“I saw him last night. He was pounding on the outside wall, drunk, just before the storm hit.”
“Were you going to tell me?” Dorsey knew the answer before Micah shook his head no.
“It’s my responsibility to lookout for you, to protect you. If you don’t tell me these things, how can I do my job?”
“And I can’t let you get sick. I’ve seen how you worry, how it affects you. I don’t want anything to happen to you.” Micah loathed himself for telling the truth, for showing fear. “Such a child,” he heard a voice resonate in his mind. “But I am a child, and I’m afraid,” the silent words reverberated in his head.
“He just pounded and then left?” Micah looked over at Dane before speaking.
Dane shook his head in agreement.
“He dropped an empty whiskey bottle and walked toward the creek,” Micah responded.
“Then I’ll call the sheriff’s and let them know. What’d you do with the bottle?”
“Still there I suppose.” Micah remained quiet for the rest of breakfast.
Back at the barn, Micah opened the cabinet and handled the pistol before doing his chores. Afterward he walked up the hill to work for Mr. Von. It was much too wet to mow the yard, so he agreed to come back on Wednesday. He crossed the street to Willow Wood’s garden and looked across the terrace which was full of weeds. He opened the shed and pulled out some gloves, rubber boots and started pulling the unwanted plants. He worked fast. The sky was once again becoming dense with clouds. The moist soil made the effort easy and soon he had a big pile of green tumble weeds and other rubbish plants stacked in the vacant lot across the alley.
It was mid-afternoon. Tired, covered in mud, and sleepy, Micah climbed the steps of the retaining wall and headed to the backstairs but first stripped his muddy clothes off before stepping into the kitchen. He headed downstairs to the bedroom closet, where his old clothes were stored, retrieving some clean jeans before taking a shower. The water was hot as it spewed forcefully against his skin. His thoughts were back at the barn listening to Harry banging: hearing him clearly; absorbing his anger and hate; sensing his futility. The water from the spray put him into a remote state, and he was once again lying in the dirt, the .22 aimed at the drunk as the thrill of the approaching kill filled him with hunger and bloodlust. A smile crept onto his face as he resolved his problem once and for all; bagging a cretin whose death would be mourned by none; killing before the maniac had a chance to slaughter someone dear.
The shower started running cold, the hot water drained fully from the tank, and Micah stepped out of the shower. “God I’m sleepy,” he said out loud as he dried off and went into his room. He lay on top of the bed, asleep within minutes, dreaming.
Lindy lay beside him: full of love, tenderness, contentment, and tangible; her head poised on his bare shoulder as he held and gently caressed her. The bed floated in a sea of vivid reds, blues and ivories—flowing and twirling in a whirlpool that stretched from one horizon to the other. A dozen rainbows slithered across the sky as the children meshed together in a delicate display of sensuality.
Micah felt a hand on his shoulder shaking him. He jumped and was blinded for a moment by the bedroom light. After a moment, Mr. Dorsey stood above him smiling. “Having a good time?”
At first the boy was a little muddled until he realized that he was clutching his ‘family pride.’ He jumped, turned red and tried to cover himself up. Tom laughed, “Get dressed; I’ll wait in the den.”
Micah looked at the clock, it was past 7:00 and the sun was most of the way down. He threw on his jeans, shirt, and sheepishly walked into the adjacent room where the old man continued to grin.
Tom stood. “It’s an awkward time. Don’t worry, all boys go through this. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.” There was a pause. “I worried when you didn’t show up. Dane is riding around the prairie searching for you. I figured you needed to be alone, and the prairie or Willow Wood is about the only places where you’d find it.” The two walked through the empty house, up the lower stairs to the landing and out the front door to the truck.
Dane met them at the barn, and the two boys walked into the bedroom together. “Do I need to leave? Am I bothering you being around all of the time?” Dane worried that he was driving Micah away.
Micah smiled at his friend. “Naw, you aren’t a bother. I’m glad you’re here. Just because I disappear once in a while doesn’t mean you’re being a pest. It just means I need some time. Mi casa es su casa!”
The boys washed up and went into the kitchen for supper. Mr. Dorsey had spaghetti on the table with Barbera Wine poured for everyone. Micah ate the meat but left most of the pasta. He was finished before Dane and Tom were halfway done. He poured himself another glass of wine. Tom glared and shook his head. As they were finishing the meal, there was a knock at the back door. Micah answered then showed two sheriff deputies in.
“Mr. Dorsey sir,” the young deputy removed his hat when he entered the house. “We interviewed the family of the suspect, and they guarantee that your old foreman is not in town and has not been in town since April.”
Tom looked first at Micah and then at the young man. “Well did they say where he was at?”
“He is at his home in New Orleans, sir.”
“They have an address and telephone number for him?” Tom stood and walked to the kitchen sink.
“They did not.”
“Did you ask?”
The young man lowered his head a little more. “Yes sir.”
The man was lying to cover his ineptitude. Of this, Micah was certain.
“Then you don’t know whether he is here or in Louisiana. You need to call the New Orleans police and verify that he’s there, but I know he’s not. He was here scaring these boys and breaking his restraining order. He is a threat, and you need to take this more seriously. Maybe I just need to speak with Sherriff Grady.” Tom had turned red with anger.
“No need for that sir, we’ll get it handled. We’ll dig him out and report back to you tomorrow. Sorry for the inconvenience,” and the two deputies left in a rush.
“You can be a hard ass when you want to, know that?” Micah sat at the table studying Tom.
“I’m a hard ass all of the time. It comes with the profession.” Tom retreated to his study.
Micah and Dane cleared the table and washed dishes before following the old man. He sat at his desk holding some legal documents but stared blankly at the wall. “Goodnight Tom,” Micah’s voice brought Mr. Dorsey out of his reverie.
“Oh, pleasant dreams,” and Tom started reading the papers in his hand.
“I’m going to Willow Wood to spend the night. You want to come?” Micah watched Dane make a grimace.
“No, not me, that place is bad, and you’re a nut for going back there.”
Micah shrugged and left Dane at the barn. He strolled down the road and wandered up the alleyway. He was not sure why he was headed to Willow Wood. He felt like a moth drawn to a flame. He opened the backdoor and slowly made his way to the den. He turned on the television and sat down, but within a few minutes, he clicked it off and headed back outside and toward the prairie for a run, stopping at the pipeline to stretch and prep himself. The coyotes were nowhere around as he took off toward the playa. His mind was sharp; the half-moon highlighted the loneliness of the range, and the only sound was his footfalls resonating through the otherwise silent domain.
This was not a night for esoteric prayer or meditation but for physical exertion, mechanical and unencumbered. Micah started his interval training. The mindless exercise made him feel alive, and in less than an hour he stood peering across the playa, which was not dry today but covered with a thin layer of water from the storm, and it reflected the moon and stars. Micah discovered that if you stared at the lake’s distant horizon, the sky and the playa appeared to merge into a unity, into a seamless explosion of small, twinkling, starry diamonds.
An owl clutched a branch of a mesquite tree
not 10 paces from where he stood. They exchanged glances for several moments before the boy once again took off in a sprint and circled the lake, which was less than two miles in diameter. He circuited the temporary pond several times before heading back to Willow Wood, where he sat on the back deck analyzing the nightscape. Across the creek, Tierra Verde Elementary sat in darkness. A little further south of the school was his barn lit by a light mounted on the side facing the tree lined creek. And in the distance was the foul stack of the smelter sending plumes of grayish smoke into the otherwise pristine prairie sky.
In the yard, the long uncut grass sparkled with dew, something unusual for the Texas Panhandle. The temperature had hit 90° that day, but the thermometer on the deck hovered around 55° now in the nocturnal solitude; and the moisture held by the air formed droplets on the fertile earth. Micah saw his dad’s ladder lying next to the back garage door. He rose from the wooden planking, climbed onto the railings and sprang from the deck. The extension ladder reminded him of Poppi; how he once followed his dad around and studied how he did everyday things around the house. He missed his father, and Micah blamed himself for his absence, it was an unreasonable thought, but that’s how he felt. The old wooden ladder was heavy, but Micah had no problem lifting it up and positioning it against the house and then climbing to the lower roof. The upper roof shot another five feet above the crest where he stood, and he cautiously jumped and grabbed the eave and pulled himself onto the highest point of Willow Wood. He sat straddling the roof ridge, which was dozens of feet above the ground, and from this high vantage point, Micah could see well beyond the arroyo. In fact, he could see Cory’s house on Bluebonnet, which lay in darkness. Across the street at the Doolen house, a lamp glimmered in the front window, and Micah could see a shadow walk across the room. Tandy had returned from Wheeler.
Micah balanced on the ridge of the shake shingle roof, taking robust steps until he stood on the south flank of the house looking down into the side yard. His whole body tingled in pleasure from standing so close to the edge of the precipice and having no fear of falling. A gentle breeze blew from the southwest, its fragrance a blend of grass, mesquite and honeysuckle. With arms outstretched, he became the golden eagle floating with the afternoon thermals, soaring upwards higher than the clouds, and then diving toward the ground before twitching a few wing feathers altering his descent and sending him gliding over the barrens unscathed once again.
“O God, my God.” Micah uttered not from his conscious mind, but from the deepest part of his nascent soul. With these words and with arms still outspread, he hurdled his body forward falling in slow motion past his parent’s second story bedroom window, hitting the block wall then tumbling the last six feet to the ground.
Micah heard his own shout as he leapt, his arms grasping upward at anything he could grab that would stop his contact with the ground and the inevitable pain of death. He hit the floor hard and lay unmoving and unsure whether or not he was alive. He touched the hardwood where he sat and peered over his parent’s bed where he had been asleep and dreaming. Obviously he was not dead.
It took some time to recover from the nightmare. There was faint light breaking through the window as he stood. Micah was fully clothed except for a missing right shoe. He tried to remember coming into the house to sleep in his Poppi’s bed. The memories were not there. He ran down the back stairs. Perched upright against the garage, fully extended, was the ladder just as he remembered it in his dream. On the south side of the house, the dew covered grass was disturbed, flattened as if someone had lain on the overgrown lawn, and specks of blood were splattered across the ground next to the faint indentation. He examined himself; there was no blood on his clothes and except for a mild headache, he seemed fine. But when he rubbed his head, a crusty, rusty material covered his ears and flaked onto his fingers.
Micah closed his eyes for an instant before looking upward toward the roof. A large owl stood on the crest, the morning sun created a halo surrounding its nodding head, and it studied the boy far below; its claw grasped one of the shake shingles where his shoe dangled, moving back and forth in the gentle breeze. Micah stood transfixed and unthinking for a long time, but then climbed to the rooftop; the owl was gone, and he retrieved his shoe that was caught on the wooden shingle before retreating into the house. Poppi’s bed and pillow were dotted with his blood. He cleaned up before returning to the Dorsey farm, to sanity. He did not understand this experience, and it was one that he needed to forget.
~
Dane watched Micah tread back-and-forth pushing the mower over the too wet lawn, stopping now and then to clean clumps of matted grass from the bottom of the machine. His friend wore only jeans and boots; the afternoon sun glistened off his bare muscled shoulders. Lindy came to watch her boyfriend work, and they exchanged smiles as Micah continued to crisscross the yard. The sun pushed the temp to over 90° and it was more humid than typical for the High Plains. Micah said he needed no help, so Dane talked with Lindy, rode his horse up and down the street, stopped to watch his friend for a few minutes, and then repeated it all over again.
The lawn mower came to a final stop, and the quarter acre lawn was trimmed but studded with fist-sized clots of wet grass. Micah retrieved the wheelbarrow and a couple of rakes. It was time to finish the job, and Dane jumped from the horse and took a rake to help. By the time they were finished, it was evening and the two boys and Lindy led Jax back to the stables. Micah stowed his earnings from Mr. Von, $3, but he gave Dane half for his help.
Micah had hardly said a word all day but by evening he was back to his typical self. They sat at the table drinking lemonade with the old man.
“I’m eating with Lindy tonight, boss,” Micah spoke to Mr. Dorsey, who was surprised by being referred to as “boss.” Micah had never spoken of him that way before, and he was not sure he liked it, but he let it go.
Micah had eaten with the Saari family perhaps a half-dozen times, and it was like being with his cousins in Missouri—there were so many brothers: Marshall, Matthew, Keith and Lance. However, Mr. Saari was a tyrant, unaccepting and unforgiving while the mother was quiet and tender like Lindy. Micah sat between Keith and Lance at the gigantic dining room table. Lindy sat across from him and next to her father, while the mother hardly ever took a seat; she was too busy running back and forth between the table and the kitchen.
Never a word was exchanged between Micah and Mr. Saari until that day. The middle-aged man looked at Micah with a face full of distrust. “What are your intentions with my daughter?” There was no lead-up to the question. It was hurled at Micah like a grenade, intending to do damage in some way and meant to embarrass him in front of all of Lindy’s family. Micah expected this, but not necessarily that particular question. He almost started laughing, because he had heard that line on some television show before and thought it was sort of corny. But Lindy sat wide eyed as her mouth dropped a tad.
“Well,” he thought for a moment, “Probably the same intentions your daughter has for me.” Micah had rapidly considered several responses, which were somewhat off-colored and belligerent. But he decided for this non-response.
Lindy looked at her father, while Marshall and Matthew started laughing. Mr. Saari was quiet for a moment absorbing the answer, and then he smiled. “Think you’re smart?”
“No sir, I know I’m smart.” With Micah’s reply, the chilliness with Mr. Saari was put aside, and the atmosphere lightened and they started a friendly conversation.
“Are you going to Amarillo High next semester?” The father asked, and with that question, Micah knew that Lindy had told her father nothing about him.
“No, I’m going to St. John’s.”
“Nice, so you’re a good Catholic boy?”
Micah nodded his head, “Not sure about how good I am.”
“But apparently you’re honest,” Mr. Saari responded. The remainder of the meal was punctuated with light conversation, something that was new and refreshing for Micah. For once he
felt welcomed in the Saari house.
Lindy walked with Micah to Willow Wood, the pair holding hands as they entered the empty house. “You passed the final.” Lindy teased her beau. “Your answer to dad’s question was perfect.”
Micah just smiled as they walked into the den, where he switched on the radio to listen to a baseball game. The two sat on the couch holding hands and doing what a young couple does; both bound to the other; both careful and sensitive.
“I’ve got to go before Marshall comes looking for me.” Lindy gave him a final kiss at the front door before she walked across the newly cut lawn toward her house.
Micah watched his girl leave, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tandy sprint across the street. “You’re back from Wheeler?”
Tandy punched his friend, “Back to keep you on the straight and narrow. You need to clean your face, it’s covered with smooch-stick,” he grinned at his funny.
They went into the house and Micah washed his face before setting in his dad’s recliner.
“So did you do it?” Tandy had a smug look on his face.
“Do what?” Micah knew very well what his friend meant.
Tandy grabbed a couch pillow and began dry humping it. “You know.”
“Micah picked up a rolled newspaper and tossed it at Tandy, smacking him on the shoulder. “You’re perverted. Even if I had, I wouldn’t tell you.”
Tandy fell back into a sitting position snickering madly. “So you didn’t, huh! But you wanted to. I can tell.”
Micah only smiled, got up, climbed the stairs and headed out the backdoor followed by Tandy.
The two boys went into the kitchen at the Dorsey place. Micah started grazing in the icebox when the old man came in. “Your girl didn’t feed you well enough?” Tom asked.
“Goulash, for God’s sake, it’s always goulash, or macaroni and cheese, or some other crap that no man was ever meant to eat. I need meat and blood, or at least a hamburger,” and he continued to rustle through the leftovers.
Willow Wood Road: Lavender and Sage Page 29