Chapter 4
IN DECEMBER MY FATHER announced we were going to celebrate Christmas out at the ranch this year. Debbie decided to invite Nell up as a house guest for the holidays.
To my father the ranch was both a profit-making business and a status symbol. As soon as school was done for the holidays we packed suitcases into the car. Mother, Debbie, my dog, Pete, and I drove to the ranch. Father was going to pick up my brother, Gordon, at college and join us in a couple of days.
I was not looking forward to the annual ritual. The holidays when my whole family got together at once were always grim. A lot of hate was bottled up in my family and it spilled out all over when we were in the same house for any length of time.
A Mexican ranch foreman and his family lived in the small house on the ranch the year around. Manuel kept the cattle fat and the fences up. My father knew nothing about ranching.
The day we arrived I took down my .22. Pete and I went exploring. A norther was blowing, kicking up dust and rolling tumbleweeds in front of us. The weather was too bleak even for jackrabbits. Pete walked along shivering. My fingers turned blue. Finally I went back to the house and watched television.
Debbie rode into town the next morning to meet the bus Nell was coming on. I rode along. I was excited at the prospect of seeing Nell again. But I was seized by a spell of shyness when we arrived at the bus station. I got out of the car but hung back when Nell's bus pulled in.
At first she was too busy hugging Debbie and talking to notice me. I went over to pick up her suitcase.
She saw me and cried, "Mark!" She ran to give me a hug and a kiss. "How's my favorite boy friend?"
She grinned, bringing a rush of warmth and exuberance to the bleak day.
"Hi," I mumbled, half smothered for a moment in her tangle of arms and coat.
Then I really looked at her for the first time since she had stepped down from the bus.
She seemed a lot older and more grown up than I remembered. I tried to recapture our last summer's feeling of relaxed companionship-but at that moment she was a stranger to me.
I put her suitcases into the car and sat in the back seat while Debbie and Nell sat up front and gossiped about boys and clothes all the way to the ranch. I gathered that Nell was between boy friends at the moment. Paul was definitely out of her life. I guess I should have been happy to hear that-but last summer seemed a long way off to me right now.
But that afternoon, when Nell came on a horseback ride around the ranch with me I began to feel our old comradeship returning.
Nell was pretty new to horseback riding. Manuel saddled up our gentlest horse for her. I had to show her how to mount and sit in the saddle. But she was a healthy, active girl and soon got the hang of it.
We rode all over the ranch. I showed her where the tanks were and the old mesquite rail fence down by the creek.
Nell's cheeks were pink from the cold. She breathed in little spurts of vapor when she laughed. She was real pretty, even prettier than I remembered. Once again I felt the warm, sweet, almost hurting feeling in my throat when I looked at her.
"Nell," I asked suddenly, "what's Christmas like at your house?"
She thought for a moment
"Well, it's kind of hectic. You know, with all the kids shooting each other with toy pistols and riding bicycles through the house. Pop's usually plastered. Last year he fell over the Christmas tree."
She giggled.
I gazed off into the distance and sighed. Christmas at Uncle Enoch's sounded wonderful.
Father and my older brother, Gordon, drove into the yard late the next afternoon. Instantly a gloom settled over the house. Even the sky seemed to me to grow darker.
Of course Nell, an outsider, was unaware of the undercurrents of hostility.
I could see that she went for Gordon as soon as they were introduced. He's a guy girls notice. He's tall and has black hair and dark eyes that sometimes burn as if he has fever. He was in his third year in college.
Father nodded cursorily at Nell and went into the house. He had no use for any member of Mother's family and made no bones about it.
That was the end of my Christmas season companionship with Nell. The ranchhouse filled with people. Debbie, Gordon and the older kids kept Nell busy.
She seemed to be having a wonderful time. The big cars and the gadgets impressed the heck out of her. Gordon really wasn't her type. He was too serious and bookish and wrapped up in college. But for a few days I guess he was something different and interesting to her.
I wandered around with Pete, sat on the corral fence and watched Manuel doctor a sick calf and wished it was time to start back to school.
The jollies were over finally and came the last night we were all on the ranch.
I was in bed and almost asleep when my door opened and Nell slipped in.
I sat up. "Hey-"
She whispered, "Quiet-" and slid under the covers with me.
She was barefooted and put her cold feet against my legs to warm them. She must have been in her room, preparing for bed. She was in pajamas and her hair was rolled up.
"I've hardly had a chance to visit with you since I've been here. We've been running around so much, Mark."
"So I noticed."
"Are you mad? Don't be mad at me, Mark."
"Okay."
"Still my favorite boy friend?"
"Sure."
She gave a kind of wriggle of contentment under the covers beside me.
"Boy, would we catch it if anybody found us here?" She giggled.
"Do you like Gordon a lot?" I asked, the words blurting out.
She laughed.
"Oh, he's all right. He's kind of a drag, though. I don't know what he's talking about half the time. He's got a lot of stuffy ideas. He doesn't know how to have fun."
I was glad she hadn't really fallen for him.
It was fun, snuggling under the covers with Nell, whispering in the dark. She was in a playful mood. She poked me in the ribs and started me laughing. I tickled her.
We horsed around for a while, muffling our laughter under the covers. Then Nell said we'd better quiet down or somebody would hear us.
"Will you come down to the coast again next summer?" she asked in a whisper.
"I guess so. Do you reckon your dad will give me a job on his shrimp boat again?"
"Sure, if you want one."
"I really liked going out with him. I'd like to work all summer on his boat. Some day I'd like to be a shrimp boat captain."
Nell laughed. "You'd better not let your daddy hear you say that. He doesn't think much of shrimpers."
"What I do after I grow up won't be any of his business. I'll do as I please."
We fell silent again, warm and cozy under the covers. A fresh norther was howling around the house. Nell snuggled closer to me. I could feel the curves of her body. The secret excitement I had felt with her last summer began tightening in me.
Nell slipped her arm around me. We were very close.
"You're really my boy friend, aren't you, Mark?" she whispered.
I nodded, feeling my ears grow hot. A trembling went through me.
Nell kissed me. First it was a friendly kiss. Then it became long and fervid, like the ones we had shared out on the island.
I could smell the perfume in her hair and the cold cream on her face.
She acted differently from any time before. She became excited earlier. She breathed fast and a thickness crept into her wordless whispering.
She unbuttoned the front of her pajamas to let me feel the big, rounded softness of her breasts. I felt the urge to kiss the fragrant bosom and taste the pink rosebud nipples. I acted on it. A shiver went through Nell and she pressed my head against her bosom.
"Mark-Mark-" she whispered.
I kissed her on the mouth again. Her lips were always warm and moist, her breath always sweet. We cuddled together under the covers, hugging each other. I was filled with so sweet an ache I almost bawled.
"Mark," she whispered. "We mustn't-we'll get caught for sure-"
But we could not stop. She kissed me again and pressed closer. Then she untied the string of my pajama pants and kicked them off. She ducked her head under the covers and rained kisses down my body.
In a matter of minutes we were joined and our bodies were working together. Later we lay in each other's arms, touching lightly. Nell's hair brushed my cheek. My head was on her soft shoulder. My senses were filled with her wonderful scent, the mingled cologne and clean, healthy young-girl sweat.
The words, I love you ... were struggling at my lips but I did not quite know yet how to utter them.
We made whispered plans for next summer-plans of exploring the island behind the dunes, of voyages in sailboats, of shrimping trips with Nell's father, of things to buy with the money I was going to earn.
But I did not see Nell the following summer or the summer after that. My father took the whole family to Europe. Five years were to pass before I saw Nell again.
And by then she would be the wife of Fred Turner.