Love Drunk Cowboy

chapter 20

After the jail incident Austin settled into a busy but comfortable rut where she worked hard all week, watched watermelons grow, and went to Mesquite on weekends. She talked to her mother several times a week, to Rye every day, and to Molly and Greta on Fridays. Summer was wetter than normal so the melons were full and ripe by the end of June and that weekend the harvest was so busy that she could not get away to go to the rodeo.

Rye caught up to her on his way out of town that Thursday evening at the watermelon shed just east of town. She’d been driving the converted old school bus back and forth from the fields all day to the shed. Dust and sweat beads had combined to give her a dirt necklace. Her hair hung limp with the humidity and her cut-off overalls looked as if they’d been dusted with red powder.

He gathered her into his arms, planting kisses all over her face.

She giggled. “I’m so dirty. You’ll be filthy when you get to the hotel.”

“I don’t care.” He kissed her eyelids, the tip of her nose, nibbled on her neck, and ran his hand up her sweaty back. “I hate to go without you. I love you so much.”

“And I hate to stay home. I love you too. Now go before I tear up.”

“Don’t you dare cry. If you do I’ll shoot the bulls and never leave you again.” He hugged her tighter.

“Never miss the water until the well runs dry. Now I know what they’re talking about,” she said.

“Oh, I’m a well and I’ve run dry?”

She leaned into his chest, listening to his heartbeat and wishing she was going with Gemma that night. Visions of him in that big king-sized bed at the hotel didn’t help matters.

“For this weekend. Don’t be finding a groupie and forgetting me.”

He tipped her chin up and kissed her hard. “Darlin’, a man doesn’t eat bologna when he can have sirloin.”

“What if he’s starving?”

“I’ve only got an appetite for you.”

“Don’t forget that.”

He brushed another kiss across her lips and then deepened the next one into something usually reserved for the bedroom instead of right out in public in broad daylight. When he broke the kiss he asked, “Think that might whet your appetite?”

“Hell, no! That made me forget watermelon wine and now I’m hungry for good old bedroom sex.”

He chuckled and got into his truck. “I’ll call you tonight after the rodeo.”

“Tell Colleen not to gloat too much. I’ll be there next weekend.”

“She’s comin’ around. She just doesn’t like being wrong.”

Austin leaned in the window and kissed him one more time. “Drive safe.”

When he rolled up the window and drove away she groaned, hopped up in her melon hauling wagon, and fired up the rattling engine. Granny had bought three school busses at an auction and then set about making them into something better than a pickup truck for hauling melons from the fields to the shed. School busses set up high to get them over rough roads to pick up kids in back country places, so getting in and out of watermelon fields was no problem. The hired help had cut the windows out of the bus and taken the back doors off. Each year they busted a bale of hay in the floor to cushion the melons, but they weren’t air-conditioned so the work was hot and backbreaking.

Austin shifted gears and pushed back a few hairs that had stuck to her cheek. Next week if she had time she intended to make an appointment with Gemma to get her hair trimmed. She passed Lobo on the way to the shed and waved. When she arrived at the field she parked and hopped out. Felix and Jacinto already had half a mile of melons cut and ready to toss. On the other end of the field Hugo and Estefan were loading a bus.

“It’s a wonderful crop this year.” Felix picked up the first melon and threw it to Jacinto who threw it up to Angelo in the bus. He handed it off to Austin who stacked them carefully to prevent busting.

“I’m glad,” Angelo paused to translate from Spanish to English, “that you are,” another pause, “staying to make the farm run.”

“You will all come back next year, won’t you?” She suddenly had a panic attack. What if they didn’t want to work for her another year? How would she go about getting help?

“Si. We will be here. We were worried that we wouldn’t have jobs next year and we like it here. Our family has been coming to this place for more than forty years. Way before I was born.”

Her panic attack eased and she continued handling each melon as if it were a newborn baby. “I’m glad that this will be done in a few weeks. I hate being away from Rye.”

“What did you say?” Angelo asked.

“I was talking to myself,” she laughed.

“Sometimes I do that too. I talk to my wife at night before I go to sleep,” he said.

“You must miss her so bad.” She couldn’t imagine being away from Rye four months out of every year.

“Si. I miss her and my three children, but this is a very good job and it takes care of us all year in my small village. I am happy to have it.”

At dark they called it a day. She’d lost count of how many trips she’d made back and forth to the watermelon shed and she was bone tired when she kicked off her boots and went into the house. She had dozens of melons waiting in the garage to run through the colander, but a shower was the first thing on the agenda.

She unhooked her overall galluses and was halfway down the hall when she heard the crunch of tires in the driveway. She redid her overalls as she headed back up the hall and heard people talking. She opened the front door and was struck speechless.

“Hello… damn it to hell! Look at you!” Barbara said.

“What the hell?” Joan’s eyes widened.

“You look like shit,” Clydia said.

“Well, I’ve damn sure accomplished something tonight. I’ve got all three of you cussin’. Come right in.” She threw open the door. “Don’t snarl your nose. I’m still working on the mess. I just came in from the fields, so you’ll have to open a bottle of wine and wait for me to take a shower before you tell me what the devil you three are doing in Terral.”

“We all met in Dallas to shop for a long weekend. We decided to drive up here and take you back with us to do some shopping,” Barbara said.

“I’ll be back in ten minutes. Have you had supper? I was about to make a sandwich.”

“We ate at a little German restaurant over in Muenster,” Joan said.

“Go on and get your shower. You actually stink, girl,” Clydia said.

“Yes, I do and my boyfriend hugged me in this condition before he left this afternoon.” She grinned. “Wine is in the fridge. Glasses above the sink.”

She washed the grime from her hair and body, used a blow dryer and a brush on her hair, applied a bit of makeup, and then wiped most of it off because it was too light for her new brown skin. She donned a pair of denim shorts she’d found at the Red Barn, a bright blue knit shirt, and her best cowboy boots and headed back to the living room.

The sisters were sitting around the kitchen table with a bottle of watermelon wine and three glasses. Joan looked up and swallowed quickly.

“’Bout choked on that, didn’t you?” Austin said.

“You look worse now than before,” Clydia said.

Austin opened the refrigerator and took out a can of cold Coors. “Yeah, but I don’t stink now. You got something to say, Mother? If so, go ahead and spit it out because then it’s my turn.”

“I can’t bear to see you like this,” Barbara said. “Didn’t you bring anything decent from Tulsa to shop in?”

“I’m not going shopping. I usually spend my weekends in Dallas with Rye at the rodeo, but it’s harvest time and I’m working all weekend. And I’m happy in my new skin so get used to seeing me like this.”

“What do you mean, harvest? Don’t you have hired hands that do that work?” Clydia asked.

“Six of them, but I work too. It’s my farm and I want to know what goes on.”

Clydia downed the rest of her wine and poured another. She was dressed in navy slacks and an ecru top. Her necklace was a two-carat diamond solitaire on a thick gold chain with earrings to match. “This is good stuff. And you are planning to make it just like Verline did?”

“I’ve already got two batches in the refrigerator with plans to put another two in there tomorrow.”

“Well, save me a couple of bottles. It’s damn good.”

Barbara looked around the kitchen. “God, this place hasn’t changed in thirty years but it’s changed you.”

“Thank you. I wish Rye hadn’t already left. I’d love for you to meet him.”

Austin looked out the front window. “Oh, Mother, you’ve rented a Caddy and not a Chevrolet. Saint Peter is going to give you demerit marks for that.”

“He’s going to tell you to go straight to hell, do not pass go or collect any money at all for moving down here,” Barbara snapped.

“Maybe so, but if it’s like Terral, I reckon I’ll feel right at home,” Austin shot back. “Why are y’all really here?”

Clydia set her wine glass down and said, “Your mother wanted us to come help rescue you. She’s given you long enough to come to your senses. She thought if we came down here and took you to the city, did some shopping, and saw a play or a concert, you’d see the difference and change your mind.”

“It ain’t happenin’,” Austin said.

Joan frowned. “Even your language is different. You talk like these people. Barbara is right. This place changed you.”

“Thank you for noticing,” Austin said.

Barbara whined, “You really aren’t coming back to Tulsa, are you?”

“No, Mother, I’m not. I’ll visit in the winter probably since that’s my slow time, but from Easter until after July 4 there’s no way I can get away.”

“You really are happy down here. I hate that.”

“I am and I’m sorry that you don’t like it.”

“I’m not coming down here very often,” she declared.

“You are welcome any time. When I get around to cleaning out the house I’ll even fix up Granny’s old room for you.”

“I’ll stay in a motel. I’m not staying in Verline’s bedroom. She’d haunt me,” Barbara said.

“She might at that,” Austin agreed, remembering all the times when she could swear Verline was meddling in her life. She sat down, reached across the table, and touched her mother’s hand. “It’s good to see you, Mother. I’ve missed you but not Tulsa so much.”