“Uh, look, I just finished up my last day of classroom, and I have another week to get the grades in, for what that’s worth. Marta e-mailed an application to Christus in Jasper, but she hasn’t heard back. With the way this week has been going, we don’t want to make a misstep is all. We’re on high alert, packed and ready to roll, but Marta doesn’t want to get a bad evaluation from her last job any more than I do.”
I released a sigh, unable to argue with my brother in this matter. He was making the careful moves, after all. If we were wrong about all our calculations, he and his wife could be throwing away their futures. In his defense, the situation in his neck of the woods seemed limited to rioting in south and eastern parts of Dallas, but Fort Worth looked to be pulling together, not breaking down.
“I hear you. I was just hoping you were coming down. Wade and Dorothy are bringing Nancy and her daughter by this weekend is all.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Mike coached, just like he was giving instructions to one of the kids on his wrestling team. “Just get in there, make your evaluation based on her skills and compatibility, and wave bye-bye when you’re done. Easy as pie.”
“Sometimes I can’t tell when you are pretending to channel Forest Gump, and when you are genuinely sounding like a dumbass and need correction,” I grumped back. “She’s Dorothy’s little sister, so we have to agree to take them in when the time comes.”
“Well, then that should complete your evaluation right there, bro.” Mike went on, but his next words were not as playful or trite. “Bryan, just talk to the lady and her daughter. You do that all the time in your job. And try to think back. She was there at the meeting, so try to recall what you can about her mannerisms and attitudes on display there. What questions she asked, and why. This is not exactly rocket surgery.”
“More like brain science,” I bitched, and Mike just laughed at my pissy mood.
“All right, I’ll take care of it,” I finally muttered. Then casually, I asked the question that had been bugging me. “Hey, I was wondering, is there something special about Minneapolis? The line for the Disaster Evacuation zone jumps way far back east the further north you go.”
This time it was Mike’s turn to grunt with frustration, and I realized he still felt constrained by the threat of the Men in Black visiting his door if he said something out of line. “Just look at the map again, Bryan. I’m sure you’ll see Yogi and Booboo’s neighborhood.”
Fighting to pretend like nothing was wrong, I ended the phone call with a noncommittal, “See you when I see you, bro. Take care of the family.”
With that said, I dropped the call and returned the cell to the charger. I’d taken to keeping all of my devices fully charged, just in case. Then I slid the empty bowl out of my way and opened the left side desk drawer. Reaching down without looking, I dug out one of the paper atlases I kept in the hanging file. Yep, U.S. Atlas.
Flipping open to the centerfold map, I traced a finger along the location of the three cities, again noting the exaggerated bow at the top. Sliding my finger west on the old paper surface, I stopped when I reached the great green expanse centered around Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, reading the name in the middle. Yellowstone National Park.
“Oh, crap,” I whispered. The pieces clicked into place and I felt like a dumbass for not seeing it first. They have reason to think Yellowstone might erupt, too. I wondered if they were receiving data to that effect, or if it was just in an abundance of caution. Whether the U.S. Geological Survey or Homeland Security was calling the shots on this could make a huge difference, but I didn’t have the right contacts to find out.
A large enough eruption at Yellowstone could mean the end. Not just the end of our nation, or our current civilization, but possibly the end of the human race. On top of the already massive losses suffered from the meteor impact, if we suffered a supervolcano eruption along the lines of the three previous massive eruptions, then turn out the lights and get ready for the long night.
I stayed up late Friday night, alternating between the blather on the television and the sad tidings on the radio. Neither mentioned an uptick in seismic activity around Yellowstone, though there were plenty of other hotspots mentioned. Feeling morbid and slightly overwhelmed, I finally hit the sheets about two in the morning. Once again, nightmares haunted my restless sleep.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
As soon as I saw Nancy, I immediately recognized her as the younger lady who’d asked such good questions at the Husband’s family pow-wow. I wanted to say something witty or intelligent, but I was in need of some help at the moment.
“Grab a bucket from the shed, please?”
I’d greatly underestimated the number of cantaloupes this year and with the soggy soil, I need to get all of these ripened melons up and into the house before they began to rot on the ground. I knelt next to one of the dozen cantaloupe hills I’d planted in the spring, and I realized I should have trimmed back these plants even more.
When Wade called to let me know he was on the way over with his sister-in-law for a visit, I’d only planned to step out into the garden for a quick check, but seeing the state of the melons and aware the rain clouds were gathering once again, I started filling up the first bucket with melons and got lost in the work.
Because Wade was one of the few people with the gate code, I was happy to let him find his way around to the garden while I worked. Since the layout of the garden varied each year as I rotated the crops, necessary to prevent the development of certain types of root rot and a depletion of vital nutrients, the luck of the draw meant I was on the wrong side of the garden patch when I piled the last few melons in, and I still had two more hills to harvest. I found myself nearly a quarter mile from the garden shed where I stored the stacks of garden buckets and tools. Squelching along in my rubber boots as I stepped between the rows, I was still slogging back over to the garden shed when the trio turned to the corner and came into view.
“What’s the hurry, neighbor?” Wade called as he ducked into the little wooden building and retrieved another five-gallon plastic bucket.
I was proud to say I wasn’t out of breath when I set the first bucket aside and took the proffered handle from Wade.
“Those cantaloupes are all going home with you, Wade. They’ve gone full slip already, so eat ‘em quick. The rest are not quite as far along, but if I don’t get them today, I might as well let them go to seed with this next round of rain coming. That or feed ‘em to the hogs.”
Wade nodded his understanding, then gestured to his two companions.
“Bryan, this is Nancy Prentiss and her daughter, Lisa. Nancy, Lisa, this is our neighbor Bryan.”
Pulling off my gloves awkwardly, I stuck out a hand and shook with first Nancy, and then Lisa. Lisa had a typical soft hand of a little girl, but her mom’s hand was strong and lightly calloused. Nancy looked me in the eye when she worked my hand, and I could see caution and perhaps, a touch of curiosity there.
“Not exactly what I was expecting to find you doing, Mr. Hardin,” Nancy said with a small smile. “I thought you’d be inside, working on some legal documents or something like that.”
“That’s only during the weekdays. On the weekends, I tend to my gardens and take care of the animals. Well, except for milking the cow. That chore has to be done every morning or Maisie get upset.”
“Who’s Maisie?” Lisa asked, her voice still high and girlish, piping like a bird.
“That’s my milk cow,” I replied.
“What kind is she?”
“She’s a black angus, so that way I get chocolate milk,” I replied, and the little girl’s mouth fell open in surprise. I tried to keep from laughing, but Wade spoiled the moment when he couldn’t control his manly giggles.
“What? I don’t get it?” Lisa complained, and I quickly explained that Maisie was a Jersey, and that I was just making an old dairyman’s joke about where chocolate milk comes from.
“Oh, I guess that is kind of funny, but what is a Jersey? Or i
s that a joke, too?”
Lisa was a near clone of her mother, but on a smaller scale. She had the same honey blonde hair as her mother, perhaps a shade or two lighter, worn long in a French braid down her back. Like her mother, Lisa had big blue eyes than almost seemed too big for her small features. Where her mother seemed right at home with the black soil and mulch of the garden, her daughter held herself stiffly, as if afraid of getting dirty.
“No, ma’am, they are real. If you and your mom would like a tour, I can show you one over in the barn,” I volunteered, and Nancy quickly accepted my offer, but Lisa still looked skeptical.
“I don’t want to get my shoes dirty,” Lisa carefully explained, drawing on the full dignity of a girl, or young woman, her age. That made sense, and Wade and I escorted the ladies back to the house while I hauled the full bucket over and deposited it in the bed of Wade’s truck.
In the mudroom, I picked out several pairs of rubber boots for Nancy, Lisa and Wade, who as usual was wearing his cowboy boots this morning.
“Who do these belong to?” Lisa asked softly, peering closely as a pair of pink boots with daffodils on the side.
“Those are probably Rachel’s,” I explained, referring to Nikki’s daughter, and-then pointed at the slightly larger pair Nancy picked up. “Those belong to my sister-in-law, Marta. She has small feet, too.”
Nancy laughed, a real, hearty laugh that was in no way related to the polite titter women usually use in mixed company.
“Yeah, I don’t exactly have small feet,” she admitted. “I wear an eight, easy. I probably should move up to the next size.”
“Well, you can try Nikki’s, but she’s got feet like a moose.”
“Dang,” Wade blurted out. “I’m going to be sure and tell her that next time I see her. She’s going to get you good.”
“Is your sister as big as you and your brother?” Nancy asked, amused and curious at the same time.
“No, she’s just a little thing, about your size,” I said, “but she inherited the Hardin size when it comes to feet. I wear a size fourteen, and Mike is a size smaller.”
“Uh, Bryan, I’m tall for a girl,” Nancy protested, “I’m nearly five-ten barefoot.”
I turned away to hide my embarrassment at my familiar tone while bantering with Nancy and her daughter. Wade I was comfortable with, but I’d only just met this mother and her child, and here I was chattering away with them like old friends. I realized that was how they felt, like people I’d known for ages rather than near strangers.
“Nancy, Bryan’s sister is five-ten easy. You should see his cousin Mary. She’s at least one, maybe two inches over six feet. I’m sure that’s what Bryan’s measuring from.”
Thankful for Wade’s timely intercession, I nodded before rejoining the conversation while the ladies tried on boots. “On my father’s side, we tend to be tall and slender. On my mother’s side, it was not quite as tall, and wide. Mike and I both got the tall and wide genes, and our sister got the not quite so tall but slender combination. On the Hardin side, I can think of at least three female cousins who top six feet. It made for some pretty competitive backyard basketball games growing up.”
That comment got the conversation onto high school sports, where I discovered Nancy had lettered in both basketball and softball at Little Cypress Mauriceville in Orange. LCM was a large school, in the 4A or 5A range, I thought, so that was not an easy accomplishment with all the competition involved. I said as much, and I thought Nancy blushed at the comment.
“Shoot, Bryan, she was good enough to get a basketball scholarship to Lamar,” Wade added, and then he looked away, embarrassed for some reason. Then I did the quick math and figured it out. Wade had said Nancy was four years younger than Dorothy, who I knew was thirty-six. That made Nancy about thirty-two, and with Lisa being twelve, then Nancy was in college when she had her daughter, so I figured that was the story.
Deciding to move on to other topics, I got busy getting everyone situated with the required footwear and began the tour, starting with the barnyard side first. I admit, I felt more than a little pride while giving the tour, and Wade didn’t hurt by pointing out how I’d helped with some of the construction. I’m sure both Nancy and Lisa had already seen plenty of similar structures at Wade’s house, so I moved quickly through the physical structures and led the way to what I figured would get me the best response.
“And over here, we have the stables,” I explained, gesturing to the ten stall horse barn we’d added on the backside of the massive haybarn. In addition to the stalls, I’d made sure we had a large tack room and an oversized, five-acre corral for the horses to exercise.
In truth, I hadn’t planned on horses. That was a Marta and Nikki decision, and I went along with it when they pooled the money to pay for the barn. Four years ago, Marta already had a ten-year-old mare named Quicksilver that she’d been boarding for nearly five years, a gift from her elderly, horse breeding uncle who lived in Tennessee. Quicksilver was more pet than riding stock, but I found out Marta was shelling out nearly four hundred dollars a month for the horse in boarding fees.
Now that we had the first horse, Nikki was not long in getting her own. Another mare, this one a buckskin with no particularly distinguished lineage. So, in the next few years, our equine population grew to eight horses. Four mares for riding, plus a filly and a colt, and a pair of big geldings I’d been training to pull a hay wagon in the local Cowboys Days parade. We’d lost Silver just last year at the ripe old age of sixteen to colic, and I replaced her with a blue roan mare I’d picked up for three hundred dollars at auction. I’d outbid the dogfood purchaser, and I’d tried to name her Kibble. I was overruled, and Tamara won the name game with her suggestion of Azure. It was blue too, but nothing like the horse in question.
The horses normally shared a pasture with the cows, forming their own little herd, and I left the gate open to their corral if they wanted to get in out of the rain. Today, I found three of the mares congregated under the weather awning, even though the rain hadn’t started yet.
“Can I pet them?” Lisa immediately asked, her bright eyes shining at the prospect.
“May I pet them?” Nancy corrected, and the tween gave her mother a long-suffering sigh before rephrasing the question properly.
“Sure, but don’t be surprised if they get close,” I warned her. “They won’t hurt you, but some of them, especially Cupcake there,” I pointed to the smallest of the trio, a three-year-old filly who was the offspring of Pumpkin, Nikki’s buckskin mare, “are very curious about new people. She might even try to get into your shirt pocket, thinking you have a treat for her.”
Lisa gave me a serious stare, and I saw her mother try to hide her grin. Obviously, Nancy had been around horses at some time in her life, because she didn’t bat an eyelash at the admonition.
“Why would she try to do that?” Lisa asked, her voice showing the first sign of nerves as we drew closer to the wooden fence separating the small corral from the rest of what we considered the back yard.
I veered away from the fence though, and headed into the barn. Before Lisa could speak again, I held up a finger in her direction to forestall further questions and fished around on one of the high shelves built adjacent to the entryway. Ah ha, found it, I thought as I pulled out the sealed plastic box and peeled off the top, turning and extending the open box.
“What are those?” Lisa asked with a curled lip of dismay. The brownish pieces did resemble cracked leather.
“Dehydrated apple slices,” I explained. “The reason Cupcake, or even her mom Pumpkin there, might go digging in your shirt pocket. That’s where I usually hide them,” I admitted with a shrug. “But, if you want to, you can just hold them in your hand, like this,” I demonstrated, palm up, “and Cupcake will be your friend.”
“Really?”
I laughed at her sudden shift back to eager child at the idea of making friends with the horses. She reminded me of my niece Rachel, who was only a year you
nger and completely horse crazy.
“Really, but it only lasts for about five minutes, then she forgets who you are. Horses are like that,” I confided, adding the last bit with a sad sigh and Nancy and Wade both laughed.
After taking the ladies around the rest of the farmstead for their tour, Nancy and Lisa assisted with the collection of the remainder of the ripe cantaloupes. Judging from the condition of the other plants, I was confident we would continue having more of the sweet melons ripening for several more weeks to come.
Back at the house, Nancy indicated she was ready to talk about the real reason for the visit, and Wade offered to take Lisa home with him to give us some privacy. I told Nancy I would be happy to give her a ride home, and then I accused Wade of simply wanting to make off with the cantaloupes before Nancy could even get a bite.
Lisa laughed along with everyone else, and she didn’t bat an eye at going off down the road with her uncle.
“Dorothy and Wade have been a Godsend,” Nancy explained as we sat drinking tea in the kitchen. She preferred hot tea to coffee and I hadn’t used any of my Bigelows in a while, so I made some for us both. “After I finally got up the gumption to leave Texarkana and get out from under Nolan’s thumb, they have helped me every step of the way. First with giving me a place to stay, and then with Wade putting in a word for me at the REA.”
The Rural Electrification Agency was a leftover from New Deal days when the government was cranking out infrastructure jobs to give working men something to do when employment hit the rocks. Fast forward to today, and the locals still called it the REA or the Co-Op when referring to their electric provider. Albany County Co-Op was the commercial power supplier to my farm and everyone else who lived in the county.
“That’s good,” I agreed, “getting on with the power company can’t be a bad job. What they have you doing?”
“Running a loader in the yard,” she explained with a shy little grin. “They can’t put a girl out in public running any of that heavy equipment or some old biddies’ heads might explode. If I’m doing the loading back in the pole stacks, though, nobody will be complaining.”
Rockfall Page 14
