"Oh he did?"
"Yeah, he was visiting his mother or something and went to a cattle auction, saw one of my girls being sold. Then he decided to investigate further before bringing it up to me. Good kid, loyal kid. I'm glad he wants to keep his job."
"Sounds like you found yourself your next manager," she chuckled.
"Nah," he replied. "I don't think so. Not yet. He needs to show his worth before that happens."
The conversation died down and they stood awkwardly, having run out of conversation that they both found interesting.
"Uh, ladybug, I gotta work for a few more hours. You wanna meet up for dinner?" he asked.
She breathed a sigh of relief. After all these years she still didn't know how to exit a conversation with her father. "Yeah, that sounds great," she said, smiling. She gave her father a quick hug and watched him leave the room, using a back staircase to find his way to his private office somewhere in the depths of the large house.
#
By the time that she walked into the foyer Ricky had already been cuffed and put into the squad car. She nodded to the Sheriff. Deputy Fink Carlson had come as backup. He had been a couple years behind her in high school, a nerdy kid who loved his comic books and internet forums. Now he had turned into a broad chested, square jawed behemoth. His muscular arms barely fit into his uniform. The only way she realized it was him was his simile and the comic book on his dashboard. She waved meekly and went her way, walking down the long gravel road towards one of the larger horse barns.
It was a red brick horse barn, built a hundred years ago by the same great-grandfather who decided he wanted to be a miner. To Lilith it was where she had her first kiss, up in the hay loft, with a boy named Kenny Kessler. He was tall and lanky, small teeth but big gums, and really loved chewing gum. Loved it so much that kissing became swapping pieces. Altogether, she decided, it was pretty gross.
She climbed up into the hay loft and found Marty sitting up there as well, drinking a beer and staring out across the land from the open loft. "Want one?" he asked, motioning to his beer.
"You got more?"
He pointed to a cooler in the corner, hidden under an unruly pile of hay. "I keep it up here and bring up ice and stuff whenever necessary. Helps keep me calm."
"Yeah, I can imagine," she replied. "We haven't talked in a while, how you been?"
"We haven't talked in a while Lily because you decided your new life in Los Angeles is better than what you left behind," he said, his voice edging on irritation.
"So you haven't been laid in a while, is that it?" she replied, cracking a smile. When he didn't return one she frowned and sat down, dangling her legs out the open door.
"A phone call woulda been nice, a call to know you were coming, I dunno. Something to show me you fuckin' care," he said.
She sat silently for a moment, thinking. She took a gulp of beer and nearly choked. "Ok first, when did you start drinking IPAs?"
"I dunno, I wanted to be a cool. Don't I look cool?" he replied, finally cracking a grin.
"Look KMart, I just. It's been tough and I dunno what I'm doing. I don't really have many people I trust or count on, and I cam here to find out what the fuck I'm doing! Where the fuck I'm going! I haven't gotten any acceptance letters, I haven't had a boyfriend in god knows how long, and what's worse than that, I dunno what my father wants," she replied, huffing slightly. "Also, this beer has more alcohol in it than I thought. I think I'm already feeling it."
They both shared a laugh at that. Marty smiled at her and pushed his shoulder into hers. "I missed you."
"Yeah, I missed you too."
"So you wanna know about this new ranch hand?"
"Why does everyone keep talking about this new ranch hand? I don't even know his name!" she said.
"His name is Clark and he's goddamn beautiful," said Marty. "Obviously he doesn't turn my way, but ya know if he did I would rock his world. He was hired on a few months back. He's sorta mysterious, not many people know anything about him. Kinda makes him even hotter."
"Yeah, right, whatever," said Lilith. She grabbed another beer. "Ya know my father might actually have a stroke if I told him I was seeing a ranch hand."
"Yeah, I remember what happened senior year when Lorimer Dietrik asked you to prom. I never saw Saul reach for his pistol so fast," chuckled Marty.
"Yeah, it almost matched my father's face when you came out by bringing a guy to senior prom. How is Charlie anyway?" she asked, bemused by the conversation. Sharing memories was usually nice, but she felt as if she could get lost in the old days to hide away from the uncertainty of the present. She didn't even want to consider the future.
"He's alive. Saw him a few months back. He's settled down, married a nice blonde girl from across the state. She doesn't really know about high school," he said. "So you haven't gotten laid lately either?"
"Well, I wouldn't say that. There was a guy, but..."
"What, tell me!"
"Nah, it's not important. It was a fling and I thought it was more and then it was over before it even began. He's nobody. Nothing. I had the sex. And it was...empty."
"I see. Well, you're home now. You'll find a nice wholesome boy to call your own," said Marty. He crumpled his bottle caps with his fingers and let them fall back into the empty bottles. They fell inside with a clatter. "It's ok to be single."
"That doesn't sound like you're gonna convince anyone," she smirked. "But you're not wrong. It is ok to be single, but I sorta think that if that piece figured itself out, maybe everything else would slot into place."
"Ya know Doc, that's a load of shit."
"Yeah, probably. Certified Grade A Bullshit."
"From the South Pasture?"
"The very same," she said, as they both burst out laughing. "I just realized something Marty." She cracked open another beer.
"What?"
"I forgot my toothpaste back in Los Angeles. And my underwear."
"Good! You're ready for a guy who likes bad breath," he said.
They looked at each other, toasted their friendship, and stared out at Holliday Ranch. Lilith Holliday had returned home and found just a modicum of peace and acceptance. But home and Saul and Marty, while familiar could become too comfortable. She knew she had to fight that. The sun began to set across the mountains, casting a deep red yellow glow over the stock pond, the main house, and the thousands of cows and horses that called the ranch home. Now, the next thing on her list was toothpaste.
CHAPTER TWO
Pistol Reynolds sat across from Lilith at the combination local deli, coffee shop and gas station in town. The owner had hidden the gas pumps behind the main road to increase the curb appeal. But since the entire place sat at the crossroads between nothing and nowhere, Lilith had the feeling that nothing would really help. When the mountains abruptly ended, the land became flat and boring. The deli sat twenty miles from the nearest mountain. So while she could see where her father's property started, her friends still called it Nowhere Deli.
Pistol had been her friend since high school when they found each other in a math class and couldn't let each other go because they both nearly failed. He sat across from her, staring at his coffee. He wore a plaid shirt, suspenders, and black boots. Although his overbite wasn't noticeable, he always blamed it for his lack of success with women.
"Why did you want coffee from Nowhere again?" he asked, sipping the coffee and scowling at the taste.
"We all have our ways of trying and remembering what home was like! And this," she said, gulping the hot coffee, "this is how I remember home. Coffee made with a filter that was last cleaned in 1987." They both laughed and munched into stale donuts.
"So how've you been?" she asked. Pistol looked paler than usual, as if he hadn't left his house in a few months. She knew he was unemployed, but then again, who wasn't around these parts. They hadn't really kept up over the years, but the last time she was in town she sought him out.
"Eh, I dunno. Trying to f
igure out how to leave this fuckin' place. You don't know how lucky you have it. Big cities, proper coffee, maybe even a pet bakery," he said, smiling.
Pistol, she remembered, always loved the idea of a big city, but no matter how much she coaxed, he never visited her. "Maybe you shoulda come visit me in Los Angeles, they really love their pet bakeries out there," she replied. "How's your father?"
Pistol stared at her for a moment, reached in his pocket, removed his wallet and keys, undid the top keyring and threw the keys to her. "Ya know what, why don't we go visit him?" he asked.
"What, what do you mean?"
"You never answered your fuckin' text messages, girl. And thus, if I may be so bold as to remind you of your past indiscretions, you need to pay your last respects to the man," he replied. He sipped his coffee placidly, waiting for the fact that his father was dead to dawn on her.
"Oh shit."
"Yeah. Oh shit. Bastard died on me, left me some cash, his boots, and a house full of empty bottles. Best part, boots even don't fit me," he laughed. "Fuckin' dramatic idiot, but I probably wouldn't want them if they did."
She didn't know how to respond. Pistol and his father were never on the best of terms, possibly because of his father's choice of names. Mostly it was because Pistol blamed his father for his mother leaving. "I'm sorry man," she finally spit out. "I dunno, I shoulda answered your messages earlier."
"Yeah, no big deal. I put him in the ground within a few days and took the liberty of finishing off his stash. He mighta been a boozer, but he had good liquor choice."
"Yeah, why don't we go see him. I think, I'd like to anyway," she said. She got up from the table, waved to Nelson, the owner of Nowhere, and walked out to her truck.
"Why don't we take my truck?" asked Pistol, pointing to his much newer Chevy.
"You just get that?" she asked. "You spend all your dad's money on a truck?"
"Nah, but I should have. Pittance Lilith, he left me a pittance," he replied as she climbed into the truck. He started the engine and revved off onto the main road. "So you wanna tell me why you never called, or returned my texts, or anything till this morning?"
Lilith knew that she would have to repeat the same thing to everyone in town, from Marty to Pistol to Doc Mulreedy. If she knew more about why she was home than some kind of vague feeling of being lost and unsure of the world, she would just say it. If she knew the answer, if only she knew the answer.
"I came to find some answers. About myself, about what I want," she finally said.
"Fair enough," said Pistol, lighting up a cigarette. He rolled down his window and threw the rest of the coffee out the window. The wind blew it down the side of his truck, leaving the brown liquid sticking to the new, shiny paint.
They drove on for what seemed like hours, past the endless fields, ramshackle homes, dilapidated churches, and the signs that perhaps the sheltered collegiate atmosphere that she'd hid in wasn't real. Outside of it, back here from whence she came, nothing had changed. Money was scarce, the fields were empty, and she saw more than one cow that looked a little too thin.
They drove on in silence. Pistol chain smoked cigarettes, leaving the driver window and sunroof open. Every few minutes, he'd glance in her direction, trying to muster up the courage to keep the conversation going. But Lilith had retreated into her own mind. She stared out the passenger window, at the world outside, the world she'd come back to.
"How's your father doin?" he asked.
"Bit of trouble at the ranch yesterday. Apparently Ricky has been stealing cattle and selling them in some kind of conspiracy ring," she said. Her monotonous tone matched the landscape outside the window. The world just continued on and on farther than she could see. At least the mountains provided some kind of barrier to block the listlessness that rolling landscapes brought.
"I never did trust Ricky. Everyone around these parts owes your family much more than that."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"You weren't here during the lean years. No jobs, successive years of high school seniors just lost and confused, wandering around, having nothing to do. It breeds trouble. It also just breeds, actually."
"What's that have to do with my father?"
"He increased pay for the ranch hands and paid to have rotating positions for anyone who wanted it. He'd even hire people to wash the ranch trucks, just cause. Really helped people get some food on the table until things got better around here," he said. He rubbed a butt out in a cup holder that was already overfull with cigarette butts.
"I. Well, I didn't know that," she responded.
"No, you wouldn't. And it better not get out that he fired Ricky, especially for stealing. People might get a little pissed," said Pistol. "We're almost there."
He took an abrupt turn off the highway into an empty field, the truck's tires screeching from the asphalt onto gravel, then dirt, and finally grass. He set the electronic dial to four wheel drive and then stepped onto the gas.
"Pistol! Where are you taking me?!" said Lilith. "Why don't you slow down."
"I would slow down, but I'm afraid that I'm gonna get stuck otherwise," said Pistol. And sure enough the field turned into slippery mud, the four wheel drive helping to keep them moving.
"Where are we going?" she asked, grabbing onto the handle above the window as the terrain got rougher as they headed more into the middle of nothing and nowhere, far from the mountains, far from anything.
"You need to pay your last respects to the man who gave me my Y chromosome," he replied.
Just as quickly as he had turned into the field, he stopped the truck. A white marker stone stood in front the left tire. He got out and scanned the empty field. The sun was high in the sky and a hawk circled a few hundred feet away. Mud and the last remnants of coffee dripped from the sides of the truck. Lilith got out and stretched. She didn't know what she was supposed to be seeing.
"Where the hell have you brought me Pistol?"
"My father bought this land when I was born. It was his last gift to me. It was in the will, along with a sizable chunk of money that I wasn't allowed to touch because it's just for the land. Property taxes. Upkeep."
Lilith stared across the harsh landscape, the scrub brush and rocks. The little she knew of farming, she thought that getting this piece of land from its current state to harvest was going to be a hard task. And it wouldn't pay off for anyone involved. "Define upkeep Pistol," she responded, warily.
Pistol walked over to the white stone marker and reached down beside it and grabbed a thin chain that could barely be seen from above the grass. He pulled the chain, following it a few feet until he pulled up on it and a small metal door flipped up from the ground. It was covered in grass and could barely be noticeable as a door. "You wanna come inside and see what my father left me?"
Lilith looked at him, stared at him, feeling more than a little creeped out. "Where the hell have you brought me Pistol?" she asked again.
"I promise it's nothing strange or weird, or even mildly frightening. My father left me a survivalist bunker."
"Your father was a survivalist?"
"No, he was a pussy. And a closet survivalist. It's well stocked with everything anyone would need," he said. He took out a small flashlight and held it out to her. "You don't have to go down there, but why not take a look?"
Lilith took the outstretched flashlight and knelt down and peered inside. A round hole led deep into the ground, metal stairs the only way in and out. She couldn't see too far down, but it seemed to branch into hallways and presumably rooms.
She sat back down on the ground. "When you said your father was here, and I should pay your respects, what did you mean exactly?"
"I put his urn down there. I thought it was appropriate," replied Pistol, smiling. "He had apparently found a way, probably in his final days to put his favorite rocker chair down there. I put the urn right where he used to sit. May he sit there for all eternity, in his own hole in the ground."
Lilith sigh
ed and laid back in the dirt. "Have you gone off your rocker?" she asked, laughing. Growing up, she had always worried about him. He was prone to being silent for days, rarely seeing anyone out except his father. His father, who was never silent, constantly raining down criticisms and complaints.
"I mighta," he responded, laughing along with her. "It's been odd. When you left, I suppose I didn't have many friends or anything left around here. I worked for your dad for a little while, then my dad up and died. And, he left me this. I dunno what to do with it. I dunno what to do with myself."
"Yeah, I may know some of those feelings," she said. She got back, dusted off her jeans and boots.
She laid in the dirt in silence, watching Pistol stare into the depths of the bunker. His mouth hung open a little, his brow furrowed, his mind lost in thought. She felt bad for him, having lost both his parents and not knowing what other bad luck his already unknown future held for him. "Maybe we should head back," she said.
"Did I freak you out?"
"Maybe a little," she replied.
"Yeah, I'm sorry about that. Let's head back."
He closed the bunker, laid the chain back into the ground, and followed her back to the truck. They left his father and those memories in their rear view mirror as they made their way back to the gas station deli.
Pistol looked forlornly across his father's land as they drove back to the main highway. He was happy that Lilith was back, he had missed his friend. He sighed as silently as he could as he realized that Lilith was probably the only best friend he'd ever had. And the Holliday family had been good to him, especially since he felt that he didn't really deserve it.
#
In retrospect, calling Pistol was a shot in the dark, no pun intended. They had been close and seeing him every time she came home had become a tradition, but they either always ran out of things to say, or more likely, the conversation devolved into emotional support for his life. Which today was clearly no exception, except that she had very little to give him.
Finding Him at Home (Holliday Book 1) Page 2
