"She always raises a good calf," his grandfather boomed. "Her mama was half Jersey and her milk's good and rich."
"Look at her bag, Gramps," he yelled. "She's got a tit big as a balloon."
His grandfather grinned at him through the dust haze. "Yeah, but she's just got little ol' french fries on the other three."
He groaned and rubbed his hand exasperatedly over his face. "You know that old guy in the Bible you were tellin' me about the other day? One that was nine hundred years old or so?"
"Methuselah?"
"Yeah, him. Was this one of his old darlin's?"
His grandfather threw back his head with his infectious, hearty laugh, and then he pushed the cow up the alley to the pen of other skinny cows with long and glorious histories.
He shook his head…the old man was going to run her another year.
By noon the cull pen held only three cows, but he and his grandfather had branded most of the spring calves and castrated the bull calves. He stepped off Lucky next to where his grandfather leaned against the corral poles. The old man handed him the water jug. He tipped it up to take a long drink then wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his shirt.
"Ah. That was good. It's hot today." He fished in his pocket for his tobacco can.
"It is." His grandfather eyed the can. "That stuff'll rot your lip off. I used to tell your dad that."
He took his dip and gave a derisive snort. "He's still got plenty of lip."
"It'll keep you from gettin' kissed by the girls, too."
He grinned and stuffed the can back in his pocket. "Hasn't been a problem yet."
"You ain't tryin' to kiss the right kind of girls, then."
He had a sudden vision of Katie Campbell's soft lips. "Maybe not."
Lucky shook himself vigorously, blowing the air out through his nostrils in a long snort.
His grandfather eyed the tall horse. "That's a good pony. Jon said he was."
He slapped the horse's shoulder affectionately. "It took nearly all the money I got out of hockin' my bronc saddle to get him. Glad I didn't get ripped off."
"If Jon tells you somethin' you can take it to the bank. That's a good family."
"I guess they go to your church?"
The old man nodded. "Did you meet all of 'em?"
"I met the girl first," he said with a wry grin. "Her dog ran out in front of my pickup and I hit him."
His grandfather frowned sharply. "Kill him?"
"Yeah. She didn't think much of that."
The old man gazed at him thoughtfully. "Mmhm. You meet the boys?"
"Yeah, and the mom. She's pretty. Like the girl."
His grandfather gave him another long look then turned to the cattle, quiet now as they grazed in the east pasture. "Got a pretty good bunch of calves," he said.
He eyed the old man, puzzled by the look and change of subject. Then he shrugged and turned to the cattle, squinting against the sun glare.
"If the pasture's good on the mountain this summer they ought to be pretty fat when we bring 'em down in the fall."
"Ought to."
Lucky tried to rub the headstall on his arm.
He pushed the horse away. "I've been thinkin'. If you don't mind, I'll take on some colts to break this summer."
His grandfather turned. "I thought you couldn't ride buckin' horses no more."
"I just can't compete anymore. I can still break 'em."
The old man's eyes suddenly held a shade of worry. "That's what your dad used to do for extra money."
He tightened his jaw. "There's pretty good money in it, Gramps. It'll be enough to keep me from bummin' off you until we get some money comin' in." He turned and loosened Lucky's back saddle cinch. "If that don't work I can always play my guitar in a bar somewhere."
A heavy silence fell behind him. "Not while you live with me."
He turned, scowling. "I'm not in your church, and I ain't like the Campbell boys. That's what I was doin' when I left Idaho."
"I thought you wanted a new start."
"That ain't what I said."
"Why are you here then?"
"I told you I don't know."
His grandfather removed his stained grey Stetson and rolled the brim in his hands. "Son, I'm gonna shoot straight. I really want you here. If you've come here lookin' for a better way to live, I'll do anything in the world for you. If you've come here to get away from your dad and live the same way you've been livin', I'm tellin' you right now, I can't do it." He settled his hat back on his head cocked off to the side at the angle most men of his generation wore them. "I don't hold with drinkin' and runnin' around. I been through it with your dad, and I'm too old to go through it with you."
Leaning against the corral pole, he looked down at his hands. He hadn't come here to get away from his dad, but he'd came here to get away from something…he didn't even know what.
He turned to the old man. "If it'll bother you for me to play my guitar in the bar, I won't. I can't promise anything else."
"Well, that's a start, Son." His grandfather clapped him on the shoulder, his grin wide and relieved in his weathered face. "Now, let's go get us some dinner and then we'll see what that old tractor needs…"
***
After a forty mile drive, the part his grandfather needed for his old John Deere—or Poppin' Johnny as he called it—had long since been stripped from all the rusting heaps in the weed overgrown salvage yard. Gil ordered a new part at the tractor dealership and then drove over the railroad tracks to where the shadows of grain silos dwarfed the farm supply store.
He opened the door to the clang of a cow bell and a blast of air-conditioning scented by molasses sweetened grain, leather, and baby chickens. Jon Campbell leaned on the counter talking to the man behind it while high pitched cheeping sounded from hundreds of newly hatched chicks in stacked metal brooders behind them.
Jon glanced up at his approach. "The old man let you out of the hills, Gil?"
He grinned. "He sent me for tractor parts."
Jon's eyebrows raised in surprise. "New parts?"
He made a wry face. "Hardly. He told me to check the junkyard first."
Jon chuckled. "He's pretty thrifty."
"Ha. That old man's so tight he squeaks. You get your cows sorted yet?"
He leaned on the counter beside Jon and talked livestock with him and the bald storekeeper until finally, he glanced at the clock on the wall and straightened.
"Your girl still pretty upset with me today?"
Jon's eyes, suddenly wary, met his. "She hasn't said."
"I feel bad about the dog."
"She'll get over it."
He turned from Jon's level gaze to the bald man. "Where's the saddle blankets?"
The storekeeper nodded toward the back. He made his way past the chickens and the bolt bins to a room on the back wall. He stopped short in the doorway.
Katie stood with her back to him at the opposite wall beneath a row of bridles on pegs. Her light ponytail spilled in a shining wave down the back of a simple blue dress draping her slender body. She reached up with a gold tanned arm common to all the ranch girls he knew, and selected one of the bridles. Examining it closely, she ran the black leather through her hands and rubbed her thumb over a Mexican silver concho.
He stepped into the room.
"Dad?" Katie turned. "Could you loan me—" She gave a start then flushed. "I thought you were my dad."
"Sorry to disappoint you again." He held her gaze across the cluttered room. "Is that Mexican leather?"
She frowned. "They're not all cheap leather. I know the difference."
"I'm just sayin' you'd be better off with the baler twine that's holdin' yours together than cheap leather."
"What makes you think I need you to tell me—" She snapped her teeth shut then turned to hang the bridle back on the peg.
Avoiding his gaze, she moved toward him and the door through a half-dozen new saddles on racks, a heap of brightly colored saddle blankets on the
floor, a shelf of horse wormer, and a teetering stack of red feed buckets. Her tanned legs beneath her skirt and her small feet in sandals were nice. Dainty. Like the rest of her. She reached him and started past without raising her gaze.
He stopped her with a touch on her arm. "Is that the bridle you like?"
She turned the full force of her deep-set blue gaze on him. "That wouldn't be anything you need to worry about."
Somebody's throat cleared behind him.
"You ready to go, babe?" Jon said.
Katie nodded and brushed past. She followed her father through the store, and then the bell on the door clanged.
He crossed the room to the bridle she had been looking at and lifted it from the hook—it was good leather. The price tag made him raise his brows, but he pulled his wallet out of his pocket. He counted the bills inside then stuffed the wallet back into his jeans.
He grinned. Buying the bridle would cut him close on money, but it might be money well spent.
***
On Sunday morning, burning bacon grease and the smell of eggs frying filled his grandfather's outdated kitchen. The hot grease popped, sending a shower of droplets from the cast iron skillet onto Gil's hand.
He swore loudly and shook his hand then he sucked at the spot while he made a grab for the metal spatula. He flipped the eggs, sending a wave of grease over the edge of the skillet to the gas flame beneath. A flash of fire shot halfway to the ceiling. He swore again, grabbing at the overheated skillet handle with a towel.
His grandfather ran into the room. "Shut the burner off, Son!"
He did and the flames died down some, but the grease continued to burn, filling the kitchen with billows of black smoke. Coughing, his grandfather wet a towel and beat out the rest of the flame while he carried the skillet to the sink and turned on the tap. Steam rolled over him and he coughed, too, waving ineffectively at the dense cloud.
The old man opened the kitchen door, flapping his towel. "Son, you sure can't cook worth a flip."
"You can't either, Gramps," he wheezed. "You need to get married." He nodded at the old man's appearance—slicked down hair, good jeans, and clean suspenders over a white shirt. "You got a girlfriend over there at the church?"
His grandfather grinned. "Naw, but there's one or two interested in me. Sister Helen, but she's a little slow in the head. And then ol' Sister Sylvie, but she's older than me and in a wheelchair."
He laughed then looked down at the skillet in the sink. Specks of carbon flecked the wet eggs. If he drained the water off and reheated them, he could maybe take a paper towel and scrape off the black stuff…
"Well, if you run across one that can cook, grab her, is my advice," he said.
There wasn't enough bacon grease in the can beside the stove to fry toast in, but it didn't matter since the bread in the bag he opened had sprouted green mold. He reheated the speckled eggs and carried the skillet to the table. Disgustedly, he banged it down along with a sleeve of crackers.
His grandfather thoughtfully eyed the skillet. "Looks like we'd better bless this." He launched into one of his long prayers. Finally, he scraped an egg onto his plate and reached for the crackers. He forked a stiff piece of egg onto one of them and crunched it. "You comin' to church with me this mornin?"
"The Campbell girl gonna be there?" he asked instead of refusing as he had the other times before when his grandfather asked.
The old man reached for a jar of grape jelly on the table between them. "Katie? She usually is. Why?"
The coffee in the pot on the stove boiled over. Swearing, he sprang from his chair.
"Just wondered," he said as he returned with the pot and poured the coffee.
His grandfather looked up. "Don't be gettin' any ideas about her."
"Why not?"
"She ain't like any of the girls you've ever known." The old man's gaze leveled. "You need to leave her alone."
He stared back. "Why?"
"Number one…she's taken. Lance is a good boy and he's been crazy about her since she was a little girl. Two…you don't have what she needs, so there's no point."
"What don't I have?"
"You don't have the Lord, is what you don't have. I guarantee you she's never in her life heard language like what I just heard."
He angrily ate his breakfast. What was the old man's problem? He wasn't a complete barbarian…he knew better than to swear in front of nice girls or his mother. Besides, it wasn't any of the old man's business or anybody else's…aside from that Lance dude, possibly…if he made a play for Katie. If she didn't mind, why should anybody else?
If his grandfather was going to try to run his life, he'd leave.
He crunched the last cracker spread with butter and grape jelly. "Does that mean you don't want me to go to church this mornin'?"
"No. It means I want you to come to church because you have an interest in your soul, not because you have an interest in a girl—" the old man's eyes leveled again—"who is taken."
Scowling, he rose abruptly. "I got it, Gramps. Geez." He carried his dishes to the precarious mound in the sink.
His grandfather sighed. "Son, I'm just sayin' chasin' Katie ain't like tryin' for the jackpot at a rodeo, or seein' how many bases you can steal. She don't know how to play games."
He turned. "Maybe I won't play this time."
The old man regarded him with troubled eyes. "Somebody'll get hurt. Whether it's you, or Katie, or Lance, or all three of you, somebody's fixin' to get hurt if you don't leave her alone."
***
After his grandfather left for church, he sat undecidedly frowning into his coffee cup. Then he swallowed the last of the brew and rose to change his clothes.
Thirty minutes driving down a winding canyon road later, he arrived at the unassuming church the old man attended with his congregation. Inside the door of the white frame building, he ran his hand over his hair—longer than any other man's there—and glanced at the clock behind the pulpit. Quarter past ten. From his knees in front of the elders' bench, his grandfather's voice already rumbled through the building, addressing the Almighty like a personal friend.
He stood in the small foyer curiously scanning the room across the congregants bowed heads. For some reason, it pleased him to find the inside of the building just as he remembered it from when he had sat swinging his legs beside his mother a few rows from the front. The elders, his grandfather and Irvin—a big man with greying hair slicked back—still sat on a hard wood pew behind the pulpit at the front, and the rest of the pews remained in double rows to each side of the main aisle. The floor was the same alternating squares of black and white tile, like a checkerboard.
The morning sun flooded through the swirled yellow hues of stained glass in tall windows, filling the sanctuary with mellow light. It gleamed on the old pulpit at the front, the oak pews worn smooth and shiny from the hands and behinds of many years, and on Katie's blonde head halfway from the front.
She sat next to a tall young man with sandy hair cut short, revealing a sunburned neck and big ears. The sinewy brown arm around her shoulders evidenced a man who worked for a living, and the gentle movement of his fingers on her silky hair showed a man who loved her.
He frowned. The thing might not be as easy as he had thought.
The oldest Campbell brother, Karl, sat with his head bowed on the back pew at the end of a row of young men. Clean cut, solid, and athletic, he had the same kind of light hair and deep-set blue eyes as his sister. On the day they met, Karl's direct gaze in his lean-jawed face had given the impression he didn't tolerate much foolishness.
His grandfather finally finished praying and got stiffly from his knees. He sat next to Karl who acknowledged him with a grin then bowed his head again as another man knelt to pray.
He bowed his head, too, but after a few minutes, he began to scan the crowd. Sister Sylvie was easy to pick out, very old and frail with parchment-like skin drooping over the arm of her wheelchair, pink scalp showing through thin white
hair. Definitely not a good prospect for his grandfather—her cooking days were over. Sister Helen wasn't as easy to decide. Several women might be her, but he settled on a plump, middle aged woman with a brush of dark mustache. She wore a smile of pure joy, staring all around like a child, and especially at his grandfather on the front pew. Possibly she could cook, but the facial hair was a little off putting.
A young man rose to stand at the pulpit with a worn Bible and preach about the children of Israel. He had no idea who the children of Israel were or why anybody would want to know, but just then an uncommonly beautiful young woman of about eighteen rose from her seat, focusing his attention.
Tall, her raven black hair bound up like a Navajo woman's, she perched a light-haired toddler on her hip and walked down the aisle toward the back. Every head on the back pew lifted and eyes fixed on her making her way down the aisle, skirt swaying gracefully. Karl tensed, his gaze riveted on the willowy young woman, but her smooth, brown face remained expressionless and she never glanced at Karl, or anyone on the back pew, for that matter.
He could understand Karl's interest—she was definitely a knockout—but he turned away his gaze. He always avoided girls with kids, himself.
After the young preacher sat down, the congregation sang a song he didn't recognize, but Katie's clear alto harmony was like her—sweet and pretty. He had to figure out a way to get her alone so he could give her the bridle.
When church was finally over, he stood at the back meeting his grandfather's friends, but he kept an eye on Katie. She stayed beside Lance who talked to everyone on his slow procession toward the back. Finally, Lance stopped to talk to the young preacher, close enough for Katie's voice to reach.
"I'll get my purse out of the car, Lance," she said.
Lance smiled at her from his gangly height. "I need to talk to Will for just a minute about the job tomorrow and then I'll meet you at my car."
She made her way outside. He fetched the sack with the bridle from his pickup then stepped up behind her as she slammed the door of her father's station wagon. The sun shone on her glossy hair and it smelled like flowers. She turned, purse in hand.
The Cedar Tree (Love Is Not Enough) Page 4