Stars Always Shine (4 page)

The ranch excited Rosa. It challenged her. It called to her. There was a myriad of mysterious smells, and they provoked her to explore each and every one. Her nose floated upward as she took periscopic whiffs of horse manure, cow manure, mildewing hay, the fresh scent of trees, and the dry smell of dust. Her coallike eyes, set deep in curly reddish fur, scanned the ranch as she breathed in the canine’s mother lode.

She was Mitch and Place’s only dependent. Before they married, they had peaceably agreed that they would have no children. In a way, they were still youthful and did not feel capable of molding the personality of another human being. So they agreed that animals would be as far as their parentage would extend, and Rosa was their first. The three traveled together up and down the state on camping trips, hikes in the mountains and woods, to Disneyland where there is a kennel, to rivers, lakes, and the ocean where they all jumped in and splashed about. But those outings were always too short and impermanent. And while Mitch practiced law, Place washed, brushed, and took Rosa to the vet, to the groomer, and to the park.

Once, Mitch and Place decided that Rosa should have her own family, so they bred her to a champion Airedale. Just exactly what he was a champion of was never clear, but he was beautiful and could pose like an Adonis. He sired five healthy pups who had purebred conformation. It was a trying pregnancy for Place, who made sure that Rosa was comfortable and well nourished during her gestation. But the addition of five terrier puppies drove Place to such vigilant nervousness that he decided that there would not be another litter after this one was sold. Rosa’s puppies did sell for impressive figures, and it made the puppy business appear lucrative, but it was frustrating living with them in a now cramped home and always looking for things like underwear, a belt or cap, or a favorite pen. The condition of motherhood soon evaporated from Rosa, and once again the family returned to a cohesive unit that could lie around the house and watch television without a smaller, more exploratory terrier chewing and teething on the leg of a chair or a shoe or an umbrella.

Rosa had not grown as a member of her human family as much as Mitch and Place had become members of her canine pack. Together, they were alpha, beta, and gamma dogs. And their bond had even inspired Place to write poetry. He worked sedulously one day creating an ode to his dog Rosa:

Of course others found the human and animal relationship a little strange, but Mitch and Place jokingly explained that they simply got along better with four-legged animals than with upright primates who spoke English. And they were grateful after a session of honest and earnest negotiating that Jacqueline and Mickey Kittle allowed them to have a pet on the sixty-acre ranch.

The transformation occurred in a flash. Rosa the condominium dog became Rosa the ranch dog in the time it took her to jump from the back of the moving pickup to pursue a flock of bobbing blackbirds who poked and jabbed at the lawn where hints of green remained. The birds flew away, squawking back mockingly at such effrontery.

Place and Mitch casually called Rosa, certain that their commands of “Rosa, come,” and her weeks of private puppy obedience school, where she earned her degree as a “Pawticularly Good Dog,” would cause her to decelerate and return immediately to the truck. But the gamma dog did not listen to her pack leaders. She ran down the dirt roadway continuing on to the stable barn and through it, and down to the sloping pastures that ended at Miwok Creek. She slinked flat through a gap between the earth and fence and ran in a serpentine fashion along and in the creek, chasing nothing but being grasped and pulled along by the allure and freedom of open, fragrant, authentic land.

B
efore Jacqueline and Mickey Kittle left StarRidge Ranch under the management of Mitch and Place, they discussed the job duties and wages. Place tried to pay attention, but he was distracted by the thought that Rosa had not returned to the ranch. His hours of searching for her had produced no wandering Airedale. He listened, but his mind was on his lost dog and not on his newfound home.

Mitch and Place would live in the big ranch house for one year. In addition, the couple would receive a modest check for working six days a week. In exchange, regular ranch chores had to be carried out. More specifically, the eighteen pastures had to be irrigated on a rotating schedule, but daily. The lawns had to be brought up to a satisfying green too. Barns had to be cleaned and operational, and as an immediate impression, the fence that encircled the entire property had to be painted to its original bright white, as did the shelters in each of the pastures. There were no horses to take care of, but Jacqueline promised that the first pasture tenants would be hers and Mickey’s horses and some other animals they owned. As soon as possible, they would open up the ranch as a boarding facility. While they discussed the game plan and guidelines, Mitch documented as much as she could by taking notes on a yellow legal pad.

Mitch wrote quickly, scribbling notes in the margins in addition to what Jacqueline Kittle had explained, ordered, and demanded: “Jacqueline is in charge,” and “Check with title company to see whose names are on the deed,” and “Mickey’s along for the ride—will stay on for as much as he can get out of the place and Jacqueline!” It had become clear to Mitch that the true owner of the ranch, in spite of whose names she might find on the deed, was Jacqueline. Mitch could see that Jacqueline was accustomed to being in charge; she owned things and that could include individuals in the arrangement that was Jacqueline Kittle’s private universe. That meant that eventually, when the markers were called in, people owed Jacqueline in many ways and with their hearts and souls, whatever it was that she felt made things even.

“We’re going to be here next week to see how things are going,” a smiling Jacqueline said. She had relaxed considerably now that she knew her ranch would be occupied and fixed up. But there remained a miasmic aura about her that she wore like a thin silk shroud. Her smile never broke into a clean, honest smile—the kind that brightens a face and sets the eyes like starlight. There was always something, perhaps from her history, that suppressed the upward turns of her mouth. With Jacqueline, one could reach out and seemingly palpate her disposition as if feeling a swatch of material. “But don’t worry, we won’t invade your precious home—just remember, if it wasn’t for us, you’d be out on the street, you know. We’re going to camp out in one of the barns. Stuff like that is easy for country folks like us. Now, I need Place to help me out with something. There’s a guy that lives in that shack, and I want you to tell him he has to be gone in three weeks.”

Place and Mitch were surprised, and they showed it as their expressions formed questions.

“You mean somebody is actually living in that house?” Mitch asked.

Place was puzzled. “Who is he?”

“He’s some Mexican,” Jacqueline replied. “When we bought this place, the owners told us that they wanted to let this guy stay on for another month until he found work someplace else. They said he was the best worker they had, even though he doesn’t speak any English. When this property was full of horses, it was a big thoroughbred ranch, and there were a lot of ranch hands who lived and worked here. I guess that was like a bunkhouse. You know, at one time, this ranch had almost two hundred horses on it!”

Mitch had heard about the reputation of StarRidge Ranch when it was Thundering Thoroughbreds Ranch. She also knew that the world of racehorses could be a cruel and expensive business. Eventually the cost of running such a facility caught up to and passed the owners, who sold out and fled just before creditors could claim their due. Of course, it was a hot item of discussion in the local horse world, and the “do-tell” and “you-don’t-say” talk was usually pretty reliable information.

Jacqueline continued, “They paid us for his rent, so we made a few dollars out of the deal. But we want him out of here as soon as his time’s up.”

“So you’re not thinking of keeping another hand on?” Mitch asked. “If he was good enough for the previous owners to care about, and good enough to stay on at what was once a major thoroughbred facility, he would probably be valuable to keep around for awhile. He knows the ranch better than any of us. And he could certainly help with the irrigation.”

“That’s a thought,” Mickey said. “We know we need to off twenty-five hundred gallons of water a day, but we really don’t know the irrigation pattern.”

“No. I just can’t pay another worker,” Jacqueline countered. “Mickey and me can help out on weekends. The four of us can run this ranch. We’ll just have to wing it for awhile. Just tell him to leave in three weeks.”

“Well, didn’t the previous owners tell him when he had to be gone?” Place asked.

“Yes, they did,” Jacqueline answered impatiently. “But I want you to tell him just to remind him. We’re going to remodel that place and rent it out. We need the extra income. Like I said, the guy can stay until his rent’s up, but we’ve got to get moving on bringing this entire ranch up to working condition. I can’t have no dead weight around here. I’m sorry if that sounds cruel, but business is business.”

Mitch and Place watched and relaxed as the flashy red pickup left them and StarRidge Ranch in quiet coexistence. They held each other’s waists as they turned and took in the panorama of their new home. At the end of Place’s circle of view, he was reminded of the message he had to deliver as the small, worn help house signaled to him.

“Well, you better go talk to the guy, honey,” Mitch said. “I’m going in to finish up the last bit of work I have left before I’m cut loose from the office and make arrangements to have the condo rented.” She was happy that she no longer would have to interpret the law and argue for issues that often conflicted with her own ethos.

“I hope he understands my Spanish,” Place said to himself as he walked to the house which he had always presumed was uninhabited and uninhabitable.

Place approached the house slowly. He was running various phrases of Spanish through his head to tune up for the conversation. He did not speak Spanish as often as he would like to. When he did meet someone who spoke that other language, he would try to start a conversation as best he could. But usually Place’s words became a bilingual salt and pepper seasoning that only worked with those like himself, those whose own minds tried to negotiate the rhythms and verb tenses of Spanish with an English that was inherently mezclado, all mixed up. He regretted that one of the sacrifices in advanced education, and in all formal education, was giving up that other language, and with it that other culture that periodically returned to him in singing medleys and rhythmic movements and laughing playfulness. Yet in his head, while meeting the demands of one who would be considered educated, he tried to assume the serious, impersonal, linear, and analytical tone of words that seemed to move around stiffly and awkwardly, unrestrained words that used up the entire dance floor of paper in twirling and rocking patterns and tried to polka when he needed them to waltz.

He understood Spanish much more than he spoke it. And when he did speak it, Place’s Spanish was a curious mixture of school-taught Castilian Spanish in which he always enrolled to earn an easy A; home-spoken Chicano Spanish mixed with English and using words from both languages to form the bicultural expressions with which he was most familiar; and a spicing of Argentinean Spanish that he picked up during his year as a vagabond in Central and South America, where he settled for six months when he had left the United States in his late teens because a girlfriend had broken up with him. At that time, he had sworn off American women and decided his heavy heart needed a change. Going south, he had reasoned, would be like returning to an archetypal home and mother.

He slowed his pace as he rehearsed his salutation and thought of the most tactful way to deliver his message. He looked down at the ground as he mumbled words and phrases, some of which did not sound right to him or sounded clumsy.

The front door was as closed as it could be as it hung from its frame. There were streaks of light at the top, bottom, and sides of the door where it did not close flush. Place knocked carefully, and the door swayed lightly in many directions.

A short, stout, dark man pulled the door in and staring at Place, jerked his head upward to ask with that gesture what his order of business was. His face was round, like a jack-o’-lantern’s and later when he smiled, Place would see that his teeth were just a little more substantial than the ones cut into a traditional jack-o’-lantern’s scary grin. His hair streaked forward and fell flat on his forehead as if an invisible cap smashed it down. His eyes were dark and big, like a frightened animal’s eyes, and the horizontal red lines that mapped the whites of them completed a ghastly and jaded expression.

Place studied him carefully. He looked at the man and saw more than his moon-round face. He saw the many faces of the weary field workers he had seen as a boy. It was that once familiar expression of futility that never quite defeated a person like this, but poked and prodded at him just enough to scratch a festering and cynical indifference toward life.

Place gulped slowly and began. “Buenas días. Cómo e—”

The big-eyed man interrupted him curtly to correct, “¡No! No es día, es tarde. Y no es buena con día, es bueno. Buenos días o buenas tardes.”