Shay was smiling. “Yeah,” he said, “you can buy a puppy.”
“Darlin’,” I said, “if we buy just one, the kids will fight over it. Can’t we buy two puppies?”
“Two of the same?”
“No,” I said. “A boy puppy for Wessy and a little girl puppy for Kelly. I want that tiny little reddish-brown and white Pekingese runt for Kelly, and, Shay, let’s get that sweet Keeshond for Wessy. Can’t you just see the little guy wrestling with him?”
Well, our family had just grown at the auction where Shay said we weren’t going to buy anything. These were registered puppies; together they cost Shay four-hundred-and- twenty-four dollars.
We left the auction and went to buy two dog bowls, dog food, two collars and leashes—we even bought a couple dog beds. Oh, let’s face it: we were buying the puppies for ourselves as much as we were for the kids. We decided to wait and let the kids name them.
On the way back to the ranch that evening, Shay said, “I can’t believe we bought four dogs today!”
“You didn’t,” I said, “You only bought two.”
“Princess, are you forgetting the two hotdogs we bought?” Shay asked with a silly grin.
“Shay Westover,” I said, “you are such a goof!”
When we got to the ranch, a very light rainy mist was coming down. Shay unloaded the car while I took the poor little shaking puppies inside. After I fed them and walked them, they took to their warm sheep’s wool beds fast.
I fixed chicken noodle soup and egg salad sandwiches with iced tea. I told Shay I was going to shower.
“Wait a minute,” Shay said as he dashed in the bedroom. He came out with his beautiful Indian-print blanket.
“Strip, babe,” he said, as he helped me. Then I helped him undress.
“Come on!” He took my hand and we ran out the front door totally naked.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“We’re going out to the very spot where we made love on our honeymoon. Remember that erotic night in the rain after your little naked dance?”
“Of course I do! I will remember it until the day I die. I really turned you on that night,” I laughed.
Shay spread the blanket and tackled me to the ground. I was ready for the most explosive sex of my life. I wanted fireworks. Well, I got lightning! Out of nowhere, a lightening bolt struck about fifty feet away from us, followed by a God-awful crack of thunder.
I’d expected sparks—but not that kind!
Shay pulled me up, grabbed the blanket and ran into the house. When we got inside, we were both still shaking from our close call. Then we started laughing, saying how, if we’d been struck by lighting, the newspaper would have read, “Two Naked Charred Bodies Found On a Blanket, That Must Have Been One Hot Lovemaking Session.”
We settled for inside sex and made it just as hot and steamy. I do still laugh, though, when I think of how fast Shay got us up off the ground and into the house. He could move in more ways than one!
***
Sunday afternoon, I told Shay I was really craving root beer. He said that he would run into the burg, which was about twenty minutes away, and get us some. I could hear the glass packs making their cackling sound as he drove off. I didn’t know what I was going to do for the next hour or so; I decided to just do a little exploring, see what was in the dresser drawers and the closets. There were clothes, pajamas, magazines—that sort of thing. Then I opened the closet in one of the smaller bedrooms and was shocked to see a box of baby toys I recognized as little Rie-Rie’s that had disappeared before we got home from Lincoln. I bet Maggie had sent them up when Sterling came up to the ranch. It was kind of them to get the toys out of my sight for a while, I did appreciate it. I sat there looking through the box, each and every toy, so precious to me. I looked at each one and held it close to my heart.
In the bottom of the box I found her Tuneyville Choo Choo train. I picked it up and took it to the kitchen and set it on the kitchen table. I sat down and let my mind wander back to Rie-Rie’s first and only Christmas, when she had gotten the train.
It was a week before Christmas that year and Shay had gone to Hudson on business. It had started snowing when he left, and when I looked out the window I saw that it was really coming down. I was hoping Shay would get home soon. At least two more hours passed until I heard the Impala pass the house; I was so relieved.
When Shay walked in the back door he was covered in snow. His arms were full of wrapped Christmas presents.
“Ho, ho, ho! Santa’s home!” he said as he came into the kitchen.
Shay had never gone Christmas shopping for the kids without me, but the Christmas bug must have bitten him that year.
“Gee, what have you got there?” I asked.
“I just have a few things for the kids and my wife,” he smiled.
“Oh, what pretty boxes,” I said admiringly, “your wife is a lucky woman.”
He kissed me and went into the living room to put the packages under the tree. Our Christmas tree was always beautiful, in its special place right at the base of the curved staircase. It was always a big tree, at least nine or ten feet tall, reaching its crowned top toward our beautiful high ceilings. The house was probably built eighty years ago and had excellent craftsmanship. Shay told the kids he had run into Santa while he was out, and Santa had given him these gifts for Christmas morning.
***
On Christmas morning, Shay’s famous “Ho, ho, ho!” rang through the house, followed by the old, “Hey! I just saw Santa!” Which of course was the kids’ signal to come thundering down the stairs and start their Christmas.
I carried little Rie-Rie down and sat her on her little blanket. She was six months old and had been sitting up for about a month. She was excited watching the kids open their presents, laughing at the pretty paper flying everywhere.
Then I sat down by her and I opened her presents. She was so happy. She made little cooing sounds and talked in her little baby lingo. We opened a box that Shay had gotten for her on his snowy day shopping trip, and it was the little Tuneyville Choo Choo. It was a little train with an opening in the back that you inserted a little round disc into. The disc would turn, and the cogs in the disc would move the train and play different nursery rhythms. There were about six different discs in different colors. Well, Shay bent down beside little Rie-Rie and put the disc in the back but the little train wouldn’t move, the shag carpet was too thick. Now Rei-Rei didn’t know the difference, but Shay did. I remember him saying to her in his tender baby voice:
“Oh my! Looky! Train all caught. Daddy’s going to fix it.”
He picked her up gently in her little blanket and took her to the kitchen doorway. With one hand he spread her blanky down, then sat her on it so the tiled kitchen floor was in front of her.
“Daddy’s getting the train, Daddy’s getting the choo choo train,” he said as he hurried to get the train and bring it to her.
He didn’t want her to think he’d left her sitting there alone. He set the train up on the kitchen floor and when he put the disc in, it started going in circles and playing music. She got the biggest grin on her face and sat there clapping her little hands. He must have spent at least half an hour down there with her, playing the different discs. I think he was having as much fun as she was. Thinking back, it had to have been my insecurities that made me think Shay wasn’t as attentive to her as the others. He loved that little girl.
Just as I was thinking back on all this, Shay walked in the door. He set the root beer down; then he sat down at the table in front of the train.
“Where did you find this?”
“Your mom had Rie-Rie’s toys stored up here at the ranch.”
While I fixed us our root beers in frosted glasses from the freezer, I saw Shay playing with the train. I knew there were a lot of memories flowing back for him, just like they had for me.
“Callie, let’s take the train home with us and put it up on the shelf. Is that okay with you?
Can you do that?”
“Shay, the same thing crossed my mind, and yes, I can handle it now. I think it would be nice.” I put the glasses down, then put my arms around him. “Shay Man, you have given me a strength I never thought I’d have.”
We left the train sitting out there on the table the rest of the time we were at the ranch. Somehow that little train made the love we had for each other flow through the ranch house all the more.
***
Monday was a beautiful calm day. I made a big dinner—a t-bone steak, baked potatoes, frozen corn and a fresh garden salad. I even baked banana bread. After dinner I rounded up the dishes and Shay helped me wash and dry them.
“Want to go horseback riding?’ he asked.
“I just want to sit out on the porch and soak up this beautiful sun,” I said. “With fall coming there won’t be too many more nice days.”
So we went out on the big wraparound porch. As usual I, sat one step below Shay. I loved it when he wrapped his knees and arms around me. We sat there for about forty-five minutes talking about how beautiful the Sand Hills were. This was the land that Mari Sandoz wrote about. I remember reading her best-selling biography, Old Jules, while I was in high school. There were miles of prairie grass as far as the eye could see. It was some of the greatest cattle grazing grass in the world. Buffalo used to roam wild here—the major food source of the Cheyenne, Sioux, Dakota, and Pawnee Indians.
The Sand Hills had the most amazing sunsets. I loved watching the pink, gray and golden skies slowly merge and gently kiss the earth. It was mid-afternoon as we sat peacefully together, the sun warming the front porch. Shay even gave me a great shoulder rub.
“Hey, Shay, I think I want your clothes off,” I said after a long, contented silence.
“Yeah? Just my clothes? Are you gonna take yours off too?”
Shay was looking out toward the road, and I was looking straight ahead at the beautiful field. The prairie grass was about three feet high and rippling in the wind. They mowed it in the spring, and again in the summer, then just let it grow tall for the winter.
“Shay,” I said suddenly. “I think I saw something running out there in the weeds.” I pointed to the field.
“Probably did,” Shay said mildly. “There’s a lot of antelope out here, could even be a deer.”
“Well, whatever it is, it’s black,” I said.
We both sat there looking, putting our hands above our eyes to shield against the sun and get a better view.
Suddenly Shay jumped over me, ran down the steps and into the field. He ran out about forty-five yards. I couldn’t figure out what he was doing, when all of a sudden I saw a child jump up into Shay’s arms. I could see the child had black hair. Shay put one arm on the child’s back and one hand on his neck, the old “Shay hold,” and stood there talking to him. Then he turned and came running real fast back to the house with the child in his arms.
“Callie, get in the house,” he commanded.
“Shay, what’s going on?”
“Don’t talk, just listen: call the operator, tell her to get the sheriff and have him come to the Westover ranch. Tell him to go to the bunkhouse right away. We have a couple of guys who don’t belong there and one of them has a gun. And tell them to get some medical help—there was a shooting! Do it, Callie, do it right now!”
As I was making the call I saw Shay use a skillet to break the glass on the gun cabinet door. He took out two handguns and a high-powered rifle, checked them all to see if they were loaded, then handed me a handgun with the barrel pointing downward.
“Callie, I don’t know what’s happing at the bunkhouse, but this is Manuel, he’s Alberto’s son. Everyone calls him Manny. You keep him here with you; the two of you stay in the house. Callie, don’t let anyone you don’t know in. If some stranger tries, use the gun the way I taught you.”
“Shay, I still don’t know what’s happening?” I said. “Where are you going? You’re not going to the bunkhouse if someone is shooting!”
“I’m going to leave the Impala here for you in case you and Manny need to leave. Manny,” Shay bent down and addressed the child, “I want you to stay here and take care of Callie for me. Can you do that?”
“I’ll take good care of her, Mr. Shay,” said Manny. “But please help my papa. I think he was shot somewhere, I saw blood on him.”
“Shay, what are you thinking?” I shrilled. “You can’t just drive the pickup to the bunkhouse and get yourself shot!”
“That’s not my plan, babe. If I drive to the feed shed, we have a trapdoor in there that goes down underground. It runs to the corrals and then to the bunkhouse. It’s used during blizzards so the men don’t get lost. I’ll need the flashlight, where is it?”
“I think it’s by the night stand.” I ran to the bedroom to look. “Yep, here it is, Shay. Please don’t go playing hero, you should just wait for the sheriff —”
But he had already grabbed the flashlight and was out the door.
Manny and I placed ourselves where we could see if anyone tried to get in, staying down and out of sight. It was like a nightmare. I couldn’t believe someone had been shot! It was like the Wild West. There were about eight or nine ranch hands down at the bunkhouse, I thought. If they couldn’t help themselves, what could Shay possibly do?
As I waited, my mind wandered back to the news alert I’d heard on the radio on the way up. Two escaped convicts with a gun: two men and a gun. I kept telling myself I needed to keep a calm head. I needed to stay calm for Manny. So I let all of Shay’s words soak in: if anything was going to happen it would happen while I had a clear head.
Keep a cool head, Callie, I told myself. Somehow I managed.
***
After about forty minutes of tense waiting, Manny and I heard the sheriff and several cars go flying down the road towards the bunkhouse. They stayed down there quite awhile. After what must have been over an hour of agonizing waiting, the phone rang. I think I nearly jumped out of my skin.
“Hello?”
“Hey princess.”
“Oh, thank God,” I breathed, feeling faint. “You’re okay.”
“I’m okay. Everything’s going to be fine. I’ll tell you everything when I get back. Tell Manny his papa will be fine.”
“Okay…” I hung up the phone with a shaky hand and just sunk into the nearest chair.
When Shay got back to the house he told us what had happened.
He had gone to the feed shed and into the underground tunnel, working his way from there to the bunkhouse. The stairs to the bunkhouse door went into the pantry, and the pantry door was usually closed, as it was today. All the doors in the bunkhouse had these little star-shaped cutout designs, next to a little half moon—the builder had really put detail in to the knotty pinewood. So once in the pantry, Shay was able to look through the little star holes, and he saw a man holding a gun, positioned like he was holding prisoners. His back was to Shay, so Shay took off his boots and slowly opened the pantry door, holding his gun on the gunman, ready to fire if necessary, while he slowly tiptoed across the kitchen floor. Shay got all the way up to the gunman without either man seeing him. He said the hands could see him, and he could see relief on their faces.
Then he put the handgun to the guy’s temple and cocked it: the guy just leaned forward in his chair, bent down and laid his gun on the floor. From there the hands jumped into action and grabbed the guys; some of them took a couple swings at the intruders.
Shay said Alberto had been leaving the bunkhouse just as the guys were about to open the door and come inside. The gunman was startled and shot Alberto in the arm. The intruders had let the hands tie a belt real tight around Alberto’s arm, but otherwise held them at gunpoint. Manny was in the bathroom when he heard the shot, and when he looked out through one of the star holes in the door he saw blood, so he got the little window open and squeezed out. He knew we were at the main house, so he ran a long way through fields that were filled with sandburs. The poor kid
was barefoot, so his feet were full of stickers, but he never stopped running.
Alberto had Shay call his wife, Cassie, and she said she would pick Manny up the next day around noon, as Alberto was going to be in the hospital for a couple of days.
“Am I going to stay here tonight, Mr. Shay?” Manny asked.
“You sure are, little man,” said Shay, grinning. “Wait a minute, after what you did today you’re a big man! Guess we have to call you big man now.” He tousled Manny’s black hair.
“You’re going to be sleeping in a big bed all by yourself, Manny,” I told him.
Samson and Sunset Page 28
