One night they lay side by side on the bed, catching their breath after their exertions. Propping himself up on his elbow, Corin wiped the commingled sweat from Caroline’s chest and slid his hand down to her stomach. She smiled and shifted under the heavy weight of it, the hot press of his skin.
“Boy or girl to start with?” he asked.
“Which would you rather?” she replied.
“I asked first!” he smiled.
Caroline sighed happily. “I truly don’t mind. Maybe a girl… a little girl with your brown eyes and hair the color of honey.”
“And then a boy?” Corin suggested.
“Of course! You’d rather a boy first?”
“Not necessarily… although it would be good to get him up and running, get me some more help around the ranch…” he mused.
“Poor baby! Not even born yet and you’ve got him out riding the fences!” Caroline cried.
Grinning, Corin put his lips to her belly and kissed her damp skin. “Psst! Hey, you in there-come out a boy and I’ll buy you a pony!” he whispered.
Caroline laughed, putting her hands around Corin’s head to cradle it, no longer noticing their roughness.
It was two months before a neighbor dropped by to visit. Caroline heard a shout at the front of the house, as she was glumly examining a sunken honey cake that she’d just taken from the oven.
“Hullo, Masseys!” the shout came again and, startled, Caroline realized it was a woman’s voice. She smoothed back her hair, brushed flour from her apron, and opened the front door, stepping onto the porch with regal grace. Then she gaped. The woman, if such she was, was not only dressed as a man-in slacks, leather chaps and a flannel shirt tucked into a wide leather belt-but she was sitting astride a rangy bay horse, slouching as comfortably in the saddle as if she had been born there. “You’re home! I was beginning to think I was hollering at an empty house,” the woman declared, swinging her leg over the horse’s back and dropping abruptly to the ground. “I’m Evangeline Fosset. Pleased to meet you, and do call me Angie since everybody else does,” she continued, approaching with a smile. A long ponytail of orange hair swung behind her, and although her face was as tanned as Corin’s it was also strong and handsome. Her blue eyes shone.
“I’m Caroline. Caroline Massey.”
“Figured you were.” The keen blue eyes swept over her. “Well, Hutch told me you were a beauty, and Lord knows that man never lies,” she said. Caroline smiled, uncertainly, and said nothing. “I’m your neighbor, by the way. My husband, Jacob, and I have a farm about seven miles that way.” Angie pointed to the south-east.
“Oh! Well… um… won’t you come inside?” Caroline faltered.
She cut little squares from the outside edge of her honey cake, where it was indeed more or less like a cake, and served them on a large plate, with tea and water. Angie took a long draft.
“Oh! How I envy you that sweet well of yours! To have water not tasting of gyp or the cistern is something wonderful, I can tell you,” she exclaimed, draining the glass. “Did Corin tell you how they found it? The well, that is?”
“No, he hasn’t…”
“Well, they’d tried digging about a hundred different holes and found nothing but gyp, gyp, and some more stinking gypsum water. They were relying on the creek but that dries up half of the year, as you’ll soon see. And they were being so darn careful with the supply that not one of the men on this ranch had washed himself for more than a month. I tell you, no word of a lie: I could smell them from my front step! Well, one day a funny old man came riding by on a beaten-up mule and said did Corin want him to find sweet water on his land? Ever one to give a person a chance, although he didn’t see how the old fellow was going to achieve what he hadn’t managed in months, Corin tells him by all means.” Angie paused for breath and popped a square of cake into her mouth. Caroline watched her, mesmerized. “This old fellow takes out a narrow, forked branch of wood that’s all worn smooth with years of touching, and off he goes, wandering here, there and everywhere, holding this twig in his fingertips. The midday sun starts pounding down and still he goes hither and thither, back and forth, until he gets to the top of the rise and bam! That twig of his twists in his grip and points straight down at the turf like an arrow. “Here’s your sweet water, sir,” the old fellow announces. And digging down, sure enough, there was the well. Can you believe that, now?” Angie finished her tale with a nod and a smile, and watched Caroline, expectantly.
“Well, I…” Caroline began, her voice sounding frail after Angie’s bold narrative. “If you say so, of course,” she finished, smiling slightly. Angie’s face fell a little, but then she smiled again.
“So, how are you settling in? You getting used to ranch life?”
“Yes, I think so. It’s rather different… to New York.”
“I’ll bet it is! I’ll bet!” Angie chuckled; a low, throaty sound.
“I’ve never seen a woman ride astride before,” Caroline added, feeling rude to mention it, but too astonished not to.
“Oh, it’s the only way to travel around here, believe me! Once you’ve tried it, you’ll never go back to fiddling around sideways. When I heard Corin was bringing a gal back from the city, I thought, that poor thing! She can’t know what she’s getting into! Not that I don’t love this place. It’s my home, although Lord knows Mother Nature can be a bitch around here at times, pardon my language-but really, she can.” Again, Angie looked at Caroline, and Caroline smiled nervously, at a loss. She poured her guest some more tea. The china cup, with its pattern of pink roses and blue ribbons that had seemed so charming in the catalogue, looked as fragile and childish as a toy in Angie’s strong hand. “The loneliness gets to some women. Not seeing anyone-well, any other women-for weeks at a time. Months, sometimes. It can get to a person, being in the house by yourself all day.”
“I’ve been… keeping very busy,” Caroline said hesitantly, startled by the woman’s forwardness.
“As we all do, for sure,” Angie shrugged. “Kids’ll help, when they start coming. Nothing like a houseful of little ones to keep you distracted, I can tell you!” Caroline smiled, and blushed a little. She could hardly wait to have her first baby. She longed for a tiny child to cradle, for the softness of its skin, the wholeness of a new family. The permanence of roots put down.
“Corin wants to have five,” she said, smiling shyly.
“Five! My good Lord, you’ve got your work cut out for you, girl!” Angie exclaimed with a wide grin. “But-you’re young yet. Spread them out, that’s my advice. That way the older ones’ll be able to help you with the toddlers. Well, when you fall, be sure to let me know. You’ll want more help then, and advice from an old hand. Just remember where I am, and send word if you need anything.”
“That’s really very kind of you,” Caroline said, secretly sure she would need no such help. She knew, in her heart, that while her cooking refused to improve and her body would not harden to the housework, it was in motherhood that her calling lay.
When Angie left, an hour or so later, she did not set off in the direction of her home, but toward the corrals where some of the men were at work. Caroline tended not to venture there herself, feeling too shy of the men and too unsure of the nature of their work, despite Corin’s urgings that she learn the running of the ranch. What she had seen she had found brutal. Animals brought roughly to the ground, their horns sawn off, their heads pushed beneath stinking, stinging dip to kill parasites, the Massey Ranch emblem, MR, burned into their skins. She hated the way they rolled their eyes in terror, so white and vulnerable looking. But seeing Angie lead her horse calmly over to Hutch, who was overseeing the branding of new calves in the nearest corral, Caroline suddenly felt left out and left behind. She hurriedly removed her apron, grabbed her bonnet and walked quickly in the same direction.