“They ain’t all bad. Some of them eat other bugs,” Martin said.
“That’s all fine and good, but I don’t like any of them.” Verdie straightened up.
“I didn’t think you’d be afraid of anything.” Callie smiled.
“Spiders and snakes,” Verdie said.
Martin shivered. “I understand about snakes. Callie is afraid of mice. What are you afraid of, Finn?”
“I’m not real fond of mountain lions. One cornered me when I was out huntin’ wild hogs one time. I was about fifteen, and that big old cat with green eyes let me know he sure wasn’t afraid of me,” Finn answered.
“Will you take me huntin’ for wild hogs sometime?” Martin asked.
“We’ll see when you get old enough to get a huntin’ license,” Callie said quickly.
Martin dug into his breakfast. “I won’t be afraid of mountain lions. Shotgun will protect me.”
After breakfast, Callie found herself in the living room alone, warming her hands by the fire, when Finn came out of his bedroom. He crossed the room, pulled Callie close to his chest, and said, “I wanted to hold you all morning and tell you that I slept better in that recliner last night than I do in my big king-sized bed. I believe it’s because you were right there and you kept the nightmares at bay.”
“You’re welcome.” She rolled up on her toes and kissed him hard. Someday they were going to take the next step, but she had decided to be patient and enjoy the sweetness of kisses, hugs, and touches until that time.
***
“Okay, now they’re gone and the kitchen is cleaned up. Let’s talk,” Verdie said.
“In here or the living room?” Callie asked.
Verdie pulled two glasses down from the cabinet. “The living room over drinks.”
Callie raised an eyebrow. “It’s only ten o’clock.”
“Like the song says, it’s five o’clock somewhere.”
She set the glasses on the coffee table and went to the bookcase beside the fireplace. “This old house has lots of secrets, Callie. This morning I’m going to show you the first one. Patrick’s daddy liked his liquor, so he built a safe place back during prohibition days.”
She pulled a book from the case and threw a switch located behind it. The whole thing moved to the right three feet, and there was another bookcase, only this one would put some liquor stores to shame. “We’ll have a shot of Jack Daniel’s this morning. Mainly because I’ve been craving it, and those folks at the funny farm don’t sanction drinking. They didn’t bother to tell me that when I signed a six-month lease with them. It might have been in the small print, but, hell, I can’t see that shit.”
She poured a healthy two fingers in each glass and held it up to the sunlight. “Damn pretty, ain’t it?”
Callie touched her glass to Verdie’s and said, “Merry Christmas.”
Verdie sipped, shut her eyes to enjoy every smoky bit of the flavor, and held it in her mouth awhile before she swallowed. Callie did the same. It had been a very long time since she’d had liquor. A beer once in a while, but the last time she’d had anything stronger was in Afghanistan when she and Finn finished off the last of what was in one of many mouthwash bottles smuggled in by Finn’s cousin Sawyer.
When she opened her eyes, Verdie was in the recliner, a smile on her face and her feet propped up. “Tell me how the feud is going. I want to hear more about you shooting at those women, and then tell me all about any rumors you’ve heard.”
“They were acting like hussies,” Callie said.
“Run, dog. Hussies are coming,” Joe said.
Verdie giggled. “He is entertaining, but is there nothing he can’t repeat? Ignore him and enjoy your whiskey.”
“Joe is spittin’ dust. He needs a drink.” He made noises like he was spitting.
Verdie shook her finger at him. “Shut up, bird. Now back to the whiskey. It’s not to be thrown back like an old cowboy would in a Western movie but savored and sipped. It’s time for us to talk. I like to cook for a family. Hated to make a mess for just me all those years, but I do like to fix and fuss around in the kitchen for a family. Way I figure it is I’m too damned old and my bones aren’t strong as they used to be for me to get out there and do ranchin’. If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t have sold the place to Finn. But I can cook.”
In one swift leap, Angel was in Verdie’s lap. She turned around a couple of times and settled down for a nap.
“She likes you,” Callie said.
“Always did like cats. Last house cat passed on right after Halloween. That kind of fixed it in my mind that it was time to get serious about selling Salt Draw. Got real lonely without nothing to talk to around here, and that damned old barn cat wouldn’t have a thing to do with me.”
“Verdie, you don’t have to cook or do anything. You’re a guest here,” Callie said.
“No, I’m at home here, and I’ll pull my weight, but if I’m overstepping my boundaries in the kitchen, then I’ll dust or clean or do laundry, all of which I can do but I hate.”
“You can cook all you want. No complaints from me,” Callie said.
“Good. That’ll leave you free in the mornings to help feed after y’all do that damned workout shit. I swear, the way you two look all fit, I don’t know why you’d want to go run in this shit. Martin idolizes Finn, so it’s good for him to help when he’s here. Now let’s talk about Finn. He was like a haunted lost soul when I sold him this ranch. He’s more alive now. I think you did that,” Verdie said.
“Sometimes I could just kick him in the butt,” Callie said.
“‘Ass,’ darlin’. Women who drink Jack at ten in the morning don’t kick butt, they kick ass. Why are you ready to put the boot to his ass?”
“I had a crush on him over there, but, oh, no, he had to fall for one of the translators who came to the base every day. I knew something was wrong with her, but I couldn’t figure out what it was,” Callie said.
Lord, why was she discussing this with a woman she’d only met the day before and talked to once on the phone? What was the matter with her? She could hold her liquor better than that.
“That’s life. Things were like green fruit then and would have been bitter if you’d bit into it. Now the fruit is ripe and ready to be harvested. Just be sure you want it, because a serious relationship takes a lot of work and energy,” Verdie told her.
“Sounds like the voice of experience,” Callie said.
“It is, and we’ll talk about my story another time. It’s time for me to start dinner. Those boys are going to come in here starving in about an hour. What’s on your list for the rest of the morning?”
Callie carried her glass to the kitchen. “Are there any mice up there in the attic?”
Verdie shook her head. “Not that I know about. Might be a spider or two, though.”
“Those don’t scare me. I’ll bring down the Christmas boxes. Are they all marked, or do I open up each one? And, Verdie, I can’t stand the idea of you being at the funny farm for Christmas, so please say you’ll stay with us through the holidays.”
Verdie poured another bit of whiskey in her glass and tossed it back. “That’s the best damn Christmas present anyone ever gave me.”
“A second shot of whiskey?” Callie asked.
“Hell no! The invitation to spend the holidays with y’all. We’ve got to go shopping soon as this weather clears up and buy presents to go under the tree. I’m getting that kid some boots. He can’t do ranch work in them shoes. He’ll catch pneumonia, and you need a pair, too.” Verdie threw the switch to cover up the bar. “This is our secret. We wouldn’t want the kids to know it’s here.”
“Kids?” Callie asked.
Verdie just smiled again and set about peeling potatoes. “There’s a rope on the trapdoor. Pull it and one of them fold-up ladders will come down for you.”
The attic was a treasure trove of antiques. Fully floored, it was dusty, and the only place Callie could stand up straight was in the middle,
but everything stored up there intrigued Callie.
What could Verdie have been thinking to leave all this family history? Callie would have loved to be able to say that cradle over there in the corner was where her great-grandfather had slept.
Using a rag she found draped over a rolltop steamer chest, she dusted off a sewing rocker and sat down.
“Roots,” she said. “Mama and my sister were blessed with wings, but I have roots.”
When she was old enough to ask questions about her father, her mother told her very little. Her exact words were burned onto Callie’s brain: “I’ll always love your father, Callie. He was my first love. We were going to get married and he got killed in a motorcycle wreck.”
Sitting there with the old chair squeaking with every rocking movement, she wondered if maybe that’s why her mama kept running away. She was simply looking for that first love feeling again.
“You okay up there?” Verdie’s voice filtered up through the opening.
“I’m fine. I found a sewing rocker, and I’m just sitting here looking at all this stuff,” she answered.
“That was my mama’s chair. Woman didn’t want arms on a chair when she was knitting. You find the Christmas stuff?”
“I did.”
“I’ll come about halfway up, and you can hand it to me. Make sure there ain’t no spiders on the boxes. Don’t want to fall and break a hip when you’ve invited me to stick around for Christmas. Can’t believe it’s been sixty years since this nursery was even used. All of us kids plus my two sons slept in this baby bed,” she said.
“Not your grandchildren?”
“My boys didn’t like the ranch. Got off it soon as they could. Oldest one went straight into the army, married a girl from California, and settled out there when he’d finished twenty years. Raised his kids in California, and believe me, that bunch of grandkids damn sure don’t want anything to do with this old place. I used to feel sorry for myself because they left Burnt Boot, but then I realized one of them could have married a Gallagher and one a Brennan, and my family would have been split down the middle for all eternity,” she answered.
Callie picked up a lightweight box and handed it to Verdie, who’d come far enough up the ladder that Callie only had to stoop to put it in Verdie’s hands.
“And the other son?”
“He went to college and became an engineer. Met a girl at the college who was from Florida and raised his kids down there. Never got to know any of my grandkids too well.”
“I’m sorry. They’ve missed a lot,” Callie said.
“So have I, but this Christmas I’ve got y’all, and I’m going to make the best of it,” Verdie said. “Oh, there’s the phone. Maybe it’s Polly or Gladys with some news on the feud. Speakin’ of which, us old-timers around here remember things pretty often by what was going on with the feud during that time of our lives. It’s like our history clock in Burnt Boot. Be right back.”
Callie sat down in the rocker again and let the peace settle around her like a worn, old, favorite coat in cold weather. She heard someone coming up the ladder and figured Verdie was bringing news about the children, but it was Finn’s beautiful smile that popped up in the opening the next time.
“Hey, Verdie is on the phone and she just pointed in this direction. I got the feeling she’s talking to Gladys, because they were talking about the store shelves getting scarce. Holy shit! What is all this stuff?” Finn stopped with just his head showing.
“History. I’d love to know more about it,” she answered. “Come on up here and take a look. I bet some of it’s been up here since before that rotten feud even started.”
“Was it spiders that spook you? I can’t remember if it was that or mice or snakes,” he said.
“Snakes belong to Martin and spiders to Verdie. I killed a spider awhile ago. Don’t know if it was a good one or a bad one, but now it’s a dead one.”
“I want you to get up slowly and come down the steps,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because there’s a rat the size of a possum over there beside that box marked Christmas,” he said.
“That’s not funny,” she told him.
“I’m not kiddin’, Callie. Just get up real easy and come down the steps. It’s not moving right now, so it might run and hide when you start this way.”
She followed his eyes to the biggest, ugliest rat she’d ever seen. He was right about the size, and it was glaring at her, teeth bared, not moving a muscle.
She froze. Plain and simple, she couldn’t move a muscle. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t speak.
“Callie, I’m coming up to get you. Don’t move. I think the thing is deaf,” Finn whispered.
Move, hell! Her vocal cords had tightened up to the point that she couldn’t even squeak. Which was a crappy word to enter her mind right then. Any minute that critter was going to run right at her, and she’d have a heart attack. Twenty-seven years old and dead because of a damned rat. And she hadn’t even told Finn exactly how she felt about him.
He had just cleared the top of the steps and taken a step toward her when Verdie scrambled up the ladder. “Well, I’ll be damned,” she said with a giggle. “There’s one of them rotten old rats that Patrick worked on when he started taxidermy classes. Ugly son of a bitch, ain’t it? I bet you raked him out of the corner when you was fiddlin’ with them boxes. Y’all come on down here for dinner. Me and Martin are already washed up and ready to eat.”
“It’s dead,” Finn told Callie. “Did you hear Verdie? The thing is dead.”
Verdie was gone, and Callie could hear Martin talking about the chores they’d done, but she still could not move.
“I’d carry you out of here, but I don’t think we’d fit down the stairs, so you’re going to have to move,” Finn said. “You didn’t act like this over there when we saw a rat, and there were lots of them.”
“I had a gun on my leg and one in my boot and a knife in my belt,” she whispered.
He chuckled. “It is pretty fierce-looking. Don’t come back up here without a gun and a knife, and I think you’ll be all right.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and shivered from head to toe. “Hold me, Finn. I’m more scared right now than I was over there with bombs all around us. I’m not coming up here again. The past can stay in the past if it includes rats.”
Chapter 14
“This place looks like we’re either moving in or moving out,” Finn said when all the boxes were out of the attic and in the living room.
“We’re” moving…not “I’m” moving… Callie’s heart did one of those crazy twists that left her breathless.
“About ten of them are full of outside lights. The hooks stay up on the roof all year so it’s not as tough a job as it could be and the sun is shining. But the lights ain’t been up in years, so some of them might have gotten busted up. Last time I put them up, I remember Polly callin’ to tell me the feud had fired up hotter’n a two-dollar pistol. There was talk that Naomi’s son was seen at a movie theater with one of the Brennan girls, and all holy hell broke loose that year,” Verdie said.
“And it’s not snowing,” Martin chimed in. “This box says it’s for the tree. Can I open it, Granny Verdie?”
“It all belongs to Finn, so you’d best ask him,” she answered.
He pulled a knife from his pocket and cut the tape loose. “Now see what you got in there, but remember that Angel is in the house, so don’t hang any breakables too low on the branches.”
Callie pointed at the tree. “I don’t think it’ll matter where we hang them.”
There was Angel in the fork of a branch watching them from between the greenery. She tilted her head to one side and was completely hidden, as if she knew that Callie would be reaching in to take her away from her newfound safe spot.
“Come on, girl. You can’t be in there. I know it’s a nice little place to hide from those mean old dog boys, but you’ll hurt your shoulder trying to get down.”
She talked to the cat as she laid her on the corner of the sofa on a soft throw. “See there. That’s not nearly as scratchy as those cedar branches.”
Verdie pulled the box over toward the sofa, sat down, and started removing tissue paper from around each ornament.
Callie took one look and inhaled deeply. “That is an antique. It should be in a museum, not on a tree where a cat might knock it off or a dog’s tail might get to going too hard and send it flying.”
Verdie handed it to her. “They’re just things, Callie. If they get broken, then at least they were being enjoyed. Hang every one in the box on the tree, and then you boys need to get those boxes labeled outside lights and check them while we put all this stuff on the tree and out in the house,” she said.
“What do you mean check the lights?” Martin asked.
“They’re the kind like what is on the tree. If one is shot, then the whole string won’t light up. So you plug them in, and if it don’t light up, you start at one end and replace bulbs until you find the shot one,” she explained. “Make sure every light is working before you get out there on the roof, and it’ll make your job go faster. Plus it’s warmer in the house.”
Finn and Martin used the dining room and kitchen to stretch out the first strand of lights and both let out a whoop when it lit up. When they’d checked the rest of the lights and none of them had bad bulbs, they carefully carried out the first strand like it was a twenty-five-foot-long snake. Finn crawled up on a ladder and Martin fed the wire up to him while he snapped it into place.
While they were doing that, Callie took two glass ornaments from Verdie’s hand and held them up to the light. “They’re gorgeous.”
“I think Mama called it mercury glass. They were her favorites,” Verdie said.
“We really shouldn’t be taking the chance of getting them broken. I’ll cry if they get destroyed.”
“If they get broke, at least I got to be here the last time they were used and I got to enjoy being with y’all. You want something worthwhile to worry about, I’ll give it to you. Polly called this morning right after you went up to the attic,” Verdie said.
Cowboy Boots for Christmas Page 14
