A Feather in the Rain (4 page)

“Got a deal goin' up here at the Colorado Springs Rodeo. Might be kinda fun for you. They're wanting to do a pro-celebrity cuttin' to raise money for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Bunch of big corporations are sponsoring the thing. Hotel is donating rooms. Bring a couple of horses, meet some good folks, maybe catch yourself a movie star. And we'll be doing some good for these kids with CF. Whuddyuh think?” It seemed he'd said it all on one breath.

“I think you ought be selling beach houses in Nevada.

When do I need to be there?”

He gave him the dates and said, “Come up a few days early if you can. I got a bunch of horses to ride and we'll get around a little.”

F
loyd Cox's place was a dust bowl churned by trucks and trailers maneuvering for space.

About thirty-five teams were entered. First place jackpot winners could take home a little more than one thousand dollars each. But the toughs were there. The eighteen-year-olds with faster-than-the-eye-can-see hands swinging ropes they keep next to their beds at night. In the mornings, one hand aims the urine, the other fondles the rope. It was gonna be a tough roping. Five steers. You could be fastest on four, miss one and you'd go home empty.

Billy Diggs' brown and white head horse was like the heavy equipment he drove. Hugely muscled and athletic, standing quiet till asked to go to the task. Then he could drag a rhino to Albuquerque at the end of a rope. And he could run some, too.

Jesse's red roan, normally a quiet, soft-eyed, gelding when not at a roping was now a coiled steel spring in a sweat-shine from his eartips to his tail. He stepped as if on hot coals as Jesse eased him
toward the heeler's box, on the steer's right side. This was their last steer. They'd caught four. They needed this one and they'd have to be quick. They still had a shot.

Billy's placid paint walked into the header's box on the steer's left and mechanically turned front with his eye on the captive steer and waited. Nice horns, thought Billy as he visualized his perfect loop snaring and coming tight. He looked across the steer to the other side at Jesse trying to settle the impatient roan into the corner for a good start. Jesse shook his loop, caught Billy's eye, and nodded. Billy nodded to the chute man who tapped a trigger and the brindle steer shot out of the chute with Billy and Jesse in hot pursuit. Billy swung once and delivered the loop to the horns, jerked the slack and in a blur dallied the rope around his saddle horn and turned left, taking with him the flying steer. Jesse rounded the corner with his loop whirling and his eyes locked on the hopping hind feet of the steer. In perfect time he placed the loop where the feet were headed and roped them out of the air. As the roan stuck his tail in the ground, Jesse jerked his slack and dallied. The arena judge dropped his flag. The bullhorn squawked, “Eight flat. Diggs and Burrell.” Not fast enough for first, but they'd get their entry money back and then some. They'd had a good day.

Floyd Cox was a youthful half-century old, with silver-white hair and a white mustache traveling down each side of his mouth terminating at his jaw. The chew behind his lower lip looked like he harbored a golf ball. The brightest blue eyes twinkled above shining red cheeks. When afoot, he traveled on bandy legs under a trophy buckle obscured by his belly as if he were fleeing a fire. No stroller he.

He could tell a story and loved to laugh. Jesse and Billy were just finishing untacking their horses when he rolled up with a Coors in his hand and spat.

“Goddamn, you boys roped good today.” Then he launched right into it, rapid-fire. “So this ol' boy decides he wants to git hisself a guard dog. So he goes out and gits a goddamn Rottweiler with a neck on him like a tree trunk and takes him home. That night that
son of a bitch terrorizes the entire family. The wife locks herself in the bedroom, and the kids just make it to their rooms with this son of a bitch a-chewing at the doorknob. He catches the family cat, kills it, and eats the damn thing. The ol' boy jumps on the phone to the vet and says, ‘Doc, this is one rank son of a bitch. I don't know what the hell to do with him.' Vet says, ‘Bring him round here tomorrow and we'll castrate him. See if that quiets him down.' Next morning the ol' boy snaps a stout chain on to the collar and sets out. This Rottweiler is a-pullin' and a-haulin' and a-jerkin' this ol' boy down the street. He finally gets him stopped at a crosswalk. There's a pedestrian walking on the other side of the street. That dog makes a lunge at the chain, breaks the snap, and takes off like a rocket after the pedestrian. This guy is a-runnin' for his life, his knees to his chest. That dog is snappin' at his heels. He makes a leap through the air, tackles the guy to the ground, and jumps on his chest. He is just about to tear the guy's throat out when up comes a-runnin', pantin' out of breath, the owner. He reaches down, grabs the collar, and jerks the dog back just in time. He looks down at the terrified guy on the ground and says, ‘Jesus man I'm sorry, I apologize. I was just now taking this son of a bitch to the vet to have him castrated.' The guy looks up and says, ‘Castrate him hell. You need to take that son of a bitch to a dentist. I could tell from a block away he wasn't gonna fuck me!'”

Jesse and Billy roared while Floyd giggled with delight as if he hadn't heard it before.

Seemed like Floyd had told the story on one breath, words flying like bullets. When he'd finished he spat brown juice and took a swig of Coors. Seemed he had a compartmentalized oral cavity that allowed him to do both at the same time.

On the drive back home, Billy extended an invite from his wife Kathy Sue. Her cousin Marlene from Oklahoma City was coming to visit for a few days and Kathy Sue would like for Jesse to come to supper. Billy said, “She works for the newspaper. I met her once. She's about halfway ornamental. She might be too needle-witted for
a feller like you though.” Jesse said he'd come. He was thinking more about the food and a couple of hours with Billy's boys than meeting a new woman. A small sadness moved in his heart, and he turned away from Billy to look out the window.

T
he first thing people noticed about Kathy Sue Diggs was a cascade of blond hair she could sit on. Seeking recognition for something deeper, she had cut it all off and now sported a two-inch pixie shag framing her pretty scrubbed face.

When she opened the door, Jesse damn near fell back. Her hand fussed in her hair. Jesse said, “Wow! That was a bold move.” His grin grew wider as he studied her face. “You look great. I mean beautiful.” She knew he meant it. He thrust forward a handful of wildflowers and a bottle of red wine.

Mason, a lean fourteen, was the quieter, more cerebral of the boys. He was a talented rider and held Jesse in the highest esteem. He greeted Jesse with a grownup handshake and the news that Billy and Lucas were out back tending the grill.

Billy had thawed a brace of pheasants he'd shot last season and was doing a hell of a job making them look like a magazine cover with the rambunctious Lucas wielding a pepper mill.

Marlene McAdams had a body to stop a Mormon in mid-sermon. An abundant luxury of shining, jet-black hair bespoke a Cherokee ancestry. She was big-city glib, confident, educated, and politically informed. But she didn't hit you over the head with it. Jesse found her to be a very attractive and pleasing woman.

In the kitchen, Kathy Sue carved hunks of apple pie and slid them onto plates as Marlene dropped a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream on each one, saying, “He's amazing. Every time he says something, it's a surprise. He must spend half his time reading. And foreign films. I bet he's the only man in Texas that's ever seen a foreign film.” She licked her fingers. “He's a horse trainer?”

“One of the best. Billy says he's half horse,” said Kathy Sue.

“Which half?” She snickered. “I didn't say that. He sure is interesting. He seems a million miles away even when he's looking straight in your eyes.”

“Yeah…I think he is a million miles away. When his boy died, most all of Jesse went with him. Jesse was a pistol, always laughing, playing jokes on people, always up for a good time. The boy was everything to him. He raised him by himself.”

“No woman in his life?” Marlene licked vanilla ice cream off her fingers.

“Not so's anyone would notice. He never seemed to miss having a woman much. Oh, I'm sure he had his quiet little things going on now and then. The women are all crazy about him. But mostly he seemed to keep to himself…his boy, his horses, and his dogs.” Kathy Sue had loaded a tray with pie. She picked it up, shook her head at the sadness of it, and making a little lip sound said, “He sure would make somebody a catch.”

Jesse stood, patted his belly and asked Marlene if she'd like to walk some of it off. Ambling under the stars she shared some privacies of her past and secret hopes for her future in a frank and open way. Jesse listened.

Hardly a leaf stirred as they sat on the tailgate of the Ford, feet dangling and no sound between them. She followed an impulse and
reached out and touched his cheek in a sweet and gentle way. Her voice seemed to come from afar. “You're a good man, Jesse. You've got kind eyes.”

Marlene knew that at least for now it wasn't going any further. She inhaled the night and sighed. “Well, I guess I'd better go on in.”

He smiled and nodded.

“I enjoyed meeting you Jesse. Maybe we'll see each other again sometime.”

“I hope so.”

She put her face close to his and swept him up in her huge brown eyes and softly placed her lips on his and said goodnight. She turned and walked away.

He watched her go, enjoying the swinging flare of her hips, knowing she was aware. She waved her arm without turning back.

T
hough thin as a pen, Holly tossed the stuffed duffel into the overhead bin like a farmer bucking hay. She punched it back so the door would close, then climbed into the window seat and crammed another bag under her feet. She wore dark glasses, a ball cap over a ponytail, and a soft white shirt under her brother's blazer, jeans, and handmade buckskin moccasins. By the time the plane took off, she had her notebook in her lap, a pen in hand, and headphones on. A half-hour later, she took a deep conscious breath and blew it out as if to purge herself of New York.

There was no attempt on her part to draw attention to herself. She wore no makeup or visible adornments of any kind and hoped to be undisclosed behind the incognita of black lenses. Yet an aura compelled even the dullest eyes to follow her. Aware of the guy in the tie next to her feeding figures in columns to his laptop, she hoped his occupation would last the length of the flight. At that moment, he stopped typing, pinched his chin, then turned to her
and said, “Are you going home…or are you leaving it?”

Holly pulled her headphones to one side. “Sorry?”

“Are you going home or are you leaving it?” He was a Rogaine user, in his early forties, who if fluorescence could give one a tan would be brown as a berry. Instead he was the color of the belly of a whale.

Holly was amused. Then she said, “I'm not sure.”

He waited for more. There wasn't any. Then he asked if she wanted to explain.

“I'm going to see my mommy.”

“Your mommy?” It had traces of challenge and ridicule.

Holly simply smiled and replied, “Yes…my mommy.” She replaced her headphones and turned to glance out the window and then down to her notebook. Rogaine man ceased to exist.

She began to write in a distinctive artistic scroll, unhurried, recording stampeding thoughts and surging emotions as well as words could capture them. She knew one thing for sure. This flight was portentous. Where it would take her was not spelled out on her ticket. She adjusted a pillow under her head and closed her eyes.

T
he last thing he stuffed under the seat was a snub-nosed Smith and Wesson three fifty-seven magnum. He turned to Abbie to repeat last minute instructions, to which she replied, “Get in the truck and go!” Then she reached up and pulled him down to her and planted a kiss on his cheek and said, “Be safe.”

He stopped in Kerrville to top up the tanks and get a second coffee. Back on the road, the country poured open on each side. His mind wandered in its own corridors as he listened to Patsy Cline lamenting calamities of love. The haunting echoes of her voice converted music into portraits of his soul.

Straight ahead in the shimmering distance of the empty road, he saw Zack as a nine-year-old boy learning to ride a skateboard, coming at him fast, blond hair flying, eyes wide and howling with joy and the pride of achievement. One of the beautiful memories of Zack loving life. Before the darkness came on him.

T
he contrast between New York City and Kiowa, Colorado, where the deer and antelope play and its population of eight hundred and seventy-six people was a numbing shock. Her dad had always wanted to live in the west and be a cowboy. So there they were on ten acres in a small redwood house with a barn and a couple of pastures with three horses, two dogs, five ducks, and a goat named Bingo. She spent the first forty-eight hours in a trance. She slept and walked and slept and walked again.

The setting sun streaked the sky with flame and lavender. A breeze blew the sage-scent across the porch where she sat and ruffled her hair. She hoped that here with her parents, they could confront the grief of her brother's death and somehow heal.

Holly crawled between the chilly sheets of her grandmother's ornate bed. Incense and a candle burned. She closed her eyes to meditate. Coyotes were yapping along the hills to the south and there were calls from the northward rimlands, cries that seemed to have no other source than the night itself.