Crew and The Goat Lady – Ch 5

Crew and The Goat Lady – Ch 5

Author’s Note: This is a short story based on a character from “Letters to Dogwood“. It is recommended that you read the book first before delving into Crew’s story. I wrote this because it was requested by a reader and it made me realize that everyone deserves someone, even if they aren’t your typical good guy or hero. Love comes in all shapes and forms, personalities and quirks. And considering that Crew has a heart of gold, he deserves someone just as interesting as he is.-Tanya

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Chapter Five: Shared Pasts

Della had spent the last hour since Crew had left huddled in the back corner of her cabin, just as she had spent every night for almost a week.

The first night the boys had shown up hadn’t engendered much worry. One of them had knocked on her door, and when she had opened it, the group had scampered away, laughing. She remembered shouting threats of talking to their mamas if they didn’t get off her property.

The next night, they came back. They stuck around longer that time, and she remembered staying up past midnight, furious, worried, and blinking sleepily. As the week went on, their antics grew more sinister.

They would rap on her walls and shutters with sticks and make animal noises, howling and growling like a pack of coyotes. Iris would go off, barking incessantly at the door and ignoring every one of Della’s commands to “quiet!”

Finally, the night before, she had known real fear.

They had broken her latch, eerily quiet at first until they realized she had barred her door with a board. Threats and shouts ensued for a good hour before they grew bored, promising to return the next night with an axe. Della had cowered in her corner with her gun, praying to God that she’d never have to use it.

That morning, she had promised herself to visit the sheriff in town. It had been immensely hard to get dressed, knowing she’d have to go to town and reveal herself to people. The stares she could survive.

Not the whispers.

And when people weren’t whispering, they were quiet. It was as though an invisible wall stood between Della and everyone else. The mercantile owner was kind enough, but he didn’t ask questions or start a conversation, so she found the trip back to her hill was often lonelier than when she left it.

Only Edna kept her from insanity. If it hadn’t been for her kindly older neighbor, Della would have started talking to her goats to pass the time. Edna visited every other week, trading canned goods and smoked meat for wefts of mohair from Della’s stock of Angora goats or wool from last year’s shearing. It was because of her sweet friend’s word of mouth that people traveled to Della’s farm to buy goats or sheep from her prolific livestock.

If only Edna had come this week, Della had thought that morning, walking the property behind her house in a show of belligerent procrastination. It was because she was avoiding the uncomfortable trip to the sheriff that Della had fallen in that blasted well. That’s what she got for being a coward.

And now, twelve hours later, Crew was knocking on her door with his slow, kind voice saying, “Miss Della? It’s me, Crew. I ran those boys off for ya. They shouldn’t bother you again.”

Having heard only a portion of what Crew had shouted at the boys after the BOOM! of the gun firing, Della was frantic to raise the bar and open the door and barely missed crippling her good foot when the board fell an inch next to it. Yanking the door open, she saw, for the second time, the big man standing a respectful distance away.

“You didn’t kill one of them, did you?” Della asked, terrified that he’d hurt one of the boys on her account. Her biggest fear hadn’t been what the boys would do to her but what she might accidentally do to them if cornered. Never had she wanted to hurt anyone, especially children. She had a rifle, even older than Crew’s own Henry, propped against the work table, but she had resisted even loading it.

In one hand, she used the cane that Crew had whittled for her, and she wobbled precariously, weak with fear that he would hang come sunup.

But Crew’s eyebrows went up, and he held out two hands, one holding his rifle and a length of rope, and shook his head.

“No, ‘course I didn’t kill one of ’em. They’re just kids being pissants is all.” Seeing how her body grew limp, he tried to usher her out of the cold. The door shut behind them, and warmth returned.

That sensation was back, the same warm gratefulness that had suffused her when he had pulled her from the well that morning. She had wanted to kiss him then as a show of appreciation but had been only too aware of her disgusting state. Kissing a man when one looked like a swamp monster was not something she had wanted to risk. He might have just as soon thrown her back in the well as kissed her!

Now, however, her hair was clean, and her body smelled of the beeswax scrub Edna had given her. The night’s terrors were over, and this warm, gentle man stood right in front of her, brow knitted with worry.

“Get back in bed, Miss Della, you don’t need to put any weight on that foot—“

Before he had a chance to say anything else, she did what she had wanted to do hours before. Della flung the homemade cane aside and wrapped her arms around Crew.

It was supposed to be a friendly kiss. A grateful kiss. Maybe even a peck on the cheek. Yes, a peck on the cheek was acceptable.

What Della’s lips did instead was land right on his as though they had a will of their own. Even more surprisingly, Crew’s mouth was soft. His stubble was at a length where it was more ticklish than prickly. He smelled of gunpowder and leather, and his hands were gentle on her shoulders as he eased her away.

“Miss Della.” His voice was hoarse, confused. His eyes were even more out of focus than usual, and she found them endearing.

The urge to cry was back tenfold.

“Thank you, Crew. Thank you for running them off. For not hurting them.” She paused. “You didn’t hurt them, did you?”

“Just their pride, I reckon,” he admitted. Noticing that his hands were still on her shoulders, he dropped them and shoved them in his back pockets. “How long have they been botherin’ you?”

Della wobbled and grasped his shoulder. His hands reappeared to assist her back to her bed. “About a week,” she sighed, sitting against the pillows and wrought iron headboard while she elevated her foot with a wince. “And it’s just gotten worse as time went on.”

She told him about their nightly reappearance, how she had planned to visit the sheriff that morning but had fallen through the well instead. Then, terribly weary, she closed her eyes.

“Everything was so much easier when Al was alive.” A tear escaped, and she brushed it impatiently away. “He was built a lot like you. Strapping. No one ever gave us any grief. We bred our goats and sheep; he would shear them and take the fleece and mohair down to Houston, sell it, and we’d survive on it for another year.”

Crew was silent for a while, a large presence in her little single-roomed cabin. Then, as though coming to a decision, he pulled a chair from the worktable and sat. “When did he pass on?”

Della had to think. “About two years ago this summer. He just…keeled over one day. The doctors didn’t understand it. Said it was probably his heart. For a while, I was, I don’t know, just surviving but not living. Not truly. I kept the animals alive, and so many times I thought about selling everything and living somewhere else, but starting over? That was a terrifying thought. I scare people, you know. They make up stories about me. I’m sure you heard outside.” She felt her face grow warm in embarrassment. What else had Crew heard those boys say?

Each time she finished speaking, Crew would wait to offer conversation as though thinking very carefully about his words. It made her own racing thoughts easier to tame. “People are scared of me, too.”

Genuinely shocked, she recoiled. “I couldn’t imagine why.”

Crew shrugged uncomfortably.

“No, I truly don’t see it. If you had scars like mine, perhaps, but you’re perfectly lovely—”

He laughed. It was a rasping sound, ill-used. Iris leaped from the bed at Della’s feet and scurried to Crew, hopping in his lap. At his look of pleased surprise, Della laughed, too.

“From the way you spoke about your husband, I don’t reckon he did that to your face,” Crew said, stroking Iris’s bony, silken head.

“Was that what those…children were saying?”

“Yep.”

Della shook her head and pursed her lips. Imaginative fools. “It was something far less dramatic than that, I’m afraid. I don’t even remember it. My mother said that a dog attacked me when I was very young. That’s all. And I’m not afraid of dogs now, as you see.”

“So no mountain lion, either?”

Laughing again, she lifted her hands helplessly. “No. But I grew up painfully shy because of my scars. So many times, I would wish I was someone else, but when I met Albert, he saw beyond the scars. We fell in love after meeting on a wagon train west. He only had six goats then and had such grand dreams of breeding them and making riches.”

They spent the rest of the night talking, laughing, and confiding. Crew didn’t open up as much as she did, but it was nice having someone around to listen. To really listen. It wasn’t until Iris snored that they realized it was past midnight.

Crew carried the pup and laid her against Della’s side. “I’ll set up a bedroll on the porch. Can you manage to bar the door again?”

When she finally hopped back to bed, ignoring the sharp twinges from her ankle, Della laid down and struggled to fall asleep.

She didn’t stay awake in fear and terror anymore.

No.

This time, Della couldn’t sleep thinking of the kiss.

***

CREW LEFT THE next day with a kid and a lamb bleating and swaying on spindly legs in Della’s little caged cart.

She seemed glad for the money, but her eyes were sad when he shut the door behind him.

At the Stone Ranch, he handed the baby animals to a crooning Lucy and her squealing, excited children. Business taken care of, he immediately bathed, shaved, used his boar bristle toothbrush, and splashed bay rum beneath his arms. Several stupefied faces followed his swift progress—normally so slow and placid—from the bunkhouse to his horse. The trip to town was as sweat-inducing as usual, but the fog of distraction made shopping bearable.

That evening, he rode up the trail to Della’s farm once again, little cart loaded with supplies.

If she denies my help, I’m just gonna ignore her, he thought, steeling himself against the likelihood of rejection. She was a proud woman, and pride was a funny thing. It made friendships tense and words cross. But she’d never met a goat as stubborn as him.

Sure enough, as soon as he began unloading supplies into the house, Della resisted.

“Oh, Crew, no, I have plenty of food.”

And, “The cane you made was perfectly serviceable. You did not need to purchase another!”

Then, “You did not have to get a new door latch!”

Throughout her denials of needing charity, he stoically ignored her, petting Iris’ ebony head as she wound through his legs, chased the goats along the fence line, and got into whatever mischief she could. While he cooked breakfast, fixed the door latch, and brought more firewood in, Della seethed on her bed. His heart sank. He was probably doing the wrong thing again. If Lucy was there, she would tell him that he was invading the woman’s personal space. Was he insulting her by treating her like an invalid?

He worried about it while he fed the animals and ensured they had enough water. The buck in the paddock watched him with a wary eye, and Crew thought to himself that he needed to find where the ornery cuss was escaping through the main fence so he could repair it.

Crew left the next morning without saying goodbye but returned that evening after his work at the ranch to check on Della. It had become an unspoken agreement that he stay and watch over the place at night in case mischief called again.

He came the next day.

And the next.

On the week of Christmas, he rode through the fence to find Della out of the house.

She was leaning against the paddock that housed the spotted buck, chickens pecking at grain she had thrown around her feet.

“What are you doin’ out of bed, Miss Della?”

Della turned, her hair no longer in a braid but in a simple bun at her nape that made her neck look long and elegant. His throat dried on the spot, and he dismounted with abnormal caution. It caught him off guard like she’d come to do battle with him, her weapon her serene prettiness. Even more off-putting was her tight smile.

“Hello, Crew. Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

It was colder than a witch’s tit and windy besides. The billy goat stood with his rump facing the northerly wind. The expression on Crew’s face must have mirrored his thoughts because the smile spread into something more genuine before she cruelly squashed it. When she turned to face him, he started forward to help. The look she shot him could have melted iron. He stopped hard, reins wrapped around a fist.

She was going to tell him to stop trespassing on her ranch, to never come back.

He could feel it.

“Crew,” she began, the winter sunset turning her brown eyes to honey. “I appreciate all your help since my accident-”

If a heart could sag down into a man’s belly, his did at that moment. He could sense the “but” hover over the coming sentence.

“—but you don’t have to be kind to me just because I kissed you.”

“What?” he blurted, blinking at her stupidly. What? Did she think that he was just hanging around for another kiss?

As though looking at him was painful, Della dropped her eyes to his boots before continuing. “I appreciate everything you’ve done around here, but I’m not that kind of woman. I don’t repay favors with…” She couldn’t finish the sentence, and her cheeks turned pink.

His, however, felt on fire. “Do you—I never once thought—” Damn it, why were words so hard? He’d never been much for talking. Retrieving thoughts was like catching a cloud of gnats with your bare hands: difficult, if not darned near impossible, to capture even one. Luckily, just like the other night, she patiently waited for him to formulate his thoughts into words. “I never thought that, Miss Della. Never. I just want to help. Don’t want nothing else. I swear it.”

“Oh.” Della stood uncomfortably for a moment as she searched his face. Hope eased the tension from her eyes and mouth.

What could people see when they looked at a person that way? Could they look into their soul? Or were they looking and seeing what they wanted to see? He wondered what Della wanted to see in him. Perhaps she was looking for all the things he didn’t say. His silence was, once again, a handicap. If the last few years were anything to go by, Crew had learned that silence was not always a useful tool. Sometimes, it gave too much room for error. Assumptions wriggled their way into pockets of quiet. And those assumptions were almost always wrong.

It was time to be honest with Della.

So, in the blistering cold that made their noses run and ears sting, Crew told the truth.

“I like you.” Luckily, her eyes didn’t balk at his abrupt words. She was listening, interested in what he had to say. Bolstered, he took a step forward, sending a chicken squawking away from his boot. They ignored it.

“I think you’re a strong woman. The way you had to keep your herd alive, your fence up, food in your cupboard—it takes a lot of work. A lot of gumption. Lots of men don’t have what it takes to keep a farm runnin’. To me, you’re a fine woman. A real fine one. And I consider us friends. And I thought I was bein’ friendly, caring for you.” He took a deep breath. “But if my presence bothers you, I won’t step foot on your land again. On my honor.”

“No, don’t,” Della rushed before he had even moved, mouth turned down and hand extended. She dropped it. Squeezed the handle of her new cane. “I was just afraid that—I didn’t know you felt that way. That you wanted to be friends.”

Confusion colored his words. “Well, of course I do. I don’t have many female friends. Except my boss’s wife.”

Della smiled, then grew shy. Eyes skittering to the side, she asked, so low that he almost couldn’t hear, “And what if I gave you permission to call on me? Would you consider it?”

If she had walloped him upside the head with her cane, he wouldn’t have been more surprised. Hadn’t she just become upset thinking he’d had designs on her? But now that he’d assured her it was friendship he had wanted, she decided she wanted more?

He would never understand women.

“Call on you?”

“Yes.”

“Like a beau?”

“Yes. You’re not married, are you?”

“Heck no!”

Della laughed, head thrown back. When she laughed like this, Crew couldn’t see her scars. They were a part of her, and yet not. All he saw was her big, pretty smile and the way her eyes crinkled at the corners. Because of him. He smiled with her, and his sagging heart inflated to ten times its normal size, filling his chest to bursting.

Taking a final step, he closed the distance between them and grasped Della’s work-worn hand as though it were delicate and priceless. Iris, not to be ignored, wriggled her black-and-white body between them.

“Della, will you allow me to call on you?” he asked formally.

Smile huge and tremulous, Della nodded. “Yes.”

Crew squeezed her hand, bent over, and kissed it.