From Here to There

by Rain Trueax

  He began eating, and yes, the steak was tough but it was still good and delicious to a really hungry man.

  "Why didn't you come up to the house right away?" Helene asked, her hands on her hips, an expression of disapproval pursing her full lips.

  It had never even dawned on him to ask anyone to help him, to tend to his hurts, but he couldn't tell her that. Instead he shrugged, aware as he did of the pull of sore muscles and now bandaged flesh.

  "You had a tetanus shot recently?" Amos asked, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

  "Not that I know of."

  "Then tomorrow--" he looked toward Helene "--take him around to Doc Albertson."

  "I can drive myself into town," Phillip argued, very sure he wasn’t going to let Helene see him in a weakened position if he could help it. Pride was rearing its head again. One of Helene's objections to him was he wasn't man enough. Wouldn't a real man drive himself into town?

  Her quick pivot and the outraged expression on her face told him she didn't see the situation as he had expected. Shrugging again, he gave up to the inevitable. If she was determined to baby him for a day or so, he would submit to it with relatively good grace. Smiling to himself as she cut him a piece of apple pie, he further decided there might be some fringe benefits for a man who played his cards wisely.

  #

  Sitting beside Helene as she drove Amos’s truck into Livingston, the fall colors paled by the early morning light and the mistiness coming off the Yellowstone River, Phillip had no inspiration for conversation that would be safe. Since Helene remained silent, he assumed the same was true of her. After twenty miles of silence and two-lane black-top, they turned right and were almost immediately in the small community.

  Livingston appeared to have stepped from a photograph of small town America in the Twenties or Thirties. The business facades weren't designed to mimic an Old West town, they were one, and their function was still practical--banks, hardware, clothing and drug stores.

  Helene pulled into the parking lot behind an old brick building. "Amos says Doc Albertson's been treating Hartzs as far back as he can remember," she told Phillip as they walked toward the building. "He's old but still on top of the latest medical advancements."

  "You expect me to object?" he asked, a little affronted at the tone of her voice.

  "No, I just didn't want you to think this was an inadequate facility."

  "Helene, I'm just after a tetanus shot, but even if I wasn't, I've seen a lot worse doctor's offices in my time."

  "You have? When?" she asked with a note of disbelief.

  Phillip tried to think of an answer that would satisfy her, but suddenly he didn't want to deceive her about his past. She had rejected him when she knew he was wealthy and successful. It hardly mattered now if she found out the story was more tawdry than he'd led her to believe.

  "Did you think I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth?" he asked as he opened the door to the old office building.

  "Is that a reference to the fact that I was?" she asked suspiciously.

  "But you were," he answered. Their boots echoed hollowly down the narrow, wooden hallway.

  "All right, so I was. What about you?" She had thought he never said much about his upbringing because it was uneventful. Now she wondered.

  Before he could answer, they were at Doctor Albertson's door. "You're not off the hook," she warned as he opened the door. "I have a memory like an elephant."

  He smiled at her, then turned the full force of his hundred-watt smile onto the elderly receptionist, Alice Temple, who was soon having him fill out forms and talking a mile a minute all the time. A second patient walked through the door and was lucky to receive a hello. "Your poor face," Alice murmured, as though possibly she might be willing to do the examination.

  "It's no big deal," Phillip said, knowing it did sound macho but unable to find a way to cut down on the attention being paid him without the customary demurrer.

  In a moment, the doctor, easily as old as his receptionist, came out to greet Phillip. "Hear you had a tangle with barbed wire," the tall, slightly stooped doctor said, taking Phillip's hand.

  "How'd you hear that?" Phillip asked as he was led into the examining room and ordered to strip to the waist.

  "Amos called to tell me about your accident. How is the old boy, anyway? He was due in for his physical last month. Skipped out on me."

  "Seems spry to me," Phillip said before he had to concentrate on gritting his teeth through the doctor's probing of his injuries.

  "Watch those two for infection," Dr. Albertson instructed, rummaging into a drawer, "otherwise it looks to me like Helene did just fine. You're a lucky man to have a wife who doesn't get sick at the sight of blood."

  Phillip realized it was the first time he'd heard Helene described as his wife. Then he forgot that as he uneasily watched the doctor pull out a long syringe, push it into the top of a small bottle and withdraw a dose of vaccine.

  Rubbing Phillip's arm with an alcohol dipped cotton swab, the doctor chuckled as he saw Phillip eye the needle. "Don't much like shots, eh?" The actual injection only stung for a moment before the needle was withdrawn.

  "I suppose real cowboys take them without a twinge," Phillips retorted resentfully as he pulled back on his shirt.

  Doctor Albertson laughed outright. "Real cowboys. What a phrase. Well, I'll tell you, I've treated and been around real cowboys all my life and there's those who faint at the first sight of blood--especially if it's their own--and wouldn't face a needle if their lives depended on it; but then there's those who when they rip open a ten inch gash in their leg, tie it up, ride into town, walk in here, sit back, let me sew it up, and never move a muscle, and when I'm done working on them, they're out the door to get back to work. I'll tell you what I've observed about life, son. Real anythings come in all different packages."

  Out in the waiting room, Doctor Albertson took a moment to greet Helene and inquire after her parents. "You get that uncle of yours in here for his yearly physical," he reminded her before they left. "I didn't like his cholesterol count or blood pressure last spring, and he knows he's supposed to come back to have it checked."

  Helene frowned. "He always says he likes doctors just fine... when they come to dinner, but I'll try to get him in."

  "You do that. He's too young to have a heart attack or stroke just because he wouldn't take medication." He beckoned to the old man sitting patiently. "Jake, come on back."

  As soon as they were in the hall, Helene turned to him. "Okay, now about your early experiences with doctors."

  Phillip groaned. "Aren't you going to ask how I am first? Maybe inquire whether or not the shot hurt?"

  "I know it hurt. Now, tell me."

  "You do have a memory like an elephant," he protested as they stepped back out onto the sunny street.

  They hadn't made it ten feet from the doorway when a voice called from across the street, "Hey Helene, Helene Lamont!"

  At first Phillip felt saved by the bell. That lasted only until a tall, lean man wearing cowboy hat, boots, plaid shirt and levis that looked air brushed onto his body, loped across the street to stand in front of them. He had Helene pulled into an embrace before she could do more than let out a yelp. "Wes," she wheezed as he set her back down.

  Phillip looked suspiciously at the handsome man.

  "I heard you'd gotten married to some millionaire, kind of hotshot guy," Wes said, his voice and face showing an exaggerated sorrow at the news. He didn't give Phillip so much as a glance.

  Helene smiled faintly. "Well, yes, I did get married."

  "But if you got married, what are you doing in Montana?" Wes interrupted before she had time to explain. As though suddenly finally willing to acknowledge she was with someone, he glanced for the first time at Phillip.

  Phillip smiled crookedly. He knew he looked anything like that millionaire hotshot. He needed a shave; his new boots were scuffed and dirty; and his clothes were nothing to write home about, not
counting the cuts on his face.

  "Wes, I want you to meet Phillip Drummond.” Then she had to ruin it by adding. “Actually my soon-to-be ex-husband," Helene said. "Phillip, this is Wesley Carlson, a good friend of Emile's."

  Wes gave Helene a look of shock, but said nothing before Phillip had reached out to take Wes's hand in a handshake that turned into a small bout of endurance as each man squeezed and both refused to let go.

  "Boys," Helene ordered in a voice that Phillip remembered only too well from grade school, "behave yourselves."

  Wes shook his head as he surreptitiously let his hand fall to his side. Phillip had no idea how Wes's hand felt at this point, but his own had no feeling, something he imagined he would soon consider to have been good fortune.

  "Ex-husband?" Wes asked, looking perplexed as he turned back to Helene. “You two having a friendly divorce right after your wedding?”

  Helene smiled brightly. "It's the modern way, Wes."

  Wes stared at her, then shook his head. "So what are you in town for?" he asked, as possibly the only safe question of which he could think.

  Phillip grimaced as he waited for Helene to regale Wes on all the details of his stupid accident with the barbed wire. "We're in for a few supplies," she said, "and some preventative vaccinations."

  "Good idea," Wes said, broadly grinning and looking again at Phillip with a speculative gleam in his dark eyes. "So, Phil... uh, how do you like it out here?"

  "Interesting country," Phillip grunted noncommittally, having decided he definitely did not like Wes Carlson but still uncertain as to why. His instincts though about people had served him well and he didn’t sense anything about Carlson that he would trust in a business deal... or was he just jealous?

  "You two really getting a divorce?" Wes turned his attention back to Helene, no doubt exerting all his charm as he added several liberal compliments to his question. Not that they weren't true. Helene looked particularly beautiful with sun shining on her hair, bringing out colors Phillip hadn't even been aware were mingled in the auburn. He regretted he hadn't thought to tell her first.

  “Yes, we are,” she said.

  “When we get around to it,” Phillip added.

  Wes resumed his speculative look. "You two have one of the friendliest divorces I've ever seen. Usually folks are spitting mad at each other when they split."

  "We're being civilized about it," Helene said which Phillip found mildly surprising given the times he’d seen her spitting mad at him.

  At this point, Phillip was feeling anything but civilized about any part of it and surprised at his own feeling of jealousy. His thoughts were interrupted by Wes's next question.

  "How about having dinner with me down at Chico?" He was looking down at Helene, smiling confidently.

  "Hey, we'd love it," Phillip said with a grin of malicious satisfaction. "We're available just about any night, aren't we, hon?"

  If Phillip had been the sort of man to have his feelings easily hurt, the glare of anger from Helene's golden eyes might have discouraged him, caused him to back down on inviting himself on what Wes had clearly intended to be a date. Instead Phillip smiled broadly, his own eyes wide in an expression of seeming innocence--or as close to it as he was capable of coming.

  Wes looked at both of them, then again shook his head. "It's going to seem a little strange, but... sure if that's what you both want. How about Friday?"

  "Well, I don't--"

  Phillip cut her off. "Sounds great to us. See you then, Wes." He took Helene's arm and steered her down the street.

  "What did you think you were doing back there?" Helene hissed as they walked onto the main street of Livingston.

  "I thought you'd like to have dinner with good old Wes."

  "The invitation wasn't meant to include you."

  He pasted a hurt expression onto his face. "It wasn't? I guess if you don't want me to come, I could--"

  "Never mind," she snapped, "I have no reason for you not to come. Besides, it would only look more ridiculous to Wes than it already does, if you begged off so soon after inviting yourself. We'd both look like idiots."

  Phillip laughed. "And whose fault is that? Am I the one who requested an annulment less than an hour after getting married? After you do something like that, you can't expect people to not wonder... more than a little." He raised his eyebrows suggestively.

  When no imaginative retort evidently came to her mind, Helene contented herself with a humph.

  "Where are we going now?" she asked, as they seemed to be walking with a purpose and it was not toward the truck.

  "If I'm going to fit into this country life I need some more practical gear." Still holding her arm, he turned them both into a small, narrow clothing and outdoor store. He needed a hat, flannel shirts, leather gloves, and a coat that would stand up to barbed wire.

  The store was dark after the bright sunshine on the street, and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust. As the distinct smell of leather, denim and oiled floors filled his nostrils, he knew this was the real McCoy. No soft and pretty cowboy shirts but the clothes and boots for working ranchers. The crowded shelves were high on all sides.

  Fitting into this Western community wasn't going to be solved merely by having the right garments, but it was a start. He pulled Helene from section to section demanding she help him pick out appropriate gear.

  He piled his choices on the counter. "Are you really going to be here long enough to need all of this?" Helene asked skeptically.

  He grinned, reaching for his wallet. "Who knows."

  Before they could go back to the truck, Helene insisted since she'd gone with Phillip, now it was his turn. She pointed to the art gallery.

  He grimaced but let her pull him through the doorway. He wasn't interested in gimmicky, cutesy art, but this hollowed out old building held no kitsch. Huge, realistic canvases of Montana countryside adorned the walls, the love of the land showing in every stroke of the artist's brush. The colors were muted, yet full of light. Phillip was in no mood to collect art, but if he had been, these would have tempted him. It wasn't hard to visualize one against a huge stone fireplace, the centerpiece of a rustic living room. He shook his head ruefully to remove the image. Lord, he hoped this country wasn't going to become addictive.

  By the time they were back on the street, it was lunch time. "Where do you want to eat?" he asked, looking up and down the street and not seeing anything that looked like a restaurant.

  "There aren't a lot of choices, but the Long House is good," she said, not really caring. Shopping with Phillip had been an intimate, companionable activity and walking back out onto the street reminded her how temporary it was.

  The restaurant was half filled with customers when the waitress nodded them toward a booth. The menus were already propped between salt, pepper and sugar, and it only took a few moments to make a selection, attract the waitress's attention and place their order.

  "All right," Helene said as she sipped her fresh coffee, "now you will tell me about the missing years of your life. The ones you so cleverly forgot to mention before or during our engagement."

  "What missing years?"

  "Oh, let’s say between birth and thirty-four."

  Phillip smiled dryly. "I didn't think you were interested."

  "Really or were you afraid I might be? I won't be put off longer, Phillip. I'm sure of it now. I thought so before but now am sure. You've been secretive about your past. What’s up with that?"

  "You're too suspicious." Actually, he knew that wasn't the truth. She hadn't been suspicious enough, or she'd have inquired long before this into his background, into the family that had never appeared.

  The waitress interrupted them long enough to hand Phillip his bottle of cold beer. He upended it to give himself a moment to consider his options. There seemed no way around telling her. Besides, what did it matter now what she knew? "I told you I come from Philadelphia."

  "I do remember that much." She wasn't being helpf
ul.

  "I suppose you thought some kind of blue bloods," he suggested.

  "I think you were right earlier. I never thought of you as a person with a history. You just seemed to pop up, success and everything all in place."

  "I wanted it that way. My life's been a little different than yours." He swallowed, then just told her the basics, the years of no money for anything, the frequent moves from one dump to another, temporary foster homes, the lack of a father, the murder of his brother, a mother who was old beyond her years, and the many step-fathers or whatever you called men who are here today and gone tomorrow. There was more, darker secrets in his past, but he couldn't bring himself to tell her all of it. He barely let himself remember it.

  Helene shook her head with disbelief. "You have brothers and sisters? A mother?"

  "Well, I wasn't hatched," he said.

  "I didn’t mean that. Only why didn't they come to our wedding?"

  "My mother didn’t want to come. I didn’t ask the others."

  "I'd have wanted to meet your family, that is if..."

  "You see," he said, misinterpreting her pause, "when you think about it, you know it's impossible. You'd know it even more if you had met them."

  "That isn't what I meant," she snapped. "I was only thinking if our marriage had been a real one, I'd have wanted to know your family."

  He scowled. "I'm not sure what kind of family you're referring to, but it certainly isn't mine. We were a long ways from the Brady Bunch. With all of us having different fathers, there wasn't a lot of closeness. With your family, I don't think you can relate to what I'm trying to tell you."

  "My family," she repeated with a tiny laugh. "What do you know about my family?"

  He remembered then about the divorce Amos had mentioned and wished he hadn't brought up any of this, but he could see Helene wasn't about to let him off the hook.

  "Well?"

  "I don't know much," he admitted.

  She ran her finger around the rim of her coffee cup. "I suppose you thought I had the ideal home life." She glared at him, daring him to say anything, but he wisely kept his mouth shut. After a moment, she went on, "When I left you that night, I got home to hear my parents were getting a divorce."