Epilogue - Wolfe
There was a storm on the day of the wedding, which meant that Morgan and Jack were married by a judicial officer at the Treasure County Courthouse in Hysham, rather than at the romantic setting in the mountains that the happy couple had envisioned.
The reception was held at the feed and grain, with everyone in town bundling up to bring casseroles and hot dishes to celebrate with.
Morgan even made hot cider—that he gave away for free—and though he complained, I sensed he enjoyed himself.
Jack was everywhere, making sure of Mabel and her bridge-playing friends, and Mister Rocket was underfoot, begging for scraps of tater tot hot dishes, and the famous (or infamous) Montana Casserole.
His belly was round by the time he fell into a food coma at Mabel’s feet.
Then, at the end of November, we got a spate of good weather. I put the word out around town that I was willing to sell my snowmobile for three-thousand and five-hundred dollars, half of what I paid for it.
With that money, I hoped to buy plane tickets so the four of us could fly out to Santa Monica. I wanted to pay for a few nights at a cheap motel and treat everybody to seafood while we went around town putting up posters for Star.
Morgan didn’t like the idea of me paying for everything, but I told him too bad and maybe he could buy me a beer one day.
Then I received a call from Gus Odell.
“Son,” he said. (He liked to call me son.) “You gotta go about this smart. Put the snowmobile up for a raffle. There’s seven thousand people in Hysham and Treasure County combined.
At two dollars a ticket, you stand to gain fourteen thousand, which is enough to stay at a nice hotel and to fly in a seat more toward the front of the plane. ”
“Uh,” I said, hardly knowing what to say. My mind was not as flexible as it ought to be in order to shift my thinking so drastically. “Only one person can win,” I said.
“That’s the point,” Gus said. “It’s a game of chance. Everybody gets a flutter of excitement that they might win, and one lucky soul gets a nice snowmobile.”
“It feels like stealing.”
“It isn’t.” At the other end of the line, I could hear Gus sputtering. “Get Mabel on the horn. She knows your plight. She’ll spread the word for you and tell folks you’re selling your machine to pay for a honeymoon for Morgan and Jack. Hell, you might even get people buying more than one ticket.”
So that’s what we did. Our base of operations was at the Volunteer Fire Station on Rapelje Avenue; the volunteer firemen sold the raffle tickets and collected the proceeds. The stubs of the raffle tickets were kept in a giant barrel, from which Mabel herself would select the winner.
On the day of the raffle drawing, the last day of November, a crisp sunny day, we had another party, complete with bratwurst and burgers on the grill, with all the fixes, along with potato salad (no raisins) and macaroni salad, and a mess of dried apple pie and blackberry pie and cherry pie, including Mabel’s own peach cobbler and a giant pan of rhubarb crumble.
The high school band played. The mayor gave a speech. Then Mabel reached into the barrel with one hand (with the fire chief holding onto her other hand to make sure she didn’t fall in) and pulled out the winning raffle ticket.
The snowmobile went to a young couple who’d just moved to Hysham with the hope of growing sunflowers and living off the land. They’d bought a piece of land five miles south of the Buckingham Cloulee Bridge, and so would make good use of the snowmobile when the hard snows of winter came.
And I was the happy, though astonished, recipient of seventeen-thousand dollars.
Which was enough to pay for the plane tickets (premium economy on Delta), three nights at a hotel, and food.
In addition, according to Mabel, she’d gotten everyone to agree that with what was left over, I could buy my lace master, then maybe I’d be willing to donate the rest? Gladly, I told her. With all my heart.
Someone in town, a young woman with a skill-set that included graphic design, offered to make us signs that we could put up all over Santa Monica.
I’d imagined us buying some cheap paper and using a black marker to write the message to Star. Our wrists would have ached, and the signs wouldn’t have looked all that special; certainly, they wouldn’t have been distinctive enough to attract a young man’s notice.
Instead, we got the signs on good paper. They had a border full of stars, and in the middle, the text read, in distinct letters:
STAR
Nimble and Blue
Await You
In Hysham
Come Home
She printed two hundred posters for us and even told us that regular masking tape would work just fine in a climate such as the California coast.
Morgan had luggage, and though we imagined we could all put everything we needed into two suitcases, Mabel insisted we check out the Army surplus store in Billings.
We purchased two more suitcases, which meant everyone would get their own and we wouldn’t have to rely on Jack’s ratty duffel bag.
And on the day of our flight, Young Tommy and Deputy Hartland drove us in the official cruiser to the small airport on the north side of Billings.
With a quick layover in Salt Lake City, we landed in Los Angeles just after two in the afternoon. We rented a car at an exorbitant rate and, inside of an hour, we were pulling into the underground parking for the Shore Hotel.
The difference between the Shore Hotel and our little hometown in Montana was not that it was a fancy hotel for four very un-fancy men.
It was that the difference was almost indescribable.
The air was moist and smelled like salt and Coppertone.
A cool breeze came off the ocean, even after it crossed the asphalt street to where the hotel was.
People walked around showing a lot of skin.
We had a double room with a balcony that faced west and, which we were told, would be a great place to watch the sunset from and did we want to pre-order room service?
I wanted to say yes, but Morgan said no and said something about hot dogs on the beach. The receptionist raised his eyebrows, and Morgan added, “Can we make that reservation for tomorrow evening?
“Yes, sir,” the receptionist said. “The sun starts to set around four-thirty or so, so if you order before noon tomorrow, you should get your meal around four-fifteen. Just call down to reception.”
“Thank you,” Morgan said. “We’ll do that.
We changed into summer clothes, shorts and t-shirts and flip-flops, crowding in the bathroom to apply sunscreen, and trooped down to the lobby, and across the somewhat busy road to the beach.
The sand was deep, but some kind soul on the city planning committee had determined that there should be a wheelchair mesh grate placed exactly where we wanted to go: down to the shoreline.
This meant that Morgan could use his cane and walk and not get mired in the sand. Which meant that we were down by the water in the blazing sunshine, inhaling the wholesome ocean air half an hour before sunset.
My shoulders relaxed. I could feel vitamin D building up in my system.
“How about that hot dog, Jack?” Morgan asked.
I turned to see him pointing to a lone hot dog vendor who looked on the verge of shutting down for the evening.
There was a wind kicking across the sand, and the beach was mostly empty.
One lone couple was walking south along the water’s edge as the sun streaked long lines of sparkling light across the water, and that was it. Except for the four of us.
I reached into the pocket of my shorts for my wallet, but Morgan waved me off.
“Not this hot dog,” he said. He held out his wallet to Jack. “Get one for each of us, Jack. Get two. Get sodas and chips. Wolfe can help you carry.” Morgan looked at me, leaning on his cane. “Right, Wolfe?”
“Sure thing,” I said.
My eyes searched for Blue, but he was already at the water, bending over to touch the slight waves, tasting the salt on his fingers. He had taken off his flip-flops and held them in one hand.
I took a step in his direction, but Jack stopped me.
“Not just yet,” he said.
“What?” Blue’s still form drew me toward him, but Jack’s hand was on my arm and he was ignoring the wallet Morgan held out for him.
“It’s a boxcar boy thing,” Jack said. “Like a ritual.”
“A ritual,” I said, feeling like an echo.
“We all had a story we told ourselves.” He held up Morgan’s wallet. “About what we’d do when we reached our destination. Mine was buying a hot dog from a vendor on the beach and then sitting down to eat it with my toes in the sand.”
“And Blue’s?” I asked. “What was his ritual?”
“He sometimes talked about standing in the water as the sun went down.” Jack shook his head. “About saying goodbye to his past. Saying goodbye for good.”
If Blue had mentioned his ritual to me, I should have remembered it, but so much had happened since he’d fallen on Diamond Willow Lane in a driving blizzard.
I would ask him about it later. In the meantime, I needed to trust Jack and the bond he held with Blue.
And with Star, if we should someday find him.
My chest tightened around my heart as I watched Blue. He was standing with his back to me, a silhouette with fair hair. He drew his arm across his face, and I realized he was crying. For a family that didn’t love him. For a brother he’d lost. For the cruelty that had happened and shouldn’t have.
Reluctantly, I followed Jack to the hot dog vendor, who was only too glad to sell us six hot dogs at half price. He threw in four small bags of chips for free and a six-pack of coke.
“I’m out of ice and cups,” he said. “But at least I won’t have to drag it all back to my van.”
“Happy to help,” Jack said, paying him cash from Morgan’s wallet and giving him a big tip.
We made our way back to Morgan, who’d managed to lower himself to the sand. His right knee was bent. His left knee, which was straight out in front of him, was lined with scars and looked fragile without its brace.
“I’m going to need help up for sure,” he said with a growl, but I think he was pleased that he’d managed it on his own. His purple can lay half-buried in the sand beside him. But whether the vagaries of the sand had buried it by accident, or he’d buried it on purpose, I couldn’t be sure.
“I’ll be here when you need me,” I said.
As Jack handed out the food, I kept an eye on Blue.
He’d walked a little way up the beach to a bit of sand that jutted out into the water, which lapped at his bare feet.
He looked so alone, but I hope he didn’t feel alone, at least not anymore.
He had Jack and Morgan and Mabel and the people in town, all of whom cared about him.
And he had me, who loved him beyond reason, in a wild and deep way that I felt all the way to my bones.
I looked down. Jack was sitting in the sand, his toes buried in it. He was shoulder to shoulder with Morgan, and both of them were eating hot dogs and watching the sun sink lower and lower as it sent out red and gold shafts of light.
From time to time, they smiled at each other, secret, silent smiles, a communication without words, with no need for translation. If this was Jack’s destination, this moment with Morgan, he well and truly deserved it. Deserved the happiness he and Morgan would share together.
Behind them, over the Santa Monica skyline, a salty haze was lowering, turning dark purple at the edges. The air smelled crisp, the scent of the ocean intensifying as the air grew cooler.
I watched the sun go down, and the sky softly darken toward twilight. The sun sank into the horizon of water, an illusion turning it into an orange disc that had been bitten into, and then a half disc, and then a spot just above the water.
Ambient light sprayed over everything, a wash of dying light so brilliant and sprawling that I was stunned.
I was a boy from the low country and, in my world, sunsets came through trees, streaked and sliced, the secret darkness creeping from beneath low branches and Spanish moss.
Here, the sunset was a bold statement, and the beach was suddenly draped with shadows.
“Can I go get him now?” I asked Jack, though I didn’t really need his permission. I didn’t need anyone’s permission to fiercely love this boxcar boy, but I asked just the same, to honor Blue’s ritual.
“Yes.” The single word was delivered to me as a breeze kicked up, spraying sand across my bare ankles.
I took a step just as Blue turned around.
He was too far away for me to see his expression, and his face was in shadow anyway.
His fair hair swirled around his head, and he was coming toward me at a fast pace and before I knew it, he was in front of me, and his arms curled around my neck, and he pressed his whole body to me.
“I love you,” he said. “You are everything to me.”
I kissed his temple and breathed in his scent and knew this moment would be written in my heart and would stay there forever.
“I love you, Blue,” I said, whispered and low. “You could have died when you fell from that train, but you didn’t. And someone else could have found you, but they didn’t. I found you. And I’m keeping you.”
My throat was too thick to say anymore, but Blue laid his head on my shoulder and sighed, as if he’d come home at last and meant to stay there forever.