A Feather in the Rain (5 page)

T
he country had begun to put on fancier duds. As the sun painted warmth on the rockscape sprouting tufts of green, he began to come out of himself and notice the world around him. At Pueblo, he crossed the Arkansas River with its stony palisades and muddy flats. The road, instead of just lying there reached out and demanded attention as it wound through limitless pasture flecked with sizable cattle herds. A buckaroo in chinks and wildrag was easing along on a plain-looking gray behind a bunch of heifers. One busted out on her own. The cowboy and the gray sprang to life whirling and streaking through the tall grass after the cow and, cutting her excursion short, turned her back to the herd. The action put a smile on Jesse.

The sky was an untroubled lucent pearl. A stream accompanied the road for a while, then coiled off through soft meadows. He took off his hat and stuck his head out the window. The sudden mountain coolness blew through his hair and filled his lungs. He heaved a loud sigh into the wind. “Damn, this is pretty country.”

A
t the rodeo grounds at Colorado Springs, the stable manager told him Larry Littlefield had been there but had to get on over to the hotel. He got his horses set up in a pen, unhitched the trailer and drove to the hotel.

The young woman at the front desk handed Jesse a message and went to the computer to check his reservation. The message read: “Had to get back out to the ranch to prepare for the arrival of guests for a shindig tomorrow. Put your horses up and come on out.” As the desk clerk pondered the computer, the shadow of a big man fell across him. He turned toward a bright-eyed flashing smile in a round face under a clean black cowboy hat. He had silver and black hair. A dark mustache made the smile shine even more. He was barrel-chested, tall, a powerful presence with a jovial spirit. He said, “Are you Jesse Burrell?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I thought so. I was just with Larry, he told me to look out for
you. He had to run back to his ranch. He said for you to get your butt out there.” He laughed and extended his hand, “I'm Henry Bassett. Most people call me Bear. It's good to meet you.”

Jesse took his hand. “All right, Bear. Good to meet you, too.”

“I'm doing publicity for the event. Can I buy you a drink before you go?”

As they walked toward the restaurant, Jesse noticed that Bear's polished boots had spent more time on carpet than they had in stirrups. They sat at a small table near the bar where a diet Pepsi waited. Jesse followed Bear's glance to the woman approaching with a destination-oriented stride. She wore a long skirt, boots, a flowered shirt, fringed jacket, and an old-time Charlie Russell Stetson. Hardly anything over five feet, she was trim and neat with the bone structure women dream about and a smile that made Bear's pale. She took Jesse's hand in both of hers, looked deep in his eyes and said how very pleased she was to meet him. Ruby meant it and he knew it. She sat behind the Pepsi her husband had ordered for her.

There was about them an open willingness to be perceived as who they were with no attempt to disguise or deceive. It didn't take long for Ruby to say that Larry had told them about Jesse's son and how truly sorry they were. Jesse was a little taken aback, but it seemed it was something she needed to say. She took his hand again in her delicate palms, and through the radiant smile said, “We lost our son, Brad. He was twenty-seven.” Jesse saw a small disturbance occur in her face. The smile vanished and returned as quickly as it left and she continued her thought. “Almost…three years ago,” she leaned forward as if to share a hushed confidence. “And you know, Jesse dear…I wish I could tell you it gets easier. Maybe one day. Anyway, we know what you're living with and our hearts are with you.” She smiled big and warm.

Jesse nodded.

As Ruby told of the violent act that took their son, Bear sat silent, sad-eyed, pain-wracked stone, till he caught Jesse's glance and smiled wanly. Ruby went on to express their gratitude for having
had their son for the time that they did, and to tell how fortunate they were to have “the most beautiful and talented daughter. And she's just come home from her life in the big wide world to be with us for a while.”

H
e turned off the paved road at Florissant into a dirt road maze through the alpine mystery of the Front Range. Round a bend, a lush meadow billowed where a band of horses arched grazing with a pair of mule deer does and a fawn. At the distant end of the valley, Pike's Peak, snow-capped and bronzed by sun-wash, jutted toward the heavens.

Barely discernable among the thicket of conifers and aspens stood the beginnings of a Gallus gate, two peeled upright cypress poles, ungated and wanting a crosspiece at the top. He turned in through a forest corridor bordered by an incomplete cypress fence. About an eighth of a mile through the trees, things opened up. He could see the house and barn. The pond across from the house mirrored a stand of black, spear-pointed spruce, a flock of ducks painted on the still water. A pair of tepees stood white against the green meadow next to the pond.

Larry was at the hitch-rack in front of the barn pulling a saddle
off a horse as Jesse walked up. He turned smiling, flung the saddle on a rail, and came to Jesse. He shook his hand, eyes atwinkle, saying, “Goddamn, it's good to see you.” He introduced Jesse to young Roxanne. She was tall, strong, kind and gentle and was to Larry pretty much what Abbie was to Jesse. Reaching for a snaffle bridle, he said, “Why don't you get on that buckskin there. I want to ride this colt up in the hills a little bit. This ol' vet I know bought him and he's a little too much for him so he dropped him off here for me to work him for a while. I'd like to trade him out of him. This is a pretty nice colt.”

That was non-stop Larry—riding horses, training, trading, running a business, emceeing a charity event, and hosting people he didn't even know, and he did it all with a kind of offhanded ease. His wife, Rosie, and their ten-year-old daughter, Linda, were in the house cooking for the twenty or thirty people who were expected tomorrow.

Larry led the way at a trot across the meadow behind the barn. They rode over a rise through a stand of aspens and sage, then down a slope alongside another alpine tarn dotted with ducks. They kicked up into a lope. The colt flung his heels in the air like a whipcrack. Larry looked back at Jesse and laughed. Hell, he was six times world's champion cowboy; this colt would have to get up pretty damn early to worry him. The trail stretched out in front of them for quite a ways over rolling meadows. Pretty soon they were side by side at a canter, then a gallop, and then the race was on. The buckskin was big, powerful, and could damn sure cover some ground. The colt, light and airy, possessed the competitive aggression of youth, and plumb refused to let the big buckskin nose ahead. Jesse gave himself up totally to the charge until he could no longer tell where he ended and the horse began. They breathed as one. The same pounding heart seemed to serve them both. Jesse was rooted in the buckskin's being. He glanced down at the spinning grass and flashing hooves reaching forward pulling the earth to him as if to accelerate the rotation of the planet. They flew over the trail
like warring Comanches whooping and hollering, laughing like loons, wind whipping tears from the corners of their eyes.

They cut off the trail and crossed country where the footing became less commodious. Still blowing from the run, they picked their way over the rocks to a promontory overlooking the ranch. They stepped down and loosened the cinches. The horses took up the slack with swelling sides and lowered their heads to the slim pickings between the rocks. Jesse and Larry hunkered on the gray ledge.

The silence of the woods and the valley below was deep. They sat without words till a wind rustled and a cloud mass blotted the lowering sun casting streaks of bronze and purple through the trees. Jesse spoke, as if his voice had rusted, “Every which way you turn on this place, you're lookin' at a postcard.”

“Yeah, I've got a real fondness for this country,” answered Larry as he reached into his stained vest pocket and came out with a thin silver flask.

Jesse pointed off at the distant mountains. “Look at that light.” A thin silken sash of violet strung between two peaks binding them one to the other. “Makes me wish I could paint.”

“You could paint my barn.” Larry held out the flask. “My dad brought this up from Arizona. Some old teamster makes the stuff in his barn. Tell you what, I think it's better than Wild Turkey.”

Jesse took a mouthful and swallowed. “Damn.” He handed it back to Larry who did the same and then gave the flask to Jesse again. And so it went. There seemed to be in the silence between them a license to communicate in thoughts and feelings as roadmaps for words. Larry pulled off his sweat-darkened hat and scratched in his hair that was longer than cowboy culture would dictate. Larry was always his own man. Finally, he spoke. “So how you doin'?” He turned his head and peered with ice-blue eyes, inquisitor-like, straight into Jesse's face. “How are you really doin'?”

A huge feeling had been gathering in the privacy of Jesse's heart. It took a while, but before he knew it he was talking like he'd never done before. “You know what…Meeting those folks Bear and Ruby.
She got me going, telling me about her son…she talked about it so easy. Made me realize what I'm holding inside. Sometimes, I feel like I'm gonna explode… other times, I feel like I'm dead.”

Larry handed him the flask. “I left you a drop, hell, you're a guest.”

Jesse emptied the flask. “I have to remind myself to breathe. Sometimes I just quit breathing.” He filled his lungs with Colorado Rocky Mountain air and slowly let it out. He turned over the flask and absently shook it. “I can't help thinking I could've been smarter. Seems like I should've been able to…prevent it.”

“Well, you know that's not true.”

“Still it seems like I…like I could've…done more…” He laid back, adjusted his head on the rock, pushed his hat over his face and spoke into the hat. “I used to smile a lot. Now, I have to remind myself to smile. I've lost my fire.”

“It's gonna take time…you probably never get over it.”

“I swear to God, sometimes I feel…sometimes I feel like I could just fold it all up…real easy.”

“How do you mean?”

He handed the flask back to Larry. “I don't know. Just…kinda quit. It's like I lost that fighting edge. And yet let some son of a bitch look at me about halfway cross-eyed and I'm likely to offer to tear his head off. I've never been like that. I'm gettin' to be a cranky bastard. It's a mighty wonder anybody'd want to be around me.”

“Well, you know I never did care for you much myself. So I can't say as I see all that big a change. You got a woman in your life?”

Jesse shook his head.

“You got too much venom in you, son. You need to do some horizontal two-steppin'. A man can't live on floggin' yer mutton alone.”

“I've been around for more than half a century…and I'll tell you what. I don't believe I've ever been in love. Not really. No, sir. And you know what? I don't believe I'd know it if it bit me in the ass.” He uncovered his face, sat up, and squinted off at the changing light. With the flamboyant paintbrush of sunset came a sudden brief downpour to rinse the day.

L
arry was out of the tepee pissing before the sun came up.

“Goddamn, son. You gonna sleep all day?”

Jesse knotted up in his bedroll. “Hell, man, it's dark out there.”

Under a marbled sky in a chilled morning mist, they gathered a mixed herd of Herefords and Brahmas and drove them into the pole-fenced arena that looked like it'd been there since 1896. Roxanne rode down from the barn trailing a string of horses to be worked and some for the guests who wanted to ride

Larry was a warm and generous host, just not long on formality. He'd ride over to the fence and shake hands, then go back to cuttin' or turning back cattle for Jesse as they worked several horses.

Bowls of pasta, salads, beans, bread loaves, and rolls covered the big wooden table in the house. Out on the porch, a home-welded barbecue spewed plumes of chicken and beef-scented smoke rising to the rafters. Among the porch group scattered around tables, benches, and railings were the CEO of an airline sponsoring the
event and his young son, neighbor ranchers, a veterinarian and his cowgirl wife, a TV star and his actress wife, two more actors, a lady country western star, and Bear and his wife Ruby. Digger and Brantley, unshaven Texas Rangers who'd stopped on their way back to Texas from a hunting trip, were tending the meat.

A galvanized tub filled with beer, soda pop, and ice stood against the wall. Larry fished out an armload of Coors and passed them around. Jesse and Larry greeted Bear and Ruby who jumped up and gave them each a hug, shining her smile on them.

Jesse was standing at the barbecue with Digger and Brantley when he heard the screen door behind him open and shut. He made the slightest movement with his head and turned. Then he turned back to the fire. His head snapped back to the door again. She was carrying a plate of food and looking for a place to sit. She wore Wranglers, boots, a good black hat, and a pale blue silk shirt, shy and tentative about the way it contacted her body. With the help of a light breeze it would touch her breasts, cling for a second, then flutter away. She focused on Bear and Ruby and walked toward them. Even in the smallest movement there was something hauntingly familiar about her and yet he knew he'd never seen her before, or anyone remotely like her.

She squeezed in next to Bear who was in an intense discussion with the airline executive, and balanced the plate on her knees. Bear stopped to introduce her with customary paternal pride. She smiled and nodded politely with genuine interest in whatever he was saying. As she turned toward Ruby to answer a question, she caught Jesse staring at her and smiled at him, then spoke to her mother.