The True Father

by Steven Anderson Law

  December 19, 1977

  My dearest Bonnie,

  You’ve been gone over a month now and I keep wondering whether you are going to be home for Christmas. Jodie said she heard you’d moved to Kansas City and I had to go to quite a bit of trouble to find you. I figured you’d be staying with that old girlfriend from Sallisaw who moved up there to work for that greeting card company. I was surprised to find out that you had rented a house and got a job there too. Bonnie whatever I’ve done to run you off I wish you’d forgive me and come home. I sure do miss you and little Trevor. I bought him a little toy tractor for Christmas. It looks just like mine and I figured he’d like that. I don’t know what else to say other than I can’t imagine spending Christmas without you and my boy. Please come home, Bonnie. I love you. And tell Trevor I love him too.

  All my love,

  Jettie

  The letter was hard to read. He seemed abandoned, hopeless, and almost pitiful. And to think that the letters were returned and never read, made me wonder if things would have been different if Mom would have read them.

  I kept opening letters and reading them. It was more of the same; only the tone steadily grew worse, as if in desperation, giving up on life and getting used to nights alone, passing out under the influence of corn whiskey.

  Then came the last letter, postmarked April 10, 1978. Different than the others, the edges of the envelope were covered with clear cellophane tape that had browned over the years.

  April 10, 1978

  Dear Bonnie,

  All your letters have come back now so I guess it’s very unlikely you’ll read this one. Maybe I’m just writing it for myself. All I know is that I’ve done all I can to win you back. My trip to Kansas City almost landed me in jail, only because I wanted to see my little boy and give him his Christmas present. I guess that really proved how you felt about me. I’ve come to grips with that now and I guess I’ll just have to let it go. It’s been so long since I’ve seen little Trevor that I wonder if I’d even recognize him. I’m sure he’s grown like a prairie weed. I wonder if he’d even know me. I guess I’ll just have to hope that you raise him good because without you Bonnie I don’t see how I could ever be a good daddy. Being gone all the time is no life for a little boy. So maybe its just best that I stay out of his life and let you raise him the best you can. And one day I hope you’ll tell him that his daddy loves him, and that some day maybe he could come down and go fishing or to a rodeo and watch the bulls. I’d sure like that someday. Please give Trevor the package taped to this letter and tell him it’s a special present. You don’t have to tell him who it’s from.

  All my love,

  Jettie

  A ton of emotion welled up inside me. Some of it anger, but most was sadness. I wanted to cry but couldn’t. The image of him visiting our house haunted me. All he wanted was to see his little boy, his own flesh and blood, and give him his Christmas present. And I saw the image of a Massey Ferguson replica, a tiny rendition of something real to help remind the little boy of who his father was and how he lived. The entire image made me want to drive to Kansas City and force my mom to read all these letters, explain to me how she could avoid a man with so much love, and also so much pain. I couldn’t understand any of it. More than ever I needed answers—answers that I would search endlessly to find, no matter how difficult the journey might be.

  I knew that eventually most of those answers would have to come from my mom. But by avoiding him, she purposely kept herself from knowing what was in his heart. The letters proved how much he loved me then, but they didn’t explain the rest of his life. Why didn’t he go on and find another love? Why didn’t he become the best damn bull rider there ever was? Suddenly I remembered my conversation with Denny Rose, and without much hesitation found the phone book and located the number. Tonight seemed like a perfect night to do some fishing.

  Twenty-six

  The full moon cast a healthy glow over the calm surface of the Arkansas River, and it highlighted the tops of the trees on the opposite bank, as though they were outlined by a white neon light. It shined down on our fishing lines and, where the line entered the water, accented the ripples created by the underwater currents that shifted the position of the lines. And it shined down on our faces, so much that I could make out the details of Buddy’s profile and the Coors Light label on his beer bottle as he slumped in a lawn chair and tipped the bottle to his lips.

  We fished for catfish, either flathead or channel cat, as heavy as twenty pounds. We used beef liver for bait, bound on the prongs of a treble hook and releasing a stench that Buddy said the catfish liked. We monitored two poles each, which were equipped with open-faced reels. The reels were wound with strong nylon line weighted with lead sinkers and tossed in four different directions. Apparently Buddy thought nothing of my handicap, as I knew that if I hooked a “twenty-pounder” there was no way I could reel it in. But he told me not to fret, to hook the fish first then we’ll worry about bringing it in.

  Though the idea of catching a really big fish was somewhat enthralling, it was not at the peak of my interest. I relaxed in my own lawn chair and enjoyed the serenity of the evening, the cold beer, and occasionally the quiet conversation that was usually prompted by a cry of some sort of nocturnal being, which thus far Buddy had identified as being from either a coyote, a screech owl, or a whippoorwill.

  “I can see why Jettie liked this. It’s very relaxing.”

  “Jettie could have cared less if he ever caught a fish. All he wanted was the night air.”

  “Did you guys fish a lot together?”

  “At first it was once a week, between rodeos. But after I retired, we hit the river more often.”

  “What was it like in the old days, when you worked with Jettie in the arena?”

  This made him smile. “Them was the best years of my life. I was almost thirty years old when I first met Jettie. He was a greenhorn bull rider and my glory days were behind me. That’s when I started working as a clown.”

  “You were a bull rider, too?”

  “That’s right. Even qualified for national finals once.”

  “Wow. So what made you decide to be a clown?”

  “I was asked by a fella down in Mesquite. I knew I couldn’t ride no more, and it beat working at some factory. Besides that, I knew bulls and knew how to play them. So the job fit me real well.”

  “So you were a clown when Jettie rode?”

  “Yessir. The first time Jettie came out of the chute at a PRCA event, I was in the arena. He made a good ride, too. Eight seconds and scored a ninety-one. I’ll never forget it. But it wasn’t the ride that made it so memorable. He spurred the hell out of that bull, and when he jumped off, that bull spun and came right after him. There wasn’t a clown in this country that could have lured it away.”

  “What happened?”

  “I put myself between Jettie and the bull and caught a head butt in the ass. We were close to the fence and Jettie made the climb, but I was on the ground. The other clown came to help and slapped the bull on the rump just before he was about to rip my guts out. Lucky for me, the bull decided to go after the other clown and he lured it out of the arena. Jettie climbed down and asked me if I was all right. He helped me up and I limped out of the arena. I sure was sore the next day. Yeah, I thought I’d had friends before, but I never knew what true friendship was until I met Jettie.”

  “What made him such a good friend?”

  “We understood each other. He was a professional and very mature for his age. He didn’t fart around and took everything about the profession seriously.”

  “I’ve been told he was good.”

  “One of the best.”

  “Then why wasn’t he a champion?”

  “That’s a good question, pardner. I’ve been right there in the arena and watched him for years and never seen anybody ride better. But something always happened to him at the finals. When he got on a bull he wasn’t the Jettie Hodge we all knew.”
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br />   “No idea why?”

  “My guess was that it was something very personal. We were good friends, but I never had the guts to pry.”

  I felt as though I had hit another dry well. Like Bella, Denny, or even Jeremiah, Buddy couldn’t provide me with the answers I wanted. They all claimed it was private, psychological, locked up inside of Jettie like a curse. But some inner voice told me the answer was out there, and that I had to keep searching, and that possibly if I looked hard enough I’d start finding clues.

  “Did you ever do anything else together besides fishing?”

  “Sometimes we’d go to his house and cook steaks on the grill and drink hot toddies.”

  “Hot what?”

  “Toddies. Whiskey and hot water.”

  “Is that good?”

  “It’s a good drunk!”

  The image of Jettie being drunk made me think again of the dare. I wasn’t quite sure how to ask, but I wanted to hear what Buddy knew.

  “I was told you were there when Jettie was killed.”

  He looked at me, half his face shadowed by the darkness, the other half highlighted by the moon and revealing a blank expression.

  “I was there,” he said.

  “I’d like you to tell me about it—if you can.”

  He looked back toward the river, then up at the moon. He tipped his beer bottle up high, gulped down its contents, then tossed it into a pile of other bottles and opened another.

  “It all started at a place called Billy Bob’s, a big club down in Fort Worth. You have to know that Jettie didn’t go to clubs very often. For some reason that night he had a party itch. We’d been there a couple of hours when a group of young cowboys came to our table. They were Oklahoma boys we’d known for years. At first they were all friendly-like, complimenting Jettie on his history and talents, and buying him drinks. After about four shots of tequila, which mixed with the four or five beers he’d already had, they started poking at his nerves.”

  Buddy paused and took a swig of beer.

  “What about?” I asked.

  “Bella.”

  “Bella?”

  “I remember one of them saying, ‘So tell me, Jettie, how does an old man like you keep a young Indian princess like that happy?’ Jettie rarely got riled over such talk. But the tequila took all his good sense away.”

  “What’d he do?”

  “Like a drunken fool he squabbled with them.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said that he could do anything them young punks could do. And one of them said, ‘Yeah, but your bull ridin’ days are long gone.’ And that was the wrong thing to say to Jettie Hodge, drunk or not.”

  “So this is when they went to the arena?”

  “Almost. They bickered a while longer, when finally Boyd said, ‘Hell man, if you still got the stuff then prove it.’”

  “Wait a minute. Who’d you say?”

  “Boyd. Boyd Simmons. He’s a local—”

  “Yeah, I’m familiar with Boyd. He’s the one who dared Jettie?”

  “Yeah, he instigated most of it. He’s had this thing for Bella for quite some time and getting Jettie riled was his way of trying to make Jettie look bad.”

  “Getting him killed was a sure way of doing that. Didn’t any of you try to stop him?”

  “I did, but I was grossly outnumbered. Boyd and his boys held me back. Boyd even shoved me once. ‘Stay out of it, clown!’ he said.”

  This bit of news made me very angry. I had tried to keep myself from disliking Boyd, though his tactics were crude, if not totally juvenile, and I had tried to be friends with him. But any man who had the audacity to provoke a drunken man to do something so dangerous was obviously a man with no conscious.

  “Did anyone ever confront Boyd about it?”

  Buddy took a drink of beer then shook his head.

  “Why not?”

  “Because it was a foolish prank that got out of hand. This sort of thing happens every now and then and you just have to deal with it.”

  “Deal with it? Hell, I would have pressed charges! Maybe even had it investigated by the police, encourage the prosecuting attorney to bring up charges of manslaughter or something.”

  “You act as though Boyd wanted your pa to die.”

  “Well, he sure wanted him out of the picture as far as Bella was concerned. And he got his wish, didn’t he?”

  “But it didn’t work, did it?”

  “Buddy, Jettie is dead.”

  He tipped his bottle up and drank the last of its contents then stood from his chair and angrily threw the bottle into the river. The bottle splashed into the water and reflected an amber glow from the moonlight as it bobbed up and down in the slow current. Suddenly one of my lines pulled tight and moved to the left, and the fiberglass fishing rod bent with it.

  “I think I’ve got something,” I said.

  Buddy rushed to the pole, picked it up and turned the reel lever. He turned it slowly but persistently, letting out an occasional grunt.

  “This feels like a hog,” he said.

  The line was almost at a 90-degree angle from the base of the pole, and Buddy walked the edge of the bank following the direction of the pull.

  “Get ready, Trevor! She’s a monster!”

  I stood next to the water waiting for the image of this monster to appear. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit scared. Sure, it was just a fish. But one that desired smelly beef liver—a hog, a monster. How was a greenhorn like me supposed to feel?”

  Suddenly their was a sharp piercing sound and the line disappeared.

  “Ah, hell!” Buddy said.

  “What happened?”

  “That heavy bastard broke the goddamn line.”

  “Must have been real big then, huh?”

  Along with the fishing pole that dangled a curled and broken line, Buddy moped back to his chair, dropped the pole to the ground then opened another beer. He took several swallows and after that didn’t say a word.

  “Oh well,” I said. “We’ve got three more poles. Let’s see that fat hog try it again.”

  He looked up at me and eventually laughed. I laughed with him, sat in my chair and opened a fresh beer for myself.

  Twenty-seven

  Mesquite, Texas was famous for its championship rodeo and a place Jeremiah visited frequently, never as a contractor, but as a spectator on free weekends. He still brought his Sundowner trailer and rode in the grand entry, but mostly it was a moment where he enjoyed a stress free period of simply observing other stock and laughing and sharing stories with old friends. Bella, however, was a barrel race participant, and since Jeremiah and Jettie had always traveled together to Mesquite, she had arranged her schedule to be there at the same time. For me it was more than just another rodeo experience, I figured it was an opportune time to confront both of them at once.

  Inside the front of the Sundowner, Jeremiah sat in a soft cushioned chair with his feet propped up, enjoying a cold bottle of Busch Light and telling me a story about a one-armed bull rider he once knew named Charlie Baird. Being that my arm was in a sling, I guess he thought the story was somewhat appropriate. He said that the boy got his wrist caught in a piece of farm machinery, and they ended up having to amputate it up to the elbow.

  “How’d he keep his balance?” I asked.

  “He strapped on a prosthetic limb. Looked like a hand and forearm off a mannequin down at the J. C. Penney store.”

  “Did it work for him?”

  Jeremiah couldn’t finish the story without laughing.

  “Sometimes it did,” he said between gasps. “But one time old Charlie got on a real spinner, and his arm got to flipping back and forth so hard that the limb fell clean off and hit one of the clowns upside the head.”

  He had me laughing now.

  He went on to tell me about the knot that swelled on the clown’s head, and that’s when Bella opened the door and stepped inside. We were still laughing, but I quickly poised myself.
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  “Jodie said you wanted to see me,” she said.

  “That’s right,” I said.

  She straddled a bench seat near the door and put her palms on her knees. She wore a white-laced western shirt, a white straw hat, and dark blue Lawman jeans. Jeremiah was still chuckling and she asked what was so funny.

  “He told me the story about one-armed Charlie. Ever heard it?”

  She rolled her eyes. “A thousand times.”

  Jeremiah grabbed another beer out of the miniature refrigerator and offered us each one. We both declined.

  “So what’s on your mind?” Bella asked, looking at me.

  “I have something I need to ask the both of you, and it’s very important that I get an honest and sincere answer.”

  “That’s the only way I operate,” Jeremiah said.

  “Last night I went fishing with Buddy. He told me more about the night Jettie was killed, specifically what happened at the bar.”

  Jeremiah’s face was still red, but they looked at each other gravely.

  “Why didn’t you guys tell me it was Boyd?”

  Bella crossed her arms over her chest, exhaled and slouched slightly. Jeremiah leaned forward and thumbed at his beer bottle.

  “I’m sorry, Trevor,” Jeremiah said. “Especially if you thought we was keeping it from you.”

  “You were,” I said matter-of-factly.

  “We just didn’t want you doing anything foolish,” Bella said.

  “Let’s not talk about doing anything foolish. Let’s talk about holding Boyd legally responsible for what he’s done.”

  “We thought about that,” Jeremiah said. “But truthfully, Boyd was just being the stupid redneck he is and we really don’t think he intended to hurt Jettie.”

  I looked at Bella. “Do you believe that?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know, Trevor.”