"Everybody likes sweet iced tea. This is the South, honey."
I grabbed a pitcher of tea and a glass of ice from the kitchen. "Then I'll offer him a libation. That's the hospitable thing to do."
Miriam put a hand to her heart. "You sneaky little thing. I'm so proud."
Ben, his face dark, continued to stand with his arms crossed, listening without a word as Tom D. Dooley, under the spell of my natural charm and sweet iced tea, told me that J.T. Jackson Development Corporation had just offered him double the appraised value of his acreage.
"I got two thousand acres, half i1 pasture and the back half-the part that adjoins Ben's land-in wild woods and marsh. Ben's the only man fool enough to want to buy it from me, and I've always wanted to sell it to him, but I can't turn down this kind of money from Jackson. The taxes on the land are eatin' me up. My wife's got her heart set on moving to North Carolina to be near her elderly parents. I hate to sell to outsiders, but what am I gonna do?"
Ben said grimly, "I know you're in a hard place, but if Jackson gets hold of that land he'll bulldoze everything on it, just to spite me. Tom D., you got live oaks on that land even older than mine. Between your woods and mine, we got the best big cat and black bear habitat left in this part of Florida."
"I know, Ben, I know. Just tell me you can make me some ki nda decent offer. Anything. I'll work with you on a deal. I swear."
Ben shook his head. Frustration and anger clouded his face. "Man, I just can't swing it. Not this year."
"Ben, I'm sorry. But I can't wait another year. I'm gonna have to sell."
"I have an idea," I said. While both men looked at me curiously, I set the iced tea pitcher aside, wiped my dewy hands on my shorts, and worked to keep my expression pensive. As if I weren't confident of the outcome. "There's an organization called Save Green America. Using donations, they buy large tracks of pristine land. It's held in trust. Permanent green space. It can never be developed."
Tom D. frowned. "You're tellil' me some tree-hugging group might buy my land?"
"They'd buy the ecologically pristine woodland and marsh. The money you'd get would be quite substantial. You and your wife could afford to retire without a worry and move to North Carolina while holding onto the front half-the pasture and farm land-until Ben can buy that from you."
"Missy, if the tree-huggers offer me a deal like that, I'll take it."
I looked at Ben carefully. "What do you think? You wouldn't own the woodland, the way you hoped, but it would always be protected, and that's the important thing, isn't it?"
The guarded hope on his face was my reward. He took the entire pitcher of sweet iced tea, raised it as if toasting me, and said, "What do I think? I think you're worth your weight in sweet tea."
I grinned. "Indeed."
Ben
I'll be damned if it didn't work out. And quick. Tom D. made a deal with Save Green America. One of their donors put up two million dollars to buy the thousand acres of woods and marsh bordering my property. That land would be protected forever. Yeah, `forever' might not be forever, but it was good enough for me.
"You did it," I told Karen. "Some people know how to work the system, and you're one of `em."
"No, we did it. The system doesn't always win, Ben. See? Sometimes the system can be your best friend."
"Naw. I won't go that far. But I'll admit that sometimes it ain't your worst enemy. Okay?"
She smiled at me. "Okay."
We had a strange romance going. Our first kiss came after a gator nearly ate us at the mermaid show. We kissed the second time thanks to Karen punching out Tami Jo. We hadn't kissed again, yet, and at this rate we'd lose some fingers or toes by the time we worked up to makin' love.
In the meantime, we pretended we hadn't kissed at all. But we got closer than ever.
I sat at the table one night, sorting Joey's weeldy meds into a pill organizer on the kitchen counter, while Karen put the dinner leftovers away. Rhubarb laid his head on my knee. Mr. Darcy duck-walked toward me across the tabletop and nuzzled his blue head against my neck. We were just like married people. Her, me, and the bird.
"Your bird loves me," I said.
"There's no accounting for taste." But Karen smiled when she said that. Then she shooed a dish towel at a moth on the tin light fixture over the table. The moth fluttered up. Karen trapped it gently in one hand, toted it to sink window, and set it free through a hole in the screen. I pegged her for a secret Buddhist. Just quietly going about the business of paying her respects to small, living things. She caught spiders and centipedes on brooms and gave `em safe rides outdoors.
She also herded lost bumblebees to open windows. I'd watched Lily and Mac do the same thing. Suddenly I felt awkward. Karen turned from the sink and said, "I gather you've been treated to sushi at times during your colorful and mysterious past?"
I ignored the `colorful and mysterious' part. "Yeah. I been around a few maki rolls and sashimi combos."
"I might make some. Treat the crew. See who hides under the table first."
"Just don't use soy cheese."
She chortled. I kept sortin' Joey's pills. Blood pressure, heart rate, blood thinners, you name it. How many more pills could the doctors add?
"You look worried," she said. "What's wrong?"
"I got a hundred calves to vaccinate tomorrow, just like the hundred today. Long day."
"You look sad. And it has nothing to do with calves."
"Estrela tried to bite me again. That mare hurts my feelings."
"She wants to impress you, but she's determined to do it on her own terms."
"We're tallun' about the mare, right?"
Karen gave me the stink eye, but her mouth quirked. "I trotted her around the barrels today, emphasizing technique and control. I gather, from my research on barrel racing, that the primary goal of the sport is to collect the horse solidly, cue her to slide into the turns without losing her balance, pivot around the barrel with a low center of gravity, then sprint to the next barrel. Estrela and I are working on those subtle signals and responses."
"Meanwhile, she kicked over all the barrels again. Right?"
Karen frovwned, then gave up and nodded.
"Teach her to crochet, or something. Might be easier."
"She simply needs to find her own purpose in the pattern of the barrels, and in life. The barrels represent every obstacle in her past. Every frustration, every overwrought expectation, every unanswered question. She can't tolerate them, she can't conquer them, she can't make peace with them, so she attacks them."
"We're still talkin' about Estrela, right?"
Karen rolled her eyes. She took the tray of heart mods from me, then fetched me a cold beer from the fridge. She didn't believe in drinkin' from the can. She pulled a frosted Mason jar from the freezer in the storage room and poured the beer into that. There's nothing like an old, pint-sized canning jar for a beer glass. When she put that frosted jar in my hand our shared heat nearly steamed the curvy antique glass.
She sat down in the chair by mine then bent her head over the pile of bottles in the basket where I stored Joey's prescriptions. While she read the labels I inhaled the scent of her hair, her skin, her body. She made me dizzy and hard.
Come on, she wanted me to smell her. Judging by her deep breaths, she was inhaling in return. Her fingers trembled as she sorted pills into the plastic trays of Joey's pill sorter. "There. Done." She looked up at me somberly. "Joey has serious heart disease. Is he getting worse?"
I still couldn't admit it. Puttin' the truth into words might make it come true. Part of me was pure Seminole, believin' in the power of words and symbols older than the limestone under the Everglades. "Naw. Nothing new. He was born with heart troubles."
"Is there something more that can be done for him?" She hesitated, then, in a real casual way, said, "Is it only a matter of money for better treatments and better specialists-"
"Not now. They coulda fixed his heart when he was a kid. But now, it's too late. I've told `em
I'll sell everything I own if that what it takes. It ain't money. They won't give him a heart transplant, and there's no good surgery for what's wrong with his ticker. So, we live with it."
She propped her chin on one hand. "If, suddenly, you were rich, what would you do with the money? Assuming there's nothing more you can do to improve Joey's health. What else would you do with a great deal of money?"
"Aw. I don't like to play pretend."
"Indulge me. Your daydreams?"
Those blue eyes. Looking into her eyes was a hot tonic, like shotgunnin' three fingers of tequila. "Awright ... I'd put plenty of dough in a trust fund so all my people here would be guaranteed good care for the rest of their lives. I'd even set up a trust fund for the critters. So if anything happened to me, Rhubarb and Grub and Estrela and the others would get good care. And I'd donate money for more medical clinics on the Seminole reservation down in south Florida. And for schools."
"What would you do for yourrse"
"Get me a Hummer like Glen Tolbert's."
Her eyes widened. "Why?"
"Because I'm a Cracker and a Redneck. Four wheels with a big engine appeals to my simple-minded manhood."
"Oh, please. Your manhood isn't as simple as that."
"Why, thanks."
"Ben."
I thought for a minute. "Even a poor man looks important in a nice car. And even a poor man can get the credit to buy a nice car. When I was growing up, we'd see dirt-poor Seminoles and poor whites and black tenant farmers driving big trucks and Cadillacs. They lived in shacks and trailers but by God they could buy one thing to be proud of They could get a loan for the Cadillac. They couldn't get a bank loan for a decent house."
"Tell me about that Hummer you'd buy."
"It'd be pimped out and tricked up and ... hell, I'd put a wet bar and a TV in the back. I admit it. Just because I'd enjoy picturin' my folks in the back seat, enjoyin' the luxury."
"I see. What else would you do if you had unlimited money?"
"I'd add rooms onto this house, so Joey could have a bigger room and I could have a bigger office, and I'd put in all new windows to keep out the slitherin' things, and central air and heat, and ... and I'd buy me a gold belt buckle with a horse head on it, just cause I like horse heads. A Cracker stud. Custom designed." I waved a hand. "Aw. Stupid stuff"
"No, it's not. Tell me more."
She opened me up. I got more serious. "I'd buy the front part of the Dooley land, the pastures and all, of course."
"A given."
"And I'd put a herd of water buffalo there."
She was sipping her own beer. She nearly spit it on the table. "Water buffalo?"
"Water buffalo." I made horns with my fingers. "Shaggy longhorns. From Thailand and other parts of Asia-"
"Yes, yes. But how did you become enamored of them?"
"I been read n' about `em on the Internet. And I've seen some at auction. I've talked to the county extension agent about `em. They're tough, they don't mind heat and swamps, they're easier to keep than cows, and their milk has so much fat in it, it makes the best cheese in the world."
"Of course. Buffalo mozzarella! Wonderful cheese."
"There ain't many water buffalo in the United States. You could say it's an untapped market. Untapped. Water. Get it?"
She smiled and parked her chin on one hand, looking at me with real affection. "I get it."
"I'd run a water buffalo dairy. You can milk `em, you know. The tame ones, that is. I'd make cheese and yogurt. Don't you smile at me, girl. You're looking at me like people look at Keeber Jentson and his goats. You just can't picture me making yogurt, uh?"
"I'm smiling in a good way. I thought you were a die-hard beef rancher."
"I am."
"Then I don't understand the water buffalo plan."
"You asked me what I'd do if I had all the money in the world. If I could afford to take a chance and change my life."
"I see. If you could ..."
"Yeah. I like the idea of being partners with animals. Give `em a good home, a decent job to do, and they'll earn their keep. They get to live out their lives working for a living and being respected for more than just how good their meat tastes on a bun. Yeah, I'm a bleedin'heart sissy. Don't tell nobody that, either."
"Sissy? No. You're ... the most amazing ..." Her voice broke. "You're sensitive and very admirable. The most thoughtful man I've ever ... very sensitive. And I mean that in a good way." She stood quickly, picked up the meds organizer, and hurried to Joey's room with it.
She'd kissed me with words. That's how it felt. A long, deep, wet kiss.
Veeeee. It's the noise pushed out between your front teeth, perfect for the sharp ears of cattle-herdin' dogs. My dogs veered right and left on that whistle and my hand signal, dartin' like shaggy running backs into the football scrimmage of an all-cow team. A swarm of cows and their weanlilg calves snorted and lumbered this way and that. Dust and wasps rose from the sharp palmetto scrub as the cows plowed through it. The wasps hung in the air like tiny red devils. Give `em another month to mature and they'd be juiced to sting, but not right yet.
The commotion lifted a pair of eagles from their nest in the live oaks that rimmed the pasture. They curled like dark moons against the sun. Squirrels raced up the scaly trunks of cabbage palms. A red-headed woodpecker hung off a cypress fence post like a lineman for the phone company, watching me like I was signaling him, too. Under my legs, the gelding shook his head against a cloud of gnats. The anti-gnat fringe on his bridle danced like a stripper's shimmy.
My cell phone sang. I pulled it off my belt, flicked it open, and frowned at the number. Glen. Conniving bastard. After glancing over to make sure Mac was out of ear shot, I clicked to talk. "Yeah, Glen. What's the problem?"
"Did you think I wouldn't hear about Karen Johnson assaulting J.T.'s daughter?"
"No charges were filed, so as far as I'm concerned, it didn't happen."
"She's violent."
"Nothing to see here, Glen. Move along."
"I haven't seen my brother in a month. Dar's the real problem. I no longer feel welcome at the ranch."
"Just because you tried to screw me outta my barn don't mean you're not welcome to visit."
"I had nothing to do with that mortgage issue. I don't run the bank; I merely sit on the board."
"Glen, I ain't in the mood for this bullshit discussion. Look, you come visit Mac anytime. Karen'll play nice. I've talked to her. You gotta come see your brother. He's been moping about you. He misses you." That last part wasn't true, but I knew Glen liked flattery.
"The future of my relationship with Mac is in your hands. You're the one who sides with Karen Johnson. I've been watching my brother's bank account carefully. The moment I see any large, suspicious withdrawal I'll be on your doorstep, pronto. I won't allow her to worm her way into the Tolbert money."
"Glen, if she gave a shit about money, she wouldn't be working here for the summer."
"She's biding her time. I know the type."
"What type is that, Glen?"
"Never you mind. I want you to know something. I want you to understand how seriously I take this situation. I mean what I say: Push me too far and I'll take Mac away from there."
"That's not gonna happen," I said softly.
"Then what do you intend to about Karen Johnson?"
I intend to marry her.
The thought came to me like it had just been sittin' in a corner, waiting. I didn't say it out loud, and I wasn't sure it could happen. Not anytime soon. But it changed me, it changed my life, and it changed the conversation with Glen. And every conversation I would ever have with Glen, in the future.
"Glen, she says she's leaving at summer's end. If she leaves, she leaves. If she don't, she don't. It's gonna be her choice."
"You're pushing me."
"No, you're pushing me. And I've backed up as far as I intend to go.
I shut the phone and tucked it back in the leather phone-holster on my belt.
Mac and Lily had given it to me for a birthday. It had a handtooled daisy on it. I'd never been able to figure out their passion for that flower, but I knew it was a compliment to me. They depended on me. They trusted me.
I couldn't let `em down. I hoped to God there wouldn't come a choice between them and Karen. I thought of King Solomon in the Bible.
He never had a ranch to run.
Chapter 17
Ben
The party
Miriam and Lula decided we needed a party to celebrate all the good luck we were having, from the barn mortgage to the Spielberg deal, to Tom D. Dooley's land sale, to Karen not gettin' charged with assault, and so forth. Since they didn't want to make Karen blush, they didn't call it by its true name. The 'Thank. God, Karen Johnson's Come Into Our Lives,' party, but instead, they claimed it was a pre-Fourth of July shindig.
In mid-June.
Kara
It was my understanding that we were heralding the approaching summer solstice, the impending arrival of Spielberg's check for the Kissme Woomee movie rights, or the fact that Estrela hadn't tried to bite anyone in at least two weeks. At any rate, I looked forward to a night on the town.
Or ... outside the town, on a back road, in the woods.
From the outside, The Roadkill Bar and Dance Hall was the kind of establishment where patrons sidestepped beer cans and cigarette butts floating in puddles of rainwater in the sandy, pot-holed parking lot.
At least, I hoped it was rainwater.
White lights twinkled spasmodically in a row of short, tough palm trees that fronted a deep front porch hooded in rusty sheets of tin. The enormous porch was strewn with rocking chairs, armchairs, bar stools, and trash cans.
Its thick cypress posts were a community bulletin board for yard sale signs and flyers advertising local festivals, farmer's markets, fish fries and livestock sales. Skulls were the wall decor of choice: Alligator, deer, cattle, horses. I was afraid to look too close. There might be a human cranium in the mix.
The building had once been a bowling alley and was thus formidably large, with a low, flat roof, and it was built of utilitarian sheet metal. Now the metal siding bore esthetically quaint rust streaks and the roofwas home to the creatively tilted carcass of a long-retired stock car.
A Gentle Rain Page 21