The Winter's Trail by Sharon Breeling

Author:Sharon Breeling
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
Published: 2019-11-20T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

Ruth quit going to the auctions with David. They hired big trucks to come get the cattle and horses. David always went to the giftshop or over to the fairgrounds to find a craft or small gift to take to Ruth. Several times, he would come home and she would be sound asleep on the porch with dinner simmering away in the oven. She barely made it through dinner sometimes. David built in a dishwasher for her but sometimes, he and Juaquin would clean up. She would beg to stay home on weekends and seemed to be extra quiet and tired. Summer was coming to a close and it seemed the closer it was to school starting, the lesser she spoke. Her face still lit up when he walked in the door, but she never let him talk about her going back to work. Juaquin saw how tired she was and asked to drive her to work and back a couple of days a week. He would go into the springs for supplies and then get her at three on his way back. He was always buying extra fruits or juice for her and it seemed that Rosie always got the leftover fruit. The drive into town and back was unusually quiet and sometimes she just fell asleep in his truck. He tried to chat with her, but she would just stare straight ahead and didn’t seem to hear him. David noticed the changes in her. Her eyes were blank and she wouldn’t talk anymore. Most of the time, she stayed up late grading papers and he would find her asleep on the couch in the morning. He wanted to hold his wife again, brush her long hair, and go for rides and walks. Mostly, he missed sitting on the bench at the top of the hill and watching the sunset on Pikes Peak. One day, David was walking through the kitchen and noticed Ruth’s gently worn Ropers on a towel by the door. Mud was still crusted on them and he knew they had been in the same spot for weeks. She loved her cowboy boots and took such good care of them. He picked them up and took them out to the porch to scrape the mud off, clean them up, and even polish them for her. As he worked on her boots, he noticed how worn they had gotten, even a spot by the heel in the back. That was where she rested her feet on the porch railing when she sat on her rocker to have coffee. He noticed she didn’t do that much anymore. By the time he was done, the leather was soft and supple and ready for their owner’s tender feet. He put them back but made a note to keep an eye out to see if she would put them back on.

It seemed like Ruth would get home later and later from town. And when it snowed, she would arrive home around eleven.

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