by Frank Hayes
“One last thing, Micah, before you leave. I was wondering about Michael Stark’s partner. What was his name? What became of him?”
“You know, I really don’t know, but I do remember his name. It was Jessup, Everett Jessup.” Then he turned into the bright light of the hallway and left.
Chapter 18
Virginia looked about the room, more than a little angst-ridden. She had never done anything like this before.
“Don’t worry, the place looks beautiful.” She had been so locked up inside of herself she hadn’t heard the car pull up outside or the door to the kitchen open. “I knocked a couple of times, but when I looked through the window . . . well, I just sorta figured maybe you were feeling a bit overwhelmed. That’s actually why I came a bit early. Thought you wouldn’t mind a little moral support.”
“It’s just that I never planned a party before, much less actually put one together. My grandmother, Audrey, she always took care of anything like this.”
Rosita smiled.
“And knowing Audrey, I bet she did it without a hair out of place.”
“Omigod, I hadn’t thought about that. I haven’t even begun to get ready. I must look a mess.”
“Honey, on your worst day there would be females in this town who would give their eye teeth to look like you do right now. You go upstairs. See if you can improve on perfection. I’ll handle things down here.”
“Thanks, Rosie. I’ll be back soon as I can.” Rosie could hear her running up the stairs as the kitchen door opened. Virgil came in, staggering under an armload of firewood.
“I’ll get the door, Virgil.” As she walked by she grabbed a couple of split pieces of firewood off the mound he was carrying. A few minutes later she brought them into him where he was kneeling in front of the fireplace building a fire. A small glow in the kindling had started to emerge for his efforts. He stood up. The two of them stood there waiting to see if the fire would catch. After a couple of feeble mis-starts, there was a sudden hiss followed by a burst of flame that started licking up the side of a good-sized log.
“Looks like we got liftoff.” Virgil said. “I’ll go get another load.” He turned to go. Rosita put her hand on his arm.
“Virgil, let somebody else get the rest of the wood. You just got out of the hospital.”
“I’m fine, Rosie. Feel like I ought to do something. After all, it’s the first ever Christmas party in this house.”
“Tell you what. You go sit at the kitchen table. Slice up some cheese, make some appetizer trays. It’s got to be done and you probably won’t get light-headed doing it. Dave is outside looking for something to do. He’ll get the wood.” Virgil
After a little nudge, Virgil headed for the kitchen.
He had just finished his fourth tray when Virginia came downstairs. His back was to her. She came over to him and wrapped her arms around him, kissing him on the cheek.
“If I knew that was the payoff for slicing up this cheese, I’d have done it a lot sooner.”
She sat down next to him.
“Guess people will be coming soon.”
“Sure as hell better, otherwise we are going to have to eat all of these apps that I just made.”
She reached over and grabbed a cracker with cheese and an olive on it, popping it into her mouth. Then she stood up, gave Virgil another quick hug.
“I’ll put some of these in by the fireplace.”
Virgil heard footsteps on the porch. Looking outside, he saw Dave Brand with a load of wood. He got up and opened the kitchen door.
“Rosie said you needed more wood.” He walked by Virgil. A minute later he was back. “That should hold for a while.”
“Dave, have a seat. I’m almost finished here.” Virgil motioned to the kitchen chair.
“I’ll get us a beer.”
“Make mine a bottled water or diet soda if you have it, Virgil.” Virgil sat down after placing two bottled waters on the table. “What are you looking at, Virgil?”
“You,” Virgil replied. “Never saw you opt for water over beer before.”
“Yeah, well. Making some changes.”
“You look good, Dave.”
“Lost twenty pounds, stopped smoking over a month ago.”
A slight smile crossed Virgil’s face.
“Would this have anything to do with Rosie’s news?”
“More than a little,” Dave said. “Rosie told me if we’re going to have a baby at this stage of our lives, she doesn’t want to be raising it by herself. To put it in her own words, ‘I didn’t get into this situation without help, so you better not drop dead from drinking too much beer or smoking your head off, because I’ll be too busy to bury you I’ll just take you out to the desert. Let the buzzards and the coyotes have you.’”
Virgil smiled.
“Sure sounds like Rosie. Don’t bet she wouldn’t do it either.” He paused for a moment. “Anyway, I’ve been thinking. Four or five months from now, when the apple’s getting ready to fall from the tree, I was thinking you would come back to Hayward. I figured I’d send Simon or Jimmy down to Redbud. That way you would be close by.”
Dave shook his head.
“I was going to ask you about that, Virgil. Maybe even sooner, if it’s okay with you. I think Rosie is having some anxious moments. We’re not kids, you know.”
“What about you, Dave, any anxious moments?”
“Well, I can’t say I wasn’t floored by the news, but after the smoke cleared, I got to thinking you know it’s going to be a lot different this go-round. When the other three came on the scene we were busier than squirrels getting ready for winter. I was always working a couple of jobs, Rosie too. Then one day when I finally caught my breath I looked around. They had all grown up. Felt somehow like I had missed out. Me and Rosie talked about that a couple of nights ago. We’re not running so hard now, so we can catch our breath. I’m actually kind of feeling like I got a second chance. Kind of like a dream come true. I think Rosie is feeling like that too.”
“Yeah. I kind of get that second chance thing,” Virgil said. A shaft of sunlight broke through the cloud cover, splashing the kitchen with its light. “Looks like Mother Nature is cooperating for this party.”
“Looks like,” Dave responded. “Also looks like some of your guests are here.”
Virgil looked out the window to see a couple of cars coasting to a stop past the corral.
“Could be wrong.” Dave said. “but I think that’s Aunt Clara leading the charge.”
“I’ll be damned. So it is,” Virgil answered as he jumped up. Together they walked out onto the porch. Clara was already out of the car.
“Well, it’s nice to be greeted by two of the best-looking men in the county.” A broad smile crossed her face as she came toward them. She greeted each with a big kiss and a bigger hug. “That alone was worth the drive.”
“Clara, I didn’t know you were coming,” Virgil said.
“Couldn’t miss a good time like this. Chance to see some hometown folks I haven’t seen in a long time. Is that old Indian coming down off that mesa?”
“If Billy can drag him,” Virgil answered.
“I hope so. I love that old man.”
“Sorry, Clara, he’s taken. Got himself a significant other,” Virgil said.
“Good for him. No good being alone.”
“But you are alone.”
“It’s easier for a woman. Women get out more, connect. Men don’t. Guess it’s the way we are hard-wired. Anyway, Dave, where’s that pistol of a wife you have?”
“She’s around, Clara. She’ll be mighty happy to see you. She’s got some news. Has to do with putting off that empty nest thing for quite a few more years.”
“My, oh my. Virgil always said you were the best shot in the county. Guess you are still holding on to that title. Let me get inside and lend a hand. Give Rosie a hug. Virgil, could you put my stuff in my room?” They watched as she gamely climbed the stairs.
“Her room?
” Dave said.
“Yep. Always was, always will be. The fact that she has been gone over fifty years doesn’t change a thing. She was born in that room. I’m going to try to get her back here now that Clyde’s gone, so she can die in it. That’s a long drive from outside El Paso and I can’t get down to her as often as I’d like.”
“Yeah. It’s a worry when folks get older. Clara has got to be in her eighties now. My folks are getting up there too, but at least they are close. What about her boys?”
“One’s up near Seattle married with two or three kids, the other’s single, works down on the rigs in the Gulf. Gets up once or twice a year.” While they had been talking, other cars had been pulling in and lining up along the driveway.
“Looks like you need a traffic cop, Virgil.”
“Think I’m looking at one, Dave. Do you mind?”
“Not at all. I’ll stay out away from the food and the beer as long as I can. Go do your thing.”
• • •
It was a little after eight when Virgil finally got out of the house for a breath of air. It was clear and cold. Stars crowding the night sky seemed brighter without the glow of the moon. He walked to the corral, then turned along the driveway toward the road. His lungs filled with cold night air, his breath escaping in small wisps of vapor. By the time he reached the road, he no longer felt the nighttime chill. He opened the two top snaps of the blue denim jacket he had grabbed off the hook on the wall just inside the kitchen door. He occasionally referred to it as his barn jacket, to be used whenever he was going to engage in some strenuous and maybe dirty work in the barn. The truth of it was, he hadn’t worn the jacket in quite a while. The state of his present life had not allowed much time for the luxury of barn chores. He couldn’t even detect the sweet manure smell that had infused the jacket in the past when he had more time to participate in the day to day on the ranch. Again, it was a marker of how much his life had changed.
He stood at the end of the driveway looking across into the darkness that hid the fields on the other side of the road from his view. There was absolute quiet. No night creature stirred, no car divided the road with the glow from headlights in either direction. He held his breath for a moment, straining to see if he could hear any of the merriment from his home at the end of the long driveway. Nothing, not a sound. No music, no tinkle of a glass or spontaneous laughter to inform the night. He was for an instant the only man alive, the only one on the planet. He let out a long-overdue breath, watching the small cloud rise then dissipate in the night air.
Finally, he turned to walk back. He had a momentary image stirred by his boots scraping the loose stone underfoot of the boy he once was, getting off the school bus running and scattering some of these same stones. He looked at the house, every window lighted. The music of the coming together of so many friends spilling out. The warmth he now felt came from deep within as he retraced his steps. He wished his mom and dad could have been in the waiting group, but that again was a reminder that change is the only constant. He knew to embrace it, to hold on to the moments like this. He quickened his pace as a smile of anticipation grew.
Chapter 19
Clara looked out the window in the bedroom she had been born in over eighty years before. Looking through the same blue eyes but now framed by a face that wore the cares of a long life in every wrinkle. The scene she saw conspired to make time stand still. She could see clear to the ridge where she would ride Nugget every day after she came home from school. Sometimes she would take Sam, her little brother, with her, but most of the time she was alone. She saw herself racing out of the barn on the dry bed of the tractor road, which snaked its way to the first of the low-lying hills. Her father, if he saw her, would yell at her to slow down. “Ease up,” he would say. “Give Nugget a little time to work into it. That’s not a starting gate you came out of. It’s a barn.” She could hear his voice even now, though he’d been gone over sixty years. She barely had any remembrance of her mother. She had died shortly after giving birth to Sam. She thought maybe that was why she grew up more boy than girl.
She could do and did everything there was to do on the ranch. And she loved it. Sam used to tease her. Boys in school did the same when they saw her rope and ride. She wasn’t much like the other girls. She never really worked at being a girl. Her father and her brother even talked to her about it a couple of times, but she was happy doing the things she did and being the way she was. When she got older she came to understand that she didn’t exactly fit the mold. Boys didn’t come around often. Not that she was unattractive. She mentioned it one time to her father when she didn’t get asked to the end-of-year school dance.
“Clara,” he said, “boys don’t like it much when a girl can ride better, rope better and shoot straighter than they can. Unless you plan on not doing those things, the situation ain’t likely to change. Sorry I wasn’t a better mother to you.”
Pop was right. Clara never did stop doing those things and the situation did not change, until Clyde came along. Of course, by then she was closing in on forty. But then like she, Clyde was cut from different fabric. He wasn’t threatened by a woman like Clara. He thought she was a hoot and spent most of his married life bragging about her every chance he got.
She sat at the window a long time until the winter sun finally cleared the highest butte, flooding the room with cold light. She was sitting at the table in the kitchen enjoying a second cup of coffee when Virgil entered the room.
“You’re up early.” He made the comment after glancing at the wall clock, noting it wasn’t quite seven.
“Old people don’t sleep as soundly or as long as young people. Maybe it’s because they know they are running out of time. Don’t want to be caught napping when the reaper comes knocking.”
“That’s a pretty grim thought on a nice morning after a great party,” Virgil responded.
Clara reached out, covering Virgil’s hand with one of her own.
“You are absolutely right, Virgil. And it was a great party. Don’t let an old hag like me drag you down. Guess it’s just that a lot of memories get stirred up when I come here. Can’t escape them. Then last night, seeing folks that I haven’t seen in a long time. Sleeping in my old bed, looking out the window and seeing the world just like it was when I was a girl. Then just when I’m getting ready to buy into the illusion, I get up. My bones are speaking to me, saying, Clara, you are not that young girl anymore. Get over it.”
“Guess we’d all like to stop the clock sometime. I know there’s been more than a couple of times when I would.”
“Maybe the lesson is, we should all try to live in the now more often. Clara replied. “More parties like last night.”
“Definitely. I’m going to make sure of that. If it wasn’t for Virginia, I would have spent another Christmas looking instead of being part of it.”
“Virgil, I’m telling you that girl might just save you from yourself, being swallowed by the world and all its troubles. Your father had your mother to do that, now you have Virginia. Audrey did a good thing not taking that secret to the grave. Then again, she never was predictable. I sometimes wonder how it would have turned out between her and your father if things had been different.”
“Well, for one thing you and I wouldn’t be sitting here having this conversation.”
Clara smiled.
“Guess we wouldn’t have had that nice party we enjoyed either. Guess the only loser in that whole what-if scenario was Audrey, and she died the wealthiest woman in town carrying the town’s name.” Clara paused for a moment, glancing out the window at the bare branches of the cottonwood. “Guess there’s a lesson to be learned in there somewhere.” She made the last comment as she got to her feet. “Time to start the day.”
“Me too,” Virgil replied.
“Can I ask you what you’re about?” Virgil had made it a rule to never discuss details of whatever had his attention at the moment, following the advice of his father: Remember, Virgil, small tow
ns have big ears and even bigger mouths. But this was Clara, who would have to be turned on a spit before she would give up a confidence. He sat back in his chair. Clara sat back down opposite. For the next couple of minutes he talked about his trips down to Cielo and Roscoe Flats and how they had ended with him in Hayward Memorial nursing a bad headache.
“Last night, Ark told me they had to release the boy from the trailer to his family. So now it will become public knowledge who he was and who he wasn’t. I am more than a little concerned about the fallout when whoever is behind this finds out they missed their target. I like Mr. Jessup. Don’t want to see anything happen to him.”
“Did you say Jessup?” Clara asked.
“Yes. He’s a nice man even if I do believe his son put me in the hospital.”
Clara smiled.
“Always was, and I’m mighty glad to hear he still is.”
“You know him?” Virgil asked.
“If his front name is Everett, I surely do. He gave me my first kiss. If Clyde hadn’t come along he would’ve been my second choice if he had been available, but he was snapped up pretty quick. Back then the good ones didn’t hang on the tree too long.”
“But how did you ever get to know him? I mean, Roscoe Flats is almost forty miles away.”
“Virgil, don’t you know a thirsty man will go a long way for a drink. Sixty some odd years ago I doubt there were more than three thousand people in the whole county. Boys on ranches would think nothing of riding thirty miles just to get a look at a pretty girl. Guess it is hard to imagine in a world filled with cell phones and computers and instant messaging. Must seem like a different world to you.” She glanced out the window. Virgil thought he saw her eyes moisten. “There I go again. Getting lost in the past.” Virgil squeezed Clara’s hand.
“Guess it’s part of the cycle of life. We spend the early part looking for what’s coming next. When we get there, it’s flying by so fast we don’t really take notice. Then one day we realize we are spending more and more time looking back. You know, last night when everything was going full-tilt, I took a walk out to the road. Did some remembering of my own. Thought of Mom and Dad. Wished they could have been there having a good time. Thought about getting off the school bus back when it was still a dirt road. That’s when I thought about Virginia. Maybe the key to rolling with life is just that. Knowing that as things, people slip away, other things, other people come along to fill in the vacuum. That’s what keeps us in the present.”