“Valericia, this is Mr. Dupree,” Chet offered, giving a nod of the head to his passenger.
The woman eyed Dupree suspiciously, then gave him a grudging hint of a smile. “ ’Ullo.”
Chet rounded the trailer and offered Dupree a helping hand, which he declined. Dupree used the handrail to help him up the five steps to the porch.
Dupree offered Valericia his hand, she did not unfold her arms, just turned and walked to the front door.
“Don’t mind her. She’s just leery of strangers. She was an RN, she’ll fix you right up.”
As he entered the house Dupree was surprised at the décor. It was surprisingly modern and accented with several pieces of abstract art, not at all what he would have expected in a hundred-year-old farmhouse. The living room was bright and cheerful. A large bouquet of blown glass flowers sat atop a sharp-angled glass table. Dupree followed Valericia into what he expected to be the kitchen. Instead, it was a studio of sorts. There were several easel paintings in various stages of completion. What looked to be a glass cutting table and two large tanks with copper torch heads stood against a tiled wall.
A tall wooden stool stood near the wall to his right. “Sit.” Valericia indicated the stool.
The dull throbbing in his head seemed to be receding. His thought process was back, and the haze of the blow and being ejected from the car were all but gone. Dupree was surprised at the amount of blood he saw when he looked down at the front of his shirt. What did he expect? The sight of the red stain reinforced the severity of his injury.
“I certainly appreciate your kindness. I hope I’m not too big an imposition.”
Dupree tried to muster a smile.
“She’s happy to help, aren’t you?” Chet said, not really expecting an answer.
The cupboard door was open and Valericia pulled out a bottle of alcohol and clean cotton cloth. Above the cupboard was a small counter and on it sat a bowl of steaming water, a group of serious-looking tools, and two packages Dupree couldn’t identify.
As Valericia began to gently wipe Dupree’s upper lip and chin of dried blood, he detected a slight lack of symmetry in what he thought such a pretty face. The corner of her right eye and mouth drooped ever so slightly when she relaxed, which wasn’t often.
“ ’Urt a bit?” she asked softly as she touched his nose for the first time. She squeezed the cloth and let warm water flood the wound. “Broken.”
“You think so?” Chet asked as he approached where Dupree sat. “Let me take a look.” As Chet looked closely at Dupree, he saw for the first time, the dark bruises beginning to form around his eyes. With the blood mostly washed away, the depth of the gash across Dupree’s nose was clearly apparent. “Do you mind?”
Chet gently felt the sides of Dupree’s nose. “Yep, broken alright. You ever broke your nose before?” Chet ran his finger across Dupree’s brow, then back to his nose. I broke mine half a dozen times playing football.
Ever so gently, Chet placed his index and middle finger on either side of Dupree’s nose. Without warning or pausing in his description of his football years, he twisted Dupree’s nose with a hard, rapid right and then immediately left. Dupree shot straight up from the stool and gave a resounding expletive and a deep throaty “argh.”
“Hurts so good, right?” Chet asked.
“What the hell did you do?” Dupree asked in disbelief.
“I just snapped her back. Kind of like popping your knuckles, huh?”
“Not really.” Dupree blew out in a huge sigh. “But you’re right, it was like having your back pop back into place. It hurts kind of but in a good way.”
“Exactly.” Chet smiled.
Dupree looked at Valericia for the first time. She was grinning from ear to ear. The effects of her paralysis were more pronounced than ever, but somehow it diminished her beauty little.
“Saw-ree,” Valericia began, “Good cop, bad cop.”
Chet laughed heartily. “She’s grouchy and I’m Mr. Trustworthy so you never see it coming. I doubt you’d ever let her put you back in place. We used to play that one with our kids.”
“No, it would’ve sounded just too painful. Crazy as it sounds, it doesn’t hurt anymore.”
“Works every time,” Chet assured.
Valericia stepped over to Dupree and guided him back to the stool. “We fix cut now. It ’urt a bit.” She removed two butterfly strips from their packaging and one at a time used them to pull the wound together creating an X between Dupree’s eyes.
Valericia placed her hand on Dupree’s cheek and said, “All done.”
“We need to give him a couple of aspirin.”
“Come.” Valericia indicated the door with a jerk of her head.
As she walked away, Dupree saw a slight limp in her right leg. He followed obediently, once again trying to take in the different artistic mediums across the room. At the doorway, they turned right into a short hallway and into the kitchen.
“Have a seat,” Chet said from behind. “Coffee, tea, or something stronger?”
“Tea sounds good.” Dupree took a chair.
“Now, you’re going to need to blow out the clots. So, if you feel like you need to blow, do it. Sooner the better, the tea will help loosen things up.” Chet tossed a roll of paper towels on the table.
Valericia placed two pills in front of Dupree. “Ass-pur-in,” she said slowly. Turning, she took a glass of water from the counter and handed it to Dupree.
“Vallie had a stroke three years ago. I was afraid I was going to lose her. But, she’s come back with flying colors. Thankfully, it really only affected her speech. They said at first she wouldn’t be able to walk or work her hands. But God was with us, and she gets around without any problems. Piss her off and you’ll see, she can still yell with the best of them.” Chet laughed merrily.
“Stop.” Valericia waggled her finger at Chet. “I don’t yell.”
There was a long break in the conversation. Dupree caught Chet glancing at Valericia, and she gave him a go on kind of look. Chet moved towards the stove, where he waited for the kettle to boil.
“You seem like a pretty nice guy.” Chet cleared his throat nervously. “What happened to put you on the side of the road with your nose bashed in?”
“Fair question. First, though, I want to thank you for taking me in and mending me. Not a lot of people would have. I am grateful.” Dupree looked from one of his hosts to the other. “I was in Stockton and hitched a ride with this guy named Cutter. At first, I just thought he was some stoner goofball. He had all kinds of weird religious beliefs if you could call them that, and some really ridiculous conspiracy theories.
“He smoked a cigar stuffed full of marijuana, and I figured he was harmless. That was until he demanded money for gas. I offered, but he wanted all I had. That’s when he pulled his pistol. I guess I didn’t hand it over fast enough, and he clubbed me with it, kicked me, I mean, literally kicked me with both feet from the car, and that’s where you come in.” Dupree grimaced as he smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
“You know, Mister Dupree…”
“Just Dupree, please.”
“Alright. I’ve seen a lot of hitchhikers in my day. I’ve lived here all my life so that’s quite a few years of bums, soldiers, and hippies with their thumb out. Frankly, you don’t fit the mold. Now, why don’t you tell us what is really going on? You don’t look or speak the part you are trying to play. You’re safe here. You’re not armed, or I don’t think that guy could have got the drop on you.” Chet gave Dupree an upward jerk of his head. “What’s going on?”
“You’ve got a very perceptive eye, my friend. Of course, you’re right. This is the first time I ever hitchhiked in my life.” Dupree gave a soft chuckle. “I am, was, an attorney from Southern California. I got up a couple of days ago and realized I hated my life, wife, and kids. Have you ever wanted to just disappear and make a new start? I seriously contemplated killing myself, but that wouldn’t solve my problem, just end it with
no benefit. So, I was driving to work and decided to turn left instead of right.”
“Just like that.”
“Just like that.” Dupree put his hands up in surrender.
At that moment, the kettle began to whistle. Valericia sat quietly studying Dupree and Chet got up to get the kettle. No one spoke as Chet put three mugs on the table with teabag tags dangling from them. He poured the steaming water in each cup, returned the kettle to the stove, and returned with three spoons and a sugar bowl.
“Sugar?”
“Yes?” Valericia said coyly.
The three laughed, relieving the tension.
“To be honest, the only time I ever considered running off was when I thought I was going to get drafted,” Chet explained. “I was going to be Canada bound. Then I got my acceptance letter to UC Davis and a college deferment. My course was set from that day on. I didn’t know it, but it was about to get real good!”
Valericia slapped Chet’s arm playfully. “He mean he met me.”
“That is the truth. We both went to Davis. I was a full-blown Aggie and Val was studying biology. She planned to be a doctor.”
“Too hard,” she interrupted. “So, I became a nurse.”
“Cheater, you’re getting ahead of the story. Second year there, I was enrolled in a physiology class. Hardest class I was ever in. The prof asked if there was anyone who would like to help him organize study groups.”
“That’s me! Extra credits!” Valericia giggled girlishly.
“Somehow I ended up in her study group.” Chet smiled at his wife.
“I did that too! He was cute,” she stammered.
“If you can imagine such a thing, as pretty as she is now, she was even prettier then!”
“Funny.” Valericia beamed.
The love these two showed for each other pained Dupree. He wanted to celebrate with them, be happy and excited over the love they have shared for so many years, but it made his heart ache. He guessed it was jealousy.
“Something tells me our story isn’t sitting so well with you,” Chet said softly.
“No, it is just something I never had. I guess in a way I’m jealous. Please go on, I’m enjoying the story, really.”
“We got engaged senior year. The only problem was she had to go home. Not just to another state, but Argentina. As a graduation gift, my folks gave me a ticket to go and visit her parents. Here’s a funny. I was so proud of this land and that my great-grandfather settled it, and my grandfather and my dad worked it, that I talked about it a lot. One day I was going on and on. That was the day that this one tells me her folks are ranchers. Well, of course I got all excited. So, I told her we had five hundred acres and asked how many they had.”
“Please, not so nice,” Valericia cut in.
Chet paused for a moment, “She did this cute little giggle and said they had twenty-five thousand acres! I asked what they farmed, she said, ‘No farm, ranch. We raise cattle.’ I did what any Aggie worth their salt would do. Stupid me, I just had to ask how many.” Chet laughed. “She said there were too many to count!”
“I was not bragging, jus’ answerin’ the question.”
“I think that’s incredible,” Dupree said.
“Me too. I was thunderstruck! I loved her more than ever.”
“He loved me for my cows,” Valericia said in a fake pout.
“Right. Anyway, we went to Argentina. Her folks weren’t real happy with the news. But, I guess I grew on them because after the wedding her dad asked me to join the family business. It was an Aggie’s dream come true. I tried, I really did, but after a couple of years I was so homesick I couldn’t stand it.”
“Then his father died,” Valericia said sadly.
“The old man rolled a tractor on himself trying to cross a ditch. The wall crumbled, over she went. They say he died instantly, crushed to death. That was my excuse to come home. I really didn’t think down deep she would come with me. On the airplane home, she told me she was expecting our daughter.”
“My father never let me go if he knew,” she said. “It was good we go.”
“And here we are. El Rancho Grande.” Chet chuckled at his joke. “The ranch went to her older brother so that probably wouldn’t have worked out so well, in the end.”
“That is a great story.”
“Except the ending,” Chet said.
“How’s that?” Dupree frowned.
“Our daughter married a young man who works for the State. They live in Sacramento, so we see them often, but they have no interest in this old place. So when I go, four generations of Weaver’s blood, sweat, and tears go with me.”
“Do you have grandchildren?”
“Three,” Valericia replied beaming with pride.
“Tucker, the oldest, love to come out here on holidays and in the summer and ’elp out. He says he wants to go to UC Davis just like Grandpa and Granma.” Valericia’s pride was showing.
“Well, there you go,” Dupree offered.
“There I go where? He’s just a high school kid,” Chet said.
“He’ll go to UC Davis, right?”
“That the plan,” Valericia replied.
“From the looks of it, you, my friend, are far from dead.”
“I can’t leave it to him. The inheritance taxes alone would bury him. Besides, we can’t leave his sisters anything to equal this place.”
“You don’t have to.” Dupree was slipping into attorney mode. “You create a living trust. You make your grandson primary trustee, and give the girls an annual percentage of the farms net after, what’s your grandson’s name?”
“Tucker.”
“After Tucker is paid a fair ranch manager’s salary, the three of them split the net three ways. If he’s good at his job, the girls get a nice check at the end of the year. If anything happens to Tucker, they split the sale of the place. Unless Tucker has a son, in which case the Weaver Ranch Trust goes to the son or sons with the same agreement. The pie just gets divided into more shares of the net.”
“We can do such a thing?” Chet acted like the door to heaven just opened.
“Got a computer? A printer?”
“Yeah, in the office.”
Dupree rose to his feet, a mug of tea in hand. “Let’s go.”
“What do you mean?” Chet asked.
“It’s what I do.”
Chet and Valericia stood and nearly ran from the room.
“One question!” Dupree called out at their backs.
The pair stopped and turned.
“What about your daughter?”
“She said at Thanksgiving, she wished there was a way Tucker could farm this place.”
The office was a mess; papers, folders, and old Farm Journal magazines stacked everywhere. But on the desk was a brand-new computer.
“What? You think we were igger-unt clod busters?” Chet laughed. “Make yourself at home.”
Dupree was completely in his element. His emotions were swelling as he put his fingers to the keyboard. His head throbbed, but the excitement of helping the Weavers helped him forget it for a while. Three hours, a roast beef sandwich, a Coke, and two more cups of tea later, Dupree finished The Chester and Valericia Weaver Family Trust.
Thanks to a clever IT guy in his office, Dupree’s life was stored in The Cloud complete with unbreakable, untraceable, password and access. Not a soul would ever know he downloaded an unbreakable, iron-clad Trust template, both State and Federal Homestead exemptions, Pioneer Founders Status, and escrow protection instructions to protect generations of Weavers and their descendants from lawsuits challenging the document.
“All done,” Dupree said with a big black-eyed smile. “I’ve marked all the places that need your signatures. They must be notarized. Your bank will probably do it for free.” He held up three envelopes. “These must be mailed as soon as possible. Keep this in the safest place you’ve got. Make sure your daughter and Tucker both know where it is. Do you have a family attorney?”
“Better yet, have them store it in their office with…” Dupree turned back to the computer, and moments later the printer chugged out another sheet of paper. “Sign this and give it to them. It is instructions for what to do in case of your passing.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Chet began. “What do we owe you?”
“You can’t afford me.” Dupree laughed. “Just promise me the next poor guy that comes to you with a broken nose…” Dupree paused. “No, forget that part!”
Valericia bent and gave Dupree a gentle kiss on the cheek. “You are a good man. Please don’t ever hurt yourself.”
“I don’t think that will ever happen,” Dupree said solemnly.
“Thank you, God.” Valericia crossed herself.
“You haven’t told us what your plan is,” Chet said.
“I heard about a little place called White Owl, Washington. That’s where I was heading. So I guess I’ll be back at it.”
“I think not. Your days of hitchhiking ended today.”
“That’s right,” Valericia agreed.
“Tomorrow we will take you to the train and buy you a ticket to get you as close to White Owl as possible, and a bus transfer to get you the rest of the way. It is the least we can do for your generosity.” Chet nodded hard. “And no arguments. We have a spare room you are welcome to and a hot shower. Oh, and that bloody shirt has got to go. I got a closet full of birthday and Christmas shirts, and you are welcome to all you want.”
“I accept. Two will do, it seems a fair trade, for services rendered.”
“Not hardly, but it is a deal!” Chet thrust out his hand and Dupree shook it firmly.
As he stepped into the bathroom, he caught his reflection in the mirror over the sink. What he saw shocked him. Both his eyes were black and swollen. His nose was a small eggplant in the middle of his face. The stubble of three days’ growth of beard did nothing to help the frightening face in front of him. Dupree ran his hands through his hair.
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