“I still need to fish out my flashlight. A gentleman would offer to help me.”
He couldn’t help but laugh. “Well, thank God, I’ve never claimed to be a gentleman. In my estimation, that’s a flashlight that should be permanently retired.”
Just as Sam started to swing back into his vehicle, she called out, “Hey, Sam! What is it that you don’t understand about someone telling you not to trespass on her land?”
Sam laughed again, which he didn’t do often. She was more fun than a barrelful of monkeys. “The warning you gave me wouldn’t hold up in a court of law. It’d fall into the ‘he said, she said’ category. You ever heard of putting up no-trespassing signs? Take a picture of them with a camera that records the date. Then maybe, just maybe, you can actually prosecute me.”
“Asshole!” she shouted after him. “As of tomorrow, this land will be posted with signs every ten feet!”
“Did I just hear you call me a bad name? Not nice, Maddie. You led me to believe that you wouldn’t say shit if you had a mouthful. And, please, post your land every ten feet. I get a kick out of running over signs.”
• • •
As Conacher drove away, Maddie was shaking with anger. “Asshole!” she yelled again. “You redefine the word!”
Bingo whined. When she looked down at him, she noticed that his black fur shimmered blue. She turned to study the portable toilet, wondering how long it would take for the battery in that floating flashlight to go dead. Their camp was already a topic of conversation among people who drove along Fox Hollow Road. Now gossipers would whisper about the john that glowed in the dark.
Turning toward camp, Maddie wished she had that stupid phone. Somebody had called her. She hoped it had been her sister, Naomi, or her daughter, Grace, and not Cam. He worried about her out here, and when his calls to her went unanswered, his imagination went into overdrive.
She used the faint illumination from the outhouse to pick her way past Cam and Caleb’s cabin. She’d make it back to the cook shack without falling, she assured herself. There was no way in hell she’d ever let Sam Conacher say, “I told you so.”
• • •
When Sam got home, he prepared to have a book roast. He went behind the barn to get the burning barrel. He placed it a safe distance from his front veranda, where he and Annie had once dreamed of sitting in rocking chairs when they got old to watch their grandchildren play. So many of their dreams had now turned to dust and left a sour taste in Sam’s mouth. He was sixty-eight and alone. He and Annie had waited to have a family until he got the ranch operating in the black. He’d been over forty when Kirstin was born, and the other children they’d hoped to have had never come along.
Refusing to let himself think any longer about Annie and all the sadness, he went into his den to gather up every book he owned that had been written by Madeline McLendon. He tossed at least thirty into the barrel. Ever conscious of fire danger, even at this time of year, he hooked up a garden hose to a nearby spigot before he used his long-nosed barbecue lighter to set fire to the books.
“Take that, Madeline McLendon, with your high-and-mighty attitude. And this is only for starters!” He walked to his truck and opened the passenger door to grab a cold beer. “If you’re halfway smart, you don’t lock horns with Sam Conacher. You may be a hoity-toity writer, but you’re small potatoes in this valley compared to me.”
The fire went out. When Sam walked over and peered into the dark abyss, he could have sworn those smoldering books smirked at him. He pried off the bottle cap with his front teeth. Shit! His lower incisors felt as if he’d just pulled them out with a pair of pliers. Ouch! Son of a bitch! He tasted for blood. Checked the teeth with his tongue to make sure they were still there. Sam sighed, feeling older than dirt. As a younger man, he’d always snapped the caps off bottles with his teeth, and it had never hurt. Annie used to fuss at him over the habit, saying he’d ruin his smile and end up wearing dentures. Now he couldn’t pop off caps anymore. Sam knew he no longer had the physical endurance he’d once taken for granted. He’d also noticed he wasn’t quite as strong as he’d once been. His whole body was going to hell in a handbasket.
He took a swallow of beer to wash the metallic taste of pain away. His teeth panged. He shook his head, determined to drink at least three beers and enjoy his book roast. Only he’d need some diesel to get a fire started. That woman’s books were as stubborn and difficult as she was. Why was it so hard for her to understand what an insult it was to him when her son diddled his daughter any old time the mood struck him? Possibly even in a public walking area, for Christ’s sake.
Sam set his beer on the front fender of his truck and walked to the huge workshop that sat to the left of the barn. Without turning on a light, he located the can of diesel. When he got back to the barrel, he splashed in enough to incinerate a whole library. The next instant he felt himself flying backward. A loud ka-boom rang in his ears. Holy shit! Sam couldn’t think what had happened.
From a distance, Sam heard Kirstin screaming. As her voice drew closer, Sam’s senses cleared. He could tell he wasn’t badly hurt, only stunned.
“Oh, dear God, Daddy, what have you done?” Kirstin ran around him in circles, her flashlight bobbing. “You used gas?”
“Thought it was diesel.”
She shone her light on the fuel can. “It’s red, Dad! Remember the rule—red for gas, green for diesel.”
“It was dark. I didn’t turn on the light. I guess I grabbed the wrong can. Damn it. I’ve lost my night vision, too.” Sam closed his eyes. “Must have been the embers down in there. Diesel doesn’t normally explode like that.”
Kirstin circled him again. As he struggled to regain his feet, he felt as if a mule had kicked his tailbone. From the corner of his eye, he saw Kirstin pick up something from the ground. “Oh, Daddy, your favorite Stetson. The front of the brim is scorched.”
Forgetting about his aching ass, Sam snatched the hat out of her hand. Annie had given it to him for his birthday years ago. In the play of the light, Sam saw that he had ruined it. Piece by piece, he was losing everything in the world that mattered to him. First his wife, now his daughter and his blasted hat. Tears he refused to shed stung his eyes. He clamped the Stetson back on his head. “No harm done. I can still wear it.”
“Not in town, I hope.” She went onto her tiptoes to look into the flaming barrel. “What are you burning at this hour?”
“Books.”
She huffed like a disgruntled mare. “Madeline McLendon books, I’m betting. That’s the most childish thing I’ve ever seen you do.”
“Why childish? She writes pulp fiction. I don’t like reading them anymore, and I don’t want books I hate taking up space on my shelves, end of story.”
“You lie like a rug,” she snapped back. “You love her writing.” She turned away from the fire, her face cast into shadow with the flames dancing behind her. “Oh, dear God, Daddy.”
Sam realized that she was spotlighting his face. “What?” Blinded by the brightness, he reached up to feel. “Am I bleeding?”
“No. But you did singe off your mustache and eyebrows.”
Chapter Seven
Sam stomped into the upstairs master bath and stared at his face in the mirror. No real harm done, he concluded. He’d just use his handy little nose trimmer to even up his brows and mustache. He grabbed the trimmer, which was black and about the size of a Magic Marker. He buzzed off a little here. He snipped more there. Then his hand jerked, and he nicked the lower edge of one brow, turning it into an upside-down V. He swore under his breath, avoiding the F word because this had once been Annie’s bedroom, and she’d hated vile language.
“Now I look like Groucho Marx.”
Then Sam remembered his six-pack. He had five more beers out in the yard, and he’d damn well guzzle every one of them while he waited for those books to burn. Sitting on the edge
of the front porch, he plucked a longneck from the carton and drew his all-purpose tool from his pocket. He fumbled with it in the shadows, trying to find the damned opener. He found a little knife and a small set of pliers. By the time he drew out the tool he needed, he no longer wanted the beer. And he no longer cared about his face. Cows and horses paid no attention to such things.
• • •
When his dad pulled his truck up beside the cabin, Caleb, sitting in the passenger seat, peered out the windshield and said, “Holy shit, Dad. Our outhouse glows.”
His father cut the engine and stared. “What the hell? Old Blue looks like a fat, squat laser torch.”
Caleb started to laugh. “I know what it is. I bet Gram dropped her new flashlight down the hole. Her cell phone wouldn’t be that bright.”
With a groan, his dad got out of the truck and walked to the outhouse. Caleb followed, but he hung back at the door. It was a tight fit in there. “Sure enough,” his dad said over his shoulder, “the gift I got Gram is floating in our shitter.”
“You gonna fish it out?” Caleb asked from behind him. “It’s got something like a thousand lumen hours.”
His dad shut the seat lid. “Nope. It’ll just have to go dead. Hopefully it isn’t as waterproof as advertised, because I’m not reaching in there, not even with gloves.”
They walked toward the cook shack, which shone golden in the darkness. Caleb saw his dad grin at him. “I know camping out here is difficult for Gram, but we’ve done everything we can to make her comfortable, and the truth is, I love it here.”
“Me, too,” Caleb agreed. “Gram has a nice trailer, too, and now that you ordered a big propane tank for it, she’ll be able to run the forced-air heat twenty-four-seven when winter comes.”
They found Gram in the wall tent. A roaring fire snapped and crackled in the woodstove. She sat in a swivel rocker with her feet propped on a log. Behind her was the stand-alone utility sink.
She glanced up from her e-reader, which sported a red book-style cover. “How was the game?”
“It was killer,” Caleb told her. “The Rustlers were losing until the last quarter, and then they poured on the steam.”
“We were on the edge of our seats, Mom.” His father stepped around Gram to get a bottle of water from the stainless-steel fridge. “How’d your evening go? Did you get lonely?”
“Heck, no. I’m sure you noticed that my flashlight fell in the portable toilet.”
“Hard not to notice. I told you the surface around the seat is slightly sloped so water will drain off when it’s hosed down.”
Gram chuckled. “Yes, but my smaller flashlight never rolled over the edge of the seat. Somehow the man who changed out the toilet today didn’t set it on level ground. It rocks when you move in there. That monster flashlight you got me wasn’t stopped by a quarter-inch rim of plastic.” She sighed. “When I bent over, trying to decide how to get it out, my cell phone fell from my pocket and dived in after it.”
“Not your phone, Gram!” Caleb didn’t much care about the flashlight, but her new phone had all the bells and whistles that he wished his did. “That is a bummer. Will your insurance cover it?”
Gram nodded. “Otherwise the evening went fairly well. Except for the fact that the blue glow drew the attention of our neighbor.”
“Oh, no,” his dad said.
Caleb’s ears perked up. “You mean Sam Conacher? What did he say to you this time? There’s something wrong with that old man.”
Gram sent his father a warning look. “Nothing’s wrong with him. He’s just a little . . .”
Her voice trailed away, and his dad jumped in with “Eccentric.”
“Anyway,” Gram continued, “he stopped to ask if I was running a blue-light special.”
His dad laughed. Caleb frowned. He didn’t know what a blue-light special was.
Gram smiled at him. “I rarely shopped at Kmart when you were little, honey. You’ve probably never seen a blue strobe light flashing inside a store. I’m not even sure Kmart still runs those surprise sales.”
“Does our neighbor think we’re selling things here?” Caleb asked.
His dad got a funny look on his face, the look that Caleb had come to realize meant that he was too young to hear about certain things. He hated that. He was sixteen, not a baby anymore.
“It may look like we’re having a garage sale with so much stuff everywhere.” His dad sat in a rocker across from Gram, searching her face as if to see if she was upset. All Caleb noted was that she looked a little tired. “Well, it’s good to know you got some company while we were gone.”
Gram patted her e-reader. “I don’t need visitors. I thought about watching a film in the cabin, but I couldn’t work up any enthusiasm. Movies aren’t as much fun when you guys aren’t here. I spent the first part of my evening listening to the wildlife. I heard a bull elk bugle twice.”
“We saw them as we drove in, Gram. A whole herd of them. Dad guesses maybe eighty.”
His father’s phone vibrated. He withdrew it from his pocket and smiled when he saw who the message was from. Caleb suspected that it was Kirstin who’d just texted. His dad seemed to really like her. Caleb hoped it worked out between them—his dad needed someone special in his life. And no matter what Gram thought, the savings on fuel would be huge if his girlfriend lived next door. Guys did think about things like that.
His dad started to laugh. Gram asked, “What’s so funny?”
Dad shook his head. “I shouldn’t share this, but maybe it’s a good lesson for all of us that God will somehow take us to task when we’re ornery to others for no good reason.”
Caleb hoped it was that mean old rancher who’d had a piece of bad luck.
“It’s from Kirstin,” his father revealed. “She wrote, and I quote, ‘My dad burned all his Madeline McLendon books. Mistook gasoline for diesel. Minor explosion. His hat is ruined, and his facial hair took a hard hit.’”
Caleb gulped back a startled laugh.
“What?” Gram asked. “Why on earth would that stupid man burn all my books?”
Caleb noted that his grandmother didn’t seem to care if Sam Conacher had singed all the hair off his face, only that he’d burned her stories. That seemed out of character for her. Most times she would have been worried that their neighbor might have been hurt. Caleb guessed she had a real hate case for Conacher. Caleb didn’t blame her.
• • •
The next afternoon, when Caleb got home from school, he saw Gram on their shared private road pounding stakes into the ground about ten feet apart. If it hadn’t been for the NO TRESPASSING signs on each one, he would have thought she was building a crooked fence. Caleb stopped his beaten-up old truck and put it in park.
After jumping out of the vehicle, he cried, “Gram, what’re you doin’?”
She pounded on the metal some more with a carpenter hammer. “I’m posting our land.”
Caleb figured she needed a sledge to drive those stakes deep enough to withstand another windstorm. “Do you really need this many signs?”
She slanted him a surly look. “A certain trespasser may try to ignore them. I figure he can’t if he trips over them.”
Caleb hooked his thumbs through his belt loops. “You talking about Sam Conacher?”
“Go to the front of the class.”
“I know you don’t like him, Gram, but that’s no reason to be mad at me.”
She lowered the hammer to her side, pushed at her windblown hair, and turned to give him a weary smile. “I’m sorry, darling. I’m just in a bit of a grump.” She gestured at the stakes. “This is a lot more work than I expected.”
Caleb walked over and took the hammer away from her. “I’ll finish for you. It’ll go faster with a sledge.” He gave the property perimeter a measuring look. “How far do you want them to go?”
&nbs
p; “Clear to the bloody corner.”
Caleb gave her a startled look. “This close together? Gram, that’ll take a lot of signs.”
“I bought more than two hundred. If that isn’t enough, I’ll get more.”
For the first time in his life Caleb wondered if his grandmother had lost some of her marbles. “Okay. While I’m putting them in, why don’t you go take a rest? I have something important I need to talk to you about, and I want you to be out of your grump.”
“Give me a ride home, and we can talk while I get over my grump enjoying a cup of tea. You can pound in stakes later.”
Caleb drove Gram back to her trailer. Once inside, he sat at her small table while she made them both ginger tea. She had rain spots on the outside of her window. He made a mental note to wash it for her. Gram was a clean freak.
When she finally sat across from him and gave him an expectant look, Caleb got the nervous jitters. “I have this problem,” he began. “Dad wants me to participate in equine sports. I love horses, Gram—I really do—but I want to do other things.”
“Like what?”
“I want to play string instruments.” Everyone at school treated him like he had fleas. They’d roll with laughter if he competed in horse-riding events. He needed something he could do by himself without any friends. “It sounds fun.”
“Like a guitar?”
“That’s back to the cowboy stuff, Gram. I want to play the violin.”
“Oh.”
“I’m not sure why I suddenly want to do it, but at my high school, the music teacher offers private lessons. It’ll cost sixty dollars to rent an instrument and thirty a month.”
Gram smiled and shrugged. “I can finance the endeavor. It’s no big deal.”
“I think I can find a weekend job to pay for it,” Caleb told her. “That’s not the problem. I just don’t know how to break it to Dad.”
“Oh.” Gram frowned and gazed out the window at the river. “He is very sold on the Montana dream. He hoped to see you engage in Western activities.” She looked back at him and sighed. “Just tell him, Caleb. I think he’ll understand.”
The Christmas Room Page 14