Come Again No More by Jack Todd

Author:Jack Todd
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books

24.

EMALINE CAME HOME TO A MOUNTAIN OF DIRTY dishes and a filthy house. Every moment she was on her feet was anguish. She hadn’t the strength even to lean on her crutches and wash the dishes. She managed to sit up in bed and write a letter to Ben and Bobby telling them what had happened, but even that tired her out.

She was resting on the davenport on a hot, dusty afternoon when someone knocked at the door. She peered through the screen and saw a tall, slender, dark-skinned woman with long black hair.

“Don’t get up, please,” the stranger said. “Are you Emaline McCloskey?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“My name is Juanita Barrios. I work for Eli Paint, on the 8T8 ranch up in Wyoming.”

“Oh, yes. My brothers told me about you. Do you mind letting yourself in? It’s hard for me to get to the door.”

Juanita stepped inside and paused a moment, letting her eyes adjust from the noon glare outside. “Bobby told me about your accident. I’m a nurse. I have some experience getting Eli back on his feet after he broke his leg, so I have come down to see if I can help.”

“Eli didn’t have to send you.”

“He did not send me. I came because I decide to come. I know it is very hard when you have a broken leg. I can perhaps help you to walk again.”

“I think that’s going to take a long time.”

“Not so long as you think. Perhaps a month or a little more. Until you can use a cane. It is better if someone works with you. You will walk more quickly.”

Emaline was in too much pain to argue. Juanita seemed to have everything she needed in a small valise. She moved into the spare room and took over. Before Jake returned from wherever he had been, she had washed the dishes, washed Jake’s dirty work clothes, made a good supper from what she found in the cupboard and the icebox.

Emaline took an instant liking to Juanita. The two women got along like old friends from the beginning, but when Jake came back from the fields and found a beautiful woman looking after his wife, he couldn’t hide his reaction. Emaline noticed, but she noticed also that Juanita parried every attempt he made to flirt. It didn’t matter. Jake behaved like a dog in heat, but Juanita was having none of it. She drew a line and would not allow him to cross it.

As the days went by, Juanita began to rule Jake in other ways. He was in the habit of strolling into the house with his boots on, tracking in manure from the corrals. Horse manure, cow manure, sheep manure, pig manure. Emaline had tried without success to get him to use one of the three bootjacks on the back porch to take his boots off. After a single day of sweeping and mopping the floor every time Jake came in, Juanita had put her foot down. The next morning, when he returned to the house after milking the cows, she met him at the door.

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