Sage and Leather

The first chapter in a new series from local writer Deanna Twedt.

Chapter One

The adobe fence curved up and down around the yard like rolling waves stuck in motion. Frozen. Solid. Clay. The fence wasn’t tall. I could see easily over the ten inch thick parameter. Inside the courtyard, two dark haired women were beating brooms against woven rugs. Their blouses hung open near the neck and sweat stains bloomed around their armpits. Across from them, two vaqueros worked in a corral with a nervous colt. Dust erupted from where the colt stomped and a saddle hit the ground. Somewhere behind them I could hear metal clanking against metal. Most likely a blacksmith shaping horseshoes.

Somewhere behind this fortified wall was my brother. Unless they had him out on range for the day. Either way, I was walking into a court…alone.

Pushing against the low gate, I entered into the red dirt yard, where brown grass crackled beneath my boots. I could almost feel the short grass stalks breaking underneath my soles. Around the perimeter of the yard, climbing up against the adobe wall were prickly shrubs. There may have been activity thrumming from the people hard at work, but no life pulsed from the flora in this yard. Too many days without rain and too many days in the scorching sun. The only reason I looked forward to entering into one of the adobe buildings was to find shade and feel cool rock encompassing me. Anything to stop the sweat from trickling down the ridge of my spine.

One of the vaqueros tipped his hat as I passed. The other was too busy wrangling the colt to look at me. The women beating the rugs briefly glanced my way, but kept on with what they were doing. No other person came in sight. No one bothered to ask what I was doing here, or to stop and direct me to the ramrod of this outfit. I found that odd. Usually people of cattle outfits were welcoming and helpful. Here I felt highly aware that I was an outsider. Did they know I was coming? Did they suspect such by the suitcase in my hand?

I decided to try the building where smoke drifted from a chimney as that was a perfect sign people were inside. In a few seconds, I crossed the cracking yard, stepped up onto the porch, and passed through an open door into a large kitchen. The red brown tiles beneath my boots were cool, but the air around me was hot. Despite the white walls being several inches thick to keep out the heat, the fire in the chimney had warmed up the room. A woman colored like the girls outside, stood by a long wooden table, cutting up peppers. She wiped her nose on her sleeve as she looked up to see me standing awkwardly in the doorway.

“Señorita, ¿puedo ayudarle?”

I tilted my head in confusion. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid I don’t speak Spanish.”

“Si.” She put the knife down and gestured as she walked up to me. “Help you?”

Her brown skirts shifted around her like the folding of a flag in the wind. Her dark bun stayed together at the back of her head.

“I’m Evie Callaway. Forschild hired me.”

“New cook?”

I nodded my head in confirmation.

She beamed and pulled me back to where she had been cutting. I set my suitcase on the floor as she started pointing to various spices in bowls and at vegetables that I assumed needed cutting. Everything she said was in Spanish, coming rapidly and rolling off her tongue. I tried to follow her instructions, but mostly stood there in a stupid daze, nodding along to words I didn’t understand.

Suddenly, she hit her floured hand against the side of her head, let out a cry, and rushed to the fireplace. She hurriedly lifted a large, wooden spatula and shoved it into the hearth where she retrieved a steaming tortilla that had started to burn along the edge. Sounds of disappointment and frustration came out of her mouth as she slid the tortilla onto a plate. She shook her head as she returned to my side, muttering incoherently.

Just then, a back door opened and a man with a red, thin mustache walked into the room. His boots tapped against the tiles. On his head was a long shaped cowboy hat. Cuffs encircled his wrists.

“Juanita!” He came forth and gave the woman a hug. She desperately tried batting him away, shouting rapidly in her Mexican tongue. The man eventually pulled away, chuckling at her riotous reaction.

He stopped laughing when he noticed me standing awkwardly by the table with my hands crossed in front of me. He cleared his throat and extended a red, blistered hand. “You must be Miss Callway. Tad’s little sister I reckon.”

“Yes, sir,” I sheepishly responded, cautiously accepting the offered handshake. His skin was rough like sandpaper.

“I’m Forschild,” he declared, taking off his hat and holding it over his chest.

So this was the foreman. Red-haired. Pa used to say red-haired people had fast tempers and short patience. I wondered how well everyone got along with him. Tad hadn’t said too many things about him yet, or anyone for that matter. All I really knew was that Tad wasn’t too keen on working for this outfit. We couldn’t help it, though. We needed the money and if we didn’t work for these people…

“Juanita will be your boss. She’s in charge of the kitchen and the garden, and helps with butchering. Just listen to her and you’ll be fine. Juanita answers to me and I answer to Mr. Hollister. He’s the owner of this ranch as I’m sure you’re well aware of.

“Come with me and I’ll show you around the place.”

As promised, Mr. Forschild acquainted me with the layout of the main homestead. Twas a rather large courtyard for the area, but it was to be expected for as wealthy as Mr. Hollister was known to be. He was one of the wealthiest cattle barons south of San Antone. Said to have come from England on a pirate ship and landed on the west coast of the Gulf of Mexico. From there, with the inheritance he brought with him from his home country, he carved out a kingdom here in the desert plains north of the Rio Grande. And he wasn’t done expanding. Later settlers like my brother and I, were threatened by his spreading. Hollister was fast paced in buying up claims around us. To work for him was the temporary bargain for us to keep our place. I didn’t see how it could remain this way forever, despite that Tad was determined we would figure it out.

Mr. Hollister’s ranch house stood three stories high, set apart from the kitchens where I, apparently, would be spending the majority of my time. The walls of his house were also stucco, but were inlaid with glass windows instead of just the wooden shutters slapped over openings in the clay walls. Each story of his magnificent house harbored roofed porches, reminding me of the buildings we had seen in the short time that we were in New Orleans. Two large chimneys towered on each side of the building. In front of the house lay an expansive veranda, surrounded by grape arbors and peach trees. An alabaster water fountain depicting a woman tipping a pitcher sat in the center of the brown and lapis lazuli tiles. I couldn’t imagine walking over something so beautiful. The tiles looked like glass plates of water beneath the scorching rays of the sun. Here--the part of the courtyard that I had not seen from the entrance--did boast of life. The peaches and grapes were sure signs that someone gave careful attention to them, keeping them alive in this desert of a land.

The corrals were all along one side of the courtyard and on both sides of the barn. There were separate buildings just for the blacksmith, the tanner, the springhouse, the smokehouse, and the carriages. My quarters were to reside in the same building as the kitchen. Forschild gave me a tiny, narrow room decorated simply with a bed, dresser, and washstand. This bedroom lay not far from the kitchen nor from Juanita’s chamber. I learned that the women who had been beating the rugs also helped with the cooking, but were known for doing most of the cleaning. Since Juanita was the headcook, she would be going back and forth between the main house and the quarters a lot. Mr. Hollister and his family dined in their home while the ranchhands ate separately in our kitchen. I really began to take in the expansiveness to this place--the TR.

Not until that evening did I become introduced to some of the ranchhands. Many of them, including Tad, did not come in that night for they were still out on range or staying at other camps. The vaqueros, who had been working with the colt in the corral, were Jose and Luis, brothers from Saltillo, Mexico. They were in charge of breaking colts around here. Sometimes they dispatched new colts to hands like my brother, who could train the young horses around cows. That way they could get used to reining and develop an eye for sorting.

Marcello, who preferred to go by Marc, was quiet compared to most of the hands who sat on the porch for supper. He was crippled from years of horseshoing. You could see it in his hobbled knees and bent back. He kept to himself in a rocking chair that no else eyed or touched as if that place was specifically designated to him. Only the shaggy dog was brave enough to lay near the elder’s feet. Probably because Marc threw him bits of biscuit and hamburger.

The tanner was the most talkative. I never did catch his name. He rambled on and on about past stories, ghost stories, what happened in the tanning room that day, and how cold he thought it would get tonight. While talking he gesturely vivaciously whether with his free hand or his fork or the toe of his boot. That man was full of energy. His tongue seemed to have been wound up endlessly. I wondered if it ever gave out.

I ended up sitting beside Martina, one of the rug beaters. She didn’t say much either, on account of that she knew very little English. At least tonight she smiled at me instead of barely looking my way when I had first entered the courtyard. Like all the surrounding men, she wafted of sweat. For as hot as the day had been and for as long ago as it had been since I last took a bath, I feared that I also had a stench. How one was to stay clean and smelling sweet around here I had no idea. We just smelled ourselves and no one seemed to mind.

Carmelita, the other rug beater, took her spot by Juanita. Their tongues rolled and they threw their heads back in laughter numerous times. They slapped their legs a lot, too. To be silent around these men did not appear to be part of their custom. While we all may have been sitting in a circle on the porch, more than one conversation was going at a time. Martina and I simply listened to the best of our abilities. I had a feeling she caught more than I did. Most of what was spoken was in Spanish. So I spent most of my meal memorizing their appearances and facial features.

All of them were of Mexican descent, save for me and the tanner. At least that I could tell. Twas no surprise for being so near the border and for Texas having been won from the Mexicans. These lands were theirs.

Then again, they had taken these lands from the Indians. Comanche for sure. Kickapoo and Kiowa. I didn’t know the tribes very well. After all, I was still relatively new to Texas. Twas a vast state with so much to be learned and discovered. Perhaps that’s partly why Tad liked riding the range, for he could see miles of varying landscape. The cactus, shrubs, mountains, deserts, draws, streams…endless variety. I wish he were there so I could really talk to someone. If I didn’t learn my Spanish I foresaw it being a lonely job.

The cicadas picked up rhythm as the sun sank in the west, illuminating the clay valley in bright red and orange. The tops of surrounding plateaus were limned in yellow as can be seen in flames of fire. A hawk’s scream echoed above. The horses in the corral stomped away the flies and knickered at each other. As some of the men dispersed, their rowels jingled in the crackling grass.

I followed Juanita, Carmelita, and Martina into the kitchen where the former began singing a foreign song as she rolled up her sleeves and began the washing of the dishes. The other two joined her with their resonating voices. Their song was beautiful and stirred emotions in me that I had not felt in a long time. I desperately wished I understood the lyrics, but resorted to appreciating the rhythms and sounds. I tried humming along, but staggered more than anything.

Lying down on my corn husk mattress that night I heard the howling of coyotes and the occasional mooing of a cow. Familiar sounds compared to the voices I’d heard all day long.

I lay in a foreign room in foreign sheets with clay walls closing in around me. It may have been cooler in here, but none of it was what I knew. I wanted to be at home, to hear the whispers of my parents at the table, to be fighting Tad for the blankets. No matter how much I wished for that, though, I couldn’t go back to the way things had been. This was my life now. A cook for the TR. Would I ever feel excited about it?