Seven Sisters - Earlene Fowler [10]
“The sisters who died. Two sets of twins. Add them up and you get the seven sisters the ranch was named for.”
“I thought it was named for the volcanic peaks.”
“Well, I’m sure that had something to do with the name, too. When my great-grandfather came here from Virginia right after WWI, he just called it the Brown Ranch. The two sets of twins died after they moved here. Cappy was about eight at the time, my great-aunts a few years younger. Great-Grandpa Brown changed the name to honor them. They died really young—right after they were born. No one had twins in the family again until Bliss and I were born.”
“That’s right,” I said, an old memory coming back to me—when I first met Bliss I asked her about her name. “Bliss said she had a twin sister named Joy.”
JJ grinned. “That’s me. My full name is Joy Jewel. She’s Bliss Jewel. All of the Brown women have the middle name Jewel in honor of Great-Grandmother. I like JJ better. It’s what my dad calls me.”
“So that’s where Seven Bars Jewel came from,” I said. The stallion they had standing stud was well known and in demand because of his ability to produce not only winning racehorses, but also superior cutting horses. Daddy had considered breeding his quarter horse mare, Reba, to Seven B, as they called him, but the five-thousand-dollar stud fee the stallion commanded was definitely more than we could afford. “He’s a beauty.”
“Yeah, he’s the cornerstone of Grandma Cappy’s breeding operation. He has direct lineage to Three Bars.”
Though I didn’t know much about quarter horse breeding, even I’d heard of Three Bars, one of the most famous quarter horses that ever lived. He’d produced extraordinary offspring in racing, halter, and cutting events.
I searched her dainty features for a resemblance to Bliss. “Are you fraternal twins?”
She laughed and untwisted her legs, relaxing again. “Actually, we’re identical, but we’ve done everything to avoid looking alike. Our parents always encouraged our individuality.”
I peered closer at her face, decorated with bold, bright makeup and was surprised to see that underneath she and Bliss did indeed have the same bone structure, eye color, the same arch of eyebrow.
“I fit right in with our parents’ hippie lifestyle,” JJ continued, “but Bliss has rebelled since she was a kid. She would alphabetize our canned goods and use her birthday money from Cappy to buy file folders to organize her school papers. She drove Susa and Moonie insane trying to turn the commune into her version of The Brady Bunch.”
“Susa and Moonie?”
JJ colored slightly again. “My mom and dad. Their conventional names are Susanna and Brad. Anyway, Bliss moved in with Cappy the minute she turned eighteen. Frankly, I think they should have let her live with Grandma earlier. She probably would have been a lot happier, but my parents believed in keeping the family together. It’s not what people think. We didn’t grow up without morals. My mom took us to the evening folk mass every week at a little Mexican church near the commune, and she and my dad really loved each other. Even their split-up wasn’t vindictive. I had a wonderful, if slightly irregular, childhood.” The last sentence was said with a hint of defiance. She’d obviously been forced to defend her parents’ lifestyle before.
“Are you and Bliss close?” I asked, curious. There were no two identical twins who could look and act more different, so I couldn’t imagine how they’d relate.
“We’ve always gotten along great. What annoys her to no end in our parents doesn’t seem to bother her with me. We’ve seen each other once a week since I moved back down here when Susa did. Bliss and Susa live out at the ranch, but that’s just a little too much family for me, so I rent a house downtown. Sometimes Bliss stays with me if she has to work a double shift and is too tired to drive home.”
“How’s your family taking the news about the baby?”
“Susa’s excited, of course. She’s been looking for something to focus on since she left Moonie. Cappy’s in the middle of racing season and is always training some horse or another, so she’s