Amelia sighed. “I still can’t believe it. And to think we’ve been avoiding men all these years, because we thought we would make a scandal when people found out.”
“Here’s what I don’t understand about Jude and Alma,” Bruce remarked. “He’s a cowboy. He must have worked ranches before he came here. He should have seen the same thing. I’ve only worked one ranch in my life, but you said in your letter he worked all over north Texas. He should have seen women working the cattle herds before. That doesn’t make sense.”
“But the women you’re describing are all on family operations,” Amelia pointed out. “I think Jude worked on big commercial ranches. I don’t think he ever worked for a family operation before he came to us.”
“Hmm.” Bruce rubbed his jaw again. “That could be it. Anyway, I’ve seen half a dozen women wearing chaps and boots and gun belts and shootin’ up the wolf packs. That Sylvie can take out a wild cat at two hundred paces with a rifle. She’s the best darn shot in the family.”
“She is?” Amelia exclaimed.
Bruce turned halfway around on the bed. “Of course, she is! She’s a woman, for Pete’s sake! Everyone knows women are better shots than men. Women are a lot better than men at just about everything having to do with a cattle ranch.”
Amelia couldn’t believe her ears. “How do you mean?”
“For one thing,” Bruce told her, “women are better at breaking and training and riding horses because they’re more sensitive and the horses aren’t near so afraid of them. Same with the cattle. A woman on a horse can cut a calf away from the cow a lot faster than a man can because the cow doesn’t fear the woman like she does the man. And the shootin’. A woman is more patient, and she’s more careful with her eye and her hand. A man is big and clumsy and oafish.” He paused. “Kinda like me, really.”
They laughed together. “If that’s true, why are men running all the cattle ranches? Why does everyone think it’s men’s work?”
Bruce cocked his head. “I just told ya. Men aren’t running all the cattle ranches. But I suppose it’s just practice. For a woman to get as good at shooting and roping as a man, she’s got to do it every day, the way he does. If she’s shut up in the house with six screaming babies all day, she ain’t gonna learn to do nothin’ but feed ‘em and stop ‘em cryin’. She ain’t gonna be any more use on the ranch than a man would be if he was shut up in the house all day. That only makes sense.”
“You’re right.” Amelia thought over what he said.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked.
“I was thinking about my sister Allegra,” Amelia told him. “She’s as good or better than any man with a rifle or a rope. Even Jude said so, even though it took him a while before he would admit it out loud. But like you say, that’s because she does it every day, and she goes out target shooting in her free time. She’s always practicing something. That’s how she got so good.”
“Well, there you go,” Bruce exclaimed. “That proves it.”
Amelia shook her head. “I only wish Alma and Allegra could hear you say these things. It’s so different from everything we’ve heard all our lives, and it’s so different even from what we’ve heard from Jude. It’s like you’re speaking in a completely different language from a different world.”
“Well, that’s the world I live in,” Bruce declared. “I’ve been around the strongest, smartest, most able-bodied women you’d ever lay eyes on. They can get up in the morning, cook a mean breakfast and feed thirty people, then saddle up and ride the range all day, doing every kind of cattle ranchin’ work you can think of, then come home at night, feed the family to bursting, and then tuck their children into bed with the most beautiful lullabies you ever heard before they go to sleep themselves. And they wake up the next morning and do it all over again. The women I know are holding the whole world together, and the men love them for it. They couldn’t live without them.”
“It sounds like a wonderful life,” Amelia murmured.
“It is,” Bruce told her. “It’s the most wonderful life there is, and it’s a life full of love between the men and women. No one’s telling anyone else what they can and can’t do. Everyone’s working together to make the ranch the best it can be, and they’re happy and loving each other when they fall asleep at night.” He guffawed with sudden laughter. “Shoot, you can take my word on that! I’ve heard them with my own ears!”
Amelia blushed and looked down at her hands.
“So you don’t gotta go getting’ all dressed up on my account,” Bruce continued. “If you want to wear your old dirt clods, go right ahead. I’ll love you no matter what you wear. I’m not marrying your clothes. I’ll just be happy for the work you do, whatever it is.”
Amelia tried to smile at him, but her face pinched with the springing of tears into her eyes. She hurried over to the bed and sat down next to him. She took both his hands in both of his and kissed him again on the cheek. But this time, it wasn’t a quick peck. Her lips lingered there, caressing the smooth place between his whiskers and the ridge of bone under his eyes.
Through her face, she felt him stiffen at the extended contact. He didn’t know whether to embrace her or pull away.
She brought her face around to look into his eye. “You’re sweet, and I love you. I love you for everything you just said, and I love you for the family you’re bringing with you. I would have been so happy to go and live with your family in El Paso, even if we all lived together in one big room. It sounds like the most wonderful place in the world.”
Bruce squeezed her hand. “I’m here now. You didn’t know about my family, and now we’re married and we’re going home to your place. We’ll just have to make up our minds to make your place the same way.”
Amelia shook her head, but the tears wouldn’t be banished. His image went blurry in front of her eyes. “Just wait until Alma and Allegra hear this. I think Allegra will be absolutely thunderstruck when she hears what you just told me.”
“Why should she be?” Bruce asked. “It’s nothing out of the ordinary.”
“You don’t understand,” Amelia replied. “We’ve lived alone for so long that we’ve never heard anything like this from anyone. We all thought a woman could only be one way—a cattle puncher, or a housewife—but not both. Look at Alma. When she married Jude, she was the toughest, range-riding cattle puncher in the West, and look at her now. She hasn’t set foot on a horse in months.”
“Of course, she hasn’t,” Bruce shot back. “She’s pregnant.”
Amelia shook her head again. “It isn’t that. She changed when she married Jude. She didn’t want to be a cattle puncher any more. She wanted to be a woman. She wanted to live by the fireside and be a mother. She didn’t want to wear the old dirt clods. She wanted to wear soft dresses and go barefoot and grow her garden vegetables.”
Bruce studied her. “But don’t you see now that she didn’t have to choose? She could do both—if she wanted to, I mean.”
“I know,” Amelia replied. “Now that you’ve told me how it is where you come from, I realize we could do both. But I don’t think any of us realized before that we could. It’s the same with me. That’s why I wore this dress. I wanted to show you that I’m ready to give up the range for the fireside. I’m ready to give up being a cattle puncher to be a wife and mother. And I’m ready to leave off my dirt clods to wear dresses.”
Bruce straightened up, but his hands held her firmly. He gave no sign of ever letting her go. “If you want to give it up, that’s up to you. I never want to hear you say I had anything to do with it. If you want to ride the range, I’ll be happy to ride with you in sun and rain and snow. If you want to be the home that I come back to, I’ll love you and fall into your arms most gratefully. You decide for yourself what you want to be, and I’ll be happy with it.”
The tears streaked down her cheeks. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you.”