Chapter 3 - Dale
It wasn’t even half a mile later when Melanie pointed to the left, to the dark group of old pine trees that someone had planted long ago as a windbreak.
On the other side of the trees, if you looked hard, was an old pale blue single-wide trailer, listless among the scrubby weeds, an old tire, a little white freezer on its side, the lid hanging from one hinge.
Dale pulled into the driveway, which was only two side by side depressions in the thick mat of snow that had formed in the last five minutes as if the coming blizzard had determined to mark its territory early.
“We didn’t bring back any soup,” said Melanie, a forlorn waver in her voice. “Or throat candy.”
“I have groceries in the truck bed,” said Dale. In fact, he had overdone it at the store, since they’d had a sale on sweet glazed ham, which he loved. “Let’s go see what’s up with your dad.”
He parked the truck close to the door of the trailer, expecting that someone would come to the door to check who had just arrived in the yard. But no one came and the yard was eerily silent except for the sound of snow blowing across the frozen grasses.
He helped the little girls out of the truck, and then followed them up the rickety metal steps.
Melanie opened the door and Rebecca scampered under her arm to go inside.
Then Dale followed Melanie, shaking the snow off him as he stood on the worn avocado-colored carpet and looked around the dimly lit single-wide.
The air inside seemed listless and dank, and it was almost as if the trailer were leaning to one side, as if it hadn’t been settled right or had begun to sag. And there, on a worn couch with lumpy cushions was a man beneath a single tattered blanket.
Dale had to blink, absently taking Rebecca’s hand when she scooted up next to him, and reached up for his hand.
“Is that your dad?” he asked, his voice thin.
In spite of the bruised look of the man’s face, the aching thinness of shoulders where the blanket wasn’t covering him, Dale knew the man.
It was Pete Branson, who Dale had known back in his school days.
They’d been best friends since junior high and that feeling had only deepened during their high school years.
The summer of their senior year, when Pete had been planning to go to local two-year college in Cheyenne, while Dale worked on the family cattle ranch, Dale’s feelings had begun to grow.
From shy acknowledgement that he liked boys to a full blown crush for Pete, he’d tried to keep everything to himself and then had miserably failed when his feelings had developed into a full-out devotion.
He’d always felt that Pete had the same feelings in return, as Pete would welcome Dale with hugs and friendly touches, and always sit by Dale at the baseball games, come to pick him up for swimming in the lake, save the last bite of his Peanut Buster Parfait for Dale at the Dairy Queen on Main Street.
But then Pete had started hanging out with Raynette, a nice enough girl, Dale had figured, at least in the beginning of that summer, thinking that Pete would come back to him eventually. But eventually turned into never.
Raynette had gotten pregnant and named Pete as the father, and the two of them got married and moved to Casper and then, even before the baby was born, to Houston, Texas. Which left Dale in a dusty hollow place with only his memories of Pete to keep him company.
That had been just a little over twelve years ago, and now here Pete was, two children in tow, living in a dilapidated trailer. The walls of the trailer were like sieves, and Dale could feel the growing cold outside leaching into the living room, even as he looked at Pete’s still form.
Now he knew why he remembered the old Meyer’s place. It was where Pete had gone from time to time over the years to spend time with his grandparents. That had been when they all lived in a suburb south of Cheyenne, went to school together, and spent their time at the drive-in and the city pool.
He’d never been to the farm Pete’s grandparents owned, but he’d seen pictures, only back then there’d been a cute white two-story farmhouse, a barn, a grain silo.
Chickens. Kittens in springtime. There had even been an old-fashioned windmill.
Now there was nothing but the trailer and scrap metal littering the yard.
Between then and now, Dale had grown up, saved up, and bought some land outside of Wheatland to raise his small herd of grass-fed Gelbvieh cattle.
He had done his best to move on from the sorrow that followed in the wake of Pete’s leaving, though nobody he’d met along the way had ever made him feel the way Pete did.
Like he was strong and wonderful and funny and smart.
Handsome too, or maybe he’d merely interpreted the way Pete used to look at him.
Pete’d had the face of an angel, fair, easily freckled.
Big brown eyes, long-lashed to trap Dale’s heart.
Ginger hair. Narrow shoulders. And the sweetest voice, warm, burry when he’d whisper to Dale in the front seat of Dale’s dad’s truck when they would go to the drive-in, just the two of them.
And that when everyone else they knew would stuff themselves into somebody’s station wagon and treat the event like a tailgate party at a football game.
No, those times he’d spent with Pete, building up to daring to kiss this beautiful boy, they’d always been on their own.
Even when they went bowling with their friends as a crowd, it always ended up with him and Pete heading over to the snack bar to share onion rings and a coke.
Like nobody else existed. Like they were the only two people in the entire world.
And it had come to this. Pete had come to this. Alone, ill, unable to care for his kids.