Chapter 4Peggy May Warner
Chapter 4
Always Solitary
November 1991
Peggy May Warner
P eggy Warner climbed out of her ugly green Ford Pinto that was almost as old as she was. When she slammed the door closed, the handle came off as usual. At twenty-seven she thought she should have enough money to buy herself a new car or at least have a boyfriend to drive her around.
But no. She blamed it all on birth order. Peggy May was the baby in the family. She didn’t get to go to college. The five other kids had drained their parents’ savings before she got there. A few even begged to go to Europe after they graduated from high school and won out.
After all, they’d only used a little of Peggy’s school savings, and she probably didn’t want to go to college anyway. She was shy. The girl in the corner who forgot to go wild in her teens. Everyone in the family agreed that since she was reclusive, it was fine if she stayed home and read.
As the youngest she never got clothes with the tags still on. Hand-me-downs were good enough. She wasn’t going anywhere anyway. Peggy was a homebody. They always said sweet Peggy wouldn’t mind being left out. Someone had to stay home and feed the pigs and chickens.
But one thing did bother her. Her father had to call the names of all five siblings before he got to hers. She was “Hey you, kid” until she was ten. Then “Hey, missy” through her teens. Then began the roll call, and her name was always last.
About the time she thought of growing up and leaving the nest, her parents decided they were getting old. She couldn’t leave home; she was needed.
Her folks announced they were tired of spending their money on their kids. By the time Peggy finished high school, Mom and Dad were saving for retirement. None of her kin thought she was smart enough to keep going. She’d be wasting money on more than a high school education.
With five older siblings and their mates, who were always around to tell her what to do, Peggy gave up thinking for herself. All of them thought their little sister was a bubble off of normal. They all agreed she needed to stay near home and with her family. One of her older sisters gave her a used computer and said the library would help Peggy take classes on every hobby she liked. Cooking. Quilting. Yoga. Speaking different languages. CPR.
Her oldest sister swore any of these classes would be more helpful than a college degree.
Before Peggy turned twenty, her role was set in the family. Peggy May Warner was the caretaker. She was the one who went to sit with great-grandmother in her last days—which lasted two years.
When her cousin broke a leg, Peggy went to take care of her four kids—for six months.
A sister’s husband was deployed and her sister couldn’t handle the twins and work all by herself. Peggy had to help. Another four months.
After that she stopped counting. She just kept a suitcase packed.
If anyone was moving, having surgeries, expecting a baby, or remodeling, Peggy was called in. Once the crisis was over, the family needed a long vacation while Peggy house-sat, fed the pets, and mowed the lawn.
When she first came everyone was excited. Then she fit in a corner. And after a few months, quiet Peggy became invisible. She rarely came out of her room if the family had company. Peggy would rather be alone than have to sit among people she didn’t know.
She had over fifty relations, so someone always needed her. When she turned twenty she moved above the garage. Everyone agreed she didn’t need an apartment. Usually when she returned from helping a relative, she spent the first few days tossing junk away that her mother thought she might want.
The family seemed to think Peggy was on vacation when she came back home between assignments. They’d laughed at her egg business she ran on Saturday at the farmers market. She always had fun but none of her kin ever had time to accompany her. At twenty-seven years old, plain, straight-haired, and no makeup, she figured in a few years she’d be truly invisible. She’d just float from house to house with no one talking to her.
Most of her kin forgot to pay her. After all, she was family. Or sometimes they’d pay her half the rate. Or worse, they’d pay her parents.
Her parents sometimes passed the money on to her, but not always. She still lived at home. She didn’t really need to get paid.
But this cool fall afternoon Peggy stood beside her old car parked on the dirt road a few yards from the mostly forgotten family cemetery.
As usual she pushed her pity party aside while she pulled the shovel from the back seat. She used the shovel like Moses used his staff to get up the hill. There were jobs, like keeping up the cemetery, everyone assumed Peggy would do. After all, she didn’t have a real job. So she was in charge of weeding the graves.
While she worked, she remembered the few dates she’d had. One of her brothers tried to match her up with his wife’s cousin. The guy never stopped talking about himself or took the toothpick out of his mouth. She might have forgiven him, but every time he got near, he managed to brush against her chest. When he helped her with her coat. When he shook her hand as he leaned in to whisper “hello” like it was foreplay. When he pulled out her chair and patted her shoulder, his hand always went a bit low.
After she told her brother she wasn’t interested in his wife’s cousin, her sister-in-law was offended.
As Peggy made it up the hill on this cloudy day, she remembered the guy had apologized for bumping her breasts as their date ended, and then he’d brushed her blouse as if he planned to wipe his mistake away.
Peggy had jumped backward. “Excuse me, I have to go throw up.”
Now she laughed at her fast thinking and the look on his face.
“Forget about that bad date,” she whispered to the clouds. “I’ve got work to finish before it starts raining. What was I thinking, doing this on a cloudy day?”
She made it to the top of the graveyard, still talking to herself. “No one in the family has time to weed the community graves. They all have real lives.”
The first cemetery was just outside Crossroads, and the town paid her to keep it up. The small cemetery, called the Settlers’ Rest, had dirt ruts rising above the county’s only rapids that ran through Ransom Canyon.
This place was special. The first families lay among the trees overlooking Ransom Canyon. Four ranches met here. Four founding families and some cowboys, who worked on the land and wanted to be buried where only prairie spread beneath the sky, rested there.
Peggy started chopping weeds almost as tall as she was. All the weeds crowded around the gravestones as if protecting them. With each whack she politely said, “Sorry.” Then she’d giggle. The day was perfect; the cloudy view was the best and she was alone.
Could this day get any better?
Near the top she stopped and smiled at the sun fighting to peep through the clouds. Looking down the hill at her work, she noticed there were several plots that had room for six graves, but the ground had never been broken. One lot not yet claimed by any of the Warner kin, though it was on the Warner fourth of the land set aside.
“This one must be mine,” she announced. Hers alone, all hers.
She didn’t want to be buried with others, with husbands and wives and children that were not hers. In death she wanted to have a place all her own.
She walked toward the empty space. It was perfect. Standing on the spot she felt at home. It might be fifty years before she was put to rest, but someday she’d be buried right here. If all her brothers and sisters got to pick their place, she should have one square too.
Peggy began to dig. Thanks to the rains, the ground gave easily, so she kept right on digging. It made no sense, but she wanted to dig a grave to try it out. She laid the shovel down and climbed in. She had to make sure it wasn’t too short.
Covered with dirt, she scrambled back to ground level, picked up the shovel and kept digging until the hole was two feet deep and just right from head to toe.
She climbed in again, lay in the hole and placed her hands on her chest. She looked up and saw perfect clouds. In the morning air, she could hear the rapids gurgling in the valley below. This one beautiful day, one place seemed made for her. When she died, this was where she wanted to rest forever. She closed her eyes thinking that she might never have a house of her own or time to herself, but she had a place to rest when her life was over.
Peggy was almost asleep in her paradise when she heard a horse.
Part of her dream, she thought. The jingle of spurs. The swish of leather. All at once the dream seemed real but she didn’t want her fantasy to end.
Steps moved toward her and she sensed someone getting closer. The ground seemed to shift.
Be still, she thought. They might not notice her.
“Miss,” a low voice whispered near as if he didn’t want to wake her. “You okay?”
Peggy opened one eye. With the sun behind him, the man above was in shadow.
Low laughter floated between them. “Are you okay? I can see one beautiful blue eye looking up and hair the color of sunset. I hate to awake such a sleeping beauty.”
For a wink she considered being afraid, then she realized she was the one acting crazy.
If anyone should be scared, it should be him. After all, who in their right mind would lie down in a two-feet-deep grave?
“I was just . . .” She couldn’t think of anything that made sense. “I was just . . .” Her eyes filled with tears. Once he told this story in town, she’d have not just her family laughing, but the whole county would make fun of her.
He whispered as he sat near her, his long legs crossed and his worn hat pushed back.
“Stunning blue eyes shouldn’t cry. That would be a crime,” he said in a low tone.
“I was just measuring,” she whispered. He probably thought she was nuts.
“That makes sense. It would be terrible if your feet hung out.” Then he laughed as a chuckle burst out of her.
As she looked up at the cowboy, tears dropped off her chin.
He didn’t say a word. He just pulled out his handkerchief and handed it to her. “Are you hurt, my sunshine lady?”
“No. I was just trying it out. I don’t want to die. I just wanted to see the view from here.”
To her surprise he spread out on the grass next to the hole she was in. He used his arms for a pillow and stared at the clouds.
“It’s like the biggest canvas in the world. It is so peaceful out here. Quiet, cool.”
Then the strangest thing happened: They began to talk. They saw shapes in the clouds and laughed about how one looked like Mickey Mouse and another looked like a dead rabbit with its tongue hanging out.
They were like two kids talking on bunkbeds. He made her laugh and they talked about their childhoods and future dreams.
After an hour, when rain threatened, he stood and bent down with both hands out. “Let me help you up, miss.”
She saw the length of him. Tall. Thin. Tan hair that was not acquainted with a comb. Some might say he wasn’t handsome but she saw kindness in his eyes and his laughter.
Without a word she stood, and he locked his big hands around her arms and gently lifted her out of the hole.
An inch away from him she could feel his warmth. “I don’t even know your name and we practically had a date.”
He looked down into her eyes, both clearly seeing each other. “I was hoping you were Peggy May Warner.”
Peggy stepped back, surprised that he knew her.
The cowboy circled her waist to keep her from falling into her someday grave.
Words tumbled out as he settled her on solid ground. “I’m Duke Evans. I ride for the Double K, but you know all cowhands help out on other ranches when needed. I was riding fences this morning and thought I’d stop and eat my lunch up here.”
When she didn’t say a word, he continued. “Since you were cleaning the Warner plots, I assumed you were Peggy Warner. I’ve seen you at the library and a few times at the Saturday farmers market. You never noticed me but those blue eyes haunt my dreams. I didn’t think I’d ever get to talk to you.”
Peggy just stared. No one had ever said anything like that to her before.
When she still didn’t speak, he tried again. “You’re tall, Peggy Warner. You looked at my face, not the buttons on my chest, but you didn’t talk to me. Shy?”
“Yes, I guess. I’m not usually around any people who aren’t kin.”
“Well, I don’t want to be strangers.” He offered his hand. “Hello, Peggy Warner.”
She smiled as his palm covered hers. “Hello, Duke Evans.”
His eyes never moved off her face. “Since this was an almost date, how about we have a real date tomorrow? We could go to dinner.”
“I can’t. I have to sit up with my cousin during the night. She’s over nine months’ pregnant. Lots of the family can stay with her in the day, but no one wants the night shift.” Peggy felt like she might cry.
He stared at her and smiled as if he saw inside her. “How about we meet here at noon tomorrow? I like talking to you. We’ll have a noon date. I’ll even fill in your someday grave so we can have a picnic right here.”
“I’ll bring lunch,” she said low, as if there might be someone trying to eavesdrop.
“A real date, blue eyes. Just me and you.”
“Me and you.” She whispered, “You mind if we add one small thing?”
“Name it.”
She lowered her head as heat filled her cheeks. She couldn’t look at him as she asked.
“Name it, Peggy.”
She began to back up.
He didn’t move. Just watched her as if watching a wounded animal.
She was ten feet away when she stopped and said, “This real date tomorrow ends with a kiss.” She couldn’t look at him. “Do people do that?”
The wind seemed to still as she waited.
He smiled. “Well, blue eyes, since I’ve already held your hand, I figure a kiss comes next.” When he winked at her, they both laughed and nodded. It was a deal.