Chapter 18 #2
Gray rolled his eyes, conceding the point in grumpy silence, which was the Lawton brothers’ preferred method of acknowledging defeat.
Cooper picked up the folder and hefted it in his hand, feeling the weight of it. “Eight men,” he said soberly. “Eight families. Four years of lies. And now this.”
“Now this.”
They sat together in the truck for a while, watching clouds scud across the sky. The snow on Wheeler Mountain was shrinking by the hour, its dark rock emerging, unchanged and unscathed by yet another winter in an unending cycle of seasons stretching back millions of years.
The pinochle group was abuzz over the change in weather.
Gray stepped into Rose’s for a coffee before he headed back to the ranch and walked into a lively discussion about wind speed, grass height, and the relative merits of various fire prevention techniques practiced by local ranchers, very few of which bore any relationship to actual fire science.
Walter Meeks was holding forth. “Last time we had a Chinook this late in March was ’94. Burned six thousand acres between here and the town of Crystal Lake before they got a handle on it. Silas Barker lost a dozen head of cattle.”
Ruth piped up. “It was ’93, Walter.”
“It was ’94. I remember because it was the year my youngest graduated.”
“Your youngest graduated in ’95.”
“Ruthie, I was at the graduation.”
“You have six children and probably don’t even know how many grandkids you have, Walter. It’s not a crime to misremember which one finished when.”
“I have nineteen grandchildren, thank you very much. And I can name every one of them.”
Ruth retorted slyly, “I’ll bet you can’t tell me how old each one of them is.”
Walter harrumphed and went back to studying his cards. But Gray got the impression Ruth had bested Walter on that one.
A crusty rancher named Harlan leaned in from the adjoining booth. “Doesn’t matter what year it was. Point is, the wind’s gonna keep blowing and the grass up on those ridges is dead dry. Somebody drops a cigarette or a power line comes down in all that wind, and we’ll have a problem.”
“We don’t have a fire department,” Walter pointed out.
Ruth said, “We have a fire station. Gray’s been cleaning it up, haven’t you, Gray?”
He shrugged not thrilled at being drawn into the gossip.
Harlan replied, “A clean building isn’t a fire department, Ruth. You need trained people and working equipment.”
“The boy’s studying fire science,” Ruth said. “He told me himself.”
Walter looked over at Gray, who was standing at the counter silently begging Irma to fill and cap his to-go cup faster. “That true? You’re studying fire science?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You know how to put out a grass fire?”
“In theory.”
“In theory,” Walter echoed. “Well, that’s comforting.”
Harlan said, “Theory’s better than nothing, which is what we’ve had since the barn fire.”
Gray took his coffee and fled.
Behind him, Ruth’s shrill voice carried through the closing door “At least he’s going to be sticking around for a while, now that he has a girlfriend. Bonnie Watson. I saw them holding hands in the parking lot of the fire station just yesterday.”
He squeezed his eyes shut, unsure if he was more embarrassed or annoyed to have been seen holding Bonnie’s hand.
If he had his druthers, he would do more than hold Bonnie’s hand, and the two of them would do it whenever and wherever they liked, gossips be darned.
But until Lucas Shoemacher found out through official channels that the fire investigation had been re-opened, Bonnie was scared to go public with their relationship.
At least she acknowledged that the two of them had a relationship.
He hadn’t been sure he was interpreting the situation correctly.
Then last night, Bonnie heard about Ruth’s gossip from Rose, who called to tell her.
Bonnie hung up the phone and proceeded to rant indignantly about how Ruth Sanger should mind her own business and keep her nose out of other people’s relationships.
He would never do anything to upset Bonnie, let alone endanger her in any way. But he rather liked the idea of the whole town knowing that she was his gal and he was her guy. He would deny it for now, but one day soon, he wanted to shout to the whole world that he was . . .
That he was what? The phrase that had almost finished that sentence in his mind stopped him in his mental tracks. Was he in love with Bonnie Watson?
When did that happen?
Nah. He had to be wrong about that. He was as bad at understanding his own feelings as he was at understanding other peoples’.
Stunned, he got into his truck and drove toward the ranch.
The wind buffeted the cab, warm and dry, and bits of dried grass swirled across the road.
The hills on either side of the valley were brown and hairy with newly exposed dead grass.
In less than a full day, the snowmelt was completely gone at the lower elevations.
The grass in the pastures passing his window lay in pale dead mats that rippled like water in the chinook gusts.
He thought about Walter’s story. Six thousand acres. A dozen head of cattle. And that was when Cobbler Cove had a fire department. What would happen when the nearest fire fighters were over a half-hour away?
He made a mental note to check the fire engine’s pump and hoses when he got back to the station. Just in case theory needed to become practice.
Ray Lawton’s green truck was parked outside the bunkhouse again.
This time, Gray didn’t freeze at the sight of it. He parked beside it and got out. His father was sitting on the same porch steps where they’d had their first conversation, his duffel beside him, his jacket zipped against the wind. It might be warm but it carried enough grit to sting.
Ray stood when Gray approached. He looked like he’d finished what he came to do and was getting ready to leave.
“I wanted to say goodbye before I head out,” Ray said.
“Wyoming?”
“Wyoming. Your mother.” A pause. “That’s going to be the hardest one of all.”
Gray could imagine. Shirley Lawton had worked her fingers to the bone and struggled every day for fifteen years to raise three boys alone.
She had never said a bad word about Ray, according to Cooper, which meant she’d swallowed enough anger and hurt to fill the Mississippi River.
Ray was driving toward a woman who had every right to slam the door in his face and the strength of character not to.
“She’ll hear you out,” Gray said. “Mom’s fair.”
“She always was fair. Lord knows, she’s a better woman than I ever deserved.”
They stood on the porch in the warm wind.
The calves were out in the pasture, their pale shapes vivid against the brown grass, butting heads and chasing each other with the uncoordinated enthusiasm of youth.
A song sparrow sang from a post on the fence line, heralding the arrival of spring by singing to attract a mate.
“I talked to Tucker again yesterday,” Ray said. “We had coffee. He’s . . .” He searched for the word. “He’s further along than I expected. That gal of his, Molly, has been real good for him.”
“Tucker understands what you went through,” Gray said. “He inherited enough of your restlessness to know what it feels like on the inside.”
“That’s what he said.” Ray’s voice was rough. “He said he spent ten years running from the same thing I ran from, and the only reason he stopped was because he found someone worth staying for.”
“Did you get to meet Molly?”
“Not this time. Maybe next visit. If Tucker decides there’ll be a next one.”
“You’d like her. She’s funny and smart and tough as nails.”
Ray nodded. A pause. Then, “How’s Cooper doing?”
Ahh. So Cooper had declined to see Ray again before he left. No surprise. Out of the three boys, Cooper had gotten the worst of it when their father left. He carried the most anger over it.
“Cooper’s going to take time,” Gray said honestly. “He’s the one who took the brunt of it when you left. And he’s the oldest. He remembers everything.”
“Yeah.” A sigh. “I know.”
Ray picked up his duffel and slung it over his shoulder. “I’m not in a hurry. I spent twenty-five years running. I plan to spend the rest of my life standing still and letting the people I hurt come to me or not at their own pace.”
He extended his hand. Gray stared at it.
Memory flashed through his head of it. The big, weathered hands that he remembered in fragments.
He recalled being fascinated at how his father’s hands were always tanned even if it was winter out and the Sun had mostly left until spring.
He remembered feeling the rock hard calluses on his dad’s palms and wondering if he would ever get calluses like that.
Now, as he looked down, he saw a hand that had once been steady enough to keep men alive on battlefield in the desert.
An errant memory of his dad’s hands being too unsteady to hold a coffee cup at two in the morning in a house full of sleeping boys also rolled over him.
He’d snuck out of bed one of the times his father had come home late to see what he did in the middle of the night when his footsteps went back and forth across the living room directly below Gray’s room for hours on end.
He shook his head once, sharply, to clear the memory. Then, in a gesture that surprised them both, he pulled Ray into a brief hug. His father embraced him back. Held him tight. It lasted only a few seconds, and they both stepped back. But it was enough.
Ray’s chin dipped once in silent gratitude. His eyes were bright. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to.
He walked to the green truck and tossed the duffel inside. Climbed in. The engine coughed and turned over, the same rough sound as before. He raised a hand through the open window—not a wave, just an acknowledgment—and pulled out of the Foster Ranch.
Gray watched the truck until it disappeared around the bend in the county road, trailing a thin plume of dust in the Chinook wind.
A second sparrow answered the first one.
The calves tired themselves out and lay down in the grass in a group for naps, all but invisible in last year’s knee-high grass.
The hills were brown and dry and had a waiting quality to them.
As if they were waiting for spring. For the next nourishing rain to come along and trigger the explosion of new growth that would coat them in green.
He stood on the porch for a while, the way he’d stood the first time after Ray left.
But the feeling today was different. The first time he’d watched his father’s truck drive away, the empty room in his heart had been occupied for the first time by something nameless and raw.
This time, the room had furniture in it.
He understood his father better now. Gray had started reading about PTSD, its symptoms, treatment, and aftermath, and he planned to continue reading about it.
Ray had done the hard work of acknowledging his problem, asking for help, and then following through with what had to be gut-wrenching therapy.
Gray could respect that. And he respected how hard it must have been to come back to the mountains.
Face his sons. Accept whatever accusations and judgments they threw at him.
He had to give Ray credit. He’d taken everything Cooper and Tucker could dish out square on the chin. He hadn’t ducked a single emotional punch either one had thrown at him.
He appreciated the fact that Ray was trying to build the early, fragile scaffolding of something that might, with time and honesty, become relationships with his sons.
One thing Gray knew for sure. He didn’t envy his father having to face the wife he abandoned and left in the lurch.
But that was Ray’s business, not his. He did make a mental note to call his mom in a few days, if she didn’t call him, and to remind Cooper and Tucker to check in with their mom as well.
But the door was open now. A relationship with his father was possible and he judged that to be a good thing.
And for the first time in Gray’s life, a truck pulling out of a driveway and leaving didn’t feel like abandonment. It felt like a man going to do the next right thing. Ray was done abandoning his family. And now it was up to his sons and ex-wife to decide if they were going to abandon Ray or not.
As for him, he’d never been the kind to walk away from anybody.
Funny, but he’d learned that from his father.
Not from Ray teaching him to be present and steady and reliable for his loved ones, but from Ray showing him how much it hurt when a person you loved wasn’t any of those present or steady or reliable.
He went inside, opened his laptop, and pulled up the weather forecast. Unseasonably warm for at least another week. Wind advisory through Friday. No rain in the ten-day outlook.
He closed the laptop and looked out the window at the brown hills in worry.
Then he went to the station and checked over the fire engine. Thoroughly. With a bad feeling in his gut the whole time.