Chapter 16 #2
But then he just kisses my forehead and squeezes my shoulders once. "Your mom missed out on a lot this last year. That's her loss."
"Thank you, Uncle Cash."
He walks back down the steps and gets in the Suburban with his two brothers. The diesel turns over loud.
The dogs at the kennel come up barking briefly and settle when Pops raises his hand at them. The Suburban rolls down the gravel drive and out the front gate.
I watch it until it's gone.
Uncle Holt leaves around two.
Wells and Tread roll out behind him.
Holt himself in the F-250, Stetson on the dash, hat in his hand on the porch when he comes to say goodbye.
He pulls me into his chest in the same way he pulled me into his chest in the parking lot of the Hampton in Abilene six days ago. "Baby girl."
"Uncle Holt."
"You're tougher than I thought."
"I'm a Lyle, remember? It’s in our DNA."
"That you are." He pulls back, kisses my forehead, sets the hat on his head. Looks at Spur next to me. "Spur."
"Holt."
"You owe me a phone call when you put a ring on her."
"You got it."
Holt almost smiles. "All right then."
He embraces Pops on the porch and walks down to his truck.
Wells and Tread are behind him the second he turns out.
Uncle Roan stays until late afternoon.
He stands at the round pen with Spur for a long time after lunch—leaning on the rail with one boot up, the way Spur always stands at the round pen, and they're talking about something I can't hear and don't need to.
The mustang Spur tamed two summers ago is moving easily in the pen. Roan watches him work the air the way men who grew up around horses watch a good one.
Spur's the one who came down off the pen and walked into the clubhouse and brought Roan back out.
I'm on the back porch of the clubhouse with Bex when I see them coming back.
Spur looks at me across the gravel, and his face does something I haven't seen it do since the morning he came home from Big Spring.
He's smiling.
Roan walks up the porch steps to me and pulls me into his chest. His days of beard rough against my temple. "Kiddo."
"Uncle Roan."
"I'm gonna head out."
"Yeah."
"You call me. About anything."
"Yes, Uncle Roan."
He kisses my forehead. Looks at Spur. "Brother."
"Roan."
"Take care of her."
"I will."
"Take care of yourself too."
"I’ll try"
Roan walks down the porch steps, finds Coyote, and the two of them get in his F-350 and roll out of Sharp at five-twenty in the afternoon.
With my uncles gone, the property seems more quiet than usual.
* * *
Bex finds me on the back porch around six.
She has two beers in her hands and she sets one in front of me on the rail and leans against the post with the other. "You okay?"
"I don't know."
"Yeah."
"I keep waiting for the next thing."
"There isn't a next thing, kiddo. The thing is over."
"It doesn't feel over."
"Over some time, it will."
I look at her over the rim of my beer.
Bex is older than me, older than Banshee, the kind of woman who has been around the Saints since before I was old enough to remember her.
She's got a piece of straw in her hair I bet she doesn't know is there from the round pen. "Bex."
"Yeah?"
"Thank you for coming."
"Banshee comes when his Prez calls. I even come when your pops calls. It's how it works."
"I know."
"And for what it's worth, kiddo—I'd come anyway. You're family. Hell, I’ve known your family my whole damn life."
She bumps her shoulder against mine and we stand on the porch to watch the sun start its slow slide behind the western fence of Sharp.
Just before seven, Spur comes up to the porch, where I’ve been all damn day.
I don’t know why I wanted to be here. Maybe it’s because it’s so relaxing after the chaos that’s been happening over the last few weeks. There’s just something about sitting out on a porch with an ice cold beer in your hand.
He's got something small in his hand—a sandwich bag with a single Camel Wide cigarette inside. The one I forgot was on the counter of his cabin since the morning he found it on the rail of the round pen. "Walk with me, baby."
"Where?"
"Burn pile out behind the barn."
I nod. We walk down off the porch and across the gravel and around the back of the equipment barn to the burn pit where the brothers throw what they don't want anymore.
There's a small fire still going in it from earlier in the day—somebody must have been burning brush.
Spur opens the sandwich bag and tips the cigarette out into his hand.
He looks at it for a long second, then he tosses it into the pit.
The flames take it.
Neither of us speaks for a while.
Then he says, lowly, "That's the last of him."
"Yeah."
"I’m not giving you the details, but whatever's left is in a hog pen in Howard County and a piece of paper in a county tax office in Big Spring. The man's done."
"Yeah."
He puts his arm around my shoulders. We watch the burn pit until the cigarette is gone.
Then he turns me to face him, both hands on my upper arms. The light from the burn pit catches the gray in his beard. "Dakota."
"Yeah?"
"I'm going to talk to your father tonight. About something."
"Okay."
"You know what about."
I look at him. The sun is most of the way down. The light is going gold and pink across his face. His eyes are steady. "Yeah, Spur. I can put two and two together."
"You're not going to ask me what."
"No."
"Why?"
"Because I want it to come from you, the way you want to give it. Not because I asked."
He almost smiles. "I love you, baby."
"I love you too."
He kisses me—slow, long, the kind of kiss that isn't asking for anything because everything has already been asked.
He's holding the back of my head with one hand and my hip with the other and his beard is rough against my mouth and I feel the eight years of our slow burn finally, finally finished.
When he pulls back I lean my forehead against his chest and close my eyes. "Go talk to my father, Spur."
"I'm going."
"And Spur."
"Yeah?"
"He's going to say yes."
"I know he is, baby."
He kisses my forehead and lets me go.
I watch him walk across the gravel toward the main house where Pops is on the back porch, with his evening coffee and a Bible open on the rail.
Two men. The man who raised me and the man who's going to marry me.
I sit down on the porch swing and I let myself cry the way I've been trying not to cry for a week.
Bex finds me a few minutes later and she doesn't say anything. She just sits down next to me on the swing and lets me cry, and the two of us watch the sun finish its slide behind the western fence of Sharp Shooter Ranch.
The threat is over.
The man I love is asking my father for my hand.
And tomorrow comes whatever tomorrow is going to be.
The important thing is, I don’t have to be afraid anymore.