The Last Ranch (34 page)

Matt nixed Kevin's proposal to drop rodeo and look for work after school. He thanked him for the offer, explained there might be some belt tightening with Mary no longer working, but not enough to worry about. They were a ranching family and naturally cautious about money and debt. With a pleased smile he predicted Mary would love being at home for a spell, and it would be a good thing for all of them.

His notion that Mary would enjoy staying home proved true. No longer saddled with the burdensome paperwork she'd carried home daily from work, finding substitutes for teachers who called in sick at the last minute, or dealing with the assorted emergency maintenance problems of a school building long overdue to be replaced, she happily adapted to being a full-time mother and housewife.

Within her first week of not working, she rearranged the living-room furniture, cleaned the house top to bottom, pruned neglected shrubbery at the property line behind the horse barn, and reorganized the pantry. Always a good cook, she put even
better meals on the table. Sometimes she used recipes clipped from magazines to make special salads and sauces. Often she whipped up her own version of delicious stews, soups, and casseroles.

When she wasn't busy with housework or cooking, she got lost in a book, drew up lists of home-improvement ideas, or took on a special project such as—with Kevin's help—laying a flagstone walk from the driveway at the side of the cottage to the back porch.

It didn't seem to bother her when the school board refused to hire her back, although as a decorated navy veteran she was put out at being called unpatriotic by Joey Stewart's father. As time passed, her normal sunny disposition got sunnier. Even when she bossed or nagged him about his homework or her latest new undertaking she needed his help with, she did it with such good humor that Kevin never felt put out.

Some things she'd do on her own when he was at school. He came home to find she'd repainted the bathroom, or rearranged the contents of the kitchen cupboards or was in the midst of cleaning out the junk stored in the small attic. One day, he walked into the kitchen, where she was on a stepladder installing a newly purchased globe-shaped ceiling-light fixture. After she deftly attached it to the fixture base, he jokingly asked her what she planned to do next to the place.

She climbed down from the ladder and ran off a list of things: plant more shade trees, paint the exterior trim, re-roof the horse barn, and make new curtains for the bedrooms. Except for curtain making, she expected his help on the major projects.

“Are you fixing to sell the place?” Kevin asked.

Mary hesitated before answering. “Eventually, someday. I'd love to see your father do what he loves best. If he left his job with
the university and returned to raising and training ponies, I know he'd be successful.”

His parents' wistful conversation he'd overheard about their dream to someday return to ranching popped into his mind. “Then you and Dad should do it.”

His mother smiled pensively. “We'll see.”

After years in town with only part of the summers and some weekends at the Rocking J, she still missed the vast Tularosa sky, the quiet, peaceful nights, the cradling solitude far from all the hustle-bustle of town, and the feeling of belonging to a place. All of it was lacking in dusty T or C—a cramped, dreary outpost of civilization hunkered down along a tame river that meandered through desolate hills and a busy highway filled with travelers going everyplace else but there.

“You and Dad are just not cut out to be town folks,” he ventured, knowing it was true.

Mary laughed. “I suppose you're right. Is that true for you as well?”

“Mostly,” Kevin replied with a grin as he put down his schoolbooks. Outside the kitchen window a truckload of rock sat in a pile at the side of the house next to the driveway. Mary had checked out a library book about farm crafts that gave step-by-step instructions of how to build a freestanding dry stone wall. With Kevin's assistance, she was about to try her hand at it by building a flowerbed under the kitchen window.

“We're trenching the footing after you change out of your school clothes,” Mary said, giving him a quick kiss. “So don't dawdle.”

Kevin eyed the rock pile. “Do we have enough rock?”

“For now,” she said jovially as she stowed her toolbox under the kitchen sink.

***

I
n the last high school association rodeo before the annual all-state competition, Kevin cracked three ribs in a fall during the saddle-bronc event that ended his chance to make a run at the state title. He didn't like it but had no choice; without medical clearance he was barred from competing. Besides the pain of missing out, his side hurt like the blazes every time he tried to throw a loop or urged Two-Bits into a gallop. His only small consolation was winning a first both in steer wrestling and team roping with Dale before the bronc sent him flying. Until his wreck, he'd been moving up in the standings and that was something, but certainly not enough worth cheering about yet.

He reluctantly urged Dale to find another partner for the team-roping event. “There are some good ropers around,” he added, “and you could win it.”

Still basking in the glow of being the first-string starting right tackle on the state championship football team, Dale opted to pass on finding another partner. “I can wait until next year, as long as you don't go and get stove up again,” he replied with his customary lopsided grin. “Anyways, I don't plan to win the team roping title at state with anyone else but you.”

Kevin punched him affectionately on the arm to signal his delight at having such a good friend.

In reply, Dale punched him back.

***

D
epending on her classmates' political leanings, Jeannie was either heckled or applauded for being part of the Las Cruces Fifteen. Unfortunately, in conservative T or C, the hecklers domi
nated. Her few friends and supporters at school were ridiculed as well, but they stuck by her. At first she took the name-calling and jeering with forced good humor, but when some of the popular boys on the football team, egged on by Joey Stewart, started spreading rumors that she was having sex with the peacenik weirdos who were part of the local antiwar protest group, the heckling soon turned into taunts.

They called her a slut, a whore, a pussy, and a cunt. Girls who had been somewhat friendly started shying away, and boys who'd never before given her a second look started pathetically buzzing around, hoping to get laid.

Kevin got word of it early from Dale and pushed back at Jeannie's tormentors hard enough to stop most of the name-calling, but Joey and a few others persisted.

“Don't let them goad you into doing anything,” Jeannie pleaded as they left school after the dismissal bell. “I don't care what they think.”

“Joey and his pals won't let up,” Kevin replied. Just then Jeannie's major tormentor drove by with a carload of his buddies. Joey slowed down so his passengers could yell, whistle, and make lewd gestures.

Kevin replied in kind as Jeannie stuck her tongue out.

“Don't start any trouble,” she pleaded.

“Joey's already started it.”

“My dad said he'll start picking me up after school if the harassment continues.”

“No need. I'll walk you home every day.”

“You'd do that?”

Kevin put his arm around Jeannie's waist. “I would.”

Snuggled close, Jeannie smiled up at him. “Maybe you are my white knight.”

Kevin laughed. “Hardly.”

As they strolled down the hill to Main Street, Jeannie told him that business at her parents' gift shop had fallen off since she'd started protesting the growing war. Hoping to reverse the trend, they'd put a big sign in the store window supporting the troops fighting in Vietnam.

“That stinks,” Kevin said. “You'd think people wouldn't be so small-minded.”

“It's all my fault. I can't wait to leave this town,” she said fiercely.

“Are your parents mad at you?”

Jeannie shook her head. “No, just worried about their business. It's hard owning a small retail store.”

They walked the rest of the way to the gift shop talking about a classmate who'd dropped out of school and run away, supposedly to California. Jeannie was jealous of the boy's courage and wanted to do the same thing. Kevin threatened to go after her and bring her back home if she tried it.

“I'd miss you too much,” he added.

He got a smooch for that.

After leaving Jeannie at the gift shop he hoofed it home and found his mom in the horse barn looking after Billy, one of Dad's ponies he'd brought down from the Rocking J in preparation for his planned visit to the remote Indigo Ranch in the Black Range, where he was to supervise reseeding a high country pasture. It would take him half a day in the saddle to get there from the ranch headquarters and Billy was his best trail pony.

Kevin put on his boots, and as he mucked out the stalls, he told his mother about his conversation with Jeannie. She scowled at the news, put the empty oat buckets aside, took off her gloves, grabbed her cowboy hat, and started for the house.

“Where are you going?” he called after her.

“I have an errand to run. Won't be long. Finish up here.”

She was in and out of the cottage in a jiffy and wheeling her car onto the street before Kevin was half-done with the stalls. Within thirty minutes, she was back unloading two large paper bags filled with stuff from the gift shop. She unpacked at the kitchen table, setting out a crystal salt-and-pepper set, a new butter boat that matched her blue-and-white dinner dishes, a package of three deep-blue dish towels, a large pottery flower pot, an electric slow cooker, a bunch of artificial flowers, the newest edition of a Betty Crocker cookbook, and a novel by James Michener.

“There,” she said, gazing with pleasure at her purchases. “Jeannie's parents say hello.”

Kevin shook his head in amazement. “You're something else, Mom.”

Gleefully, Mary waved a finger at him. “Don't you dare forget it, kiddo.”

***

O
ver time most of the annoying and hostile comments made to Jeannie by other students died down, but Joey Stewart and two of his cronies didn't let up. More than once it left Jeannie on the verge of tears during their walk home after school. Angry at seeing her browbeaten by three Neanderthal bullies, Kevin confronted Joey in the hallway one morning between classes.

“You and your pals stop badmouthing my girlfriend,” he snapped.

Joey smiled maliciously. “Stuff it, Kerney. Maybe I can't pick a fight with you, but that doesn't mean I have to lay off your slut girlfriend.”

“We'll see about that.” Fuming, Kevin walked away.

That weekend at the ranch while he was helping his dad tune up a windmill, he explained his dilemma about Joey and his desire to protect Jeannie from his bullying name-calling.

“I probably would get my butt kicked if I fought Joey, and I made a promise to Principal Becker not to get in any more trouble, but I can't just let it go,” he said as he inspected the windmill tail vane from his vantage point on the small platform below the blades.

“Are you seriously considering taking him on?” Matt asked as he tightened the connection to the pull rod that drew water from the well.

“Probably. I've got a few inches on him, but he's way stronger than me. I've seen what he can bench-press in the gym. He's a bull.”

“How are your ribs?”

“Okay, still a little sore.”

“Then you'll have to be careful.” Matt thought back to his boyhood days when he'd decided to fight a kid pestering a girl he liked and how his friend Boone Mitchell had showed him some moves. “Kick him in the nuts,” he said.

Surprised, Kevin stopped in the middle of tightening a loose bolt. “Should I?”

Matt nodded. “You've got to protect yourself and put him down fast. From what I've heard, Joey Stewart isn't too bright and if he's like most bullies he's used to intimidating his victims. Act uncertain and scared at first, draw him in to striking distance, and kick him in the balls hard as you can. Do it again if need be. And if you have to hit him, lay into him with your elbows, not your fists. Use a knee to the gut for good measure if he's not down for the count.”

Kevin nodded. “I think I can do all that. But, if I'm caught, Principal Becker will suspend me for three days.”

“Just don't get expelled.”

Kevin smiled. “I won't.”

“And don't tell your mother we had this conversation.”

“I won't.”

Back on solid ground, Matt released the brake and the blades started turning. Soon water began gushing gently into the nearby tank. The sound of it brought a squawking blue jay eager for a drink to a low rung on the windmill ladder.

“Wrap your ribs tight around your midsection before you fight him, so you don't get re-injured,” Matt advised. “Maybe I should be there.”

Kevin shook his head. “That won't work. I'll ask Dale to back me up.”

“Okay.” Matt studied his boy, now almost a man. “I should tell you not to do this. Would that stop you?”

“No.”

Matt threw an arm across Kevin's shoulders. “I didn't think so. Be careful, son.”

“Don't worry, I will.”

Matt flipped Kevin's cowboy hat down over his eyes. “But I do worry; that's what fathers do. Let me show you some moves.”

Kevin pushed his hat up and grinned at his dad, thinking he was the best. “That would be great.”

***

F
or two weeks, Kevin tried to speak to Joey Stewart alone to set up a showdown, but he was always with his buddies. Frustrated and impatient, he impulsively decided to visit Joey at his father's car dealership on Main Street, where he worked detailing new cars for display in the small showroom. During those two weeks,
the fighting in Vietnam had escalated and more kids at school had gotten behind the antiwar protest movement. Only Joey and his sidekicks continued to spread lies about Jeannie and harass her. Additionally, they were now mocking Kevin behind his back for dating a girl who gave it away to anyone, first come, first served.