Corral Nocturne by Elisabeth Grace Foley

 
I

     
     
    “Well, I don’t know, Ed, she looks awful
skinny to me,” said John Bentley.
    “Don’t have to waste time running her down.
You going to buy her or not?” said Ed Strickland ungraciously.
    The ‘her’ in question was an ungainly-looking
milk cow, who was probably neither so bad nor so good as the two
men’s opinions painted her. John Bentley, leaning on the bars of
the milking pen, scratched his ear. “I ain’t sure I’d pay what
you’re asking for her, even if I was sure she’d give enough milk,”
he said.
    “Why take up my time then? I got a cow to
sell, and if it’s not to you it’ll be somebody else.”
    “Maybe,” said Bentley, who was not quite
convinced of the latter point.
    From a few yards away, Ellie Strickland
watched them unobtrusively as she scattered grain for the hens
scratching about in the yard. The subtle shadow over her face
betrayed the mortification she felt every time she had to listen to
a conversation of this sort. Every instance of her brother’s
rudeness stung her the same way, even though she had certainly
heard it enough to be used to it. It made no difference to her by
now what people thought of Ed, but he was the only member of the
Strickland family who had a chance to make an impression on
anybody, and it was knowing that she and her mother came under the
heading of the impression Ed made which hurt.
    “Well,” said John Bentley finally, adjusting
his battered hat over his rough graying hair, “I guess I’ll think
about it some more. If I don’t find a better deal, I’ll be back in
a day or two.”
    “Yeah, you do that,” said Ed, and he turned
away from the milking pen and headed toward the barn.
    John Bentley turned to go too, and Ellie saw
the brief but expressive glance of contempt he threw over his
shoulder toward Ed as he did so. Bentley was a good-natured man,
but his opinion of Ed was plain. Nearly everyone’s was. Ed,
however, was oblivious to what anyone thought of him, or else he
simply did not care.
    Bentley climbed to the seat of his wagon, and
started the team in a circle around the yard to pull back out onto
the road. He had not even noticed Ellie.
    Ellie finished feeding the chickens, and
stood for a moment holding the empty basket, watching them cluck
and scratch and search in the dust for the kernels of grain. Then
she turned and walked across the yard toward the little weathered
frame house. The house, the low-roofed barn, the corrals and sheds
made a half-circle around the hard-packed dirt ranch yard, and the
garden patch lay east of the house. Sheltered by low hills, the
ranch lay down out of sight of the main road. Few people came down
the rutted track to the Strickland place. Those who did came on
business with Ed—buying a cow, as today, or perhaps to borrow a
piece of farming equipment; and they seemed to come rather of
necessity than choice. Their infrequent comings and goings did
little to affect the daily round of life. Though only five miles
from town, the ranch was for Ellie a lonely place.
    It was not a particularly hard life they
lived here, though for Ellie and her mother there were often
irksome extra tasks arising from rather unnecessary scrimping and
making do. Ed was ‘tight’; he grudged every bit of new wire for
mending a broken fence; he kept his cows as short on grain as
possible and then complained when they did not gain flesh like the
other ranchers’ cattle; he would never buy a new shirt when an old
one could be patched. He was apt to grumble over small extra items
in his mother’s modest grocery lists, and Ellie had long since
given up asking for anything for herself, knowing she would only
hear the familiar response, “But what for? We don’t need it.”
    Ellie sat down on the front steps and put the
basket down beside her. Ed was out of sight, and it was not yet
time to start the midday meal, so she sat still for a moment and
let the fresh breeze from off the prairie brush her face and
flutter the