Chapter 3Staten Kirkland
Chapter 3
Organizing a Life Amid Chaos
November
Staten Kirkland
A ll the horror of the past month had replayed in his dreams last night. Staten Kirkland stepped onto the porch of the little house his great-great-grandfather had built over a hundred years ago, trying to clear his head. He watched the sun come up as he waited for his coffee to cool down. Lately, the world seemed like one long day. There had been no weekends or time to even think. He just slept then woke up and got back to work.
He could imagine what life had been like before he was born. His mother pretending to want a rancher’s life while she was pregnant with him. His father trying out politics in Austin with an eye for Capitol Hill.
The original plan was that both his grandfather and father would work the ranch together with J.R. running the place while Samuel was needed at the capital. Then when Samuel was home, Staten’s grandparents would travel. Granny taught world history and she planned to see a bit of it.
Staten wished he could talk over the problems on the ranch with his gramps. He didn’t want the old man to worry, but he was only nineteen. Too young to be in charge. Too young to grow up. Too young to turn into a man overnight.
As usual, his father was nowhere to be seen. No help at all. Too busy living his own life in his own world. Samuel never made it home except when he needed photos to prove he was a rancher. The capital’s fast life and parties had roped him in.
Granny used to say that her son was always drawn to shiny things. That’s why most of his ex-wives were platinum blondes.
The year Staten was born must have been a busy time. His father was the youngest state senator in Texas at thirty-five. At first, his mother stayed on the ranch and Samuel said he’d come home on weekends.
But it didn’t work out. Staten took a swallow of his first coffee of the day as he remembered how Jake Longbow had described his mother. No extra words, just the facts. She was young, rich from birth, and bored. Ten years younger than Samuel. City girl who hated standing in the shadow of her husband. As she finished birthing Staten, she switched the baby to a bottle within three months, handed Staten to his grandmother, and headed to Austin. She wanted her share of the limelight.
Staten took another sip and remembered the rest. His mother never came home to the ranch or lived in the big house. His parents were always too busy to come back together, but somehow they managed separate vacations. Without him. They’d fly in to do photo shoots but his mother was just a lady who hugged him now and then. All he remembered of her was she had blond hair like the rest.
She divorced the senator a few months after he was reelected for his third term and never came back to pick up her son.
Then his father married again. Number two had darker hair and a funny giggle that seemed to just bubble up like a burp. She built the big house and decorated it like a showroom for photo shoots. After his second mother left, it sat empty for five years as Staten learned to ride a horse and rope cattle in his grandparents’ home.
Wife number three ignored Staten, which he didn’t mind. She decided to change the big house too, but left when the remodel was finished. Granny said that wife forgot to come get him and take him to his dad. With her trips between Washington and Austin, then furniture buying in New York, Staten’s young mind figured his third mom took a wrong turn somewhere.
After that his father seemed to form a pattern. Some he married, some he didn’t. But no one ever moved into the big house.
It didn’t matter. Staten and Jake just called them all “Miss Kitty” after the lady in Gunsmoke .
Staten tossed his cold coffee into the flower bed. His grandparents’ little cottage was also meant to be their retirement home. It stood in the shadow of Samuel’s big house built for show. But Staten always smiled because the morning sun shined on their small home and the open land. He loved living in the cottage. The people he loved lived there. From birth the cottage was his home.
Staten’s girlfriend, Amalah, used to say they’d marry someday and fill the big house with children.
He agreed, but deep down his grandparents’ cottage would always be home. Where love lived.
It had been over a month since the oldest Kirkland had been rushed to the clinic, but still things had not gone back to the way they were. No one on the ranch could accept that J.R. might die. How could the Double K run without Staten’s grandfather stepping out at dawn yelling orders? Everyone still needed him.
Running his fingers through his hair, Staten realized he was in need of a cut and a shave, but that was the least of his problems. “It seems like a year since I came home,” he said to no one. “How could it be only a little over a month since I drove a hundred miles an hour to get here? It feels like forever.” He barked a laugh.
His hands had a few more scars now from hard work. His face was sunburned. His body ached.
He’d be looking like Gramps before Christmas. He was aging fast. The work around the place was never finished, and every night he sat with Gramps and talked until the old man fell asleep.
His grandfather had almost died a few short weeks ago. When Gramps came home, he was a shell of the man he’d been. Usually, Granny never spent money she could save, but she hired two nurses from Lubbock to help her take care of the old man. They slept in the big room downstairs from Monday to Friday and helped lighten Granny’s load.
Staten’s father never made it home from Austin, but his secretary sent flowers to the clinic. And Gramps’s name made it in the newspaper, the Austin American-Statesman .
One line: SENATOR SAMUEL KIRKLAND’S FATHER HOSPITALIZED LAST WEEK.
It was a hell of a way to get more votes.
Staten noticed the three ex-wives didn’t call, but the newest wife did send a gardener from Lubbock to replant the flowers in the bed at the front of the big ranch house. Time for more pictures, Staten thought.
Amalah called every night at ten. She talked about what was happening on campus, and he talked of how Gramps was doing. Every night he whispered, “Love you, Ama.” And Amalah would say, “I love you, too. Come back to me. It’s no fun at college without you.”
“Soon,” he answered, but with each day’s passing he wondered when that day would come. Since the day he left campus Staten hadn’t even opened a textbook.
Staten told her that no matter how early he got up or how late he came in, the work on the ranch was never finished. He told his girl how he missed her, and she promised to come home every weekend she could. But there was always a football game, or she had to study, or the weather was bad.
Every night their talks grew shorter. He was tired. She had homework. He had to get up early or she had a test. Sometimes his grandfather had a hard night and Staten would take a shift sitting up with him. But as the weeks passed, he realized that he and Amalah had less to say. They loved one another but they were in two different worlds.
Amalah might not have grown up on a ranch, but she listened as he talked about things she didn’t understand. And what hurt Staten the most was that she cried because he couldn’t hold her.
They’d never been apart. He’d loved her for as long as he could remember. They’d planned for college. He couldn’t make up his mind what he should major in, but Amalah knew from the first that she wanted to be a teacher and Staten’s wife.
One night, as fall turned into winter, she mentioned he was far behind in his classes and he said slowly, “I don’t think I’m coming back this semester. I’m still needed here.”
He could hear her trying to hold back tears. He tried to comfort her. They would get together on weekends. He’d go back to Tech as soon as he could. She promised to come home when she had time, but she missed him and the crying continued. They both knew there were no weekends on a ranch. He had to work. Gramps and the ranch hung on every conversation. They’d be lucky to see each other once a month.
When he finally said goodbye, the “I love you” sounded hollow.
The truth was he hadn’t had time to even think of her for days.
On the seventh Friday when Amalah couldn’t come home, he stood tall and looked out into the night. The light from the little house glowed behind him and made his shadow stretch toward the big house.
All of the wives loathed the life out here; it was hard to be the center of attention when there’s nobody around to be the crowd. What if Amalah hated it too? Staten was growing to love the ranch more every day. Something was changing as he took over. The land, Ransom Canyon, and even the rapids that turned silver with the falling leaves this time of year. The land was becoming a part of him. No. He was becoming part of the land.
Ready or not, Staten would hold the Double K together.
He looked back through the cottage window. Granny was laughing as she tried to shave Gramps. The old man watched her with love in his eyes.
His grandmother had met her love in Dallas. She wasn’t raised on a farm or ranch, but they had lived out here for fifty years. Amalah would too. His Ama loved him; she’d stay with him. She’d never leave. She’d announced in the second grade they would marry someday and he’d agreed.
As Granny kissed her husband’s bald head, Staten realized something. She didn’t love this ranch; she loved her husband.
The thought made him smile. Maybe he and Amalah would be all right.