Oregon Trails

by Olivia Gaines

  “Uhmm, I have Celiac disease. I am gluten sensitive so I have no flour, white bread, or anything like that in the house,” he said.

  “I know what you have. Where do you think Mary Jane got all those recipes and learned how to make them? This far above sea level is going to be a challenge, but I can handle it,” she said, smiling at him.

  Paul, again, was frozen in his shoes. Hurley grabbed Paul by the arm, pushing his son in law towards the door.

  “If you don’t want a fat lip to accompany a sore nose, you might want to get a move on,” Hurley said to Paul.

  “Sorry,” Paul said grinning at Annie. “Stunning, stunning woman.”

  “You are so cute,” she told him, handing him the cleaning bucket sitting by the door. “Hurry up. You don’t want Mary Jane doing all the work, do you?”

  He shook his head no like a star struck school boy.

  “That’s good,” she told him.

  Paul skipped out of the door and off the porch like his Mommy had just rewarded him for good behavior. He saw what Hurley saw. He knew what the man felt when he looked at Annie. Paul understood it because he felt the same way when he looked at Kalinda.

  Love was a mighty powerful drug.

  Chapter 27

  L uke sat fuming on the side of the bed. Two broken legs, a broken foot, plus a swollen coccyx was more than he could handle. The physical therapist was a bully pushing him beyond his bodily abilities. At this point in his life, he hated everything and everyone. Especially his brother Paul, who evidently was becoming the toast of Oregon with his weekend shoe box rentals from people who enjoyed washing their butts in a river.

  “Luke, can you try to find some joy in being alive?” Beverly asked her son.

  “I will find some joy when your face can emote some,” he replied snidely.

  “Don’t get pissy with me. You made your own choices. No matter what we did or tried to do, the darkness in you sat up like some malevolent spirit hell bent on destroying everything you touched. I did not give birth to a demon!” she yelled. Her hand reached out, smacking Luke flat handed on the forehead. “I rebuke you, Satan!”

  A red spot began to form on his forehead from the blow of her hand. He rubbed at the skin, trying to wipe away her touch. He scowled in contempt at her labeling him as a demonic entity.

  “Don’t look at me cockeyed,” Beverly told Luke. “All of this aggression and hatred towards women says that you have unresolved issues with me. If you for even one moment tried to convince yourself that you are this way because you didn’t suckle at my breast long enough, I will reach over there and twist off your berries!” she said through gritted teeth.

  “Careful Mother, you are almost having a facial expression,” Luke said sardonically.

  “I am going to give you more than a facial expression you evil little...,” she was cut off by Jeremiah entering the room.

  “Beverly, please stop it,” he told her. Worry covered his face as he moved closer to Luke’s bed. “I have chartered a plane to take Luke to Switzerland until he heals. He will undergo extensive therapy, both physical and mental, and only come back when he is well.”

  Luke swung his cast-covered legs off the side of the bed. Red-faced, he stared at his parents in disgust. His words came out slow, filled with anger, when he addressed his them both. “You are shipping me off like some unwanted problem that the board doesn’t approve of. How dare you!”

  Jeremiah moved quickly, standing face to face with his son, his words equally as angry. "How dare me? How dare you? Defiling women, forcing yourself upon them, drugging them, and God knows what else. You are lucky I don’t put a bullet in that sick head of yours as a mercy killing,” Jeremiah said to him.

  Two large men in white pants and button down shirts walked into the room. Tears rolled down Beverly’s cheeks as she watched her son struggle against the men who handled him as if he were a small child. Jeremiah’s arm went around Beverly’s shoulders to comfort his wife.

  “Maybe if I had been a better father or been more involved in their lives,” he said to her.

  “It’s too late to wish we had been better,” Beverly said. “The only thing we can do now is be better with our sons,” she told him.

  “You are right. I will make the calls in the morning,” he told her.

  “Thank you,” she said softly, wiping away the tears.

  “No, thank you for staying with me all these years,” Jeremiah said to her.

  “Regardless of it all, Jeremiah, we have always been in this together. For better or worse,” she said with an attempted smile.

  He faced her, feet firmly planted, staring into the eyes that had given him comfort when fear wouldn’t allow him out of bed. He held the hands that rubbed his aching muscles when he no longer could wield the axe when chopping wood to prove his worth to his father. He touched the tummy that had swollen twice as she carried his sons and brought them into the world. Jeremiah Darton dropped to his knees, pressing his face into her belly.

  “I am so sorry I failed you and my sons,” he said as tears he’d held for too long burned his eyes.

  “We have not failed them. We did the best we knew how with what we were given. If you give them too much, you spoil them. If you don’t give them enough, you regret it. Jeremiah, there is no tried and true formula for parenting. We hope we make them strong and good people. That is the best we can do,” she told him.

  “No, we are going to be better because I want to have a chance with our grandchildren,” he told her.

  “Well, we can start with the one we currently have as well as our grandson,” she said as her hand caressed his soft hair.

  Jeremiah shuddered. His nephew was his grandson. More tears ran down his face. As a father, he’d fallen short. No words of comfort were ever going to change that. One son turned out okay because he went against everything Jeremiah wanted to teach him. The other son turned into a monster based on the principals and philosophies he’d been taught.

  He could make it right.

  I will make it right .

  Chapter 28

  K alinda sorted through the piles of trash with gloved hands, picking out what could be burned or what should be composted, all the while mumbling to herself about Hurley Lancaster. Over dinner, she was going to have some choice words for the man who sired her.

  And my mother! Showing up looking like the cover model for the United Colors of Benetton .

  Paul watched her with amusement, knowing she was angry but loving the way she was using it in her favor versus taking it out on him. As much as he wanted to say something, he knew better. He kept his head down as they moved from house to house collecting trash, putting it on the campfire pile, and burning it. Luckily these guests over the last few weeks were all pretty clean people but they couldn’t continue to clean up after them like this every weekend. It was too much.

  “Kalinda, by the time the summer arrives, we should be able to hire a couple of teens to come do this for us. If not, we are going to burn ourselves out,” he told her.

  “Oh please, this is nothing. We only really work two days of the week. One to check them in, the other to check them out and ready the houses for the next week. If I had to sit around on my bum all day and do nothing but knit, I would go bat shit nuts,” she said, throwing black banana peels into a bucket.

  “Yes, but I don’t like my wife rooting around in someone else’s trash. You didn’t marry me and move across the country for this,” he told her.

  “No. However, if there is a recycling center close by, we are going to start making weekly runs so that we can build up a Kalinda Diamonds Account. That way every time you feel like you want to buy me a diamond, you can go to the bank and say Jeeves, Mama needs a carat,” she said, frowning at a wadded-up piece of tissue. “I do not want to know what form of DNA sample is in that!”

  “I am starting to see more of your real personality every day. The woman hiding under all of those layers of creativity is starting to come out,�
� he said to her.

  “Yeah. I am just worried that Mama may be a little too real for you,” she responded, grimacing at what looked like a used adult diaper. “That is just nasty!”

  “I can handle whatever Mama throws Daddy’s way,” he said.

  “Daddy, huh?”

  “Yep!” he said to her with a gut busting laugh.

  “What’s so funny?” she sincerely wanted to know.

  He sat down the bucket loaded with food scraps for the compost bin. He eyed her sitting on the rock in a color coordinated designer jogging ensemble, complete with matching Coach shoes. She was a sight for sore eyes, rummaging through trash looking like she stepped off the garbage truck of haute couture.

  “We are. In a year or so, you are going to come to me and tell me that I am going to be a father. You and I are going to be parents. Our parents are going to want to come here often. Our two-bedroom house will soon be a four-bedroom house with an indoor tub, a great room, a craft room, and a playroom for the kids. Your outside orders for soaps will stop because you will have watched 16 YouTube channels and figured out how to make it yourself. Someone in town will create a maid service that will come up and clean the tiny houses. A genius teenager will start a trash collection business based on what we are doing now, making money for himself, and your days will be filled with raising our children,” he said with a smile.

  “You see all of that?”

  “I see all of that plus more, Kalinda,” he told her. “Let’s wrap this up and go home.”

  Kalinda had nothing to say as her spirits improved more and more the closer they got to quitting time. One thing was bugging her that she wanted and needed to know.

  “Paul?” she called to him.

  “Yeah, Baby?”

  The pioneer woman story was back in her head. Her brawny trading post husband was already envisioning bringing a budding enterprise to their little corner of the world. People would travel from far and wide for her soaps, jams, and other goodies that would sit on their store shelves. However, in her head, the pioneer woman had a horse. “If I asked you for a horse, would you get me one?”

  He paused. Closely looking at her face for clues to see if she was serious. She was. “Of course I would. Do you ride?”

  “No, I have never been on a horse in my life,” she said.

  “After your parents leave, I will take you over to Buster’s for a lesson. Once you get a feel of the horse when you’ve completed your first few rides, if you want one, I will get Joey to build a barn for a horse,” he told her. “We will have to shop around for the right kind for these climates.”

  Kalinda ran to him and flung her arms around his neck. He dodged the trash covered gloves, ensuring they did not make contact with his face. Evidently, his answer made her happy. So happy in fact, she began kissing him in a way that made happiness in his pants.

  “Baby, cut it out, or we aren’t going to make it back to the house in a timely fashion,” he said, returning her kisses.

  “We can go inside any of these little houses, slip in a quickie, and be back at the table in time for lunch,” she mumbled into his mouth, deepening the kiss.

  “Nope. I don’t want to hurry making love with you. I would rather wait,” he told her. He pulled away, picked up the bucket of food remnants, and headed towards the house.

  “You’re no fun, Paul Darton,” she called after him.

  “I am loads of fun, but I need time to please you the right way. I don’t want to be rushed,” he told her, walking down the hill towards home.

  She couldn’t argue with his reasoning. Tonight, she was going to lose a lot of arguments.

  Hurley sat on the front porch watching QT’s ass move all by itself as the woman stood in the front yard, using her hand as a sun visor while she looked up the hill for Paul and Kalinda. She turned, looking back at Hurley.

  “You say you are Kalinda’s father?” She asked him.

  “Yes,” he said, his eyes going back to her bottom.

  His weathered hands rubbed his white mustache as he contemplated how she got in and out of the tiny little car she drove. The temptation to walk over to the car to see if the driver seat had been removed to accommodate her massive bottom was urging him to take a peek. He stood up but Annie’s hand came to his shoulder, pushing him back down.

  “Annie, do you think when she sits down in that little scooter-um-bug, that her head is craned up in the roof of the car? That massive bottom has to make her sit at least two feet higher,” he said with a straight face.

  “Stop it right now,” Annie whispered to him.

  “Can you imagine how much toilet paper she uses to get that thing cleaned? I sure hope she has a bidet,” he said leaning forward, his hands resting on his knees. “I cannot imagine what a man would do with all that woman!”

  “A good man will handle her just fine,” Annie reassured him.

  “Then I am not a good man. I am scared to death just sitting over here looking at that thing. My poor turtle would get stage fright and crawl back into its little shell,” he murmured to her.

  “There is nothing little about your turtle, and you ain’t never been scared of much, Mister,” she remarked with a wink.

  “Lawd Annie, you are lucky them kids are coming back or our daughter would find out right here and now why you’ve never kicked me to the curb,” he told her with a wry smile.

  “I can’t see how you would let me. I think you put some kind of mojo on me to make me never want another man,” she told him.

  “Right now, I am feeling more blessed than any man has a right to be, just knowing that all the years later, you still want me” he told her, holding her hand.

  “You are more blessed than you deserve, you old Southern yard bird,” she said and swatted at him with the dish towel she was holding.

  “Annie Marshall, you got that right,” Hurley added, kissing her hand.

  Paul and Kalinda arrived at the house, smelling of smoke, sweat, and a hard afternoon of work. QT waited to see what her new friend would say to the man who said he was her father. Immediately, she noticed that Kalinda never referred to him as Daddy or anything of the like. QT also noticed the man wore a wedding ring but Annie did not.

  “QT, was there something you needed?” Kalinda asked her.

  “George said your mother was coming today, so I wanted to come over and meet her,” QT added with a large grin.

  Kalinda lifted her hand, saying softly, “Mama, this is QT, as in the alphabet, Q followed by the letter T. QT this is my mother Annie Marshall and my father Hurley Lancaster.”

  “I been here nearly a half hour, Kalinda. I met them already,” QT said.

  The expression on Kalinda’s face was easily read by all.

  QT responded to it by answering the question on Kalinda’s face. “Well, after I met your Mom, knowing you’d have company all week, I wanted to know if there was anything I could help you handle.”

  “No, we are fine,” Kalinda told her. “All I really need to handle is a hot shower. Please excuse me.”

  It was a brush off and QT felt the unseen straws of the broom that Kalinda used to push her away. Annie and Hurley saw the hurt in the young woman’s eyes. Hurley spoke up.

  “Mary Jane, I think you friend is wanting an invite to sit down to supper with you and your parents sometime this week,” Hurley said.

  “Well, we don’t always get what we want in life, do we?” Kalinda responded with a bit more attitude than her father was ready to handle.

  Hurley was outdone. He had not traveled clear across the country and taken a week off to be with his family to have Mary Jane show her butt. He was not going to have it.

  “Mary Jane Marshall, you stop right there. You will apologize to your friend right this instant,” he said to his daughter.

  Kalinda scoffed at him. “...And if I don’t what are you going to do? Pretend you don’t know me? Send me to live in a shack with holes in the walls? Walk in the store that I am standing in and pret
end you don’t see me? Tell me Hurley Lancaster, whatever will you do to me if I don’t? Wait, I got it. You can continue to make my life miserable!”

  She had never seen Hurley Lancaster angry.

  Honestly, her interactions with the man had been so limited, she didn’t know what she was seeing. He turned red from the collar of his shirt to his scalp under the thin white hair. He clenched his teeth as Annie stepped forward, but he held up his hand to the woman he’d shared a life with and grabbed Kalinda by the arm, squeezing it tightly as he shoved her forcibly through the front door.

  “Tell me what was so miserable about your life, Mary Jane,” Hurley asked her.

  “I don’t know, let’s start with me being made to feel like a second-class citizen as the child of your whore!” she yelled at him.

  Hurley smacked her across the mouth.

  “Don’t you ever refer to your mother that way! I love that woman with everything in me and if times had been different, so would our life. We grew up in a stodgy Southern town filled with racists and bigots. I had an obligation to my family and the family business. Even as much as I wanted to do it, I could not run off to California with your Mama,” he said.

  Kalinda’s lips were taut. “So you thought it was a good idea to make her your maid?”

  “It was the only option I had to keep her safe and away from men who would do her harm because she loved me. Small minds do bad things in the middle of the night when they are surrounded by other idiots encouraging them. As long as she lived in my home, she was off limits. I could see her every day, have coffee in the morning, or see her before she went to bed. We have shared a life filled with love,” he told her.

  “Bullshit! You prevented any other man from getting his hands on your favorite love toy,” Kalinda said.

  Hurley smacked her across the mouth again.

  “You will not disrespect your mother like that, Mary Jane,” Hurley hissed at her.

  “Why not? You have disrespected her your entire life. I have always been made to feel less. None of the other kids in town would have anything to do with me because I was your illegitimate daughter,” Kalinda said holding her lips.