Chapter 34
morgan
After breakfast, Jack hopped up to clear the table, once more chipper and bright. Morgan sighed and vowed that he’d start those exercises so he could do his fair share and Jack wouldn’t have to work so hard. Something else occurred to him. “I think I should talk with Mabel.”
Jack turned, suds sparkling on the front of his T-shirt and on the curve of his front pocket, dark with grease despite the jeans’ run through the washer.
“I need to apologize to her and ask her about the ledger. Would you be willing to drive me?”
Jack nodded, wiping his hands on his thighs.
“But before we go,” Morgan added, “would you please, please, please change into your new clothes?”
“So she won’t yell at you.”
“No.” Morgan shook his head. “Well, yes, it’d be nice if she didn’t.
But mostly because you deserve to be warm and comfortable, not walking around in zero degrees on the verge of frostbite.
” He sighed. Once again he was attempting to dictate what Jack should do.
What would make Jack happy. “Wear the boots, at least?” he asked. “So your cute feet don’t get cold.”
“My cute feet,” Jack echoed, a sassy smile curving his mouth.
“I speak only the truth,” Morgan said, pretending to be more irritated than he actually was.
Jack silently laughed at him and finished the dishes, then headed into the parlor to change.
Morgan went into his room to lay his blue robe aside and find a sweatshirt. By the time he came out, Jack was already downstairs. Because he was efficient. And smart. And everything, and Morgan was going to tell him so.
Except when he had thumped his way down the stairs, prepared to grab his coat and hustle as fast as he could across the parking lot to the truck, he was struck into silence.
Jack had changed into dark blue jeans, the new brown boots showing beneath the hem. He was all zipped up in the sage green parka, the dark green fake fur around his head making his eyes even greener than they had been only moments ago.
Morgan took a moment to catch his breath. Then, without a word, he walked up to Jack, cupped his face, pushing dark hair away from his eyes, and kissed him. “Have I ever told you how beautiful you are?” he whispered.
“No,” Jack said, as calmly as if they were discussing whether they were out of butter. “This is the first time.” He sounded as though he expected there to be more times, and he was looking forward to them.
“First of many,” Morgan confirmed, making a promise in his heart to never go another day without saying nice things to Jack. Nice things about Jack, to Jack. And to sing his praises to everyone in town.
He was smiling as they hustled into the truck and still smiling as Jack drove slowly to Mabel’s house.
Jack parked in front, along the sidewalk, and got out, coming around to the passenger side so he could help Morgan if he needed it. But Morgan waved him away, and Jack headed up the walkway—a walkway that surely needed shoveling.
Inside, Morgan could hear Mister Rocket barking, announcing to Mabel that there were strangers approaching and she ought to be on the alert.
But as Jack went up the three steps, his hand raised to press the doorbell, the barking changed to something more excited and perhaps welcoming. Soft yips instead of full-throated sounds of alarm.
Mabel opened the door and pushed open the storm door, which Jack took from her. She greeted him warmly, but her smile fell away when she acknowledged Morgan with a mere flick of her gaze.
“You might as well come in out of the cold,” she told him after a moment’s hesitation.
She didn’t sound very welcoming—to him, at any rate—but he needed to talk to her just the same. Slowly, he went up the steps, thump, step, thump, like a single-minded monster from an old black-and-white movie.
“Hey, Mabel,” Jack said quickly, “Morgan has something he’d like to say.”
Jack had broken the ice for him, looking out for him like he always did.
“That’s fine, dear.” Mabel reached up and kissed Jack’s cheek, then stepped back, opening the door wide so they both could come in. “Hurry now, and don’t let Mister Rocket out. He’s been a handful, now that the sun is shining.”
Jack stepped through the small foyer and crouched down to pet Mister Rocket so Morgan could come in and Mabel could close the door.
“You boys take off your boots and hang up your coats. I’ll make hot chocolate.” She paused and looked at each of them in turn, sternly, like a grade-school teacher. “That is, if anyone wants it.”
“I do, ma’am,” Jack said.
“I’d like some, too, please,” Morgan said, stomping the snow from his galoshes.
While Mabel bustled in the kitchen, Morgan sat in one of the easy chairs in the living room and watched Jack play with Mister Rocket before finally picking him up to hold him on his lap so they could exchange soft snuffles.
Jack looked so happy with his arm around the dog that Morgan couldn’t stop staring and almost missed that Mabel had finished in the kitchen and was now standing next to him with a mug outstretched. Like she might rather want to dump the contents over his head.
He took it from her with a word of thanks, then watched her hand a mug to Jack and gently but firmly tell Mister Rocket to get down from his lap.
Morgan knew he shouldn’t put off his apology, and in any case, he needed Mabel’s goodwill to help him resolve whatever the ledger was about. So he took a deep breath and began.
“Mabel,” he said, “I should be standing when I say this, but my knees would give out.”
She stopped in the doorway from the living room to the kitchen, turning to look at him as if she wasn’t sure he wouldn’t bite.
“I’m sorry I upset you and worried you, letting Jack go out that day when it was so cold.”
“You didn’t let me,” Jack said.
Morgan glanced at him. Jack’s jaw was stiff, and he was scowling.
“I did let you,” Morgan said.
“You didn’t,” Jack said. “I made my own choices, just like I always do. Besides, it’s nothing to get mad about. I didn’t think it’d be as cold as it was. But, hell, I’ve never been to Montana before, so how could I know?”
Now Morgan did stand up, the hot chocolate in his hand spilling over his wrist, but luckily any spillage landed on his sweatpants and not on Mabel’s spotless rug.
“Jack wanted that peach cobbler,” he said to Mabel.
“I knew he did. I could have said, ‘Let’s get in the truck and go,’ and to hell with Young Tommy’s advice.
” He sighed, shoulders rising and then slumping.
“I could have. But instead, I said no and turned back to my work. Wouldn’t have taken us more than half an hour, and Jack wouldn’t have risked frostbite and hypothermia.
So I apologize and promise to take better care of him—” He stumbled over the words but made himself continue.
“To take better care of him in the future.”
The most important part of that, beyond the apology to Mabel, was his promise about Jack.
“I was overwhelmed and didn’t think things through as I should have,” he said. The words felt inadequate, so he repeated, “I’m sorry I worried you, Mabel. And I’m sorry—” He swallowed hard. “Can we still be friends?”
Mabel sniffed. “Yes, I suppose so.” He thought he could see relief on her face, and he suspected perhaps she disliked confrontation as much as he did.
“Thank you,” Morgan said. “Now, if it’s not too much to ask, I’m hoping you can help me with Aunt Oralee’s ledger. I can’t make heads or tails of it.”
Mabel nodded. “I expect I can. Come over to the kitchen table and bring your hot chocolate with you.”
It was good to sit down at the old-fashioned Formica-topped table edged with chrome, like the tables in the coffee shop. He took a sip of the hot chocolate and then set the mug aside, laying the ledger in its place. Mabel took it up and looked at him.
“So you’ve gone through this?” she asked, her thin hands on the edges.
“Yes,” he said. “I mean, I know how to read a ledger. But this one—it’s got names in it, though none that I recognize. It’s got amounts paid and owed, and I’ve tried, but I can’t figure out what they’re for.”
“It’s Toby and Oralee’s special ledger,” she said, the words coming out like a story from long ago. “Toby started it years ago. There are probably more of these somewhere, but this one, the current one, was at the bank, I think.”
“Yes, in a safe-deposit box.”
“That’s what I expected,” she said. “I think Oralee knew she wasn’t going to make it, so she got the box at the bank for safekeeping. But she used this ledger to keep track of float loans. Even after Toby passed, she kept those loans going.”
Morgan was baffled, and he knew his face showed it. He didn't know how to ask the right question to untangle this particular mystery.
“Ranches above the Yellowstone River, you see,” she said, “they have thousands of acres, high-end cattle, and money in the bank. Not some local credit union, mind you, but a bank. They can get loans anytime they like, for any amount they like. Little farms, such as we have around Hysham, aren’t big or profitable enough to get loans.
They provide business to our town, though, and the people who own those farms are our neighbors.
So rather than let them fail, Toby and Oralee would order seed or tools or whatever they needed, with the promise to be paid back after the harvest. Except then they’d use the money that came in to order more supplies—seeds, tools, and what have you—for the next year. ”
“So they never really got their money back,” he said slowly.
“No, they did not. They never made a penny and never charged interest. It was their promise to the town, their investment in the farmers. Folks thought it would come to an end on account of the Grange burning down and then Toby’s passing, but Oralee kept on with it.”