Stars Always Shine (9 page)

“You know, Mitch, sometimes you have to kick some butt to get people to understand what you’re all about,” Jacqueline said.

“You sure do,” Mitch responded, “especially if they need it.” She imagined what it would be like if Jacqueline could kick herself in the rear with the point of her own flashy boot. The more Mitch stared at Jacqueline, the more she noticed a glazed look in her eyes. She noticed too that Jacqueline wavered a little as she spoke, and the sour scent of wine floated from her breath.

Jacqueline handed Mitch five pages of scrawled instructions and before departing, expressed that she hoped to see more progress by the end of the next week. Mitch watched as the showy truck paraded off the ranch, and slowly she read Jacqueline’s instructions:

Mitch thought about how tactful she would have to be with Place when she informed him of the list of chores. She continued reading the rest of the pages, which contained largely a verbose thesis on the troubles and turmoil of owning a ranch and how “other people seem to have a hard time understanding ranch life.” As the stars began to pop into the dusky evening sky, Mitch also thought that she and Place would leave StarRidge Ranch much sooner than they had anticipated. As she turned from the railing of the deck to go inside, she noticed Salvador standing at one end of the deck.

“Buenas noches, Señora Moreno. ¿Qué tal?”

“Buenas noches, Salvador. How are you?” Mitch replied.

“Fine. Can I please talking to Señor Moreno?” he asked. His mouth was straight, and his eyes drooped into a lonely sadness.

“I think Plácido is asleep,” Mitch said, and she held her hands together and up to the side of her face to show him sleep.

“Oh, durmiendo,” he said. “Tal vez mañana I talk with him.”

From the opposite end of the deck, Place emerged. “I’m not asleep,” he said as he looked at Mitch and then down at the pages of instructions she held loosely. He kissed her quickly and said, “I’m going to talk to Salvador. I’ll be in in awhile. Can you bring us a couple of beers, honey?”

The two men sat at the picnic table. Salvador glided his thumb along the sides of his beer can as if wiping it dry of the condensation. Place looked up at the stars, which appeared to him to be brighter in the unlit countryside. A few crickets clicked rhythmically, and the rural smells were sweetened a little by the cool night air.

“Esa vieja es una bruja,” Place said, breaking the contemplative silence and commenting on Jacqueline’s witchy ways.

“¿Quién, la dueña?” Salvador asked.

“Sí,” Place answered. “Y no sé por qué.”

“Bueno,” Salvador began, “Hay mucha gente que tiene todo en el mundo pero todavía están preocupados o tristes o no más son gente mala. Y solamente Dios sabe por qué.” He hesitated to allow Place a few seconds to consider his ideas on the mysteries of humans that only God could explain. Looking up at the star-dotted sky, Salvador thought about what he wanted to request of Place. He stared at his friend, and with a hushed desperation said, “Escúchame, cuate. Necesito hablar contigo de una cosa.”

Place looked at Salvador and wondered what was wrong. “What happened? ¿Qué pasó?” he asked, his face and voice exhibiting expressions and tones of concern.

“Por favor, Plácido,” he said, “¿Puedes ayudarme? Quiero ser legal. Quiero ser americano como tú.”

T
he side-slashed cat’s eyes gradually began to brighten. Through days of plentiful sleep, rich chunks of tuna laced with powdered vitamin C, liquid children’s aspirin, and therapeutic pampering, Gatita grew stronger and stronger—so much so that Mitch and Place were convinced that she would live, and they told Salvador that he would be able to take her home soon. Her long wound had healed nicely, although the fur was distinctly more sparse where the gash had been, and there was a noticeable fault line forever embedded under her coat. The starburst puncture on the opposite side had puckered into a hairless crater. Gatita’s curiosity, that nocturnal stimulant that had led her to the skulking darkness of Miwok Creek, was retuned, and she was now much more selective as she showed little desire to venture outdoors.

When Mitch determined that she was healed enough to breathe fresher air, she carefully picked Gatita up and placed her on the deck just outside the washroom which had also served as an infirmary. The cat took a couple of test whiffs, looked around, and focused familiarly on Salvador’s figure as he stood at the end of the deck. She looked past him and stared for frozen moments at the far fences that bordered Miwok creek. On the lawn, some blackbirds squawked and squabbled, and Gatita hunched low as her eyes grew big and filled with a frantic dread. Salvador laughed, and she darted back inside to her thick, safe blanket.

The following days, her curiosity greatly realigned, provoked Gatita now to inspect her new surroundings in the ranch house. She walked cautiously from room to room, and in her motion each step was slow with suspicion. She carefully looked behind, inside, under, and around things. She noticed the living room windows with their cathedral-like radiance that let in inviting waves of sunlight, and she found a home-sweet-home spot of satisfaction on the sun-splashed windowsills. Whenever Mitch or Place tried to pick her up, she would scamper back to her primary spot under the washroom sink—unless of course, she was tempted with tantalizing promises of tuna. Eventually, the wary cat discovered other favorite spots—under the bed and behind the couch—and they protected her from things that haunted her memory.

Whenever Rosa sauntered by one of those spots, Gatita would reach out a paw and slap and jab at the dog’s legs. Often, when Rosa reclined on the couch or in the sunshine streaming through a window, the feline found cozy company sleeping beside the terrier.

“Well, she seems to be quite at home here,” Mitch said one evening as she and Place squatted and tried to coax the animal from her washroom.

“She seldom comes out from that little den you’ve set up for her,” Place replied. “And she won’t let us pick her up. That’s a true sign that she’s comfortable. Cats are like that, anyway. I think she should go back to Salvador’s house.”

Mitch agreed. “Tell him tomorrow he should set her up a spot at his house and he can start taking care of her. I want him to take her blanket too. It gives her a sense of place.”

“Okay,” he said, “I hope she doesn’t think this is her home now. She didn’t seem to recognize Salvador the other day. Or to even care.”

“Well,” Mitch said, “she probably still remembers that attack. Salvador thinks it was an owl that got her?”

“Yeah, he says there’s a barn owl that lives in the hay barn,” Place answered. “He says you can hear it screeching at night when it goes out looking for food.”

“I thought I heard something like that the other night,” Mitch said. “I guess they would be competing for the same prey.”

Rosa and Gatita became close companions. The ranch dog that had rescued her from the clutches of a taloned beast in a murky and dank land now enjoyed the fenced and orderly range of the more domesticated outdoors. She stayed close to the ranch and seldom showed an interest in Miwok Creek. Her morning was filled with following Place out to the pastures as he readied the irrigation hoses. When Gatita eventually recuperated she restricted her activity to daytime events, and occasionally Rosa would notice the crouching and sneaky cat lurking about in one of the barns. A sporting chase became a daily ritual; a dog chore, and something that made the day seem more productive for both.

On the day that Salvador was to take his cat home, he fixed up a corner in his bedroom just as Mitch had arranged the spot under the washroom sink. He was excited about getting Gatita back. He took the beer can from the window, closed it as tightly as it would shut, and made sure that other windows were secured. When Mitch let Salvador into the washroom from the deck, Gatita was taking a long, luxurious drink of water.

The reaction from both was melodramatic.

“¡Gatita!” Salvador exclaimed, happy to see her looking better than how he had last remembered. She stared for moments with her head lowered and her body stiff. Cautiously, she shot stilettos of puncturing glowers, seeming to recognize Salvador only as an intruder. She hissed and worked a guttural shriek in her throat that sounded like a baby crying in the distance. Salvador kneeled down and slowly reached out for the cat. From behind him, Rosa gingerly lunged forward and Gatita sprang for the ceiling. Before she landed, Rosa shot under her, through the washroom, and into the greater vicinity of the home. In the sudden confusion of activity, Gatita pinballed throughout the house. Mitch and Place ran to open each door and yelled for Salvador to throw some windows open and take the screens off them.

They chased the panicked Gatita toward the opened front door, where she was met by a helpful Rosa, which turned the cat back through the house. At the entrance to the washroom, Gatita was greeted by Salvador, who jumped in front of her and bent down to snatch her from her careening. As Gatita flew down the hallway and into a bedroom, she leaped through a widely opened window, taking out the flimsy screen, and without hesitation, Rosa the ranch dog followed.

Mitch, Place, and Salvador ran to the back deck, and there they watched as the startled cat, followed by the tail-wagging dog, ran past pastures and into the stall barn. Salvador ran after them and when he arrived at the barn, he found Rosa eagerly yapping at the bottom half of a closed Dutch door. Cautiously, he stepped into the quiet stall as his eyes scanned the dark corners and silent rafters. Rosa crept in softly behind him, sniffing suspiciously at old straw.

In the cozy personalized space of Salvador’s bedroom, Gatita slowly stretched, extending her claws and hooking them into her familiar pasture of blanket. She yawned widely and lazily, and nestled deeper into the nest of her wool padding for a much-needed afternoon nap.

W
hen he woke up early Monday morning, Place could feel the stiffness and soreness in his joints and muscles. His lower back stung with rigid pain, and his legs were heavy and tight.

“I think I know what the tin man felt like in the
Wizard of Oz
when he squeaked for his oil can. My body feels rusted,” Place said as he sat at the kitchen table staring into the blackness of his coffee and then looking out at the darkness of the early morning. “I should at least be able to sleep until the sun comes up,” he grumbled.

“I’ll give you a nice massage tonight, honey,” Mitch said, sitting at the table across from him with her notes and lists of people to call and things to do scattered in front of her. “This morning I’m going to the feed store to buy a balling gun and some hay. Salvador and I can take care of those calves now that the owners are gone. But aside from that, we agreed that this week you’re not going to let him help you, right?”

“Yes, dear. I am not going to let Salvador help me, right,” Place answered in a robotic monotone. He sat back in his chair and stared through Mitch as the dopiness of sleep lingered in his body.

“Well, honey, it will be better that way. Next week when Roy Rogers and Dale Evans come up, they can see how much work doesn’t get done with only one person doing everything. They’re going to learn the hard way, or they won’t learn at all. We can play their game for a little while—I’m going to get us out of here sooner than we planned. But I’m hoping some realization and rationale pop into their limited minds in the meantime.”

“They’re like beasts that lack discourse of reason,” Place replied. “I think Hamlet said something like that.”

Place walked to the pastures slowly, feeling only a little better that his time on StarRidge Ranch would end sooner than he expected. But he was disappointed too in how things were developing. In some bizarre way, he felt cheated. Lied to. He and Mitch had seen the Kittles’ ad in
Barn News
, the local equestrian magazine, and it had sounded like the perfect situation. With all of Mitch’s experience and Place’s willingness, they had long, honest discussions of what would be required of them. The ad was a simple one, stating only:

Mitch and Place decided this was something they could do. They did not expect that the relationship with the Kittles would be a stressful one; that’s why country life was what it was—not stressful. Place chuckled to himself as he thought that the ad should have read “Ability to work with
owners
a must.” They reasoned that if they did their work, that would earn respect and a sense of satisfaction from anybody. He knew it worked that way when he was a field worker. But now, after only being on the ranch a little more than a week, Place wanted to go home. Mitch agreed, although she possessed a willingness to exhibit a little more patience; she had a little more faith left. In addition, she mounted her defense for the times that patience and faith would not carry her through with Jacqueline and Mickey.

There was the vagueness to the ad that Mitch planned to use in her next discussion with Jacqueline and Mickey should they continue to express displeasure at the amount of work that was accomplished in one week’s time. Place was doing more than “some ranch work” that was required. If anything, a definition of the word “some” would have to be interpreted by both sides and an agreeable meaning must be reached. The one hundred fifty dollars a week that Mitch and Place earned came out to too low of an hourly wage for them to feel beholden to anyone. They realized that living in the old and drafty ranch house was rent free, but they still had utilities to pay. And to keep their hand strong, Mitch and Place would remind the Kittles that Place was working ten hours each day. None of the ranchers and farmers in the county worked their hired help more than ten hours a day, and many
allowed
only eight-hour work days because they did not want to burn out their good workers. Certainly this was a convincing argument. Furthermore, Mitch and Place had decided not to move all of their belongings into the ranch house, placing most of their things in storage. They lived primarily out of their bedroom and kitchen, with the living room sparsely furnished. Mitch would use this sparseness as a visual effect. Her aim was to show Jacqueline and Mickey that they had not settled in entirely, and leaving, if it was requested of them, would not take too much time.