He did just that, letting her saddle Horsefly herself, and then kissing her before she mounted the old horse and pointed him toward the pasture gate. The real reason Jenny hadn’t looked back was the knowledge that if she saw Josh’s face, she might change her mind. She thought she was home free on the opposition front until she looked ahead of her to the brush line below the dry creek bed only to see Kate sitting there astride Bracelet, waiting.
As Jenny pulled Horsefly to a stop, she said, “Jesus, you must have gotten up at 4 o’clock to beat me up here.”
“Three-thirty,” Kate said. “Good morning.”
“How’s that thing working?” Jenny asked, gesturing to the wide, hand-tooled leather belt circling Kate’s waist. Her left arm rested in a reinforced padded cuff closed around her wrist with antique brass snaps.
“Good,” she said. “More comfortable than anything else I’ve tried and a hell of a lot better looking.”
Silence fell between the sisters. They simply sat together in the saddle listening to the birds. Finally Jenny said, “Why are you here, Katie? You know you can’t stop me.”
“Not gonna try,” Kate said, stepping off her horse. “Just thought I might walk you up to the head of the draw.”
Jenny looked down at her. “You’re getting good at doing that one-handed.”
“Getting back on still isn’t pretty,” Kate said. “But I’m getting there. Come on, honey, walk with me.”
Jenny dismounted and fell in beside Kate, the horses following obediently behind. After they’d covered a hundred yards or so, Kate said, “Hear me out?”
“Okay.”
“You’re a grown woman,” Kate said. “You know your own mind and I have no intention of trying to stop you. I just know that sometimes you get it in your head you’re all alone, and you’re not. I knew you wouldn’t let Josh come up here with you. He doesn’t know you the way I do. Asking permission is just an invitation to be told no. I don’t need permission to take a walk with my sister.”
Jenny laughed. “Fair enough.”
“How long are you planning on staying up there?”
“Three or four days.”
“More than that and I’m coming up there whether you like it or not.” Kate’s tone made it clear this was not a statement open for discussion.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Kate stopped and faced Jenny. “Coming up here is not just about finding some connection to Daddy in how you draw pictures. You’re afraid you’re like him and like Mama; you’re afraid you’re unstable.”
Jenny felt the blood rush to her face. She looked away.
“It’s not true,” Kate said. “But just in case you don’t know it already, if you ever did get lost like that? I’d come find you.”
When Jenny didn’t speak, Kate reached out to touch her shoulder, and then embraced her sister with her good arm when Jenny stepped forward. Kate held her until Jenny began to pull back, keeping her close long enough to kiss her temple before releasing her completely.
Their eyes met and Kate grinned, “Go on. You’re burning daylight.”
57
When Kate turned Bracelet loose in the pen, she heard something clatter at the back of the barn. Walking inside to investigate, she found Josh, his shirt wet with sweat, unloading a trailer of feed sacks by himself. He glanced up and nodded at her before hefting another 50 lb. sack.
“You’re gonna gut yourself if you don’t slow down,” she said reasonably.
“Keeps my mind off things,” he said stubbornly, stepping into the trailer to retrieve another sack. “Besides, this trailer won’t unload itself.”
Kate watched him take three or four more trips and then said sternly, “Goddamn it, Josh Baxter. Stop. You’re not going to do my sister any good giving yourself a heart attack.”
He did as he was told, standing before her with a heaving chest. “You saw her?” he finally wheezed.
“I walked her up to the head of the draw,” Kate answered.
“Is she okay?”
“Yes.”
He took out a bandanna and mopped his face. “Is she really okay, Katie?”
“Yes. Now come on,” she said, “you need a beer.”
“It’s not even 9 o’clock,” he protested.
“For God’s sake,” she snapped. “I can tell time and you still need a beer. You like to fish?”
“Excuse me?” Josh asked, startled by the abrupt turn in the conversation.
“Fishing,” she said. “You know, lures, hooks, an excuse to sit on a river bank and drink beer?”
“Uh, yeah. I do, actually,” he said. “But it’s a work day.”
“Every day’s a work day,” Kate said, starting back toward the door. “Daddy kept the poles and stuff at the back of the tack room. Go get it all out and I’ll fix us a cooler and see if Jake wants to go, too.”
“Not that I’m objecting,” Josh said, “but why exactly are we doing this?”
Kate stopped and turned toward him. “Because you’re my friend, Josh Baxter, and you need to sit by a river today. Am I wrong?”
He shook his head. “No, you’re not wrong.”
An hour later, the three of them were settled under the exposed roots of a massive pecan tree. Jake leaned back against the trunk and popped the cap on a Miller Lite before opening a book and propping it against his knee. Kate, who couldn’t handle a casting rod one-handed, lobbed a baited hook into the green water, smiling when the red and white bobber made a satisfying little plop as it rippled the surface.
A few feet downstream, Josh worked the shadows near the bank with a simple jig lure. Kate watched him out of the corner of her eye and saw the rigid line of his shoulders begin to loosen with each cast. He moved rhythmically, making the reel sing each time he drew the lure through the water. When he snagged a good-sized sun perch on the fourth cast, boyish laughter rippled out of his throat. “We keeping these?” he asked.
“Only if you plan on getting more for lunch than leftover cornbread,” Kate answered.
Still laughing, Josh removed the hook for the fish’s mouth and threaded it on a stringer he tied to one of the roots. “Damn,” he said, “guess that means I get to clean’em, too.”
“A man’s work is never done,” she observed drily.
No one spoke for the next hour and a half. Around them the birds sang in the trees and the occasional dragonfly landed on the end of Kate’s pole to bask in the sunlight. Over her shoulder, she could hear the whisper of pages as Jake worked through his book and the hollow pop of the beer caps as he dutifully kept them all supplied with cold ones from the cooler.
Just a little after noon, when his stringer was full, Josh started a fire and cleaned his catch. He coated the fish with cornmeal he found in Kate’s brown paper bag and fried them in the oil she’d also packed.
“You are one prepared lady,” he said, handing Kate and Jake paper plates. “This skillet must be a 120 years old.”
“It’s the one we always bring with us to the river,” she said. “Daddy and I used to do this every now and then when he was in a decent mood.”
“I’m guessing you all fished like you built fence?” Josh asked.
“Yep,” she nodded. “We never said half a dozen words the whole day.”
“This is good,” Jake said, chewing happily. “I’ve never actually done this before.”
“Eating fried fish?” Josh asked grinning.
Jake laughed. “Going fishing.”
“You have led a deprived life, Professor,” Kate said. “Nothing tastes better than fish on the bank of the river on a day that’s yours for the wasting.”
“Katie,” Josh said suddenly, keeping his eyes on his plate, “do you understand her?”
Kate drew a long pull on her beer. “It’s not so much understanding as knowing, Josh. I was there all those years ago, too. I know what’s in her head.”
“The two of you were smart not to try to stop her from going up there,” Jake said. “It’s better
to . . . let her have her head. Did I say that right?”
“We’re gonna make a horse man out of you yet,” Kate said approvingly. “Yeah, you got it right. Jenny is worse than I am about being controlled, and I’m pretty damned bad.”
“Katie,” Josh said hesitantly, “I don’t mean to speak ill of your people, but do you think your Daddy went crazy up in that draw?”
“I honestly don’t know, Josh,” she said. “But I do know Jenny’s not crazy. She just handles things differently than we do. You want to be with my sister, you’re going to have to let her be who she is.”
Josh pushed his food around with his fork. “I don’t want her to hurt anymore,” he said finally.
“None of us want her to hurt,” Jake said. “But we can’t fix this for her. She’s realizing she’s like her father and she doesn’t know what to do with that.”
“You see it, too?” Kate asked.
Jake nodded. “I saw it in her eyes that day in the cave when we found Langston’s drawings.”
Kate set her plate down and stretched out her legs. “Look, Josh, Jenny always thought she was just like Mama. It’s what she held onto because the idea of being anything like Daddy wasn’t something she could face. But Lord God, she’s had that temper of his since she was just a little thing. I can guarantee you by the time she was five years old she could already pitch a proper Lockwood fit.”
“I’ll bet she was a feisty little thing,” Josh said, smiling proudly.
“Terror of the kindergarten,” Kate said, shaking her head. “It was like watching a miniature Marine drill sergeant line ’em up on the playground for inspection.”
“So you think she knows what she’s doing?” Josh asked uncertainly.
“She pretty much always has,” Kate assured him, “even when what she’s doing scares the hell out of her. Trust me. She’s not trying to run away from us. She’s trying to stay with us. She’s trying to stay with you.”
Jenny triggered the latch on the door of the cave in Baxter’s Draw, then took a deep breath and went inside. By the light of the sun slanting through the opening, she lit the lanterns. Then, she took up the blue tarp covering the trail of Kate’s blood that stained the floorboards. They’d hidden the gory aftermath of the shooting for Mandy’s sake, but for Jenny the consequences of that night were entwined with everything she’d come here to confront. Kate paid her share of the price for Langston Lockwood’s hidden past with a crippled arm. Would Jenny pay for it with a shattered mind like his?
She moved back and forth through the cave’s entrance bringing her supplies into the interior and then gathering firewood. It was several degrees cooler inside her father’s private sanctuary, and Jenny desperately wanted a cup of coffee. First, however, she set up a highline and tethered Horsefly, giving the old horse food and water.
“You be alright out here, Old Man?” she asked.
Horsefly nickered, shaking his head up and down as if nodding.
“You’re gonna talk one of these days, aren’t you?” she asked.
Horsefly sighed loudly, his nostrils fluttering. Jenny laughed. “I know, I know,” she said, scratching his ears. “You talk already.”
Back inside the cave, Jenny put a pot of cowboy coffee on to boil, hooking the bail over an iron hook set in the side of the firebox. When the liquid bubbled out the spout, she carefully removed the pot, settled the grounds with a splash of cold water and poured herself a cup.
She sat down in the leather chair by the hearth and let her eyes roam over the space while she waited for the coffee to cool. Her father’s craftsmanship with tools, like his skill with a pencil and paintbrush, was impeccable. From the exposed beams of the ceiling to the planks under her feet, nothing betrayed the fact that the room lay nestled in the side of a mountain.
Langston’s personal possessions were gone, secured against possible discovery by treasure hunters, but the furnishings were just as he left them. A fresh canvas now sat on the easel in the corner and Jenny’s own art supplies occupied the shelves. She’d folded down the handmade Murphy bed in the wall and unrolled her sleeping bag atop the surprisingly new mattress. The last entry in the journals from the desk across the room was dated a week before her father committed suicide. This place had remained his refuge to the end of his life.
A log popped in the fireplace, breaking her reverie. She gingerly tested the tin cup, then picked it up and took her first sip of the bitter, strong brew. An odd sense of comfort settled over her and she admitted to herself that she liked this place. When the entrance was closed, as it now was, the world out there simply ceased to exist, and with it, all the worries and concerns. As she opened herself up to the solitude of the space, Jenny felt the tight bands of her self-control slip away. “So, this is why you came here, Daddy,” she said softly. “To breathe.”
Even the strong coffee wasn’t enough to curb the effects of her growing relaxation. She’d gotten up before dawn to make the ride up to the draw. It wouldn’t hurt to close her eyes for just a second.
“Damn girl, did I raise you to fall asleep in your chair before noon? You’re as lazy as that goddamned old tomcat of yours.”
Jenny’s eyes shot open, the coffee cup falling from her hand.
“Now that’s a waste of damn good coffee,” Langston Lockwood said, dragging the desk chair over to sit in front of his daughter. “That is one thing I miss on this side. I’d blow my brains out all over again if I could just have one cup of black coffee.”
“You’re not real,” Jenny said. “This is a dream.”
“Of course it’s a dream, but don’t be a goddamn fool and tell me I’m not real, girl. I’m dead, but I’m sure as hell real,” he said, crossing his long legs. The fine leather of his black boots gleamed in the firelight.
“What do you want, Daddy?” she said.
“Question is daughter, what do you want?” Langston asked. “What are you doing sitting here in my cave?”
“You son of a bitch,” Jenny said, her eyes blazing. “You lying son of a bitch. All those years you were yelling at us and mistreating Mama you were coming up here to moon over some dead woman and draw beautiful art. You wouldn’t pay for so much as a scrap of paper for me, but you—you selfish bastard— you were painting with oils.”
Instead of fighting back, Langston took off his hat and ran a tired hand through his graying hair. “Don’t talk about Alice,” he said. “You don’t know enough to talk about her. As for your Mama, there won’t be any peace for me over what I did to her, but she’s at peace, Jenny. I can at least tell you that.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better, Daddy? Really? I know Mama is at peace because she was a kind, gentle woman. As for you, I hope you walk the earth for eternity and enjoy your own tailor-made brand of hell.”
“I reckon I probably will,” he said, the words filled with tired regret. “I always thought if there was an afterlife I’d find my Alice, but she isn’t here. I probably deserve that, but it’s bitter gall, little girl. It’s bitter gall all the same.”
“I’ll ask you again. What do you want, Daddy?” Jenny said, her voice ice cold.
“What I want is for you to make your peace with it, Jenny,” he said. “You got my temper and my gifts. Those things come from me and there’s not a damned thing you can do about it. You’ve got real talent. Only thing I could draw was my Alice, but you see the world with clear eyes. My art came from anger and pain, but yours comes from your soul. Let that out, daughter. That’s what I want.”
“You don’t know a damned thing about my soul,” she snapped.
“The hell I don’t,” he said mildly. “I was like you once, before I let life drive me over the edge. Fiery, passionate, idealistic. Being like me won’t hurt you, Jenny. You’re too strong. Katie, she’s tough and capable; she’s a thinker and her heart is as big as Texas when she opens it. But you, daughter? You’d spit the devil in the eye and dare him to cart you to hell. God knows you spit me in the eye.”
“You drove me away from my home! I was 17. I was alone and scared but I had to get the hell away from you. Do you have any idea what that was like for me, Daddy?”
“You should thank God I drove you away, girl,” Langston said. “Everything you went through out there is why you can be here now. Lead your life, Jenny. You and that Baxter boy, you got a future. There’s no coincidence him being a Baxter, you just don’t realize it yet.”
“Damn you,” she said. “Josh is right. You are haunting us. Dead or not, tend to your own business.”
“The dead always haunt the living, girl,” he said, standing up. “You got a hell of a lot more ghosts to worry about than me. Deal with them.”
As he started for the door, Jenny said to his back, “Daddy, did you ever love me?”
Langston turned, his hat in his hand. “I loved all my girls,” he said. “Problem was, I hated myself too much to show it. Look under the bridge, Jenny. You’ll find what you need to know there.”
The sound of the tin coffee cup crashing to the floor startled Jenny awake. Her heartbeat hammering in her ears, she raised a trembling hand and rubbed her eyes. The room was empty but the words still echoed in her mind. Look under the bridge. Across the room, over the folded down bed so that it was usually hidden, was a painting of the bridge where Alice Browning died.
Shaking, Jenny got up and took the painting down, turning it over to look at the back side. There, held in place with yellowed tape, was a pencil sketch of Alice in the same pose from the unfinished portrait sitting in Jenny’s studio. But there was one thing missing from that canvas that stood out in stark relief on the old paper — the bloodstains covering the lower left-hand corner.
58
Jenny didn’t leave Baxter’s Draw on the fourth day as she’d promised Kate she would. Instead, she waited. On the morning of the fifth day, on cue, Kate rode into the head of the draw, dismounted and tied Bracelet to the highline with Horsefly.
As Kate approached her, Jenny held out a cup of fresh coffee. “Morning,” she said.
The Lockwood Legacy - Books 1-6: Plus Bonus Short Stories Page 34
