A Reckoning in the Back Country

by Terry Shames

  I put in a call to my nephew, Tom. He and his family are spending Thanksgiving with his wife’s family in McKinney. I’m glad I didn’t join them. Tom’s wife is a wonderful woman, but her daddy and I don’t agree politically, and he seems to have made it his business to convert me to his way of thinking. Now I understand he’s thinking of running for the local school board, and I can’t stomach hearing CHAPTER and verse on his plans to change the school to fit his ideas.

  Tom and his wife, Vicky, are in good spirits. They make their apologies that I can’t talk to their two girls, who have gone to the park to play touch football with some neighbor kids. When I hang up, I promise myself to get to Austin soon to visit them.

  Last night I plugged in Lewis Wilkins’s cell phone, so it’s all charged up and ready for me to find out what’s on it.

  I turn it on and, like the computer, it’s password-protected. I have a hunch that Margaret doesn’t know the password, but I call her anyway. It’s after nine o’clock, but I worry that it may be early if she is having trouble sleeping. She tells me I didn’t disturb her.

  “I wonder if you know the password on your husband’s phone?”

  “Let me think. At one time I know he used 1-2-3-4. But I think when he got this one it was maybe his birthday? Try 0919 or 1964.”

  The first one doesn’t work, but the second does. “That was it. You happen to know what his computer password is?”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s the same.”

  “I’ll check that later, thanks. You doing okay?”

  “As well as you can expect. I’m glad the kids are here.”

  “Your daughter came home last night?”

  “Yes, around midnight. She told me she had been to San Antonio to see an old friend.”

  When I get into Wilkins’s cell phone, first I look at the text messages. There aren’t many, but one catches my eye. “See you in a few days!” It was from Daniel. Odd, Daniel told me he hadn’t had any communication with his dad in a few months. I read the messages and they seem off, as if they are talking about something other than Thanksgiving. And then I see the date on it. This was an exchange from last spring. There have been no texts between them since then.

  Wilkins was not much for texting. There are only a few other texts, mostly from businesses.

  I turn to the voice messages. I listen to one from Margaret telling him to pick up lettuce and milk from the grocery store. Then there’s one from Dooley a couple of weeks ago asking him to call back with his plans for Thanksgiving. Other than that, there’s nothing to raise my interest.

  Finally I turn to the list of calls that were left without messages. It’s going to be a tedious job to find out who made these calls. Just having the name or number doesn’t tell me whether it’s from someone Wilkins had a relationship with, or if it was a telemarketing call. Sorting it out will have to wait, though.

  Now it’s time to tackle the cranberry salad. I’m still feeling out of sorts because Ellen ran out on me, but I’m determined to make the best of the day. I like Jenny and Will, and we’ll drink some wine and have some pie.

  I’m glad I said I’d make cranberry salad. That keeps me busy for a while. I let the puppy wander around and explore the kitchen, although every time I move my feet I’m afraid I’ll step on him. Finally the salad is in the refrigerator and the puppy has fallen asleep on the floor next to his box.

  Before it’s time to get over to Jenny’s, I go to headquarters. Although I left a note on the door telling anyone with a problem to call my cell phone, I don’t always trust that people will do it. Sure enough, there’s a call from Loretta Singletary’s next-door neighbor, saying she thought she saw someone sneaking into Loretta’s house last night. I go over and talk to her and find out it was a false alarm, that the man who she saw in Loretta’s yard came to her house looking for a house that was a block over.

  I chuckle when I get back and notice that Town Café’s parking lot is full. Women all over town have probably been saying something like, “You’re driving me crazy being underfoot. Don’t you have someplace you can go?” I park in the headquarters parking lot, stick the puppy in the jail, and head across the street to the café. Sure enough, the place is crammed, almost 90 percent of the customers being men who are drinking coffee rather than eating.

  The only regular I spot is Gabe LoPresto, who is sitting by himself, looking moody. “Mind if I join you?”

  “Be my guest.” He indicates the chair across from him.

  “You look like you lost your best friend,” I say.

  “In a manner of speaking.” He tells me that the quarterback who has led the Jarrett Creek High School football team to lofty heights this season broke his leg yesterday.

  “How did he manage to break it?”

  “Football practice. They were clowning around afterward and he jumped off some bleachers and landed wrong. It’s not a bad break, but he’s out for the season.”

  “That puts an end to the district run.”

  “Don’t I know it!”

  We don’t even mention the backup quarterback, who is a freshman with good skills, but the build of a ten-year-old. That’s the problem with living in a small town, the talent pool for sports is small.

  “Where’s your brother-in-law?”

  “Virgil and his wife went over to see her cousin in Bobtail. Anything new about the fella that got killed?”

  “They found his SUV out on the road to Burton, but that’s all for now. I’m looking into it.”

  “You thought any more about the dogfighting possibility?”

  “’Course I have. What I need is the name of somebody who can give me an inside track. Somebody who knows somebody.”

  He shakes his head, smoothing the mustache he’s so proud of. “Why don’t you talk to that bunch of motorcycle fellows you were friendly with a while back?”

  “They’re good people. I don’t think they’d be hooked up with dogfighting.”

  “Maybe so, but I was thinking that a lot of different types of people come through their shop, and it seems to me like your same guy who has a yen for dogfighting might have a love for speed on a motorcycle.”

  “Good thought. I’ll go see Walter Dunn on Friday.”

  We chew the fat some more. LoPresto just finished up a huge project of a big shopping mall in Bobtail, and he says he ought to be happy to have some rest time, but he’s bored.

  “Well, don’t get into any trouble,” I say. He doesn’t laugh. He’s been that route and it still stings.

  I’m at Jenny’s at noon. She greets me at the door with her hair up in a towel.

  “Uh oh, I’m early. I’ll come back.”

  “No, come on in and sit down. Will is going to be in the kitchen in five minutes.” She looks down at the box I’ve brought with the sleeping puppy in it. “Oh, look at the little sweetheart. He doesn’t look very old. What kind is he? Or she?”

  I tell her the pertinent details, and when Will appears she heads back to dry her hair.

  I like Will Landreau, partly because he’s got a good sense of humor, but partly because he seems to have made Jenny happy. In the months since they’ve been a couple, her defenses have broken down more than I thought might have been possible. I’ve seen her have some moments of real lightheartedness with him. He’s a couple of inches taller than her six feet, and lanky, with hair he wears barely above his collar. With his wire-rimmed glasses, he looks like a throwback from the 1960s.

  He leads me into the kitchen, which has changed significantly since I first met Jenny. Her main source of nourishment before she started dating Will was cheese and crackers, whatever she brought home from a fast-food place, or whatever I brought over for her to eat. Now there are bowls on the counters with actual food in them—one with onions and potatoes in it, another with fruit. Her cabinets now contain ingredients for making meals.

  Will sets me chopping onions and celery for the stuffing while he gets the bird out of the refrigerator. The turkey he brings ou
t looks like it weighs thirty pounds. He lowers it into the sink with a grunt.

  “It’s going to take until midnight to cook a bird that big,” I say.

  He laughs. “It’ll be done by five, since I’m going to cook it before I do the stuffing.”

  “What kind of stuffing are we making?” I ask.

  He groans. “Not you, too. Jenny and I almost came to blows. I like a good cornbread dressing, and she swore that the only kind she’ll eat is bread dressing because that’s what her mamma used to make.”

  “Who won?”

  He grins and pushes the glasses up on his nose. “I reminded her that she told me her mamma was a terrible cook. She had to admit I was right and said she’s willing to try my dressing.”

  “Why such a big bird?”

  “Jenny ordered it. She didn’t have the first idea how much to order for six of us.”

  “Six?”

  “Didn’t she tell you? We invited a guy I work with, and he’s bringing his wife and mother-in-law. We’ve never met her, but she sounds interesting. She’s a widow from College Station.”

  Will and I work well together, and before long the aroma of turkey fills the air. I may not particularly like turkey, but it smells good when it’s cooking. Besides turkey and dressing, we’re fixing green beans, corn, and sweet potatoes. At the last minute Jenny comes in and insists that it won’t be Thanksgiving without mashed potatoes. So we work those in, too.

  The three guests come before we’re ready for them. Everyone crowds into the kitchen to talk to us while we put the finishing touches on everything. Wendy Gleason, the mother-in-law, has a lilting voice and a sparkle in her eyes. She tends to the skinny side except for a very nice bosom, shown off by a green sweater that matches her eyes. Her mass of blondish hair falls to her shoulders. It’s untamed and makes her look like a free spirit.

  She offers to help, but Will shoos her away. “Samuel and I are a team. We don’t need any women butting in.”

  She has a hearty laugh. I can’t help grinning. “All right. I know when I’m under-appreciated. We’ll stand around and keep you entertained.” She picks up the puppy and cradles him. “You’re going to get stepped on with all these people in here.”

  By the time the turkey is done and we sit down to eat, the conversation has warmed up. I discover that, like me, Wendy’s spouse died a while ago, but unlike me she hasn’t wasted time getting back out into the world. “My husband was a wonderful man in some ways, but he never liked to travel. He went with me sometimes to please me, but it was never his passion. I love to go places.” She has been to India and Bali, which make her seem very exotic. Most people I know who have traveled outside the state of Texas have headed straight for Europe. I ask what made her choose the East.

  “I love Europe. James and I went there a few times. It feels safe to me, but I wanted adventure. I have a couple of friends who like to travel, and we go all together.”

  Her daughter, Jessica, is a quiet person who seems to be overwhelmed by her mother. When Wendy tells a racy story about a cruise in the Bahamas last year, Jessica and her husband Ron exchange alarmed glances. But I find Wendy refreshing. Maybe it’s because of the wine I drank while we cooked, but I feel a devilish impulse to ask her questions that encourage her to tell wild stories. She cuts her eyes at me and then at her daughter with a little shake of her head. “Later,” she says. I notice her watching me a couple of times.

  After we’ve eaten too much food and drunk too much wine, nobody feels like moving. Typical Thanksgiving, with everybody stuffed. We’ve promised each other we’re going to take a walk before we have any dessert, but so far nobody has followed through. “I can’t wait to taste your lemon pie,” Jenny says to Wendy. Lemon pie. Uh oh, my favorite dessert. I like the kind Ellen makes. What if I like Wendy’s better? I already feel like I’m in trouble.

  Now that we’ve eaten, the puppy has been allowed in to explore the dining room.

  “You need a name for him,” Jenny says.

  “I don’t want to name him,” I say. “I’m not going to be able to keep him. I don’t have the time to raise a dog.”

  Wendy bursts out laughing.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Do you have any idea what your face looks like when you look at that puppy? He’s yours whether you like it or not.”

  Heat creeps up my neckline.

  “Where does he sleep?” she asks, her eyes dancing.

  “In a box.”

  “Really?” It’s like she has seen right through me.

  “Mostly.”

  She arches a mischievous eyebrow at me. “You let him sleep with you, don’t you?”

  “Just once,” I plead, and we laugh.

  “He looks like he’s being rolling in the dust,” she says. “You could call him Dusty.”

  “He’s the color of stone,” Jenny says. “Stony would be a good name.”

  “Or Ghost,” Ron says. He has contributed little to the table conversation, but has perked up at the idea of naming the puppy.

  “You could call him after one of your favorite artists,” Will says. “Call him Wolf, or what’s the name of the guy who does the cakes?”

  “You mean Wayne Thiebaud?” Wendy says, cocking her head at Will. She turns to me. “You’re interested in art?”

  “You should see his collection,” Will says. Will is one of the few people around here who knows enough to appreciate my art collection.

  “Let’s go see it.” She gets up. “We need to take a walk anyway.”

  Everybody grabs a handful of dishes to take into the kitchen. “I’ll stay here and get this cleaned up,” Will says. “You all go get the grand tour.”

  Jenny argues that she’ll feel guilty leaving him with a mess. But he prevails and the rest of us go over to my place to take a look around. I start to take the puppy with me, but Will says to leave him in his box and he’ll keep an eye on him.

  I’m curious to know how Wendy will react to seeing my art. Because I have lived with it for so long, I tend to forget how unusual it is for a man in a small country town to have a valuable art collection. When my wife’s mother died, she left us some valuable paintings, but Jeanne and I gave most of those to museums. We preferred to hang the things we bought together—mostly work from the California school, like Richard Diebenkorn and Paul Wonner. I also have a Frederick Remington that doesn’t fit with the others, but which I liked from the minute I saw it a couple of years ago. But my favorite is still a Wolf Kahn that we bought a few years before Jeanne died and which I’ve never gotten tired of.

  Wendy is uncharacteristically quiet as we walk through the spare bedroom, the hallway, the dining room, and back to the living room. It’s her daughter and son-in-law who ooh and aah. But when we’re done, Wendy slips her arm through mine as we walk out the door. “What a joy to spend your days with those paintings,” she says quietly. “I thought someone said you had a Wayne Thiebaud cake painting.”

  I tell her that I gave it to the Modern Art Museum in Houston. “It was never my favorite, and I can go visit it whenever I want to. It sounds like you like his art.”

  “I do. All that food! But he also did some nice paintings of San Francisco. It’s one of my favorite cities.” For some reason I have an instant fantasy of being in San Francisco with her.

  Back at Jenny’s there is pumpkin pie and the dangerous lemon pie. I had a bad feeling that I was going to really like the lemon pie, and I’m right.

  Without my realizing it, dusk has crept up and I get up from the table. “Sorry, I’ve got to look in on my cows and get Dusty taken care of.”

  “So it’s Dusty, is it?” Will grins.

  “Seems right. An uncomplicated name,” I say.

  “You need to take some leftovers,” Jenny says.

  Wendy jumps up from the table. “I’ll carry the leftovers to your house so you can take the puppy. Dusty, I mean.”

  I’m not enthusiastic about taking a lot of turkey, but I’m fine with th
e big wedge of lemon pie that Wendy tucks onto a plate.

  “I’ll be back before too long,” she says to her daughter as we leave.

  When we get the food put away in my kitchen, Wendy says. “Can I come and see your cows?”

  “You’ve already seen my art,” I say. “You might as well see the cows, too.”

  While we walk down to the pasture, she slips her arm through mine again, and I wonder if it’s so she doesn’t trip on the uneven ground, or if it’s a signal of some kind. I’ve never been good at reading those things.

  It’s almost dark, but the cows crowd over to the fence to see who I’ve brought down here. Wendy reaches over the wooden fence and scratches a couple of them on the forehead. “Herefords are such sturdy cows,” she says.

  “You know Herefords?”

  “My daddy kept a small herd. I always liked to go with him to tend to them. I miss them.” She shivers suddenly. “I should have brought my coat.” She turns her back to the cows and leans against the fence, her arms crossed. It’s almost dark, but her eyes shine at me. “I’ve had fun today. We should get together.”

  “I’d like that,” I say, and I would.

  “Good. Then that’s settled.” She steps toward me and slips her arms around my waist under my jacket, head tilted up in an inviting way. It seems like the most natural thing in the world to lean down and kiss her. Her lips are soft and taste like lemon pie. Or maybe it’s my imagination.

  “Mamma, we need to get going.” The voice drifts from somewhere near the front of my house.

  “Oh, shoot.” Wendy chuckles and gives me a last hug before she pulls away. “Maybe you should come for dinner tomorrow night.”

  I tell her I’d like that. My heart is hammering as we walk up to the house, partly because I’m feeling guilty at how much I enjoyed that kiss, and partly because I can’t wait to see her again.

  CHAPTER 14

  I wake to the sound of rain, and see that I’ve overslept. Dusty is snoozing at the end of the bed, which may be why Zelda has nestled in next to me. It looks like I have a dog. I’m not quite sure how I feel about that. I consider how I would feel if I got a call from the owners who lost the pup’s mother. Would I be sorry to see him go, or relieved?