“Kimball and I had a falling out. He owned the ranch and I left.” Heather listened to every word he said, her senses alert to every nuance of his answer. Because of her blindness, Heather’s other senses had developed keenly. She knew there was more to his answer, but also knew what he said was true.
“If I decide to hire you, we can go into that a little further.” Then, after pouring two cups of coffee, Heather interviewed Reid Hunter in earnest. She asked question after question, learning everything she could about this man, and when she was satisfied, she stopped.
“I can’t give you an answer today, but if you’d like to look around the ranch and see for yourself what we have, I’ll have one of the men take you around.”
“That would be fine,” Reid said. Ten minutes later Reid was astride a roan gelding. He listened to what Tom Farley had to say and drank in every aspect of the ranch.
TWO
Heather could not sit still. The incessant blaring of the radio kept breaking into her thoughts. She wanted quiet, a quiet that would permit her to think clearly. Suddenly she felt Polaris at her side and heard him bark, once.
“Go,” she commanded in a low voice, “run.” Polaris and she had been together for five years now. Her father had chosen the German shepherd puppy, the pick of the litter, and when he was a year old had taken him to a special school in Phoenix. Seven months later, Heather had both a companion and eyes, to replace the dog she had lost to old age. Polaris’s commands were a little different from those of most seeing-eye dogs because he was a ranch dog, too. “Run,” was his most-sought-after command. Only after dinner, when the ranch was quiet and Heather was in for the night, did Polaris run free. Usually after an hour or two, he came back. Although there was a special door in the kitchen wall that gave him free access, Polaris never left Heather’s side without her command. Moreover, Heather knew no matter what Polaris did he was always near, always within hearing distance.
Heather listened to the padding of the shepherd’s paws as he raced through the living room and into the kitchen. The telltale whoosh of his body as it brushed through the rubber barricade that opened like a tulip’s petals told Heather Polaris was gone.
Moving slowly across the room, Heather reached for the stereo and shut it off. Then, with a sigh of contentment, she retraced the familiar path to the couch. After she sat, her fingers searched until they felt the hard plastic cassette, which she lifted and let her fingertips rub across, lightly. In braille, she read the name.
Reid Hunter—Resume
Quickly and efficiently, Heather placed the cassette into her tape player and placed her finger on the play button.
Ever since this morning’s meeting with Reid Hunter, she couldn’t stop thinking about him. Her reaction to his voice, and even to the two times she had shaken his hand, had stirred feelings and emotions she had never experienced.
Desperately, since it had happened only a few rare times in her life, Heather wanted to see Reid Hunter’s face. A ragged pain tore through her mind with the thought and tears began to rise.
“No!” she shouted to the empty house.
Still, her tears fell. Heather found herself unable to stop them. Why do I want so much? she asked herself. Why? A blade of grass, that’s all I want, to see a blade of grass. Oh, I can tell what a blade of grass looks like; I can tell its texture, its shape, even where the color changes from dark to lighter. I can sculpt it perfectly, I could even paint it if I had to, but I can’t see it!
Finally, after the tears stopped, Heather took a deep, cleansing breath and tried to relax. She hated feeling sorry for herself, hated the helpless and hopeless desire for what she knew was impossible. She’d lived for twenty-five years without sight, and she knew she would live for a lot longer the same way. Heather did not usually permit herself the luxury of feeling sorry for herself, although there had been a time when she had. Now, except for occasional lapses of frustration, she had herself under iron control and enjoyed her life.
Heather also knew that to cut off her thoughts and sorrows at this point would only bring them out again when she did not want them. She allowed her mind to wander and dwell on whatever memories it chose, knowing it would help ease her hurt. Years ago when her father was suffering his own losses, he’d taught her this trick.
Her father, Donald Strand, had been one of the two most important people in the world to Heather. He had been the mainstay of her life. Heather had been born blind, and she had never once seen the light of day. Her earliest memories were of her parents’ voices and touches—holding her, carrying her, and putting her down so she could play on the grass. As she grew older, all of her senses grew with her. She learned how to see through her fingers and how to hear with her mind as well as her ears. When Heather was four, she had felt a growing distance between herself and her mother, a distance that did not forsake love, but one that forced her to rely on her father more and more.
When she was seven, her father had taken her onto his lap one day. She remembered that day clearly, sitting on his thighs, her head resting on his shoulder as he began to talk to her. His voice was different; it held something she’d never heard before and was unable to identify. By the time he’d spoken his second sentence, Heather’s fingers were tracing his face. It was then she’d felt the tears.
“I don’t know exactly how to explain this, but I must,” he said in a choked voice.
“Why are you sad, Daddy?” Heather asked.
“Heather, you’re only seven years old. You’re still a baby, but you’re the bravest girl I ever knew.” Heather heard a warm laugh build within his chest and felt her father’s arm tighten around her even more. “Do you remember the time—I guess you were all of four— when you managed to get on my horse?”
“You spanked me!” Heather said indignantly.
“Yes, baby, I spanked you. But you wanted to ride, and you got on that horse. Didn’t make any difference to you whether you could see where you were going or not— you just wanted to ride...”
“I did good, didn’t I?” Heather asked proudly.
“You sure did.” Then Heather heard the change in his voice again and felt herself grow sad along with him. “Heather Jane Strand, I’ve got to tell you something. Your mama, she’s very sick.”
“Why are you sad? Mama’s been sick before, just like me. You took good care of her,” she told him matter-of-factly.
“This is different, girl. Your mama isn’t going to get any better.” Heather could tell by the way her father’s chest rose and fell he was badly upset, and because of that, she was as well.
“You mean Mama’s always gonna be sick?”
“No, baby, she’s not always going to be sick. Your mama...” he began, but paused for a deep breath. “Your mama’s dying.”
Heather knew what dying was. Puppet, her first seeing-eye dog, had died. Puppet had always slept with Heather; she’d been a soft, warm golden retriever. One morning Heather woke up, but no matter what she did, she couldn’t get Puppet to move. Almost hysterical, she had called her mother. When her mother had come, she took Heather from the room and, in the kitchen, told her what had happened. Heather hadn’t really understood right away, but eventually she had.
“Why, Daddy?” she asked, but this time her voice, too, sounded choked.
“Because no one can live forever. Sometimes people get very sick, and they die before we want them to. No one knows why—it just happens. It’s happening to your mama, and you must try to understand.”
Heather began to cry then, and Donald Strand pulled his little girl closer. He held her, and he cried with her, until finally Heather pulled away from him and slipped to the floor.
“Comet!” she called. A large German shepherd that came almost to Heather’s shoulders moved next to the girl. Heather gripped the dog’s collar. “Outside,” she commanded.
Donald Strand watched his daughter, with her shoulders pulled back and her head held straight, walk from the house.
An hour l
ater Heather returned. Her father was still sitting in the same chair, but she continued through the room and went into her parents’ bedroom. At the door, she told Comet to wait. Then, slowly, Heather made her way to the bed.
“Mama?” she called in a quiet voice.
“Yes, Heather?” her mother responded. Heather smiled at the soft sound of Justine Strand’s voice and felt warmth and comfort flow through her.
“Can I talk to you?”
“Of course you can. Come sit on the bed next to me.” Heather heard her pat the mattress as she walked toward the bed. Then she felt her mother’s hands at her waist, helping her onto the bed, and noticed the weakness in them. Heather scooted closer to her mother, and her hands began to move by themselves. Her fingers traced the familiar paths of her mother’s features, and as she touched the softness of her lips, she thought they felt the same as they always did. Her mother’s cheeks were warm, warmer than usual, but they felt good, too. Then her small fingertips traced the eyebrows, the small straight nose, and began to stroke her hair. Suddenly Heather was crying, and uncontrollable sobs tore from her throat.
“Easy, baby, you just take it easy,” her mother cooed.
“Why, Mama, why?”
“I can’t answer that, Heather. You know we always told each other the truth, and I won’t lie to you now. I don’t know why I’m sick. What I have is called cancer, and it’s something the doctors don’t know how to cure.”
“Like me being blind?”
“Like your blindness,” her mother agreed.
“But you don’t feel any different,” Heather told her.
“On the outside, no, but inside I’m real sick. Heather, Daddy told you what will happen to me, but you have to promise me something.” Heather wiped away her tears and nodded her head. “You’ve got to promise me that you’ll take good care of your daddy when I’m gone.”
“I don’t want you to go!”
“I have to, baby. Promise?”
“I promise,” Heather said reluctantly. After she said it, Heather lay down next to her mother, letting her mother hold her while she rested her head on the softness of her mother’s breasts. Without realizing it, Heather fell asleep.
Years later Heather understood her mother had purposely stayed a little distant during the last few years of her life to help ease the separation she knew was inevitable. Heather also learned her mother had been sick for over three years.
Her mother died a month later, and Heather remembered her promise. She tried to take care of her father and her father had let her. When she was old enough to reason it out, she understood that her father had let her learn to cook and clean and do many of the things that most people do for two reasons. The first was to make her feel she was doing what her mother wanted; the second was so she would be able to grow up to lead a normal life.
As a child, Heather had always had a tutor. She had learned the braille alphabet by the time she was five. From age five until her mother died, she had another private tutor, who kept her at her level at grade school. In the Fall, after her mother died, her father sent her to a special school for the blind. There, with other blind children, she began to develop intellectually and socially. She came home for every vacation and each summer.
By the time she was in high school, she had talked her father into letting her live at home and attend the local public school. After the initial shock, Heather made herself fit in with the majority of the student body.
Along with high school came something else—something special. At the school for the blind, art classes had been fun, a place where she’d been encouraged to play and experiment. In high school, art class became Heather’s life. The teacher, Mr. Morrissey, had recognized something in Heather no one else ever had. He had worked with her to bring it out, and Heather, in turn, had found something that grabbed her mind, her soul, and her heart, and held on like nothing else.
Art became the most important part of her life. There was only enough time for academics, her father, and her art. Nothing else was allowed to intrude. At first, she’d used ordinary soft modeling clay, and then Mr. Morrissey would make a mold and cast it in plaster. By her senior year in high school, Heather had reached the point of working with both stone and clay. By then she’d also begun to work on abstracts. Her father encouraged her every effort, and he, with several of his ranch hands, had built her a studio behind the house.
There had been little time in Heather’s short life for dating and in that area, Heather was almost ignorant. What she did know was she did not enjoy the attention of the local boys. The one time she’d gone out with a boy in high school, it had been a disaster— nothing like what she’d read about in her books or listened to on her records.
The boy, Howie Conners, had stupidly taken her to a movie. Worse was when he had tried to explain what was happening on the screen. Heather had been amused at first, but as the movie went on she’d become impatient and then embarrassed as everyone kept shushing them. Finally, fighting back her tears, she asked Howie to take her home.
She didn’t date again until college, and then went out only with other art majors. Most of the artists were understanding and knowledgeable about her blindness, and they were able to think in more than one dimension. She enjoyed her dates and had fun for the first time outside her family and her art. Then, in her junior year at Arizona State, she’d fallen in love. At least she thought she had.
Jim was tall and thin and had the most interesting facial structure she’d ever known. His lips were firm, and he had a thin mustache that reached to just the outer edge of his lip. He had blond hair that felt like the finest bristles of a perfect paintbrush, and he had large, doleful eyes. She knew how large they were because of the times she had traced them; her roommate told her how doleful they were. “Artist’s eyes—large, sad, and longing.”
She and Jim had dated on and off for the entire year, and finally, in her senior year, she admitted she was in love. She truly thought she was. Heather had never had a real romance, or even something close to it. The hours and days she spent with Jim were like nothing else in her life. Soon they were kissing ardently and declaring their eternal love for each other. Then one night Heather gave herself to him. She had expected so much and had received so little. She’d even lost Jim. For three days after they’d made love she did not hear from him. Then, on the fourth day, he came to her room. She heard it in his voice before he spoke three words.
“Why?” Heather demanded, cutting him off.
“I’m just sorry. I thought I loved you. I really did.”
“But?”
“But after we...we made love, I felt terrible. It was like I seduced you and you couldn’t see what I was doing. You would never see what I was like or what I looked like...or what I…”
“Stop it! You’re not feeling guilty because you seduced a virgin, it’s because you think my blindness stops me from being normal, isn’t it? It doesn’t make any difference to you that I know what you look like, that I can see you with my hands and within my mind. I know every line of your face, of your body, better than anyone with sight! But it’s only the fact I can’t see you that matters.”
“Heather, no, it’s—”
“Get out!” Heather ordered. She hoped he would fight, hoped he would tell her she was wrong and ask to stay. But Jim left then, as silent as the night.
Heather broke down and cried until dawn. When she woke the next morning, it was to her promise that no one would ever get close to her heart again. She had her father, and her father was enough.
It was enough until two years ago, when her father died in a freak accident. Donald Strand had been driving into town one afternoon when a young boy who had lost control of his pony galloped onto the highway. Her father had been driving at about fifty miles an hour when the boy appeared in front of him. Donald Strand turned the steering wheel hard to avoid hitting the youth. He’d run off the road and into a tree, hit his head on the steering wheel and never awakened. Heather�
�s father had died before he reached the hospital.
Since then Heather had been running the ranch, to the sacrifice of her art. It was not something she took lightly, nor did she regret what she had to give up. This was her home, as it had been her mother’s and father’s. Without the Strand Ranch, there could be no Heather, and no art.
By the time things had settled down and the ranch was back to normal, Heather had made peace with herself over her father’s death. For the next four months, Heather worked with the foreman, Hank Thompson, learning everything she had not bothered with until then. Her mind opened and she learned what was necessary to run a ranch. A year later, Hank gave notice. Torn, Heather did not know what to do. Hank left for a much larger ranch and a lot more money. Heather didn’t try to talk him out of it: he had children and a wife to support. With her approval, Hank Thompson left.
Then Heather had talked Tom Farley into taking over as the foreman. Tom had tried, but even Heather knew he was not experienced enough to handle the job. Reluctantly she agreed with Tom and began to advertise. The first time there were a dozen responses, each falling into two categories.
There were those in whom she sensed hesitancy in their manner about working not just for a woman, but a blind woman. Those men she ruled out immediately. Then came the other types—the ones who seemed to be itching for the job. Heather knew they would use the ranch, and her, to do whatever they wanted. These, too, she dismissed out of hand.
Then she advertised again. This time there had been ten responses. Out of the ten, three seemed to be good possibilities. Of the three, only two had prior experience as a foreman. Today she had spoken with Reid Hunter; on Tuesday she would interview John Scotts.
As Heather’s mind returned to the present, she let out a sigh. She knew she could not be weak in front of people, especially those who worked for her, and had found, during these last two years without her father to talk to, these little trips into the past seemed to help more than hurt. They helped her survive and made her stronger.
Cry Mercy, Cry Love Page 2