Vows by LaVyrle Spencer
"All right, sister, they're your horses."
They rode in silence for nearly an hour and a half. He let her control their pace, slowing to a walk when she slowed, cantering when she cantered. She spoke only once, when they were turning into the driveway at their destination. "This is no country to raise pigs in but Jagush is Polish and the Polish eat pork. He'd have been better off to bring lambs out here when he homesteaded."
A short pudgy woman in a babushka came from an outbuilding the moment they arrived. Her face was round as a pumpkin and contorted with worry. "She is down here!" Mrs. Jagush called, gesturing toward the crude log barn.
"Hurry."
Dismounting, Emily told Jeffcoat, "You can wait here if you want. It'll smell a lot fresher."
"You might need some help."
"Suit yourself. Just don't get sick on me." Turning sideways in the saddle, she slid to the ground, landed lightly, and let Tom tie both horses to a fence post while she retrieved her pack from behind the saddle. They walked to the barn together, met by Mrs. Jagush, whose creased face spoke of long hours of anxiety.
"Tank you for comink. My Tina she is not so good."
No, her Tina wasn't. The sow lay on her side, shaking violently from fever. It appeared she had gathered straw and arranged a nest, sensing her time was at hand. But she'd been lying in it, probably thrashing, for the better part of a day and at some point her water broke and soiled the bed, which was flattened now into a dish shape. Emily donned her rubber apron, and disregarding the condition of the pen, dropped to her knees and touched the sow's belly, which was bright red instead of its usual pale pink. Her ears, too, were scarlet: a sure sign of trouble. "Not feeling so good, huh, Tina?" She spoke quietly, then informed Mrs. Jagush, "I'll need to wash my hands. And your husband said you have beer in the house. Could you bring me about a quart?"
"Ja."
"And lard, a half cup should do."
When Mrs. Jagush went away, Jeffcoat inquired, "Beer?"
"It's not for me, it's for Tina. Pigs love beer and it calms them. Hand me that pitchfork, so I can get her up."
Jeffcoat obliged, then watched while she slipped the tines beneath the pig and gently rocked them against the floor. Pricked, but unhurt, the sow grunted to her feet.
"Pigs are very maleable. They get up and down naturally all through the birthing anyway, so nudging her up won't hurt her a bit. Good gal," Emily praised, rubbing the sow's back when she was on her feet.
She spoke to the pig with more warmth than she offered most people, Jeffcoat observed. But her concern for the animal had loosened her tongue and she explained to him, "Pigs give birth on two sides, did you know that? First they lay down and bear half the litter on one side, then they get up and clean them before flopping over onto the other side and do the same thing again. Nobody has an explanation why."
Mrs. Jagush returned with the supplies—a white basin, lard, and the beer in a wrinkled tin kettle. When the latter was placed before Tina, she reacted like a true sow, slurped the kettle dry, then fell to her side with a snort.
Emily washed her hands first with plain soap and water, then in a carbolic acid solution, and when they were dry, systematically went on to carbonize the lard and lubricate her right hand.
Jeffcoat watched with growing admiration. Having been around animals his whole life he'd heard plenty of stories of carelessness, and knew that more animals died from infection caused by unsanitary hands than of the natural complications of birthing.
Emily greased her skin well past the wrist, then met his eyes for the first time since entering the barn.
"If you want to help you can hold her head." Without words he took up his station at Tina's head.
"All right, Tina." Emily kept her voice low and soothing while dropping to her knees. "Let's see if we can give you some help."
Jeffcoat observed with added deference as she grasped the pig's tail, made a dart of her fingertips, and forced them into the animal. There could be no more repugnant job in all of animal husbandry, yet she performed it with single-minded purpose. The sow's muscles were tight and not easily breached; had they been otherwise, the baby pigs would undoubtedly have been born already and sucking. Emily set her jaw, stiffened her wrist, and performed the task with an alacrity most men would have found difficult to muster. Her hand disappeared to the wrist, then farther. Her eyes were fixed, her concentration centered deep within the animal. Groping blindly, she bit her lower lip, then whispered, "There you are." When she withdrew the first baby pig the stench hit like a fetid explosion, rolling Tom's stomach with such suddenness he found himself swallowing back his gorge. Emily whipped her face sharply aside, sucked in a quick breath against her shoulder, then turned back to check the piglet.
"It's dead," she reported, "Take it away or she'll try to eat it." Mrs. Jagush hurried over with a shovel and took the fetus away. Emily buried her face against her shoulder to momentarily muffle the stench while she refilled her lungs.
Coming up, she said, "Hang on. Here we go again."
She pulled out five of them and the miasma seemed to grow worse with each one. Tom found his nose flattened against his shoulder more often then not, and he wondered why anybody, much less a woman, would choose an occupation like this. After the sixth dead pig was pulled, he said, "Why don't you take a break and grab some fresh air?"
"When I've got them all," she answered stoically, taking no more relief than a quick breath against her own sleeve. In time it, too, grew soiled, dampened by her sweat, fouled in spots by animal offal and excretions. The stench became noxious as the straw grew wet and rank, but she knelt in it without complaint. Toward the end she gagged, but staunchly forced herself to finish the job.
The last few fetuses were carried away by August, who'd arrived from town time to watch them being delivered dead.
Finally Emily told Tom, "That was the last one. Come on, now we can take break."
They hurried outside into the clean air and sunshine, fell against the barn wall and sucked in great gulps of breath, closed their eyes and let their heads drop back in relief.
When he could speak again, Tom whispered, "Jesus."
"The worst is over. Thanks for helping."
For minutes they shared the gift of clean air while the Jagushes buried the new baby pigs. At length, Tom rolled his head to study Emily's profile, her nose raised to the sun, her mouth open, drawing in the freshness.
"Do you do this often?"
She rolled her face toward him and produced a weary, self-satisfied grin. "First time with pigs."
His respect for her grew immensely. There were compliments he might have offered. They crossed his mind in ribbons of praising words. But in the end he simply grinned and said softly, "Y' did good, tomboy."
To his surprise, she replied, "Thanks, blacksmith, you didn't do so bad yourself. Now what do you say we wash our hands before we finish up?"
"There's more?" he asked, dismayed.
"More."
He boosted himself away from the wall. "Lead the way, Doc."
They washed at the well in the yard, and when they'd finished, returned to the barn, where Emily mixed up a solution of tincture of aconite and fed it to Tina to reduce her fever, then prepared a carbolic acid wash to clean out the sow's womb. From her bag Emily produced a rubber hose with a funnel attached to on end.
"Would you mind holding this?" she asked Tom, handing him the funnel.
He found he minded less and less, for watching her was not only an education, it was becoming enjoyable. She had dropped all her veneer of iciness and had become a strong, resolute person who, captivated by her work, had forgotten her antagonism toward Tom Jeffcoat. He could not help admiring again her tolerance and nervelessness as she inserted the hose into Tina, ordered, "Lift the funnel higher," and poured the wash into it. They stood close in the smelly barn, listening to the liquid gurgle as gravity took it down slowly. What they'd been through bound them with a curious, earthy intimacy. Repugnant, at times,
When the job was done and the instruments washed, he followed her outside where she stood in the late afternoon sun, instructing Mr. and Mrs. Jagush.
"Don't breed her every time she comes into heat. If you do she'll be weak and so will her babies. Give her a rest between times and start feeding her extract of black haw, no more than one ounce each day, mixed with her water. You can get it at the drug store and it'll help prevent abortions. Any questions?"
"Ja," replied August, "how much do this cost me?"
She smiled and tied her pack onto her saddle. "Would one baby pig be too much? If the next brood lives, I'll take one at weaning time and raise him in the corral at the livery stable."
"One baby pig you will get, young missy, and I tank you for comink to help Tina. The missus, she was plenty upset this mornink, wasn't you, missus?"
Mrs. Jagush nodded and smiled, clasping her hands in gratitude. "God bless you, missy. You're a good girl."
Emily and Tom mounted up and waved to the two standing shoulder to shoulder in the driveway.
The road beyond the Jagush place angled northwest and as they took it the sun already shone on their left shoulders. Tom pulled out a pocket watch and snapped it open. "It's already four o'clock and Tarsy's party starts at seven. Maybe you'd rather put off introducing me to Liberty until another time."
"Tarsy's party is going to be silly anyway. I'd rather go to Liberty's than play parlor games."
"Oh, we're going to play parlor games, are we?"
"Fannie put ideas into her head. Musical chairs and charades and who knows what else."
"Seems to me you could stand a little merrymaking after an afternoon like you just put in."
She tossed him a sidelong glance laced with the hint of a smile. "Given a choice between looking at horses and playing parlor games, I'll take the horses every time."
Though he secretly agreed, Tom felt obliged to remind her, "Charles is looking forward to it."
"I know. So I'll go, but he'll find his way to Tarsy's himself if I'm a little late. Come on, let's ride."
With a touch of her heels she sent Sagebrush into an easy canter and Tom followed suit on Gunpowder. Cantering just off her left flank, he studied what he could see of her profile: her stubborn jaw; the full lower lip—jutting slightly as she concentrated on the road ahead; her black eyelashes and the cap angled over her left ear; the single hand holding the reins; her breasts, firm and unbouncing as her spine curved into each rise and fall of the broad back beneath her. His eyes lingered upon her breasts longer than was prudent, and with some shock he realized what he'd been thinking.
Whoa, there, Jeffcoat, just by God, whoa!
He glanced away and concentrated on the scenery instead.
They were in true ranching country where the uncertain horizon changed with each curve in the road. It was a landscape of gulch and rolling hill, sun-baked plateau and cloud-freshened valley. The hillsides were splotched with clusters of chartreuse aspens and darker strings of cottonwoods where busy streams brattled down from the great top country above timberline. Up there, snow still clung, startlingly white against the purple peaks. At lower altitudes additional seams of white appeared: gypsum interbedded with red chugwater rock giving the impression of smears of snow. Aromatic sage thrived everywhere in clumps of downy silver-green, trimmed with yellow blooms that spread their turpentinelike scent through the summer air. In the distance, sheep corrals tumbled like spilled matchsticks down the faces of green hills. So much green—bluegrass, wheatgrass and redtop, all lush and verdant.
In the distance they saw a sheepherder's wagon, tucked beneath a greasewood tree, and a tiny dark dot—a herder watching them from a nearby hillside, where he sat surrounded by his dun-colored herd and two black moving spots—his dogs.
To Tom's surprise, Emily reined in, stood in the stirrups, waved, and bugled, "Halloooo!" They sat still, listening to her call echo and reecho across the valley. The herder stood as the sound reached him. He cupped his mouth. Seconds later his greeting came back: the distinctive Basque yell, "Ye-ye-ye-ye-ye!", undulating across the valley like a shrill coyote yip.
"Who is he?" Tom inquired.
"I don't know. Just a Basque. They live year round in those little wagons with their herds. In the spring they take the sheep up the mountain, and in the fall they bring them back down. The most they ever own is their wagon, a rifle, and a couple of sheep dogs. I've always thought they must have such terribly lonely lives."
As they rode on, Tom puzzled over Emily Walcott. Was it her real self he was seeing today, at last? If so, he was beginning to like it. Animals and Basques warmed a response in her. He wondered what else did.
Once again he forced his thoughts into safer paths. Scanning the hills, he commented, "I hadn't expected so much green."
"Enjoy it while it lasts. By mid-July it'll all be yellow."
"When will winter start?"
She cocked her head and glanced at a distant white-topped peak. "The old-timers have a saying—that in Wyoming winter never ends, that when summer's coming down the mountain it meets winter going back up."
"What? No autumn?"
"Oh we have autumn, all right. Autumn's my favorite. Wait till you see these cottonwood in late September. Papa calls them 'the Midas gift' because they look like hoards of gold coins."
They topped a rise just then and below lay the Lucky L Ranch, spread out across an irregular-shaped valley on Horseshoe Mountain. The Little Tongue River ran through it and its perimeter was clearly defined by the black wall of pine and spruce, which gave it a protected look. Before they'd traveled half the length of the driveway, Jeffcoat realized the Lucky L was more than lucky, it was prosperous. The buildings were painted, the fences in repair, and the stock they passed looked impressively healthy. The house and outbuildings had a planned look, laid out in pleasing geometric relationship to one another. The barns, granaries, and bunkhouse were painted white with black trim, but the house was built of native sandstone. It had two stories, with thick roofbeams extended beneath the eaves, a deep, full-width front porch, and a great fieldstone chimney. Elms surrounded the house on three sides and the outbuildings flanked it, right and left.
Before the house a line of hitching posts waited, each topped by a steed's head of black iron, gripping a brass ring in its teeth.
"Looks like Liberty does all right for himself," Jeffcoat observed, dismounting.
"He sells horses to the army. The army not only pays top dollar, they create a constant demand. If the army thinks Lucky L horses are good enough, I do, too."
Emily led the way to the house, whose door was answered by a short, round woman in a white mobcap and apron. "Mr. Liberty is down behind C Barn." She pointed. "It's that one over there."
The first thing Jeffcoat noticed about Cal Liberty was not his impressive barrel-chested stature, or his expensive, freshly brushed Stetson trimmed with a leather band studded with turquoise set in silver, but the way he treated Emily Walcott—as if she were a ghost he could see through. Liberty immediately shook hands with Tom but ignored the hand that Emily offered. Upon learning that Tom was there to buy horses the rancher invited him over to the next barn, where his foreman was working, but he suggested Emily go to the house to have coffee with his wife.
Emily bristled and opened her mouth to retort, but Jeffcoat cut her off. "Miss Walcott is here to help me choose the horses."
As they followed Liberty, Tom felt Emily sizzle with indignation. He squeezed her elbow and dropped her a pointed glance that ordered. Shut up, tomboy, just this once? To his relief, she only puckered her mouth and glared at the back of Liberty's head. Tom did likewise, thinking. You pompous ass, you should have seen her an hour ago pulling dead pigs.
They found Liberty's foreman, a seasoned cowboy with skin like beef jerky and hands as hard as saddle leather. His eyes were pale as jade, his legs bowed like a wishbone, and when he smiled the plug of tobacco in his cheek gave him the appearance of a pocket gopher.
"This's Trout Wills," Liberty announced. "Trout, meet Tom Jeffcoat."
Tom shook Trout's hand.
"Jeffcoat wants to look at—"
"And this is Miss Emily Walcott," interrupted Tom.
Trout tipped his hat. "Miss Walcott, how-do."
Liberty picked up where he'd left off, turning a shoulder to cut Emily out. "Jeffcoat wants to look at some horses. See what you can fix him up with."
Though Trout followed orders. Liberty stayed close by, watching. After the rancher's cool dismissal of Emily, Tom took perverse pleasure in allowing her every opportunity to display her knowledge of horseflesh. By some unspoken agreement they'd decided to take Liberty down a notch.
When the cavvy of horses milled before them, Tom asked, loud and clear, "What do you think, Emily?"
They both ignored Liberty, who lounged at a nearby fence. Tom watched as Emily singled out a two-year-old mare, won its confidence, and began a minute inspection. Tom stood back, impressed himself as she went through an entire half dozen animals with educated thoroughness. On each one she checked to make sure the skin was soft and supple, the hairs of the coat lying flat and sleek, the eyes bright, the bearing alert. She checked the membranes of the nostrils to be sure they were a pale salmon pink, felt each crest for possible soreness, each tendon for bursal enlargements, pulled back lips to inspect molars and tushes, picked up feet to examine the condition of the frogs, and even checked pulse rates beneath jaws.