"Now I know Frank was pretty head-up," Pete said. "He's been wanting this land pretty bad for a pretty long time, so I don't suppose he was really thinkin' too straight.
Hell, I don't put much stock in it, but..." Pete was dancing close to a flame and it was making him nervous as hell. "Well, I don't know no other way but to tell you what he said..."
"What is it, Pete?"
"He was trying to tell me that you been in trouble with the law back in the past," Pete finally said, and as soon as he did he winced, as if squeezing out the truth, as he'd heard it, was painful as gall stones.
Jake immediately looked away, casting his gaze out toward the black of night, toward some distant horizon, rendered invisible by the overhanging firmament that robbed the moon and its light.
Pete saw Jake's reaction and he felt a lump grow in his throat. Did this mean Frank's evil story was the one thing he would never have expected it to be: the truth? "He says you’ve been suspected in some robberies over in Kansas."
Jake looked over at Pete for a brief moment, then leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, he looked straight down, penitent.
"Is it true, Jake?" Pete regarded Jake nervously, and then averted his eyes, feeling the answer in the way Jake held himself, yet not wanting to believe the worst. Then he added – "Even if it is, I just want you to know that I think the world of you, Jake. Whatever's been in the past, it don't change things one way or t'other. Not where I'm concerned."
Jake looked over at Pete and this time he held his stare. He looked in those old blue eyes, filled with kindness and sincerity. They were eyes he couldn't – wouldn't! – lie to; eyes that couldn't hide their fear and anguish and their vulnerability. They were the eyes of a father, and Jake could look in them and see that they held as much hope for him as they would if he were Pete's own son. It was a look he had missed his whole life. It hit him that damned old Pete actually cared about him.
"You can tell me,'' Pete said. “If there's somethin' to what Frank Walker said, you can tell me." He laid his heart open for Jake to break, even hoping as he did that Jake wouldn’t have to do it. But somehow he knew that Jake didn't have any choice. Not really.
Jake let his head fall into his hands and he massaged hard at his forehead, trying to relax the muscles that threatened to tighten into knots and pull his eyes up tight, like a Chinaman's. "What Walker told you..."
Pete closed his eyes, bracing for the wave of pain.
"...it ain't wrong,'' Jake said, hang-dog. “He’s tellin' it just like he found it to be. I guess he..." Jake swallowed, finding it hard, and he sniffed back what might have been a tear, had he been a crying man. "I guess he knows somethin' I didn't want anyone to know."
Pete looked away, holding his hurt. "Is this somethin' that's behind you, or is this still on your trail?"
"I thought it was behind me. I don't know now – now that people know. It's the only thing that could've brought it back."
"He told me you got a dishonorable discharge from the Army – that you did time in federal prison. And they told me about some robberies."
"I've been with some bad people..."
"It's true then about trouble with the law in Kansas?" Pete asked.
Jake nodded that it was. "They never brought any charges against me, they only talked to me about it."
Pete studied on it for a moment, uncertain what to think, but wanting finality. "Did you have anything to do with it?"
Jake looked at Pete and said – "No."
"Well, is it over with?" Pete asked. "Are you through with these people?" "Yeah, it's over," Jake said.
"Good." Pete nodded that he was satisfied, and it looked convincing. If Jake said it was over, that was going to be good enough for him. He seemed to rest on the thought for a moment, then asked – "Does Tory know anything about this?"
"No," Jake said, solemnly. "How about Py?"
Again, Jake answered – "No."
"Well, if you say it's past then I say what's done is done," Pete said, reaffirming his position. "I sure won’t say anything more about it."
Jake looked up at Pete with a mixture of relief and appreciation. "Thanks, Pete." "Don't think nothin' of it," Pete said soberly.
Jake still seemed to be waiting for the other shoe to fall. "I'm sorry I wasn't up front with you from the first, and that you had to hear it from Walker. I'm not so sure I'd be as understanding if a guy with my past was workin' on my ranch." He paused for a moment, then added – "And seeing my daughter."
Pete's eyes seemed to sparkle in the dim glow coming from inside the house. He managed a wan smile. "You know, truth is Jake, I've been holding out a lot of hope for you and Victoria."
"I hope this doesn't change anything..."
"It doesn't so far as I'm concerned, not as long as when I look at my little girl I continue to see her happy."
"I wouldn't do anything to make it any other way," Jake said.
With that, Pete put his hand on Jake's shoulder. "I trust you wouldn't," he said. "Now I don't think we need to say another word." He slowly got up out of his chair and went on into the house and to bed, leaving Jake sitting alone in the dark.
CHAPTER 20 – Never Had a Pet
"Py, what the hell are you doing? Why don't you leave that damned cat alone?"
Py didn't know what it was, but Jake had been grumpy all morning. Since it was rare for him to be in such a mood, Py had considered asking what it was about, but then thought better and decided to let it go. Jake had this way about him that spoke louder than words, and though he didn't say as much Py could sense that he wanted to be left t alone. He quietly helped Jake with the morning's chores, then happily noticed the black stray tom grooming itself in the weeds out behind the house and sneaked off to resume his program to tempt the cat with table scraps.
Py hadn't been at it long, stringing a trail of breakfast leftovers between the edge of the yard and the back porch, when Jake surprised him, coming around the corner of the house on his way to his bunk for a change of shirt. He was using a bandanna to wipe sweat off his forehead. "I don't know what it is you want with that old thing," he said to Py.
"I never had me no pet," Py responded.
Jake chortled. "That ain't no pet – that's a damned stray! Hell, Py, you can't make a pet out of a damned stray! Ain't you got no sense?"
Py thought for a moment about what Jake had to say, but he couldn't take his eyes off the big tom, rolling like a black panther in the grass. "Maybe not," he said, "but he sure is pretty, ain't he?"
Jake just shook his head. To him one stray tomcat was about as pretty as the next – and none of them were pet material. "Come on, I'm about ready to go to town. I want you to help me pick up a few things."
* * * * *
The plan was for Jake and Py to split up, both supplied with a list of items to be purchased for the ranch. Py was learning that this was Jake's general mode of operation. It seemed Jake didn't like spending that much time in town and was always wanting to get requisite sojourns over with as soon as possible. Jake was going to pick up a few things from the hardware and the grocery, while Py's primary responsibility was loading Pete's pickup with feed store supplies. When they arrived in town, Jake backed the old truck up to the loading dock at the rear of Dickerson's Feed and Grain. There they'd be picking up cottonseed cake, salt licks and insecticides for the cattle, as well as sacks of sorghum and a grooming brush that Pete wanted for Cooksin. "He treats that animal like it's a damned show-dog," Jake had grumbled on the way into Longmont, though Py could hear in his voice that it was no real complaint at all. "He's mighty proud of him," was all Py could say, which just made Jake smile.
"I'll meet you back here about two o'clock," Jake said. "You ought to have the truck loaded by then. Is there anything you want from the grocery?"
"I'd take a licorice if they have one," Py said. "What color?"
"Red's best, but I'd settle for black if that's all there is."
"Okay," Jake said. Then he
added, "Stay out of trouble," and grinned, as if the prospect was humorous to him. He had to imagine young Py finding trouble, uninclined as he was to rub anyone the wrong way.
Jake moved purposefully up the sidewalk of Main Street, occasionally tipping his hat at ladies he met, begging to be excused for his urgency, but charging past men with grave lack of notice. Py was not wrong about his mood this morning. He had turned in his bunk all night long, twisting in the wind of the conversation he'd had with Pete. Now he was feeling out of place within his own skin, pricklish and irritable. Giving him a focus for his grumpiness was this errand he was on, another at the behest of Tory, who seemed forever to be finding reasons why Jake had to run to town for another grocery item, or something from the Dry Goods. As far as Jake was concerned, these trips were all just so much poor planning on her part, and recently it had gotten worse. Tory's deteriorating management skills were attended by a developing aversion to running errands of any kind for herself. She had very quickly gotten used to having Jake around for these purposes.
Jake's ill-humor was made darker still by his attitude about the grocery store itself. It was populated by tiny old ladies, whom Jake tended to regard as a tribe of pygmies, above which he towered as they passed together among the canned goods. He had tried to tell Tory this, that it was odd for him, but she thought it ridiculous. She couldn't see why it was any kind of a big deal at all, having a man help with the house chores, even if it did mean introducing him to some new experiences. She even sent him one day to the cosmetics counter at Watson's Pharmacy to pick up a blush and a lipstick. Jake knew it was the kind of humiliation endured by husbands, but though he hated it he couldn't seem to make it stop. Tory was exercising some unknowable power over him and under this influence he had become something of an attendant.
Jake found the IGA bustling with graying pygmies and future-pygmies, the middle-aged heiresses to the vegetable aisles and the meat and poultry counters. Among them there were the occasional young wives, around whom the ladies of experience clustered, abetting them with dinner ideas and recipes, giving graciously of the wisdom of their age. The entire scene made Jake a little jittery, as if he were trespassing into territory off-limits to those of his gender. But even worse was the attention his gender garnered from those middle-aged ladies, who whispered among themselves as he walked past, carrying his box from station to station, examining the produce and selecting pieces to place on his bill. Those were the ones who made him overtly uncomfortable, almost as if he were produce himself, and these experienced shoppers were sizing up his form and readiness for consumption.
Trying to appear pleasant and respectful, while at the same time wanting to put the shopping behind him, Jake made his way over to where Harold Evans, the grocer, kept the flour. He picked up two pounds for general baking purposes, plus a large sack of granulated sugar. Cooking fat was on a nearby shelf and he grabbed a container of that, placing each in his little cardboard box. Then he quickly made his way to the canned foods, where he set about the task of locating waxed bans, for which Tory had expressed a craving.
"Hi, Jake."
Jake heard the voice of a young girl and turned to see Lily Walker. "Hello, Lily," he said. "What are you up to?"
Lily grinned broadly. "I'm buying groceries, of course. What are you doing here?”
"Shouldn't you be in school?" Jake asked.
"I'm on the Homecoming Committee," Lily said, "and Miss Kinsley sent me down here to pick up the things we're going to need for the punch and the treats."
Jake grinned sweetly, finding Lily's mission to be inordinately girlish and more innocently charming than he was used to from her. "Homecoming, huh? That's nice," he said warmly, sincerely.
Lily seemed to pick up on his pleasure. "You're so old you probably don't even remember homecomings."
Jake looked taken aback. "Don't remember? Are you kidding me," he said. "I remember it like it was yesterday. I mean, I only went to the one. It was my junior year." Lily seemed pleased to think Jake had ever been a junior in high school. Seeing her glee, Jake lowered his voice to conspiratorial tones, almost whispering. "It was Homecoming where I first got myself in trouble with the authorities. Well...such as they were."
"What do you mean by 'got yourself in trouble?"' Lily seemed cowed by the idea, giving Jake a look that seemed positively mischievous.
Jake blushed a little. "I probably shouldn't be telling you stuff like this... It's not that I'm proud of my behavior..."
"Go on," Lily urged.
"Well, it's just that we were having this Homecoming dance at my school, and I got a little out of hand – you know, drunk just a little bit – and I accosted one of my teachers."
An older lady, passing by, glanced at Jake as she overheard what he had to say, and Jake respectfully doffed his hat, so that no umbrage would be taken. But Lily paid no mind to the intrusion. "You didn't!" she squealed, apparently titillated by the idea of behaving so at a school event. "Tell me what you did!"
Jake looked nervously around the store, noticing that a few clustered groups of women seemed to be casting not-too-furtive looks in his direction, while he and the nubile daughter of Frank Walker engaged in their flirtation. "Come on, let's move along and we can talk as we go."
"The thing is," Jake said, "we had this arithmetic teacher named Mr. Brownlee, and he was a son-of-a-bitch. I mean, I hated him – everybody hated him – and he hated me, so he was always finding ways to humiliate me in class."
"I've got one of those for Home-Ec," said Lily, sympathetically.
"Well, that night at the Homecoming dance I got a little heat on and I went up to him and told him what I thought of him..."
Lily's eyes flashed with a fire of delight. "What did you say?" she implored.
Jake made an expression that seemed a little embarrassed, signifying that he was no longer proud of his bravado of that night. "Well, I told him he was a fat bully who was a coward to pick on kids like he did. And I told him that as soon as I got out of school that I was going to come back and kick his ass, just for his being so mean to children."
"What'd he do?" Lily asked.
Jake shook his head. "Oh, he told the Principal, and he kicked me out of the dance, and then suspended me from school for a week. He called my people to the office and told them what I did..."
"Your people?"
"Well, yeah – the people who I was living with."
"Where were your parents?" Lily asked, suddenly aware that she had learned something about Jake she had not known before.
Jake, however, was not anymore forthcoming. "Oh, that's a long story. The thing is, I hope your Homecoming goes a lot better than mine did, that's all."
"I'm sure it won't be as exciting," Lily said.
"Well, good," Jake said. "The idea isn't for it to be exciting. It's all about having a good time, with friends, and enjoying yourself." Jake emphasized the point with a quick nod of his head, as if to put a period on that part of their conversation. "So have you got yourself a date for this brouhaha?"
Lily made an unpleasant face and shook her head. "No, I don't."
"Well, I'm sure there's someone who's just working up the courage to ask," Jake said. "Especially with a girl as pretty as you, it sometimes takes a young fella a little bit of preparation."
Lily shrugged. "I don't much care if l get asked or not. I'm just going because my dad says it's expected of me. He says I have to."
Jake stopped midway down the aisle to pick a box of oat meal off the shelf, to which Lily said "Ick." "What's wrong with you?" Jake asked.
"Ick to oatmeal – I can't stand it," she said.
"Well, you just don't know what's good," Jake said, placing it into his box, which was now about filled to the point that it wouldn't take anything more. Jake was having to carry it low before him, balancing it against his crotch as he walked. "Truth is, I don't care much for it either, but old Pete likes it. He says it keeps him regular." Jake noticed the look of consternation on Lily's fac
e. "What's wrong?"
"I heard my dad say to someone that he found out where you are staying?" Lily seemed to grow a little fearful. "He came home really upset yesterday."
"He showed up out at Parker Ranch," Jake said.
"So I hear," Lily said. She walked on a few more steps, seemingly considering something else, then said: "Jake, why are you staying there?"
The question seemed to befuddle Jake a bit. "What do you mean? I work out there. Pete put me up in his bunkhouse so I could stay right on the property and, you know, be there to watch over things."
Lily didn't seem satisfied. "Well what about that girl?" "That girl?"
"Yeah, you know – what's her name? Mr. Parker's daughter?" "Tory," said Jake. "Oh, she and I are friends. You know ..." "She's awfully old, isn't she?"
Jake nodded. "No, not really," he said. "She ain't as old as I am." "Is she the reason you're working out there?" Lily asked.
Jake grabbed a box of lye soap off a shelf and put that in his box, then proceeded toward the cash register, where Harold Evans waited to check him through.
"Well, is she?" urged Lily, standing with Jake at the check-out counter.
"Is she what?" asked Jake, being purposely obtuse. He looked at Harold Evans and asked, "Do you have any red licorice?" Harold replied that he did. "Why don't you throw in a few sticks of that, too, then," Jake said.
"Is Pete Parker's daughter the reason you are staying out at Parker Ranch?"
Lily's question turned the heads of a number of people in the store, many of which were already making whispered guesses as to why the wild young Walker girl was following this cowboy, twice her age, around the aisles of the IGA.
Jake noticed the looks they were getting, including from Harold Evans, and he smiled in a way that made him seem helpless to control the queries of this young mind. "I'm staying out at Pete Parker's place because I have a job there. Now when you get a little older and are out on your own you'll understand these things better."
"So it's not because of the girl?" pressed Lily, which only made all those within ear-shot lean toward Jake and her just a little in hopes of catching Jake's answer.
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