Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Dakota
I wake up on Spur's couch with his arm across my ribs and the morning light coming through the cabin windows soft and gold.
For a long second I don't move.
He's behind me, his chest against my back, his breath even at the base of my neck, his hand spread flat across my stomach like he had to hold onto something while he slept.
We came here last night from the bedroom at my Pop’s house.
He carried me across the gravel. He laid me down on this couch and lay down behind me without taking his boots off, just like over there.
Neither of us said a word.
We slept like the dead.
I can smell him underneath the soap from his shower yesterday morning. Oil. Road dust. Something else I don't have a name for that I think might be what a man smells like after he's done something the world doesn't want done.
I don't ask. That was the deal.
I roll over slowly and put my face against his collarbone.
He stirs, doesn't wake, his arm tightening around me automatically, and I lie there and listen to the property starting to get busy.
Across the small living room of the cabin, on the kitchen counter, the Camel Wide cigarette is still sitting in its sandwich bag where Spur left it Friday morning when he came in off the round pen.
A few days ago, this man was a name we didn't know.
Today, he will never bother me ever again.
The cicadas have started in the live oaks behind the cabin. The dogs at the kennel haven't barked once. Somewhere down the property, a horse blows out through its nose at something that isn't there.
The first relaxing morning for me in what feels like weeks. I close my eyes again and let myself have it.
By eight, Marlena's already at the clubhouse.
I hear her truck pull out of the gravel drive at six-thirty and I know without asking.
She's been cooking for ten people in the kitchen of the main house since Saturday morning, and she said last night at the porch when Spur and I were leaving that she was going to be at the clubhouse because she wants to have a day of family-style cooking for everyone.
So she packed up the kitchen. Cast iron skillets. The big stockpot. Five dozen eggs. Two pounds of bacon. Biscuits she'd already started rising in the late dark. The big enamel coffee urn she only brings out for funerals and patch ceremonies.
Today is somewhere between, I guess.
Spur comes out of the small bathroom of the cabin while I'm pouring my second cup of coffee in his kitchen.
He's in clean jeans and a clean shirt and his hair is wet from the shower. The Glock is on his hip. He's been awake longer than he let on.
"Morning, baby," he says, crossing the cabin and putting his hand on the back of my neck.
"Morning."
"You sleep?"
"Better than I should have."
"That's how it goes."
He kisses the top of my head and reaches around me for a coffee mug.
He pours it black. Drinks it standing up at the counter the way men drink coffee when they're already on their way somewhere.
"Marlena's at the clubhouse?"
"Since six-thirty."
"All four of them up there?"
"Pops and Holt went over with her. Roan and Cash were already there sleeping in the bunkhouse. I think Banshee took Bex up an hour ago."
He nods. "Then we should go."
I set my coffee down. "Spur."
"Yeah."
"You okay?"
He looks at me for a long second over the rim of his mug. The light from the cabin window is catching the gray in his beard and the lines at the corners of his eyes that weren't there two weeks ago. "I'm with you, baby. Of course I'm okay."
"Good."
He drains his coffee, sets the mug on the counter, and holds his hand out to me.
We walk to the clubhouse together across the gravel of the property—from his cabin past the round pen where Jaeger is grazing easy in the dawn light, past the equipment barn, up the path that runs along the western fence.
The May morning is the prettiest morning I think I've ever seen.
The bluebonnets at the fence line are mostly gone—late May in the Hill Country and they go fast—but there are still patches of them under the live oaks where the shade kept them hanging on.
The Indian paintbrush is open red along the gravel. The cicadas are working up to full pitch.
Everything is just right in my world. I'm going to remember this walk for the rest of my life.
The clubhouse smells like bacon and biscuits when we come through the front door.
Marlena's got the cast iron going on the big stove in the back.
Grace is at the prep counter slicing peaches she canned last fall.
Bex is at the long table by the window pouring coffee for whoever's already sat down.
Cal in his playpen on the rug. Waylon at Bex's hip with a piece of bacon she's rationing him so he doesn't ruin breakfast.
The men are at the long oak table that runs the length of the clubhouse main room.
Pops at the head.
Uncle Holt to his right.
Uncle Cash to his left—the first time I've seen him in two years, dark hair like Pops, more weight in the shoulders, his San Antonio rocker on his cut.
Uncle Roan beside Uncle Holt.
Banshee in his usual seat across from Cash. Shadow next to Banshee, my brother-in-law in his cut with his hair still wet from the shower. Bullseye, Thunder, Longhorn, Blaze, and Rogue down the Sharp side of the table.
Wells and Tread at the far end with Coyote—Uncle Roan's man—and two of Cash's brothers.
Whip is on the gate this morning. The prospects are out feeding the livestock and walking the perimeter one more time before they come up for what's left.
I stop in the doorway and Spur stops with me.
I have not seen this many Lyle men under one roof at one time in years.
Pops looks up from his coffee and sees me. His face does something soft. "There she is."
"Pops."
"Come eat, baby girl."
I cross the clubhouse floor and he stands up and pulls me down against his shoulder. Kisses the top of my head. His beard catches on my hair and I let it.
He smells like the soap Marlena buys for the house and the coffee he's already had two cups of.
"You all right?" he asks me, lowly.
"I'm all right, Pops."
"You sure?"
"I'm sure."
He lets me go and I look up at the table at my three uncles.
Cash sees me and his face goes the way Pops's just did. He stands up too. "Dakota."
"Uncle Cash."
He comes around the table and pulls me in. Same hug as the others—short, hard, both arms.
He smells like leather and coffee and something heavier underneath that I think might be the long drive up from yesterday afternoon. "I'm sorry I didn't get to you sooner, kiddo."
"You got to me when it counted."
"Yeah."
He holds me a second longer than I expect. Then he lets me go and looks at Spur over my shoulder. "Spur."
"Cash."
"My brother says you handled it."
"Yes."
"Then I owe you a drink."
"You don’t owe me a damn thing. I owe you. Your boys cleaned the barn."
Cash almost smiles. "Then we'll call it even and have a drink anyway."
"Sounds good to me."
Cash claps Spur on the shoulder.
I find a chair next to Roan and Spur sits across from me beside Banshee.
Marlena puts a plate in front of me without asking—eggs over easy, bacon thick-cut, biscuits split open and buttered, a spoonful of the canned peaches Grace has been slicing.
The kind of plate I remember eating when I was eight years old. "Eat, kiddo."
"Yes, ma'am."
She kisses the top of my head and moves on to Spur with another plate.
And then for a long while it's just the sound of people eating.
Forks on plates. The coffee urn refilling. Waylon laughing at something Bex did with her face. Cal making small noises in the playpen.
Uncle Holt breaks the quiet first. He's looking at Cash. "You drove that Suburban up?"
"Yeah."
"Ugly truck."
"It hauls four men and a body."
"Still ugly as shit."
Cash sets his fork down. "Holt. We've been here for ten minutes."
"I know. I waited."
Roan laughs into his coffee.
Pops, behind his paper that he isn't reading: "Holt."
"What?"
"Eat your damn breakfast."
"I am eating."
"You're picking on ‘em."
Marlena laughs from the stove. "He always picks on folks when he’s eating. I know that from your phone calls."
"He’s just a rude bastard when he's drunk and when he's full," Pops says. "He's on his second plate."
"Then I'll be drunk by lunch."
"Holt."
"Eatin', Phantom. I'm eatin'."
Bex laughs from the table by the window. I realize I'm laughing too.
This is the first time I've laughed in two weeks.
Uncle Cash leaves first, around eleven.
He walks down the porch steps of the clubhouse with Pops on one side of him and Marlena on the other. He hugs Marlena hard and kisses her cheek. "Mar."
"Cash."
"Take care of him."
"I always do."
He turns to Pops.
They embrace at the bottom of the steps the way the Lyle brothers always do—short, hard, both arms. "Brother."
"Brother."
"Call me when you need me."
"I will."
Uncle Cash looks at me up on the porch where I've been standing with Spur. He climbs the steps once more and pulls me into him one more time. "You did good, kiddo."
"Thank you for coming, Uncle Cash."
"We’re family. It’s what we do."
He pulls back, his hands on my shoulders, his face going from the public uncle to the quieter one. He looks at me for a long second. "Dakota."
"Yeah?"
"Your mom ever reach out to you since she’s been gone?"
The question hits me sideways. I haven't talked about my mother in a long time. Pops doesn't bring her up. Marlena doesn't ask. Grace and I just don’t talk about her because it’s easier than missing her.
"No, Uncle Cash. Not since she left."
"You doin' all right with that?"
"I made my peace with it a long time ago. She left. She didn't come back. That's who she was. I just… get frustrated. I know I’m not a mother, but I can’t imagine staying away from your kids for this long, or not sending a text."
He nods slowly. There's something in his face I can't read—something tired, something a little sad—and I think for half a second that he's going to say something else.