Stars Always Shine (14 page)

“Why?” Mitch asked.

“Why what?” Jacqueline giggled at such a silly question. “They’re our pets. In fact, we need to get them out of the stock trailer. But I don’t want them to be given any hay until the first of December. They can eat grass until then. The ducks are going to be put in the same pen with the donkeys. I don’t want too many pens to be used. The Mexican will have to rig up something over a pasture gate so the ducks don’t walk under it and get away.”

Mickey sauntered toward the ranch house as he swung his arms freely. “Ready to pasture the donkeys?” he called out to Jacqueline.

The couple walked toward the stock trailer. Mitch offered to help, but they informed her that they would manage nicely. Jacqueline stopped for a second and caught Mitch as she headed into the house.

“Say, Mitch, did you get another dog? I swore I heard two dogs barking when I knocked on your door.”

Mitch straddled the doorway, looked down at Rosa and Coquette, who wagged their short tails, and answered, “It must have been the television. I left it on.”

The three donkeys each were white with dark brown markings that ran straight along their backs and another brown stripe that crossed from shoulder to shoulder. They shuffled nervously in the trailer as Mickey backed it up to a pasture. As soon as he felt he was close enough, he stopped the truck and jumped out in a sprightly way. He opened the gate of the stock trailer and walked in. Mickey grappled with the animals as he tried to turn them out, and when one of the donkeys finally noticed the wide-open pasture he stepped out toward it. Mickey put his boot up to the animal and pushed at its rear end as he let out a harsh “Yaaa, get out of here, Joker!” The donkey bolted. But it bolted to its immediate right and through the donkey-wide gap between the gatepost and the trailer. The other two donkeys chose the same route, and the three ran wild and free throughout the ranch.

“Mickey!” Jacqueline screamed, “They’re getting away!”

Mickey watched as the three donkeys swirled around the property for a few excited minutes and then left StarRidge Ranch, running west on Sweet Wine Road.

“What are we going to do?” a shocked Jacqueline asked.

“I don’t know,” Mickey answered as he stood and watched the departing animals.

Mitch ran from the ranch house as if it were on fire. She hustled to her pickup and honked the horn frantically. Place looked up from the distant pasture in which he worked, and Salvador ran out of his small house holding a can of beer. In moments, Place and Salvador were listening to Mitch explain the logistics of how the donkeys would be herded back toward the ranch. Salvador and Mitch jumped into the truck and raced down Sweet Wine Road. Place was stationed at the entrance of the ranch so the donkeys would not run past him in the opposite direction. Mickey and Jacqueline walked slowly to where Place stood.

“What happened?” Place asked.

“Huh, oh, they got out,” Mickey answered ingenuously.

“Yeah, I can see that,” Place answered, his tone impatient. He looked at the couple curiously. Although Jacqueline seemed to be concerned, Mickey did not appear to be as alarmed compared to the urgency Mitch had shown. Maybe, Place thought, they were so alarmed that they were left mute with their mouths agape as they looked into the horizon of Sweet Wine Road.

Slowly Mitch drove the truck behind the three donkeys with both doors open to serve as shields that would discourage them from proceeding in the direction they had been when she had caught up to them. She took up the entire road as she snailed along, and hoped that no other vehicles would approach until they made it back to the ranch. Salvador walked in front of the truck waving a T-shirt like a switch. Occasionally, a fugitive donkey would look back at freedom, and Salvador would snap his T-shirt at it to keep it in line.

As they approached the ranch, Mitch yelled to Place and the ranch-owning couple to flap their arms out to their sides and direct the animals onto the property. Place flapped his arms like a fledgling, and Jacqueline waved her arms with the fluttering motion of an angel’s wings while more demonstratively shouting, “Yee haa!” Mickey, who had retrieved his rope while the trio of long-eared runaways were being herded back, spun his lasso in the air and let out short, sharp whistles as if he were on a cattle drive. As the procession turned onto the ranch, Mickey tried to lasso a donkey, and when he missed, he ran up to all three closely herded animals and whipped at them furiously with his rope; the donkeys scattered to different points on the property.

“Mickey! What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Mitch screamed at him, her body halfway out of the truck and her face blooming with red. “Place, close the main gates!” she ordered. “At least they’re on the property. Now we just need to try to get them in a pasture.”

Jacqueline ran up to Mitch and said threateningly, “Mitch, don’t you ever talk to my man like—”

“Shut up, Jacqueline!” Mitch lashed back. She walked up to Mickey and grabbed at his rope.

Mickey pulled back quickly, jerking Mitch toward him, and when he did, Place and Salvador ran up to Mitch’s side. They did not realize it as much as Jacqueline noticed it, but the two men had their fists clenched. Their looks and the taut silence revealed a readiness.

Mitch calmed down enough to let out a deep breath. She looked at the ground, and then at Mickey’s cowboy boots—up to his unworked, creased jeans, his big silver unearned belt buckle, and then directly into his eyes. “You know what, little cowboy,” she started, almost whispering, “If I ever see you whip at an animal again, I can promise you all hell will break loose. And if you want to try me now, go for it, Peter Pan.”

Mickey threw his rope down and walked toward the milk barn, his boots punching solidly into the ground with each step. Jacqueline followed him dutifully as Mitch, Place, and Salvador readied to capture one donkey at a time.

When they had secured the last donkey—due to the convenience and proximity of pasture gates, each was in its own pasture now—they walked back to the ranch house. From the milk barn, they could hear Mickey yelling violently, but they were not close enough to make out all of what he was screaming. They could hear emphasized words and phrases that gave them a better indication of what might be disturbing Mickey so. “That bitch … !” and “… humiliated me … !” and “… my ranch … !” and “… you didn’t even say anything … !” and “… you didn’t stand by my side … !” and then a bitter laugh and more, “… try to take my rope, will she … !”

On the deck, Mitch stood with her father’s old buck knife and cut Mickey’s rope into little phallic lengths. “I’ll get lunch in a minute,” she said, as a frustrated tear popped from her eye.

Mitch, Place, and Salvador sat quietly as they ate. Neither wanted to break the uneasy silence, so they paid close attention to their food.

Finally, Mitch looked at Place and said, “After lunch, I’ll go tell Jacqueline we’ll be gone by tonight.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Jacqueline said as she approached the table abruptly. “And you don’t have to leave. I want to apologize for what happened earlier, and Mickey and me would like to take both of you out to dinner tonight.”

“Jacqueline, I’m sorry too,” Mitch said. “And I appreciate your offer for dinner, but I’m just too tired. Place can go. Tell Mickey I’m sorry for blowing up out there.”

At dinner that evening, the conversation was focused on Mitch’s explosiveness. The Kittles pried and probed at Place, asking personal questions and making insensitive remarks. Place did not say much. He offered incomplete, vague answers. He wanted to tell the couple that they were not only crossing certain boundaries, they were virtually stomping on anything that might resemble a boundary. Did they really expect him to say derogatory things about the one person who had helped him through so much? The one person with whom he was truly parejo? They framed much of their discourse in light jokes to make their questions and comments seem more innocuous. Mickey joked that Jacqueline was his boss as Mitch was Place’s, but that Place didn’t seem to know how to get in good with his boss. Jacqueline added that Place must at times feel “emansculated” because of the way Mitch had to run things and Place simply did what he was told.

Place had encountered other couples like these two before—perhaps not as far out—but exhibiting some of the same clues. It was a strange dynamic, really. They would gang up on a poor, unsuspecting slob for their own self-satisfaction and degree of esteem, but alone, they were never quite as close to or fond of each other as the ganging up might have made them appear. One of Place and Mitch’s favorite pastimes was revealing to each other after a social gathering what one side said about the other. How one of the partners would express unhappiness about their marriage. How the other would say he was bored with the same sexual partner. How they seemed to be at such polar opposites, and that they were now opposites that no longer attracted if they indeed ever had. Place and Mitch wondered how and why these couples stayed together, and agreed eventually that romance and finance were intercurrent elements for many people.

When Place decided he had had enough and his anger seethed through his entire body, he took a long calming drink of his beer and started with his own questions.

“Do you ever go hunting with Mickey?” he asked Jacqueline and shot a villainous look at her husband, raising his eyebrows seductively.

“No. I don’t—” Jacqueline attempted before Place cut her off.

“Why not? You don’t like to hunt deer, dear?” Place laughed harshly while Mickey poked at his food.

“What’s wrong with you, Place?” Jacqueline asked. “We should’ve known better to let a Mexican drink too much firewater. They go nuts on you real quick. Maybe that’s what’s wrong with Mitch. It’s rubbing off.” Jacqueline laughed loudly and looked around to see if the other patrons had heard her. Mickey laughed uneasily and with little soul, and Place laughed at Mickey’s discomfort.

As a swarthy busboy cleared their table, Place studied his face. He wondered how legal the young man was. “¿Eres legal?” he asked him abruptly. “¿Trabajas muy duro?” Place added with a taunting tone. The dark man fumbled with the plates and glasses and allowed a bashful chuckle. Place thought about his own father, a constitutional illegal. As he drank from his beer, he remembered the day he walked out of his father’s home. Place would not accept his father’s apology for drinking too much and causing yet another violent event in the home. His father pleaded for forgiveness, explaining that he was sick and needed help, but Place did not listen. He did not stay, and he never returned.

The next day, Place and Mickey started working on the milk barn. Place, despite his lingering anger, was impressed with Mickey’s ability. He had drawn a plan of what the new milk barn/apartment would look like, and early that morning Mickey explained the blueprint. The bottom floor would contain a small living room, a kitchen, and an office. The grain chutes that ran from the top floor and down to where decades prior milk cows had stood to eat would be dismantled and removed. The upper floor would be stabilized with railroad ties that maintained a rustic look, and the upstairs would become a master bedroom complete with a tub big enough for two and a four-stool bar in one of the corners. Mickey even planned to attach a small balcony—also big enough for two—off one side of the master bedroom. From that balcony the purview of the entire ranch could be captured.

Place was also impressed with Mickey’s patience in explaining how the project would unfold. Previous experience of working on construction sites had taught Place that one could only learn by being yelled at, and his disposition was too sensitive for yelling. They worked diligently, and on a couple of evenings after a long work day, Mitch and Place could hear Mickey hammering and sawing into the night.

“I wonder what happened,” Place said as he and Mitch lay in bed listening to the busy hammering. “Jacqueline must have made a few things clear to the boy before she left. I didn’t think he could work like that.”

“Yeah, I’m surprised myself,” Mitch said. “And it looks like he knows what he’s doing.”

“Oh, he does,” Place said without hesitating. “The guy knows building. He’s just kind of short with a lot of other things.”

“Did he buy the story about Coquette?” Mitch asked.

“Easily,” Place replied. “He didn’t even flinch when I told him she was Salvador’s pup and he would be taking her with him when he left next week. But now that he’s staying, it’s reasonable that the pup should stay with him. He agreed. I’m just wondering what Jacqueline will say when she comes back.”

Salvador continued to work on the ranch with his persistent enthusiasm. He finished painting the fences and he worked devotedly on the hoses that burst with more regularity each day. He once again had a place in the world—a place on this ranch, even though he understood his position was on a monthly basis. In a sense, he had experienced two lives on the same ranch: an illegal one and a legal one.

Having a green card made Salvador a much more social being. A couple of times during the week, he visited the Boot Hill Bar and danced and drank with an ease he had never felt before. He would ride his bicycle home when his revelry was over, and he was dependable in waking up early to begin his ranch duties.