Py took the news mid-swing and missed his nail entirely, striking his thumb instead. "Damn!" he yelled.
Tory giggled despite herself. "I'm sorry, Py. Are you okay?" "Yeah – I just whacked myself with the hammer. I'm fine," he said. "I didn't mean to upset you," Tory said, grinning.
"I guess I just ain't used to talking to girls," Py said. "Er – I mean, women."
* * * * *
"So, did you do eve1ything you wanted to do in town today?"
Frank couldn't even ask his daughter a standard question without sounding just a little bit gruff. It was his voice – gravel and dust, the stuff of his working days. He rasped his words from his throat in a dull monotone that made him sound like the voice of death. It was a misrepresentation to be sure, though few in number were those who knew. His little girl, Lily, was among them.
She sat across the table from him in awkward loneliness, not frightened by her father but dwarfed in his surroundings. Frank's stuff. It was all heavy post furniture, cut western style, all male and all shades of brown. The dining room table was butcher block with square post legs, its chairs huge wooden thrones with padded leather tacked strategically on seat and back. There was a wagon wheel chandelier suspended from the ceiling. The dining room was paneled in blond wood. In the adjoining living room there was a huge stone fireplace, large enough for a person to walk into. In that room, too, the furniture was over-sized, giving visitors the impression that here lived a family of giants. It wasn't a cold environment – not by a long shot. But it was overwhelming, and it was Frank. And a lot of Frank was overwhelming.
"Herb Leeber said he saw you and Betty Wilkerson over getting sodas," Frank said, as he buttered a roll and went about preparing his dinner plate.
Lily picked at her peas with her fork. Even the food was Frank. Her father had swept their lives clean of any memory of her mother – and that included all the feminine touches that she had worked so hard to add. Her mother Viola's life's work had been to soften her father's edge, but when she passed he felt haunted by piano shawls and doilies, so they all went. Into the environment came gun racks and men's magazines. And now even the food was Frank – meat and potatoes and bland vegetables. Lily moved a chunk of roast beef around on her plate, making tracks in her gravy. Her father didn't seem to like anything that wasn't a strain to lift. The mashed potatoes weren't even creamy.
Frank stopped his buttering and cutting for a second and trained a stern eye on Lily. "I saw Verle Dent in town. He said he brought his wife in to get school clothes for...what's his girl's name?" "Julie," Lily said. "For Julie," Frank said. "How are you doing on clothes? Do we need to get you something for school?"
Lily raised an eyebrow. "I could use some clothes," she said. "Well, maybe on Saturday we can get you something," Frank said.
"You don't need to go with me, daddy," Lily said, abhorrent at the thought. "I can go shopping by myself."
Frank closed one eye and squinted questioningly with his other. "You go to Harold Evans' place then," he said. "He carries a good line."
"Maybe for men. It's not important that my clothes wear well at the knees," Lily said. She looked at a wad of mashed potatoes she'd augured onto her fork then tossed it onto her plate. It landed like brick mortar.
"Is something wrong with your food?" Frank asked impatiently.
"If I'm going to get something to wear to school then Town and Country is where I ought to go," Lily said. "They carry things a person my age and gender would wear."
Frank thought about it for a moment, and then returned to pushing food around his plate. He took a big bite of beef then said, "Well, fine then. I'll give you money. Get something that's gonna last. I won’t be wasting money on poor quality."
"I'm sure I'll know quality," Lily said.
"I don't want you getting anything cheap," Frank said. "You know what I mean.
I want you dressing respectful."
"I know how to dress," Lily said. Her father could be such a bore, as if he knew anything about how a young woman should dress. She didn't read Harper's Bazarre and Vanity Fair every month to dress like her old man. Longmont may have been the center of his universe, but it sure wasn't that for her. In fact, she had made a vow never to wear practical clothing ever again – a campaign that she would launch just as soon as she became fully in charge of her own person.
Frank took time to masticate some roast beef. It was violence, the way he ate. He chewed food as if it were part of his work day, going at it with a steely determination that was both efficient and humorless. He no sooner swallowed one piece of meat before he stabbed another and poked that into his mouth. Lily could hardly watch, convinced that one day he would put that fork right through his cheek, jabbing with it the way he did.
"You looking forward to your senior year?" Frank asked, turning his attention away from supper for a moment. "This is a big year for you."
"Yeah, I guess so," Lily said.
"You need to be making some grades this year," Frank said. "If we're going to get you into Loretta Heights..."
"I don't want to go to Loretta Heights!" Lily said, suddenly strident.
"Well that's what your mother wanted," Frank said. There was an implication that the late Viola's wishes were inviolable, beaming in from the hereafter, and that to not heed them would be to blaspheme.
Lily caught the full weight of her father's edict and she was beside herself over how to respond. She did not want to go against her mother's wishes, especially knowing how important Loretta Heights had been to her, and how much she had made of it in conversations with others. She'd gone there and considered it the finest educational experience a young woman could have. But Loretta Heights was a woman's college.
Lily didn't want to go to an all-girl school! She wasn't even sure she wanted any schooling at all beyond high school, but there was no talking to her father on this one. The argument only brought her mother's ghost back to Frank's table and that unnerved them both. It was the one subject that could make Frank furious every time. To go against his lost Viola's Loretta Heights plan seemed to him like a final disrespect, and he felt he owed better than that to the woman whose bed he'd shared for so long. She had breathed what good there was into life at Walker Ranch. Now Frank lived on lingering ethers that permeated every aching crevasse of his heart and his mind.
After Viola's death, he had tried to transfer his affections to his children, and particularly to his son, Frank Jr. The boy was easier for him to understand than was his young daughter. Lily had been put in the care of Rosa Villaman, a Mexican lady whom Frank had hired as the family retainer. She was a kind woman whose bonhomie had gone a long way toward helping young Lily cope with the loss of her mother. Rosa had been there when Lily had her first period and helped the girl understand this change in her life. She serviced the girl's need for feminine direction and served as general surrogate for her mother, and it had worked well – Lily loved Rosa and treated her with respect. Still, the girl remained untethered on some soul level. She yearned for the attention and affection of her father and Frank, nervous and uncertain with the girl, had remained distant. Lily's was a sad and lonely sufferance.
Frank had seen this in his daughter and had felt the weight of his own responsibility for her well-being. Lily was still young and fresh, her attitude still devoid of meanness and loss. But for how long? He could think of nothing other than what Lily's mother had planned – the girls school in Denver, where she would come under the direction of professionals who could guide her, steer her toward a happy, productive life. But love her? There was no other person to whom Frank could entrust the emotional support that was needed. That was his alone to offer. First, he had to find it within himself, for his emotional wounds were slow to scar and heal. Frank Jr.'s death had torn his insides open to the point where he could hardly give himself again. Loving someone, wishing good things for them, hurting when they fell... Frank had become frightened of happiness, paralyzed with fear over its fleeting nature. And Lily se
emed like an uncertain vessel in which to place his raw emotions. Still he knew he had to find the courage. His little girl needed him. And he needed her.
CHAPTER 10 – Greyhound to Denver
On Sunday Pete drove Jake to the bus depot and saw him off on his trip to Denver, which would take him away only three days total. "What time do you get back on Tuesday?" Pete asked as Jake stepped up the steps into the Greyhound. "About 10:30 Tuesday night," Jake said. "Are you sure that's gonna be okay?" "Maybe I'll send Tory," Pete said, knowing that'd be what Jake wanted to hear. For reasons known only to her, Tory had ducked taking Jake to the bus, pushing it off on her father instead. She would later tell Py that seeing people off was not her favorite thing to do. "I used to have an uncle who'd always tell you that he'd be happy to help you carry your things in, but he'd never help you carry them back out," Tory told him. "I think I feel a little bit the same way about people leaving."
A part of her feared that Jake would not come back. The thought never occurred to Py or Pete – they had no doubt that Jake was fully committed to everything they had talked about. They expected that Jake wanted to do just what he had said, which was to return Parker Ranch to the proud place it had once been. Tory, on the other hand, had instincts about Jake. There was something unsettled about him, something stray.
Something within him needed to be resolved and Tory could feel it. She wanted to believe that there was poetry about his distance, but in her heart she wondered if it wasn't just avoidance – or, worse yet, cowardice. Something in his eyes, his voice, the way he kissed... Jake was running from something, though she did not know what it was. For some reason he was staying out there on the fringe of human existence, wary and unsure. It made her love him and mistrust him. And it made her too scared to put him on the bus.
She was not going to be the fool who delivered him out of her life, which was a part she was certain had been played by others. Jake was a "leaver." She could feel it in his sighs.
In Jake's absence, work continued on the Parker Ranch renewal. Weeds were cut down, what lawn existed was mowed, trees were pruned and scrap lumber was stowed out of sight behind the barn. The windrow was cleaned free of blowing trash and paper.
Tory put Py to work washing windows and she busied herself hanging new curtains she had made for the living room and kitchen. Tory was a brutal boss, forcing Py to work from 7 a.m. to nearly 10 o'clock at night – a regimen she also attempted to impose upon her father, but with less than equal impact. Pete stayed in town for as long as he could on Sunday after taking Jake to the bus, hanging out at the local "Lion Tamer's Club," which is what he called Snorty Wilson's Pool and Poker Hall. Tory got a good six hours work out of him on Monday before he snuck off to the water tank, where he soaked while getting drunk on Wild Turkey whiskey.
Py also found diversion from Tory's iron-fisted rule by trying to coax in a stray tomcat that had been watching the work from a safe distance at the edge of the property. It was a coal black tom that had showed up on Sunday soon after Jake and Pete drove off toward town. The animal watched the farm yard from the tall weeds growing around the Quonset hut, lounging languidly and casually grooming itself throughout the day, disappearing for a time – Py figured it went to catch a field mouse, though he didn't really know – then returning later in the day. Py tried to call him into the yard, but to no avail. On Sunday night he put some table scraps out for him, but the cat was too wary for that. Py flashed a light out into the yard before turning in that night and saw two shining eyes in the dark, which he believed to be those of the tom. His suspicions seemed confirmed when the animal was still around Monday morning, watching again as the trio worked to get the house looking good before Jake's return – an arbitrary deadline that had been imposed by Tory, who had an agenda for everything. Py tried several times on Monday to call the cat in, but it was useless. This was a creature that had obviously lived independent of human kind its entire life and was not now about to change.
Their biggest accomplishment during all this time was completing the renovation of the white picket fence surrounding the yard, which in turn surrounded the house. This had been at the top of Tory's list of things to do. "It gives the place a homey look, don't you think?" she had asked Py, who had to agree that it did. "I always thought a white picket fence makes a house seem enchanted," she said, mostly to herself. The fantasy had been lost on Py and Pete, who had the task of repairing or replacing the pickets and nailing them back into position. The entire fence was given a fresh new coat of white paint and by mid-afternoon Tuesday it was restored to its previous glory.
Those three days the weather was hot. Horseflies swarmed over the property, biting occasionally, seemingly stirred up by the temperature and the rotting debris Py and Pete had uncovered when they raked the ground around the house. During his daily trip out to see Cooksin the bull, Pete noticed that the animal was besieged by the bloodsucking pests and was tossing his neck and tail regularly to shoo them off his back. Pete quickly got a quart of clean motor into which he blended a couple ounces of liquid camphorated oil, and he rubbed this homemade repellent on his prize bull, but to small avail. The flies even harassed Pete when he tried to cool off that afternoon in the tank.
As agitating as it was to him, he had no idea how much it was bothering the huge Charolais, which sought shade from the late summer sun and rescue from the swarming flies by standing up tight against the barn and the tall pines of the corral.
About three o'clock Tuesday afternoon a visitor arrived. Ben Miller, the Sheriff, drove into the yard and pulled his car to a stop outside the newly restored gate. "Pete, Py," he said to the men, by way of a greeting as he got out of his car. He tipped his hat to Tory, which prompted Pete to ask – "This is my daughter Tory, Ben. Have I introduced you before?" "Ben Miller, ma'am," said the Sheriff. "Glad to meet you."
"So what brings you out this way, Ben?" Pete asked.
"I actually came to see Mr. Mulvane," said Ben. "I got some news I thought you'd be interested in. It's Frank Walker..." Py's eyes widened at the sound of the name. "He's decided to drop any notions he had about filing charges."
Py looked for a moment like he might faint as the news drained all tension from his body and he seemed almost to go limp. Tory let out a gleeful shriek that immediately shocked him back to his senses, then threw her arms around him in a warm embrace. "That's great, Py!" she said. "You can stop worrying!" "Great, great," was all he could think to say.
"I thought you'd be happy to hear," said the Sheriff. "To tell you the truth, I never expected it to go any different. I don't understand Frank Walker sometimes. You had no fault in what happened."
"I sure appreciate you driving all the way out here to tell me," Py said sincerely, extending a handshake to Ben Miller. "I sure do."
"My pleasure, son." Miller looked around the property as the celebration died down, taking note of the freshly painted fence and the general upkeep of the house and yard. "It looks like you folks have been doing some work out here."
"We sure have," Pete said. "We're gettin' the place all shined up, rejuvenatin' everything. Tryin' to get it back to where it was."
"Well, you’re doing a good job ..." Sheriff Miller saw something out by the barn that stopped him mid-sentence. "What in the hell is that?" he asked.
Pete looked just in time to see Cooksin the bull arch his back and with one mighty push crush the huge oaks of the corral to a 45 degree angle near where the fence joined the barn. The bull had been rubbing up against the barrier, scratching as best he could the numerous horsefly bites that he'd received during the day. After thirty minutes of that, the two thousand pound animal had worked the posts loose in the ground, though they were buried more than three feet deep. Then one mighty shove had pushed the fence halfway over.
Pete took only one step toward the barn, voicing his alarm, when a second thrust from the huge animal flattened the fence against the ground – and the bull was free.
Cooksin spun around, disoriented by
his sudden emancipation, tossing his head in a warning gesture. He didn't seem to realize what he had done and he seemed jolted to discover his new range, devoid of restrictions and boundaries. "Holy Christ!" Pete said as he suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. He didn't want to startle the huge bull and set off a rampage.
Pete looked back over his shoulder and yelled to Py – "Get around to the side of him! Let's steer him back into the pen before he knows where he is!"
"I'll help you, Pete!" said Sheriff Miller, who hurried to Cooksin’s northern flank to cut off any retreat in that direction.
"You be careful, you guys," warned Tory, watching as the trio moved in toward the huge white bull.
"Not too fast, Py," Pete said, seeing that Cooksin was getting a little spooky. The bull turned so it faced Py head on, snorted a few times, then spun and faced Sheriff Miller. "Will he come after me?" Miller asked, wondering now if he hadn't rushed into the fray just a little too quickly. Cooksin put his head down low to the ground and eyeballed the Sheriff, looking like he might charge. "He could," Pete said. "Be careful." Then he started talking to the animal in a strange, high-pitched voice. "Hey, bully-bully. Come now. Hey, bully-bully." "Easy boy," Py said, joining in on the chatter. It was all designed to keep the bull calm, so they could ease him back into confinement. "Easy boy." Sheriff Miller started making a clicking noise, something akin to finger snapping but done by sucking his tongue off the ridge behind his front teeth. "Tch- Tch- Tch..." It was a new one on Pete. He assumed its intended effect on the bull was the same as his "Hey bully-bully come on" line.
Tory stayed back in the yard near the house, watching uneasily as the three men moved closer and closer to the bull, somehow sensing that the animal was about to do something crazy. Cooksin continued to reposition himself for attack in any of the three directions from which he was being approached, stepping awkwardly across the timbers of the fallen fence, kicking up dirt and dust and looking more and more upset. "Easy boy," Tory heard Py say. "Tch- Tch- Tch," went Sheriff Miller.
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