Cooksin

by Rick Alan Rice

  Py followed him out into the yard. "But Jake . . ." he said, water filling his eyes. "I don't want you to go. I . . . I . . ." Py had to gulp back the tears. "I love you," he finally said, but Jake didn't seem to want to hear it. With valise in one hand, his denim jacket in the other, he walked on past the house, and on out to the county road.

  CHAPTER 33 – Backroads

  Jake walked south down County Road 14, kicking through the dust for a little more than one mile before reaching the intersection of County Road 7, which took him on west. He was nearly seven miles from Longmont and hoped that he would be able to hitch a ride when he reached the more heavily traveled County Road 16. Weld County citizens were pretty good about helping travelers in need. Jake himself had stopped on occasion to pick-up other pedestrians, usually migrant labor types who were more than happy to accept a bumpy, dirty ride in the back of Pete's pickup. Sometimes they wouldn't be laborers, but would instead be cowboys or farmers, stranded in the countryside when their vehicles ran out of gas, or suffered some mechanical breakdown. Some of the dirt farmers, like old Billy Fugate, routinely walked miles between their homes and fields, leaving their tractors rigged in the field to whatever implement they were using at a given time of year. They were often accompanied by a dog or two, who ran enthusiastically out ahead and sniffed the sides of the road for rattlers and other varmints, clearing the way for their master's safe passage. No one in this part of the country gave any thought at all to accommodating a sweat-soaked traveler with a slobbery dog.

  It took Jake more than twenty minutes to reach the first intersection, and all along the way he looked out upon Parker Ranch land and thought about all that had transpired. All the four-strand barbed wire fence that bordered the road to his right was fence that he and Py had repaired. In the distance he could see Pete's small herd of yearling, standing out in the middle of the pasture, unanimated, almost still-life, in the noonday sun. Further away from the ranch itself, Jake could see the tops of the elms, just visible from where they grew in the deep south canyon, where the pond was, and where Jake and Py had worked for days to revitalize the old windmill that supplied the cattle with water those years when the pond went dry. What had it all come to? All the work and the high hopes? He looked back toward the ranch, now well in the distance, and thought about the white picket fence around the house, and all the work Tory had done to pretty-up the yard and make it more livable. He thought about the work he and Py had done on Cooksin's corral, of the heavy labor involved in repairing the huge timbers, and that involved with refurbishing the main windmill, which had delivered drinking water to the white bull, and shower water to Pete's homemade dowsing tank. And then, too – what had that all been for? Jake wanted to think about it – to relive it all – but, then again, he didn't. What had been joy was beginning to feel like pain. It seemed his whole life had been planting seeds that wouldn't grow. Parker Ranch, and all his history with it, now seemed to fall into that category. The whole experience now seemed both a nightmare and an idyll.

  Jake had planned his departure to coincide with a trip Pete and Tory had taken to Fort Lupton, to buy clothing. There was a dry goods there that beat Longmont's for prices, so this is where Pete routinely bought his duds. Tory had insisted they go, partly because Pete was in need of new britches, and primarily because Tory wanted to divert him from thinking about his blues. Jake knew the backroads they took to get there, and when they were unlikely to happen upon his slow escape. He figured to be at the bus depot in Longmont before they ever got back to the ranch.

  Jake turned to the west when he reached the first intersection and now had another two miles over to the main road into Longmont. He'd skirt Parker property for about half that distance, then Willingham farmland for another quarter mile. The last stretch would border Walker Ranch property, until finally he'd reach the next big four way intersect.

  There he encountered still more memories, as he passed the tree where he and Lily left their rendezvous messages. That corner of the section was unfenced. Frank Walker had given it over to the public need for shade and joined his corner fence lines to the inside of the tiny grove. Jake couldn't walk past without taking one last trip over to the tree. He stepped through the tall weeds, brittle golden from the summer sun, to pay one last respect to the spot around which the late summer of his youth had struggled to survive.

  In the crook of the tree he found a small flat rock, with the number "68" etched on in pencil. It was a new entry, encoded with the special language of he and Lily's surreptitious affair. She would be expecting to meet him Saturday night at eight o'clock, and he knew she would be there, even though he wouldn't. They had always made their dates with the knowledge that they may be impossible to keep. On several occasions one or the other had been stood up, and yet somehow the uncertainty about what was possible had added a layer of sensitivity to the proceedings. Both respected that the other had a life without them that would sometimes intercede and make it impossible for each to have what they really wanted. It made each successful rendezvous stronger, more intense.

  Nothing had ever been taken for granted.

  Jake fingered the rock, rubbing it like a rosary, using it as a charm to conjure up a divine vision. Then he carefully placed it back in the spot where he found it. It was better this way, for to remove it would have signaled to Lily that her message had been received and he intended to be there, which he did not. He intended to be miles away, starting over someplace else, in a way he never had before. His past, his very name – all had to be replaced, so that perhaps he could melt into the anonymity of everyday life somewhere, and hopefully leave behind forever the darkness that had trailed him. It depressed him to think that to escape the dark he had also to give up the light, but few were his options. For some reason his path had been strewn with such paradoxes, and he envied those normal, dull people who grew up in a community with friends, married a sweet wife, had babies and, in short, had what normal people had. It just wasn't that way for him, though exactly why he did not know. He put the rock back as if it were something he couldn't have, perhaps didn't deserve.

  Lost in his thoughts, he hadn't noticed the approaching vehicle, northbound along 16 – a black 1942 Buick Y- Job, the likes of which there was only one in all Weld County. It was the exotic convertible driven by Lily Walker.

  Without seeing Jake, standing next to the message tree, Lily slowed the car and brought it to a stop on the shoulder of the road, just past the intersection. She jumped out and hurried around the back, then went hopping through the weeds, looking rather like a deer as she artfully transcended the rough terrain. She was going to check the tree to see if Jake had gotten her message and was surprised when she got to the spot to find Jake standing there.

  "Jake!" she said, shocked but delighted to see him.

  He started to respond to her, but she darted into his arms and locked her lips on his in an enthusiastic kiss. "Imagine finding you here!" she said. "Did you get my message? Can you make it?"

  Jake had instinctively caught her, wrapping his arms around her long, lithe frame, but he pulled away, letting her go at the question, his inner voice telling him that his new life had already begun, and it certainly wasn't going to include this. He became a little clumsy, looking for a way out. "Yeah, I got it," he said, his eyes searching her face, then the ground, for some way to smooth things over.

  "Eight o'clock?" Lily asked. "Will it be okay? I can't hardly wait to see you."

  Jake tried to tell her straight out – No, it wasn't okay. It wouldn't work at all, but the words just didn't come. "I . . . the thing is . . ."

  "What's wrong, Jake?" Lily suddenly realized that he had withdrawn and was no longer holding her, and that a strange sense of the distance had grown between them. She turned and looked in the crook of the tree and saw that the rock was still there. She reached in and picked it up. "You saw this?" she asked. "What's wrong, Jake? Why didn't you take it out?"

  Again, he started to speak, but the words stil
l failed him. In looking around for help, his eyes rested for a moment upon his valise and coat, lying on the ground not far from where they stood. Lily noticed what he was looking at and asked – "What's that?" She took a few steps in the direction of Jake's things, confirming that she was accurate in what she thought she was seeing. "What are you doing? Are you going somewhere?" She looked at him earnestly, half fearful of his answer.

  Jake took a deep breath, and then said it straight as he could. "I'm leavin', Lily," he told her. "I'm not workin' Parker Ranch anymore. My job's over and I'm movin' on."

  Lily's expression fell, the shock registering across her face. "You're leaving?" she said, as if the possibility had never occurred to her. Jake shook his head that 'yes,' she understood correctly. "Where to?" she asked. "Where are you going?"

  "I don't really know," Jake said, knowing as he said it that his lack of firm direction was incriminating, saying something about his character, and who he was in this life. "I figure maybe I'll move on west, maybe out toward California. Or I was thinking about maybe trying things in Arizona. I don't really know."

  "Why, Jake? Did something happen?"

  Jake hadn't thought to use Cooksin's shooting as an excuse, but it dawned on him that it could work. "Well, yeah, I guess you could say that. I guess you heard about Pete's bull?" Lily nodded that she had. "Pete don't need me no more, now that all he has is the stock herd. He and Py can handle it."

  Lily listened open-mouthed. "I don't believe it," she said. "You're leaving today? Right now? What about me? Weren't you going to tell me?"

  "I thought it might be better this way," Jake said. "Besides, I ain't no good at good-byes."

  Lily looked dumb struck. "I can't believe what you're telling me?" She looked from Jake to his things, then back at Jake again. "Why do you have to leave? Why can't you find work around here?"

  Jake shook his head. "I can't Lily. It just won't work that way."

  "Why not?" A thought suddenly occurred to her – one that would explain Jake's sudden departure. "Are you in some kind of trouble?" she asked.

  Jake started to shake the question off, but his eyes met hers before he could do it, and before he could think better he decided not to lie. He paused for a moment, looking all the time into their deep blue beauty. "Yes, I am," he told her.

  "What is it?"

  "I can't tell you," Jake said. "It's better for you if you don't know, and it's better for everybody if I'm not around."

  Lily's eyes widened and pooled. "You can't just walk out of my life! You can't!"

  Her getting emotional was the last thing Jake wanted. It was part of the reason he wanted to leave as he had, without the hang-ups of having people know about it, and asking questions that he had no way to answer. He reached out and grabbed her by the shoulders, straightening her up, as if to keep her from losing control. "Don't get yourself all upset," he said. "I don't know, maybe I can contact you as soon as I've put down stakes somewheres. I don't know . . ."

  "Take me with you, Jake," Lily blurted. "Take me with you. We can start out new someplace together. I could look after you and you could find a job. Wouldn't that be better? Wouldn't that be better than going off alone?"

  "Sure, it'd be better for me," Jake said. "But we can't be thinkin' that way.

  You're a young girl. You haven't even finished school yet. You got to stay here and do that, maybe even grow up a little more. Goin' off with me, it wouldn't be no good for you. It'd just screw you up, and I don't want to be a part of that any more than I already have been."

  Lily was shaking her head, rejecting everything he was saying. It was wrong. Wrong! None of it fit with her girl's sense of how things could – should! – be. Jake was everything she thought of and dreamed about. He was the only real man she had ever had, and from what she had seen there were none like him waiting in the wings. She didn't want to imagine her life without him. It just seemed like a black void to her, completely empty of romance and excitement. She had imagined how she and Jake could be together, building a home, with a family, doing work they could both be proud of, and growing old together. The pictures had been so sweet that she couldn't conceive of letting them inhabit her thoughts were he not actually to be there. It would lead to insanity, would drive her right over the edge. She had always wondered how it happened to women whose sensibilities seemed so right, whose needs and desires were so grounded and ordinary, but now she knew. It was the result of knowing what it was like to have things be perfect, and then to have the sensation somehow stolen, kept out of reach. She couldn't live with the thought of her life going that way. She couldn't live with the thought of not having Jake.

  "But Jake – I thought you loved me?" she cried.

  Jake started instinctively to pull her close to his chest, but suddenly thought better and pushed her away just a little roughly. Lily seemed surprised by the rejection and stepped away from him, stunned by the rebuff. "I do love you, Lily – I've told you that, and I mean it. But it's just not right, this thing we have between us. I'd be doin' you wrong to tell you any other way. I'd only mess up your life, honey, the way I seem to mess things up for everybody I care for. I can't explain it – it's like a curse – but its better this way." Jake walked over and picked up his things, then looked back at Lily. "I know you don't understand this now, but someday you will – someday when you're older. You run across times in life when you just don't get the things you want. Most of livin' is findin' ways to deal with that. It ain't no fun, it never is, but it's all there is. It's all there is and there ain't nothin' anybody can ever do about it. I'm sorry, Lily, but I've got to be go."

  Jake turned to walk back out to the road, but once more Lily stopped him. "What about Tory?" she said. "Why isn't she going with you?"

  Jake turned slowly back toward her and said – "It's the same with her, girl. I care too much about her to mess up her life, too!"

  "That's crap, Jake! That's crap!" Lily blurted. "You're walkin' out on all the people who care about you because . . . what, you think your being here makes things worse for everybody? It's crap, Jake! It's a lie! You're just running away! You're just finding some excuse for not letting anybody into your life! Some people want to be there. I do! I'm one of them! I'm willing to take a chance on you. I bet Tory is, too."

  Jake looked at her, moved for a moment by her pleaful honesty, though in his heart he knew it wouldn't be enough. "I guess maybe it's me who ain't willing to take the chance," he said solemnly.

  A car was approaching from the north, headed in the direction of Longmont, and when Jake saw it he immediately ran out to the road and flagged it down. "Can I get a lift?" Jake asked the driver, as he pulled to a stop. "Sure – hop in," he said.

  Jake ran around to the side of the car and opened the door, but before he got in he took one more look at young Lily, standing like an angel over near their tree, watching him depart her life. He still could hardly believe her beauty. He breathed it in one last time, and then ducked into the front seat, along beside the Good Samaritan, and the two of them hurried on up the road to Longmont, leaving Lily alone with her broken heart.

  CHAPTER 34 – Gone

  Tory sensed that something was wrong the moment she and Pete drove into the yard. It was a woman's intuition. Somehow the wind seemed listless, the breeze blowing in an odd peripatetic fashion, pushing the tail of the windmill this way and that, as if it were acting on innate impulses, but purposes that had grown obsolete.

  Pete seemed to sense it too, and as Tory brought the car to a stop the two of them just sat for a moment, looking out into the yard. The emptiness of the bullpen still seemed profound, the absence of the big white bull still hanging over the lot like an apparition, a wraith foretelling losses yet to come. The barn was buttoned up so that it looked abandoned, as if never again would there be any need to push open the imposing, sliding doors. There even seemed to be an odor permeating the air – a mix of stagnate water and molding hay that lured swarms of flies, now hovering in senseless clou
ds, accommodated by the deadened air.

  Tory and Pete glanced at one another, sharing some silent communication, and then they opened the doors and stepped out of the car. In the distance, the yearling cattle bawled their meaningless litany. "You see Py or Jake anyplace?" Pete asked, and Tory nodded that she didn't. "I think I'll wander out yonder and check on those cattle." "Give me your things and I'll take them in for you," Tory said. "Oh – if you find Jake, tell him I've got a little project I could use some help with." "Will do, honey," Pete said, as he ambled off toward the livestock.

  Tory opened the gate to the picket fence and went on to the front of the house, all the while feeling that something just wasn't right on Parker Ranch, though her intuition couldn't quite let her know what it was. There was something, though – she could just feel it. She opened the screen door and entered the house, intending to head first to her dad's bedroom to hang up his new work shirts and britches. She hadn't taken two steps in that direction, though, when out of the corner of her eye she noticed Py, sitting on the bed in his room, his back to her.

  Tory set the packages she carried down on a chair and went to his open door to look in on him. It seemed strange, she thought. Py appeared to be lost in his own world, apparently not even having noticed her and Pete's return.

  "Py," she said, speaking his name softly, careful not to startle him. "We're home."

  Py turned to look at her, and as he did she could see that he was upset – that he had tears running down his cheeks.

  "Py – what's wrong?"

  He looked at her with the expression of one emotionally spent. "It's Jake," he said. Tory felt her energy drain as she heard the words. "He's gone."