Pete complained stertorously, not awake but sufficiently conscious to make labored snoring sounds. "Dad . . . Dad . . . ," Tory said, trying to bring him to.
"It's no good," Jake said. "He's snockered." He directed Py to get around behind him while he grabbed the old man's ankles.
"What are you doing?" Tory asked, as Jake pushed her out of the way.
"You want him sobered up?" he asked, to which she nodded in the affirmative. "Okay then – Py, grab him under the arms and we'll haul him out to the tank."
Py looked at Jake apprehensively, but Jake insisted – "Go on, pick him up! Let's get him out of here."
Pete smelled like a distillery, which was upsetting to Tory, but worse was the way he looked – like an old drunk. His unfocused eyes were beet-red and he drooled from the corners of his mouth. His several day old growth of beard seemed pure white against his sun-leathered skin, though around the eyes he seemed sunken and sallow, old and poisoned with booze.
"Be careful with him," Tory said, as Jake and Py hoisted him off the ground and struggled to carry him out of the barn. He sagged between them like a game deer being packed out of the woods for slaughter, his head hanging straight back, throat exposed, as if his neck muscles no longer cared to support his skull. A dead weight, he was a chore to carry, even for a couple strapping guys like Jake and Py, and his rear end occasionally dragged along the ground as they moved him toward the water tank. "Don't hurt him," Tory pleaded as they went.
"We ain't hurtin' him none," Jake assured her.
After a good deal of struggling, they got Pete out to where they intended to sober him up. He seemed to come to, realizing what was happening, as Jake and Py swung him over the side of the tank. He started to protest, albeit absently, but then his handlers let him go and he landed with a huge splash in the middle of the tank, submerging for a moment, then coming up kicking and spitting.
Pete's Pigs had noticed their master being unceremoniously carried toward this dunking, and one of them stood up on his back feet, with his front feet up on the side of the metal pool, to see how Pete was taking it. When Pete came to and started in with a round of cursing the pigs were startled and fled the scene amid a chorus of grunting complaints that seemed roughly to harmonize with Pete's own.
"Ball fire and tarnations!" Pete cried out, spitting water and coughing. "What are you doin' – tryin' to drown me? I ain't some kind of a goll-darn fish, you know! I ain't doin' nothin' to no one!"
"Dad – I'll get you a towel and some aspirin," Tory said, rushing toward the house to retrieve the needed things, happy to have a reason not to have to see her father and this cruel and abrupt dowsing.
"Sorry, Pete," Jake said. "Just tryin' to get you straightened out."
Py stood back from the tank, a little nervous at his complicity in this instant rehabilitation. He didn't really think it was his place to be handling a senior in this way. He also wasn't too nuts about being on hand to witness Pete's humiliation. The old guy had been his mentor – a person he was happy to look up to. He took no pleasure in seeing Pete's dignity violated.
Pete splashed madly for a moment, starting to stand once, then slipping on the slimy bottom of the tank and resubmerging momentarily. Then he began to calm down as he began to fully regain consciousness, and after a moment he laid back and rested peacefully, sitting in the middle of the tank with the water up to his shoulders.
"Looks like he's comin' to a little now," Jake said to Py, talking about Pete as if he didn’t 't imagine the old guy was yet able to comprehend what he was saying.
Py didn't say a thing, but looked on nervously.
Pete opened his eyes wide, pushed his straggly hair back out of his face, and looked around him, trying to get his bearings. His temples throbbed with pain and his own spit tasted like acid.
Tory came running from the back door of the house carrying pain killers, a glass of water, and a towel. "Here, Dad – take these," she said, handing him the aspirin.
Pete didn't argue. He took the pills and put them on his tongue, then threw back the glass of water. The minute the combination landed on his roiling stomach he became sick, and he quickly positioned his head over the side of the tank so he could vomit on the ground.
"Oh Dad . . ." Tory said piteously, as he heaved.
"That didn't work too good," Jake said, looking at her in all seriousness.
Pete's round of regurgitation ended quickly and then he wiped his mouth and once again settled back into the water. "Well – what's everybody lookin' at!” he said, noticing the way the others stood around, sadly staring.
Py became non-chalant, turning his gaze out toward the distant horizon, as if it were pure coincidence that he had happened to be here to see this.
"Are you okay, Dad?" Tory asked sweetly, concerned.
Pete groused. "I'm okay – just a little water in my windpipe," he said. "Holy bejeezus – you don't have to drown a guy."
"He's okay," Jake said. "Py, why don't you and I go tend to those yearling. I'm sure Tory can do the rest."
Tory half-smiled. "Thanks," she said, as the two hired men went on about their business.
After they were out of ear-shot she said – "Well, Pop, I guess you really tied one on." There was no sympathy in her voice, but not much judgment, either. She knew her old man was in real pain over what had happened with Cooksin and it was hard to be too critical.
"I guess I did," Pete said, somewhat distantly. "I'm sorry, honey, I really am." Tory sat down on the edge of the tank and dangled her fingers in the water.
"Are you through being sick?" she asked.
"Maybe for today," Pete said, sounding defeated.
"I guess we didn't do as well getting rid of the bottles as I thought. Are there any more?" she asked.
Pete looked at her and curled one side of his mouth. "There's another out in the Quonset," he said.
"Shall we go get it, or were you planning on drinking that one tomorrow?" "I planned on drinking it today," Pete said. "I just didn't get to it."
Tory smiled and shook her head. "Dad – what are we going to do with you?"
"I'd appreciate it if you'd just shoot me," Pete said. "Put me out've my damned misery."
"Is that it, Pop? Are you pretty miserable?"
Pete just shook his head in defeat. "I am, honey. I'm about as miserable as a man can be."
"Over Cooksin?" Tory asked, though she knew.
Pete looked at the heavens, indicating the breadth of his despair. "I just don't understand it, honey. I just don't understand why a man would want to step on another man's dreams – especially when they're so close he can almost taste 'em. You know, I actually had myself believing that finally somethin' was gonna go right around here – that somehow that big white bull was gonna change everything for us. It wasn't gonna be just for me. I thought, if things worked out, that not only would Parker Ranch survive, but that there'd be a future in it for all of us – you, Jake, young Py." Pete shook his head and looked as if he might start to cry. "It's all gone, now – all gone."
Tory's face seemed sorrowful. "We can get through this, Dad. We've still got the yearling herd. They'll bring in a little money."
"A little money is right," Pete said, pushing at the surface of the water. "We'll never have what we had. I'm a God-damned fool, puttin' everything into one dumb animal. You'd think an old man like me would know better. Hell, I've only been makin' these kinds of mistakes for sixty years. An intelligent man might've learned a little somethin'."
"You're being too hard on yourself," Tory said. "What happened wasn't your fault."
"Well then who's fault was it?"
"I don't know," Tory said. "I suppose it belongs to whoever pulled that trigger.
It's all I can think. All you're guilty of was getting your hopes up."
"See – that's another thing an old fart like me ought to know better about!" "Oh Dad, don't be ridiculous. Besides, I liked you that way – better than I like you the way you are right now, I mig
ht add," Tory said. "You seemed happy."
"There's another mistake," Pete said. "There ain't no future in 'happy!' I don't think God ever come up with a cheaper emotion."
Tory smiled. "It ain't that cheap," she said. "You obviously can't afford it."
Before he could offer an argument, she splashed water in his face, sending him into a blinking fit.
"Why don't you get out and dry yourself off," she said. "I'll go make you something to put on your stomach that isn't distilled or fermented."
CHAPTER 32 – Accusations
"How's Pete?" Jake asked, as Tory came into the kitchen.
"I just got him into bed," she answered, avoiding his eyes. She opened the icebox, looking for the pitcher of freshly brewed iced tea that she kept filled from spring through the end of summer. "He's beginning to feel his mistake." Then she added, cryptically – "I guess we all are."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I guess he can be forgiven for falling off the wagon," she responded. "I guess we all could, given what's happened."
"Even me?" Jake asked.
Tory didn't answer, preferring to focus her attentions on getting some ice into a glass, and spooning out a couple of teaspoons of sugar.
"Well . . ." Jake prompted. "I suppose you're still mad at me."
Tory slammed the icebox shut and then stirred her tea vigorously. She kept her back turned to Jake, who leaned up against the sink counter, watching her avoid him.
"Well, are you?"
Tory turned and faced him, her eyes flashing in a way that revealed exactly how she felt – and if there was forgiveness for her father, there certainly wasn't any for Jake. "Jake – do you know anything about who shot Dad's bull?"
Jake's eyes widened in disbelief. "What are you talking about?"
Tory looked serious as death. "I can't help thinking you know more about what happened than you're letting on. Do you?"
Jake was flabbergasted. "I think Frank Walker did it," he said, without certainty. "Well, he'd have plenty of reason to, wouldn't he?" Tory was terse, pulling no punches. She left out the specifics in her incrimination, but Jake knew what she was driving at.
"Are you saying Frank Walker shot that animal to get back at me?"
Tory glared. "It would make sense, wouldn't it? It sort of kills two birds with one stone. He gets even with you for getting involved with his daughter – who, by the way, you're twenty years too old for – and it makes it more likely that Dad will give up his land, if he doesn't have any more need for it."
"So you're saying all this is my fault?"
"I want you to tell me," she said. "You add it all up and tell me how it comes out."
Jake had never heard this tone in Tory's voice before – pure vindictiveness.
He hadn't imagined she was over being mad at him over his ongoing affair with Lily, and yet somehow her venom today blind-sided him. It was more than the cheating, more than the murder of Cooksin. She seemed now to be blaming him for her father's having fallen back into the bottle. Though it had never been discussed, Jake could sense that this was the real back-breaker, the hurt that went all the way to raw nerve and made her despise him. There was family propriety there that he felt unable to counter, that made him feel, for the first time, a real outsider on Parker Ranch. It was clear that if it came down to it, Tory would always choose her father over him. And if it was Jake's fault that Pete had fallen off the wagon, he may never be forgiven. As far as Tory was concerned, next to her father's happiness and well-being, everything else was insignificant – Jake, Cooksin, the ranch – everything! .
Jake looked at her, confused and bewildered, and he felt impotent to handle her fire. He felt small, inadequate. And worse than that, he felt guilty. Of some offenses, there was no doubt: the liaisons with Lily, the wrath it incited in her father. Maybe it was his fault that Pete was in the next room asleep in an alcoholic stupor, and maybe it was his fault that prospects for Parker Ranch now felt dead. Maybe, in some convoluted way, he was responsible for Cooksin's shooting. After all, he didn't really believe that it was Frank Walker who pulled the trigger. He couldn’t 't admit it, but he thought it was Lorenzo Pico's pressure man, driving home a point – making it clear that people were going to get hurt unless he followed through with the plan. It was a hopeless situation.
People were going to get hurt one way or the other – that was clear now. It was either going to be Frank Walker and the other cattlemen who were on the hit list, or it was going to be Jake and the people he cared about: Pete, Tory and Py. Maybe Lily, as well.
Now the one person in the world whom he could have sought refuge with, and understanding from, was herself a victim of his rotten circumstance. He looked into Tory's eyes, and all he could feel was shame. Jake couldn't handle the weight of the emotion, and he lowered his gaze to the floor.
"Maybe it is all my fault," Jake said quietly, weighing the evidence, finding it against him.
Tory looked at him cold and hard. "So, then, what are you going to do about it?" she asked, challengingly.
"What do you want me to do about it?" Jake asked.
"I want you to be a man," Tory said. "I want you to face-up to whatever it is you've got to do to keep this unhappiness from spreading any further. I don't know how to tell you to do it. I don't know if it means going to Frank Walker and making peace, or calling him out, or what. I just don't know. I know that you've got to bring to a stop anything that you've got going with Lily. And I know you 've got to quit lying to me, because I won't stand by and watch everything that we have – you and I, Dad and Py I won't let it be destroyed just because you're too much of a coward to face up to yourself and your own responsibilities. I want something more out of life than what you can give me if you don't."
With that, Tory took her tea and went out the back door, leaving Jake alone in the kitchen to consider what to do next.
* * * * *
"Jake – what are you doin '? Are you goin' somewheres?" Py asked.
Jake didn't stop his packing, but instead went about what he was doing, avoiding eye contact with his young friend. "I'm gettin' my things together," was all he said.
Py's expression drained from his face. "You ain't leavin', are you Jake?"
Jake glanced at him for a moment, registering the kid's shock and surprise, and then went right back to what he was doing.
"You ain't leavin' the ranch, are you Jake?" "Yeah, I reckon I am."
Py couldn't believe what he was seeing and hearing. He stood there helpless to comprehend what was happening. "Why, Jake? Where are you going?"
"Don't rightly know," Jake answered laconically.
"Are you comin' back?" Py asked, his voice sounding the incomprehensibleness of what was happening.
"I don't expect to," Jake said.
Py was open-mouthed stunned. "Why?" he asked pleadingly. "I got my reasons, Py. That's all you need to know."
Py shook his head, as if it were all a bad dream. "But what about Pete and the ranch? What about Tory? Is she goin' with you?"
"Nope," Jake said.
Py just stood there watching Jake pack his few possessions, desperate for it not to be happening, but now knowing what to say. He couldn't understand Jake giving him the cold shoulder. It had never happened before. The thing that had sealed his devotion had been Jake's willingness to accept him, a common laborer, into his fold. But as he watched Jake methodically going about his preparation, it occurred to him that Jake had walked unannounced from his life once before, when he had gotten into trouble on Walker Ranch. There was a pattern that Py was unwilling to see. It wasn't how he wanted Jake to be. He didn't want to think of him as anything other than a tower of strength, an icon of something Py hoped that one day he himself could be.
"Where will you go?" he asked, groping for some way to communicate his feelings, to reestablish his link with Jake, but Jake seemed in no mood for it. "I told you, Py – I don't know for sure!"
"Well, have you talked to Pete? What does
Tory say about it?" "I ain't talked to Pete," Jake said.
"And Tory?"
"She ain't too happy about it," Jake said, like it had no bearing on his decision.
"I just don't understand, Jake. I thought we was gonna build somethin' here," Py said, his words strained to breaking, as he squeezed them past the lump in his throat.
Jake looked hard at Py. "Well, things change, Py. The sooner you get wise to that, the better. You can't count on nothin' or no one – not in this life."
Py wasn't used to Jake talking to him that way, and tears swelled up in his eyes. "It ain't because of Frank Walker, is it Jake? You ain't lettin' him run you off, are you?"
"Maybe I am, maybe I'm not," Jake said, without emotion.
"But what about everything we were gonna do? The ranch, the new herd – don't it mean nothin'?"
Jake shook his head. "Me leavin' don't change any of that. You and Pete can still do it."
Py felt a pain like an arrow through his heart – the pain of knowing that Jake wasn't telling the truth, and he knew it. "We can't, Jake! We can't do it without you! I ain't no cowboy, not yet anyways. You was gonna teach me!"
"I ain't now cowboy either," Jake allowed.
"I don't know nothin' about buildin' a ranch. And Pete – Pete's old, Jake! He and I – we can't do it by ourselves! We need you, Jake! We can't do it without you!"
Jake had just put the last piece in his valise, and for a moment he straightened up and looked at Py, his expression for a fleeting moment indicating that maybe his mind wasn't made up, and that it could be changed. But then he let his expression drop back into a determined indifference. "Well, you're gonna have to," he said, and then he pushed his way past Py and walked on out of the little bunkhouse.
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