“Okay. What sounds good?”
“Anything.”
“I’ve been dreaming about hot roasted peanuts.”
“Section R,” she said as they parted. “Seats 1207 and 1208. I’ll wave if you get lost.”
Huck watched her husband walk toward the delicious smells. In a way, she enjoyed the rodeo because it reminded her of Papa. On rodeo day, Ethan had insisted on a quick lunch. So before attending worship, Annise would make roast beef sandwiches with all the trimmings, including onions. Keeping with tradition, Huck had made the same meal for her and Gabe to eat in the car. The rule was that if one of them ate onions, the other did too. It was no fun having onion breath alone.
Thoughts of Papa naturally brought to mind her mother, whom she missed dreadfully. They’d had their differences, but Annise understood her woman to woman. Her death had left an irreparable hole in Huck’s heart.
As she passed a group of trustees picking up trash, she stopped cold. One of them looked exactly like Clark. She still sometimes had nightmares of Clark’s attack in the car.
“May I help you, ma’am?” a guard asked.
“Excuse me?” she replied.
“You seem lost.”
“No, um, thank you. I’m fine.” She gazed at her ticket stub. “Section R.”
The guard pointed. “You’re right by the entrance. Climb up the ramp and someone will help you find your seat. Hope you enjoy the show.”
Huck stood frozen until the guard and his inmate crew were out of sight. She knew without a doubt Clark was dead, and the inmate lookalike was the Clark of ten years past. Still, the likeness was unnerving. One of the reasons she’d wanted to come to Huntsville was to keep abreast of the town’s recent changes, perhaps even drive by the site of the Huckabee home place. Not seeing the spacious old house would be difficult, but thoughts of her past had been haunting her dreams.
“Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to the tenth annual Texas Prison Rodeo. The wildest, woolliest show behind bars!”
Composing herself, Huck climbed the ramp as the announcer’s voice echoed above the roaring crowd. After locating section R, she scrambled up the steps of the massive wooden bleachers to row 1200.
The announcer’s booming voice continued. “Each convict competing today must have a year’s clean record and a lifetime of guts.”
Huck located seats 1207 and 1208, then gazed across the thousands of eager rodeo fans for Gabe. A few minutes later Gabe slid into the seat beside her.
“Did you have trouble finding me?”
“Nope. Want a fresh roasted peanut?”
“Only if you’ll crack it open for me.”
“Kind of like a safe?”
“Cute. You should be the announcer.”
“Fellow at the concession said cattle for the show are gathered from wild herds that roam the bottomland along the Trinity River,” Gabe shouted to Huck above the noise.
At that moment, a bull lunged into a tailspin and the convict lost his grip, almost falling underneath several thousand pounds of stomping hooves.
“Oh, Gabe, I can’t look!” Huck covered her eyes.
The afternoon continued with the usual rodeo events, along with bareback basketball, cow belling, wild mare milking, and the crowd favorite, hard money. Forty convicts wearing red shirts competed against the tick of the clock and each other to retrieve a money-filled Bull Durham tobacco sack from between the horns of a surly Brahman. The winning prisoner found over a hundred dollars stuffed in the sack, much of which had been contributed by the crowd.
“A dollar of that money was ours,” Gabe said later as they climbed into Blue Norther. “Hope he sends it to his family.”
“If he’s lucky enough to have one,” Huck added, glad that the rodeo had come to an end. She knew the inmates looked forward to it each year but felt strangely sorry for them. Even though some of the men had come from good families, they’d made poor choices and suffered for it.
Like Clark.
She pictured the inmate again and shivered.
Clark would have ended up serving time behind the high red brick walls if he’d lived. As far as she knew, the factual story about his death had never been widely circulated. Huntsville’s local paper, The Huntsville Item, had mentioned a few sketchy details, stating he’d been killed in an incident near Kilgore.
“How about some ice cream?” Gabe suggested. “You seem a little sad. We haven’t been to King’s Drug Store since …” He paused.
“Since Papa passed?” Huck smiled, remembering how her father had loved for them to bring him a “cream cone.” She faced Gabe. “I’m fine. But how about a root beer float? Then let’s drive by the old home place site and go sit by the pond at Sam Houston Park.”
It didn’t take long to pull up in front of King’s and honk for service. Within thirty minutes, they’d finished their floats and were relaxing on a grassy bank beside the Texas-shaped pond. Nearby stood the Sam Houston Museum and his historic homes.
“We haven’t been inside the museum in years.” Gabe stood and stretched. “It’s open another thirty minutes. How ’bout we wander through? See what’s new?”
“You go.” Huck reached up and squeezed his hand. The rodeo, thoughts about her parents, their old home place, Clark. So much had changed. “I’d just like to sit here awhile longer.”
“Thirty minutes, sweetheart. Then we’ll head home. We both have to work tomorrow.” Gabe grinned. “I’ll come back soon.”
After picking up a smooth flat rock, Huck skimmed it across the placid water. It skipped several times, then sunk, sending tiny ripples back to shore. Just like life, she thought. We bounce from one phase to the next until we finally run out of energy. Our hearts stop, but the waves of our actions return to those who love us. Some waves roll in with a splash of gentle foam. Others crest and crash.
Huck lay back and peered heavenward. A handful of autumn stars poked through the dark blue canvas of early dusk, a sign the days were shortening.
She took a deep breath, then slowly emptied her lungs. Change was inevitable, she knew that.
So was death.
An image of Mister Jack flashed across her mind. What was it he’d said the day they met? Oh yes. “There ain’t no guarantees about living long.”
She knew that too.
Clark had died young. A violent death that had been harder for her to accept than she’d first thought. At the time, her sadness didn’t make sense, not after the way he’d behaved. But it was the “good” Clark she’d sewn into the fabric of her memory.
The adventurous Clark.
The fun-loving Clark.
So she’d kept her grief buried, finally crying hysterically one Saturday afternoon three months later while Gabe was out getting his hair cut. It was one of the few secrets she’d ever kept from him.
“Oh, dearest Gabe,” she whispered. “My soul mate.”
She smiled. The term had been more of Mister Jack’s mysterious wisdom. He’d also compared life to a poker game, admonishing her to look deep in order to find the best card.
She had.
Gazed into the depths of Gabe’s being and discovered an ace.
The thought of ever losing him was … unthinkable. So she must be the one to die first … except … he probably felt the same about her. Perhaps if they were fortunate, they’d go together.
“It’s been thirty minutes.” Gabe’s voice floated into the center of her thoughts. “Ready to go?”
Huck slowly stood, meeting his sea-sky gaze.
“Only with you, darling … I’ll go only with you.”
Summer 2006
Adam Colby
I’d just entered my study after an exhausting day when my phone rang. I glanced at the caller ID. “Hi, Yevette,” I said, hoping she’d decided to meet again soon. Our last meeting at The Braided Rein had ended rather abruptly.
“Have you had supper?”
“Um … grabbed something at the drive-thru, but it’s still in the sack.�
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“Save it for tomorrow,” she replied. “Can you meet me at 3315 Backstretch Road? It’s near Jensen Road and Highway 59.”
“Backscratch?”
She laughed. “Backstretch. S-t-r-e—”
“Got it,” I said, grabbing a pen. “Sounds like a racetrack.”
“It was. Ever heard of Epsom Downs?”
“In England? Horses, right?”
“Good on the horses, but this track was in Houston. It only lasted for a decade or so, but Huck and Gabe attended opening day back in 1933, on Thanksgiving no less.”
I thought for a moment and couldn’t remember seeing a postcard about a racetrack.
“Adam? Did I lose you?”
“Still here,” I replied, wondering if her question had a double meaning. “You said 3315?”
“The same address the Alexanders had on Glen View Lane.”
“That’s odd. What’s the house out there look like?”
“No house, just a dented rural mailbox with the address painted on the side.”
“Is this about the final card?” I asked, feeling a nervous tingle.
“It’s about Mister Jack. Look for an old ’63 tan Chevy pickup.”
“His or yours?” I muttered, wondering what was about to happen.
“Pardon? It’s a little breezy and I couldn’t hear you.”
“Are you already there?”
“Yes. It’s up on a little rise and is my favorite place in the city to watch the sun go down. There’s not many streetlights, so hurry before it gets dark.”
This time I hung up first. Yevette sounded different than the other times we’d met. Perhaps I’d finally become completely real, like the stuffed animal in the children’s classic.
Backstretch Road wasn’t at all what I’d expected, especially 3315. The old pickup was there, but Yevette had neglected to inform me that it would be parked a good one hundred yards from the mailbox. The property would make a decent-sized football field, or even two.
“Did you have trouble finding me?” Yevette sat on the pickup’s tailgate. Beside her was a cooler and a gallon of what looked like brewed tea.
“Guess I never pictured empty land inside a big city.”
“It’s not how Gabe pictured it either, at least not this long after he purchased it. He was hoping for more residential development.”
“You mean a fancy subdivision.”
“Exactly. But it never happened, so he never sold it. As you can see, there are many undeveloped lots.”
I gazed west. The sun was almost gone. “I wonder why their estate lawyer never mentioned this property.”
“Because before Gabe died, they willed it to me.” She stood. “Iced tea?”
I nodded, not really knowing what to say next. She wore the black opal pendant I’d noticed each time we met. And it was the first time I’d seen her dressed in shorts. I’d always heard that horsewomen had shapely legs, and it was no lie. But there was more to Yevette than looks; I was beginning to sense an inner beauty, both simple and complex.
Yevette grabbed two large plastic cups and filled them with ice from the cooler. “I’m not much on cooking,” she said, “mainly because I’m on the road so much. But I’ve got a knack for brewing sun tea.” She poured both cups.
“Delicious,” I said, then sat on the tailgate.
She sat next to me.
“When I was a kid, I loved riding in the back of a pickup.” I took another sip.
“Which is now against the law,” she added.
“Guess we didn’t realize how dangerous it was.”
“Guess not.”
We laughed.
I wanted to inquire about her childhood, but it didn’t feel right. The light was almost gone, and the breeze had calmed. Hopefully, the mosquitoes wouldn’t notice. “So … you have something to tell me about Mister Jack?”
She nodded. “It’s not connected to a postcard, not in an obvious way. So I thought you needed to know.” Yevette looked at me. “Hungry?”
Before I could reply, she slid off the tailgate and opened the passenger side door. She returned with a grocery bag and the largest silver candelabra I’d ever seen outside of a 1930s movie.
“Where did you get that?”
“At the health food store. Hope you like fresh wholegrain bread, hummus, carrots, and fruit.”
“Sure beats what I’ve been having. But that’s not what I’m referring to.”
She laughed. “Why don’t you light the candles while I unpack supper. We can eat while I tell you about Mister Jack.”
I lit the candelabra and gazed again at this unusual woman. A candlelit supper from the health food store, eaten in the back of an old pickup, in the middle of big-city-nowhere. It was exactly what Huck and Gabe would’ve done.
“Okay,” she said. “How about we bless it first?”
“Do what? Oh, you mean say grace.”
Yevette understood my apprehension and voiced a simple thank-you prayer. The only time Haley and I ever prayed was when the Texas Lotto grew above thirteen million. And even then, we never actually prayed, only joked about it.
“This property is where Epsom Downs was located,” Yevette said. “And we’re parked on the backstretch.” She dipped a carrot piece into the hummus. “After betting was outlawed and the track folded, they sold off the land at bargain prices.”
“And Huck and Gabe purchased it as an investment.”
“Gabe did. Huck wanted it because of what happened here.”
I laughed. “And opening day was on Thanksgiving?”
“It was the largest pari-mutuel track in Texas, seating some ten thousand people. However, twenty-five thousand showed up for the first race.” Yevette ate her carrot.
“Are you a historian?” I followed suit with the hummus, but with an apple slice.
“A Huck historian. Even with dementia, she rarely forgot an important detail. Huck said that outside the gates, vendors sold everything from hotdogs to furniture.”
“So … they bought the candelabra at the racetrack?”
Yevette took a piece of bread. “Don’t get ahead. You’ll miss something.”
“Yes ma’am. Now hand over the bread.”
She continued. “Get this: a group of sailors calling themselves The Epsom Salts entertained the crowd with Texas swing music. Bob Wills’s intricate fiddle arrangements.”
“So famous Bob sold the candelabra to them?”
“Hardly, but an old cowboy did. While Huck sat and listened to the music, Gabe walked to a nearby booth. The proprietor was a saddle maker and a silversmith. I remember Gabe laughing and mimicking his western drawl. I was little and had no idea why. But I’d sit on his lap and beg him to talk that way.”
“So, lil’ lady,” I said in my best John Wayne imitation, “how much did they give fer it?”
“That’s the strange part. It was during the Great Depression, so Gabe was only willing to spend five dollars.”
“Five dollars?” I almost choked on the bread. “Even back then, a sterling silver candelabra this size would be way more.”
“The cowboy ordered Gabe to get Mr. Abraham Lincoln out of his pocket and bet him on Humdinger in the fourth race.”
“And Gabe won?”
“ ‘Life’s too short not to take a chance,’ the cowboy told him, ‘specially when yore in love.’ Gabe’s winnings were the cost of the candelabra, to the penny.”
“And Huck thinks the old cowboy was Mister Jack?”
“She had her suspicions but didn’t let on. Then, before they left the track, Huck saw an old cowboy in the distance who walked with a familiar limp.”
“Lots of old men walk with a limp,” I said.
“She just left Gabe standing there and ran after him, but lost the cowboy in the crowd. Remembering the booth where Gabe had gone, she ran back to it. The old cowboy wasn’t there, but propped in the corner was a handmade yellow-pine cane.” Yevette faced me. “Go ahead and say it.”
�
��What?”
“That thousands of canes in this part of Texas were handmade, most out of yellow pine.”
Yevette met my smile, then gazed at the burning candles. “This particular cane had playing card suits carved on the handle.”
Again, I was at a loss for words.
Yevette reached into the sack and handed me an envelope.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Gabe’s final postcard. But don’t read it now.”
“Why?” I stared at the envelope.
“Because you’ll need awhile to think about it.”
I got the feeling it was time for me to leave. “And after I think about it?”
She reached over and squeezed my hand, the one holding the envelope. “Call me. We’ll meet again so I can finish telling you their story.”
“How about here?”
Yevette smiled brighter than the candelabra. “If it’s all right with you, I’d like to meet in Texas City.”
Twenty-one?
Lucky for some.
And the age in which a man is able
To play the odds at a blackjack table.
But for you and me
The number’s more
Than law or magic spell;
It’s passion’s coveted “second score” …
’Cause we beat the fires of hell!
Forever, Gabe
April 1947
Galveston, Texas
Huck and Gabe stood under the marbled portico of the swanky Hotel Galvez as a valet delivered their third version of Blue Norther, a new Oldsmobile 98 convertible. Its gleaming white canvas top and sky-blue exterior made it the most beautiful and luxurious automobile they had ever owned. Both previous cars, hard tops and darker in color, had been more than adequate, providing dependable transportation from the beginning of their marriage past the end of World War II. But Gabe had been promoted to a top-level accountant at Gulf, so they’d splurged.
After opening Huck’s door, Gabe tipped the valet and walked around to the driver’s side. He slid in behind the wheel, shifted gears, and sped down the palm-lined drive to Seawall Boulevard.
Forever Friday Page 19
