Fortunately, the little rascal slipped out of his collar again and headed straight into J.B.’s arms, licking his face as if they were old friends. J.B. never forgot that dog, and felt as brokenhearted as Dulcinea when he finally passed.
“My dogs won’t bite,” she called with a smile.
“Might get licked to death.” He laughed and stood with the dog in his arms.
“You’re getting wet,” she said, her own long gray sleeves dripping.
“J. B. Bennett,” he said. “Nebraska Sand Hills. Cattle. That’s what I grow, I mean raise, cattle.” Stop, he warned himself, hush now. He grinned foolishly.
“Dulcinea Woodstone,” she said with a tilt of her head as if to get a better view of him. “Three blocks away. Play with dogs, read books, attend boring parties, theatrical and musical performances. What are the Sand Hills?” It was her humor that capped it for him.
They saw each other every day after that, as long as possible until her parents began to worry, then he’d gone home for a month, only to return and ask for her hand in marriage. She’d been waiting, packed, her trousseau consisting not of dresses and furs, but of specially ordered ranch clothing as she called it. The only outfitting he had to do in Omaha when they stopped on the train out to North Platte was to buy her a pair of cowboy boots and a real cowboy hat. He didn’t care if she wore a coronation crown and a ball gown, but she insisted that she be ready for her part in their western adventure. Years later he wondered how their life had changed so easily, from this to that, and from that to this: He’d spent the last ten years tracking her to some rooming house or hotel in a town above or below the hills, or a few times to a tent she pitched far from their house. He never knew when she’d summon him for another argument, never knew if he could leave work to meet her. Last time, she told him he must bring both their sons if he expected them to be together again. He’d held off as long as he could, intending to wait until after branding and culling, then woke and decided today was the day he’d ride to his father’s ranch and retrieve their eldest son. It was Drum who’d taught him to always do the hardest work first thing in the morning.
On the last morning of his life, J.B. rode out to retrieve his son from his father, deep in memory. He remembered that Dulcinea had waited until after breakfast that final May morning ten years ago, when the hands had ridden out to collect the cattle for spring branding. It was a day like today. As soon as the last hand mumbled thanks for the breakfast and with hat clutched against chest backed his way through the door and carefully closed it, she stood and walked with a determined step, shoulders back, chin high, and stopped in front of the big Union Pacific calendar he kept on the wall above the baker’s table and pie safe, despite her objections. He liked the western themes. This month a lone cowboy rode hell-bent for leather across the sagebrush after a wild-eyed longhorn. J.B. never tired of that picture, even though it was already mid-May and he’d faced it every morning and evening. Later he would wonder that he never thought to ask why she’d written a small x in each day for the past two weeks. On May 15, she drew a slash across the whole box rather than the small, discreet x. He’d always been a little slow on the uptake, Drum assured him later that day when he rode in for the cow sorting since both their herds ran together each winter. After Dulcinea left, he spent money he didn’t have to build a fence between his land and Drum’s, but the cattle still broke through on occasion. Too little too late.
“Looks like she was wishing it was your throat she slashed rather than that little ole paper. What did you do to that girl, J.B.?” Drum’s mouth had widened into a grin when he’d heard. J.B. remembered her preoccupied air, how she ignored Hayward as he tried to lift another ladle of syrup onto his pancakes, succeeding in dribbling it across the table and dropping the large wooden spoon on the floor without any of it landing on his plate. The child had looked fearfully at his mother, his lower lip quivering, and J.B. had picked up the spoon and wiped down the table without a word. Dulcinea stood watching them, a thoughtful expression on her face, arms folded, then she turned and walked swiftly to the stairs, lifting her skirt as she hurried up almost soundlessly. J.B. thought he’d seen tears in her eyes.
She came down wearing a long ivory linen duster over one of the two traveling dresses she had brought with her all those years earlier.
He slammed down his coffee cup, pushed the chair away so hard it fell backward to the floor, and strode across the room to grab her arm.
“What is this?” He knew it was the wrong tone, the wrong words, because her eyes flared then flattened and her mouth settled into a grim line. He dropped his hand.
Hayward began his peculiar sobbing-hiccupping that was much too babyish for a five-year-old boy, his father would later assure him.
“Go outside, son,” J.B. told him, but he sat quietly, stubbornly at the table, kicking the legs of his chair and scowling at his mother.
Dulcinea took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, swiped at the corner of her eye with the edge of her gloved hand, and peered around J.B. “Come here, Hayward, come to Mama.”
The boy picked up his fork then purposely dropped it on the plate to produce the clanging sound the adults hated, but which he seemed to understand he would not be reprimanded for in this moment of crisis. Satisfied, he ran his forefinger once more through the syrup and melted butter smeared on his plate. She had made his favorite breakfast—donkey pancakes, including the bacon pack-saddle that he’d gobbled first.
“Son,” J.B. said.
“Leave him alone.” She adjusted the black-plumed hat on her head, draping the veil across her forehead so it could be pulled down and tied in back.
“Hayward, go outside. Tell Jorge I said you could have your new horse.” J.B. hoped she would hear what he suggested, that he meant to give their five-year-old his own horse, despite her objections, that she daren’t leave, but she only looked over her shoulder at the stairs behind her.
“I’m ready to go,” she called and immediately the sound of a large, heavy object thumped down the uncarpeted steps. J.B. counted each one, four to the landing, ten to the bottom.
“Who is that?” he asked.
Hayward bounced off his chair and ran to the door, pulled it open, and clambered down the three steps to the stone walk, his miniature cowboy boots clopping loudly. Her steamer trunk landed with a thud at the bottom of the stairs, and one of the men, Stubs, who later went to work for Drum, followed.
J.B. looked at Dulcinea, her expression grim, while her hands busied themselves with a large floral brocade satchel stuffed with necessities for a long journey. After rummaging for a moment, she extricated an ivory envelope he recognized as her stationery from before they were married. She handed him the envelope but stopped his hand when he moved to open the unsealed flap.
“You’re leaving then,” he finally managed to say. He could hear the jingling harness and creaking wood as the wagon pulled up outside the gate.