The Loves of Ruby Dee (7 page)

It scared her a little. She had the distinct impression that if he could have gotten his hands around her neck, he would have strangled the life out of her. And he appeared strong.

“I’ll just leave this for you,” she said, her voice breaking as tears threatened.

It seemed a little foolish to think he would actually choke her, but she stayed out of his reach as she found a place for the juice and the pill on the cluttered nightstand, then quickly dropped the blue ice pack on the bed near his hand.

He sat stony-faced. A man clinging to his pride and his misery. Her heart cracked open and poured out. She wanted badly to say something to ease him, but no doubt he would most appreciate being left alone. She had witnessed his humiliation by his son; now he would sooner die than speak with her.

As she passed through the door, the ice pack whizzed near her head and smashed into the door frame to her right, at eye level. It fell to the floor with a thud.

Ruby Dee whirled, fire leaping to her tongue. But when she saw the elderly man’s hand raise the glass of tomato juice, she grabbed the door. Just as she brought it closed, the glass crashed against it on the other side.

For a moment, trembling, Ruby Dee stood with her hand on the doorknob. Sally was cowering against the wall and gazing questioningly up at her. When she turned, she found Lonnie Starr standing in the dining room entry, his expression much the same as Sally’s.

“Should I get back to bringing your things in?” he asked, raising an eyebrow and looking hopeful.

Ruby Dee thought about that, while he continued to look at her and wait.

Then she breathed deeply and said,
“
Yes
.
And start with the things in my refrigerator, so I can begin makin’ supper.”

There was nothing better than a good meal to soothe ragged tempers.

Chapter 7

Lonnie had never been bothered much by a woman’s tears. Tears were simply a part of a woman, and he loved everything about women. Generally he was confronted by a woman’s tears when he was leaving her, and he had learned how to handle that. He was so comforting that he always left a woman smiling through her tears.

But Lonnie had never seen a woman tune up and cry at a news blurb on the television, which was what Ruby Dee D’Angelo did. All she needed to hear was the announcement made at the commercial break during
Wheel of Fortune
—
“Three people are known killed when a tornado touched down in a trailer park south of Wichita, Kansas”—and she had tears coming down her cheeks.

“Oh, my...oh, my.” With a dish and a towel in hand, she sank down in the chair across the table from Lonnie. They had been watching the little television on the kitchen table. Mostly Lonnie had been watching Ruby Dee.

She wiped her cheeks. “I’m sorry...
but I was in a tornado once. Have you ever been?”

“No. I’ve seen more than one but haven’t ever been in any.”

“Well, I was, when I was ten. Me and five other kids huddled in a room. The adults were in the closet, but there wasn’t room for us kids, so they left us in that room. The tornado took the whole house— it wasn’t very big—all except that room. When the tornado got done, we were still in a huddle, with the floor under us and no walls, and the closet blown to bits, too.” She shut her mouth, got up and went to the sink.

Lonnie wondered whether the adults in the closet had lived, whether they had been her parents, and if they had been, how they had left her out in the room. But he didn’t think she wanted to talk about it, and he really didn’t, either. He’d had enough disturbance for one day. When the news was about to come on, he changed the channel to the
Andy Griffith Show,
which was on a channel without any news at all.

Lonnie was unsettled as it was, being caught between his natural aversion to contention and his natural attraction to females. Ruby Dee fascinated him.

She wore a June Cleaver apron and a brightly printed silk scarf wrapped in a turban around her head, saying it kept hair out of the food and cooking smoke out of her hair. None of it matched—the turban, the apron, the dress or the boots—but on her it all seemed to go together. She was the most exotic sight Lonnie had ever seen.

“Your daddy may be too angry to talk to me, but he’s not too angry to eat my food,” she said, coming into the kitchen with the old man’s empty supper tray. Her little dog was right at her heels. It wasn’t ever far from her.

“You
did threaten him,” Lonnie reminded her, although he was surprised the threat had worked. He figured that the old man had simply been more overcome by the good food than by the threat.

“Oh, he wasn’t bothered by that. He knows he’s got to eat if he’s gonna stay out of a home—and if he’s gonna drink that whiskey he’s got hidden under his pillow.”

“He’s drinkin’?” That fact and the casual way she mentioned it threw Lonnie into confusion. “Shouldn’t we get it away from him?”

She looked at him for a second, her eyes dark and quiet, and shook her head. “I don’t think he has much left in that bottle, anyway.” She bent over to load the dishwasher. “He’s been drinking for many years, you know...and you can understand it when you see how stiff he is. He probably aches all the time.”

She put a hand on her hip. “Besides, he’s not a child or a fool. We are to care for him, but we are not to keep him. God does that.”

Lonnie thought about that. Whether the old man was a fool or not was open to question, as was just how much God kept him. What wasn’t open for question was Lonnie going in there and taking the bottle away from the old man—he wasn’t going to do it.

“Do you think your brother would really put him in a home?” Ruby Dee asked, leaning back against the counter. She held a cherry tomato to her mouth and sucked on it.

“I don’t know.” Lonnie didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t think he should tell her that he thought the old man ought to go into a home. He watched her eat another cherry tomato and wondered if she knew how sexy she looked doing it.

Then she said, “You better go see if he needs to go to the bathroom now. I add whole wheat flour to my cornbread, which gives it twice as much fiber, and I doubt he’s used to that. And he sure needs to get washed and changed.”

Lonnie was startled at the suggestion. He didn’t like having anything at all to do with the old man, most especially anything that had to do with touching him. He didn’t like the idea at all. Stuff like that was what Will did, and sitting here entertaining and admiring a woman was what Lonnie did.

But Ruby Dee fixed him with a look. “You have to. He needs help, and he won’t let me touch him.”

Lonnie was confused by her manner. He had not expected her to press him in any way. He didn’t like being ordered but he didn’t want any arguing, either. He’d had all the arguing he could stand. He stood, stretching. “I think I ought to go check on Will first.” Maybe he could get Will to come in to see to the old man.

Lonnie stepped out the back door. The breeze had died, leaving the air still and warm and filled with heavy scents. The sun was setting in a ball of fire, late, the way it did on a summer night, and cast a golden glow over the house, barns and horses behind the weathered fence... and over Will, atop the ornery blue roan in the training pen.

He’d been there since he had stalked out of the house that afternoon. Now he was trotting the horse in circles. As Lonnie neared the pen, he saw the horse was lathered and Will’s shirt and hat were soaked with sweat. But if either of them was tiring, it wasn’t apparent. The stud’s tail was still high and swishing, his ears were still back, and Will’s muscles were still taut.

Lonnie climbed up on the rails, straddling the top one. He saw the cut on his brother’s cheek was real swollen. Will didn’t look at him, just kept the horse moving.

“Ruby Dee made a great supper—fried chicken and corn bread and beans. Apple pie, too.”

Will stopped the stud, tugged on the hackamore reins and backed him up a step. “I smelled it. Where’d she get the chicken?”

“From her own refrigerator, in her camper. She’s using a lot of her own groceries. Said she has to use ‘em, or they’d spoil, you know.”

Will pulled a cigarette from his pocket. It was bent, but he stuck it between his lips anyway. Will smoked those cigarettes bent half the time. “Did the old man eat?” he asked.

“She told him she was going to stuff it down his throat if he didn’t. I don’t know if it was that, or if it was just such dang good food, but the old man ate.” Lonnie debated with himself, and then said, “She says he’s drinkin’ from a bottle hidden under his pillow.”

Will looked at him a minute, then lit his smoke. Lonnie waited for him to comment about the old man’s bottle, but he didn’t.

Lonnie said, “She saved you a plate.”

Will lifted the reins. “I’ll be in later.”

That irritated Lonnie. “What about the old man?”

Will bumped the horse’s side and moved him at a slow walk. “I hired the gal to take care of him. And you’re in there to give her a hand if she needs it, aren’t you?”

“Yeah...I can give her a hand.” The way Lonnie saw it, he’d been doing his part, and now Will ought to quit sulking and get in there and do his. “You gonna stay out here all night?”

“Might,” Will said.

He bumped the roan faster. The horse humped his back and fought the hold Will had on his head. Then he managed to rear up. While he was up, Will stepped neatly out of the saddle to the ground, holding the reins and pulling that roan right over backward. It wasn’t so good on a saddle, but such a maneuver did put a horse in his place. The trick for the man was to be able to step out of the saddle before he got the horse on top of him. Will did it better than most.

The horse scrambled to his feet and shied in a circle, but Will jumped back into the saddle, and they went at it again.

Men got themselves killed on stubborn horses like this one. Lonnie didn’t know why Will was even messing with him. There were six other horses up at the horse barn that could use training, true quarter horses bred right there on the ranch and worth real money.

Lonnie said, “If you’re gonna work all night, you’d better turn on the light out here. You’re liable to have that horse fall back on you and squash you right to hell.”

“I don’t imagine light will keep that from happenin’,” Will said in that distant manner that made Lonnie want to fly over and grab him by the throat.

He wanted to yell at Will that he didn’t need him, but he knew that would betray how he really felt, and he wasn’t about to do that. He clamped his jaw shut tight as Will’s, climbed down off the fence and strode back to the house.

It all made Lonnie mad and more unsettled than ever. He wondered if Will was really going to leave, like he’d told the old man. Lonnie couldn’t imagine that. But Will had never before threatened to leave. Never. And he sure was acting different than he ever had.

Lonnie wondered what he would do if Will did leave the ranch.

He came back into the kitchen. “Will said he’d be in later.”

Ruby Dee nodded but didn’t look at him. She was wiping the coffee maker.

“I guess I’ll go check on the old man.” He hoped she would tell him not to bother, but she just asked him if he wanted her to heat him up a cup of coffee before she poured it out. She didn’t smile. She wasn’t one for smiling a lot, but her voice had a warm, gentle sound.

“No...thanks just the same.”

Lonnie went through the darkened house toward the old man’s room, thinking how he had always made it a point to stay away from the old man. Helping him into the house that day was the first time he had touched the old man since he’d been a boy.

Suddenly he recalled the day his mother left. He had been five. That day he had come into the kitchen and found the old man crying, with Will patting his shoulder. For a moment, Lonnie had thought maybe the old man was having some sort of attack, because he wasn’t making a sound, but his big chest was shaking. Oh, the old man had been big to Lonnie back then. Formidable. Why, Lonnie had once seen him take on a bull and knock the animal to the ground with one smack of a club. Now he sat, leaning heavily on the table, great, soundless sobs shaking his body.

Then the old man had wrapped an arm around Will and pulled Lonnie to him, too. Lonnie had started bawling. Will had started saying how they didn’t need their mama anyway, and he patted Lonnie. Lonnie hadn’t even been thinking of their mama; he’d been scared to death by the old man.

When he peeked into the bedroom, he thought at first that his dad was asleep. But then the old man raised his head and said, “I ain’t dead yet, so you can quit flyin’ over me like a lazy buzzard.”

“I came in here to see if you needed or wanted anything,” Lonnie said hotly. He might not have answered so smartly, but the old man was stove up in the bed, and Lonnie was a safe distance away.

“Aw...you ain’t never cared what I might need or want. What—you tryin’ to impress the hussy?”

“I sure didn’t come in here because I wanted to. She sent me to see if you might need to get up and go to the bathroom. And there’s no call to go insultin’ her. She’s not done anything but be good to you."

“Uhh! I’ll tell you a few things, boy....” He leaned forward. “I ain’t noticed you havin’ truck with no woman that ain’t a hussy, and I can say whatever I want in my own house...and when the time comes that I need you or anybody else to get me to the bathroom, I’ll blow my brains out.”

Lonnie swallowed and made a fist. The old man looked at him with pure hatred, eyes glittering like he’d gone mad. A chill swept through Lonnie, because he knew the old man meant exactly what he said.

Then the old man, who hadn’t wanted anything, said, “Before you go on back to your sparkin’, get me your crutches we keep handy in the closet underneath the stairs.”

“They’ll be too tall for you,” Lonnie said, bringing the crutches. He adjusted them the best he could.

Next the old man had him shift the roll underneath his hurt ankle and open the window.

“The air conditioning is on,” Lonnie said and immediately wished he hadn’t.