranch on Sunday mornings, she found Clova, who was a great cook, starting a big Sunday dinner. Much of the time Clova was the only one around to eat it, but the habit was so ingrained in her from years of cooking for ranch hands that she continued to do it. Joanna was often the beneficiary of the tradition and of Clova’s hospitality, and she looked forward to a delicious meal.
Joanna cooked poorly. Since her mother had never spent much time in the kitchen, Joanna and her sister hadn’t learned to be cooks in their youth like most young rural women. Thus, Joanna particularly enjoyed the aromas and ambience of Clova’s country kitchen. They represented a hominess missing from her life since the passing of her grandparents years back.
This morning, she caught Clova just leaving for the hospital in Lubbock. She was dressed in black Rockies and her new black lace-up Ropers. She had on a red long-sleeve snap-button shirt and heavy turquoise bracelets on each arm. Her long thick hair was held at the crown with a turquoise-inlaid barrette. She looked prettier than Joanna had seen her look in a long time.
After a good-bye, Joanna pulled on her work gloves and proceeded to gather the eggs, with Dulce clucking and scratching and pecking behind her. She gathered eight dozen eggs, finding only two cracked. This unusually large number pleased her immensely since the hens laid fewer eggs in the fall. If she could collect the same number in the evening’s gathering, that would mean she would have sixteen dozen eggs for the day. Not a record, but more than she had expected.
On the way back to the egg-processing room, she picked up Dulce and carried her along, talking and making clucking noises at her. Dulce was one of the few hens that would allow herself to be picked up and carried without squawking and making a racket. An Ameraucauna, she wasn’t as hysterical by nature as some of the Leghorns were. The white Leghorns might be the best layers, but they had been known to start a riot in the chicken yard.
Leaving the door open, she put the hen on the ground outside to peck for bugs and plants while she worked with the new eggs. Then she stepped into clean coveralls and set about washing the eggs. All alone, working at her chores, she experienced a taste of why Clova was so lonely. Except for the occasional low of a cow, the call of a bird or the noise she made herself, Joanna heard not a sound.
To keep her company, she switched on the old radio that stayed on a shelf above the sink. As she sang along with a Carrie Underwood number, she heard Dulce’s clarion call just outside the door. Joanna looked out and saw the hen hopping to the ground from a large clay pot that was filled with a dead plant. Behind her, in the center of the plant, lay a fresh blue egg.
Joanna laughed. “Dulce, you take the cake. You are such a good hen.”
Dulce continued to cluck and strut proudly.
Once the eggs had been washed and laid out to dry, she set about cleaning inside her room. Her operation wasn’t subject to inspection by the USDA, but that didn’t mean she gave cleanliness and sanitation short shrift.
By the time she finished cleaning, the washed eggs had dried. She packed them into tan cardboard cartons decorated with her logo, WALSH’S NATURALS, FARM-FRESH FREE-RANGE EGGS, and put them away in the refrigerator. As she did this, her thoughts drifted to Clova’s oldest son again. Because he hadn’t called her home number, she had checked her office voice mail this morning to see if he had left a message. Nothing.
Her cell phone chirped and she keyed in to the call. “Lanita’s here,” her mother said. “Darrell took the kids fishin’, so she drove down here to see us.”
Joanna’s older sister lived up in Lubbock. Her husband was a high school teacher and coach, and Lanita worked as a loan processor for a mortgage broker. She hadn’t been to Hatlow in a couple of months. “I’ll come over,” Joanna said. “Have y’all had lunch?”
“Not yet. We was thinkin’ ’bout gettin’ some burgers at the Sonic.”
Joanna grinned. One thing she could count on was that Mom hadn’t gone out of her way to prepare a Sunday dinner for company. “I’m just ready to leave here,” Joanna said. “I’ll stop by and pick some up.”
She took a couple dozen eggs from the cooler to give to her sister, then closed up everything and washed her hands with disinfecting soap. She drove back to town, stopped off at Sonic and bought burgers, French fries and onion rings, then drove to the small ranch-style house of tan brick where she and Lanita had spent the first part of their lives.
Inside, she found Lanita watching one of Mom’s John Wayne movies. To her surprise, their mother was ironing a shirt. After saying hello and hugging her sister, Joanna turned to Mom. “You’re ironing?”
“I got to have clothes to wear,” her mother replied. “Since I ain’t got nobody else to do it, I got to, bad as I hate it. I like wearin’ cotton. It’s still too hot for polyester.”
No way did Joanna intend to be conned into doing Mom’s ironing. She studied her mother for a few seconds. She couldn’t recall a time when she had seen her enjoy any part of housekeeping or cooking. Joanna often wondered just exactly what part of married life Mom had enjoyed. “Do you have tea brewed? I didn’t buy any.”
“I made sweet tea yesterday,” her mom answered. “It’s in the ’frigerator.”
Joanna went to the kitchen, wagging the Sonic sack with her.
“Be sure to wash that chicken crap off your hands,” her mother called behind her.
Lanita followed her into the kitchen, gigg
ling. “So how’s the egg farm?”
Joanna turned on the water in the stainless steel sink for yet another hand washing. Since becoming a chicken owner, she had become obsessive about it. “It’s okay. Not as profitable as I’d like, though. I brought you a couple dozen eggs.”
“Oh, thanks.” Lanita leaned her backside against the counter edge and crossed her arms. “If you aren’t making money, I can’t believe you’re still doing this, Joanna. What a lot of work.”
Joanna grinned, tore off some sheets of paper towel and dried her hands. “Tell me about it.”
“Are you dating anyone now?”
Uh-oh. That question usually meant Lanita had someone in mind for Joanna to date. Intending to block her big sister’s good intentions, she answered, “I’m through with men.”
Lanita made an exaggerated sigh. “I guess you might as well take that attitude. Who would you date in Hatlow, even if you wanted to? What happened to what’s his name from Lubbock?”
Joanna began to put away some of the dozens of items strewn over the countertop. “Scott Goodman? He moved to Fort Worth.”
“Did you break up with him?”
“You might say that.” Scott Goddman, a pharmaceutical salesman from Lubbock, was suave, good-looking and overcritical. Joanna had spent every weekend with him for six months, until she discovered he spent weekdays with someone else who lived in Lubbock.
“I didn’t like him dating someone in Lubbock while he was sleeping with me. I’m funny that way.”
Lanita sniggered. “It’s just as well. He’ll never be anything but a salesman. Some new guys have come in to help Darrell coach and—”
“Lanita, does Darrell think it’s part of his job description to force his unsuspecting staff to go out with his pitiful sister-in-law? That must be embarrassing.”
“That isn’t the way it is. They’re new in town. They don’t know anyone. You should enjoy the opportunity to get out and go somewhere.”
“Forget it, Sister. I’m not interested. I’ve got too much to do to put up with some demanding man. That let’s-get-acquainted dance is too much trouble. And I don’t even like football.”
Lanita heaved another sigh. “My God, Joanna. Have you looked in the mirror lately? You might still look great, but you’re thirty-five years old. You’re becoming an old maid.”
Joanna had heard herself referred as to an old maid so often, she felt as if it were tattooed across her forehead. The label had hurt her feelings when she had first heard it, but she had grown a hard shell and become immune to it.
Lanita was nearly a head shorter than Joanna. She’d had three kids and hadn’t lost extra pounds after any one of them. That and a soft office job put her on the pudgy side. Joanna wouldn’t hurt her feelings by mentioning any of that. But she did stop her task to give her sister an indignant glower. “I like who and what I am just fine, thank you.”
She turned to the cupboards, opened a door and found paper plates and large red plastic cups. Most people had some kind of china or pottery serving dishes in their cupboards, but not Alvadean Walsh. Joanna pulled down three of the paper plates.
“Let’s eat on real dishes,” Lanita said. “Me and the kids eat on paper plates all the time at home.”
“Mom decided dishes that have to be washed are too much trouble,” Joanna said.
Lanita frowned. “She’s got a dishwasher.”
Instead of replying, Joanna reached for three plastic cups and lined them up on the counter.
For the first time, Lanita looked at the cupboard contents. “So now she just has paper plates and plastic cups?” Lanita’s voice was laced with puzzlement and indignation.
“Afraid so. But she does vary the colors and patterns.”
Lanita rolled her big green eyes. She and Joanna both had their daddy’s eyes. “This is ridiculous,” she snapped.
Joanna chuckled. “It’s her house, Sister. She can do what she wants.”
“I don’t care. It’s still ridiculous. I suppose we’re going to have to eat with plastic forks, too.” She yanked open the drawer where stainless-steel flatware had always been kept and found nothing but white plastic.
Now Joanna’s chuckle evolved into a laugh. She had grown accustomed to her mother’s latest effort to avoid keeping house. “Hey, you know Mom. You don’t live here, remember? And neither do I. To each his own.”
“Where do you suppose she put all of the dishes we used to have?” Lanita asked.
“I think she packed them up and put them in the storeroom out back.”
“Why didn’t she give them to me? Or to you?”
“Well, of all the things I need, Sister, a set of cheap dishes isn’t one of them.”
“Well, I could use them. I don’t even have a whole set anymore. The only ones I ever had were what I got as a wedding present, and the kids have broken half of those.”
“I guess you could ask her for them,” Joanna said. “It won’t hurt my feelings. And I think I’d be safe in betting a million she isn’t going to use them.”
Lanita shook her head, pursing her mouth and not attempting to hide her annoyance. “Oh, not today. I don’t want to start something. I see the house is practically sparkling. At least she hasn’t give up cleaning the house.”
“That isn’t entirely true, either. A Mexican woman named Lupe comes in on Saturdays and cleans. So you caught it at its best.”
Lanita set the plastic utensils on the counter with a clack. “Mom has a maid?”
“Yep. Every Saturday.”
“That really pisses me off,” Lanita snapped, her eyes wide with ire. “I don’t have a maid myself, and I’ve got three kids. Why, Darrell and I have been sending her a hundred dollars every month because we thought she was having a hard time.”
Joanna knew about the monthly stipend. In some conversation at some point, Mom had let it slip. “Hmm,” Joanna said. “I think that’s about what the maid costs her.”
“I can’t believe this. I don’t know if I should even tell Darrell. We’ve kept the kids from doing some things so we could send money down here.” With jerky movements, she picked out three sets of plastic forks and knives. “A maid. My God. Our daddy would turn over in his grave.”
“Lanita, chill out. It’s what she wants to do. I doubt if Daddy would care. I’m sure he didn’t marry her for her housekeeping skills. For that matter, I’ll bet Darrell wouldn’t care, either.”
Joanna unwrapped the burgers and fries and onion rings and placed them on the paper plates, squeezed puddles of ketchup onto each plate, then filled the plastic cups with ice.
“Don’t pour tea for me,” Lanita said when Joanna dragged the pitcher of tea from the refrigerator. “That sweet stuff has too much sugar. And too many calories. I’ll just have water and lemon.” She crossed to the refrigerator and looked in. “Well, there’s no food. I suppose it would be too much to hope she would have a lemon.”
“Yep,” Joanna said. “Too much. If you don’t want sweet tea, looks like your other choice is plain water.” Joanna left her sister in front of the refrigerator, dug a cookie sheet from a drawer under the oven and arranged the three servings on it.
“I’m glad I don’t live around here anymore,” Lanita groused, closing the refrigerator door. She leveled a hard glare at the cookie sheet. “My God. That’s not a tray. It’s a cookie sheet. You mean she hasn’t disposed of the cooking utensils?”
“Could happen any day, I suspect.” Joanna carried their lunch toward the living room on the cookie sheet. “Set up one of those TV trays for me, okay?”
Lanita complied, unfolding two metal TV trays in front of the sofa and one in front of their mother’s chair. Mom didn’t eat at the dining table, either. It was covered with assorted beads, baubles and tools for her jewelry-making hobby. Joanna distributed the food and drinks and they settled in to watch the rest of the movie while they ate.
“You usually eat out to Clova’s on Sunday,” her mother said.
“She�
��s gone to Lubbock Memorial to visit Lane,” Joanna replied.
“Humph.” Her mother took a bite of her burger. “Looks like he survived after all.”
“I heard about his car wreck,” Lanita said. “You know, I barely remember him from when we were kids.”
“Well,” Mom put in, “he is nine years younger than you are, Sister.”
“Mom,” Joanna said, “Dalton Parker didn’t call after I left the shop yesterday, did he?”
“Why would Dalton Parker be calling you?” Lanita asked pointedly.
“Because I asked him to. I left him a message about Clova and the ranch.”
Mom dabbed a French fry into ketchup. “You might as well forget that, Joanna. He ain’t gonna call.”
“What is the deal with him? All of a sudden, he’s like this phantom out there that everyone’s speculating about. Why wouldn’t he call and show some concern for his brother and his mother?”
“My God, Joanna,” Lanita said. “He probably hates his parents. Don’t you remember him when we were kids? How he used to come to school black and blue?”
Joanna thought back but couldn’t remember that about him. She couldn’t even clearly remember exactly how he looked. “I guess I don’t.” Then she couldn’t keep from giving her big sister an evil grin. “But then, I wasn’t close to him like you were.”
Lanita ducked the piercing look and dipped a French fry in the mound of ketchup on her plate. “If it was nowadays, the school would have to report parents who treated their kid like Dalton’s mother and stepdaddy treated him. And Child Services would take him away from them and put him in some foster home.”
“What I remember mostly is that everyone thought he was cute,” Joanna said.
“Oh, he was more than cute. He was sooo hot. He filled out a pair of Levi’s in all the right places, if you know what I mean.”
