A Family For Rose

by Nadia Nichols

  “Rumor has it the going rate for each turbine lease is five grand a year—so possibly one hundred thousand dollars a year, plus maybe more for the transmission right-of-way. What the developers don’t tell anyone is that there are real health risks associated with these big machines. Noise, shadow flicker and ice thrown from the blades, habitat fragmentation and water quality issues. But probably the low frequency sound waves are the worst health threat. Oh, and they kill birds and bats, lots of ’em. But lots of ranchers and farmers around here need the money. So you can understand why it could get ugly.”

  “Mind if we join you for a bit?”

  Shannon glanced up to see Steve Little and Holly Duncan. Steve was in his early fifties, feeling the tug of time and trying to fight it. Shannon could read the struggle all over him, especially in the way he looked at Holly, who was young and pretty, and overdressed for the Dog and Bull in a conservative skirt suit.

  “It’s great to see you, Shannon,” Steve said, pulling his chair close to the table, leaning forward on his elbows and giving her a wide smile. “Hope you plan to stick around for a while.”

  “Thank you. I haven’t made any long-term plans yet, but it’s nice to be back.”

  “Bear Paw’s a great place to live, you know that, but it could be a lot greater.” He rocked forward, his eyes boring into hers. “I’d much rather have this discussion out at your ranch but your father won’t let me step foot on it. There are important things happening around here, Shannon. Big things. Patriot Energy wants to erect wind turbines all over this county.”

  “Billy told me a little bit about it.”

  “Their project would put this little town on the map and create a lot of jobs. The increased tax base would lower everyone’s property taxes, and because wind is free, our electricity rates would drop to practically nothing. Besides all that, it’s the right thing to do for the planet. Wind power is clean and green and it’ll wean us off foreign oil. Almost everyone in town is all for this project.”

  “Actually, half the residents of Bear Paw are against it,” Billy corrected. “The ones who don’t stand to make money from the leases but have to live with forty-story-tall towers standing over their houses, reducing their property values and destroying their health. And it’s already been proven that wind energy increases electricity rates.”

  “None of them understand how important this is for Bear Paw and for the climate,” Steve Little said, flushing at Billy’s words. “McTavish just stirred up a lot of trouble.”

  Shannon turned her beer mug between her palms. “And you’re hoping I can talk some sense into him? Obviously you don’t know my father.”

  “This project can’t go through without your father’s cooperation, Shannon. You should try to convince him. These past years have been tough for him. Real tough. And this could make him a lot of money.”

  “That may be true, Steve, but my father’s as tough as the times, and he has a mind of his own. A pretty good one, as a matter of fact.” Shannon felt a big headache coming on. “Right now, all I’m concerned about is getting our hay in tomorrow. How would you and Holly like to come out to the ranch and pitch bales? We’ll be starting around six a.m. The work’s hard but there’ll be a big spaghetti feed, all you can eat, and coolers of cold beer when the day’s work is done.”

  The mayor of Bear Paw laughed. “It’s good to have you back in town, Shannon,” he repeated, pushing out of his seat and helping Holly do the same. “We hope to be talking to you again soon.” He gave a curt nod to Billy, then escorted the attorney, who hadn’t spoken a single word, over to their table.

  “Well, that doesn’t bode well,” Shannon said, catching Billy’s eye. “I’m beginning to think we might not have much help tomorrow.”

  “Steve Little wouldn’t have been of much help, no matter which way you pointed him, and I doubt that attorney ever pumped her own gas, let alone heaved a bale of hay into a hay wagon. Besides, they’ve both been putting the screws to your father.”

  Shannon was about to ask him what he meant but another person interrupted.

  “Shannon McTavish?” She looked up to see the lead singer of the band that had been up onstage. She hadn’t even realized they’d stopped playing. “I just want you to know how honored we are to have you here tonight.”

  “Thank you. I’m having a great time. You really got the crowd dancing.”

  He took his hat off and crushed it nervously in his hands. “We were wondering, the boys and me, if you might want to sing just one song. Just one, for old times’ sake. I know it’s not right, me even asking it of you, but you’re the best of the best, and to be here in the same place with you, well, that’s just special. If you don’t want to sing, that’s okay. We’re just glad you’re here. We’re really honored.”

  Shannon wanted to tell him sorry, no can do, she’d given it up when she and Travis split, but she just couldn’t. She remembered what it was like to be in his shoes. So she nodded and smiled. “What’s your name?”

  “Spencer, ma’am. Spencer Wallace. Our band’s called Badlands.”

  “Badlands. I like that. I’ll need a guitar.”

  “I’d be honored if you borrowed mine. Anything else?”

  “Nope.” Shannon caught Billy’s eye. “I’ll be right back,” she said as she rose to her feet. When she stepped onto the stage all the talk stopped and the room grew still. Shannon felt a bit of the old magic stir in her blood and wondered, as she adjusted the mic, if she’d ever find anything else in her life that made her feel quite like this.

  “Hello, Bear Paw,” she said with a smile. “It’s great to see you’re all having such a good time tonight. My name’s Shannon McTavish, and I thought I’d sing a brand-new song I wrote a few months ago, if it’s okay with you.”

  The crowd let loose with hollers, cheers and whistles as she set the mic back in the stand and took the guitar Wallace offered. She tried a few chords. Spencer Wallace might not be able to sing a lick, but he had an ear for tuning a guitar and for that she was grateful.

  “I wrote this song for my little girl,” she said, as her fingers softly and deftly picked the strings. “Her birthday fell on a Sunday and it rained. It rained so hard the caterer couldn’t make it, the magician cancelled, the roads flooded and only four kids out of thirty showed up, but none of that mattered to Rose,” she said as her fingers continued to strum soft chords. “My little girl doesn’t care about any of that stuff. She taught me that what’s really important are the people you love. This song is called ‘Rainy Day Girl,’ and I hope you like it.”

  Stage fright had never plagued Shannon. As long as she had a guitar in her hands, she was centered. Everything else faded into the background: the crowd, the lights, everything. As soon as she began to sing, she slipped into a trance. Another dimension.

  Sometimes, after a concert, she’d be in a daze for hours, trying to reconnect with reality. She’d tried to explain it to Travis once, but he’d just laughed. Said she was just coming down from what he called “entertainer’s high.”

  Maybe that was it. Maybe singing was her opiate. Her religion. And it had blinded her to the realities of life. To thinking life on the road with an abusive and unpredictable drunk was a good one, and that as long as the concert hall was packed and the applause was deafening, nothing else mattered. Not even Rose.

  Wasn’t that why she’d given it up? Walked away from her abusive marriage and her career? Wasn’t that why she was in Bear Paw tonight, looking for a bunch of people to help get the hay into her father’s barn before it rained? Hadn’t she made the decision to give up her singing career and focus on getting her life in order so she could be a good mother to her little girl?

  But there was no denying how good it felt to be standing up on the stage in this little backwater saloon in Bear Paw, singing Rose’s song. No denying how good it felt when the crowd poured out enthusiastic approval an
d demanded more. So she sang some of the ones that had taken Travis and her all the way to the top, and when Wallace and his boys jumped in to back her up, she flashed them an encouraging smile. The dance floor filled. Energy levels climbed, but after the sixth song she bowed gracefully away.

  “Thank you all, it’s been great fun tonight.” She hesitated a moment, then held up her hands to stop the applause. “We’re making hay out at the McTavish ranch tomorrow, and as a matter of fact we’re a mite shorthanded. If any of you feel like working hard and playing hard, there’ll be plenty of food and drink and maybe another dance, if anyone’s still standing after the hay’s in the barn. Good night and thank you all again. Bear Paw’s the best, always was and always will be!”

  She handed the guitar back to Wallace, who leaned close so she’d hear him over the applause. “Me and the boys’d be proud to help you out with the hayin’, if you’d have us.”

  She gave him a wide smile. “We start at daybreak. The coffee’ll be hot and there’ll be plenty of food. Thank you so much for offering, and for letting me sing with you tonight.”

  Billy had ordered a pitcher of ice water in her absence and he poured her a glass as she took her seat. “You were great,” he said.

  “Thanks.” She drank the water and he refilled her glass. “We have four recruits already,” she told him. “Spencer and his band said they’d be coming to help out.”

  “That’s good to hear. Four’s plenty.”

  “It’s four more than we’ve ever had before,” Shannon said with a rueful laugh.

  Shannon realized, in that moment, that she’d been looking forward to the work. Growing up, she’d always dreaded haying time, but now she wanted to be a part of it. She wanted to pitch the bales onto the hay wagon until her arm muscles burned with exhaustion. Get covered with chaff, scorched by the sun, feel the thirst after hours of sweaty labor and the mindlessness of absolute exhaustion.

  She wanted to stand under a hot shower afterward and think that nothing in the whole wide world felt any better than that. She wanted to fall into bed and be asleep in the next breath, untroubled by thoughts of the future. What she wanted most of all was to go back in time so she could do a few things differently. But in lieu of that, she’d help with the haying.

  But did she also have a responsibility to help her father fend off the wind company? Even if she believed it was in his best interests?

  “So, tell me a little more about Steve Little and this lady attorney who’ve been putting the screws to my father.”

  “Your father was behind in his property taxes when I got back this spring,” he said. “Five years behind. Patriot Energy made it plain they needed his ridgeline. They visited him in person, told him all the neighboring landowners had already signed on, and how much he’d make every year from each turbine lease and the transmission right-of-way. Then your father kicked them off the ranch. Told them he didn’t care about the money. He didn’t want the towers and transmission lines on his land, and that was that.

  “Steve and Ms. Duncan came out to the ranch the same day I bought that piece of property from him. They didn’t know about the land he’d just sold me or the money I’d just paid him toward it. Steve told your father if he didn’t sign the lease, the town was going to take the ranch for back taxes. Ms. Duncan had the lease agreement in her hand.

  “So your father went inside, wrote a check for the total amount of the back taxes, put it in Little’s hand and told him to haul his ass off his property and never return. Those were his exact words. Told him it’d be a cold day in hell before a single one of those towers went up on his land.”

  Shannon took another sip of water as Wallace and the boys got into gear again onstage. “Will the wind project go through if my father doesn’t sign that lease?”

  Billy thought awhile before answering. “I don’t know. This is a pretty big deal, Shannon. Patriot Energy is an LLC owned by an energy company in Spain with ties to big oil in Qatar. The company stands to make a lot of money. And they’ve promised the townsfolk lower property taxes, cheap energy, better roads, good-paying jobs. They make it sound like wind energy’s the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.”

  “So my father’s against it. What about you?”

  He refilled her water glass a third time, then looked her directly in the eyes. “Like I said before, I’m with your father, and not just because I work for him or he sold me that land. I happen to believe it’s the most environmentally destructive consumer fraud being peddled on Wall Street.” He pushed his chair away from the table. “We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow. We should get back.”

  Shannon was dog tired, but didn’t want the night to end. Not just yet. She pulled her water glass close and studied him. “What brought you back here, really?” she asked after the band finished their song. “You wanted to get out of Bear Paw just as bad as I did, or you wouldn’t have joined the military.”

  Billy didn’t answer for a few moments, just sat watching the band start to break down their equipment, then he shook his head. “I joined the military to get my education and see a little of the world, but the day I got my discharge papers, I headed for home. I never forgot where I came from. I know where I belong, even if I’m not wanted by some folks, and I’m staying put.” He rose abruptly to his feet and picked his hat up off the table. “If you’re ready, we’d best be going. Morning comes early.”

  He left money on the table to cover the beers and the tip, and guided her out the door. It was a relief to gain the darkness of the parking lot, see the bright stars spangling the night sky, feel the cool air coming down from high mountain places. Billy’s truck loomed in the darkness. He opened the door for her and she climbed in.

  “Thanks for coming tonight,” he said.

  “Thanks for asking me,” she replied. “And no matter what anyone’s said to you, Billy Mac, you have a future here, and I’m sure it’s a bright one.”

  He closed her door, climbed into the truck and they headed for home.

  * * *

  THEY TALKED ON the drive back. About little things. Safe things. Shannon was lulled by the sound of his voice. The deep masculine calm of it. She felt safe with Billy. Secure. Which was odd given that her objections to dating him in high school were based on his reputation. But the military had changed him, and when he turned off the black road and began the last two miles of their journey, she felt a pang of disappointment that soon this magical night would be over.

  The first thing she noticed when Billy’s truck crested the ridge were the lights. The ranch buildings were all awash with light. Lights blazed from the ranch house, from both barns, from the tractor shed and from the spots that illuminated the corrals. Shannon sat up straight and braced her hand against the dashboard.

  “Billy,” she said. “Something’s wrong.”

  “Maybe one of the mustangs got loose...”

  “Drive faster!”

  “We’re almost there, Shannon.”

  “Oh, God. Damn my selfish soul to hell, I should never have left Rose!” Shannon wrenched the truck’s door open and her feet hit the ground before the truck came to a stop in front of the ranch house. “Rose! Daddy! Rose!” Her daughter’s name was a shriek in the night. She flew up the porch steps, burst through the kitchen door and ran straight into her father.

  “Whoa!” he said, steadying her. “Everything’s all right. Travis came by but he’s gone. Rose is fine. She’s upstairs asleep. Never even knew he was here. I put all the lights on just to show him he couldn’t hide in the shadows, that’s all. He left over an hour ago. He’s long gone.”

  Shannon felt her muscles turn to water as her worst fears were confirmed. “Travis was here? He was here?”

  “I told him not to come back,” her father said. “It’s all right. Rose is safe.”

  Shannon dodged past him, taking the stairs two at a time with her heart in her t
hroat. She came to a stop in the doorway, breathless with fear. The hall light spilled softly across her childhood bed, the same bed where Rose now slept in blissful innocence. Safe. Secure. Just as her father had said.

  Shannon approached the bed slowly and knelt to kiss that warm, smooth forehead. “Momma’s home, Rose,” she murmured. She arranged the blanket against the cool night air. She sat for a while, long enough to regain her breath, long enough for her heartbeat to steady and the sick surge of adrenaline to ebb. Then she kissed her daughter again and rose to her feet. She paused in the doorway, looking back to make sure Rose was safe and sound. Still trembling, Shannon descended the stairs into the kitchen, where her father and Billy waited.

  “She’s asleep.” Her voice sounded taut, strange. “Rose is fine.” But I’m not! her whole being silently screamed. I’ve never been so afraid!

  Her father nodded. “I checked on her after he left. Like I said, she never woke up.”

  Shannon brushed the damp wet of fear from her forehead. “I can’t believe he came here. At night. After dark. I can’t believe it. I warned him not to come, Daddy. There’s a restraining order on him. I’m going to call the sheriff in the morning to report this.”

  “He said he needed to talk to you,” her father said. “Said he’d changed his ways. Said he was sorry about everything and he had something for you. He left when I told him to go. Didn’t kick up any fuss, just nodded and left. I turned the lights on as a precaution and got my rifle.”

  Shannon was deeply shaken by the realization of how close she’d come to losing Rose. Travis hadn’t come here to tell her he’d changed his ways. He’d come to snatch his daughter, and her father had stopped him in his tracks. Her father still had that power passed down through four generations of Wyoming McTavishes. He was as tough and hard as the land and nobody dared cross him, not even Travis.

  “He won’t be back,” Billy said. “Not tonight, anyway, and not ever, if he knows what’s good for him.” He met Shannon’s eyes. “It’s late. We got us a haying crew coming tomorrow, first thing. Get some sleep. I’ll see you both in the morning.”