Promise

by Judy Young

  Dear Mom,

  It’s been almost eight years now and my parole will be coming up. There’s a few things I got to take care of first, but I should be at the cabins around …

  Kaden had not had time to read the rest.

  Friday, August 26

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE TRUCK

  Now, four days after reading part of his father’s letter, Kaden stood in the fire tower, binoculars hanging around his neck. He stared absently toward the spot where he saw the white truck turn left. So much was going through his mind, one thought kept interrupting another.

  “It wasn’t Dad,” he told Kubla. “Dad would know to turn right.”

  Even though he said the words aloud, he didn’t believe them. Deep in his gut, he knew the man was his father, and the thought made him both excited and apprehensive.

  “Why would he turn left?” he said aloud again. He frequently talked to the bird and Kubla always tilted his head like an attentive listener. “Maybe he already went home. Maybe Gram told him where I was and he came looking for me and now he’s heading back to town. What do you think, Kubla? Do you think I should have called down to him?”

  Kaden sat down heavily. There was no doubt in his mind. It was what he had waited for for years and worried about for years. His dad was out of prison.

  For more than an hour Kaden sat on the floor of the fire tower. Kubla jumped on his shoulder, pulled at his hair, hopped to the floor, untied Kaden’s shoes. The bird went through his entire repertoire of attention-getting antics but Kaden didn’t seem to notice. Finally determining Kaden was in no mood to play, Kubla settled in Kaden’s lap. Kaden absently smoothed the bird’s black feathers. The rhythm of cicadas chirping in the heat was hypnotizing. The crow gurgled softly. A fly buzzed in the corner. Kaden’s eyes became heavy and his head drooped to his chest.

  Kubla heard it first. As he sprang from Kaden’s lap, cawing raucously, Kaden startled awake. The bird darted through the window as the sound of a vehicle reached Kaden’s ears.

  “Dad’s back!” Kaden said as he grabbed the binoculars, his heart racing. Holding his breath, he once again kept his eyes glued to the spot where the trees parted. When he saw a truck through the gap, he lowered the glasses, let out a long breath, and wiped the sweat off his forehead.

  Kaden opened the trapdoor on the floor, climbed down a flight of metal stairs, and stopped on the top landing. Standing in full view, he looked toward the log barricade just as the truck pulled up. A blue truck. Emmett’s truck.

  “Hi, Emmett!” Kaden yelled down as Emmett walked up the path. “What’s up?”

  “You’re up,” Emmett hollered. Kaden grinned. The two always said the same thing whenever Emmett came to the fire tower. “But you need to come down,” Emmett continued. “Gram sent me.”

  There was only one time Kaden didn’t get home from the tower by suppertime. A furious Gram had walked to Emmett’s and sent him to collect Kaden. Kaden had been grounded from the tower for a month, and during that time, Kubla almost forgot who he was.

  Kaden turned and hurried back up into the tower cabin, reprimanding himself for falling asleep and wondering how late it was. He opened the lid to a metal chest bolted to the wall and put the binoculars inside. Then he grabbed a coil of rope that hung from a peg. A baseball-size rock with a hole all the way through it hung from the end. Kaden clattered down the nine flights of stairs to the last landing, twenty feet above the ground. He sat down on the landing, feet dangling over the edge, and wrapped the rope once around the horizontal crossbeam. Then he laced the end of the rope through the loop where the rock was tied and pulled the rope tight around the crossbeam. Keeping a strong grasp on the rope, he wrapped his legs around it and inched down the rope to the ground. Once down, he stepped back and let go of the rope. The rock dropped, its weight pulling the rope off the crossbeam. Kaden coiled the rope, then hid it and the rock in some nearby bushes.

  Emmett started the truck as Kaden hopped in and glanced at the clock on the dashboard. It wasn’t even four yet. He wasn’t late.

  “I’m down, but what’s up?” Kaden asked. He tried to sound like nothing was on his mind, but his heart was racing; he expected to hear Emmett say your dad’s home.

  But Emmett didn’t say that. All he said was Gram sent me. Kaden suspected it meant the same thing. Neither of them said another word until they got halfway down the dirt road.

  “Stop,” Kaden said suddenly. They had just passed the muddy spot where a seep spring always kept a patch of road wet.

  “Why?” Emmett asked. “You gotta take a leak?”

  Kaden didn’t answer. He jumped out of the truck, found a long stick, and stuck it upright in the center of the road where four sets of tire tracks indented the mud.

  “What’s that for?” Emmett asked as Kaden got back in the truck.

  Kaden ignored him. If Emmett wasn’t going to talk about what was going on, then he wasn’t going to talk either. When they reached the main road, he expected Emmett to turn right, but instead, Emmett turned toward Promise.

  “Where are we going?” Kaden asked.

  “To the Purple Cow,” Emmett answered. “I thought we’d get an ice cream.”

  “Now?” Kaden looked at Emmett. Emmett kept his eyes on the road. The strained silence said more than words. But when they pulled up to the diner with a life-size purple cow standing by the door, Kaden couldn’t hold back anymore.

  “I already know,” he said.

  “Already know what?” Emmett asked, the truck still running.

  “About Dad.”

  “You do? But Gram asked me . . .” Emmett sounded confused. “How do you know?”

  “I read part of the letter that came last Monday,” Kaden confessed. “And I saw him.”

  “You saw him?” Emmett repeated. He turned off the truck but neither of them opened a door.

  “At the fire tower. He came there this afternoon. I saw him but he didn’t see me. And I wasn’t sure it was really him until you came. Then it was obvious.”

  “Obvious?” Emmett asked.

  “You’re usually a motormouth,” Kaden explained, “but today you only said three words.”

  “Three words?” Emmett repeated.

  “Three words. ‘Gram sent me.’ I knew right then.”

  “Well, I’ll be.” Emmett seemed genuinely surprised. “I guess we might as well go on in, then.” He opened his truck door but Kaden didn’t budge.

  “I don’t want to talk about Dad in there.” Kaden nodded toward the Purple Cow.

  “No way,” Emmett said. “You might as well put your business on the six o’clock news if you even whisper a word in there.”

  “Then why did we come here? Shouldn’t we be going home?”

  “I’m supposed to keep you busy,” Emmett said. “Your dad is at the cabins.”

  “Right now?” It was Kaden’s turn to be surprised. Dad must have turned around and gone back up the hill, he thought.

  “Yeah, he’s there now,” Emmett answered. “Gram was afraid you’d come back and she wanted to have a chance to talk with your dad first. So she called me and asked me to—”

  “She called you?” Kaden interrupted.

  “Oops.” Emmett looked sheepish. “Well, now I’ve gone and let the cat out of the bag. When Gram got the letter, I made her get a cell phone the next day. She put up a good fight but I won out in the end. She made me promise not to tell you, though, so don’t you go and squeal on me.”

  “Okay,” Kaden said.

  “Now that you know she’s got one, you ought to know the number, too. Just in case.”

  “Yeah, just in case,” Kaden repeated. He guessed nobody was quite sure about Dad. Not himself, not Emmett, not even Gram.

  “The number is 555-862-2165,” Emmett said. “I picked out the easiest number for her. First, all those fives. Then eight equals six plus two, and then, times two equals sixteen and then there is one more five.”

  Kaden laughed. “I bet th
ey really loved you in school.”

  “Actually, I had a lot of teachers baffled.” Emmett grinned. “Don’t know why; but let’s go get some ice cream.”

  “Okay, but first I want to know—”

  Emmett interrupted him. “I’m not supposed to tell you anything. I’m just suppose to keep you busy.”

  “But what’s he like?” Kaden asked. “Will I like him?” He also wondered if his dad would like him, but he didn’t say that out loud.

  “That will be up to you to figure out,” Emmett said.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SALT AND PEPPER

  Kaden and Emmett walked past the purple cow. A white board hung from its neck with the daily special written on it in purple marker. As they opened the door, the sound of a cow mooing announced their entry.

  Inside, the walls were covered with photos of fiberglass cows. There was a Cow-boy with a Stetson hat, a bandana around its neck and spurs on its hooves. There was a Moss-Cow, a Cow-ch Potato, and a Cow-culator. Emmett slid into a booth by a Cow-lendar, a bright yellow Cow-ard, and a Cow-lifornia Cow on a beach towel wearing big sunglasses and a yellow polka-dot bikini. Kaden sat across from him, looking toward a mural of the inside of a dairy barn with three cows, their backsides facing into the restaurant. As part of the decorations, a real pitchfork leaned against the wall in the corner next to the mural’s painted haystack.

  It was before the dinner stampede, as Pillie called it, and they were the only ones in the restaurant. Elana pushed open the swinging door from the kitchen. She was the most popular girl in Kaden’s class, but except at Pillie’s, Kaden rarely spoke to her. At school, Kaden tried to stay clear of Elana, because wherever she was, Luke was always close by.

  “Hi, Kaden. Hi, Emmett. What can I get you guys?” Elana said.

  “Three Jumbo Lightning Moo-Creams,” Emmett said.

  “Three?” Kaden and Elana both said at the same time.

  “Of course,” Emmett said. “One for me, one for Kaden, and you’ll need one, too.”

  “Me?” Elana said at the same time as Kaden said, “Elana?”

  “Certainly. We don’t want to eat in front of the young lady.”

  “I’m supposed to be helping,” Elana said.

  “You will be,” Emmett replied. “Helping yourself to a delicious sundae.”

  “I mean . . . ,” Elana started to explain.

  “Oh, don’t worry, your mom won’t mind.” Then in a loud voice Emmett yelled out, “Hey, Pillie, you mind if your daughter joins us for a sundae?”

  Pillie came out of the kitchen. “No, I don’t care, as long as she gets the salt and pepper shakers filled before the stampede. What are you having?”

  “Jumbo Lightning Moo-Creams,” Elana reported.

  “Coming right up,” Pillie said.

  Elana followed her mom into the kitchen.

  “Why are you getting Elana one?” Kaden asked. But before Emmett could answer, Elana returned holding large canisters of salt and pepper. Emmett kicked Kaden under the table.

  “Ouch,” Kaden said. “Why’d you kick me?”

  “Go help her,” Emmett whispered, giving his head a jerk toward Elana.

  Kaden rolled his eyes at Emmett but slid out of the booth.

  “Want some help?” he asked. He could feel his face turning red.

  “Sure,” Elana said. “Salt goes in the cows. They have four holes in their heads. Pepper in the bulls. They have horns and only two holes. Don’t get them mixed up. Mom got really annoyed when Luke helped me.”

  Kaden had heard about Luke’s pranks. Showing off to Elana, they had been going on for weeks. At first, it was just minor stuff like putting salt and pepper in the wrong shakers. But then Pillie caught Luke red-handed leaving a dried-up cow patty on the floor under one of the mural’s cows. She grabbed the pitchfork from the corner and chased Luke from the restaurant.

  Mr. Woodhead, Luke’s father, threatened to file assault charges against Pillie, but Sheriff O’Connor didn’t want to be on Pillie’s bad side. The Purple Cow was the only place in town to get a good cup of coffee. The sheriff made Luke clean up the cow manure and Pillie banned Luke from her restaurant.

  Now as Kaden picked up a bull and poured in pepper, Pillie brought out three enormous sundaes. She put two purple flashlights on the table and headed back to the kitchen.

  Kaden started to slide into the booth but Emmett stopped him. “Ladies first, Kaden.”

  Kaden stepped aside and let Elana slide in.

  “What are these for?” Kaden asked, picking up one of the flashlights.

  “You get one every time you order a Jumbo Lightning Moo-Cream,” Elana said. “Mom read that cows’ horns sometimes glow during a lightning storm. They’re supposed to represent the lightning.”

  Without saying another word, the three of them dug into their ice cream, as a clock that looked like a cow ticked off the seconds, its tail twitching back and forth. Soon their spoons were scraping the last bites from the dishes.

  “Moo-chas gracias, Emmett,” Elana said as they slid from their seats. “See you Monday at school, Kaden.”

  “Yeah, see ya,” Kaden answered.

  When they left the restaurant, Kaden turned to Emmett. “Why did you invite Elana to have ice cream with us?”

  “I thought it would be a good distraction,” Emmett said, grinning. “Worked, didn’t it?”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  NOT READY

  As soon as Emmett started up the truck, all distractions made by Elana, ice cream sundaes, cows, and flashlights disappeared.

  The closer they got to the cabins, the more nervous Kaden became. His heart was beating so hard when they pulled in the circle drive, he was certain Emmett could hear it over the sound of the truck’s motor. The white pickup sat in front of Cabin Five. The cabin’s door stood open. A fan gently ruffled the curtains in its opened window, but there was not a breath of wind outside, and Kaden felt like he couldn’t breathe either.

  Emmett pulled up in front of Gram’s cabin, put the truck in park, but left it running.

  “Aren’t you coming in?” Kaden asked. He felt like he was going to be sick, all that ice cream on an empty and now nervous stomach.

  “No, I don’t think so, mooo-cho things to do at home,” Emmett said, trying to lighten the tension. But when he looked at Kaden’s face, Emmett reached down and turned the key. The truck became silent.

  Kaden sat there. He felt paralyzed. He didn’t think he could even open the door.

  “Come on,” Emmett said. “Let’s get it over with.”

  Kaden got out of the truck. Emmett put his hand on his shoulder as they climbed the porch steps. There was no sound except the steady hum of Gram’s fan coming through the screen door. Kaden opened the door and he and Emmett stepped inside.

  Gram was sitting in the easy chair doing nothing. Just sitting. All alone. She stood up and put her hands on her hips.

  “Where have you two been?” she asked gruffly, but before anyone could answer, she turned to Kaden. “Go to your cabin and wash up for dinner. I need to talk to Emmett.”

  “But—” Kaden started to ask where his dad was when Emmett interrupted him.

  “Do what your Gram says.”

  Kaden started to protest again, but Emmett gave him a barely perceptible shake of his head. Kaden usually paid attention to Emmett’s subtle hints to keep quiet. This time, however, he ignored him and turned back to Gram.

  “No,” he said defiantly. “I’m staying right here.”

  “I’m only going to say it one more time. Go to your cabin.”

  Kaden stared straight into Gram’s eyes. He was tired of being left in the dark.

  “No. He’s my father and I want to know what’s going on.”

  Gram looked surprised. She stared at Kaden but when she crossed her arms in front of her, she turned on Emmett. “I told you not to tell,” she said.

  “He didn’t,” Kaden said. “I already knew. I saw him today at the tower.”
/>   Now Gram was really perplexed. “You saw him?”

  “Yes, and I’m not going to my room. I’m going to go see my dad. I know he’s in Cabin Five. What’d you do, tell him he had to go to his room, too?”

  Suddenly the sound of a motor starting up came through the screen door. Kaden pushed past Emmett and darted out onto the porch just in time to see the white pickup spin its tires in the gravel as it turned onto the road toward town.

  “Wait!” Kaden yelled, and ran after the truck. But the truck went around the bend before Kaden even got halfway down the circle drive.

  Kaden stood, his hands balled into fists. He heard footsteps come up behind him. Gram put a hand on his shoulder, but Kaden jerked away and turned to face her.

  “I had a right to see him! He’s my father!” Kaden exploded. “And I would have if it weren’t for you.” Tears of anger rolled down his cheeks.

  “And you, too!” he yelled at Emmett. “You both treat me like I’m a baby. Always saying, ‘Go to your cabin, Kaden. Let’s get ice cream, Kaden.’ You’re always talking about everything except what’s on everyone’s mind. You don’t have to shelter me. I’m old enough to hear what’s going on. So, what else are you keeping a secret from me? Did you tell Dad to leave? Did you make him promise to stay away?”

  Kaden had almost worn out his anger but when Gram said nothing, it rekindled.

  “Are you going to answer me for once?” he said harshly, spitting out each word. “Why did he leave?”

  Gram still said nothing. Even Emmett looked at her, waiting to hear her answer. But Gram just stared past Kaden and Emmett, looking down the empty road, almost as if she were looking for a different scene, the way a life could have been. After a few seconds, she turned and looked directly at Kaden.

  “I’m sorry,” Gram said in the quietest and most sorrowful voice Kaden had ever heard her use. “I tried to talk some sense into him, but he’s not ready.”