“Gold?” Wyatt asks, wondering how much of him had transferred to his son.
“I don’t know, just that he spent more time away than at home. And he and my mother fought a lot. He was sick since he was a child.”
“With what? Was he cold all the time?”
Wyatt takes Papa’s hand again as if to test, an ice block gripping back.
“You are cold too,” Wyatt says, in astonishment. “Have you always been?”
Papa’s eyes loop around. “I’m not long for this world. My father had a sickness, I don’t recall what. But he was stabbed coming from town. This killed him. The thief wanted his groceries. That’s what witnesses said.”
“Did they catch the man responsible?”
“He was a drifter, or at least that’s what the police assumed, since no one could recall the him. Wrong place, wrong time, I presume. My mother often talked about it through my childhood, played the what-if scenarios. But I wasn’t interested.” Papa gives another cough of brown gook into the cup. “She passed soon after I returned from the war and married.”
Wyatt bites his bottom lip, a flood of tears building. His wife’s early end and his son’s too. How come he got to live for so long? What’s different about him?
“Haven’t thought about this all in some time,” Papa says. “It’s when we come to the very end that we think of when we began. The early people who shaped us. They are barely memories since it’s been so long. I’ve had to rebuild and recreate who they are.”
“So have I.” The tears come in hiccup form, firing from Wyatt’s sockets.
“There, there, son,” Papa says, patting Wyatt’s palm. “Don’t cry for me. I will get to see my lovely Frannie soon. She’s been waiting.”
“None of this is fair. I should’ve gotten to be there, for Adalaide and Little Joe, for you too. I should’ve been able to hold you in my arms when you were born, given you a nickname…”
“Tut, tut. The game of coulda, woulda, shoulda never turns out well. Take it from a man who’s lived longer than most. Regret is not a worthwhile emotion because there is nothing that can be done. We have to move on.”
“I’m trying, I am. Meeting you all, feeling the love of your family, my family. How they look out for one another.”
“See, so there may have been some bad, but good too.”
Wyatt dries his tears. “Thank you.”
“I assume I will not remember much of this,” Papa says, nodding at the IV. “And maybe that is best. But I’ll give you a last egg of advice.” He curls a finger for Wyatt to lean in close. “Chase for whatever is it you truly want and don’t stop until you have it firmly in your grasp.”
The oracle closes his mouth, pleased with his divine wisdom.
“You mean the gold?”
The oracle sighs, ready to end this conversation, to let sleep sweep away this wild vision.
“You mean Callie and Eli?”
The oracle’s drooped face tilts to the left.
“Or do you mean…”
The oracle holds up a pallid hand, palm out.
“Listen. Don’t speak anymore,” he says. “Whatever it is you truly want. Understand?”
The air in the room becomes filled with a sparkling glow. God’s finger poking in, making sure this moment gets intensified.
The oracle’s eyes snap shut. A loud snore erupts enough for Wyatt to scooch his chair back. The glow reflects in the window, a fluorescent shine. The door to the room has opened, the hallway light streaming in, along with Stu.
“What the fuck are you doing in my father’s room?” Stu shouts, as Wyatt turns to Pa-pa Clifford to explain, then sadly realizes that none of this could ever be properly put into words.
30
Stu attacks Wyatt, since it’s in his nature. As a sheriff, he’s never allowed himself to hesitate. Especially after his injury in a dank cabin in the middle of the woods. The moon had been blocked by fog. A tip led him there foolishly without backup. He could barely see his hand in front of his face, let alone the shadow of a man reaching for his gun. He shot at the dark, the bullet captured by a mattress on the floor. He heard the man fire twice, the first bullet lost in the wooden wall, the second piercing his thigh. He fell over, which saved his life, since the other bullets all shattered the glass window above. Crouching on the floor, he tried to see his assailant, nothing more than a hovering phantom dashing for the door, not entirely human, massive like a sasquatch. He thinks of its gait every time he limps, even now as he lunges at Wyatt, visualizing the sasquatch in his place.
“What are you after?” he thunders, getting Wyatt in a headlock and bringing him down to the ground. They ram into the table on wheels holding Papa’s untouched supper, which careens across the room.
“I wanted to talk to him,” Wyatt struggles to say.
“Why? Tell me why? Tell me.”
Stu’s face turning bright red, the veins throbbing, saliva dripping from his lips like a bear.
A nurse steps inside, witnesses the melee, and throws her arms to the ceiling before running out.
“I…had questions,” Wyatt slurs.
Stu has his hands around Wyatt’s throat now. He’s squeezing but not enough to harm, only to subdue. Although he could easily press harder into the man’s windpipe, could end things quickly.
“Grigory, does that name ring a bell?” Stu asks. “Did he send you to watch us?”
There’s a chart somewhere in the madness of Stu’s basement that attempts to link a few of the undesirables in the Native American settlement, to the underground gambling ring run by a man named Grigory, the underboss of a vile human he’s been trying to locate, an unnamed ghost he believes to be the nucleus of all the crime in the area, who must’ve ensnared Bobby in his web and then sacrificed his boy for knowing too much.
Wyatt’s eyes float up, his neck turning gray. He swings his arms in an attempt to connect with Stu’s face.
“Who does he work with at the settlement?” Stu roars.
“I don’t know who you speak of—”
“That’s bullshit. You’re cozying up to Travis, now to my father. Keep enemies close, right? You’re sick.”
Finally, Wyatt’s fist meets Stu’s cheek. It’s a hard blow, since Wyatt swing’s full of muscles. Stu’s stunned for long enough for Wyatt to push him off. Travis rushes in.
“What the hell’s going on?” Travis asks, surveying the scene. Wyatt hacking up a lung, Stu rubbing the lump developing on his cheekbone, Papa snoring away.
“He’s no good!” Stu cries, pointing at Wyatt as if Travis wouldn’t understand who he meant.
“Your father attacked me.” Wyatt affects his voice so it sounds helpless, a fawn in distress. “I was visiting Papa. We had gotten along so well at the party.”
Travis goes to help up Wyatt and brings him a plastic cup of fresh water. Wyatt greed-ily gulps it down.
“You’re gonna tend to that man first while your father lies here from being struck in the face?” Stu whines.
“Stu, you attacked him!”
“Well, why is he here?”
“He just said he came to visit Papa.”
Stu stands and wets a paper towel at the sink that he presses to his cheek. “That man has ulterior motives.”
The nurse comes back inside, a thin woman with a brittle face and tiny eyes. “So you know, I’ve called the police.”
“I am the police,” Stu says, waving her away. “The situation is under control.”
The nurse heads over to Papa to check all his connected tubes.
“Wyatt is a friend,” Travis says. “I got him a job at Elson’s.”
“He was with that Oxendine whore.”
“Then that’s his business, what’s it to you?”
“Because illicit things happen at that settlement. Drugs and…”
Travis quickly looks over at Wyatt, a telling glance.
“You’re into drugs, aren’t you?” Stu asks, charging over to Wyatt. “That’s why you’
re with that woman?”
“No,” Wyatt peeps.
“Leave him alone, Stu.”
A show of red lights clears across the window. A deputy’s car pulling up to the hospital parking lot.
“Ah shit,” Travis says, as Grayson steps out and heads inside. “Don’t egg Gray on.”
“This man knows something about Bobby,” Stu says, not roaring anymore, meek now.
The charged bravado covering a wounded child. That’s what he returns to, what the death of a son can do.
“I don’t know a Bobby,” Wyatt says, and then he repeats it again to Stu. “The woman, Aylen, she makes me feel good is all I know. That’s why I go there. I don’t care if she’s with other men. That’s her business. And when she’s with me, she’s only with me.”
“See?” Travis says, massaging Stu’s collar bone.
“Nah, her cousin’s involved. I’m certain. And if you’re involved with her, you’re involved with him.”
Grayson swings into the room, gun ready.
“Jesus, Gray, put that thing away!” Travis yells.
Grayson blinks to take in the scene.
“Oh no, not him,” Grayson says, an accusatory finger thrust toward Wyatt. “I thought I told you to stay away.”
Travis jumps between them. “Gray, he’s just here to see Papa. It’s all a misunderstand-ing.”
Wyatt has his hands up. He nods in defense.
The nurse pipes up. “All right, all of you out.”
She shoos until they leave the room. Unsatisfied with them being in the hallway, she pushes the posse toward the waiting area where the four men reconvene.
“I’m sorry,” Stu says to Wyatt, cutting the silence. “For the choking. That was un-called for.”
“Ain’t nothing,” Wyatt says, but Grayson’s giving him an evil eye.
“Don’t trust this one for shit,” Grayson says. “He’s got a stinger. He’s just waiting for a target.”
“Gray,” Travis chides. “Let’s not make it worse.”
“Shows up out the blue,” Grayson whines, “and highjacks you as a friend. That’s right, I said it. You’ve been MIA, off God knows where with this one.”
“Gray, I can have more than one friend.”
“My life is in the shitter, and have you once offered to go hunting?” Grayson asks.
“Son, have you had some sips?” Stu asks.
“No,” he says, but Stu smells his breath. “All right, but night patrol can be dull as fuck in this town.”
“I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear that,” Stu says.
“Gray,” Travis says, like an older, wiser brother would. “We’ll go hunting as soon as possible. You can unload all your Lorinda woes.”
Grayson sniffs. “Promise?”
“First chance I can,” Travis says. “I love you, buddy. We’ll get you through this.”
“I apologize as well, sir,” Wyatt tells Stu. “For hitting your cheek. Looks like it smarts.”
“Been hit worse.”
“I am new in town if Trav didn’t tell you. And he’s been so kind to me. I wanted to be there for the family too,” Wyatt says.
“As a sheriff, always got my antennae up,” Stu says.
“Don’t know what that means exactly, but I believe I understand.” Wyatt backs out of the room. “I’ve bothered you all enough. My condolences to Papa Clifford. I will have him in my heart.”
Grayson holds his nose as if the man stinks.
“He’s weird, Trav,” Grayson says. “That’s a given.”
“He’s sad, like both of you.”
Stu rubs his fist, the knuckles turning purple.
After Travis leaves the hospital room, Stu remains dumbstruck so Grayson stays with him.
“What do you think he meant by both of us being sad?” Stu asks.
“Ah, he’s right,” Grayson says. “It’s this town, this edge of the world, we’re all in different stages of despair. How’s Papa?”
Stu’s sighs have the weight of torpedoes. “First twenty-four hours are key to a recovery. But all I see is the end.”
“C’mere, old man,” Grayson says, pulling Stu into his chest. “He’s a fighter like every other Barlow. He’ll outlive us all.”
Stu wipes his nose against Grayson’s shirt. “I’m gonna hold you to those words.”
“You Barlows are cut from a different cloth. Can withstand whatever calamity is thrown at them.”
“That’s so?”
“Yep, I’ve decided it. Superhuman, that’s what you all are.”
Grayson cups the back of Stu’s neck, cold to the touch like an ice brick, so frozen that Grayson removes his fingers in shock.
“Superhuman?” Grayson wonders.
31
Outside of the hospital, the weather’s already turning. Branches melting hours ago form ice crystals again. Wyatt’s breath a thick smoke. He rubs his hands together to create warmth but doesn’t really need to since the cold affects him differently. Always has. He can recall Adalaide bundled up in wool sweaters and heavy blankets while she sat glued to the fireplace with Little Joe in her arms. Wyatt could waltz in naked and still not be chilled. It’s not as if he never feels cold, more that it simply doesn’t bother him.
He digs in his pockets as his saliva intensifies. He could use a hit, but the baggie of heroin is only filled with white dust. He licks his index finger and dabs the remnants, snorts whatever’s left up his nose but it does not sate.
There’s an anger bubbling he’s trying to contain. Here he went out of his way to be there for Papa and the family treated him with contempt. Things may have ended okay with Stu, but Wyatt’s aware it’s bound to get worse with a man of that nature. He’s met similar before in life and can’t imagine that a century changes that kind of temperament.
Stubborn, persistent, rude, and foolhardy. Grayson too. Like most lawmen are.
Trav, however, stood up for him. It was expected, but Wyatt would be lost without him in his corner. Tricky to decipher how long their connection might last. He thinks to how excited Trav got when he mentioned the gold. A clear way to solidify their relationship would be to hunt for that prize. Problem being, he still can’t remember where he left his treasure. He wonders what might be his end goal. Obviously, the gold, but if both Adalaide and Little Joe are long dead, what does he want in terms of family? Would he be content to be a part of Trav’s world but not the center of California and Eli’s? Is the only chance at happiness to somehow take Trav’s place? He hates to ponder this but can’t help it.
Out of the corner of his eye, another cloud breath puffs. Trav stands there, hands jammed in his pockets, no clue what to say. The two men stay simply breathing for some time.
“Thanks for sticking up for me,” Wyatt finally says, so Trav will understand there’s no hard feelings.
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I don’t believe your father and friend thinks the same.”
Trav steps closer like he’s about to reveal a secret. “They’re cut from the same cloth.
Fiercely protective. Highly suspicious. My brother…You don’t know this, but my brother Bobby died about two years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“He was found at sea. Don’t know if it was self-imposed or if someone drowned him.
He was involved with some shady people. Laner’s a good town. Hard working people, families, but on the outskirts there’s a stain. People who likely got to Bobby.”
“And Grayson and Stu are determined to see who messed with him?”
“Yep, precisely.”
“That might explain their reaction. Losing a child, a brother, anyone close. No one deserves that. Take it from me.”
The saliva ramps up in Wyatt’s mouth and he’d beg anyone to oblige with a hit. Talking of death and loss does this, strips his core.
“And my father’s dealing with debt along with hospital bills for Papa,” Trav says.
“We’re all being challenged
now is what it is.”
Wyatt places his palms on his great-great grandson’s shoulders. He’d love to solve the family’s problems, become their hero.
“Gold, Trav.”
“You remember where it is?”
Wyatt gives a snort, tiny heroin particles traveling up into his brain, opening up a pathway to remembrance. It’s his best chance of traveling back in the wilderness to the spot he left the gold. It’s more than worth a shot. He taps his skull.
“It’s all here,” Wyatt says. “I just have to access it.”
“How will ya do that?”
“Lemme try. And when I do, I’ll take you with me. We can split the gold fifty-fifty, I won’t need any more.”
“That’s mighty generous.”
“I want to do this for your family. I haven’t had kindness in some time. Your grandfather…” He wants to shout, my grandson, but maintains his composure. “Please, I want to do this for you all. I only have to pry it from my brain. It shouldn’t be hard. I have ways of accessing.”
Trav scrunches up his face. “Drugs ain’t worth it, dude.”
“I haven’t told you this, but I lost a lot of my memory due to an unfortunate incident.”
Wyatt gums his bottom lip, debating how honest to be, deciding only to give out minimal information. “My wife, my child, it’s all slowly coming back.” He pulls out the baggie with the white powder stains. “But yes, this helps.”
“That shit’s real bad for you.”
Wyatt holds up a hand in protest. “I can handle it. I must. Let me do it once more to access the part of my mind that’s been blocked. One last chance. But I need to do enough to really go there.”
Trav kicks at the dirty snow. “Shit, man, I really don’t like this.”
“I’m a wolf,” Wyatt says, a blossom of truth he’s able to reveal. “I’m bred tough, you see? The drug won’t be my end.”
“You have to go to the settlement to get more?”
“I’ll go right now.”
“Let me at least drive. It’s like a five-mile walk.”
“Only to drop me off. I do not want you involved.”
The Ancestor Page 18