On Monday, just before one o’clock, Baird went down to the bottom to find out when Ward thought he would be able to finish. Ward was sitting against one of the stumps with his cap pulled down over his eyes and his long legs crossed, tossing crusts of his sandwiches to Jill. When Baird squatted beside the stump and spoke to him, he pushed his cap back on his head and snapped the lunch pail closed.
“About another three days,” he said. “I’m leaving the rest I got to shoot till last.”
“There enough powder left?”
“Oh, yeah.”
Baird nodded, rubbing Jill’s back. Jill stood rigid, grunting contentedly.
“Say, how you going to get rid of those stumps?” Ward asked.
“I thought I’d rig an A-frame to get them on the truck. Juan can take them out and dump them somewheres.”
“I’ll tell you what might be better. I’ll doze up a ramp you can back up to. I can push them right onto the truck.”
Baird frowned, removed his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. This, he knew, would be much faster than using a block and tackle, which would require all of his and Juan’s time for at least a week. This would be better, even if he had to pay Ward for two or three extra days. “Good idea,” he said. “You might as well get on that right away. How long’ll it take you to make your ramp?”
“Hour, maybe. I can do it this aft. You want to start loading in the morning?”
Baird nodded. He pushed Jill away and gazed down the smoothed track the dozer blade had made to where the stumps were herded together, looking like huge pulled teeth. “Good,” he said. He saw V riding down the hill toward them on Tony, the horse jerking his head up and down as he picked his way over the broken ground.
“That’s pretty good land,” Ward said. “Pay much for it?”
“No,” Baird said. “Yes, it’s all right.” He saw Ward grinning at V, who had pulled the horse up close by. She was smiling self-consciously and patting Tony’s neck as he cropped the grass. Ward got to his feet, slouched across and cupped his hand over Tony’s muzzle. Tony snorted and jerked his head away.
“This is Mr. Ward, V,” Baird said. “That’s my daughter.” Ward grinned up at her and put his hands in his hip pockets.
“I thought she was a timekeeper or something,” he said. “She’s been out here watching me every day.”
V flushed. “I’m glad to meet you.”
“That’s a lot of quarter-horse,” Ward said, teetering back on his heels. “Where’d you get him?”
“His father’s Copper McCloud.”
“Yeah? He’s got his old man’s color, all right. How about riding him sometime?”
V looked startled. “Oh, I don’t think…Nobody ever rides him but me.”
Ward shrugged and said, “Does he know any tricks?”
“Oh, sure. He’s awfully smart.”
Baird watched them silently, chewing on his tobacco and listening to them talk and wondering what V thought of Jack Ward. Finally he spat a stream of brown juice, rose, and walked over to them.
“Well, see if you can get that ramp up this afternoon,” he said to Ward. “I’ll run Juan down with the truck first thing in the morning.”
“Right.” Ward was laughing at something V had said. They watched him start the cat and climb into the seat, where he paused to light a cigarette. Walking up the hill beside the horse, Baird saw V looking back over her shoulder, sitting up very straight.
But at dinner that night she was angry and silent. “What’s the matter?” he asked.
“Oh, that Jack Ward!”
“What’s the matter?”
“Oh, I let him ride Tony and he ran him all over the ranch. I’ll bet if I hadn’t caught him he wouldn’t have let him cool down even. Oh, he’s so conceited.”
“Tony needed a good run. You baby him too much.”
“I don’t either! And I wish you’d tell him to stop riding Jill around on that old tractor, Papa. She’s going to get hurt.”
“She’d more likely get hurt if he left her on the ground.”
V set her mouth in a tight line and said nothing more. She pushed her fork at the potatoes on her plate, and then without taking a bite, put her fork down and rubbed the back of her hand hard across her lips. She took a drink of milk.
“He’s a good cat skinner,” Baird said placatingly. “He’s the best I’ve ever seen around here.”
“Oh, yes, and doesn’t he know it!”
“Well, he’ll be through this week.”
“Oh,” V said. “Will he?”
“I think I’ll let him go Saturday.”
“That’s good,” V said.
And by Saturday Ward had pushed the last of the stumps onto the truck for Juan to take out and dump, and was knocking down the ramp he had built. V had stayed at home all afternoon and when Baird came up to the house from the bottom, she made him go down again and ask Ward to have some iced tea with them before he left.
Baird had been meaning to have Ward take the tractor back to Denton, but instead he had him park it beside the truck, and they walked up from the shed together. Ward stopped to wash his hands and face at the pump, then caught up with Baird again, wiping his hands on the front of his shirt, and running them over his hair.
V was waiting for them on the front porch. She had crushed mint in the glasses, and she poured tea from the sweating pitcher as they came up the steps. She handed them each a glass and Baird sat down in his rocker across the table from her. Ward leaned against the porch rail.
“Thanks,” he said. “This’ll go good.” He grinned at V.
“It’s been a hot day,” Baird said. He looked keenly at Ward, wondering how old he was; in his middle twenties, he imagined. Probably he had been brought up on a farm, as he himself had been, and probably he had never finished high school either. He wondered how Ward had happened to become a cat skinner. He wished he knew more about Ward, watching him leaning against the porch rail with the glass of iced tea in his hand and his legs crossed, sure of himself, and relaxed and self-contained. Baird turned to look at V, who sat stiffly in the straight chair she had brought out from the parlor, rattling the ice in her glass.
“Plenty hot,” Ward said. His yellow eyes were inspecting V boldly, but after a moment he turned to Baird and his face became serious.
“Say, you got plenty of water for irrigation?”
“Yes,” Baird said. “There’s plenty and it’s not very deep. I’ve got a new pump.”
“I was looking at your ditches. They’re in pretty foul shape. But I guess you know it, unh?”
“Well, I’ve had Juan working on them,” Baird said.
Ward and V both laughed, Ward mirthlessly, without smiling, rubbing his hands over his cheek. “That poor old Mex,” he said. “He’s a natural for the WPA, isn’t he?”
“He’s awfully hard on hoe handles,” V said. “Papa, remember the time he broke the hoe and cut his leg and you were so mad?”
“Why don’t you get those ditches dug out while you still got the cat?” Ward said.
“Juan’ll get them finished after a little.”
“You can do a good job, little rig like that. It’s going to take that Mex till 1951, the way he’s going.”
“Could you do it in a week?”
“Say ten days. I maybe could do the worst part in a week, but you might as well get it all done at once.”
Baird rocked back, clasped his hands behind his head and computed ten days wages. Denton did not need the cat back yet, he knew, and this would mean he could put off talking to Denton. “All right,” he said. “Why’n’t you stay and take care of that for me?”
“Sure.”
There was an uncomfortable silence. Finally V said, “Where are you from, Jack?”
“Lodi.”
“Do your mother and father still live there?”
“They’re dead.”
“Oh,” V said, in a little voice. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to be. We didn’t get along too good. I don’t even remember my old man.”
“Don’t you have any relations?” Baird asked.
“I’ve got a bud in the Marines. I don’t know where the hell he is, though.” Baird frowned and Ward pushed himself upright and placed his glass beside V’s on the marble-topped table. “Well, I better be going,” he said. “Thanks a lot for the iced tea.”
“Do you have to go?” V said.
“Got a date.” He grinned at her and shook hands with Baird. “See you Monday.” They watched him go down the steps and around the corner of the house and in a few minutes he drove past in the yellow roadster. His black hair stood upright in the wind and he waved as he started down the hill.
V poured herself another glass of tea and took a cookie from the untouched plate on the table. Baird was staring at the dust settling in the curve of the road where the roadster had disappeared. “Cookie?” V said.
He took one. “Nice young man,” he said.
She shrugged and looked at him coolly over the top of her glass. “Oh, he’s all right. He hasn’t got very good manners.”
“Well, I’ll be glad to get those ditches dug out,” Baird said, but he was strangely disturbed. Would it be better if V married someone like Jack Ward? Suddenly he began to dislike Jack Ward, and at the same time to feel fiercely loyal to Denton. The cat skinners, he knew, were a wild bunch; Ward was probably a drunkard. Maybe he should let Ward go, tell him he had changed his mind about the irrigation ditches.
But then he told himself that this was foolish; he had seen no evidence that Ward was attracted to V, and he had tortured himself over this kind of thing with Cora, too many times. Still, he thought V liked Ward, and it would be because he was the first young man she had known at all.
And his idea that V was interested in Jack Ward confirmed itself day by day. She began spending a great deal of time out where the dozer was working, and soon she was packing sandwiches for herself so she could eat with Ward in the orchard at noon. Baird would see them down among the trees in the shade, laughing and teasing Jill, sitting against the side of the cat while they ate their lunches. He began to wish he had not let Ward stay to dig out the irrigation ditches, that he had let him go instead when he had finished the stumps. He hated Jack Ward.
And V began neglecting Tony. One evening Baird found the feed trough in the corral empty, and he had to fill it himself. The second time it happened he meant to take her to task about it, but he did not. He had never seen her so happy and he did not want to spoil it, for Ward would be gone soon enough.
She seemed happy as she had been when she had first had Tony. He would hear her singing in her room sometimes, and there was color that was not merely from the sun on her cheeks. One night she made him take her in to Bakersfield to a Marx Brothers movie, and they had such a good time he would always remember it; Jack had told her to be sure to see the movie, she said. And finally he realized with a terrified, outraged jerk at his heart, that she was crazy in love with Jack Ward.