Between Heaven and Texas (22 page)

After a long silence, she turned around to face him.

“The thing is,” she repeated in a steadier tone, “I didn't tell Jack Benny yes when he proposed that second time, not right off. I told him I'd think about it.

“And what I kept thinking was, if we'd gotten married right away, like you wanted to, instead of waiting until you got back from Vietnam, maybe things would have turned out different. Maybe we'd have been happy, if not forever, at least for a while, even if it had only been for a few months, or a few weeks, or a few days. Or one. It would have been worth it. Even a day with you would have been something to hold on to, something more than the misery I've been left with all because I'd insisted on waiting for the perfect time. And so I said yes.

“Because I figured that something was better than nothing and because I knew that the perfect time had already slipped past me. And because I hoped that Jack Benny might turn out to be better than I thought he was. I hoped he might turn out to be like you, at least a little bit. But that was just . . .”

She sighed and pushed one hand up under her hair, rubbing her scalp and then letting her hand drift down to rest on her neck.

“It was wishful thinking, I guess. But I thought . . . well, it doesn't matter what I thought now, Graydon. It's done, and I did it to myself. And you too, though I didn't know it at the time. For what it's worth, I'm sorry. For both of us.”

He looked down at the dirt floor and hooked his thumbs in the pockets of his jeans. It was the only way he could keep himself from touching her.

After a moment, Lydia Dale closed her hand into a fist, tapped on the doorjamb a couple of times, and said, “I'd better leave you to finish your supper.”

When she was gone, Graydon sat back down at his makeshift table and began eating but pushed the plate away after a few minutes. His appetite was gone.

He got up, crossed to the corner of the room, and started pulling the horse blankets off the old trunk. Responsibilities or not, he needed a drink. But before he could open the bottle, he was interrupted by the sound of footsteps running into the barn and Lydia Dale's voice, high-pitched and a little frantic.

“Graydon! Graydon, you'd better come out here!”

C
HAPTER 37

M
ary Dell started laying on the horn as soon as she drove through the gate and across the cattle guard. She pulled up to the house in a cloud of dust, jammed on the parking brake, and hit the horn again.

Taffy, her hands covered with flour from the piecrust she'd been rolling out, ran out onto the porch. “What in the Sam Hill are you honking like that for? You like to give me a heart attack!”

Mary Dell jumped out of the car and, without bothering to answer her mother's question, shouted, “Where's Lydia Dale?”

“She went to the barn to bring Graydon his supper. Don't know what's taking her so long; she's been gone close to an hour.”

Mary Dell unstrapped Howard from his car seat and thrust him into Taffy's arms. “Here, take the baby inside and watch him, will you? I need to talk to Lydia Dale.”

Taffy took her grandson into her arms, her expression a mixture of confusion and fear. “Why? What happened? Is something wrong?”

“Nothing's wrong,” she called out. “I'll be right back.”

Mary Dell ran toward the barn. Her purse thumped against her hip as she ran. Her big bosoms bounced so vigorously that they threatened to bust the rhinestone buttons on her favorite pink cheetah cowgirl shirt. Her hair, however, which had been teased and sprayed into immobility earlier that day, remained perfectly coiffed. But Mary Dell paid no mind to any of this. The only thing she cared about was finding her sister and telling her what had happened at Waterson's.

Lydia Dale wasn't in the barn or the tack room. Neither was Graydon, though the remains of his half-eaten dinner still sat on the apple crate where he'd left it. Mary Dell went outside again, hooting Lydia Dale's name.

After a second, she heard Graydon's voice echoing back, shouting for her. She ran around the west side of the barn and, coming around the corner, saw that lambing season was definitely upon them. She spotted three ewes lying down, panting and bleating as they labored to bring their offspring into the world.

Mary Dell had seen this before, but it was still kind of amazing to see how, once one ewe went into labor, the others quickly followed suit. Most of the ewes delivered on their own without any need for human intervention or assistance, but a small percentage needed help, and when you had as many sheep as the F-Bar-T did, that small percentage could add up. It was going to be a busy few weeks for Graydon and the hands. And apparently, Mary Dell realized as she jogged toward the far end of the sheepfold, for her sister too.

Because she'd spent so much of her childhood either rehearsing for or competing in pageants, Lydia Dale had never spent much time working on the ranch or with the stock, not like Mary Dell had. And because she had lived in town after her marriage to Jack Benny, she'd never been around during lambing season. But there she was, kneeling on the ground next to a laboring ewe with a huge abdomen that was obviously in trouble. She looked a little frightened but was doing her best to keep the mother still while Graydon, who was kneeling at the business end of the ewe, tried to assess the situation. His right sleeve was rolled past his bicep and his arm up to the elbow was inside the sheep, his eyes screwed shut as he tried to feel for the placement of the unborn lamb inside.

When Mary Dell approached, he opened his eyes. “Have you got a hair ribbon? Shoelaces? Anything I can tie around the legs to help pull it out? We've got triplets in here and they aren't in a good position.”

Mary Dell looked down at her feet. “I'm wearing boots. Should I run back to the house and get some twine?”

“Yes,” he said, closing his eyes again as he tried to sort out the tangle of legs. “I don't think we have much time.”

Mary Dell started to run to the house but stopped short just a few yards away.

“Wait a minute!” she cried and reached into her purse, pulling out the bag from Waterson's and the pickle-green paisley she'd just purchased. “Could this work?”

Without waiting for an answer, Mary Dell put the edge of the fabric between her teeth, bit through the selvage, and began ripping the cotton into strips.

“Give 'em here!” Graydon barked. “Hurry!”

Graydon took his arm out of the sheep but only for as long as it took to tie slipknots into two of the green strips. He looped the fabric rope around the front legs of the lamb he hoped was in the best position for birthing and pulled his arm out again.

“All right,” he said, looking at Lydia Dale, “put your hand on her stomach. Tell me when the next contraction starts. When it does, I'm going to try to pull the lamb out. Tell me when it's time. Ready?”

Lydia Dale nodded and laid her hand flat on the ewe's abdomen, her face a mask of concentration. After a few seconds she said, “Hold on. I think . . . I think maybe . . .”

“You think or you know?” Graydon barked. “Which is it?”

“Hang on a second!” Lydia Dale snapped. “Wait. Yes! She's having a contraction! Go!”

Graydon started pulling on the green strips firmly enough to coax the lamb into the birth canal, but gently enough so he wouldn't run the risk of breaking its legs. Three contractions later, the first lamb was out.

Mary Dell and Lydia Dale cheered, but Graydon shushed them and began issuing orders, making it clear there was still work to be done. Another healthy lamb was born a few minutes later, but the third, which had been in a breech position, was stillborn.

Lydia Dale's eyes filled with tears. She laid her hand on the woolly head of the stillborn lamb. “Poor little thing. I wish we could have saved it. I wish I'd called you quicker.”

Graydon pushed himself up from the ground, wiped the dirt from his jeans, and settled his hat low on his head.

“You know, not every bad thing that happens is your fault, Lydia Dale. You did fine.”

C
HAPTER 38

I
t turned out to be a long night. By morning, the animal population of the F-Bar-T had increased by nine frisky, healthy lambs. The human population was looking decidedly wilted when they gathered in the kitchen for breakfast the next morning. It was the first time Graydon ate with the family. They had business to discuss.

They'd done well, Graydon said, having lost only one more lamb, and that one, he felt, had probably perished in the womb prior to the onset of labor. However, there would be many more nights like this to come, and they were shorthanded.

“Well, we wouldn't
be
shorthanded if you hadn't fired two of our hired men,” Taffy snapped as she slid three fried eggs off a cast-iron skillet and onto Graydon's plate.

“The timing wasn't great,” Graydon said as he reached for a bottle of Tabasco sauce and decorated his breakfast with several generous red dashes. “But if I had it to do over again, I would.”

Dutch poured himself another cup of coffee. “Ikey and Pete always were more trouble than they were worth,” he said. “Moises is a good man, and I'll pitch in as best I can, but bottom line, we need more help.”

Graydon slurped his coffee. “I know. We need at least a couple of teams of workers, three on a shift, who'll be on call every other night.”

Graydon yawned. “First thing after breakfast I'm fixin' to drive into town and see what I can scare up. Figured I'd post a notice on the bulletin board outside the Tidee-Mart, then go and talk to Lester over at the feed store and see if he's heard tell of anybody looking for work.”

Dutch made a sucking sound with his teeth and shook his head to convey his doubts. “Gonna be slim pickings.”

“Maybe I can find a couple of high school boys. If they're strong and willing to work, I can teach 'em the rest.”

Lydia Dale, who had been sitting at the table listening to this exchange while giving Rob Lee a bottle of water, frowned and set the now-empty baby bottle on the table.

“Why hire a couple of kids when Mary Dell and I are sitting right here?”

Graydon glanced up from his coffee and smiled at her, but it was an indulgent smile, the sort of smile a parent gives to an earnest preschooler who has just announced her intention to dig a hole to China using a soup spoon.

“It'd be too much for you.”

Mary Dell, who was holding a sleeping Howard in her arms, gazing at his sweet little face and, therefore, not listening all that closely until now, tuned in when she heard the slightly patronizing tone in Graydon's voice. It was the same tone Mr. Waterson had used when he said “good-bye, honey,” using an endearment not because he felt endeared to her but because he wanted to let her know how darned cute he thought she was, and how neither he nor anyone else would ever take her seriously. It was the same tone the bank president had used later in the day, when he told her that teaching a few quilting classes for a handful of ladies in her trailer was not adequate training for owning her own business, and that having a good idea wasn't the same as having a business plan and did not qualify her to take out a loan.

Dutch wasn't like that. Her father wasn't ambitious for himself, but he'd always supported her, made her feel important and capable. But he seemed to be an exception to the general inclinations of his sex. What was it about most men? Were they born knowing how to use that tone to make a woman feel foolish and inconsequential even while they professed to have her best interests at heart? Or did they pick it up somehow from their fathers and older brothers?

Donny knew that tone well and had adopted it whenever she'd broached the topic of working outside the home. Back then, especially in the early days of their marriage, she'd thought his insistence on being the sole breadwinner was sort of sweet, a sign of his love and desire to protect her, but now she saw those conversations in a different light.

If Donny hadn't been so dead set against her working, if he had protected her a little less and encouraged her a little more, maybe she would be capable of running her own business, maybe she'd qualify for a bank loan. Maybe a lot of things. But one thing was sure, and it was that Mary Dell was sick and tired of men telling her what she could and couldn't do.

“This is our ranch,” Mary Dell said. “Who's going to look out for it better than we will? You didn't think it was too much for us last night. We helped you deliver one set of triplets and two sets of twins. And, I might add,
we
did it with style,” she said, pulling her shoulders back. “Whereas you look like fifty miles of bad road.”

Graydon lifted his cup in a salutatory gesture.

“Mary Dell, I'm the last man on earth who'd fail to give beauty its due,” he said, glancing quickly toward Lydia Dale. “And I was grateful for your help, but that was
one
night. This is going to go on for weeks. It'd be too much for you,” he repeated flatly, as though this statement trumped all others.

Mary Dell was ready to continue the argument but was interrupted by the sound of footsteps on the kitchen porch and a chorus of yoo-hooing. The door opened and Silky walked inside, beaming and carrying a big glass bowl covered with plastic wrap, with Velvet right on her heels.

“Hail! Hail! The gang's all here!” Silky chirped as she scanned the circle of faces. She set the bowl down on the table directly in front of Graydon.

“Here you go, young man. I hear you've got a weakness for ambrosia.”

“Not especially,” Graydon responded, causing the old woman's expression to crease into a frown as she watched him scoop out a big spoonful of the creamy concoction and put it onto his plate. “Not until I tasted yours, Miss Silky.”

Silky, charmed by his gallantry, smiled again.

“Aren't you the smooth one? If it gets any deeper in here, we'll need boots and a shovel.” She and Velvet pulled up chairs and joined the others around the table.

“We saw some of the new lambs when we drove up. Guess you're going to be pretty busy around here for a while. Better eat all that,” Silky said, nodding toward the bowl. “You're going to have to keep your strength up.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Graydon replied dutifully and began to eat.

Aunt Velvet took the empty cup Taffy offered her and reached for the coffeepot. “What were you all talking about just before we came in? Sounded a little heated.” Velvet frowned quizzically. “Something about something being too much for somebody? Too much what? And for whom?”

“For Mary Dell and Lydia Dale,” Graydon said. “They helped bring the lambs last night, but they can't keep it up through the rest of the season.”

“Why not?” Silky asked.

“Because,” Graydon said slowly, not quite able to conceal his impatience with this subject, “ranch work is man's work.”

Silky's eyebrows arched and she pulled herself up, ramrod straight, in her chair.

“Man's work? Never heard of it. Unless you're talking about fertilizing eggs or peeing standing up, there isn't anything a man can do that a woman can't do just as well. Man's work indeed,” she grumbled. “Give me that!”

Silky grabbed Graydon's spoon right out of his hand and brandished it at him like an admonishing finger, flicking bits of whipped cream off the end as she lectured him.

“After my husband died, I ran this whole place on my own. Did right well too! I had some hired men; you have to on a spread this big. But they didn't do anything I couldn't and didn't do myself. Back when I was in charge of the F-Bar-T, I rode fences, fed stock, dosed sick cattle, rounded up herds, and branded calves.

“When the occasion called for it, I even castrated bulls. And I still remember how to do it,” she said, narrowing her left eye into a laser-sharp glare and poking the spoon menacingly in Graydon's direction. “So don't you go talking to me about ‘man's work'!”

“Pardon me, Miss Silky,” Graydon said, clearing his throat. “I didn't mean to offend you. I just figured your granddaughters would be too busy, what with the babies and all. I'm going to find some hired men to help out for the rest of the season.”

“At this time of year?” She balked. “Everybody in the county needs help now. The only hands left are little boys, sluggards, and drunks. Why don't you use the girls to help on the ranch and hire somebody to take care of the babies?”

Taffy, who was standing at the sink scraping bacon grease from the skillet into a tin can, said, “That's ridiculous. Why should we hire a babysitter? I can take care of the children. Dutch can help me. If he can get Cady and Jeb off to school in the mornings and keep an eye on them after, I can take care of the babies.”

“Oh . . . well,” Mary Dell said hesitantly, “that's sweet of you, Momma, but it'd be an awful lot to manage. I mean, they're so little. And there are two of them.”

Taffy wiped her hands on a dish towel. “Well, it wouldn't be the first time. You are twins, remember? I did all right raising the two of you, didn't I?”

Taffy paused, waiting for some sort of acknowledgment. When none was immediately forthcoming, she put her hands on her hips and turned to face her daughter.

“Now, look here, Mary Dell. If you think I'm not capable of taking care of Howard, you're wrong. I've been watching what you do with him, all that exercise and massage and whatnot. I can do it just as well as you. If it'd make you feel better, you can write down a list of instructions. Maybe I'm not as bright as you, but I
know
how to take care of a baby.

“You're always saying how you want everybody to treat Howard like any other child. Well, why don't you start doing the same? Lydia Dale leaves Rob Lee with me all the time, and he's no worse off for it,” Taffy said, gesturing toward the bright-eyed Rob Lee, who gurgled happily when he caught sight of her face. “Until yesterday, you've hardly even let me hold that child! Howard is my grandbaby. Who is going to take care of him better than I can?”

Mary Dell pressed her lips together nervously. Her own words had come back to haunt her. No hired man would work as hard or long to care for their ranch as she and her sister would. And especially after what Dr. Nystrom had told her about Taffy making an appointment so she could learn about Down syndrome, Mary Dell knew no babysitter would care for Howard the way his own grandmother would. Familial love and loyalty was one of those things that money couldn't buy.

Even so, she didn't want to leave her baby in the care of anyone else, not even her mother. She didn't want to be parted from him even for a minute. As badly as she had longed for a baby of her own for all those many years, she couldn't have anticipated how much she would love her Howard.

Somewhere in the Bible, Mary Dell remembered a verse that spoke of “love that surpasses knowledge.” Until Howard came into her life, such knowledge
had
been beyond her grasp, but now she thought she understood, at least a little. Motherhood had taught her so much, including that she was smarter, tougher, and more resilient than she had believed.

She thought about the day Howard was born, how overwhelmed she'd felt, and remembered what young Dr. Tibbets had told her. . ..

She didn't want to be separated from her baby even for a minute or a day, but she had to lead by example. She had to take care of her family. And she had to show Howard how not to take no for an answer. She had something to prove, to herself, but especially to her son.

Mary Dell had not answered Taffy's question. She'd been lost in her thoughts, but no one else knew that. To the rest of them, it looked like she simply refused to speak to her mother. The silence was uncomfortable.

Graydon wiped his mouth, placed the crumpled paper napkin on his plate, and got up from the table.

“Well, I'm sure you'd do a fine job taking care of the babies, Miss Taffy, but I'm the ranch manager, and I say that working the whole lambing season would just be too much for the ladies. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go to town and hire some hands.”

“Sit down,” Mary Dell said, pointing from Graydon to the chair. “Finish your coffee. I'm not authorizing you to hire anybody. You might be the ranch manager, but I'm the owner, and I say that we're going to get by with the hands we have right here.”

Graydon crossed his arms over his chest. “That right? Well, you're not the only owner. Your sister holds half the deed. Maybe she agrees with me.”

All eyes were on Lydia Dale. She glanced quickly toward Graydon and then to her sister.

“Are you sure, Mary Dell? I don't want to let anybody down or hold them back. Do you really think we'll be able to keep up with the men?”

“Of course we will,” Mary Dell assured her. “You know what they said about Ginger Rogers, don't you? She did everything that Fred Astaire did, only backward and in high heels.”