“Five minutes.” One of the chefs raises an open hand.
I nod and smile. “I’ll be back,” I say and head over to the corral, which — unlike the last time I saw it — is in full use. Ponies carrying little kids parade in a circle, each one led by a cowboy or cowgirl. On the outside of the corral, the next round of riders impatiently awaits its turn.
I lean on the fence to watch. It takes me back to Webb’s River and my riding lessons at Greener Pastures Ranch.
A voice interrupts my thoughts. “You a rider?”
I look around at the ancient cowboy standing at my shoulder. Where did he come from?
“I’ve done a little, but I’m not very good,” I tell him. “Twice around the corral, and these little people will be better than me.”
He chuckles. “Kids are naturals. I been working with them most of my life. My son and his wife raise horses down the highway a few miles. I live with them. I used to rent this corral and offer riding lessons, but as more and more folks moved away, I just couldn’t make money at it.”
My heart does a mini flip. Could Sam have taken riding lessons from this man? The cowboy answers my question before I even ask it.
“Of course, I wasn’t here when Farrow was really in its heyday. That would’ve been mid fifties, and I didn’t move here until ’93.”
My hopes do a nosedive.
“Farrow was dying even then, but it was still a nice little town. Hard to believe now,” he says, “but there was a time when this corral was busy all the time. There used to be a barn and a grandstand right over there.” He points across the way.
“Why a grandstand?”
I frown. “Why do you say that?”
“Every year more people move away. The bazaar has always drawn a big crowd, but it’s a lot of work to organize, especially when there aren’t many bodies to do it. It’s been around for sixty-four years, but this is the last time. It’s a real shame, I tell you.”
Chapter Eleven
Though it’s only 12:20 when I get to the cemetery, I’m worried that the flower lady has already been and gone. I hurry to the graves of John and Hannah Swan to find out.
There are no fresh flowers, and I breathe a sigh of relief.
But by one o’clock, the woman still hasn’t shown up, so I start reading the headstones to pass the time. Most of my friends think graveyards are scary — or at least morbid. They imagine bodies devoured by maggots and worms, or decaying zombies pushing up through the ground to attack the living. I, on the other hand, find cemeteries peaceful. There’s something comforting about walking among people who are at rest.
By two thirty I’m familiar enough with the graveyard to conduct tours. I know that Barnaby Wacker’s grave is the oldest and Melanie Dufresne’s is the most recent. I know William Hornby Jr. was the youngest person to die — four hours old — and Mable Myerson lived to be 101. I know Drake Hodges was killed during a dispute over a mining claim and the entire Foligno family died in a house fire. Just by reading the markers I have a sense of who lived full and satisfying lives, the people who were much-loved, and the ones who life cheated in some way or another.
A fat raindrop splatters the back of my hand, and I look up. The sky is thick with black clouds. I don’t know when they arrived, but they don’t look like they plan on leaving any time soon.
Splat, splat, splat, splat! As they seriously begin to dump their load, I scurry for my car. I’m barely inside when the sky opens up like the Hoover Dam. The rain pelts down for a good fifteen minutes, bouncing off the hood and windshield like liquid buckshot, and then, suddenly used up, it stops, and a laser beam of sunlight punches a hole in the grey, exposing a lonely little patch of blue.
Through my rear-view mirror I see a car pull up behind me. The driver, a woman, turns off the engine and reaches behind her, retrieving a bouquet of flowers before exiting the vehicle.
She has to be the flower lady.
I want to jump out of my Honda and run over to her before she can even close her car door, but no doubt she’d think I’m a lunatic, so I force myself to stay where I am.
I wait until she’s through the fence. Then I casually let myself out of my car and stroll after her, making sure to keep a reasonable distance between us. Until she stops at the graves of John and Hannah Snow, that is. Then I can’t contain myself any longer.
“Excuse me,” I call as I jog towards her.
She’s on her haunches, reaching for the wilted bouquet, but she glances curiously over her shoulder. “Pardon?”
I force myself back to a walk. “Sorry to bother you. I wonder if you could help me.”
“Car trouble?” she says, looking past me toward the Honda. “I saw you sitting there when I drove up.”
I shake my head and smile. “No, it’s not that.” I point to the graves. “It’s about John and Hannah Swan.”
She looks back at their graves, places the new bouquet of flowers in the recessed vase, and stands up. Then she looks back at me and cocks her head quizzically. “What about them?”
“Are they your family?”
Her eyes narrow. “Why do you ask?”
I take a step back. The last thing I want is to spook her. “Because my father was left on their doorstep when he was a baby,” I blurt. “I’m trying to find out why he was abandoned and who his mother was. I want to know who his family was — who my family is.” I gesture to the fresh bouquet and shrug. “You leave flowers for them, so I thought you might know something.”
The woman smiles sadly and shakes her head. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I don’t know these people. In fact, I don’t know anyone in Farrow. I’m a florist. I have a shop in Merritt. I’m paid to change the flowers each week. I’ve been doing it for years.”
It takes a few seconds for her words to sink in. “Really?” I blink. “Someone pays you to do this? Can you tell me who?” This could be the breakthrough I’ve been waiting for.
She shakes her head again. “I’m afraid not. To be honest, I don’t know myself. All I can tell you is that every six months I get a bank draft for a half year’s worth of flowers.” She sighs. “But I’m afraid that’s coming to an end. A month ago I received a letter from a lawyer in Kamloops, informing me that the person paying for the flowers had died.”
My knees instantly turn to jelly. It’s a wonder they continue to hold me up.
I watch in a daze as the woman stuffs the wilted bouquet into a plastic bag and ties it shut. “So that’s that. My golden goose has flown the coop.” She sighs. “Aw, well, I shouldn’t complain. It was great while it lasted.” As she heads towards her car, she calls back, “Good luck with your search. Sorry I couldn’t help.”
I don’t reply. I’m still too stunned. Sam was the person who arranged for the flowers to be placed at the graves. It had to be him. It’s the only logical explanation. He probably set it up through Bob Morgan. I can check with the lawyer, but I really don’t need to. I know in my heart it’s the truth. It’s such a Sam thing to do.
I kneel down. Some of the flowers in the bouquet are stuck together, so I gently separate them and turn them to show off their blooms. I smile.
“He loved you guys,” I tell Hannah and John, in case they didn’t already know.
It’s after three o’clock. The bazaar will be winding down, but I might still be able to purchase a piece of pottery, so I hop back into my car and head back. At least I think I’m heading back, but my mind is still at the cemetery, thinking about what the florist told me. Somehow I make the wrong turn and before I know it I’m driving into unknown territory. Trees and bush spring up out of nowhere and the paved road narrows into a dirt track, making it impossible to turn around. It’s muddy too, so I’m afraid to stop for fear of getting stuck. I have no choice but to keep going.
I could kick myself. If I’d been concentrating on my driving, I would be back at the community hall by now, instead of in the middle of nowhere. I have visions of running out of road, running out of gas, having my ca
r tipped over by a bear, and spending the night upside down at the end of the world. To make matters worse, the sky is once more black with clouds, and it’s spitting again. I add drowning to my list of worries.
I have just begun to consider putting the car into reverse and backing my way to the main road, when the trees give way to a field. The road isn’t any wider here, but at least there’s room to turn around. Before I can do that, though, I spot a truck about a hundred yards farther on. It’s facing me. Curious, I keep driving.
As I get closer, I realize I’ve seen this truck before. It belongs to the weed whacker girl from the cemetery.
I pull around and park in front of the truck. Then I get out of my car, wander back to the old pickup, and peer inside. There are muddy boot prints on the floor mat, but no sign of the girl. I check out the bed of the truck. It contains a wooden plank, a shovel, a hoe, and a pitchfork, as well as a mound of something covered with a blue plastic tarpaulin. I lift a corner and look underneath.
Mud. Who puts mud in the back of their truck?
I squint out at the fields. On the north side of the road they’re grassy and flat, but on other side they’re hilly and dotted with bushes and trees.
I think about looking for the girl, but why? It’s not like we’re best buds. Far from it. And it’s not as if she can tell me anything about Sam. He would have been gone long before she was even born. And even if she did know something, she’s such a grouch, she would never tell me.
That’s when it dawns on me that it’s time to leave — not just the fields and this muddy road, but Farrow. The prospect catches me by surprise and makes me sad. Not just because I’m no closer to finding Sam than I was before I came, but because I’ll sort of miss the place. In two short days, Farrow has grown on me. It has a laid-back feel that reminds me of Sam. The people are characters, and in its own way the town is charming. The truth is I’ll probably never be back, because if what everyone says is true, there will soon be no Farrow to come back to.
“Hey! Get away from that truck!”
I peer at the hilly field. The girl is staggering towards me behind a wheelbarrow piled with mud. When she reaches the road she lowers the barrow. She’s puffing.
“What do you want?” she grumbles.
“Absolutely nothing,” I say, stepping out of her way. “I took a wrong turn, and this is where it brought me. What are you doing here?”
She glares at me for a second before lowering the truck’s tailgate and pulling back the tarp. “Did anybody ever tell you you’re nosy?”
“Curious, not nosy.”
“Same thing,” she grunts and starts to shovel the mud into the truck.”
“Why are you collecting mud?”
“Clay, not mud.”
“Same thing.”
She snorts and shakes her head. “Shows what you know.”
A raindrop hits me on the top of the head, and I look up. “You better speed up your shovelling,” I say. “It’s starting to rain again, and I’d hate for your mud to get wet.”
She doesn’t answer, just keeps on shovelling. When she’s finished, she pulls the tarp back in place, slides the plank out of the truck to make a ramp, and pushes the wheelbarrow up it. Then she returns the plank to the bed of the truck and hops into the cab.
It would appear our conversation is over, so I head back to my Honda. “Good talking to you. Have a nice day,” I jibe as I pass her.
I start the car and switch on the windshield wipers. The rain is already coming down faster than they can sweep it away. Before pulling onto the road, I check my rear-view mirror to see the girl throw up the hood of her truck and stick her head inside.
Uh-oh. I put the car back into park, grab my umbrella, and head into the rain.
I join her under the hood. “Won’t your truck start?”
She fiddles with some wires then climbs into the truck and turns the key. The motor chokes a couple of times, wheezes, and then dies. She turns the key a couple more times, but there’s nothing. The girl gets out, slams the door, and then slams the hood down too.
“Damn battery’s dead.” She scowls at me like it’s my fault.
“That’s not good,” I say.
“No kidding.”
“So now what?”
Her tone is only slightly more civil as she asks, “Do you have jumper cables?”
“Considering I have no idea what jumper cables are, I couldn’t tell you,” I confess, “but we can look.”
I pop the Honda’s trunk and she roots around inside but comes up empty.
I gesture to my car. “I can give you a ride back to town.”
She shakes her head. “I’ll wait in my truck for the rain to stop.”
I make a face. “And then what? Will the battery miraculously come to life again? Or were you planning to walk to town? If it rains much more, the road will be like quicksand.”
She ignores me.
“You’re just being stubborn,” I tell her as I head back to my vehicle. “You don’t have a choice, and you know it.” I open the door and look back at her. “I’m leaving. So what’s it going to be? Do you want a ride or not?”
Chapter Twelve
For five minutes the only sounds are the rain, the windshield wipers, and the spin and spit of my tires churning up mud. The girl doesn’t say a word, and neither do I. I’m too busy praying my little Honda doesn’t get stuck. I have no idea what she’s doing. Probably thinking up new gripes.
When we finally reach pavement again, I take a deep breath and pat the dash. “Good car.” If it had bogged down in that mud, I don’t know what I would’ve done.
The girl doesn’t actually shift away from me, but she looks like she’s thinking about it. “Do you always talk to your car?”
I remember asking Sam that same question about Lizzy. It’s a memory I’m not willing to let the girl spoil, so I just shrug. “Where do you want me to drop you?”
“Anywhere near town,” she says. “If you’re staying at The Apple Tree, the corner of Fourth Avenue is fine.”
I gesture to the world beyond the windshield. “In case you haven’t noticed, it’s peeing rain out there. You’ll be drenched in thirty seconds. Just tell me where you want to go, and I’ll take you.”
She scowls as if I’m inconveniencing her instead of helping. “Randy’s Service Station then.”
I gawk at her. “There’s a service station in Farrow?”
“Sort of. It used to be a service station. The pumps were taken out years ago, but Randy still has a hoist and his tow truck. He keeps extra cans of gas on hand for emergencies.”
“Good to know,” I say, filing the information away. “Where is this service station?”
“Main Street. The other end of Farrow.”
“If you want, I could take you home. It’s not a problem. Where do you live?”
She shakes her head. “I need my truck. Randy can get it.”
“Tow trucks get stuck too,” I say. “That road is getting really muddy.”
“You haven’t seen Randy’s tow truck. And like I said, I need my vehicle.”
“Why? What’s so important that it can’t wait until tomorrow?”
I feel her glaring at me. “Do you stick your nose into everybody’s business, or am I the only lucky one?”
I take my eyes off the road long enough to glare back at her. “Actually, you should consider yourself lucky. If you talk to everyone like you do me, I’m surprised anybody bothers with you at all. Miss Congeniality you’re not. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone with a bigger chip on her shoulder. It must be tough finding shirts to fit over it.”
My sarcasm rolls right off her. “Har, har, har. Not only are you a busybody, you’re a comedian too.”
I slam on the brakes so hard, we both lurch towards the windshield.
“Hey!” she growls. “What’s your problem?”
“What’s yours?” I snarl back. “All I’m doing is making conversation. People do that, you
know. Why do you have to make a federal case out of everything?”
I expect her to fire back with another smartass comment, but for once she doesn’t say a word. Neither do I, and we spend the rest of the journey in silence.
When I see the red and white sign for Randy’s Service, I feel like the Ancient Mariner about to dump the albatross. I pull up close to the building.
“Thanks,” the girl says as she lets herself out of the car and runs for shelter. She couldn’t sound less sincere if she tried.
“You’re welcome,” I mutter to her retreating back, but I don’t mean it either. I don’t even wait to see if anyone lets her in. I don’t care.
As soon as I’m back on Main Street, my thoughts turn to Vancouver. It’s time to go home. I gassed up my car on Friday, so aside from gathering my things at The Apple Tree, I’m all set. Vancouver is only a few hours from Merritt, so I could easily do the drive this evening. I consider it but then discard the idea. It’s already been a full day, and I don’t relish the thought of highway driving at night in the rain. Better to head out in the morning. Even if I have a leisurely breakfast with George, I can be home by early afternoon. I decide not to tell my mother. It’ll be fun to surprise her. Besides, if she doesn’t know I’m coming, she can’t drive up to provide an escort.
Now that I’ve made the decision to leave Farrow, I start to get excited, though there’s still a part of me that wants to stay. My gut just can’t kick the feeling that the missing link to Sam’s family — to my family — is in this town, and I can find it. All I need is more time.
“Let it go, Dani. It’s wishful thinking,” I scold myself and pull onto the grassy verge in front of The Apple Tree.
As I reach behind me for my backpack, I spy a pair of gloves on the passenger seat. They belong to the girl. “Damn it!” Why did she have to leave them behind? Now I have to hunt her down and return them. I feel my back go up. No, I don’t. It’s not my responsibility. She’s the one who forgot them. What do I care? I’ll just chuck them in the garbage. Problem solved. It’s a nice thought but my over-developed conscience vetoes it. I scowl at the gloves one last time before getting out of my car. I’ll drop them at the service station on my way out of town tomorrow. Maybe.
In Search of Sam Page 7