Stars Always Shine by Rick Rivera Read Free Book Online

able to run the ranch successfully. He could see it in their movements. Their movements were awkward, too slow and stiff, and they didn’t know as much about the land as the animals did. They were like lost foreigners. He added emphatically, “¡Aquí, ellos son ilegales!”
    “But what about your family?” Place choppily asked with Salvador’s linguistic assistance.
    “¿Mi familia? No tengo familia. Hermanos y hermanas, sí, en México, pero no tengo esposa ni hijos,” Salvador explained as he threw in an editorial comment on the challenging economics of having a family. “Esposa y niños cuestan mucho. No más tengo mi gatita.” He then asked who would be working on the ranch, and when Place told him only himself and Mitch, he presumed that there would be no horses on the property.
    But yes, there would be horses, Place told him. The owners wanted to fill all of those empty pastures. A monthly mortgage had to be met. StarRidge Ranch was destined to be a working and bustling horse ranch just as it had been in its previous life.
    Salvador explained that in that case, the ranch would need more workers. The work required could not be done by only a couple of full-time ranch hands—no matter how industrious they were. The irrigation alone took up to three hours because of the necessity of moving and setting the water hoses; sometimes a hose would burst holes that needed to be patched. And the hoses that came with the ranch when the Kittles purchased it were well past their prime. Sprinklers and couplers had to be reattached or repaired with regularity. And then there was the daily mucking out of stalls. The barns needed to be cleaned, and the waterers needed to be scrubbed and disinfected at least once a week. Horses had to be moved to other pastures or to holding pens for one reason or another, especially when the rains came and there were horses in those lower pastures out back—they would flood. Occasionally a horse needed to be held for a vet or a shoer. Other occasions required that pastures be turned and replanted or they became overgrazed and the weak grass would have no nutritional value. Weeds had to be sprayed. Not to mention the general upkeep of the landscaping—look at how bad the lawns were—and the usual fixing of things always used up the valuable hours of a work day. No, this ranch could not be effectively worked by someone merely infatuated with labor. And even if you think you are holding up well to the demands, it takes its toll. It runs a man down. It slowly breaks his spirit. That’s why it is so hard to find reliable workers. This type of work forces you to look for something else. To move on. Only those who are desperate and illegal can manage. And quite often, the desperate become confident and find something easier, and the illegal go home.
    Place was stunned. He hadn’t realized what was required to make a setting so pastoral looking. Doesn’t Mother Nature take care of most of those things? he wondered naively. Then he remembered that Salvador had not even referred to all of the painting that Jacqueline and Mickey wanted done. He bid Salvador a good evening and with a nervous concern walked up to the faded ranch house.

4
    T here are always cats on a ranch. Ranch cats survive well enough on their own. They are adept in their masterly ways when they hunt for mice in barns and crouch patiently with the silence of an assassin, waiting to pounce on gophers that push up through the earth. They are a low-maintenance animal, hearty as the land and deft as a secret breeze.
    Salvador’s little cat, Gatita, was quite able as a hunter, but she was different, as cats go, in her companionship. Her markings were unusual, as she was mostly white with black splotches on her underside. Her chin was streaked with a black stripe that traveled down her neck and ended where her legs began. On her head she wore a spattered cap of black. But what was really unique about this cat is that she followed