High Plains Hearts

by Janet Spaeth

  “We are truly blessed to have him here in Obsidian.”

  “Livvy seemed to enjoy the service, wouldn’t you say?” Gramps looked directly at him. “She seemed to drink it up like a thirsty woman at an oasis.”

  Hayden folded the newspaper and leaned back. “She did. You know, Gramps, we were born into the church and we stayed. You and Gran made sure of that, and that’s part of the heritage that Reverend Carlisle was talking about.”

  “I’m as old as Luke?” His grandfather’s eyes twinkled.

  “Pretty much,” Hayden answered, grinning. “But I think that part of what the lesson was about is that our religious legacy goes back to the very beginning of Christianity—and before—so that even if we have a few years when we stray, we’ve got the path already prepared for us to step right back onto.”

  “That’s an interesting extension of what we learned today.” Gramps stroked Martha Washington’s fur. “We tried to make sure you knew where the path was, Grub, so that if you did step off, you could be sure that it was there, ready and waiting for you. But we were fortunate that you stayed on it, and you’ve lived a life that was honorable to our Lord.”

  “I’ve tried.” As Hayden said the words, he knew they were true. “I don’t think that Livvy has done anything wrong, even if she hasn’t been going to church.”

  His grandfather raised his eyebrows in question, and Hayden hastily amended his statement. “I mean that she hasn’t murdered anyone, at least as near as I know.”

  Gramps laughed. “I think we can safely presume that she hasn’t. She doesn’t seem the type to be a felon. But going to church is an important part of being a Christian. And I think she realized that.”

  “She seemed to get a lot out of the message this morning. I’m glad she went with us.”

  “I suspect she needed it. We’ll make sure to invite her to come with us next week, too.” His grandfather studied him. “You know I’m not one to meddle in your life, Grub, but I do need to say something.”

  Hayden took a deep breath. Whenever Gramps started a discussion like that, the conversation was going to be intense—and honest.

  “Go ahead,” he said. “Meddle away.”

  His grandfather bent toward him, his face etched with concern. “I want to talk about Livvy.”

  Hayden’s stomach plummeted. Did Gramps have second thoughts about turning Sunshine over to her? It was too late. The papers were signed, and she was already invested in the property, both financially and emotionally.

  “What about her?” he asked cautiously.

  “I may be old, but I can still see what’s right in front of my face. There’s something between the two of you.”

  Hayden rubbed his forehead. “Something between us? How can you say that? I’ve only known her a few weeks!”

  “How long do you think it would take?” Gramps looked at him quizzically.

  Hayden cleared his throat, which had inexplicably developed some kind of frog. “Well,” he said at last, “a year or two.”

  “And when do you think it starts?”

  Gramps was not going to let him off easily. Hayden parried with another question. “Do you mean when does love start?”

  “Sure. When do you think people fall in love? What is the first moment? Does it hit you like a two-by-four upside the head? Or is it a gentle thing that comes over you, so slowly that you don’t even know it’s happening until one day you find yourself in front of a preacher saying, ‘I do’?”

  Gramps’s tone was teasing, but underneath it was a serious note, and Hayden waited a moment before answering. “I’m not sure, Gramps. I’ve never been in love.”

  His grandfather nodded sagely. “It happens both ways. Love takes awhile to develop, and I’m not saying this is love that I see. Not yet. But given enough time, and enough care, I believe that this attraction between you two has the power to grow. Not all relationships do, but this one, I believe, does.”

  “Do you believe in love at first sight?” Hayden asked.

  “I do, but with a rider. There is love at first sight, but love has to prove itself—no, wait. That’s not right. Love never has to prove anything. Love is perfect and ideal. Let me try again. There is such a thing as an immediate attraction.”

  Gramps’s eyes took on a faraway, dreamy look. “When I first saw Ellie I was a gas jockey in Bismarck. I was in that never-never land after school, not knowing what I wanted to do, and thinking that maybe I’d end up enlisting in the army. All my friends were doing it. And then one day, she drove into the station in a brand new 1957 Chevy. Grub, that thing was a magnificent piece of automotive history. Turquoise and white, and absolutely spotless.”

  Hayden settled back against the cushions of the couch. He’d heard the story before, but it was a great one.

  “I looked at it, and I was going to say all the usual gas station things about the car. Ramjet fuel injection, triple turbines, V-8, rear fins, hood rockets—and then I looked at her, and all of that just flew out of my head. She may have been sitting in the most stunning car to grace America’s roads, but all I could think was that she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen and, bam, I was in love.”

  “So it was love at first sight.”

  “It was. But it wasn’t the love that developed over the years. We had to learn to love each other, and, perhaps just as importantly, learn to be loved in an equal relationship. In order for a marriage to work, you need to have the same set of values. You can’t be unequally partnered. If you believe in God, and I know you do, then she has to believe in Him, too. That’s vital. Without that, there really won’t be love. Marriage has to have some basis or else it won’t last. Grub, you know where the silver is, don’t you?”

  Hayden laughed. “Well that was an abrupt switch. From love to silver.”

  “Don’t be fresh. Go get it. But first go get me a spoon from the kitchen.”

  From the strength of his grandfather’s voice, he knew that there would be some meaning in this lesson, so he did as Gramps requested. From the kitchen he got a spoon from the drawer, and then he entered the dining area.

  He crossed the room to the old Hoosier cabinet that still stood in the corner, just as it had for as long as he had been alive, and from one of the drawers, he withdrew a polished walnut box and carried it back to his grandfather.

  Gramps carefully balanced it on his thin knees and opened it. He removed the cloth that covered the silverware, and took one of the spoons from its slot.

  He held it up to the light. “We got this for a wedding present from your great-great-grandmother. See the glow of it? See how you can look at it and immediately know that it’s good silver? Look at the patina. That satiny finish comes from years and years of use, scooping up food and who knows what else, as well as being scrubbed clean and stored away and ignored for months on end.”

  His grandfather tapped it against his hand. “That shine comes from years of Greenwood family dinners. And it’s heavy. You can feel it in your hand when you’re eating your ice cream.”

  He put it back into the slot in the wooden box and closed the cover reverently. He picked up the spoon from the kitchen and raised it. “Now this is the cheap stuff, the stuff we don’t care if the dishwasher mangles it or if it gets left in the boat. It can easily be replaced with a quick trip into Bismarck to that big discount center.”

  The spoon caught the afternoon sun and sent rainbows against the wall. “Pretty, isn’t it? Glittery and bright,” Gramps continued, “but cheap. Even I could bend it, warp it out of shape. Scratches on the surface just make it look worse, and if its life as a spoon is too bad, we’ll throw it away and get another one. And why is that?”

  “Because we don’t care about it, not really,” Hayden answered. “It’s from that set we got at ThriftyBuy for what, fourteen dollars?”

  Gramps shook his head. “Sort of. Because the wedding silver is made out of quality metal and the everyday spoon is made of, well, I don’t know what it’s made of, but
that’s my point. Do you see what I’m saying? Love is like the wedding silver. The good and the bad will both add to the gleam, compared to the sharp imitation-silver spoon that can’t bear any scratches. It’s disposable, so we can get rid of it when we’re not pleased with it.”

  He handed the day-to-day spoon back to Hayden. “You know, when the silverware was new, it was shiny. Not quite this wildly shiny, but shiny. I liked it shiny, but I like this subdued gloss, too. That’s love. From new-spoon shiny to old-spoon gleam, it’s all good.”

  Hayden impulsively leaned over and dropped a kiss onto the top of the old man’s head. He wasn’t quite ready to think of marrying Livvy, but this was excellent advice. “I’ll give it some thought and a lot of prayer, Gramps, I promise. You may be right about Livvy—or you might be wrong. Either way, I need to make sure of one thing.”

  “What’s that?” Gramps asked.

  “That she’s the right spoon.”

  Chapter 6

  The Fourth of July was a jewel of a day. The faintest breeze blew away the dusty heat, until it was nearly perfect. Brad had come out with his two children, Bo and Al, and the three of them had crowded into the boat with Hayden and Gramps.

  Brad’s wife was, according to him, “dollying up” in preparation for a wedding in Bismarck that evening, and Brad was going to leave the boys for fireworks while he went to the wedding with his wife. He’d pick the children up around midnight.

  The boys had reveled in their afternoon on the lake as “guy time.” Livvy had stayed in the house, putting together the evening’s weenie roast and making sure there were enough snacks to get the boys’ sugar levels skyrocketing.

  Al was the child in the wheelchair, and she marveled at how his brother, the wild and crazy Bo, accepted it and gave him just as much trouble as if he’d been walking.

  After Brad had gone back to Obsidian to pick up his wife, the two boys tore around Sunshine, chasing the chicken and enveloping Martha Washington in sticky hugs until she finally retreated under the porch. Leonard simply ran around them all and barked happily.

  Finally it was dark enough for fireworks. They could see those being shot off in Medora, the western town on the other side of the butte, but Hayden and Gramps had made sure they had enough of their own, and soon Gramps was lighting the larger fireworks.

  The sky lit up as the initial volley of Roman candles exploded into a spectacular display of man-made stars.

  Then it was time for the boys to have their own fireworks.

  “I want one!”

  “I want one, too!”

  The excited shouts of Brad’s children rang through the night, and Hayden laughed as their little hands greedily clutched at the box of fireworks that he held aloft.

  “Remember what your mama said,” he told them.

  “Don’t blow yourselves up!” the children chorused.

  “Splendid advice, wouldn’t you say?” he answered. “And that extends to parts of yourselves, too. I want to return you both to your parents intact.”

  “What does that mean?” Bo, the younger child, asked. “What does ‘intact’ mean?”

  “It means with the same number of fingers and toes that you arrived with.”

  Livvy watched as he distributed the sparklers, spreading them out into exactly equal piles. As one child got green sparklers, so did the other boy.

  The box of red sparklers was opened first.

  “Light mine first, Uncle Hayden!” The younger child danced around Hayden’s legs, slashing the air with the sparkler as if it were a sword.

  “No, mine!” Al begged from his wheelchair. “Light mine first. Bo, you wait. You’re the baby.”

  “You’re a baby,” Bo shot back.

  “No, you are.”

  Livvy interceded. “Neither of you is a baby. You each have a sparkler, and we’ll light both of them at exactly the same time.”

  “Thanks, Aunt Livvy!” the two boys chorused.

  She grinned. Everybody was a family member to these boys. Uncle Hayden, Aunt Livvy, Gramps. It was a tremendous feeling.

  Soon the children were whooping with glee and mock terror as the sparklers blazed around them. Al certainly wasn’t letting being in a wheelchair slow him down. He spun in circles in his chair, waving the sparkler in great loops around him.

  “I’m writing CAT with mine,” Al said. “Aunt Livvy, did you know that we got two cats from here? I call them Tiger and Lion, but Bo calls them Kitty and Cat.”

  “What do your mom and dad call them?” she asked.

  “Mom calls them both Hey You, and Dad calls them Bad and Worse.”

  Bo whirled happily beside his big brother. “Look, I’m writing my name! Watch me, Uncle Hayden, watch me!”

  Hayden leaned close and whispered to her, each word tickling her ear with his closeness. “Good thing his name is Bo and not Archibald. His sparkler wouldn’t last!”

  She chuckled softly. Hayden was so good with the children, so patient and kind. Together they watched the boys play, enjoying the shouts of laughter and the streaks of color in the night.

  Quickly the children lost interest in the sparklers and moved on to colored smoke bombs. Hayden lit them and stepped away, making sure that the boys didn’t get too close to the smoking spheres, which looked fascinating but smelled horrible.

  The children found them absolutely delightful.

  Livvy hung back with Hayden, who began to look a bit green around the edges as the sulphurous smoke enveloped him.

  “That stuff is ghastly,” he said, coughing as he moved out of the colorful cloud. “I wonder why they don’t scent it or something so it’s not so nasty. Bo, too close, too close! Al, no, you’re too close, too. It’s cool to watch, but the smell—!”

  “Maybe you can’t have both: looking good and smelling good,” she said, wrinkling her nose. The fireworks did stink.

  He looked at her, his head tilted to one side. A burst of a Catherine wheel lit his face with silver and blue shots of light. “I think I can.”

  In the distance, the muted sounds of the pyrotechnics from Medora boomed across the night. She was grateful for the cover of darkness. It hid the flush that had washed over her cheeks.

  Was he flirting with her?

  The more she thought about it, the more flustered she got. She didn’t trust her voice. It would probably squeak or something equally embarrassing.

  Instead, she opted for shaking her head.

  Her reprieve came in the form of Bo, who ran up to Hayden and tugged on his pant leg. “Uncle Hayden, Uncle Hayden, Uncle Hayden, we blew up all the smoke bombs. What else do you have? Can we blast off one of those big rocket things, please, please, please? I want to light up one of those gigantic things and watch it go zzzzzz through the air!” His pudgy little hands looped in a circle, and Hayden laughed.

  “Sorry, buddy, no big rockets for you. Not even little rockets. But I have some snakes.”

  Bo screamed, “Snakes?” and Livvy smiled to herself. Sunset came so late in summer here, and the children were extremely overtired.

  Hayden put a calming hand on Bo’s small shoulders. “Not those snakes. These are black chunks that we’ll light and then something really cool happens.”

  Livvy watched as he opened the box and placed the black piece on the concrete slab. He touched a match to what looked like a small dark piece of charcoal and stood back.

  “Now watch, and remember, never touch.”

  The children oohed as the small black nugget began to smolder and expand into a long black curl.

  “It kind of smells,” the older one confided, pinching his nose shut.

  “Good fireworks always smell, don’t they, Uncle Hayden?” Bo asked. “Those smoke bombs were really stinkish, too.”

  “Yes, they do smell. But you know what smells good? S’mores!” Hayden motioned toward the bonfire. “You guys want to make s’mores?”

  “Oh, I love them!” Bo shouted enthusiastically, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. />
  “I like the chocolate.” Al wheeled over to Livvy’s side and smiled at her. “Can I have double chocolate? You don’t have to put the marshmallow on. Or the graham cracker.”

  She grinned at him. “You just want a candy bar?”

  “I think so,” he said, “but I’d better cook up a marshmallow just in case.”

  His eyelids were sagging, and she knew he’d be asleep soon. Bo’s energy was getting wilder and wilder, and if her admittedly limited prior experience with children was any indicator, he’d be down for the night within half an hour or so.

  The children made it through one and a half s’mores before they had to be carried into the house and put on blankets on the living room floor until their parents arrived. Gramps volunteered to stay with them, and Hayden and Livvy returned to the bonfire, which was beginning to burn low.

  Still, sparks shot from the fiery logs, showering the night sky with low stars. She sat next to Hayden, cross-legged. They both smelled of summer, of bug spray, soap, and wood smoke, with a touch of marshmallow and chocolate. It was wonderful. If Fifth Avenue in New York City could bottle it, they’d make a fortune, she thought.

  Life was good. She was in the middle of one of God’s finest creations, the Badlands. A full moon glowed overhead, a shining orb more golden than a treasured coin. Only the crackle of the fire and the calls of the night birds and crickets broke the silence.

  She was totally content. The hurriedness of the city—the traffic jams, the crowded sidewalks, the congested stores—seemed as far away as that moon. Nothing mattered except this fire, this moon, this man next to her.

  Hayden began to sing softly, a melody that sounded vaguely familiar to her, something she’d heard many years ago. She didn’t know the words but she hummed along.

  As the last note faded away, she sighed. “That was beautiful.”

  “It’s a Scandinavian hymn that every good child up here learns early on,” Hayden said with a low chuckle. “Well, this child learned it. Gramps and Gran made sure of that. We closed every vesper service with it, and it just seemed right tonight to continue the tradition.”