CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Entertainment was everywhere in town that
day. People were singing and making all kinds of music and tribal
dancers performed at the town stage. You could take a ghost tour of
the town or study the native language of the local Washoe Indians.
Birders were collecting to go birding and Western dance instruction
was going on in another part of town.
Lily was amazed at the diversity in Western
culture. It had been incredibly different living in San Francisco
and she wanted to soak in all the local customs and traditions.
Everywhere she looked, people were eating, exploring, talking,
singing and in general, being happy. She had needed a shot in the
arm and it looked like she had found the right town to get it. Lily
just hoped she wouldn’t forever be branded as an outsider.
Sometimes you have to be born in some of these places to ever
really fit in.
The huge stage occupied a major presence by
the old City Hall. Flags and pennants decorated it with the state
flag of Nevada flying alongside. Battle Born was the state slogan.
During the Civil War, President Lincoln had needed the silver and
gold ore from the Comstock mines up around Virginia City, so he had
made Nevada a state. History dripped from everywhere.
Men with huge cowboy hats and long mustaches
began to assemble on the stage. They wore brightly colored Western
shirts, vests, jeans, and jackets. Every single man had on
beautiful print scarves knotted neatly at their necks. GQ magazine
had nothing on these guys. With some of them, the bigger the hat,
the longer the mustache. Their faces were weather-beaten with rosy
cheeks. Speaking and laughing together, Lily guessed they had
either known each other forever, were the happiest guys she had
ever seen or maybe both. There was indeed something to the cowboy
way of life…
She was looking for a seat close to the stage
when she saw him. Sandy looked more handsome than all of them, and
that was saying a lot.
Lily stopped and stared.
What was it about this guy?
He sure had a certain something – charisma?
He wore a terrific red shirt with a silver buckle on his belt that
decorated his worn jeans. Chaps over his jeans made him look like
he had just galloped in on Ole Paint. She wouldn’t have been
surprised to watch him brush the dust off his jeans or kick the mud
off his boots.
Her eyes fell to those boots. They were the
same ones she saw him wearing that day they’d met in her classroom.
Oh, if those boots could talk, what would they say about all those
days in the wide-open spaces rounding up cattle or roping horses?
She wondered what the boots might say about the last time he stood
close to a woman or danced with her. She wanted those boots to be
very chatty.
Well, it was time to take a breath and find
that seat. “Oops, he’s looking at me too,” she muttered.
Sandy had seen her at the same time. He
watched her lithe figure stop when she saw him and openly stare. He
had half listened to Dave on his right, talking about his new poem.
Her face was beautifully framed with those soft curls of black
hair. What was it he found so attractive about women with dark eyes
and hair?
Sandy muttered a few ‘heys’ to the various
men assembled and tried not to look back at Lily. But he couldn’t
help it. She looked so natural in jeans, light blue shirt and vest.
She looked like she had lived here all her life. Her teacher
clothes definitely didn’t do her figure justice and he had even
loved the skirt and blouse she wore that day in the classroom when
they met. But in jeans – Whew… His mind was drawing blanks
when he finally heard, “Sandy, are you listening to me?” from an
agitated voice.
He looked over to the voice’s source and
found Amy Breen tugging on his sleeve and saying his name, “Sandy,
earth to Sandy. Anyone home?” He came out of his reverie about Lily
to focus on Amy.
“Yes, Amy, I’m here. What do you want?”
“Jesse and Arturo are playing just fine with
no evidence of being tired. Are you sure you can’t go to the dance
with me after the gathering?” A syrupy sweet voice tried to change
his mind.
“I’m beat, Amy. Really, the only thing I want
to do tonight is escape to my living room, build a fire and put my
feet up, without the boots.” Sandy tried to smile with his
half-hearted attempt at levity, but he knew Amy wasn’t buying. Her
smile didn’t meet her eyes.
“Have you met the new teacher, Lily Cable?”
Her friendly but detached voice now tried to lure him in. “She’s
from San Francisco, I hear. Can’t trust those Californians, you
know.”
“Oh, come on. That’s crap and you know it.
And yes, I’ve met Miss Cable. She’s Jesse’s teacher and he loves
her. She seems very nice from the little I’ve spoken to her.” Sandy
automatically glanced at Lily sitting in the second row as he
spoke. She still looked good.
Meanwhile, Lily had turned her attention to
the nice couple on her right. They were from Reno and were chatting
with her about another cowboy poetry festival in Elko, Nevada. Lily
wanted to absorb as much Western culture as she could. It suddenly
seemed very important to her to learn and appreciate as much as
possible. Nodding to the couple beside her, Lily wondered about her
attitude. Where was this newfound interest coming from? Why did she
want to know so much about this culture all of a sudden? With a
jolt, she glanced at the announcer on stage turning on the
microphone. A loud popping sound came from the microphone and the
man cleared his throat.
After waiting for the applause to die down,
he began. “Thanks for comin’ tonight, folks. We’ve got one heckava
lineup for you: Dave Hamey from Elko, Dan Michaels from Tonopah,
also…”
He continued down the list until Lily heard
him say, “And last, but certainly not least, our very own Sandy
Johnson! Let’s hear it for this incredible collection of cowboy
poets!”
The audience literally hooted and hollered.
Lily didn’t think audiences actually did that after 1860.
First up was Dave Hamey who had won several
Nevada literary arts awards. He wore his signature huge, gray
cowboy hat with silver piping around the broad brim. Dave spoke of
his days working on Nevada ranches as a cowboy. His poetry
captivated Lily with the meter and rhyme and the way he would spin
his Western tales. The cadence of his poetry was hypnotic and Lily
found herself tapping her feet and imagining the sights he was
describing. The audience broke into thunderous applause when he
finished. It was easy to see why Dave had won various awards and
had performed his poetry in festivals and on TV shows all over the
world. The man was a rock star!
And on and on it went. Each man looked like
the fictional Marlboro Man and spoke like Robert Frost or Frederic
Remington or some other magnificent poet. Their poems’ imagery
would rouse the audience with high intensity with one poem and make
them cry with the next. Cadences were fast, slow, swing, stop.
Every time a poem ended, the audience would hold its collective
breath waiting for the next line that never came. Applause erupted
again and again.
Lily was surprised at the intensity and
involvement of the audience. She didn’t think that Robert Frost, as
good an American poet as he was, could elicit this kind of response
from an audience. Cowboys certainly were a special breed.
Lily bent down to pick up her ticket that had
fallen on the ground. She looked up to see Sandy Johnson on the
stage watching her. She straightened immediately and pushed back
the hair that had fallen in her face. This guy seemed to unnerve
her with a look!
Sandy rose from his seat and took the
microphone mid-stage.
A hush fell over the audience as if this was
the cowboy they had all come to hear. Lily looked around at the
reverential faces sitting by her. Maybe he was special too.
Sandy began to speak and he was eloquent. His
poems were of loving and loss, of guilt and redemption. Lily’s eyes
widened and her lips parted when he spoke of his love for the land
where he was born. His poems flowed with passion for the life he
was proud to live. Sandy used particular rhymes and meters that
made Lily suspicious he had been an English major at one time. Who
else knows about internal rhyme and iambic pentameter? One poem was
so vivid in imagery that Lily could picture the scene with the
horses fleeing for their lives and lightning striking all around
them. Imaginary smoke from the wildfires filled her nostrils.
Most of the time he closed his eyes when
reciting his poetry, almost like it was too personal to share. Lily
knew how he felt. She had only gotten up her nerve to read a few of
her poems to students last year. Her poetry was very personal and
sharing was too hard sometimes. She hadn’t wanted to ever share her
poetry again after her last involvement. The guy couldn’t have care
less. But Sandy was… different. Lily felt she might, just might, be
able to share some of her poems with him: a man who wrote his
own.
His last poem spoke of longing for the right
person to share his life and how hard it was to find that person.
Sandy opened his eyes and recited it looking right at Lily.
She stared back at him as if hypnotized. What
a moment! It was like in Pride and Prejudice when Mr. Darcy
cast a long look at Elizabeth Bennett in the drawing room,
signaling an attachment between them. An equal understanding passed
between Sandy and Lily.
Lily quit breathing while Sandy was speaking.
She sucked in a gulp of air when he finished. They smiled at each
other and the audience broke into a sustained applause. All the
people assembled stood up to give him a standing ovation. The other
cowboy poets came over to shake his hand and pat him on the back.
Sandy was apparently the hit of the evening and everyone crowded
the stage to shake his hand. Soon Lily couldn’t see him anymore and
she sat back in her chair breathlessly. The Reno couple said their
good-byes and left. Nice couple. She was happy to have met
them.
Lily was so impressed with Sandy’s poetry
that she was dumbstruck. Never in her life had she heard a man
speak that way! Cowboys… She grabbed her purse and started for the
aisle. The stage was still a mob scene with well-wishers for all
the cowboy poets. Sandy was nowhere to be seen, so she turned to
leave and saw he was walking up to her. Jesse ran up first,
breathless and smiling his crooked grin.
“Miss Cable! Did you hear Daddy? Wasn’t he
great? I never heard that last poem before though. When did you
write that one, Daddy? Huh?” Jesse tilted his little face at Sandy
and then Lily.
Lily and Sandy stared at each other for a
long moment.
Clearing his throat, Sandy asked, “What did
you think, Lily?” He clutched tightly to his hat, turning it around
and around.
She choked and had to start again.
“I can hardly find the words to say…how
fabulous your performance was. You wrote all those beautiful poems?
The imagery, the rhyme, the stories…I didn’t know people wrote like
that anymore. Not in this century at least.” Lily was babbling.
Sandy seemed to relax and smiled. He looked at his son.
“And Jesse, I wrote that last poem last
night. What did you think of it?”
“It was kinda mushy, not like your horse
poems. I like those better.”
So Sandy had written that after meeting her?
No, that couldn’t be. Lily blushed and Jesse yelled, “I want to say
goodbye to Arturo. Be right back!” He ran off to find his
friend.
Sandy shifted his stance. He shyly looked
straight into her blinking eyes. “I don’t want to do this
anymore.”
“Do what?”
“Pretend that I’m not attracted to you
because I am. What do you think about that?” He held his breath as
his eyes roamed her face.
“I’ve… got some… baggage, Sandy. It won’t be
easy.” People brushed by and she stepped out of their way. She
glanced back at him.
“I can be a good porter if the situation
calls for it. Let’s do something together and see what
happens.”
Lily realized she was looking at him as if
she was starving and he was a big juicy steak. Maybe her luck with
men was changing. Maybe it was worth it to find out.
“Okay. I mean, yes. I mean -- I sure would
like to give it a try. Ah…that is, if you really want to.” Sandy
took her hand. The spark between them was becoming more like an
electric current.
“Come to the ranch this weekend like Jesse
suggested. We’ll try to make a cowgirl out of you,” Sandy smiled
his broad smile. “Would you like that?”
“… Absolutely!”
“I’ll write down directions tonight and then
you could drive out Saturday.”
“Okay. Thank you for the invitation. See you
then.”
He smiled so sweetly causing a lump to clog
Lily’s throat. When was the last time something so corny sounded so
good? And she hadn’t felt this happy in a very long time. Maybe,
just maybe he was ready for something else in his life besides
cattle…God knows she was ready for something different.
They were parting reluctantly when Jesse ran
up and was told of the plans. He yelled, “Yippee, Miss Cable is
coming to visit!”
Sandy tipped his cowboy hat at Lily,
“Ma’am.”
Wow! Lily’s heart beat louder and
faster. Jesse and Sandy went one way and Lily went the other.
Someone else had overheard the news: Amy
Breen was talking to one of the other cowboy poets when she heard
Jesse yell out about Miss Cable. Not that many paid attention or
cared, but she certainly did. Apparently, Lily Cable, the
troublemaker, didn’t know that Sandy Johnson was hers and hers
alone. She narrowed her eyes and began to think of ways to sabotage
this relationship before it could get started. She had done it
before when Sandy had shown an interest in someone around town and
she could do it again… and would.
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