Many Waters

by William Woodall

  Chapter Fifteen - Cody

  The trouble came not long after Brandon arrived, in the exact way he’d warned us it would. On the second day of August I got a letter from Piney State Bank, with the news that no rancher ever wants to hear.

  Foreclosure.

  Like a lot of farmers and ranchers, we usually took out a business loan every spring, to cover planting and operating costs for the coming year, and then paid it back at harvest time. It’s nothing unusual, and most of the time it works out pretty well. But this year, with no harvest to speak of and a huge loss even from the cattle. . . it was bad.

  I’d seen trouble coming ever since the rain dried up in March, and I’d been meeting with Howie Jackson off and on for months, trying to work something out to pay the debts we already owed and get us enough capital to try again next spring. For a while it seemed like he might go along with it.

  But I guess he must have changed his mind, because the letter politely informed us there was nothing else he could do. The bank couldn’t loan us any more cash, not till we paid back at least part of what we owed. And furthermore, if we didn’t bring our account current within thirty days, then they’d have no choice but to seize the property and sell it.

  That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I think I could have found a way to cope with the drought and all the other things nature had thrown at us, if only the bank had been willing to work with us a little bit longer. But they weren’t, and that left us high and dry with nowhere to turn, pretty much. We had no money to plant next year, no money to rebuild the cattle herd, and soon enough not even a place to live. There was no way I could make enough playing music; there just weren’t enough gigs out there, and they didn’t pay enough.

  The only thing I could do was to find another job that paid better money, but I knew it would have to be a really good one if I was to have any hope of collecting enough cash to save the farm, so to speak. I crunched the numbers a dozen times, in every variation that I could think of, and the results always came out the same. It was either find a high-paying job or lose the place. Numbers don’t lie, and a job at the gas station or the hardware store wasn’t going to cut it.

  The thought that I might actually be the one who lost the home-place after all these generations broke my heart and made me feel like a complete failure in life. Oh, I knew it wasn’t my fault the weather was bad, honestly I did, but knowing something in your head and feeling it in your heart are two completely different things, I promise you.

  I didn’t say anything to Lisa yet, not wanting to worry her. But I knew what I had to do and I resolutely started looking around to see what kind of work I could find.

  That’s when I thought about Alaska.

  My cousin Troy was up there working in the oil fields, and he told me they paid really high wages, much better than anything I could find in Texas. That sounded promising, but even better was the timetable. Normally they worked a schedule of two weeks on and two weeks off, but I soon figured out that if I got two jobs and arranged them in such a way that they didn’t overlap, then I could work every day and make twice as much money. When I sat down and worked it all out, I figured I could pay off the bank and get everything back on firm footing in a little less than a year. It was almost a miracle.

  The thought of working twelve hour shifts every single day for a whole year with never a break was exhausting even to think about, but then again you can handle a lot of things when you know you have to. And I had to, apparently. Troy told me he knew the lady who did the hiring and he could probably put in a good word for me, if I was interested. A week later he called back and said I had a job, if I wanted it. All I had to do was get myself to Anchorage, and the company would take care of everything else.

  At first I was thrilled, and my first impulse was to think I could pay for Lisa to come visit me for a few days every month or so. It wasn’t an ideal arrangement, but I guess I could have been content with it for a while. But when I found out there was no housing available for anyone but the workers themselves, and not even any motels except during the summer, then my joy started to cloud over.

  In fact, I found myself in an impossible fix. Could I really go away for almost a solid year and never see Lisa at all? Even worse, could I truly expect her to wait for me all that time till I could get back? Long distance relationships are notorious for not working out. I think if she ever traded me in for another guy, it’d probably kill me. Go ahead and laugh if you want to, but I don’t think I’m joking. She was my one and only, hoped for beyond all hope, and when I told her I loved her that night on Mount Nebo, I gave myself up and bound my heart forever.

  I flirted with the thought of telling Troy I couldn’t come, after all. But then again I knew what that would mean, too. And if I lost the ranch and found myself broke and soon enough homeless, then what did I have to offer Lisa except my heart and my hands, let alone all my other issues? She might say it was enough; love has a way of making people think that way sometimes. But was it really?

  And that wasn’t even counting what might happen to Mama and Brandon and Marcus. I had so many people depending on me for so many things.

  I wrestled with myself for days, heartsick over having to make any such choice at all. I tried to ask myself what the kindest and most loving thing I could do might be. I reminded myself that sometimes we have to make sacrifices for the ones we love, and sometimes we have to break our own hearts so that theirs can be whole. I prayed, I agonized, I tied myself in endless knots over the subject. I even went up to Mount Nebo to sit beside Daddy’s grave and try to imagine what he would have done.

  I don’t remember my father very well. One of my clearest memories of him is how he used to lay his hands on my head before bedtime and pray over me, that someday I would find both love and peace. But other than his love and the blessing he gave me, I couldn’t remember him well enough to find much guidance there. I missed him more right then than I ever had since I was a kid, and I felt more alone than I ever had in my life, I think.

  But time was running short, and as much as I dreaded it, I couldn’t put off telling Lisa any longer.

  I asked her to meet me at the Dairy Dip for lunch the next day, exactly like we’d done a thousand times before. That was nothing unusual, but she could read my moods too well by then. From the second I walked in, she knew something was up.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked immediately.

  “It’s nothing,” I told her hastily. I wanted to enjoy one last meal with her, if possible. So I pretended everything was fine, even though I was pretty sure she wasn’t fooled.

  But the weight of what I had to do was killing me inside, and I couldn’t even eat my food. Finally I spilled the beans, after she asked me about it for the third time.

  “There’s something we need to talk about, Lisa,” I said, reluctantly.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “Come on, let’s go walk down to the park, okay?” I suggested. It was only two blocks away, and at least then we’d be somewhat alone. Things would be hard enough without a room full of witnesses.

  She nodded, and after I paid for our uneaten food, we walked down the street to the park together. The park in Ore City isn’t much more than a pasture with a pole barn, honestly, but that was all to the good at the moment; it meant we had the place all to ourselves. We sat under a pine tree by the pole barn, holding hands. I wasn’t eager to get started, but she finally prodded me again.

  “So what is it?” she asked, sounding worried.

  “Well, the thing is. . . I think I might have to go away for a while,” I said.

  “What do you mean?” she asked again.

  “Look, I know I haven’t talked about it much, but the ranch is in trouble,” I said, wishing I’d explained more of this all along instead of having to bring it all up now.

  “Because of the drought, you mean?” she asked.

  “Yeah,
mostly. It’s come to a point where there’s nothing left to work with. We lost a lot of money on the cows and the crops this year. The bank won’t work with us any more. I can’t even pay them back what we owe them, much less borrow anything for next spring. So now I’m kind of between a rock and a hard place. I can either go find work somewhere else, or we can lose Goliad. There are no other choices,” I said heavily.

  “Where would you go?” she asked calmly, like we were discussing the weather. I was amazed she was taking things so well.

  “My cousin Troy got me a job as a roughneck up in Alaska, at Prudhoe Bay. It’s the only place I know of where I can make enough money to do us any good. They want me up there by Monday,” I said.

  “How long?” she asked.

  “A year, if all goes well. Just till I can make enough to get us out of debt and get the ranch back on solid ground. It shouldn’t take longer than that. Long as we get a little rain between now and then,” I added. It was a pretty good bet we’d get some good soaking rain when winter came, but if not then I honestly didn’t know what I might have to do. I might even end up stuck in Alaska for another year or two.

  “So what happens with the ranch while you’re gone?” she asked.

  “Mama knows what has to be done, and she’s got Marcus and Brandon to help her. She can handle everything down here, till I get back home,” I said.

  “Will you be back to visit, at all?” she asked. We were edging ever closer to the moment I dreaded, but there was nothing to be done about it.

  “Maybe at Christmas for a little while if I can swing it, but I’m not sure yet. Other than that, no,” I said.

  I don’t know what I expected her to say to all that, but it certainly wasn’t what she said next.