As I scratch fresh ink across the lines of this paper, a live oak older than the ranch itself drums one of its newest members across the rivets and tin overhead, screeching out the soundtrack to an indifferent sort of melancholy. A stag roars lonely in a midnight sendero and the nopalito wind laments through the screen door, but a well-trained ear could no better hear the sound of silence droning off the walls of this empty ranch house. If I were luckless, I might succumb to feelings of loneliness, but I am fortunate to be tuned into the songs and stories imprinted in the walls and counters and mattresses and floors of this house.
The trophy-laden walls sing the songs of three generations of hunters. Men who turned to the land when the freezer was barren. Flushed coveys in mesquite-lined drainages and long, sepia draws beat their wings until the ensemble of shotguns cease their songs. Brush breaks behind a blood trail through the black of night towards a warm heap of future meals. Lessons pass from man to man about how to hone a blade and tote a gun, how to kill and how to care.
If I listen closer, atop the counter cries a young, brown-eyed boy bloodied by blue brush and prickly-pear cactus. A motherly voice whispers, “Wipe away the tears. Thorns only kill ya’ if ya’ don’t take ’em out, but once they’re out, you’re stronger.” Coffee drips before the rooster crows. A wooden pin rolls out tortillas. The sizzle of venison frying in the skillet. The crackle of an FM station. A husband and wife kick across the kitchen to some old country song. Mothers, brothers, lovers, friends and kin hoot, holler, cackle and cry in the spirit of love and good fellowship.They’re beautiful tunes.
I know I’m not the only one that can hear them because when I brought her here, she could hear them, too.
And it’s too bad I have to hear the bittersweet songs she left behind. Ruby Woo lips whisper, “Yes.” The faintest patter of clothes hitting the floor. Syncopated sighs and breaths and the creaks of old mattress springs. The whispering of secret dreams and the sounds of two asleep, waking as one.
All of her songs repeat until the following fall. Just some weeks ago, the rooster crows. Hardwood creaks across the room and down the hall. The screen door slams and an engine starts. That’s the last I hear of her.
I lie on my back and listen to these things as my day on the ranch fades to black.