Blood Lines

by Mel Odom

  “I don’t. Not anymore.”

  Shel knew there was a story there. He could feel the jagged pieces of it in Remy’s words. But he let it go.

  “My daddy’s a hard man to get to know,” Shel said. “All my life he’s been distant. Not really a part of my life. Like he was just somebody curious and looking in through a window at me.”

  Remy didn’t say anything.

  “When Mama was still alive,” Shel went on, “it wasn’t so bad. She buffered everybody. Kept us all on an even keel. But Daddy was distant with her, too.”

  “You ain’t the most talkative man I’ve ever met,” Remy commented.

  Shel had to grin at that. It was true. “Neither are you, kemosabe. And that’s why you and me having this conversation is . . . odd.”

  “We don’t have to have it.”

  “Unless we play another basketball game.”

  “Never again on Father’s Day.”

  Shel knew Remy was giving him an out and gently letting him know he didn’t have to continue talking. Or maybe the topic was a little uncomfortable for him too. Shel wasn’t sure.

  But Shel discovered that once he’d opened the can, the worms insisted on crawling out. Most of the reason for that, he was sure, was because he was confident Remy would never tell another soul. And because Remy wouldn’t waste time trying to correct Shel’s thinking or tell him how he should feel.

  >> 1723 Hours

  “Mama always said Daddy got messed up in the war,” Shel said. “She knew him before he went to Vietnam. His daddy raised him to be a rancher, but when he got old enough, he signed on with the Army.”

  “Not the Marines?”

  “I was never one to follow in my daddy’s footsteps.” Shel admitted that honestly. “It started long before the choice of service in the military.”

  “Your father was in Vietnam?”

  Shel nodded. That was a source of pride for him despite the confusion that generally roiled up when he thought of his father. “Pulled four two-year tours. Got released in ’72 when his mama took sick. He had to go back and help work the ranch—the Rafter M. Mama said that taking care of Grandma was the only thing that brought him home.”

  “But somewhere in there he met your mother.”

  “Somewhere.” Shel reached back and patted Max on the head. Having the dog with him 24-7 was a blessing. “Mama said they knew each other in grade school, all the way through high school. She said they talked like they were going to get married, but Daddy wouldn’t do it because he thought he might get killed.”

  “A lot of boys did. Today isn’t much better.”

  Shel nodded. “She said Daddy was surprised when he came home and found out she hadn’t married.”

  “Eight years was a long time to wait.”

  “That’s what Daddy said. But Mama said that eight years wasn’t any time at all when you were waiting for the right man.”

  Remy grinned, and the ease that the expression created on his face had Shel grinning before he knew it too.

  “So they had a love story going on,” Remy said.

  “The way Mama told it.”

  “How’d your father tell it?”

  “He didn’t. Never said one word about it. And my brother and I never asked him. Not even after Mama passed. Daddy came back to the ranch, and he worked it hard. He still does.”

  “Sounds like Kurt Russell should be a ranch hand there.”

  Shel grinned at that despite the bad mood the day had left him in. “It’s a working cattle ranch. The living’s hard and the profits are lean, but Daddy’s a simple man and keeps at it. Mama’s buried there with Grandpa and Grandma McHenry. Two of Daddy’s brothers are buried there too.”

  “Sounds like a big commitment.”

  “He’ll never leave that piece of ground. I reckon when the time comes, we’ll plant him there too. My brother, Don, isn’t happy about that, but that’s how it goes. Daddy’s leaving me control of the land. According to the will, I have to buy Don out if he wants me to.”

  “I didn’t know you had a brother.”

  “One. Don.”

  “Is he military too?”

  “Nope. He found a way to irritate Daddy even worse than I did. Of course, Don doesn’t see it that way. He became a Bible-thumper.” As he talked, Shel heard his accent thickening. His words—his thoughts even—turned more toward how he’d been raised when he was talking about his daddy.

  “A preacher?” Remy asked.

  Shel nodded.

  “I still don’t see why Father’s Day bothers you so much. A lot of people have father issues.”

  Shel took a moment to think about that. It was hard, he was discovering, to get everything he felt into words that someone else would understand.

  “I joined the Marines because I wanted my life simple,” Shel said.

  “That was your first mistake.”

  Shel ignored the comment. “I liked the idea of organization and structure, of knowing how I was supposed to treat other people.”

  “You don’t think you got that at home?”

  “From Mama, sure. And from Daddy, too, I guess. He taught me how I was supposed to treat other people, but—” Shel stopped, suddenly embarrassed. He had already revealed far more than he’d intended to.

  “But not how to act around him,” Remy said.

  Shel wanted to tell Remy to just forget they were having the conversation, but he couldn’t. It was on his mind. And today was Father’s Day. Tomorrow it wouldn’t be, and he might not feel inclined to talk about any of this. Then it would lie waiting to ambush him, as patient as a circling buzzard, for another year.

  “I knew how to act around him,” Shel said. “I just didn’t know how we were supposed to act together.”

  “You were into sports. You don’t have any father-son moments in there?”

  “Daddy came to some of the games. Don and Mama shamed him into it on occasion.”

  “He didn’t like coming?”

  “Daddy doesn’t like being around other people. He didn’t make friends. He was what we always called standoffish.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do other people make him uncomfortable?” Remy asked.

  Shel shook his head. “I’ve seen Daddy walk into a bar filled with people, most of them wanting to form a lynch mob, and take command of the whole situation. We had a vaquero in from Mexico one summer. His name was Miguel. He was eighteen. I was twelve at the time. The way he could stick on a green mount and break him was amazing. I wanted to be just like him.”

  The road noise filled the pauses between Shel’s words.

  “Anyway, Miguel got into a fight with one of the local guys,” Shel went on. “Words were said. Pride was hurt. And it was all over a girl.”

  “Now there’s a bad mix,” Remy said.

  “Yeah. Miguel was outnumbered, and those boys pulled out baseball bats. Miguel pulled a knife. Jimmy Dean Harris got cut pretty bad and ended up in the hospital. It was his daddy that gathered up the lynch mob that night.”

  “Exciting little town you grew up in.”

  “I’ve heard New Orleans isn’t exactly filled with saints,” Shel countered.

  Remy displayed a flat, mirthless grin. “My grandmère would agree with you. She wanted to move out of that place, but she never could. Even after Katrina, she’s back where she grew up.”

  “A lot of people get stuck in their ways.”

  “I know that’s true. But anyway, your father walked into this bar.”

  >> 1729 Hours

  “He did walk into that bar that night,” Shel continued. “I followed him, but he didn’t know it. Daddy got a call from one of the men inside the bar, and I followed him into town on my dirt bike.”

  “Where were the police?”

  “We didn’t have police. We had a sheriff’s deputy. And he didn’t want any part of what was going on.”

  “Brave soul.”

  “This was Texas.
Old Texas. And it was twenty years ago.”

  “Not exactly prehistoric.”

  “Not if you’re going by a calendar.” Shel looked at the interstate stretched out before them. “But things hadn’t changed much since the frontier days. At least, most folks living around there didn’t think they should have. Daddy got out of his truck with an old Colt .45 on his hip and a pump-action shotgun in his hands. He didn’t hesitate about walking straight up to that bar.”

  “I would have at least thought about it. Why didn’t he call for help?”

  “Because Miguel was a Mexican, and nobody else would have risked their neck for him. And because that’s just the way Daddy is. He skins his own cats.”

  “I thought you said it was a cattle ranch.”

  Shel started to explain. The country accent came back to him so naturally when he started talking about things back home. Then he saw Remy grinning.

  “I know you didn’t mean that he really skinned cats,” Remy said. “That’s just one of those country terms.”

  “City boy,” Shel snarled good-naturedly.

  “So what happened at the bar?”

  “I peeked in through a window. I didn’t know what to do. I was scared to death for Daddy, but I don’t think I’d ever been more proud of him.”

  “But it wasn’t his fight.”

  “The way Daddy saw it, it was. He’d brought Miguel there to break horses and help out with the stock for the summer. What happened to Miguel—according to Daddy’s way of thinking—was his responsibility. Daddy faced all those men in that bar and told them he’d kill the first man who hurt Miguel.”

  “Would he have?”

  “They thought so.”

  “What did you think?”

  Shel looked at Remy and nodded. “He’d have killed any man who laid a hand on Miguel that night. That’s gospel truth.”

  “Not exactly Joe Average.”

  “Daddy never has been.” Shel took a deep breath and let it out. “Anyway, Daddy left with Miguel. He saw my bike and knew I was there. I thought he was going to kill me. He’d told me to stay home. Instead, he had Miguel and me load my bike into the back of his pickup, which wasn’t easy, and we went back to the ranch.”

  “And that’s where it ended?”

  “The sheriff came out the next day and told Daddy he didn’t want him going into town waving guns around and threatening folks. Daddy told him he wouldn’t have had to do it if the deputy would do his job, and he was lucky he didn’t bill him for keeping the peace and preventing a murder that night. Mama came out and gentled things down before the sheriff made a bad mistake. She was the only one who could do that where Daddy was concerned. Don talks to Daddy, and sometimes Daddy listens. But I think it’s more out of respect for him being a preacher.”

  “What kind of relationship does your brother have with your father?”

  “After Mama died of cancer while I was in high school, Don got relegated to the role of family peacemaker. I think that’s part of the reason he became a preacher. He figured out how to keep the peace in his life, and he mostly kept it between Daddy and me. But we never made it easy for him.”

  “Does Father’s Day affect your brother in the same way it does you?”

  Shel grinned at the thought of what was probably going on back home right now. “No. Don’s got a whole new set of problems. He has a hard time giving up on an idea, and he wears like leather. So he goes to see Daddy on Father’s Day whether Daddy likes it or not.”

  6

  >> Four-Mile Tavern

  >> Outside Fort Davis, Texas

  >> 1629 Hours (Central Time Zone)

  Don McHenry was aware of the sudden quietness in the bar as he stepped into the long, deep cool of the building. Outside, the Texas countryside was parched and sun blasted. The heat called up twisting mirages over the baked countryside. Scars were already starting to show from the heat, and summer wouldn’t even officially begin for a few more days.

  Don gazed around the bar but knew that most people there wouldn’t meet his eyes. Fort Davis was a small community. Most people knew he was a preacher either from attending church or from seeing the televised Sunday morning meetings or just from the presence he had in the community. He served on the development boards and umpired games at the Little League ballpark.

  So some of the drinkers were anxious about him being there.

  Although Texas wasn’t a dry state, it was still close enough to the Bible Belt of the country that some shame was attributed to drinking. A few of the churches still spoke against it. Don didn’t feel that way and sometimes enjoyed a quiet beer when he took his sons to a Texas Rangers baseball game in Arlington.

  Four-Mile Tavern was named for its geographic location. Built along the highway leading into Fort Davis, the bar was four miles outside the city limits. At one point it had been a small house. The story went that the owners had built a small room onto the front of the house to sell moonshine to locals. Over the years its reputation had grown, and people from outside the city had started to drive in to drink there and hang out in front of the building.

  So new construction had begun. Within a few short years, the house had more than quadrupled in size. Unable to keep up with the demands and fearful of law enforcement frowning on their homegrown business, the owners had gotten a liquor license and gone legit. They’d also purchased some secondhand restaurant equipment and started serving lunches and dinners to truckers, tourists, and those in the city who preferred to do their drinking outside of it.

  As Don stood there in the door, he saw a handful of men and women slide out the back way. A few of the others gave him a hard-eyed stare.

  “Hey, preacher,” an older woman with frosted hair said as she walked up to him. “If you’re here on business, we don’t want any. You got your shop, and I got mine. And looks like you done chased off some of my customers.”

  “Well, Katie,” Don said with a smile, “chasing your customers off wasn’t my intention.”

  The woman’s severe face relaxed a little. She tossed her bar towel over one shoulder and put her hands on her hips. She even offered a smile.

  “It ain’t your fault, Pastor McHenry,” Katie said. “I get too many Protestants in here and not enough Catholics. At least Catholics ain’t afraid to drink in front of the priest. Why, I’ve even seen nights Father Bill bought a round for the house when he became an uncle or he’d shot a good game of golf.” She winked at him. “Of course, Father Bill always waited till there weren’t very many people in here at the time.”

  “You know I don’t preach that consuming alcohol is a sin when it’s used in moderation.”

  “You just scared out the backsliders, is all. And maybe a few of them who was here with people they oughtn’t have been here with. But I guess you know that.”

  “I wasn’t taking names.”

  “You never do.” Katie looked at him a little more tenderly. “I suppose you’re here to see your daddy.”

  Don nodded. “I am if he’s here.”

  “He is. He’s in the back. In the TV room.” Katie looked a little sympathetic as she jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “You know the way.”

  “I do. Thanks.” Don headed for the back of the tavern. His steps rang against the hardwood floor. It sometimes amazed him how solid and big that tavern sounded and how much his footsteps sounded like they did when he was alone in church before service started. The sound seemed right, though, since the tavern and the church were both places people took their troubles when they got too big for them.

  “Can I bring you anything?” Katie asked.

  “A vanilla Diet Coke, please.” The tavern kept a range of flavorings to add to soft drinks. Don had drunk his first vanilla Coke in the tavern as a boy and still liked one on the rare occasions he was there.

  “I’ll bring it on back,” Katie promised.

  >> 1632 Hours (Central Time Zone)

  When Don was growing up, everyone in the neighborhood who owned a TV ca
lled their living room the TV room.

  Television reception hadn’t been very good in rural Texas for a long time—still wasn’t in some areas. There wasn’t much air-conditioning back then either; installing units was too expensive, and the wiring was problematic. Relaxation had come on shaded porches at the end of the day when the work was done. Most people enjoyed the radio, and Don remembered neighbors sitting around on porches on cool evenings listening to baseball games together. Church had often been held under tents too.

  Those were the things Don remembered most about his childhood, and they were the things he kept with him when he’d grown up. He liked to keep things simple. Unfortunately, in the hurry-up world that was forced onto young minds—and maybe not-so-young minds as well—through television and the Internet, simplicity was all but lost these days.

  When personal satellite dishes had come along, families had started investing in televisions. The TV became a status symbol of sorts, and so they started calling living rooms the TV room the way that empty nesters started calling their children’s rooms the hobby room.

  The Four-Mile Tavern had been one of the first to put TVs in for public viewing in the 1960s. Boxing, NASCAR racing, baseball, and horse races had all been big. And the patrons of the Four-Mile often placed wagers on those events. Gambling was illegal in Texas, but back then the laws had been hazy, and the sheriff and his men had turned a blind eye to anything that didn’t involve cards, dice, and roulette. As long as nobody reached for a weapon.

  Coupled with beer, air-conditioning, and TV, the tavern had become a booming local enterprise. Some of that success was mired in blood, though. Fights broke out over bets, over women, and over perceived slights. In rural Texas, fights were settled with fists, tire irons, and—occasionally—guns. It had helped that the local sheriff’s deputies usually did their drinking there too.

  When Don led church retreats in large metropolitan areas, other pastors he met had trouble understanding everything he faced while shepherding his flock. But to be fair, he didn’t quite understand the problems those city preachers dealt with either. Of course, there was more about gang violence in the news than there was about rural feuds and murders.