From Here to There

by Rain Trueax

  Everything for nothing. When it was all said and done, he could look at the things he'd accomplished in his thirty-four years and know none of it mattered. For all intents and purposes, he was back where he started--in the gutter. He knew in a week or two maybe he’d look at this more positively. Maybe.

  He tried to picture Helene and found her face blurring in his mind. Maybe with any luck, he could someday forget she existed. Forget his dreams of marrying a woman who would be everything a man could desire. She would have been a hostess to grace his table, to entertain his clients. He hadn't thought beyond that until she rejected him. Until then he'd convinced himself Helene was a beautiful ornament. Suddenly the ornament had reached up and bit him.

  Anger had made him kiss her in a way he'd held back through the courtship. He had wanted everything to be perfect for her, but in the limousine, he'd wanted to teach her a lesson. Unfortunately, he was the one who learned the lesson, and it had come too late. He desired the woman he'd married. He felt an ache in his body that whiskey couldn't take away and a yearning he'd never known until he'd realized he couldn't have Helene Lamont. He didn't know that he would call it love, but then, he'd never been that certain love existed or if it did what it was.

  The buzzer from the doorman downstairs interrupted his bitter musings. He considered ignoring the summons. There was no one he wanted to see or talk to. He'd have to face friends and associates all too soon as it was.

  Reluctantly he got up and flipped the switch on the intercom. "Yeah?" he asked, irritation shading the words.

  "A Mister Hartz is in the lobby, Mr. Drummond."

  For a moment, the name didn't register in Phillip's liquor dulled brain and then, "Okay, send him up."

  A few moments later, Amos Hartz walked into Phillip's living room, his eyes roving around the room, doubtless taking in the glasses and clothing thrown over chairs, the generally unkempt state.

  "I let my help go when I figured I'd be on a honeymoon," Phillip explained. He poured himself another whiskey. "Want one?"

  "No thanks." Amos threw his hat onto a side table and walked to the window. "I like the view from up here. I got a pretty fair one myself, no lights or nothing, just mountains."

  Phillip sat back on the couch, smoking, in no mood for idle chitchat, and wondered with only faint curiosity what the older man wanted of him. Had Helene sent him? Not likely.

  Amos looked down at him, then plopped into another chair. "So, the marriage is over before it's begun," he drawled.

  "Not much for small talk, are we?"

  "Waste a lot of time that way. I figure if I got something to say, might as well say it."

  "Then you are right. The marriage, for what it was worth, is over." Phillip took a swig of whiskey.

  "What are you goin' to do about it?"

  Phillip looked up at him with surprise. "Do about it? What can I do about it? This was Helene’s choice and she has made it."

  The older man grinned at him, watching silently as Phillip rose to pace the room. "If I wanted a woman," Amos said, after a moment, "I'd go after her."

  Phillip's eyes narrowed as he studied him. "Caveman tactics? That's not my style."

  "What is your style, son?"

  "All self-created," Phillip said with self-derision. "It's looking a little ineffectual just now but don't worry, I'll pick myself up. I have before. I can do it again."

  "You love my niece?"

  "Is that any of your business?"

  "Nope, not a bit."

  Phillip snubbed out his cigarette, then lit another one, taking a deep draw on it as he considered the older man. "It took me five years to quit the weed, and your niece sent me back to it in a day. Doesn't say much for my self-control, does it?"

  "Oh, I don't know. Them little vices are the kind a man can spend a lifetime fightin'. I used to chew tobacco myself 'til I convinced myself to quit. It ain't admirable, but folks are full of vices. Maybe the ones we inflict on ourselves are the best ones to have."

  "A cowboy philosopher," Phillip quipped. He took a deep drag on the cigarette, letting the nicotine soothe him, that was a laugh, before he asked "So, what do you really want, old man?"

  Amos laughed. "You aren't much for beating around the bush either, are you? Well in a minute or so, I'll tell you what I want—for now anyways, but first, I got a couple of questions. Where do you come from, Phillip Drummond?"

  Phillip smiled wolfishly. "You don't buy my slick style?"

  "Nope. I seen something under the surface, and I want to know what it is."

  "You smell the street, old man. I'm a gutter rat, and your niece did well to throw me back."

  "You've slicked up your background pretty good."

  "Obviously not good enough. Top university, money, and etiquette books can only carry a man so far."

  "Maybe I'll take one of them whiskeys now." Phillip poured him a generous shot. Amos sat and looked at the drink a moment, then met Phillip's hard gaze. "Helene don't figure you for a tough man."

  Phillip snorted with derision. "Ironic, isn't it? I spend my life trying to acquire style, polish and class and get rejected for just those things."

  Amos laughed as he shook his head. "Who can ever figure women? She doesn't figure you for a tough man, but I do."

  "Tough or low class?" Phillip asked, taking a sip of his drink and looking at Amos over the rim of the glass.

  "I don't judge men by the social class they come from. I figured you for a man who'd made it his own way. You want to tell me about it?"

  "Not much." Phillip walked to the window, staring out at the city below him. The smoke drifted above him.

  "Sometimes talking is good for a man."

  "Why should I trust you?"

  "What can you lose?"

  Phillip laughed at that. "You've got a point. Well, I'll give you the dirt if that's what you've come for. I grew up in Philadelphia--in the inner city. I've had two brothers and three sisters and none of us by the same man. I barely know my probable father. Met him once when I was ten, didn't care if I ever saw him again, and haven't.

  "Our mother----she tried, I guess. Life didn't deal her any easy hand. She made money however she could.” His tone darkened. “But she wanted us to get better than she had. My older brother is under the ground. Jim played a little too loose with the numbers game and bought an early ticket out. My little brother, Derek, went to college, like me, lives in San Francisco, and I guess he's getting along okay, except I never see him. My sisters still live in Philly. The oldest, Rickie, has a good marriage--if there is such a thing. Three kids and a fourth on the way. Rita has made her life a mess, one guy after another and nobody full-time, and Laurie's in high school and still up for grabs. Does that give you the picture?"

  "Why weren't your people at the wedding?"

  Phillip smiled sarcastically. "Can you see Robert or Florence greeting my mother, who looks seventy, even though she's fifty-five? A woman who would have no more idea how to behave at a country club reception than at a ball for the Queen of England." He shrugged and looked away. "Anyway, I asked her, and she got scared just thinking about it, then she got drunk. Something she hasn't done for over ten years. As it turns out, I'm just as glad she wasn't here. The day was hard enough as it was."

  Amos nodded. "So, you got just about everything you have the hard way, didn't you? Probably put yourself through college."

  "Along with a scholarship."

  "How'd Derek go to school?"

  Phillip stared at him and then back out the window. "I haven't forgotten my family, if that's what you were wondering. I helped my brother, but I don't want you making this out like a sob story. My family wasn't the Cleavers, but my mom did the best she could. You grow up in a ghetto though, and it leaves a mark on you. I thought I'd washed it off, but maybe the stain never leaves."

  Abruptly changing the subject, Amos said, "Helene's been sheltered, but I figure you knew that. She was raised with money, and beautiful like she is, everything came pretty ea
sy for her, but she's not soft. If she had been, she'd of slid into marriage with you, accepted the world of her folks and let it go at that."

  Phillip smiled crookedly. "You'll excuse me if I don't celebrate with you on that score."

  "Maybe you should."

  Phillip snorted with derision.

  "I'll tell you something," Amos said. "There's more to what went on behind the scenes of that wedding than you know. Her folks are getting a divorce. Did you know that?"

  Phillip was not surprised. He was only shocked when couples stayed happily married. "No, but then it wasn't really any of my business either, was it?"

  "Helene's known her parents weren't happy for years. It's a lot of why she spent so much time with me and Chelle, my... now dead wife. She didn't want a marriage like theirs, and you oughta thank your lucky stars she didn't. You want a divorce after five years or fifteen or twenty-five?"

  "Of course not but--"

  Amos interrupted, "I think Helene feels more for you than she knows or wants to admit."

  "Look, if you're trying to turn this into hearts-and-flowers time, forget it. She made it clear what she feels for me, and it was a big fat zero. I accept her decision. End of story."

  "What if the story didn't have to end that way? What if there was a happy ending down the road for the two of you, but you'd have to work for it just like you done for every other thing you've gotten in your life."

  Eyes narrowed, Phillip studied him. "Cut to the chase."

  "Come to Montana, to the Rocking H."

  "You've got to be joking." Phillip's eyes widened with shock. Of all the suggestions he might have been expecting, that was not one.

  "Nope. Come to Montana. That's what Helene's decided to do. You come out, breathe in a change of air and give both of you some time away from everything to see just what you might have. Let her get to know you. I am offering you a job on my ranch where you can show Helene a thing or two about men and what makes a real one."

  "You are funny, old man. So I do this to give Helene the chance to give me the coup de grâce," Phillip suggested wryly. "I think I swallowed enough humiliation at that damn wedding and reception. You want me to go out to Montana, debase myself working at something I know nothing about and probably still watch her ride off into the sunset with some stinking cowboy?"

  Amos grinned again, nodding. "You might humiliate yourself, but I don't think she'll end up running off with some other fellow. I think you're the man she wants and needs, but she just doesn't know it yet. You two might not have decided to get married for the right reasons, but I think if you dig under the surface long enough, you'll find there was more to the decision than either of you knew."

  "I don't share your confidence."

  "You've been burned, but you think about what I've said. If Helene had settled for what a lot of her friends have, you'd have stayed here, had a marriage like everybody else and maybe done so much damage to each other it would have been too late to salvage anything. Now you got a chance."

  "Sorry, but I don't think so."

  "The offer is open-ended. I'll have a job for you whenever you show up."

  Phillip smiled dryly. "A ranch worker," he repeated.

  "Yep, bottom of the totem. You'd be fixing fence, helping round up stock, repairing the barn, chopping wood. Just plain mean and dirty work."

  "For minimum wage," Phillip said with the first real amusement he'd felt in a long time.

  "It starts low but builds some. Meals and a bed in the bunkhouse come with it."

  "I don't have any good reason to do this," Phillip said, shaking his head. "It wouldn't make any sense."

  "Not unless you wanted your wife." He grinned. "You got the guts to move into another world and show that woman of yours a thing or two about what you're made of?"

  "Couldn't you just tell her," Phillip suggested with a wry smile. "It'd be easier on my ego and skin."

  Amos laughed. "Women don't believe nothin' but what they see. You come on out to Montana, son, and I'll show you another way of living. Maybe you'll find out you ain't picked out the best one for yourself either."

  Leaning back against a wall, Phillip slitted his eyes as he studied Amos Hartz. Just exactly what did the old man have in mind? Was it as simple as he said, or was more involved? "I’m surprised I am saying this, but I'll think about it," he said finally.

  Amos picked up his hat. "You do that." He took out his wallet and fished out a card. "This is my phone number in Montana." He drew some lines on the card. "You drive out of Livingston, follow this here road about twenty miles, turn here." He drew another mark. "Again here about two and a half miles up a gravel road, and you're at the Rocking H. You decide you want to come, the welcome mat's out."

  "What about Helene? Have you discussed this little idea with her?"

  "No way. I don't figure to tell her neither. Helene's got enough on her mind. She's tryin' to sort through her life, figure out where she's going to go from here. If it's any consolation to you, she's no happier about what she did than you are."

  "It's not much," Phillip said with a grimace.

  "Well, if you come out, you'd find out for yourself what she's going to think about the idea. I won't say a word to her unless you show up. Then I'll tell her it was my idea."

  "What do you get out of all this?"

  Amos grinned, his smile widening, blue eyes twinkling. "Happiness for my niece... a good hand for the ranch? Who knows what I'll get out of this deal. You just think it over."

  Phillip stared at him, his incredulity still showing on his face. "I'd have to be nuts to even consider it."

  Amos pulled on his hat. "Most likely."

  Chapter Three

  Pouring oily, dark brown Old English furniture polish onto a soft cloth to polish the oak credenza, Helene whisked away the dust as she renewed the rich brown of the wood. On her knees, she worked the carved front of the cabinet. The scent of the polish brought back countless memories from years gone by when she and her aunt had done the same task.

  She could almost hear Aunt Rochelle's admonishing voice--"Don't let the furniture dry out. It needs moisture if you expect it to last for the next generation." Her aunt would push graying hair back from her eyes and look down at Helene, a twinkle in her hazel eyes. "Relationships are a little like furniture," she would add with a knowing grin. "You absolutely must keep feeding them too, buff and polish, put a little elbow grease into it. Relationships need that. It's how you make anything good last."

  Helene smiled at the wisdom she'd been given so freely during those years. Although at the time she'd thought little of it, it had stuck to her, and now she treasured it as she did the oak credenza. Not believing in ghosts or spirits, Helene could feel that of her aunt throughout the home, at times nearly hear her soft, sometimes almost melodyless humming.

  Rising, Helene paused a moment to stand at the large living room window and savor the view. The Hartz farmhouse sat on a rise above the ranch land. Four thousand acres of land stretched to the east and south, then reached high back into the Absaroka Mountains. Although it could not be seen from the ranch, the ranch didn’t extend that far, below in the center of the Paradise Valley, the Yellowstone River flowed, wild and free on its way to the Mississippi. It was the last untamed, undammed stretch of river of its length in the territorial United States. She could see the gravel road that wound toward the main highway, a thin umbilical cord that connected the ranch to the outside world, yet gave it a sense of isolation, peace and timelessness. It could have existed this way a hundred years before and, as a matter of fact, had.

  The big house now consisted of an original log cabin and several additions. The large living room with a cathedral ceiling had been added in the 1930's when ranches all around were reeling under the effects of the depression, but somehow the Hartz family had kept holdings together and even managed to expand. The kitchen, dining room and two downstairs bedrooms were what were left of the original log home, updated with modern conveniences, bu
t much the same as they had always been. Upstairs three more bedrooms had been added, along with the large wooden staircase at one end of the living room. The home was large, yet intimate with its log walls, wood trimmed and small paned windows, wide pine board floors, large stone fireplace, and the comfortable mix of antiques, Indian crafts, Oriental rugs, soft sofas, comfy chairs, and handmade furniture.

  Most ranches its size had been bought by rich bankers or movie stars but her uncle had fought to keep this one in his own hands. She wasn’t sure how he had succeeded, but she was grateful.

  Capping the polish, Helene looked at the dusted, vacuumed and sparkling living room and felt a sense of real satisfaction. She had spent almost all of the two weeks since she'd been at the Rocking H cleaning house, cooking and canning. The first frost had come like a thief in the night to blacken the tops of the garden vegetables. She'd worked hard, gathering in the salvageable produce, canning and preserving jars of tomatoes, drying herbs and storing mature squash, pumpkins, potatoes, and carrots in the unheated pantry at the back of the kitchen.

  When her hair had gotten in the way, she had chopped it off herself which she frankly had felt seemed symbolic and satisfying whether it looked good or not. She hadn't done this much work in the years since she had quit coming west, after Aunt Rochelle had died. She knew it was good for her. She needed the feeling of accomplishment as she considered her life, her mistakes and what she wanted to do next. She thought of Phillip often but hadn't begun annulment proceedings. She couldn't bring herself to talk to her uncle's lawyer but soon she'd have no choice but to drive up the freeway to Bozeman. It wasn't fair to Phillip to dawdle on cutting the connection between them. If nothing else, she should give him his freedom.

  When she went to put her cleaning supplies away, she was surprised to find a small leather bound book pushed back in the corner. Opening it, she saw the handwriting was her aunt’s, a personal journal. She hadn’t realized she kept one and quickly put it back. It wasn’t hers to read.

  "Hey, anybody home." She heard her uncle's voice from the kitchen porch as he banged his boots on the outside step.