Such Rough Splendor

by Cinda Richards

  She pushed the thought aside. No. Mac wouldn’t keep her from teaching. She could see him going door to door with her to recruit a reading class at gunpoint if that’s what she needed to make her happy. She picked a wild flower—something yellow that grew in big clumps along the road. She had no idea what it was called.

  I don’t know anything about this place, she thought—except that it was beautiful in its vast, rugged way—except that Mac loved it in the same way he said he loved her.

  I’d want his baby—babies—and I’m too old. She remembered the term she’d heard in a doctor’s office once—advanced maternal age. The pregnant woman had laughed about it. She had been thirty.

  Amelia continued to walk, head down. Maybe Mac wouldn’t want children with her anyway. Daniel hadn’t. Maybe she’d suffocate Mac so much with her worry about his rodeoing that he couldn’t handle parenthood too.

  He loves Adam.

  But Adam wasn’t something he’d had to decide about. Marlene simply presented him—her trump card when she needed it.

  Amelia stopped walking, looking at the land around her. Life out here was still so alien to her. She was still Alice in Wonderland, still a visitor from another planet.

  “I’m never going to stand his damned rodeoing!” she whispered.

  But she was standing it. She had no choice.

  She turned and went back toward the house, and Pop was waiting for her.

  “We got a call from the hospital at Albuquerque,” he said, holding open the screen door for her to come inside. “They say when Bobby left last night he didn’t have no pass. They say if he calls them—if he’s got some explanation—the rules committee will handle it instead of the treatment team. If the team gets into it, he’ll be out of the program.”

  “Oh, Lord!” Amelia said. “Well, where is he?”

  “I let him have the truck to go see Beth down in Santa Fe. I already called her—she ain’t seen him. Now, this is what I want you to do for me. I want you to stay here by the phone in case Mac calls. He might know where Bobby would go. And I got somebody to pick me up. We’ll go around a few places—and don’t look like that, darlin’. Bobby ain’t the first one of Mac’s baby chicks I been out looking for. I’ll call you if I find him or if I want you to do anything else, okay?”

  Amelia nodded and tried not to frown.

  “Rita’s walked down to Chimayo this morning—trying to loosen up her arthritis some. You tell her where I am.”

  “Pop, thanks,” Amelia said, squeezing his rough hand as he went out the door. Amelia watched from the long kitchen window as a beat-up truck—the Chevezes’—rolled into the yard, her eyes welling at the thought that they and Pop were so willing to help. She waited for Rita to come back, and then they waited together, picking at a lunch neither of them wanted and then waiting some more. The afternoon stretched on endlessly. Beth called once to make sure they understood that they were to let her know the minute they knew Bobby’s whereabouts. Their brief conversation left Amelia feeling anxious and sad. Pop didn’t call, and neither did Mac. Amelia kept pacing about, worrying about all of them, knowing how much better she would feel if Mac were here.

  “This has got to stop,” she said. “I can’t stand this agonizing!”

  “Where are you going?” Rita called to her.

  “I’m going to wash a horse!” Amelia said, changing her clothes and grooming Killer Fred to within an inch of his life—apparently to his satisfaction, since he dozed through the entire process, his chin nearly touching the ground. Killer Fred, Amelia thought with a smile as she dragged a curry comb over his now sleek hide. Fred didn’t have a raucous bone in his big gray body. And knowing Mac and Pop, his name probably wasn’t even Killer Fred. It was probably Prissy Percy or something like that.

  She managed to use up a little over an hour on Fred, and then another forty minutes on a second shower to get rid of the Fred smell. She dressed in her white slacks and a brilliant turquoise blouse that showed off her dark hair, adding the plum “earbobs” Rita had insisted she keep and tying a turquoise and plum print scarf around her waist as an afterthought. She stood staring at herself in the mirror in the bathroom. All dressed up and no place to go, she thought dejectedly, her attention taken suddenly by the sound of a truck. “Louise!”

  She hurried to the back door, nearly trampling Rita on the way, stepping outside as Mac pulled in the yard. Another truck, one as no-color as the Chevezes’, pulled up behind him, and Ernie Watson got out, giving Amelia a somewhat sheepish little wave as he walked around to open the door for Mac.

  “Can you make it?” he asked Mac, peering into the truck. “He’s hurt,” he said to Amelia as she walked up. “I didn’t want him to drive, but he—”

  “I’m not hurt!” Mac snapped, ignoring the hand Ernie offered so he could get out.

  “Oh, yeah, that’s right. You got some broke ribs, a busted knee they had to sew up, and you look like the damn bull did a dance on your face—but you ain’t hurt,” Ernie said sarcastically.

  “Now, don’t you start up with me, Ernie.”

  “I ain’t starting up! I told you not to ride that damn bull. I told you what I seen him do over in Raton. But no, the big rodeo star here, he don’t listen, does he? You ain’t no kid no more—”

  “Ernie, get off my case!” Mac yelled. “And don’t you start on me either,” he added to Amelia, not looking at her but pointing a finger in her direction. The finger was encased in a padded metal splint.

  Amelia was about to reply to that edict, but Mac suddenly looked at her. His poor face! She forgot everything. She forgot he’d just made her mad again. She forgot Bobby.

  “Amelia…” Mac warned her.

  “I haven’t said anything!”

  “Well, don’t look at me like that either!”

  “I can’t help how I look!” Her eyes traveled to his torn lucky shirt, the bloody rip in his pants leg over his right knee. She wanted to touch him, but she fully realized that she was in the middle of some kind of male hurt-pride thing. She bit down on her lip to keep from saying any more, but that didn’t suit him either.

  “Look, Amelia,” he said, trying to keep his balance and not put any weight on his injured knee. “I can’t take this. If you’ve got something to say, say it!”

  “You just told me not to!” she yelled at him, losing her temper after all. “What do you want from me?”

  “Nothing!”

  “Well, that’s just dandy, cowboy! Because that’s exactly what you’re going to get!” She turned on her heel and walked back toward the house.

  “I’m not staying here for this, Amelia!” Mac yelled after her.

  “Fine!”

  “Ernie!” Mac yelled.

  “What!” Ernie yelled back, clearly worried that he was going to have to referee.

  “Let’s go. I’m going, Amelia!”

  “Good,” she yelled, letting the door slam hard after her. Rita was on the telephone giving someone a blow-by-blow account of the altercation taking place in her yard.

  Amelia sat down at the kitchen table, staring at nothing, still furious. What did Mac want from her? She tried not to be upset that he’d been hurt.

  Rita hung up the phone and came to pat her sympathetically on the shoulder.

  “Rita?” Amelia said pitifully. “You know when Bobby and Mac said I needed to stay out here so I could rest?”

  Rita nodded.

  “Well, if I get much more rest, Rita, I think it’s going to kill me!”

  Pop came back without Bobby. A few people had seen him, but no one seemed to know where he was now. Pop waited out Amelia’s barrage of questions, and when she finally wound down, he held out a set of truck keys toward her.

  “I want you to go down to Cowboy Heaven and get Mac.”

  “No,” Amelia said, refusing to take the keys.

  “Now, Amelia, if anyone knows where Bobby is, Mac will.”

  “I can’t ask him, Pop.”

  “Yes, you can.
Bobby’s your brother, and it’s only right you ask him. And don’t pay no mind to Mac’s hot temper. A man just don’t like for the woman he cares about to see him with his face in the dirt. Now, go on.”

  “Pop…”

  “Go on, Amelia.”

  “I don’t even know if he’s at Cowboy Heaven.”

  “He is if he’s with Ernie. Now, git. I’m getting too old for all this. You know the way, don’t you?”

  Amelia gave a small sigh. “I know the way, and even if I didn’t, ‘Louise’ does.”

  Amelia pushed “Louise” hard to get to Cowboy Heaven, circling the huge lot twice before she found a spot among the mass of parked trucks and jeeps and vans. She got out, standing for a moment and looking up at the neon cowboy hat with a halo over it. A full moon was slowly rising over the mountain range to her left, and the strains of a country-western “cheating” song drifted out every time someone opened the outside door. If there was one thing that bothered her about this endeavor, it was that: that she’d walk in and find Mac with some woman draped all over him. Of course, with his battered face, broken ribs, and sutured knee, there weren’t too many places a strange woman could safely drape. She gave a small whimper of despair, shoring up her courage, and she walked forward. She had to find Bobby, and that’s all there was to it.

  The place was dark and smoky and packed with cow-persons. Amelia scanned the crowd, but she didn’t see Mac or Ernie. She really had no idea if they were in here because she hadn’t paid enough attention to Ernie’s truck to be able to identify it among fifty others just like it. She saw one booth empty except for a pair of boots that stuck out horizontally over the edge of the seat. Knowing Ernie’s drinking history, that seemed a likely place to start. She borrowed a Bic lighter from a nearby cowboy who was about to light a cigarette, shining it down in the space between the seat and the edge of the table so she could see the occupant’s face. It wasn’t Ernie.

  “Hey, Amelia!” someone called to her as she gave the lighter back. It was one of the cowhands she’d plied with biscuits and Spam but whose name she’d forgotten.

  “What are you looking for?” he asked, grinning in the semi-darkness and nearly yelling to be heard over the noise.

  “A cowboy,” Amelia said with a sigh.

  “I’m a cowboy,” he offered, repositioning his hat a bit.

  “Oh, you’re much too pretty,” she assured him. “I’m looking for one with a beat-up face—one eye swollen shut, bruises, split lip—stuff like that.”

  “Let’s see,” he said, looking over heads and finally zeroing in on one at the bar. “There he is—down there at the end. See him?”

  “Thanks—Jimmy,” Amelia said, his name suddenly coming to her.

  “Any time. Hey, if you decide you want a pretty cowboy, I’ll be around here.”

  Amelia smiled and worked her way through the crowd toward the bar. A different song was playing now, one heavy with bass notes that she felt in the pit of her stomach. Mac didn’t have a woman draped over him exactly, but there was one close enough to make her anxious, one wearing a tight black dress with a drawstring halter top that had been rigged to show her considerable cleavage. A gold bead dangled between her breasts, and she was wearing a cowboy hat—Mac’s cowboy hat. Mac sat staring at nothing. There was some comfort in that, when there was so much he could have been staring at. Five or six cans of beer sat on the bar in front of him.

  “How drunk are you?” Amelia asked without prelude. She wasn’t about to go into a detailed explanation of why she was here with a man who was too alcoholically befuddled to understand it.

  He didn’t answer, and she waited, giving him plenty of time to register that she was there.

  “Fine,” she said when she’d waited long enough. She moved away, intending to look for Ernie, but he caught her arm, the finger splint cold and hard on her skin. They stared at each other, Amelia still trying to decide if he was sober.

  “You should have come sooner,” he said. “You missed the wet T-shirt contest. Wyona here won.” Wyona smiled and wiggled a bit to show why she was a winner.

  “Congratulations,” Amelia said politely, trying to get away again.

  “What’s wrong?” Mac asked. “I know there is no way in hell you’d come in here after me unless something was wrong—so what is it? Daniel after the family real estate again?”

  The jab was deliberate and well placed, and Amelia could feel the tears stinging her eyes. “You know,” she said quietly, moving closer so he could hear her over the noise, “I never was much of a doormat. I never stood still for Daniel’s hauling me around when I didn’t deserve it, and I’m certainly not taking it from you.” She roughly peeled his fingers from her arm, but he grabbed her again, pulling her hard against him and wrapping both his strong arms around her to keep her there. She struggled briefly, like a bird caught in a net, then finally went limp against him, her face pressed into his shoulder.

  “Honey, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said against her ear. “I didn’t mean that. It was a stupid thing to say. I’m taking it out on you because I fell off a damn bull I should have had more sense than to ride in the first place. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  It took a moment before she could do it, before she could bypass the conflicting emotions. She loved him and he looked awful and he’d hurt her with his remark about Daniel. She lifted her head to look at him, her eyes probing his in the dim light. He gently stroked her face as best he could with the splint, then pressed his less battered cheek against hers. The warm feel of him and the brush of his hairy face made her want to cry.

  “Bobby left the hospital without a pass,” she said. “If he can’t satisfy the rules committee, he’s out of the program. We can’t find him. Pop’s been looking all day. Beth hasn’t seen him—”

  “He’s here,” Mac interrupted. “He’s in the back.”

  “In the back of what?” she asked when he didn’t go on.

  Mac gave her a small, somewhat sheepish grin, making an undecided gesture with his free hand.

  “What?” Amelia asked.

  He didn’t answer, taking his hat back from Wyona instead.

  “All right,” she said, moving out of his grasp and heading toward a pair of red swinging doors near the bar. She could hear Mac half hopping, half limping behind her.

  “Amelia, you can’t go back there.” He nearly had her by the arm, but she accelerated her walk. “Amelia!”

  She went through the doorway and into a dimly lit hallway. She could see a series of doors on both sides of the corridor, and Mac had her by the arm again. A woman in a black satin wrapper embroidered in roses and seed pearls came out of one of the rooms.

  “Amelia!” Mac hissed.

  “What?”

  “You can’t come back here!”

  “I am back here. Mac, will you relax? This isn’t the first bordello I’ve been in.” She listened at a door for a moment. “Bobby!” she suddenly yelled.

  “Shhhh!” Mac cried, trying his best to keep her quiet. “It’s hard telling who you’ll get out here.”

  “Mac, will you take it easy? I’m going to talk to my brother.”

  “Amelia, for godsake, you can’t!”

  “Hello, Mac,” the woman in black satin crooned.

  “Hello, Pearl,” Mac responded, his eyes immediately riveting on Amelia’s face. “Now—Amelia—now—there’s a reason why she knows my name,” he said in a rush, holding up his hands in self-defense.

  “Oh, I’m sure there is,” Amelia said agreeably, and she didn’t stop listening at the doors.

  “No, now—that’s not what I meant to say—”

  “Oh, I’m sure of that too,” Amelia said, moving on down the hall.

  “What I meant to say is—”

  “Mac, please. Why don’t you just quit while you’re ahead, all right? Before you get hurt or something,” Amelia suggested. “I’m looking for my brother, Pearl. Tall, blond, mustache, charming, says please and thank you.”
/>   “Cowboy or not?” Pearl wanted to know.

  “About half,” Amelia answered.

  “I know him. Want me to get him?”

  “Would you?”

  “Sure,” Pearl answered. “You want to wait here?”

  “Sure,” Amelia said, glancing at Mac, who didn’t seem to know whether to laugh or cry. “What?” she asked him pointedly.

  “Do you do this—often?” he asked.

  “Do you?” she countered, eyebrows raised. She folded her arms and waited, trying not to grin at the “Damn!” Mac said under his breath. “If you’re reasonable and calm and say what you want right out,” she explained, “you can casually get it. Besides, I talked to Pearl for at least one hour at your barbecue—Orton reading method and reluctant readers, I believe it was.”

  “Amelia?” Pearl called from a room near the end of the hall. “Down here.”

  “Thanks, Pearl,” Amelia answered, leaving Mac standing there. “How’s your nephew doing?”

  “Better, Amelia. I tell you, it’s all in finding something he wants to read. He’s into Christmas catalogues right now.”

  “Great,” Amelia said. “Are you coming with me?” she asked Mac, who was still standing where she left him.

  “How the hell do I know?” he grumbled, limping up the hallway in her direction. He was so cute when he was bewildered.

  Bobby sat alone in the dimly lit room, in a sagging easy chair covered in brown and white spotted cowhide.

  “I’ve been expecting you,” he said with a small smile. He wasn’t drinking. “Who cleaned your clock for you?” he asked Mac. “Amelia do that?”

  “Very funny,” Mac said, and Bobby gave a soft laugh.

  “Two things,” Amelia said, interrupting his amusement. “And then I’m going.” She told him about the call from the hospital while Mac headed off a determined Ernie, who didn’t think Mac ought to be where he was at the moment.

  “Are you crazy?” Ernie shouted in the hall. “Amelia’s already mad at you—you going to let somebody tell her you were here?”