Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves(17)

Already tongue-tied during his old man’s carping, Duke had found himself stuttering wildly in the face of his pa’s increasing rages that came out of nowhere.

Eventually, Duke had mastered his stuttering. In control of his words, in control of his world.

Facilely, the girl switched that observant green gaze from the draught-stricken countryside toward him. “What kind of ranch is this – this Essence?”

He blinked, then understood. “S. And. S. Sagebrush and Sidewinders. A cow ranch. With a ranch house not much larger than its chicken coop.”

And not much better. And he meant to have better.

Growing up, he could remember prairie dogs trying to push up through loose floorboards. At his age, scary. And he remembered walls layered with newspaper and gypsum-and-water paste for insulation and how, when the temperature changed drastically, stucco chips littered the floor like chicken feed.

And those war years, when, still wet behind the ears, he along with his ma had tried to run the ranch in his old man’s absence. Chamber pots to be taken out. A cow to be milked. A plow to be pulled in lieu of a horse. Eggs to be collected. Fences to be mended. The cattle, few heads that they were, to be driven periodically from an overgrazed pasture to a greener one.

Of course, the word ‘green’ was debatable when it came to its various shades these drought-stricken years. A smart man would surrender the impossibly winless fight against nature; but then his old man had always called him hardheaded – that, accompanied by those hardy cuffs on the head, until he had outmatched his pa in height.

“You’ll have to take the bedroom for the time being. Meanwhile, I’ll camp out in my office.”

Only until he could figure out a way to unload the gal. And it had better be damned soon. How old was she? With those otherworldly eyes, she could have passed for fifteen or twenty-five.

“You’ll have Sundays off. Austin – and the Beth Israel Synagogue – is almost an hour away by bus. Its nearest stop is seven miles down the road.”

“Uhhh, . . . I am not a practicing Jew.”

His brows nearly collided. “And yet the American Jewish Joint Committee still arranged to harbor – ”

“Does the S&S have a bathtub?”

He took his gaze off the long and empty stretch of single-lane road to really look at her. A yearning he would not have expected deepened those pupils to a green paler than the rain-starved grass. “Installed two years ago.” A clawfoot one he had scrounged up from the Austin city dump.

Which reminded him that they’d have to share the bathroom. He had expected a Jewish man for a cook. A man who could bunk with the rest of the hands in the only outbuilding that was inhabitable.

After all, this was a ranch, not some high-falutin’ restaurant. At worst, Operation Texas could have sent a frumpy old Jewish female. Even though the National Youth Association’s age specification were supposed to be between sixteen to twenty-five, Johnson’s Operation Texas apparently ignored this, as it did everything else in its desperate efforts to foster Jewish refugees.

Next time, he saw Harold, he’d have to ask him what in the hell had he been thinking to fix up a female cook and a bachelor under one roof.

His roof.

His years at sea had taught him that there was a lot to be said about neatness and order, about being ship shape. And this scruffy cat perched next to him, obviously, could not even perceive the word ‘fastidious.’

“Does it never rain here?” Her lips were taut as a bowstring. Her gaze skittered back and forth over the dry, desolate vista.

As his Ford rattled west into mesquite and chaparral territory before heading north to the Hill Country, the southeast Texas piney woods had been left far behind.

“Texas has four seasons – drought, flood, blizzard, and twister, so as for as rain, it just sizzles on the ground and evaporates for the most part. That’s when it does rain. Lately, sand just blows.”

The Dust Bowl storms had about killed off his cattle operations. Their black, sirocco-like winds had laid waste his Blanco River’s fine, dark soils. As drought had exacerbated his plight, cattle prices had plummeted, his debts had boomed, and foreclosure was always an alarming threat.

He tried to relax his heavy-handed grip on his pickup’s timeworn-smooth steering wheel. He might not be as happy as a hog in slop, but, admittedly, the gal had to be feeling a little overwhelmed, as well. “Look, I know this isn’t easy for you. Isn’t for me, either. We need to set up some sort of schedule, so we can stay out of each other’s way. At least, until I can find another place better suited for you.”

“Yuir place suits me fine.”

Sunnufabitch! “This just isn’t going to work.”

She turned those luminous greens on him. “Why not?”

“’ Cause – oh, hell, ‘cause I’ll be wanting a wife soon, and no woman with half a brain is going to stand for another cook in the kitchen.” Especially one that threw him off his feed like this one did.

Everything was suddenly quiet in the pickup. This from a gal who could get out five words in a second and fifty in a gust.

All at once, she seemed to perk up. Twisting her mite of a body on the bench seat, with care to avoid the spring poking through its tuft, she faced him fully. “Then ye need me to help ye go a‘courting.”

“What?!” He had to swerve the steering wheel to keep from drifting off into the bar ditch.