Dee had been gone for almost a year. At Christmas he had hoped she would come home, but she called to say she was staying in Reno for the holiday. Hoping it wasn’t about a man, he looked forward to her return, perhaps over spring break, but knowing it would likely be the summer.
The Old Lion, as they called her father, was in failing health. Dee was just over one year from graduation when she was summoned home by a chorus of doctors, ranch employees and family friends. Though yearning to see her and have her at the helm, Heredez did not encourage her to come home. Her obligations to her father were complicated as was her relationship with him. If Dee loved him any longer, and Heredez believed on some level she did, it was a stormy love and she worked hard to check her need for retribution.
With an income from her own cattle and her own shares in the ranch, Dee was not a normal university student, struggling and eating instant noodles. After the first year, merit scholarships paid her tuition and she was well heeled and able to focus only on business school.
“You already have business sense and you are an expert cattlewoman” Heredez pointed out.
“I need to leave” was all she said.
Heredez knew why. It wasn’t any secret that she had set her sights on him at 16. But to him she was too young, both legally and in his own conscience. Her father was difficult and while she had tolerated that in her younger years, the older she got, the more he saw her resent.
She needed to be away from the complicated relationships with the men in her life and he understood. “It’s not no, Dee, it’s just not right now.” He told her.
Dee’s interest in him was in a way calculated, but not maliciously so. From an early age she had been delegated to run aspects of the operation and did well with it. While other girls were perfecting their makeup, Dee was learning quickbooks and digging up old debts owed her father and calling them in. At the end of her 16th year, she had increased the ranch’s profits by 20% by just cleaning up the books and remedying all of the delinquent accounting.
Her father didn’t praise her except by handing off more of the business to her. And Dee, up to her neck in the business before she was 18 didn’t date or care to. And she started eying him as a business partner. The Lion was old by then and with no sons, Dee was heir to it all and she knew the time was coming when it would be hers.
She did love Heredez and he loved her. But she was two things to him. One was the little girl with a .22 slung over her saddle horn, following him around, helping him work. The other was the almost woman she was the summer before she left, still helping him work, except now she had a .308 on board and she was 2nd in command, even over him. Caught between the two visions, Heredez was conflicted even though in reality very few years separated them.
Put off by him romantically and over her father’s tyranny, she justified fleeing with schooling. It was the only way to not lose what favor she did have with her father and to not have to see Heredez. He understood. But he did miss her.
A new black pickup pulled up to the house and he paused where the were vaccinating cows.
It might be her, but since the Lion fell ill, many people came and went from the main house, so he didn’t know if it was.
But she slid out of the truck, unmistakeable even at a fair distance. “The bitch is back” one of the cowboys said. Heredez released the cow and turned on his employee, backing him into the fence. “You speak of any woman that way again and I will fire you. Speak of Dee like that again and I will beat the shit out of you.”
Taking off up the hill he watched her, already knowing something was different. She walked to the edge of the hill and looked out over the ranch. The rich brown suede coat blew in the wind, fringe snapping. She looked of another time and place in her over the knee boots that matched her coat, like an explorer in a new world, regal, elegant, perhaps arrogant. Her over the top style drove her father crazy. Deprived of any girlish activities as a child, Dee flaunted her taste for fashion at him, intentionally offending him with her “female frippery”.
“Dee” he said softly. Turning, the wind had blown her hair across her face for a moment and when it fell, he was awestruck by what he saw. She was no longer between worlds, no traces of that little girl remained, she had come home a woman. Stepping toward her, he took her face in his hands and kissed her forehead and cheeks. “Mi Reina” he whispered over and over, the once silly, even facetious nickname now a token of respect as much as affection. “Reina you’ve come home.”
In true Dee fashion, even dressed in her finery, rested her head against his chest, though he was dirty with dust and sweat, lacing her fingers in his, not saying anything. As always, he was the only comfort she had, perhaps the only understanding. Resting his face against the top of her head, he asked “Are you home to stay?”
She withdrew at this and looked toward the house. Following the direction of her eyes, he saw the curtains move in the front bedroom where the Lion spent most of his days in repose.
“How is he?” She asked.
“I’ve been in the corrals all day, but this morning he seemed good.”
She nodded. “I took an incomplete for the semester. I’m home at least until the fall.”
Hearing her say that both hurt and delighted him. “What did the doctors say?” He asked.
“They don’t know. He might live a month or a years, it depends on him.”
“We tried to prevent this, but he demanded you.”
“He would” she said coldly.“Sometimes I wonder if he loves me or he hates me.”
“I wish I could tell you” he lamented.
“I wish anyone knew.”
She marched into the house and he followed.
A fire smoldered on the hearth of the bedroom fire place and the room was stuffy with stale wood smoke. Dee walked in and opened the window, stiff with decades of paint.
Hovering at the door, Heredez waited for the fight. But Dee simply sat down and father and daughter stared at one another.
She was the exact image of her father in every way down to the steel in her eyes. She had a feminine version of his good looks and the same regal bearing. But she was better. Not only was she kinder, she was better at business and better at cattle. Dee was the perfect heir, her only fault was she had been born a girl.
“Leave us” the old man said imperiously, as was his way, even with the higher ranking employees. Dee was home and he would be third in the hierarchy of leadership now.
“Heredez was a little too glad to see you” he said sternly.
“Well, I suppose the person who raised me would be happy to see me home.”
“You two have always been far too close. I think I should have put a stop to that years ago,”
“Except then you would have had to deal with me.”
“I did the best I could.”
“Spare me.”
“I did, I let you have your Mexican playmate. But you need to outgrow that, settle down and find a man of your own kind.”
Things were off to a terrible start and Dee might not have bitten her tongue had he not been dying.
“Who I love is none of your business” she said coolly.
“It is when they stand to inherit everything I built.”
“We can talk about that later” she dismissed him on the topic of Heredez and what he called her inability to settle down. “What did the doctor say?” She asked, knowing, but wanting to see what her father interpreted.
“He said how long and how well I live is up to me at this point.”
“So what do you plan to do?”
“Live until I die.”
“Okay, dad.”
“I’m tired. You can go, go play with you Mexican friend. I’ll call you when I wake up.”
The next evening a dinner was planned to welcome Dee home. It was the top hands and some of the heads of other prominent ranching families. The party was kept small due to the Lion’s failing health Dee sat to the right of her father, Heredez across the table from her. For a dying man, he seemed to rise quite well to the occasion. As usual, Dee was the only woman in attendance. Tonight she wore a dark grey Angora sweater and leggings, smokey quartz jewelry picking up the grey of her eyes, making them cold.
On another night she might have nudged the toe of his boot with hers or made faces at him, but she didn’t.
“Dee, you are looking very lovely this evening” their neighbor Mr. Taylor had said and his son Zebulon eyed her.
“She’s gotten too citified, if you ask me” her father critiqued. The Taylor’s smiled their sympathies. “I knew sending her off to school was liable to make her soft” he continued. Dee twisted her napkin. “But they say she’s done good. Maybe she learned something.”
Rolling her eyes, she got up and retrieved his favorite brandy and started passing down snifters.
“I bet she is already breaking hearts” some one said. “I’d keep an eye on the boys that come sniffing around.”
“She’s too hung up on her puppy love for Heredez” he scoffed.
“Probably all the more reason to worry” someone joked. It was good natured enough, but her father ran with it.
“He would never” her father said. “He knows his place.”
Looking at Dee, she looked back at him and Heredez saw the steel give way to the fires of anger.
“I trust him more than I trust any of your sons.” Everyone except Dee and Heredez laughed.
That was a back handed compliment if ever he heard one. Zeb was looking at Dee he noted. The neighbor’s son having had the same realization as Heredez.
After a few more jokes, the lion started to cough.
“Ok, time for bed, Father” Dee said helping him up as he said good night to his court.
Dee came through the disarray of the dining room with a sigh and started stacking dishes. Women’s work the Lion would say. Dee was only conveniently female. He got up and started stacking dishes with her.
“We’re going to town tomorrow and getting a dishwasher” she said.
“Okay, he won’t like it” Heredez pointed out.
“Screw what he likes. I’m done doing dishes, If I gave up my life to come home and take care of things, then I will and I’m doing it my way.”
Heredez agreed with a silent nod.
“You know, all of these years no one challenged that racist chauvinist bastard because they were scared of him. Now they give him a pass because he is dying.”
After the dishes were washed they sat by the fire in the living room, her head on his shoulder.
“You can’t change it Dee and I know you won’t. You’re too loyal and you love him.”
She pressed her head against him. “Lord knows why!”
“That’s the funny thing about family” he said stroking her hand.
“I’m not laughing” she said, but now she laughed a little at her own joke.
“I’ll help you however I can, you’re going to need it with him.”
Sitting up she smiled at him. “Thank you.”
“You grew up on me. I guess there was part of me that thought you would always be a little girl.” He reached out and touched her cheek, wanting to kiss her, but knowing it wasn’t the time or the place.
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