Cowboy Boots for Christmas (11 page)

“Not a cowboy hat?” she asked.

“What about a hat?”

“If you were going to buy me a stocking hat, why not a cowboy hat?”

“You have to earn it. You have to tell me that you’ve changed your mind about ranchin’ and cowboys to get a cowboy hat, darlin’.”

“I’d like to go to Polly’s for a burger, but Martin needs to learn to ride the bus every day,” she said.

“Bus might have trouble turnin’ around at the end of our lane,” Finn said.

Our
lane
.

He said
our
lane
, not
the
lane
or
my
lane
.

A bright red cardinal lit on the windowsill as Callie was cleaning up the kitchen after breakfast. Its feathers were brilliant against the white snow banked up against the glass, and its inquisitive little eye looked like someone had painted a perfect black circle around it.

“Angel, you want to see something pretty?” she whispered.

She reached down and set the cat on the windowsill. Angel made a funny noise down in her throat, something between a purr and a chortle.

“Pretty bird. Pretty bird.” Joe whistled, and the cardinal chirped back at the noise.

Callie glanced over her shoulder to see Joe watching a different cardinal out on the front porch. She smiled and fussed at herself for even thinking that blasted parrot could see through walls.

The ringing of the phone startled her, but Angel didn’t move. Callie picked up the receiver of the old wall phone and leaned against the doorjamb.

“Hello,” she said.

“This is Verdie McElroy. Where is Finn?” Her voice had enough grain in it to suggest that she was a longtime smoker, yet nothing in the house gave testimony to that. No smoke smell, no ashtrays, not even a cigarette butt in the yard.

“He’s out doing chores,” Callie answered.

“Then you are Callie Brewster, right?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“See that chair right there beside you?”

“I do.”

“Well, it’s sittin’ there so folks can sit down to put on their boots or take them off or sit down to visit on the phone. Have a seat and tell me about Salt Draw. I’m so homesick I’ve been crying, and this tough old bitch don’t cry for nothing,” Verdie said.

Callie pulled the chair over a few more inches.

“Cord will reach just fine without you scootin’ it around,” Verdie said.

Callie sat down. “What do you want to know about Salt Draw?”

“Everything. Start with the room where the bunk beds are. That’s where Martin sleeps, ain’t it? Don’t get all worried. Burnt Boot is a little place and y’all are the new kids in town, so you are the topic for gossip until something else comes along. Gladys and Polly and I keep on top of things. We got to filter out what’s shit and what’s real. And after we talk about the ranch, we’ll go on to the feud. I can’t believe that damned Honey and Betsy are dragging you into their shit pile.”

“Rooms first, right?” Callie laughed.

“That’s right. Feud takes second place to my homesickness.”

“Martin loves the bunkhouse room, and he’s been trying to read the books. Some of them are above his pay grade, but he’ll grow into them.”

Verdie sighed. “The ranch needs kids, has for a long time. Now tell me about your bedroom. Do you like that one?”

“I do,” Callie said.

“It was my sister’s room. And mine was the other one on that wing. There were six boys and two girls who grew up in that house. The four youngest boys got the bunk room. Two of the older boys shared the other bedroom, and my sister got the third one. I came along when Mama had given up on having any more kids. The older boys had left home, but the younger ones were content in the bunk room, so when I got old enough to move from the nursery, I got the room with the twin beds. My sister was the next one up the sibling ladder and she was ten years older than me, so it wasn’t long until I was the only one in that part of the house.”

“Was it lonely?” Callie asked.

“Not a single day. I could read all the boy’s books and I had my own, too. Television came into the house when I was a teenager, but it didn’t amount to much there at first. Then I got married and Mama died that same week. Oscar was already working as foreman on the ranch, so we just moved from our little bitty cabin on the back forty in with Daddy. We raised our boys there,” she said.

It didn’t take much prompting to keep Verdie talking. Callie was able to stretch the cord to the kitchen bar and hold the receiver on her shoulder while she made a pot of chili.

“What are you doing? I hear you moving around,” Verdie asked.

“Just putting together Finn’s dinner. We have the big meal of the day in the evening, since Martin is in school,” she answered.

“Why ain’t you out there helpin’ him?”

“I helped with the feeding. Now he’s cleaning the tack room and working on that old green tractor, and I’m doing housework,” she answered.

“And you were his partner when he was over there in the war?” Verdie changed subjects.

“I was.”

“What are you now?”

Callie gasped. “I’m a hired hand.”

“Are you slow-witted or blind?” Verdie asked.

“Pardon me?”

“You heard me. You got to be one of them things. That boy is damn fine-lookin’ and he’s a hardworkin’ cowboy and you are livin’ under the same roof with him. If I was your age, I’d be figuring out a way to get him to bed. God, I miss the ranch.” The sigh would have been audible from Dallas even if they weren’t connected with a phone.

“Next time you’re in Burnt Boot, you are more than welcome to visit Salt Draw. We’ll bust out a pitcher of sweet tea, and I’ll make some cookies. And you can meet Angel and Pistol. Have you met Shotgun? Did Finn bring him along when he signed the papers?”

“Haven’t met any of the animals. I heard that you rescued a cat at the general store. Are you serious about me visiting Salt Draw?” Verdie asked.

“Yes, ma’am, I am serious. I’d love to meet you.”

“Cops! Cuff him, Mary!” Joe held up a foot and hopped along the perch on one leg.

“Who is Mary? And what about cops?” Verdie asked.

“It’s this damned parrot that came with the Chihuahua.” Callie went on to tell Verdie the story of the dog and the bird.

“Little black-and-tan older dog?” Verdie asked.

“Do you know who he belongs to?”

“Belonged to, not belongs. Old man Rawling died about two weeks ago. His family intended to have Pete and Joe put to sleep the day after the funeral, but they both vanished. Those two made their way from a couple a miles away to Salt Draw. You say they’re in the house?”

“Finn brought the dog in and the bird followed him. He threw a squawkin’ fit when we tried to put him in a cage, so we made a roost from an old folding clothes-drying rack,” Callie answered.

“Dickie bought that crazy bird for his wife, Mary, about six years ago. He’d promised her that someday he’d take her to a tropical island, but then she got cancer and he couldn’t take her, so he bought her the bird. She died about a year later,” Verdie told her.

“That explains a lot. Now we know where they came from and that no one is coming to claim them. And, Verdie, I meant it when I said for you to come visit us,” Callie said.

“Honey, I’d love to come for a visit, but when I do, we’ll leave the sweet tea in the icebox and bust out some bourbon. You can go on and make cookies, though. My favorite is gingersnaps. I’ve got to go now. The damned old buzzer will ring in a few minutes, and we’ll all shuffle down to the dining room to eat shit that is good for us. I don’t know why in the hell I thought I’d be happy in a place like this. There’s a real good recipe for gingersnaps up in the cabinet in a little wood box. And I’m guessin’ that Angel is the cat and Shotgun is a dog?”

“I’ll look for the recipe, and, yes, ma’am. Angel is the cat I found at the store, and Shotgun came to the ranch with Finn.”

“I figured that’s the way it is. Now you go on and make them cookies. Finn likes them.”

“He does?”

“Oh, yes. We sat right over there at the table and had them when I sold him the ranch. Bye now, and you have a good day. We’ll talk about that damned feud another day,” Verdie said.

Callie put the receiver back on the wall base and rolled her neck to get the kinks out. “Poor old darlin’ is lonely. She lived in this house or on this ranch her whole life, and now she has nothing but a buzzer to regulate her life. I wonder if she ever had a cat in the house, Angel. What do you think? Do you smell the ghosts of cats past in here somewhere?”

***

Finn fished his cell phone out of his pocket and answered on the third ring. “Hello, Miz Verdie. How are things in the big city?”

“Boring as hell. I hear y’all got a couple of inches of snow up there and that there’s more on the way toward the end of the week and it ain’t goin’ to melt off before the big one hits,” she said.

“That’s what they say. I’m working on this old John Deere tractor. How old is this sucker, anyway?”

“Well, let me think. My oldest son was still in diapers when we bought it, and I mean them kind of diapers that you wash and put on the line, not the kind you ball up and throw in the trash. He was born in 1954, so I’d say it’s a 1955. Lord, we thought we’d died and gone straight to heaven when we got that thing with its double-barreled carburetor. It would fire right up in the wintertime no matter how cold it got. You get that live power shaft fixed, and she’ll run another fifty years.”

“I’m working on it.” Finn backed up and sat down on a bale of hay. “The old mama barn cat has a litter. I just saw one peeking out at me.”

“Crazy old cat ain’t got a lick of sense. She’ll throw a litter in the winter every year, and the funny thing is they usually survive better than the spring litter does. So tell me about this woman I hear you got in the house. Gladys says she’s pretty sassy,” Verdie said.

Poor old girl not only missed the ranch but Burnt Boot. Finn could well understand the way she must feel. If someone jerked him up by the roots and tried to plant him in a place as big as Dallas, he’d be climbing the walls within a week. He leaned back on the stack of hay and got ready for a long conversation.

“She was my spotter over in the war.” He went on to explain the situation with WITSEC.

“They let women do that?”

“It don’t happen real often, but she was very good at it,” he answered.

“Well, shit! I knew I was born in the wrong time. I’d have made a damn fine sniper or spotter, either one. I can shoot the hair out of a billy goat’s beard at a hundred yards.” Verdie laughed.

“The way you ran this ranch single-handed, I don’t doubt it,” Finn said.

“Got a confession. The last ten years I leased most of the ranch, and I just took care of the hundred acres around the house there. Grew a few acres of hay and a big garden but only ran twenty head of cattle most of the time. I didn’t have no idea how bad I’d miss them cantankerous old cows, but I guess in time I’ll get used to this place. There’s the buzzer that tells me they’re puttin’ our dinner on the table in the dining room, so I’ll go on down there.”

“You makin’ friends?” Finn asked.

“Oh, sure I am. I sleep with a different man every night,” she cackled.

“Verdie!”

“Don’t fuss at me. I ain’t got no cows, and they damn sure wouldn’t let me haul my mama cat into this fancy-smancy place. A woman has to have an imagination, or she’d go crazy.”

Finn laughed with her. “You take care of yourself, and you know that you’re welcome here on Salt Draw anytime you want to come for a visit.”

“Thank you, Finn. I might take you up on that sometime. I’d like to meet your Callie,” she said. “Now the lady is knocking on my door, which means all those old worn-out cowboys who can’t remember how to put their boots on will be waiting for me at my table. Bye now.”

Finn put the phone back in his pocket and headed out across the pasture toward the house. “Hey, is that chili I smell?” He kicked off his boots at the back door, picked Callie up, and swung her in circles. “I’m so glad you’re here, Callie. That sounds wonderful on a day like today. The heater can’t keep up out there in the barn.”

Callie set the whole pot on a trivet in the middle of the table while he removed his coat, gloves, and hat. “I told you I could help you with that tractor. I’ve worked on lots of old machinery. Betcha it’s the power shaft. That might be the first year they came out with that feature so they didn’t have it down as well as they did later on. One of my sister’s boyfriends was a crackerjack mechanic, and he taught me a little about it.”

Finn sat down at the table. “Did he teach you to shoot?”

“No, that I learned from my first boyfriend. His idea of a perfect date was target shooting.” She dipped up a bowl of chili and handed it to him and scooted the bowl of saltines and the plate of corn bread his way.

“Callie, you are not like your sister,” Finn said.

“What made you say that?”

“I can read your mind.”

“What makes you think part of me isn’t like her?”

“The cats,” he answered.

She brought her head up, her aqua eyes locking with his blue ones. “What does that have to do with anything? And why is she in the barn during this weather? She might get cold. Bring her into the utility room, and I’ll make her a bed in an old laundry basket.”

“She has kittens out there, and they’re too wild to catch.” Finn’s eyes twinkled.

“I can catch them with a bowl of warm milk. I’ll set it down, and they’ll come up to drink it,” she said.

“Point proven,” he said.

She went back to eating. “What are you talking about?”

“You take in strays.”

“Lacy said it was a good thing elephants didn’t grow in Texas, or I’d want to bring them inside during the winter.” She smiled.

“Lacy was your sister? I don’t think I ever heard her name before now.”

“Yes, she was, and taking in strays isn’t settling down, Finn,” Callie said seriously.

“Folks who take in strays are putting down roots. Did your sister ever bring home homeless cats and dogs?”

Callie shook her head slowly. “And she didn’t like it when I did. Said it just made leaving harder to do. When Mama died, I was sixteen. I lived with Lacy two years before I enlisted.”

“Well, there you have it. You are a settler, not a runner. Plain and simple. Verdie called me this morning,” Finn said.

“She called me too,” Callie said.

“Maybe when it clears off, she’ll come up to visit with Gladys and Polly, and we’ll invite her for supper,” he said.

Callie refilled his tea glass. “I bet she’d like that a lot.”

Finn reached out and cupped Callie’s cheeks in his hands. “I meant it, Callie. You are a settler.”

“I hope so,” she whispered.

He pushed the chair back after the second bowl of chili and a piece of chocolate cake. “Want to come out to the barn with me and see the mama cat and the kittens after dinner? I could sure use your opinion on that driveshaft, too.”