Sequel to Somewhere West of Laramie. Promised a year ago, and almost didn't make it in time this year.
Complete as of Christmas afternoon.
Complete as of Christmas afternoon.
Last edited:
Fiction: The Sins of the Fathers
- Thread starter Casey Jones
- Start date
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The rain tapped a steady drumbeat on the roof. Seemingly cardboard, with the dull thuds melding together. A rhythmic drip off the eaves outside, offered a counterpoint.
The crash of dishes in the sink, gave an irregular rhythm – reminiscent of Frank Zappa.
A woman was washing the breakfast dishes. A strange woman - who was the mother of my child.
Who I didn’t know existed until she was practically an adult. Whom I met by absolute chance.
The kitchen,the roof, was on a double-wide, a “manufactured home.” It was mine - my name was on the deed
The woman lived there. This was my property, it was her home.
The rhythmic drumbeat on the roof increased.
I stared into my coffee mug. My head was throbbing. I had taken a motel the night before, and left before sunrise to make it here before noon.
To this fallow farm, property of my dead father, ceded to me years ago.
The purpose was a family holiday get-together and planning session. My daughter, who I knew only as a late-teenager, was coming in. She to see her mother, who was essentially a stranger as well. And to bring a stranger also – a young man, who coming for reasons beyond the obvious.
In the corner of the kitchen was a wood stove. Put in by my father – likely while on his second twelve-pack. The stovepipe wasn’t lined up well, from appearances. Not skookum, as lumberjacks would say in the Pacific Northwest. But good enough.
But probably not for insurance companies. I don’t know how Kendra was making out with that. I didn’t hold insurance on the property – the land was paid for. The outbuildings were of minimal value. The double-wide was well-enough preserved, although it had developed a rodent problem while standing empty; but for the hassle, I’d probably have had the trailers razed, or given them to Habitat for Humanity.
I had shown up early to do the airport-limo number. Kendra would be busy with her animals. The farm had become a horse-rescue center and no-kill dog shelter. I’d planned to head into Indianapolis to pick the two up – Valerie and Travis.
“Do you have a time or flight number?” The hatred seemed a palpable undercurrent. She hated me; hated where her involvement with me had taken her. It wasn’t unreasonable that she did.
“They’re not flying,” Kendra said. “Rochester’s locked in with a lake-effect storm. Buffalo, too – they’d have had to drive to Columbus or Pittsburgh to be sure of a flight, and that’s over halfway. So they’re just gonna take his truck.”
Is he crazy? I thought. Valerie had told me, in passing, of his truck. A 1957 Studebaker, or something – he’d partially restored it with a modern engine. Just the thing for bouncing around town at Cornell. Not so much for a cross-country run in winter weather.
“I hope he knows what he’s doing,” I said. “He’s got an old truck he’s restoring. Unless they’re renting a car. Did you ask?”
“I didn’t think to. Valerie said, once they get out of the band of lake-effect, it’ll be clear driving.”
The rain kept on.
We were outside Terre Haute. - twenty acres of land I’d inherited from my late father, who had landed here out of alcoholism and madness, to withdraw from life.
This was the kind of winter weather I’d seen much of in Seattle, but without the green canopy. The sky was dark-grey; but the land around was flat and treeless. There were a couple of Douglas Fir trees south of the trailer to provide some shade, but they needed regular watering. When a tornado came – when, not if – they’d be easily uprooted. But the trailers wouldn’t survive a tornado anyway.
Que sera sera. Everything is temporary.
I stared some more into my coffee mug, I’d been here two hours, and already I was worn down.
Kendra scowled into the sink, the stack of dishes; out the window. She wiped the counter with suppressed, or exaggerated, anger. She didn’t want me here, any more than I wanted to be here.
She hated me. She hated that we shared a past – me a drifting Lothario, she a teeny-bopper fresh out of school. She was from Portland; I was from Buffalo. She settled into what career she had, in Chicago; I wound up an entrepreneur in Seattle. She was suppressing rage – at me, at men; that her daughter was an adult and would be accompanied by a man.
She didn’t dare even think that she hated her daughter, but probably she did, also.
I didn’t think our arrangement would last even this long. It was to basically kill two birds with one stone – I had inherited this land, this double-wide, from my father, unexpectedly. It wasn’t any place I’d wanted to live at or even deal with selling.
On the trip to meet with the estate’s attorney, I found myself traveling with a teenaged girl – who turned out to be, plausibly, my daughter. Based on information her mother gave her.
Her mother. This angry woman. The woman-child I had been playing house with, years earlier. Kendra, her name was. I’d almost forgotten the name, before that trip.
Kendra had thrown me out, gone back to Momma, before she realized she was with child. She did not contact me. Did she even try? I don’t remember clearly enough to know if she could, even. I was a drifter, before becoming a railroader and then a consultant.
Kendra had done the only thing she knew to do – a girl with a high-school education, who knew flirtation but not much else. She became an “escort.”
Her parents became the caretakers of the child.
Years later, teenage rebellion led to the grandmother putting the girl out. She was on a Bataan Death Ride to Chicago, to move in with her mother, an aging sex-worker...when I appeared.
The vagueries of chance. Or the Hand of God. I do not know.
So there I was, with land I didn’t want, a daughter I didn’t know, a woman who I at least owed some responsibility to. Mother and daughter wouldn’t go together in a Chicago high-rise apartment – and not the way she had been making money, and especially since Mom, late 30s ,was approaching her SELL BY date.
There was nothing for me to do but sit down in the midst, between the woman who spurned me, the daughter I didn’t know, and see what there was we could do.
The crash of dishes in the sink, gave an irregular rhythm – reminiscent of Frank Zappa.
A woman was washing the breakfast dishes. A strange woman - who was the mother of my child.
Who I didn’t know existed until she was practically an adult. Whom I met by absolute chance.
The kitchen,the roof, was on a double-wide, a “manufactured home.” It was mine - my name was on the deed
The woman lived there. This was my property, it was her home.
The rhythmic drumbeat on the roof increased.
I stared into my coffee mug. My head was throbbing. I had taken a motel the night before, and left before sunrise to make it here before noon.
To this fallow farm, property of my dead father, ceded to me years ago.
The purpose was a family holiday get-together and planning session. My daughter, who I knew only as a late-teenager, was coming in. She to see her mother, who was essentially a stranger as well. And to bring a stranger also – a young man, who coming for reasons beyond the obvious.
In the corner of the kitchen was a wood stove. Put in by my father – likely while on his second twelve-pack. The stovepipe wasn’t lined up well, from appearances. Not skookum, as lumberjacks would say in the Pacific Northwest. But good enough.
But probably not for insurance companies. I don’t know how Kendra was making out with that. I didn’t hold insurance on the property – the land was paid for. The outbuildings were of minimal value. The double-wide was well-enough preserved, although it had developed a rodent problem while standing empty; but for the hassle, I’d probably have had the trailers razed, or given them to Habitat for Humanity.
I had shown up early to do the airport-limo number. Kendra would be busy with her animals. The farm had become a horse-rescue center and no-kill dog shelter. I’d planned to head into Indianapolis to pick the two up – Valerie and Travis.
“Do you have a time or flight number?” The hatred seemed a palpable undercurrent. She hated me; hated where her involvement with me had taken her. It wasn’t unreasonable that she did.
“They’re not flying,” Kendra said. “Rochester’s locked in with a lake-effect storm. Buffalo, too – they’d have had to drive to Columbus or Pittsburgh to be sure of a flight, and that’s over halfway. So they’re just gonna take his truck.”
Is he crazy? I thought. Valerie had told me, in passing, of his truck. A 1957 Studebaker, or something – he’d partially restored it with a modern engine. Just the thing for bouncing around town at Cornell. Not so much for a cross-country run in winter weather.
“I hope he knows what he’s doing,” I said. “He’s got an old truck he’s restoring. Unless they’re renting a car. Did you ask?”
“I didn’t think to. Valerie said, once they get out of the band of lake-effect, it’ll be clear driving.”
The rain kept on.
We were outside Terre Haute. - twenty acres of land I’d inherited from my late father, who had landed here out of alcoholism and madness, to withdraw from life.
This was the kind of winter weather I’d seen much of in Seattle, but without the green canopy. The sky was dark-grey; but the land around was flat and treeless. There were a couple of Douglas Fir trees south of the trailer to provide some shade, but they needed regular watering. When a tornado came – when, not if – they’d be easily uprooted. But the trailers wouldn’t survive a tornado anyway.
Que sera sera. Everything is temporary.
I stared some more into my coffee mug, I’d been here two hours, and already I was worn down.
Kendra scowled into the sink, the stack of dishes; out the window. She wiped the counter with suppressed, or exaggerated, anger. She didn’t want me here, any more than I wanted to be here.
She hated me. She hated that we shared a past – me a drifting Lothario, she a teeny-bopper fresh out of school. She was from Portland; I was from Buffalo. She settled into what career she had, in Chicago; I wound up an entrepreneur in Seattle. She was suppressing rage – at me, at men; that her daughter was an adult and would be accompanied by a man.
She didn’t dare even think that she hated her daughter, but probably she did, also.
I didn’t think our arrangement would last even this long. It was to basically kill two birds with one stone – I had inherited this land, this double-wide, from my father, unexpectedly. It wasn’t any place I’d wanted to live at or even deal with selling.
On the trip to meet with the estate’s attorney, I found myself traveling with a teenaged girl – who turned out to be, plausibly, my daughter. Based on information her mother gave her.
Her mother. This angry woman. The woman-child I had been playing house with, years earlier. Kendra, her name was. I’d almost forgotten the name, before that trip.
Kendra had thrown me out, gone back to Momma, before she realized she was with child. She did not contact me. Did she even try? I don’t remember clearly enough to know if she could, even. I was a drifter, before becoming a railroader and then a consultant.
Kendra had done the only thing she knew to do – a girl with a high-school education, who knew flirtation but not much else. She became an “escort.”
Her parents became the caretakers of the child.
Years later, teenage rebellion led to the grandmother putting the girl out. She was on a Bataan Death Ride to Chicago, to move in with her mother, an aging sex-worker...when I appeared.
The vagueries of chance. Or the Hand of God. I do not know.
So there I was, with land I didn’t want, a daughter I didn’t know, a woman who I at least owed some responsibility to. Mother and daughter wouldn’t go together in a Chicago high-rise apartment – and not the way she had been making money, and especially since Mom, late 30s ,was approaching her SELL BY date.
There was nothing for me to do but sit down in the midst, between the woman who spurned me, the daughter I didn’t know, and see what there was we could do.
There was a way out. Kendra had an interest, one unlikely to lead to income, but she had it.
She loved animals. She hadn’t had much experience with them, but had met and sometimes dealt with other people’s dogs. Dogs...cats...when she was young, she wanted a horse. All little girls do. It never came to anything, but there it was.
It disturbed her, to read of how shelters dealt with unwanted pets. Two days, or two weeks, and down they went. Some operators ran no-kill shelters. She had no clue the economics of it, but it was a noble idea.
Not in a Chicago high-rise, though. And no chance of getting out of it. She was more responsible than many in her world – she’d apparently avoided the lure of drugs, although her hard living was starting to show.
She had allowed as how maybe my father’s land could be set up as a no-kill adoption shelter. Perhaps a horse rescue.
Of course, she would need help; that would have to be volunteer help. She would need income – that would mean setting up a non-profit of some sort.
Perhaps, she said, I could donate the land to a non-profit that we created, that she could use as the basis.
Actually, it made sense. To pay Estate Tax, I would either have to take a mortgage on the land or sell it. Donation would defer much of that.
She could occupy the double-wide, as caretaker for the non-profit. She would be liable for legal fees and what taxes were still due.
Costs of operation would be her problem. The estate’s donation would be conditional and the land revert to me if she were found in default of obligations.
In the fullness of time, it was so done. I was actually impressed with how well she’d organized it.
It required work. Her operation was being identified as a non-profit. She got 4H volunteers; had taken Community Service offenders; had a part-time employee; and she did much of it herself.
Which was her trajectory this moment. She didn’t ask for help; and I didn’t know enough about it to offer it. I knew the buildings, that’s all – from when I’d cleaned it out after my father’s death. Kendra had free reign to make changes.
The rain fell harder. All she had to do was ask.
SNOW WAS FALLING, as Valerie walked out the lobby door of the apartment complex, to the truck. Travis had double-parked it close to the door. She tried to work the military-style duffle over her shoulders, and then gave up. Too much weight.
Travis had swept the snow out of the truck bed. It was wet, the metal and the snow, but their dufflebags were rubber lined. Valerie pushed them snug against the header board, opened the Binder’s door, and slid in.
The Binder. Travis had brought it up from home as a joke. He’d rebuilt it – newer engine, paint, tires and brakes and whatnot – and thought he’d take it up to Ithaca. If he was gonna be looked down on, by these Manhattan scions, as a rube cowboy, then, he said, why not look the part. It was a 1957 International, only with a modern Jeep engine and transmission.
The heater was pumping out heat well enough, although the defrosters weren’t overly-well designed. Fog formed on the windshield, with two patchy spots, much to match the two unconnected patches of the old-style windshield wipers.
At least the truck had four wheel drive. And modern seat belts.
Valerie squirmed in the seat – it wasn’t uncomfortable, the seats were out of the same Jeep that donated the motor – but she knew it would be a long day, a long trip, and she wasn’t liking it. Not in this weather. In any weather.
The equipment was modern but still the cab was noisy, in a way that trucks had been forty years earlier. It was midmorning – a late start, but she’d wasted time trying to figure out if there was any way to fly, even if not directly. Nope, the major airports were closed, all along the Lake-Effect snowfield.
Travis had steered the truck out of town, southward.
“You gonna take the Thruway?” she asked.
“The Southern Tier. Cut a hundred miles off.” The relatively-new route across the state, in the process of being made into a new Interstate, had a lot less traffic. The weather patterns were in question – far south of Lake Ontario; but dipping into the Allegheny Mountain region.
“Sure, but this thing? It gonna be okay on the freeway?”
“I got it up here from Texas, didn’t I? It’s got 18-inch wheels, studded snow tires, four wheel drive. AND more power than it was built with.” That was the truth – it surprised Travis, as he was piecing the job together, to find that the four-cylinder Jeep engine out of a TJ, had more power than the Blue Diamond six that the truck had come with.
Travis had wanted a modern engine. As International had sometimes used Rambler sixes in the 1960s – depending on how the combine business was going, often times their ag-equipment business soaked up the capacity for the Blue Diamond engines – since there’d been some interchangeability, he thought of putting a Jeep six, the same engine, later year. The Jeep Six was renowned for long life and durability. There were conversion kits based on factory parts – because of past cross-pollination.
Only trouble: Jeep sixes were unobtanium. Once Jeep fell into foreign ownership and the six discontinued, the engine, and Jeeps with them, became a commodity.
And about that time, a friend had mentioned he had some Jeep parts. He’d rolled his TJ, hard, and the airbags had gone off. Insurance write-off. The friend bought it back, but changed his mind on rebuilding it.
It had a four-cylinder.
BUT...and Travis hadn’t known this...that four pumped out 189 horsepower. The factory Blue Diamond engine in this A-100 Binder, pumped out 110 horses. A considerable upgrade in power.
The four was lighter, more compact; it had been used in many applications where the bigger six was an upgrade. So again there were ways to mix-and-match engine mounts.
And the bell housings were the same. The adapter kit for a Rambler six would work with a Jeep four. Frankentruck!
He thought of that as he worked the Binder up to speed, aiming towards the Thruway interchange some distance away. The worst thing that could happen, he thought,was a breakdown in a strange town without tools or room to work. He could fix most problems likely to happen on the road. A shop, not so much. He didn’t want to have to explain the engine, or the Jeep wiring harness and computer sensors all up and down, most of them with dummy sensors.
She loved animals. She hadn’t had much experience with them, but had met and sometimes dealt with other people’s dogs. Dogs...cats...when she was young, she wanted a horse. All little girls do. It never came to anything, but there it was.
It disturbed her, to read of how shelters dealt with unwanted pets. Two days, or two weeks, and down they went. Some operators ran no-kill shelters. She had no clue the economics of it, but it was a noble idea.
Not in a Chicago high-rise, though. And no chance of getting out of it. She was more responsible than many in her world – she’d apparently avoided the lure of drugs, although her hard living was starting to show.
She had allowed as how maybe my father’s land could be set up as a no-kill adoption shelter. Perhaps a horse rescue.
Of course, she would need help; that would have to be volunteer help. She would need income – that would mean setting up a non-profit of some sort.
Perhaps, she said, I could donate the land to a non-profit that we created, that she could use as the basis.
Actually, it made sense. To pay Estate Tax, I would either have to take a mortgage on the land or sell it. Donation would defer much of that.
She could occupy the double-wide, as caretaker for the non-profit. She would be liable for legal fees and what taxes were still due.
Costs of operation would be her problem. The estate’s donation would be conditional and the land revert to me if she were found in default of obligations.
In the fullness of time, it was so done. I was actually impressed with how well she’d organized it.
It required work. Her operation was being identified as a non-profit. She got 4H volunteers; had taken Community Service offenders; had a part-time employee; and she did much of it herself.
Which was her trajectory this moment. She didn’t ask for help; and I didn’t know enough about it to offer it. I knew the buildings, that’s all – from when I’d cleaned it out after my father’s death. Kendra had free reign to make changes.
The rain fell harder. All she had to do was ask.
SNOW WAS FALLING, as Valerie walked out the lobby door of the apartment complex, to the truck. Travis had double-parked it close to the door. She tried to work the military-style duffle over her shoulders, and then gave up. Too much weight.
Travis had swept the snow out of the truck bed. It was wet, the metal and the snow, but their dufflebags were rubber lined. Valerie pushed them snug against the header board, opened the Binder’s door, and slid in.
The Binder. Travis had brought it up from home as a joke. He’d rebuilt it – newer engine, paint, tires and brakes and whatnot – and thought he’d take it up to Ithaca. If he was gonna be looked down on, by these Manhattan scions, as a rube cowboy, then, he said, why not look the part. It was a 1957 International, only with a modern Jeep engine and transmission.
The heater was pumping out heat well enough, although the defrosters weren’t overly-well designed. Fog formed on the windshield, with two patchy spots, much to match the two unconnected patches of the old-style windshield wipers.
At least the truck had four wheel drive. And modern seat belts.
Valerie squirmed in the seat – it wasn’t uncomfortable, the seats were out of the same Jeep that donated the motor – but she knew it would be a long day, a long trip, and she wasn’t liking it. Not in this weather. In any weather.
The equipment was modern but still the cab was noisy, in a way that trucks had been forty years earlier. It was midmorning – a late start, but she’d wasted time trying to figure out if there was any way to fly, even if not directly. Nope, the major airports were closed, all along the Lake-Effect snowfield.
Travis had steered the truck out of town, southward.
“You gonna take the Thruway?” she asked.
“The Southern Tier. Cut a hundred miles off.” The relatively-new route across the state, in the process of being made into a new Interstate, had a lot less traffic. The weather patterns were in question – far south of Lake Ontario; but dipping into the Allegheny Mountain region.
“Sure, but this thing? It gonna be okay on the freeway?”
“I got it up here from Texas, didn’t I? It’s got 18-inch wheels, studded snow tires, four wheel drive. AND more power than it was built with.” That was the truth – it surprised Travis, as he was piecing the job together, to find that the four-cylinder Jeep engine out of a TJ, had more power than the Blue Diamond six that the truck had come with.
Travis had wanted a modern engine. As International had sometimes used Rambler sixes in the 1960s – depending on how the combine business was going, often times their ag-equipment business soaked up the capacity for the Blue Diamond engines – since there’d been some interchangeability, he thought of putting a Jeep six, the same engine, later year. The Jeep Six was renowned for long life and durability. There were conversion kits based on factory parts – because of past cross-pollination.
Only trouble: Jeep sixes were unobtanium. Once Jeep fell into foreign ownership and the six discontinued, the engine, and Jeeps with them, became a commodity.
And about that time, a friend had mentioned he had some Jeep parts. He’d rolled his TJ, hard, and the airbags had gone off. Insurance write-off. The friend bought it back, but changed his mind on rebuilding it.
It had a four-cylinder.
BUT...and Travis hadn’t known this...that four pumped out 189 horsepower. The factory Blue Diamond engine in this A-100 Binder, pumped out 110 horses. A considerable upgrade in power.
The four was lighter, more compact; it had been used in many applications where the bigger six was an upgrade. So again there were ways to mix-and-match engine mounts.
And the bell housings were the same. The adapter kit for a Rambler six would work with a Jeep four. Frankentruck!
He thought of that as he worked the Binder up to speed, aiming towards the Thruway interchange some distance away. The worst thing that could happen, he thought,was a breakdown in a strange town without tools or room to work. He could fix most problems likely to happen on the road. A shop, not so much. He didn’t want to have to explain the engine, or the Jeep wiring harness and computer sensors all up and down, most of them with dummy sensors.
There was no sound system in the truck. Long day ahead, for sure.
Valerie regarded him, silently, as he drove. He was so different from what she’d imagined a Texas boy would be like...he was no boy, to start with. Texas National Guard, a tour in Afghanistan. Four years older than she.
But no male ego to trip over. The boys she’d known, in Spokane and later Missoula, were self-centered – either preoccupied with sex, or in frantic need of ego stroking. They wanted to be adored – and to be supplied, with sexual favors, or at least allowed pretenses to friends. A few teachers had dropped hints – she was getting the idea that that was how the world worked, but it was tiresome.
Even Rob, her father. She met him on a train – having no idea; that would come out as complete accident. She was devastated with family problems. He chatted her up, gave her an almost-fake name, bought her some lunch, got her half drunk on his private traveling stash. She wondered how that night would have gone had she not accidentally learned his real name – that of the man she’d been told was her father.
Travis was different. His accent and his stories of life on a ranch, covered a man thoughtful yet keenly observant. He’d picked her out of a crowd, and suggested they lunch together outside on a bench. She could see his eyes, working her over – not with lust, but the way she had seen him observe and examine animal patients. There was a wall there, but she didn’t sense anger or violence behind it.
She had brought a paperback and a book of crossword puzzles to pass the time, but even with all the snow, even in late morning, it was too dim in the cab. Irritated, Valerie shifted in her seat; found the seatback reclining handle on the repurposed Wrangler seats. The recliner worked; but the seatback was up against the back wall of the cab. She snorted, tried to ball up as best she could, under the three-point belts, and closed her eyes.
Travis observed the struggle and gave a wry half-smile. She didn’t take the belts off. That was a fight he was ready for. It was his ironclad rule that everyone in that truck be belted in. The mechanics were modern, but the dash was 1957. Thick, unyeilding metal.
THE MICROWAVE beeped off, done heating a cup of cooling morning coffee. Since I’d had to get up to answer the phone, I thought I’d pour myself another. It was cold. Kendra’s new coffeemaker used an insulated carafe, not a hot plate. At least there was no danger forgetting to turn the thing off – it clicked off once brewing was done.
Kendra came in at a trot – she’d heard the phone ring, from an outside ringer. I don’t know why she had it installed – it was nearly impossible to get back in from the outbuildings; but she had had it put up.
“Did you get that call?”
“Yeah. It was your help – Melissa? She asked if she could pass today. Said it’s freezing rain out at her place.”
“Not surprised. She’s always got a reason she wants time off, or to leave early.”
I hadn’t met this woman, but I don’t know that I’d get all gung ho cleaning up dog runs and exercise areas, either.
“Rob.” Kendra caught my eye. “Any chance I could get you to do a little clean-up, of sorts, before you head back?”
“What you have in mind?”
“That junk in the equipment barn.” I was silent a moment.
The equipment barn was a smaller shed, not the horse barn, and not the dog kennel. When it was an active farm, it was obviously meant for various tractors and trucks. Kendra kept her truck and small tractor in there.
In the back, under dust, sat an old Ford Pinto wagon. My old car. I had a history with it.
“You mean, the old Pinto?”
“Yes. It’s junk; it’s in the way. It would really help if you could haul it off, or sell it, or something.”
“It’s not junk. It’s an antique - 35 years old. And, before I turned the place over to you, I had it running.” It was true. I had it running because I’d put it back together. My father had for some reason taken it apart – he’d just put a new timing belt on the thing. And then had the coronary that had killed him. Alone – sprawled out in front of it. Two days later the mailman found him in the barn, door open, drop-lamp still on.
For whatever reason – and because the thing was mine anyway; I’d stored it there, before he threw me off – for the memories, I completed the job. It wasn’t hard – score one for old cars! Easy to fix. I had washed it, drove it around the area a few hours, put it back in the barn, and left it sit just the way it had been for years before.
It still wore the Texas plates it had when I hid it – a placard of memories.
“Okay. I’ll move it, but not now. Let it go until spring, okay? Let me find a place to put it, or a buyer.” Those were the least of my worries. Something was telling me I was gonna want that car. Not sure how or why; but sometimes I get hunches and sometimes they pay off.
Kendra, for her part, rolled her eyes. She’d surmised she’d gotten her answer – NO.
Outside, the rain was easing up. The pitter-patter on the roof was getting quieter. White flakes were now mixed with the rain.
Valerie regarded him, silently, as he drove. He was so different from what she’d imagined a Texas boy would be like...he was no boy, to start with. Texas National Guard, a tour in Afghanistan. Four years older than she.
But no male ego to trip over. The boys she’d known, in Spokane and later Missoula, were self-centered – either preoccupied with sex, or in frantic need of ego stroking. They wanted to be adored – and to be supplied, with sexual favors, or at least allowed pretenses to friends. A few teachers had dropped hints – she was getting the idea that that was how the world worked, but it was tiresome.
Even Rob, her father. She met him on a train – having no idea; that would come out as complete accident. She was devastated with family problems. He chatted her up, gave her an almost-fake name, bought her some lunch, got her half drunk on his private traveling stash. She wondered how that night would have gone had she not accidentally learned his real name – that of the man she’d been told was her father.
Travis was different. His accent and his stories of life on a ranch, covered a man thoughtful yet keenly observant. He’d picked her out of a crowd, and suggested they lunch together outside on a bench. She could see his eyes, working her over – not with lust, but the way she had seen him observe and examine animal patients. There was a wall there, but she didn’t sense anger or violence behind it.
She had brought a paperback and a book of crossword puzzles to pass the time, but even with all the snow, even in late morning, it was too dim in the cab. Irritated, Valerie shifted in her seat; found the seatback reclining handle on the repurposed Wrangler seats. The recliner worked; but the seatback was up against the back wall of the cab. She snorted, tried to ball up as best she could, under the three-point belts, and closed her eyes.
Travis observed the struggle and gave a wry half-smile. She didn’t take the belts off. That was a fight he was ready for. It was his ironclad rule that everyone in that truck be belted in. The mechanics were modern, but the dash was 1957. Thick, unyeilding metal.
THE MICROWAVE beeped off, done heating a cup of cooling morning coffee. Since I’d had to get up to answer the phone, I thought I’d pour myself another. It was cold. Kendra’s new coffeemaker used an insulated carafe, not a hot plate. At least there was no danger forgetting to turn the thing off – it clicked off once brewing was done.
Kendra came in at a trot – she’d heard the phone ring, from an outside ringer. I don’t know why she had it installed – it was nearly impossible to get back in from the outbuildings; but she had had it put up.
“Did you get that call?”
“Yeah. It was your help – Melissa? She asked if she could pass today. Said it’s freezing rain out at her place.”
“Not surprised. She’s always got a reason she wants time off, or to leave early.”
I hadn’t met this woman, but I don’t know that I’d get all gung ho cleaning up dog runs and exercise areas, either.
“Rob.” Kendra caught my eye. “Any chance I could get you to do a little clean-up, of sorts, before you head back?”
“What you have in mind?”
“That junk in the equipment barn.” I was silent a moment.
The equipment barn was a smaller shed, not the horse barn, and not the dog kennel. When it was an active farm, it was obviously meant for various tractors and trucks. Kendra kept her truck and small tractor in there.
In the back, under dust, sat an old Ford Pinto wagon. My old car. I had a history with it.
“You mean, the old Pinto?”
“Yes. It’s junk; it’s in the way. It would really help if you could haul it off, or sell it, or something.”
“It’s not junk. It’s an antique - 35 years old. And, before I turned the place over to you, I had it running.” It was true. I had it running because I’d put it back together. My father had for some reason taken it apart – he’d just put a new timing belt on the thing. And then had the coronary that had killed him. Alone – sprawled out in front of it. Two days later the mailman found him in the barn, door open, drop-lamp still on.
For whatever reason – and because the thing was mine anyway; I’d stored it there, before he threw me off – for the memories, I completed the job. It wasn’t hard – score one for old cars! Easy to fix. I had washed it, drove it around the area a few hours, put it back in the barn, and left it sit just the way it had been for years before.
It still wore the Texas plates it had when I hid it – a placard of memories.
“Okay. I’ll move it, but not now. Let it go until spring, okay? Let me find a place to put it, or a buyer.” Those were the least of my worries. Something was telling me I was gonna want that car. Not sure how or why; but sometimes I get hunches and sometimes they pay off.
Kendra, for her part, rolled her eyes. She’d surmised she’d gotten her answer – NO.
Outside, the rain was easing up. The pitter-patter on the roof was getting quieter. White flakes were now mixed with the rain.
Kendra moved onto some other task – probably to stay busy and keep me out of her sight. If she sat here, she’d talk. If she talked, she’d probably say things she didn’t want to; that I didn’t want to hear.
About me. About the past. About Valerie – and her life-choices, since she went with me.
Like mother, like daughter, I thought. Not that I had any room to be throwing stones. And here’s Valerie, running around the country, chasing, or following, some young man. How did this happen? And why couldn’t she learn from our mistakes. Why couldn’t I teach her.
It was always a rough go. I didn’t know how to raise a child – I never had a child. This teen-aged girl had materialized into my periphery as I came to Indiana to clean up my late father’s business. Pure chance led her to know my full legal name – the name of the man she was told was her father.
She was homeless, tossed out by her grandmother/guardian. The only place to go was with her mother, who was in no situation to care for a minor child.
There was only one decent thing to do. Kendra’s willingness – in fact, eagerness – to try a new way of living, with a semi-secure home of sourts, gave me a way out with the property.
Valerie could come with me. Small business owner, lots of flexibility – even if not overly prosperous.
It also gave me an excuse to move out of Seattle – the computer-technology industry had DRASTICALLY changed the cultural landscape. Prices were exploding. My business involved railroads – training, rules-testing, independent investigation of accidents. Safety consulting. I was trying to move into locomotive leasing – this seemed a good time for that, with regulatory changes that had railroads investing money in new equipment. Reliable older locomotives from GM could be had for low prices.
And so it came to pass. Valerie went with me. I moved to Missoula, Montana – a large regional railroad had set up headquartered there, carved out of a bankrupted line and some abandoned redundant rights-of-way. I had hoped they might be interested in what I had to offer. And, a more business-friendly environment.
Missoula was experiencing a rebirth – an old gold-rush town, where later logging became important industry. And then a railroad termanal. As that shriveled with railroads’ decline, the state university became more important. The Park Service set up a regional office, as did the Weather Service.
Homes were cheap. I bought one, with a fraction of what I had sold my Seattle condo for.
Unfortunately, neither Valerie nor I had really prospered. Rail Link had its own way of doing things – the parent company was a successful construction company, owned by a local family. They had their own way; and they didn’t want the same industry services or names. I continued on with other existing customers – it didn’t really matter where I based myself, in terms of the industry. Work meant travel.
Valerie, for her part, was a fish out of water. Grown up in Spokane, she had little interest for small-town life or habits. She got by in school; had a small circle of friends, but considered herself an ousider. You can take the teen out of the Grunge movement, but you can’t get the Grunge out of the teen.
Her future was a problem. At my insistance, she took the College Boards – scoring 78th Percentile. Neither bad nor good. She was not drawn to math or science. She got a job as a parts counterman with a heavy-equipment dealership – she was paid reasonably well, but there was no real career track there unless she took up industrial sales.
She took a bit of vacation and drove with friends to Denver for a music festival at Red Rocks and some sightseeing.
And it was in walking LoDo, she met Travis. He was a veterinary student, doing intern work as part of a traveling rodeo exhibit. He was a student at, of all places, Cornell – an East Coast Ivy-League school, which had a veterinarian program run in cooperation with New York’s university student.
He called Texas home. In short, another misplaced soul.
As I understood it, the two got together for much of the rest of that week, and he invited them out. Valerie professed an interest in animals. That may be true – she had come to her mother’s, to help with the chores; she seemed to at least happily-accept those semi-obligatory visits.
Travis invited her to Ithaca, center of the state, to show her around. She could even discuss potential career opportunities with the Cornell admissions staff.
I was not liking that – my budget didn’t include even Montana State, much less a private, Ivy-League university. If Valerie really wanted to do that, she’d have to find a way. Enlistment in the National Guard, or some sort of scholarship – hard to do when the candidate is two years out of high school.
The trip was duly arranged – Travis flying her out to Rochester – and, of course without consulting me, she chose to stay and move into Travis’s small apartment. Her resignation from her job was done long-distance.
That was a year ago. She’d gotten a job with the university, doing some sort of paper shuffling, and what her plans, if any, were, I didn’t know.
Now she was bringing this singular specimen of Lone Star manhood to meet-and-greet. And perhaps work either with Kendra’s non-profit or with one of the vets she contracted with, I wasn’t clear.
Fun times. Hardheaded father meets Western boy at Peak Hormone. He’s from Texas. I have a history with Texas. Not a good one.
About me. About the past. About Valerie – and her life-choices, since she went with me.
Like mother, like daughter, I thought. Not that I had any room to be throwing stones. And here’s Valerie, running around the country, chasing, or following, some young man. How did this happen? And why couldn’t she learn from our mistakes. Why couldn’t I teach her.
It was always a rough go. I didn’t know how to raise a child – I never had a child. This teen-aged girl had materialized into my periphery as I came to Indiana to clean up my late father’s business. Pure chance led her to know my full legal name – the name of the man she was told was her father.
She was homeless, tossed out by her grandmother/guardian. The only place to go was with her mother, who was in no situation to care for a minor child.
There was only one decent thing to do. Kendra’s willingness – in fact, eagerness – to try a new way of living, with a semi-secure home of sourts, gave me a way out with the property.
Valerie could come with me. Small business owner, lots of flexibility – even if not overly prosperous.
It also gave me an excuse to move out of Seattle – the computer-technology industry had DRASTICALLY changed the cultural landscape. Prices were exploding. My business involved railroads – training, rules-testing, independent investigation of accidents. Safety consulting. I was trying to move into locomotive leasing – this seemed a good time for that, with regulatory changes that had railroads investing money in new equipment. Reliable older locomotives from GM could be had for low prices.
And so it came to pass. Valerie went with me. I moved to Missoula, Montana – a large regional railroad had set up headquartered there, carved out of a bankrupted line and some abandoned redundant rights-of-way. I had hoped they might be interested in what I had to offer. And, a more business-friendly environment.
Missoula was experiencing a rebirth – an old gold-rush town, where later logging became important industry. And then a railroad termanal. As that shriveled with railroads’ decline, the state university became more important. The Park Service set up a regional office, as did the Weather Service.
Homes were cheap. I bought one, with a fraction of what I had sold my Seattle condo for.
Unfortunately, neither Valerie nor I had really prospered. Rail Link had its own way of doing things – the parent company was a successful construction company, owned by a local family. They had their own way; and they didn’t want the same industry services or names. I continued on with other existing customers – it didn’t really matter where I based myself, in terms of the industry. Work meant travel.
Valerie, for her part, was a fish out of water. Grown up in Spokane, she had little interest for small-town life or habits. She got by in school; had a small circle of friends, but considered herself an ousider. You can take the teen out of the Grunge movement, but you can’t get the Grunge out of the teen.
Her future was a problem. At my insistance, she took the College Boards – scoring 78th Percentile. Neither bad nor good. She was not drawn to math or science. She got a job as a parts counterman with a heavy-equipment dealership – she was paid reasonably well, but there was no real career track there unless she took up industrial sales.
She took a bit of vacation and drove with friends to Denver for a music festival at Red Rocks and some sightseeing.
And it was in walking LoDo, she met Travis. He was a veterinary student, doing intern work as part of a traveling rodeo exhibit. He was a student at, of all places, Cornell – an East Coast Ivy-League school, which had a veterinarian program run in cooperation with New York’s university student.
He called Texas home. In short, another misplaced soul.
As I understood it, the two got together for much of the rest of that week, and he invited them out. Valerie professed an interest in animals. That may be true – she had come to her mother’s, to help with the chores; she seemed to at least happily-accept those semi-obligatory visits.
Travis invited her to Ithaca, center of the state, to show her around. She could even discuss potential career opportunities with the Cornell admissions staff.
I was not liking that – my budget didn’t include even Montana State, much less a private, Ivy-League university. If Valerie really wanted to do that, she’d have to find a way. Enlistment in the National Guard, or some sort of scholarship – hard to do when the candidate is two years out of high school.
The trip was duly arranged – Travis flying her out to Rochester – and, of course without consulting me, she chose to stay and move into Travis’s small apartment. Her resignation from her job was done long-distance.
That was a year ago. She’d gotten a job with the university, doing some sort of paper shuffling, and what her plans, if any, were, I didn’t know.
Now she was bringing this singular specimen of Lone Star manhood to meet-and-greet. And perhaps work either with Kendra’s non-profit or with one of the vets she contracted with, I wasn’t clear.
Fun times. Hardheaded father meets Western boy at Peak Hormone. He’s from Texas. I have a history with Texas. Not a good one.
The weather was frightful, this close to Lake Erie, but the roads remained open.
The Southern Tier Expressway cut west, eventually leaving the state into Pennsylvania’s north-western tip aiming for Erie, Pennsylvania. There it would tie in with I-90, running along the Lake Erie shoreline to Cleveland. The worst Lake Effect snows would happen 20 or so miles inland, but the shoreline was close enough.
Erie was a good-enough gas stop – the Binder’s tank was 26 gallons, and with the modern 4 engine it was getting about 16 miles a gallon. But Travis had formulated a rule: Never let the tank get lower than half. You never know what might come up.
He eased off the gas, getting into the exit ramp. The four-wheel-drive gave him engine braking on all four wheels. Valerie stirred.
“Have a good nap?”
“Yeah, kinda. Where are we?”
“Erie. There’s a Pilot truck stop here. Gonna get some gas. Think you’re up to driving?”
“What, in this?” She was not an experienced driver. She didn’t own a car – she rode a bicycle to work, got someone to drop her off in winter. She’d learned to drive a tractor, long ago, on her mother’s operation; and Travis had taught her how to drive the Binder; but she was light on winter driving.
“Yeah, in this. It’s not so bad. Just remember – drive like there’s an egg on the gas pedal. Don’t try to beat the storm – ease it gently. Slow and easy wins the race.”
“Okay, whatever.” She looked out. “But, you gonna navigate for me?”
“I can, but I probably should try napping. I expect you’ll be ready for a break after three hours or so. It’s not difficult – just follow the route, I’ll write it down for you. Hardest thing is staying clear of idiots who know less than you, even.”
He pulled up to the gas island for autos. He hopped out; she bailed and headed inside, for the restrooms.
I HAD SWITCHED TO decaf. By now the coffee-drinking was just a nervous habit. I’d had a full pot of hi-test, and switched to decaffinated. If I had something in my hand, it was an excuse to sit here, instead of being sociable with Kendra.
The storm was turning – now it was fat flakes; a wet snow with a falling thermometer. Light was fading early, as it does on the solistice. Kendra walked in.
“She has a cellular phone, doesn’t she?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe you should call her. Or I should.”
“Wouldn’t matter which one of us. Her phone will show your number. What do you want to say?”
“Tell them to just get off the road. Find a motel somewhere. This weather’s getting out of hand.” For Montana, or even New York, it wasn’t half bad; but Indiana didn’t get this kind of weather often. They didn’t have the trucks, or the people, or the planning, to deal with it.
I grabbed the wall phone; dialed the number. She still had a Missoula exchange phone. Which meant, in those days, Kendra would be paying long-distance charges for a call to Montana, to talk to someone out in a state east of us.
The phone rang. And rang. After five rings, her voicemail picked it up.
I told the recording, she should stop – wherever she was. Call us collect when she was in for the night. Christmas dinner tomorrow, could wait a day.
I hanged up. I just hope she got the message. There were a lot of dead spots in cellular coverage, still; and a lot of technical glitches – voicemail got lost as much as US Mail, it seemed.
Nothing to do but wait. So I was thinking, when the power went out.
Now I had plenty to do.
VALERIE GRIPPED THE HUGE wheel as if it were a life ring. She didn’t mind driving the Binder – in small doses. Now, with the noise, the high-set large steering wheel, the long action on the clutch pedal...she was not a happy camper.
Travis had co-piloted her through the bypass of Cleveland, and on to I-71 to Columbus. About halfway home. The snow was easing a bit – but the roads were slick with slush. The studded tires seemed to keep a grip better than what she could see of other cars, spun out in the ditch, sometimes inverted.
The electronic speedometer that was part of the Jeep wiring harness gave her a speed of 45. She didn’t know if it was accurate or not. It was as fast as she dared go.
Travis’s breathing suggested sleep. Well...there was no turns for her to miss before Columbus.
Nothing to do but keep going. Slow and steady wins the race, as Travis had said.
The Southern Tier Expressway cut west, eventually leaving the state into Pennsylvania’s north-western tip aiming for Erie, Pennsylvania. There it would tie in with I-90, running along the Lake Erie shoreline to Cleveland. The worst Lake Effect snows would happen 20 or so miles inland, but the shoreline was close enough.
Erie was a good-enough gas stop – the Binder’s tank was 26 gallons, and with the modern 4 engine it was getting about 16 miles a gallon. But Travis had formulated a rule: Never let the tank get lower than half. You never know what might come up.
He eased off the gas, getting into the exit ramp. The four-wheel-drive gave him engine braking on all four wheels. Valerie stirred.
“Have a good nap?”
“Yeah, kinda. Where are we?”
“Erie. There’s a Pilot truck stop here. Gonna get some gas. Think you’re up to driving?”
“What, in this?” She was not an experienced driver. She didn’t own a car – she rode a bicycle to work, got someone to drop her off in winter. She’d learned to drive a tractor, long ago, on her mother’s operation; and Travis had taught her how to drive the Binder; but she was light on winter driving.
“Yeah, in this. It’s not so bad. Just remember – drive like there’s an egg on the gas pedal. Don’t try to beat the storm – ease it gently. Slow and easy wins the race.”
“Okay, whatever.” She looked out. “But, you gonna navigate for me?”
“I can, but I probably should try napping. I expect you’ll be ready for a break after three hours or so. It’s not difficult – just follow the route, I’ll write it down for you. Hardest thing is staying clear of idiots who know less than you, even.”
He pulled up to the gas island for autos. He hopped out; she bailed and headed inside, for the restrooms.
I HAD SWITCHED TO decaf. By now the coffee-drinking was just a nervous habit. I’d had a full pot of hi-test, and switched to decaffinated. If I had something in my hand, it was an excuse to sit here, instead of being sociable with Kendra.
The storm was turning – now it was fat flakes; a wet snow with a falling thermometer. Light was fading early, as it does on the solistice. Kendra walked in.
“She has a cellular phone, doesn’t she?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe you should call her. Or I should.”
“Wouldn’t matter which one of us. Her phone will show your number. What do you want to say?”
“Tell them to just get off the road. Find a motel somewhere. This weather’s getting out of hand.” For Montana, or even New York, it wasn’t half bad; but Indiana didn’t get this kind of weather often. They didn’t have the trucks, or the people, or the planning, to deal with it.
I grabbed the wall phone; dialed the number. She still had a Missoula exchange phone. Which meant, in those days, Kendra would be paying long-distance charges for a call to Montana, to talk to someone out in a state east of us.
The phone rang. And rang. After five rings, her voicemail picked it up.
I told the recording, she should stop – wherever she was. Call us collect when she was in for the night. Christmas dinner tomorrow, could wait a day.
I hanged up. I just hope she got the message. There were a lot of dead spots in cellular coverage, still; and a lot of technical glitches – voicemail got lost as much as US Mail, it seemed.
Nothing to do but wait. So I was thinking, when the power went out.
Now I had plenty to do.
VALERIE GRIPPED THE HUGE wheel as if it were a life ring. She didn’t mind driving the Binder – in small doses. Now, with the noise, the high-set large steering wheel, the long action on the clutch pedal...she was not a happy camper.
Travis had co-piloted her through the bypass of Cleveland, and on to I-71 to Columbus. About halfway home. The snow was easing a bit – but the roads were slick with slush. The studded tires seemed to keep a grip better than what she could see of other cars, spun out in the ditch, sometimes inverted.
The electronic speedometer that was part of the Jeep wiring harness gave her a speed of 45. She didn’t know if it was accurate or not. It was as fast as she dared go.
Travis’s breathing suggested sleep. Well...there was no turns for her to miss before Columbus.
Nothing to do but keep going. Slow and steady wins the race, as Travis had said.
I’d wrapped a torch – a rag on a stick, soaked with what I hoped was kerosene. That’s what the label said on the can, anyway.
I’d already cleared the way, from the kitchen door to the stove. Because I’d have to move fast – I had to light it outside, just in case that was something not-kerosene, and then quickly hustle it into the stove.
“And what, exactly are you doing?” Kendra asked dryly.
“Testing the flue. Make sure the chimney’s not stopped up. If we start a fire in there, and then find the chimney’s stopped up, it’ll be a real problem”
The lit torch went up the flue...burned happily. Did so for the whole time it took to burn the rag off it. Okay...Indiana Fire Science, pass-grade.
Kendra had had firewood. What she hadn’t done, is have the stovepipe or chimney regularly inspected. She hadn’t used it in at least two years – there could be birds’ nests or worse in there. The torch was to test whether airflow will really carry up – before we started a fire and then maybe had to put it out in a panic.
In another part of the equipment barn, I found some self-starting charcoal briquettes. Put them on the grate, and touch them off. By some miracle, sitting around for five or more years hadn’t caused their flammable coating to evaporate.
There was a bit of a woodpile around the corner. Ignored, again, mostly. Firewood was expensive; propane was convenient.
But firewood would work when nothing else would. It went on top of the charcoal; and soon I could hear the crackling of it catching.
Okay. Next, the food. Temperature outside was about 25 – fine for frozen food, Get some boxes and put the stuff outside.
We’ll figure out what to do with the refrigerated stuff, later. It wasn’t so critical. And even with the fire, it would get cold in here.
Kendra had a few candles about, but that was REALLY pathetic lighting. Again in the equipment barn, I found an old wick kerosene lantern – must have been why the gallon can of kerosene. I filled up the tank and lit it up.
Nothing to do but wait. Wait for the power to come on; wait for the kids.
Wait for destiny.
COLUMBUS WAS BEHIND them. Valerie hadn’t even had to wake up Travis – the route through Columbus was well-marked. Now, halfway to the state line, near Dayton, the gauge was past the halfway mark.
Okay. Travis liked truck stops. She liked them, too, so far – Travis said to look for Love’s or Pilot, and the ones they’d stopped at were modern and clean and well-lighted. No surprises – which itself was a surprise. Her dad had tales of what traveling was like a generation back – lousy food, lousy gasoline, dirty bathrooms.
Approaching Dayton, here was an exit with a Pilot stop advertised on SERVICES THIS EXIT. Oh-kaaay...let’s get some gas. She eased over to the exit lane – the road no longer snow-covered, but looking wet. That was black ice. She’d been taught – when on ice, pump the brakes. She had downshifted, was surprised at how easily it slowed down. Below 20 or so she had to brake. The wheels tried to slide, all four of them, tied together – but she’d expected that. Look for an exit pathway, to any situation, her father had taught her, about driving in snow. To the side was a ditch, but free of cars or signs.
But she didn’t need it. Studded tires, Travis would later tell her. Makes all the difference.
He stirred now, coming out of his nap. “Where are we?”
“A few miles before Dayton. We could use some gas. There’s a Pilot here somewhere – said it on the sign, anyway.” She was looking for any sort of directory sign – most off-ramps had them.
Presently she found it – showing a left turn. She took it, saw the sign on the horizon.
Before that, just around the term, was some sort of road emergency. A couple of cars were parked at crazy angles. Two men with reflective vests and flashlights were waving the truck to turn onto a backroad of some sort, to the right.
Valerie turned. Ahead about a tenth of a mile, was another car, stopped with four-ways on. And incredibly, the two cars from that auto accident, followed them into the farm lane.
“Uh-oh,” Travis breathed. “Valerie – LISTEN. Do what I tell you, when I say it. DON’T ASK QUESTIONS.”
“What is this?”
“We’re getting set up for a robbery.” Travis reverted to his training – and his hand went to his hip. There was nothing there, of course. He’d been a handgun owner since age 12 – he had military and civilian training in tactical usage. But, even before he arrived in New York, he knew of their draconian handgun laws. He left his Glock at home.
The two cars went in, one pulled up alongside, trying to box them in. The car already in, had its doors flung open, with at least four people jumping out.
“To the left and MASH IT!” Travis yelled. Valerie did so. The car alongside had left enough room for doors to open – that was their out. She twisted the life-ring wheel, getting the truck out. The other car’s doors were open and three men were standing blocking the road.
“GO FOR IT!” Travis screamed. She forced herself to narrow focus, to getting through the gap, no matter the cost.
The two left doors were twisted back and the rear door broken off. One hijacker was hit in the chest, and went down right in front of the right wheel. The Binder rolled over him with a thump.
Two others were center-punched. One went down under the truck. One jumped onto the hood – he’d never tried this with a 1950s International, with its high, domed hood. There was nothing for him to grab; he slid off, into the muck.
“DO…..NOT….STOP!” Travis was screaming. “This road has to go someplace! Follow it!”
Valerie was shaking with an adrenaline overdose. The road ahead seemed dimmer, somehow. A headlight had been broken.
I’d already cleared the way, from the kitchen door to the stove. Because I’d have to move fast – I had to light it outside, just in case that was something not-kerosene, and then quickly hustle it into the stove.
“And what, exactly are you doing?” Kendra asked dryly.
“Testing the flue. Make sure the chimney’s not stopped up. If we start a fire in there, and then find the chimney’s stopped up, it’ll be a real problem”
The lit torch went up the flue...burned happily. Did so for the whole time it took to burn the rag off it. Okay...Indiana Fire Science, pass-grade.
Kendra had had firewood. What she hadn’t done, is have the stovepipe or chimney regularly inspected. She hadn’t used it in at least two years – there could be birds’ nests or worse in there. The torch was to test whether airflow will really carry up – before we started a fire and then maybe had to put it out in a panic.
In another part of the equipment barn, I found some self-starting charcoal briquettes. Put them on the grate, and touch them off. By some miracle, sitting around for five or more years hadn’t caused their flammable coating to evaporate.
There was a bit of a woodpile around the corner. Ignored, again, mostly. Firewood was expensive; propane was convenient.
But firewood would work when nothing else would. It went on top of the charcoal; and soon I could hear the crackling of it catching.
Okay. Next, the food. Temperature outside was about 25 – fine for frozen food, Get some boxes and put the stuff outside.
We’ll figure out what to do with the refrigerated stuff, later. It wasn’t so critical. And even with the fire, it would get cold in here.
Kendra had a few candles about, but that was REALLY pathetic lighting. Again in the equipment barn, I found an old wick kerosene lantern – must have been why the gallon can of kerosene. I filled up the tank and lit it up.
Nothing to do but wait. Wait for the power to come on; wait for the kids.
Wait for destiny.
COLUMBUS WAS BEHIND them. Valerie hadn’t even had to wake up Travis – the route through Columbus was well-marked. Now, halfway to the state line, near Dayton, the gauge was past the halfway mark.
Okay. Travis liked truck stops. She liked them, too, so far – Travis said to look for Love’s or Pilot, and the ones they’d stopped at were modern and clean and well-lighted. No surprises – which itself was a surprise. Her dad had tales of what traveling was like a generation back – lousy food, lousy gasoline, dirty bathrooms.
Approaching Dayton, here was an exit with a Pilot stop advertised on SERVICES THIS EXIT. Oh-kaaay...let’s get some gas. She eased over to the exit lane – the road no longer snow-covered, but looking wet. That was black ice. She’d been taught – when on ice, pump the brakes. She had downshifted, was surprised at how easily it slowed down. Below 20 or so she had to brake. The wheels tried to slide, all four of them, tied together – but she’d expected that. Look for an exit pathway, to any situation, her father had taught her, about driving in snow. To the side was a ditch, but free of cars or signs.
But she didn’t need it. Studded tires, Travis would later tell her. Makes all the difference.
He stirred now, coming out of his nap. “Where are we?”
“A few miles before Dayton. We could use some gas. There’s a Pilot here somewhere – said it on the sign, anyway.” She was looking for any sort of directory sign – most off-ramps had them.
Presently she found it – showing a left turn. She took it, saw the sign on the horizon.
Before that, just around the term, was some sort of road emergency. A couple of cars were parked at crazy angles. Two men with reflective vests and flashlights were waving the truck to turn onto a backroad of some sort, to the right.
Valerie turned. Ahead about a tenth of a mile, was another car, stopped with four-ways on. And incredibly, the two cars from that auto accident, followed them into the farm lane.
“Uh-oh,” Travis breathed. “Valerie – LISTEN. Do what I tell you, when I say it. DON’T ASK QUESTIONS.”
“What is this?”
“We’re getting set up for a robbery.” Travis reverted to his training – and his hand went to his hip. There was nothing there, of course. He’d been a handgun owner since age 12 – he had military and civilian training in tactical usage. But, even before he arrived in New York, he knew of their draconian handgun laws. He left his Glock at home.
The two cars went in, one pulled up alongside, trying to box them in. The car already in, had its doors flung open, with at least four people jumping out.
“To the left and MASH IT!” Travis yelled. Valerie did so. The car alongside had left enough room for doors to open – that was their out. She twisted the life-ring wheel, getting the truck out. The other car’s doors were open and three men were standing blocking the road.
“GO FOR IT!” Travis screamed. She forced herself to narrow focus, to getting through the gap, no matter the cost.
The two left doors were twisted back and the rear door broken off. One hijacker was hit in the chest, and went down right in front of the right wheel. The Binder rolled over him with a thump.
Two others were center-punched. One went down under the truck. One jumped onto the hood – he’d never tried this with a 1950s International, with its high, domed hood. There was nothing for him to grab; he slid off, into the muck.
“DO…..NOT….STOP!” Travis was screaming. “This road has to go someplace! Follow it!”
Valerie was shaking with an adrenaline overdose. The road ahead seemed dimmer, somehow. A headlight had been broken.
The country road seemed to go for miles. It was deserted but not abandoned; since the snow, not deep here, had started falling, a handful of cars had left tire tracks. The thing to do right now, Travis decided, was to get away, not as fast as possible but as privately as they could.
“Shouldn’t we find a place to call the cops, or something?” Valerie said.
“Val – listen to me. You see the guys we hit?”
“Not really.”
“They were black guys. This looks like empty country but we’re just a few miles out of Dayton. Probably the same county. All that means it’ll become a race thing.”
Valerie was silent.
“First thing we have to do, is fix that headlight. We’re three miles away. Stop, let me look. Believe it or not, I have a spare headlight behind the seat. Those round seven-inch sealed-beams are hard to find, these days – I try to have a spare, always.”
She found a place to stop. Travis went forward with his mini-Maglight, looking. The headlight glass was shattered and the chrome trim ring that went around the headlight and parking light assembly, was damaged. That and some paint scrapings. No other dents – these old trucks were built like tanks.
It took three screws on the retaining ring to replace a headlight bulb. Tricky, because of the tiny short screws, and the danger they might be dropped; but Travis took his time. In ten minutes, the light was replaced. They continued on; took a right at a crossroads, came up against a state highway. Signs took them to US 30, headed west. Travis, at the wheel now, left the freeway alone. When he saw a county-line sign, he felt relieved a bit. He’d feel better yet once they crossed the state line – Richmond, right on the Indiana border, would have gas. Thank God for half a tank.
*****************************************
It’s a revelation, when the power’s off, how simple life can be.
Kendra and I had had a supper of cold sandwiches and water. I’d tried to warm the left-over decaf on the wood stove, but the glass carafe had a plastic handle and I was afraid it might melt right on top. So I finished it off, tepid.
There was nothing to say and little to do. Just to sit up, would cost energy – flashlight batteries, candles, and the kerosene of the lamp. The phone didn’t work – it was a new style, now that Bell didn’t rent phones anymore – it had an internal messaging digital recorder, and a plug-in cord. It was useless without electrical power. So, even if the kids were calling, we’d never know.
Kendra found a huge featherbed and went to bed with it. Me, I opted for guard duty – the kitchen had an eating area, a table, in the corner two almost-but-not-quite sofas. Handy for several people to get dressed for bad weather. Handier just to dump stuff on, which is what these were mostly used for. I’d cleaned one of them off and put on my overcoat, stretched, out, and did my fire-watch thingy.
Fire-watch and meth-head watch. That was no joke, really – meth came early and violently to rural Indiana, for some reason. It wasn’t as bad as major cities, but people who expected bucolic placidity in visiting Indiana farm country, would be in for a shock.
*****************
“They’re still not answering?”
“No. It just rings and rings, is all. There’s supposed to be an answering machine on – I’ve left messages on it before.”
“I wonder if they had to bug out themselves. Maybe that’s why your dad said to stay at a motel.”
“And you don’t want to, now.”
“Absolutely-friggin-not. Look, we’re FUGITIVES. I don’t know how serious the cops will take this, or even if those perps reported it. But the very-first place the police will check, is all area motels. And then motels further away. We need to LAY...LOW.”
“Okay. If we get there, and they’re not there, what do we do?”
“We can break in, or, we can bed down in the barn. SOMEONE will be back tomorrow, no matter what – unless something a lot worse happened to them. So we get there and size things up.”
“We don’t need to break in. There’s a spare key hidden.”
“Perfect. So...we get off at the Terre Haute turnoff, and then...you can direct me.”
Half-past midnight. Something woke me – and I knew damn well it wasn’t no Santa Claus. It seemed I’d heard a car or truck in the snow – the scrunnnnnnch that wheels make when going through cold or packed snow.
It couldn’t be them, of course. First, they’d been told to tie up somewhere for the night. They’d have been crazy to keep going all night.
Second, I’d have expected a horn toot or some sort of announcement. Expected guests don’t skulk in shadows.
And...where WAS that car? I couldn’t see it, out the windows.
Over one of the two loveseats in the kitchen, was a .12-ga Mossberg pump shotgun on a wall rack. It was my father’s. I deliberately left it there. I told Kendra to take it down, learn how to use it.
I would leave it up to her – I wasn’t going to hold her hand on that one. Here’s the tool; you learn how to use it. Or not. Choice is yours.
In a drawer on a small end table, was a box of shells. I opened it up – still there. I pulled out four of them and jacked them into the magazine
And waited.
THE LIGHTS WERE OUT, everywhere. Obviously a power outage. The village nearest the homestead, had its stoplight dead. No streetlights. There were emergency vehicles in places – snow removal, a few cops doing cop things they do during power outages. A few weak lights in windows. Nothing more.
On to the county road, and Valerie easily found the mailbox. She’d been here many times, but never in winter and never in pitch darkness. The driveway was unplowed, but the snow here was only four inches deep. The Binder walked over it as if it wasn’t there.
“Now, can we pull back behind the house or something” Travis asked. “I don’t want this out in the open, drawing attentiion.”
“Yeah, the driveway sweeps over to the equipment barn. That smaller white building – with those garage doors on the end.”
Travis pulled around, stopping just in front of the door.
The two piled out, and Valerie went to the far side of the equipment barn. Over a small door on the corner, she reached up andfound a single key. She took it – and turned around.
“Travis, get the door. I’ve got a flashlight in my purse – let me go get it.”
Travis, self-consciously, almost sheepishly, started walking through the snow. Quietly he climbed the steps, inserted the key.
It went halfway in and stopped.
PRESENTLY I HEARD muffled conversation. Movement. A car door closing. Didn’t sound like a new Lexus’s door closing.
I couldn’t see their car but I could make out tire tracks on the driveway. They’d pulled around. Casing the place?
One of them climbed the steps to the small porch off the kitchen. Something was being done to the door latch. Scraping...struggling. Were they picking the lock?
Crunch time. They were gonna have that door open in a few seconds, anyway. Time to sort this out.
I quietly moved, shotgun in my left hand, grabbed the doorknob with my right, and yanked it open. The burglar was standing there, hunched down to work the lock still.
“FREEZE, MOTHERF__K!” I screamed. The intruder lost balance, stumbled back, broke the patio’s wooden railing and landed in the snow. I took aim with the shotgun.
From the shadows comes a snort of derision.
“Ernie, you simple idiot...put that blunderbuss up, NOW, before someone gets hurt.”
There was only one person who ever called me that, and only contemptuously. Startled, I jerked my hands apart, off the weapon, off the trigger.
The cocked shotgun clattered to the floor and bounced into a corner. It was a miracle it didn’t discharge.
“Shouldn’t we find a place to call the cops, or something?” Valerie said.
“Val – listen to me. You see the guys we hit?”
“Not really.”
“They were black guys. This looks like empty country but we’re just a few miles out of Dayton. Probably the same county. All that means it’ll become a race thing.”
Valerie was silent.
“First thing we have to do, is fix that headlight. We’re three miles away. Stop, let me look. Believe it or not, I have a spare headlight behind the seat. Those round seven-inch sealed-beams are hard to find, these days – I try to have a spare, always.”
She found a place to stop. Travis went forward with his mini-Maglight, looking. The headlight glass was shattered and the chrome trim ring that went around the headlight and parking light assembly, was damaged. That and some paint scrapings. No other dents – these old trucks were built like tanks.
It took three screws on the retaining ring to replace a headlight bulb. Tricky, because of the tiny short screws, and the danger they might be dropped; but Travis took his time. In ten minutes, the light was replaced. They continued on; took a right at a crossroads, came up against a state highway. Signs took them to US 30, headed west. Travis, at the wheel now, left the freeway alone. When he saw a county-line sign, he felt relieved a bit. He’d feel better yet once they crossed the state line – Richmond, right on the Indiana border, would have gas. Thank God for half a tank.
*****************************************
It’s a revelation, when the power’s off, how simple life can be.
Kendra and I had had a supper of cold sandwiches and water. I’d tried to warm the left-over decaf on the wood stove, but the glass carafe had a plastic handle and I was afraid it might melt right on top. So I finished it off, tepid.
There was nothing to say and little to do. Just to sit up, would cost energy – flashlight batteries, candles, and the kerosene of the lamp. The phone didn’t work – it was a new style, now that Bell didn’t rent phones anymore – it had an internal messaging digital recorder, and a plug-in cord. It was useless without electrical power. So, even if the kids were calling, we’d never know.
Kendra found a huge featherbed and went to bed with it. Me, I opted for guard duty – the kitchen had an eating area, a table, in the corner two almost-but-not-quite sofas. Handy for several people to get dressed for bad weather. Handier just to dump stuff on, which is what these were mostly used for. I’d cleaned one of them off and put on my overcoat, stretched, out, and did my fire-watch thingy.
Fire-watch and meth-head watch. That was no joke, really – meth came early and violently to rural Indiana, for some reason. It wasn’t as bad as major cities, but people who expected bucolic placidity in visiting Indiana farm country, would be in for a shock.
*****************
“They’re still not answering?”
“No. It just rings and rings, is all. There’s supposed to be an answering machine on – I’ve left messages on it before.”
“I wonder if they had to bug out themselves. Maybe that’s why your dad said to stay at a motel.”
“And you don’t want to, now.”
“Absolutely-friggin-not. Look, we’re FUGITIVES. I don’t know how serious the cops will take this, or even if those perps reported it. But the very-first place the police will check, is all area motels. And then motels further away. We need to LAY...LOW.”
“Okay. If we get there, and they’re not there, what do we do?”
“We can break in, or, we can bed down in the barn. SOMEONE will be back tomorrow, no matter what – unless something a lot worse happened to them. So we get there and size things up.”
“We don’t need to break in. There’s a spare key hidden.”
“Perfect. So...we get off at the Terre Haute turnoff, and then...you can direct me.”
Half-past midnight. Something woke me – and I knew damn well it wasn’t no Santa Claus. It seemed I’d heard a car or truck in the snow – the scrunnnnnnch that wheels make when going through cold or packed snow.
It couldn’t be them, of course. First, they’d been told to tie up somewhere for the night. They’d have been crazy to keep going all night.
Second, I’d have expected a horn toot or some sort of announcement. Expected guests don’t skulk in shadows.
And...where WAS that car? I couldn’t see it, out the windows.
Over one of the two loveseats in the kitchen, was a .12-ga Mossberg pump shotgun on a wall rack. It was my father’s. I deliberately left it there. I told Kendra to take it down, learn how to use it.
I would leave it up to her – I wasn’t going to hold her hand on that one. Here’s the tool; you learn how to use it. Or not. Choice is yours.
In a drawer on a small end table, was a box of shells. I opened it up – still there. I pulled out four of them and jacked them into the magazine
And waited.
THE LIGHTS WERE OUT, everywhere. Obviously a power outage. The village nearest the homestead, had its stoplight dead. No streetlights. There were emergency vehicles in places – snow removal, a few cops doing cop things they do during power outages. A few weak lights in windows. Nothing more.
On to the county road, and Valerie easily found the mailbox. She’d been here many times, but never in winter and never in pitch darkness. The driveway was unplowed, but the snow here was only four inches deep. The Binder walked over it as if it wasn’t there.
“Now, can we pull back behind the house or something” Travis asked. “I don’t want this out in the open, drawing attentiion.”
“Yeah, the driveway sweeps over to the equipment barn. That smaller white building – with those garage doors on the end.”
Travis pulled around, stopping just in front of the door.
The two piled out, and Valerie went to the far side of the equipment barn. Over a small door on the corner, she reached up andfound a single key. She took it – and turned around.
“Travis, get the door. I’ve got a flashlight in my purse – let me go get it.”
Travis, self-consciously, almost sheepishly, started walking through the snow. Quietly he climbed the steps, inserted the key.
It went halfway in and stopped.
PRESENTLY I HEARD muffled conversation. Movement. A car door closing. Didn’t sound like a new Lexus’s door closing.
I couldn’t see their car but I could make out tire tracks on the driveway. They’d pulled around. Casing the place?
One of them climbed the steps to the small porch off the kitchen. Something was being done to the door latch. Scraping...struggling. Were they picking the lock?
Crunch time. They were gonna have that door open in a few seconds, anyway. Time to sort this out.
I quietly moved, shotgun in my left hand, grabbed the doorknob with my right, and yanked it open. The burglar was standing there, hunched down to work the lock still.
“FREEZE, MOTHERF__K!” I screamed. The intruder lost balance, stumbled back, broke the patio’s wooden railing and landed in the snow. I took aim with the shotgun.
From the shadows comes a snort of derision.
“Ernie, you simple idiot...put that blunderbuss up, NOW, before someone gets hurt.”
There was only one person who ever called me that, and only contemptuously. Startled, I jerked my hands apart, off the weapon, off the trigger.
The cocked shotgun clattered to the floor and bounced into a corner. It was a miracle it didn’t discharge.
They say, there’s a place for everything. My place, it seemed, now, was outside – on the edge of the road, with the rest of the garbage.
I’d taken an equally trashy old barbecue tray with me, as well as more of those briquettes. I’d started a little campfire there – me, my folding chair, my fire, my bottle of Jack.
The power had come back on, a short time after our little melodrama on the porch – things were getting back to normal, somehow. The women were somewhat mollified – instead of projecting their hatred onto each other, they could pile it onto me. And be civil to each other. Maybe even make Travis somehow feel a bit welcome.
Meantime, we had choices to make. What to do and how to do it.
I stared into my little firepit. Footsteps were coming up behind me. It was Travis.
I was feeling the whiskey. “Sit down, young stranger,” I said. “Drag up a rock.” Near me was a small boulder marking the edge of the driveway to the road.
“Thanks, I brought my own,” he said. He had a folding stadium stool – the little things that were basically a strap of canvas on a folding frame. He pulled it open and sat.
“Ernie, Valerie called you. But she told me your name was Robert.”
“Yeah. That’s her Hell-Hath-No-Fury name for me. Goes back to when she caught me in a lie...half-lie, actually. We met on a train, not knowing who we were to each other. She’d given me her name but I wasn’t really interested in getting involved in a strange youngster’s drama.” I paused. “I read once – an Indian writer, put up a tribal belief – that to give a stranger your name was to put yourself in his power. I wasn’t ready for that, and I didn’t really feel like lying. ‘Ernie’ is my middle name. About eight hours later, Valerie learned who I really was, and was to her, and she’s never forgiven me for that.”
Travis sat. I held out the bottle. “Want a shot?”
“Thanks – I don’t drink.” I liked this boy already.
“Well….I guess we got a lot to talk about, enough to keep us busy the next couple of days. But the pressing problem is that little spell of trouble you had down the road..”
“Yeah. I’m thinking, maybe I could leave that truck in one of your barns for a time?”
“That’s what I’m thinking. For more than a time. That’s some bad mojo out there in Ohio. I don’t know, you don’t know, how much those cretins knew or remembered or whether they called the police or just left their dead partners in the road.”
“You got several advantages. It happened out of state. Your truck is a big, heavy piece of equipment – almost military. It didn’t dent up any. And NOBODY is gonna know what that thing is. I only do because my school bus to kindergarten was a 1957 International Travelall.”
“You remembered?”
“Yeah. I remember how sinister that thing looked – with the scowling eyes and eyebrow parking lights. Like the school principle, an older man with white hair and wild eyebrows.”
“Anyway. You park it there and leave it parked. Wash it, if you want – I’d recommend it – and we’ll bury it in the back. Did you notice that car that’s in there already?”
“What, that Pinto?”
“Yeah. Blazing Saddles, I named it. I even put a gasoline placard on the back liftgate.” I paused, recalling. “I’d bought it in Houston for $750, back in the early 1980s. Then, I let liquor get the better of me; settled a disagreement with a capital crime, and left Texas forever. I love Texas, but I can’t go back. I expect by now, they’ve quit looking for me, if they ever were...but, when the car came up here, I was on the run and it was an identifier. About the only decent thing my father did for me when he was alive, was let me hide this car in his barn.” I left off that his heart attack took him down while he was working on it, decades later.
“So, it’s yours if you want it. You can also rent a car, or fly back home – weather permitting – but those will leave a paper trail.” I grabbed my fifth. "So...what's YOUR story? This is a long way from West Texas. You got animal-sciences schools down there...why so far North?"
"It's a number of things. First, I had the GI bill, and qualified for a few connected scholorships through Cornell. They're trying to grow their large-animal veterinary track. Then...I wanted to explore the state, up there. Back on leave from the Army, I went on a canoing trip with friends in the Adirondacks. So different from the Texas prairie...I was thinking it might be a good place to live."
"Of course, that was before I figured out the legal and political stuff. The state is like California without a sense of humor."
"Good way of putting it. I'd suggest...well, let's just say, everybody has a home. Mostly everybody. Sometimes you can't go back - that's me, with Buffalo. It changed, I didn't. But you figure out the place where the values are yours, and where you understand the people; and you put down roots. If you can."
"Speakin' of which...where is Valerie, now?" I couldn't see her baring her soul to her mother. That girl is a black hole of emotion.
"Went to bed. She was cranky, lack of sleep, I guess." He hesitated. Cohabitant or not, he was about to bed down with the landlord's daughter. "I don't know what the sleeping arrangements are expected to be."
"They're what you want. Allowing for any other person's preference." Did this spawn of mine bring home a Baptist, maybe? "There's no prudery here. You may have guessed, we're not in in a place to start moral posturing. If you want to be moral, just ask yourself - what is the RIGHT thing? Not what others think of it. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the consideration of asking the hosts, but my concern is, is what happens the best for all concerned." And not what I had done at about his own age.
"I think I understand." He stood up, slowly, folded his stool. I nodded, wordlessly, turned to stare at the fire through the fat snowflakes.
I’d taken an equally trashy old barbecue tray with me, as well as more of those briquettes. I’d started a little campfire there – me, my folding chair, my fire, my bottle of Jack.
The power had come back on, a short time after our little melodrama on the porch – things were getting back to normal, somehow. The women were somewhat mollified – instead of projecting their hatred onto each other, they could pile it onto me. And be civil to each other. Maybe even make Travis somehow feel a bit welcome.
Meantime, we had choices to make. What to do and how to do it.
I stared into my little firepit. Footsteps were coming up behind me. It was Travis.
I was feeling the whiskey. “Sit down, young stranger,” I said. “Drag up a rock.” Near me was a small boulder marking the edge of the driveway to the road.
“Thanks, I brought my own,” he said. He had a folding stadium stool – the little things that were basically a strap of canvas on a folding frame. He pulled it open and sat.
“Ernie, Valerie called you. But she told me your name was Robert.”
“Yeah. That’s her Hell-Hath-No-Fury name for me. Goes back to when she caught me in a lie...half-lie, actually. We met on a train, not knowing who we were to each other. She’d given me her name but I wasn’t really interested in getting involved in a strange youngster’s drama.” I paused. “I read once – an Indian writer, put up a tribal belief – that to give a stranger your name was to put yourself in his power. I wasn’t ready for that, and I didn’t really feel like lying. ‘Ernie’ is my middle name. About eight hours later, Valerie learned who I really was, and was to her, and she’s never forgiven me for that.”
Travis sat. I held out the bottle. “Want a shot?”
“Thanks – I don’t drink.” I liked this boy already.
“Well….I guess we got a lot to talk about, enough to keep us busy the next couple of days. But the pressing problem is that little spell of trouble you had down the road..”
“Yeah. I’m thinking, maybe I could leave that truck in one of your barns for a time?”
“That’s what I’m thinking. For more than a time. That’s some bad mojo out there in Ohio. I don’t know, you don’t know, how much those cretins knew or remembered or whether they called the police or just left their dead partners in the road.”
“You got several advantages. It happened out of state. Your truck is a big, heavy piece of equipment – almost military. It didn’t dent up any. And NOBODY is gonna know what that thing is. I only do because my school bus to kindergarten was a 1957 International Travelall.”
“You remembered?”
“Yeah. I remember how sinister that thing looked – with the scowling eyes and eyebrow parking lights. Like the school principle, an older man with white hair and wild eyebrows.”
“Anyway. You park it there and leave it parked. Wash it, if you want – I’d recommend it – and we’ll bury it in the back. Did you notice that car that’s in there already?”
“What, that Pinto?”
“Yeah. Blazing Saddles, I named it. I even put a gasoline placard on the back liftgate.” I paused, recalling. “I’d bought it in Houston for $750, back in the early 1980s. Then, I let liquor get the better of me; settled a disagreement with a capital crime, and left Texas forever. I love Texas, but I can’t go back. I expect by now, they’ve quit looking for me, if they ever were...but, when the car came up here, I was on the run and it was an identifier. About the only decent thing my father did for me when he was alive, was let me hide this car in his barn.” I left off that his heart attack took him down while he was working on it, decades later.
“So, it’s yours if you want it. You can also rent a car, or fly back home – weather permitting – but those will leave a paper trail.” I grabbed my fifth. "So...what's YOUR story? This is a long way from West Texas. You got animal-sciences schools down there...why so far North?"
"It's a number of things. First, I had the GI bill, and qualified for a few connected scholorships through Cornell. They're trying to grow their large-animal veterinary track. Then...I wanted to explore the state, up there. Back on leave from the Army, I went on a canoing trip with friends in the Adirondacks. So different from the Texas prairie...I was thinking it might be a good place to live."
"Of course, that was before I figured out the legal and political stuff. The state is like California without a sense of humor."
"Good way of putting it. I'd suggest...well, let's just say, everybody has a home. Mostly everybody. Sometimes you can't go back - that's me, with Buffalo. It changed, I didn't. But you figure out the place where the values are yours, and where you understand the people; and you put down roots. If you can."
"Speakin' of which...where is Valerie, now?" I couldn't see her baring her soul to her mother. That girl is a black hole of emotion.
"Went to bed. She was cranky, lack of sleep, I guess." He hesitated. Cohabitant or not, he was about to bed down with the landlord's daughter. "I don't know what the sleeping arrangements are expected to be."
"They're what you want. Allowing for any other person's preference." Did this spawn of mine bring home a Baptist, maybe? "There's no prudery here. You may have guessed, we're not in in a place to start moral posturing. If you want to be moral, just ask yourself - what is the RIGHT thing? Not what others think of it. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the consideration of asking the hosts, but my concern is, is what happens the best for all concerned." And not what I had done at about his own age.
"I think I understand." He stood up, slowly, folded his stool. I nodded, wordlessly, turned to stare at the fire through the fat snowflakes.
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