Where Eagles Fly

by Lisa Norato

  Nothing would be the same once she exited this little room, and she shuddered as Rose lit a kerosene lamp, then gestured for Shelby to close the door. Flickering light filled the space, which looked no bigger than the walk-in closet of Shelby’s townhouse bedroom, possibly even smaller.

  Rose took a seat at the small desk, swiveling her chair around to face Shelby, who was left to make space for herself on a small chest littered with papers and books. Shelby sat, then kicked away a pair of large snow boots to make room for her legs.

  Rose poured the brandy. Its heady aroma filtered into the musty, enclosed air. Light from the small lamp wavered like the flame of a candle. Shadows danced on the four walls surrounding them, and the atmosphere was such that they could have been getting ready to swap spooky ghost stories.

  Rose handed her a glass and, unable to bear the silence, Shelby said, “I really did believe Ruckert was choking, you know. And if he wasn’t choking, then what’s the harm? It’s certainly nothing for him to be embarrassed about. It was my error. So why do I feel I’ve insulted him?”

  Shelby tipped back her glass and allowed the brandy to slip between her lips and burn the back of her throat. It tasted awful.

  Rose clutched her own glass tightly between both hands. “That’s right. Ruckert wasn’t choking, dear. He was stuck.”

  “Stuck?”

  “His voice,” Rose began, searching for words as she raised trembling fingers to her throat, “gets. . . .”

  Shelby watched the woman’s eyes fill, as emotion overcame her expression, and realized this was going to be a difficult subject. She finished Rose’s thought, though she had no idea what it meant. “His voice gets stuck.”

  Rose nodded.

  Shelby puzzled this over and was left clueless. “What exactly are you trying to tell me?”

  Rose took a delicate sip of brandy, swallowed, then asked, “You really don’t have any idea what I’m talking about?”

  “None.”

  “Surely, you must have suspected. Haven’t you ever heard Ruckert stutter?”

  “Stutter?” Ruckert stutter? His voice was clear and deep and mesmerizing. Needing a moment to wrap her head around this, Shelby swallowed back another mouthful of brandy.

  “Why do you think he’s avoided talking to you?”

  “I honestly don’t know.” But for the sake of the grim stare Rose imparted, Shelby tried to work this out in her head. “Okay. Let’s see. Yeah, well, I may have heard him falter a few times, but everyone stumbles over their words now and then.”

  Rose shook her head. “No, Ruckert is not like everyone. Ruckert has a serious problem speaking, and he’s lived with it all his life. He’s tried everything to correct it, but it haunts him. It eats away at him, makes him conscious of every word that comes out of his mouth. That’s why he likes to spend so much time alone, why he grew up in the company of horses instead of men. He can communicate to horses without speaking, without feeling there is something wrong with him.”

  Wow, this put a whole new spin on things, and as Shelby absorbed this shocking new revelation, she was stunned into a contemplative silence. Moments passed before she found her voice.

  “You mean all the theatrics were because he didn’t want to stutter in front of me?”

  “Ruckert’s fond of you. He couldn’t let you see there was something wrong with him. Although we all tried to tell him different. There’s just something in folks that makes them unable to accept their own shortcomings. Ruckert believed if he let you get too close, you’d find out he wasn’t perfect and wouldn’t accept him.”

  Shelby found she could relate to this.

  Rose slid her chair a bit closer and said in a solemn, intimate voice, “Ruckert was four years old when I tucked him into bed one night. The next morning he couldn’t speak, couldn’t utter a distinguishable word. It was like he’d gone back to baby talk. I was frightened. He’d try to tell me something and only these strangled gurgles would come out of his mouth. The next day was just as bad, so Charley rode out for the doctor. The doctor couldn’t find anything wrong with Ruckert. He hadn’t fallen or banged his head.”

  The woman drew a shaky breath, twirling her glass in her hand, while Shelby prepared herself for the full story at last. Yet as eager as she’d been for the truth, she’d never expected a tale like this. Her stomach fluttered nervously.

  Rose continued. “Charley took the boy aside real quiet-like and asked Ruckert if he’d seen something that scared him. We thought maybe he’d suffered some kind of shock that had upset him. But Ruckert kept shaking his head no, and I told Charley he was wasting his time. I always kept my babies where I could keep an eye on them while I was doing my chores. And Ruckert had always been a well-behaved, happy child.

  “We visited other doctors in Denver City, and they told us something’d happened to upset Ruckert’s nervous system, and we should keep him in bed and see that he got plenty of rest and not cause anything to excite him. You ever try to keep a healthy little boy down when there’s a whole ranch full of interesting things for him to see and do? Animals and cowboys everywhere. He couldn’t talk to them, just watch from his bedroom window. He couldn’t even come with me to feed the chickens in the morning. He felt left out, like he’d done something wrong and was being punished for it. I realized keeping him in his room was making him more upset than anything else.”

  Rose paused to sip her brandy. Shelby, meanwhile, was beginning to feel more and more uncomfortable with the embarrassment she’d caused Ruckert, yet she didn’t dare interrupt. She gave a sigh of understanding and nodded for Rose to proceed.

  “Eventually, he started saying words again,” Rose explained, “then sentences. The funny sounds disappeared, but his speech was never quite the same. He’d just break off in the middle of a word he’d been struggling with and talk jerky-like. Slow, then real fast, then slow again. He’d repeat sounds several times before he’d get the whole word out. This didn’t happen all the time, mind you. Sometimes—and for long periods of time—days or even weeks—he’d talk just fine, and we’d thought it had gone away. But then it’d come back just as before. It’d pain me to watch the way he had to fight to speak. Tore me to pieces inside.”

  Shelby hung her head as she took it all in. “Oh, Rose,” she moaned sympathetically, lifting her head. “You must’ve felt so helpless.” She sensed this unburdening had been a long time in coming and was as much about Rose’s pain as it was about Ruckert’s.

  Rose nodded. “We had a hand working for us at the time by the name of Peter Breg,” she reflected. “Charley found out later Peter’d mimic Ruckert to the other hands, making fun of him. One day Ruckert was helping out with the branding, fetching and such. Peter asked Ruckert where Charley had gone. When Ruckert had a hard time telling him, Peter got angry and told the boy he was slow-witted. After that, Ruckert would hound me to read to him. He’d ask questions about everything.

  “Another time, I took my boys to town. We had Holden and Hugh by then. The boys met some new children in the grocery. The store clerk offered them each a piece of candy on the house and asked which kind they wanted, sour ball or stick. Ruckert couldn’t get his answer out. His mouth twisted all up. He was trying his hardest because he wanted that candy so bad. But the store clerk got embarrassed, had never seen anything like it, and just turned and walked away. The parents of the other children hurried them out the store as if Ruckert had some terrible catching disease.”

  Rose tipped back another swallow, and Shelby grieved for Ruckert’s childhood along with her.

  Muffled voices could be heard from without, and Shelby leaned forward to let Rose know she still had her undivided attention. “Never mind them,” she encouraged. “Go on.”

  “He worried me, being so quiet,” Rose admitted. “Even when he walked, he was like a silent little Indian who didn’t want folks to know he was there. Charley said a little boy ought to be making some kind of noise, so folks could hear him coming. When Ruckert was six, Charl
ey bought him his first set of spurs and attached jinglebobs to them, just so we’d know Ruckert was around and to break the silence that surrounded him. Ruckert liked those jinglebobs. He’s been wearing them ever since, but the quiet and serious little boy has grown into a quiet and serious man.”

  Shelby gave a wry grin. “Well, that would certainly explain a lot.” She gave the woman’s hand a squeeze, but Rose still wasn’t finished.

  “We sent our boys to boarding schools back East for their educations. I’m originally from Virginia myself, you see, and I know the value of a good education. But we couldn’t find a boarding school that’d take Ruckert. It wasn’t fair. He was smarter than most boys his age. So he went to a local school. But he was different, and children like to point out differences in each other and make fun of them. His teacher tried to tell me his speech defect indicated a lack of intelligence. This was because whenever someone would ask Ruckert a question, he’d just shrug his shoulders and say, ‘I don’t know.’ We knew all along he did know. He was a smart boy. Especially after all his reading. He just didn’t want to talk. And he was always getting into fights. So much so, that finally the teacher asked us to keep him home. And that’s when he started riding out on his own to watch the wild horses, wishing he was one of them, I guess. It seemed to be the only thing that made him happy. He’d talk out loud to the horses when he thought no one was listening and his voice . . . it’d be just as plain and clear as could be.”

  Shelby swallowed this enlightening info with another sip of brandy, but it didn’t help the truth go down easier. She’d misjudged Ruckert, and as the spirits warmed her insides, she struggled to adjust her perception of the man she mistakenly thought she had figured. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this sooner, Rose?”

  “One thing I learned living in a family of six males. You don’t tamper with a man’s pride or you’re asking for trouble. Ruckert asked me not to say anything, and I had to respect his wishes. We always thought it best to let him work these things out for himself. And I suspect that was what he was doing when he sat down at the table this evening. He must’ve decided to stop hiding his stutter. I imagine it took a lot for him to do that.”

  And Shelby had humiliated him in front of his family. But as she reflected back over the evening, she grew confused on one point. “But, wait. He spoke the blessing and his speech was perfect.”

  “Ruckert never stutters when he prays. We thought it might’ve been a sign he was meant to be a preacher, but no, that didn’t seem right. He would never have become known as Hoss Man. He’d be spending his time tending to folks instead of horses, and horses are the one thing that make Ruckert happy. They make him feel useful. We’ve accepted his stuttering. We even joke about it. It’s the fear of losing your fine opinion of him, dear, that I suspect is causing him pain.”

  A sick feeling churned inside Shelby’s stomach, so much so she emptied her glass hoping to dispel it. “I feel awful. I should apologize. I have to go to him.”

  But as she started to rise, Rose wrapped her fingers around Shelby’s wrist in a firm grasp. “Maybe it’s best for now to leave him alone. There’s nothing more intolerable to Ruckert than to have someone feel sorry for him.”

  “I see,” Shelby said, though she still felt she must find a way to apologize.

  Rose released her and sat back with a sigh. “It wears me out, fretting about something I can’t change, but if I could have anything for Ruckert it wouldn’t be so much to make his stuttering go away, but for him to realize the wonderful man he is and not let this one thing continue to have power over him.”

  Rose’s shoulders slumped. She was talked out, as drained as Shelby felt. Together they sat in silence, tucked inside the little room beneath the staircase, wrapped in the lamp’s cozy glow, secluded from the rest of the world, just the two of them and their thoughts and feelings.

  Two women sharing their heartache. Although Shelby had never told anyone of her heartache, except maybe Caitlin, but it was present with her in this room, helping her comprehend Ruckert’s pain.

  Some moments later, Shelby heard a noise, a faint scratching at the door, then a soft canine whine. There came a knock, and with a sinking feeling, she realized their private girls’ club moment had reached an end.

  “Go on,” Rose said sullenly, indicating Shelby should open the door. She did, but only a crack.

  “You ladies all right in there?” It was Hugh.

  It occurred to Shelby she and Rose had been tucked inside this room for some time while Rose was unburdening herself.

  “Yes, we’re fine.” Rose called. “We’ll be out soon.”

  But not yet. Shelby sensed the unfinished thought in Rose’s tone.

  “Well there’s a little doggie out here looking for his mama.” Hugh opened the door wide enough for Jorge to scurry inside. He clawed at Shelby’s leg, begging to be lifted, his insecurities clearly visible and not ashamed to show them.

  As Shelby scooped him off the floor, her eyes met Hugh’s above Jorge’s head. He studied her a moment before turning his attention to this mother. “Sure you’re all right?”

  “Just women talk,” Rose assured him. “Has anyone seen Ruckert?”

  “He saddled Chongo and rode off. We figured it best to let him go.”

  Rose nodded.

  “Thanks for bringing Jorge.”

  Hugh gazed at her with an understanding that made Shelby think again of her brother-in-law.

  She shook off the thought and closed the door after him, cuddling Jorge in her lap and once again sharing the companionable silence with Rose.

  Shelby didn’t dare laugh, but she thought then of Holden and the way he seemed ready to burst into laughter all throughout dinner, hiding his smile behind his coffee cup, and suddenly the whole absurdity of the situation hit her. Not just what she had done to Ruckert, but this whole crazy business of traveling through time, of Hugh resembling Michael, of Ruckert hiding his stuttering with sexy whispers and conversations with her dog, and she couldn’t help but see the humor.

  She giggled, an involuntary release of nervous hysteria. She looked guiltily at Rose, who stared back at her, until all at once they simultaneously started laughing, dissipating the tension in the room. They laughed until their sides hurt and tears leaked from their eyes.

  When at last their giggles had subsided, Shelby sobered her thoughts. “Oh Rose,” she sighed. “What am I going to do?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Shelby waited for Ruckert until late in the evening. Over the thumping of her heart, she listened for his return between brief dozes, slowly losing her battle with fatigue, until she felt she couldn’t possibly remain conscious a moment longer. Then came a soft tinkling.

  Thank goodness for those jingly thingamabobs.

  As the tinkling grew more distinct, she slipped from bed and padded across the cold hardwood to her bedroom door.

  She hesitated, inhaling a deep breath, then opened the door enough to pop her head out. The hallway was saturated in darkness. She couldn’t make out Ruckert’s form until he was upon her, her sudden appearance stopping him cold in his tracks.

  “Do you have a minute?” she whispered softly.

  Jorge squeezed past, greeting Ruckert with gleeful writhing. Shelby swung the door open in invitation, then retreated back inside the room. “I’d like to talk to you. Please.”

  As Ruckert stepped forward and moved into the lamp light, she noted the weariness on his face.

  “I just wanted to, um. . . .” Shelby averted her gaze, rethinking her opening, then started again. “Your mother told me. . . .”

  His closed expression lent no encouragement, and she let the thought drop unfinished. How had she believed herself capable of reaching past Ruckert’s defenses?

  She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “Ruckert,” she stated more firmly, “I want you to know, what happened at the table, I didn’t mean—”

  His ha
rdened, formidable stare arrested her, but supposedly he must’ve thought better of his annoyance, because his expression relaxed. He closed his eyes, thick black lashes resting on tan cheeks, and when he opened them again, they were beautiful, filled with a deep, haunting sadness. She knew before Ruckert opened his mouth that it would be difficult for him to speak.

  “You d-d-don’t need t-t-t-to s-say it. S-serves me right for p-p-p-p-p-pretending to be other than I am.”

  It was the first time she’d seen him as a stutterer. To her, Ruckert was always cool, controlled and in charge, but here he stood, mortal and vulnerable. His countenance had changed. His confident veneer had turned to self-consciousness as he wrestled with his words. And Shelby couldn’t help it; she did feel pity and she hated herself for it.

  No, she amended. She felt compassion, which was different, but it wouldn’t seem any different to Ruckert. She’d bungled her attempt to apologize.

  “You get some s-s-sleep now.” He turned and strode out her door.

  Shelby didn’t want to feel sorry for him, but she did. She reached out, but he was gone, already down the hall.

  “Wait,” she mouthed after him. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  She didn’t sleep well. She rose earlier than usual and headed for the cookhouse with fresh determination, only to discover the stove lit and the meat already sliced for frying. Coffee was warming to a boil. Any hopes she’d had of meeting up with Ruckert were dashed the moment she spotted the Arbuckle peppermint stick he’d left for her on top of the red-and-white checkered tablecloth.

  His absence came as a bitter disappointment, the message it carried abundantly clear. Ruckert was avoiding her.

  Shelby prepared the meal with only Jorge for company. Breakfast was uneventful. Except for a new pinup of a sadly unattractive woman tacked next to the cookhouse laws. Fred had posted it to discourage his fellow punchers from correspondence courtships through the local matrimonial papers. Duncan asked her to sew a missing button on one of his shirts.