by Ruth Wind
“You ask me, it’s an improvement.”
Jake looked at him, and just like that, the sense of separateness kicked in. Lance didn’t seem real. The room seemed like a stage set. He felt as if anything he said would echo out of him for a long time before anyone could hear him, and it would take just as long for anything they said to reach him across the vast gulf of distorted reality.
He closed his eyes, his heart racing with the knowledge that he was losing his mind.
From a great distance, he heard Lance say, “Are you all right, Jake?”
“Just a headache,” he replied, lifting his head. He had plenty of practice appearing to be normal, after all. “I drank a lot of Scotch last night.”
Mercifully, the boys rushed into the room just then. “Time to eat! Come on!”
Around the big dining-room table, everyone gathered. Ramona sat next to him, real and solid, and Jake was absurdly grateful. He reached for her under the table, taking her hand hard in his own. She felt like a lifeline, like the one thing he could count on to hold on to. Only her voice, chiming in with the others, seemed to reach him without that weird delay, like a film with the audio slightly out of sync.
He couldn’t really eat. The beans and bread were tolerable, but the chicken in its thick sauce seemed too rich, too heavy to even look at closely. So he drank the tea and kept his hand on Ramona’s leg and let the conversation wash around him, distantly observing that they all seemed to be enjoying themselves. Alonzo entertained them with his usual wild stories and slightly ribald jokes. The boys picked at their food in between rushing to the windows to see if it had stopped raining.
He did notice his mother. She sat at the head of the table, slightly mussed from the day’s cooking, and practically glowed. He didn’t remember ever seeing her look so happy—and surely not when his father was alive. Jake sat up a little. While he was growing up, this room had rarely been used for meals, and it had never rung with this much laughter or good feeling.
In his strangely disconnected state, it was easy to slip back into the past, to remember the rare nights Olan had made it home for supper. When he was there, the family ate in the dining room. All three boys dreaded it. Joining them at the table, he spent the meal barking out criticisms of their manners and their posture and the rare comments or stories they might venture to tell about the day. When it was just Louise and the three boys, they sat in the breakfast nook overlooking the mountains, and she invited each of them to tell one bad thing and one good thing that happened. Bad thing first, so it was canceled out by the good one. Usually.
Looking at his mother, Jake was fiercely glad that she was free at last. Free to be the happy woman nature had intended her to be, free to be round and rosy-faced and sweet-tempered, full of silly puns and robust laughter. His father had never liked the way Louise threw her head back and guffawed. Thought it made her seem common.
Picking at his plate, Jake realized his father would also have had plenty to say about Alonzo, who looked at Louise as if she were a ripe melon he couldn’t wait to devour. Olan would have had plenty of critical comments about Jake’s present life—he’d have jeered over Jake’s choice to give up the army in favor of running a restaurant, sneered over Ramona, shaken his head knowingly when Jake wrecked his car. He’d always been so sure they’d all amount to nothing.
But his death had freed Louise. As well as Lance, who’d always played the good-time Charlie more for his father’s approval than out of any real aptitude. And Jake was now free to screw up his life with abandon and totally selfdestruct if he wished.
That notion made him frown, and he narrowed his eyes, wondering if his twisted brain had some agenda related to his father, if that was also playing a part in all this. A fresh wave of panic welled up, pressing the air from his lungs. He took his hand from Ramona’s leg and put it against his chest. He didn’t want to think.
“Jake, I wish you’d shut up,” Lance said. “Person can’t get a word in edgewise with you yammering all the time.”
It took a moment for the words to penetrate. Jake stared blankly at his brother. Next to him, Ramona put her hand on his leg, and he jerked away, startled. Almost immediately, he understood how she would take that, and he reached for her hand, but she put it on the table. A red stain crept up her neck.
Damn. A circle of faces looked at him, waiting. Jake leaned forward and lifted his glass of tea. “Happy Fourth of July,” he said, and there was only a faint trace of irony to the words.
“It isn’t going to be Fourth of July if it doesn’t stop raining!” Cody protested.
The phone rang, startling all of them. Louise got up to answer it and came back to point at Jake. “For you. Someone named Red Dog.”
“What?” Jake found himself smiling. In relief, he went to the kitchen to take the call. “Red Dog—is it you?”
The liquor-roughened voice came clearly through the line. “Who else?”
Jake laughed, and it was a real laugh. “Where are you?”
“Well, I’m here in town. Seemed to me a Red Dog had to see a Red Creek. I’m in some little dive called the Wild Moose or somethin’—this army buddy of mine said he ran it.”
The familiar rusty sound of his voice gave Jake a sudden sense of relief and brought him back to reality. “I’m kind of in the middle of something, but I can be done in a hour. Can you amuse yourself that long?”
An earthy cackle reached his ear. “I’ll make friends with Jack. We’ll be waitin’.”
Ramona drove Jake down to the Wild Moose without saying a word. The rain had stopped and Ramona expected the weather would soon clear—long-term rain wasn’t something that happened much in the mountains.
Next to her, Jake was as quiet as he’d been all day, and she didn’t feel inclined to make small talk herself. There wasn’t any ease or comfort in this silence, however. It roared with unsaid things, with unmet expectations and uncomfortable realizations. Ramona would be glad just to get away from him. But when she pulled into the parking lot, he didn’t get out.
Trying not to look at him, she wrapped her hands tightly around the steering wheel and focused on the wet scene beyond the windshield. Thick gray clouds hung low over the mountains, and the ground shimmered with arcs of reflected light. Raindrops still pattered down steadily from the pine trees all around.
She felt him looking at her in that hard way he had, as if he could see through her skull and into her brain. After a moment, he said, “I’ll call you, okay?”
The words pierced her. She closed her eyes. “Please don’t patronize me.”
“What does that mean?”
She looked at him, and the sight of his blue eyes in that handsome, rugged face sliced her anew. “Don’t insult me by giving me one of your standard lines.” She paused, wishing she could be blasé, that she could offer some witty little parting comment, but she couldn’t. The past twenty-four hours had gone too deep for her, and she wouldn’t pretend for his sake that they hadn’t. “Just go.”
He reached for her, putting his hand against her hair. Ramona winced and ducked away from his touch. “Damn you, Jake. Do you have to make this so much harder? I’ve been trying from the beginning to be honest about all of this. I tried to tell you—”
“Tell me what?” His voice was dangerously soft. “That you’ve fallen in love?”
Ramona raised her eyes. She let him see, just this once, what was in her heart. “Yes,” she said simply.
He stared at her fiercely, and Ramona saw a myriad of emotions flicker across his face. Each one made him more haggard. “Ramona, you deserve so much better.”
She made an impatient noise. “Just go, Jake.”
“Ramona—”
She raised a hand to ward him off. “No. Don’t kiss me and don’t charm me and don’t give me that poor-wounded-boy nonsense. I tried to be your friend and you wouldn’t let that be, and now you have to deal with the consequences.”
He looked stunned. And confused. For a single moment, that
genuine perplexity almost moved her. Then she stiffened her resolve. “What’s the matter, Jake? Hasn’t anyone rejected you before?”
His face hardened. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Ramona,” he said, and she thought his voice sounded a little rough. He opened the car door. “I swear.”
And Ramona had to give him that. “I know you didn’t. Take care, Jake.”
He closed the door quietly. As she drove away, she saw him in her rearview mirror, watching her car disappear. He was still there when she turned the corner and lost sight of him.
It was only then that she pulled the car over into a deserted street by a park. And she put her head down and let herself cry. He really had not meant to hurt her. He hadn’t intended to take anything from her that she wasn’t willing to give. He had come to her instinctively, a wounded creature who needed healing, and she’d been unable to resist his need. She had given herself to him in hopes that he would somehow find that solace.
But it hadn’t been enough. He was still bleeding, might still bleed to death. Even the sacrifice of her heart had not stanched the flow. She would lose him—not to some other woman or some realization of the value of his life—but to those festering, dangerous wounds.
There in the gloomy afternoon, Ramona prayed. Prayed that heaven would watch over Jake Forrest and at least keep him from killing himself. She prayed for an army of angels to guard him and tried to imagine their surrounding him in flowing robes and swift, strong wings, swords in their hands.
“Please,” she whispered to the heavenly beings she hoped could hear. “Keep him safe.”
Chapter 16
Sgt. Robert “Red Dog” Martinez was comfortably ensconced at the bar of the Wild Moose when Jake came in, and the very sight of his old friend made the tension in Jake’s chest ease away. The waitresses who’d been fighting yesterday were now companionably bent over Red Dog’s tray of wares. The man leaned on his elbows on the bar, one foot propped on the bar stool next to him. Long black hair was caught back in a leather thong, and he wore a long black raincoat and a pair of snakeskin boots.
Red Dog was, to put it mildly, crazy. He could drink more Jack Daniel’s and remain standing than anyone Jake had ever seen, and he had a wild sense of humor undercut with a fierce irony that had saved morale more times than Jake could count. A good soldier. A good friend.
“All I had to do was look for the women,” Jake said dryly, taking the stool next to him.
Red Dog laughed, the sound as raspy as his voice. “I was just showin’ them some of my work.”
On the bar was a wide, flat acrylic case lined with dark blue velveteen. In the slots cut into the foam below the fabric were silver rings, bracelets and earrings, all worked in a distinctive style with turquoise, coral, abalone and lapis lazuli. “Nice,” Jake said, tugging out a pair of earrings worked with a bright turquoise inlay. The color made him think of the dress Ramona had worn to the VA home—that filmy thing that looked so pretty on her. When he realized the direction of his thoughts, he put the earrings back, his mouth tightening.
“One hundred percent American Indian made,” Red Dog said, tongue in cheek. “Can’t get that just anywhere.”
The darkness building in Jake disappeared. He’d forgotten how Robert could do that—make everything seem like a joke. Everything in life.
“How much for this bracelet?” one of the waitresses asked.
Red Dog cocked his head and gave her a crooked smile. “For you, darlin’, forty.”
The woman almost visibly melted. “I’ll have to come back. I don’t have that much on me.”
“He’ll be around for a couple of days,” Jake said. “I promise I’ll bring him back.”
Red Dog closed his case and put it beside him. The waitresses moved away reluctantly, casting glances over their shoulders. “So, how are you, man?” He lit a cigarette. “You look like hell.”
“It’s been a rough couple of days.” Jake fingered the lingering tenderness around his eye. “Wrecked my car.”
“You, too, huh?” He laughed. “I fell asleep on the way to Albuquerque a few weeks back.” A frown flitted over his forehead. “Car’s totaled.”
“Yep,” Jake said. “Mine, too. I’m not entirely sure I’m going to have a license when I’m through.”
Red Dog narrowed his eyes. “You weren’t drunk?”
“No.” Jake lifted a shoulder. “Just stupid.” He grinned and lifted his hair to display the cut. “Sixteen stitches.”
Red Dog whistled softly in an appreciative manner, then stuck his cigarette in the corner of his mouth, shrugged out of his coat and tugged up his sleeve to show a long, stillraw scar that ran snakelike from his wrist to his elbow. “Forty-six.”
“Beat me again.”
“It was my cattlelike reflexes.” He grinned wryly.
At the reference to a big, dumb soldier they’d both known who had slaughtered every cliché he heard, Jake laughed. It was the first time in days, and it shook something loose in his chest. “Poor Jared. Didn’t have a single brain in his head.”
“Good quality in a soldier.”
“Yeah.” He gestured to the waitress. “You want another drink?”
“Sure. Same thing.” He pushed his empty glass toward her. “You ever miss it?”
“Not the war,” Jake said. “Not even the army. Not anymore.”
“Me, neither.”
They both fell silent, watching Pam pour a Scotch for Jake, a bourbon for Red Dog. Into Jake’s mind there came a memory of a harsh blue sky stretched over a flat, endless, dun-colored desert.
Next to him, Red Dog swore and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t think it’s ever gonna go away, man. Not ever.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Hell of a thing,” Red Dog said, and drank deeply.
“Amen.” Jake lifted his own glass, downed it and stood up. “Step over to my office and let’s play some pool.”
Ramona went home to the solace of her animals. They seemed to sense her distress and padded along behind her from room to room, singly and in groups. She settled herself in the kitchen, thinking she would make a cup of tea. Manuelito sighed and lay down by the back door, while Pandora and Venus wove around her legs, politely taking turns. Guinevere the terrier mutt and Arthur the Lab sat by the door to the living room, ears up, watching her carefully.
She put the kettle on the stove to boil, but the dishes from her breakfast with Jake were in the drying rack, and the sight gave her a pang. “Damn you, Jake,” she said quietly. “I really didn’t want this.”
Guinevere whined sympathetically and shifted from foot to foot. Ramona knelt to scratch the dog’s ears and allow her chin to be daintily licked, one tiny touch of the paperthin tongue. Another to the cheek from Arthur’s thick one. Venus tripped over and rubbed along her thigh, her tail drawing a line on the underside of Ramona’s arm, and Pandora, not to be outdone, rubbed her ears on Ramona’s left ankle, then fell in a plop with her paws in the air, offering her white stomach just in case Ramona had an urge to rub it. From his post by the back door, Manuelito muttered softly in his eerie wolf voice, a half whine that had always sounded very close to words.
Ramona, surrounded by furry beings, laughed and sat down on the floor with her back to the wall to make room for all of them. “Come on, Manuelito, you, too.” Happily, he trotted over, gently nosing Venus aside to put his chin on her knee. The two cats curled up in her lap, back to back, while Arthur took her right side, Guinevere her left, leaving Manuelito’s huge body to guard her front. It made her feel weepy again. “Why can’t a man be more like a dog?” she asked, scratching Arthur’s muzzle. “Simple, loving, uncomplicated.” She chuckled. “Not to mention devoted.”
They did make it rather difficult to feel sorry for herself.
She had understood the risks inherent in loving Jake. She’d known from the very beginning that he would not be the kind of man who could make a commitment of any kind. Even if he did, she wouldn’t be
able to accept his offer, not when he had so many problems he had to solve. In his present state, he couldn’t function alone, much less take on the responsibility of a family.
A family. Surely she had not been so foolish as to imagine such a thing with Jake. Surely she was wiser than that.
But with two purring cats in her lap helping her reflect, she had to admit the thought had wafted through her mind a time or two. She had come to know what kind of man he was capable of being, what kind of man he was underneath his pain. A good man, a strong man, one who had the capacity for great love, honor and commitment. But until he came to terms with his sorrow and the loss of his dream, commitment would be impossible.
And she had understood that right from the beginning. She had lectured herself about her need to offer him healing. She had tried to be logical, clear-minded and honest with both herself and Jake. In the end, however, love was not logical. It didn’t follow any rules.
Now all she could do was continue to try to be honest and forthright. She loved him, but she could not heal him. She had to put him out of her life, cleanly and without regret. Especially without regret. A soft, fleeting vision of him in her rain-dimmed room shimmered in her mind. No, she would not regret that. Not for a single moment.
When the kettle started to whistle, Ramona put her face against the head of each one of her animals in turn. “Thanks, you guys. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
She rescued the kettle and poured the boiling water over a tea bag. A crisp, light lemon scent rose on the steam, and she inhaled. The little things made life good. She had to remember that.
The phone rang, and for a moment, Ramona simply looked at it, hoping with a traitorous part of her heart that it was Jake calling, that somehow, she had misunderstood what was happening at his mother’s house and on the way to the Wild Moose. The need for it to be him on the other end of the line made her stomach turn over, and she briefly considered letting it ring. She need to be stronger before she talked to him again, strong enough to be clear and honest and reasonable. Reasonable.
