Cowboy Sing Me Home (32 page)

            “Good God, Billy Dale,” Nate said softly. 
“You don’t even know what kind of guy you’re messing with.  This isn’t funny.”

            “It’s okay, Daddy.  He started to come
after me, but then Mr. Tanner came over the hill to see his girlfriend, and he
got in his car and drove off.”

            Luke’s blood went cold again, and he
settled his hip on the edge of the desk.  He hated to think what might have
happened to the boys if he hadn’t come along when he did.

            Luke and Nate looked at each other.  “You
think he’ll be back for it?” Nate asked.

            Luke studied the disk, cursing silently
that he couldn’t give the man some reassurance.  “I can’t say.  The FBI guy
said they probably made several copies.  But if he came specifically for that one…”

            Nate was silent for a long moment,
studying the floor between his feet.  “Julie’s been wanting to go see her
sister in Ruidoso.  Maybe this would be a good time for a visit.  Be cooler up
in the mountains.”

            “That’d be a good idea, Nate.”  He asked the
boys a few more questions, but was satisfied they’d told him all they knew. 
“You boys willing to cut your experiment short?”

            “Yes sir,” they said firmly.

            “I still can’t even believe you did that
in the first place,” Nate said.  “Folks had to pay good money to get those
tires fixed.”

            “It’s just a little bit of money.  And
Uncle Johnny said fixing flats was the only thing keeping him in business, so
we figured if we could help him out a little…”  Jimmy Wayne turned round,
innocent eyes to his dad.

            Luke and Dusty stood, and Luke clapped
Nate on the shoulder.  “Why don’t you give me the number in Ruidoso where I can
reach you, just to check up on you.”

            “Sure thing,” Nate said.

            As he and Dusty left, they heard Nate say,
“I don’t care what your mama says, you boys need to stay in the house and watch
more TV.”

            “Our prayers are being
answered, friends,” Brother Mark said as he walked slowly between the aisles at
Friday night’s Jubilee.  “Right this very minute, they’re being answered.  The
street carnival has been a bigger success than we even hoped.   The emergency
fund has grown, and we’re going to be able to help out a lot of Aloma County
citizens this fall and winter.  And…”  His voice dropped to a stage whisper. 
“I don’t know if you’ve all noticed the you-know-whats building in the west. 
I’m afraid to even call them by name, afraid I might scare them off.”

            The crowd laughed and many
of the choir turned to look, as Dusty did, to the tall gray clouds billowing in
the western sky.

            “Now, nobody do anything to
scare them off.  Don’t make any sudden moves or loud noises.  And ladies, I
want you all to go home, turn on your vacuum cleaners, and point them toward
the west.”

            The crowd laughed again, and
Brother Mark motioned for them to stand for the closing prayer.  “We’re going
to pray for those clouds to bless this area with some rain.  We have faith that
He will bless us with what we need.  In fact, our faith is so strong, we’re
planning one more Jubilee for tomorrow night.  I know, tonight was supposed to
be the closing ceremony.  But I talked it over with Luke Tanner, and we feel
that a special celebration service is in order.  Like I said, we have faith
that our prayers will be answered.  And,” he said as he held up a finger, “I don’t
want to speak out of turn, but I ought to tell you I do have a little bit of
inside information.” 

            The crowd laughed again, and
Brother Mark said, “No, no, not from Him, although we have been praying as hard
as we can pray, and God answers prayer.  But the inside information I was
talking about is this: Mr. Simmons told me before the service this afternoon
that his knee has been acting up.  And we all know that Mr. Simmons’s left knee
is a more accurate weather predictor than Super Doppler can ever hope to be.”

            This drew another laugh from
the crowd, and as the choir rose to stand with the rest of the crowd, and
everyone bowed their heads, Dusty spied a glance at Luke.

            His head was bowed, his eyes
tightly closed, and his lips moved in silent prayer. 

            She didn’t mean to stare,
but she found herself fascinated by the sight of him in active prayer, and
oddly isolated by the knowledge that he had faith in something she didn’t
believe existed.

            He opened one eye, caught
her looking and grinned, his lips still moving.

            She looked away,
embarrassed.

            As the crowd and choir
drifted away after the closing prayer, Luke followed her to her pickup.  “We
have a while before we have to be at Tumbleweeds.  How about I go through the
drive-through at the Dairy Queen and pick up some jumbo orders of steak fingers
and meet you out at your trailer for dinner?”

            She wrinkled her nose. 
“Heavy, greasy fried food before a show?”

            “Sure.”

            “Make sure they give you
extra gravy. And bring me a vanilla Coke.”

            He grinned and nodded.  “You
bet.”  He opened her door so she could slide her guitar inside, then gave her a
quick peck before he headed for his own pickup.

            Dusty sat for a minute with
her door open, watching the crowd mill around the square.  Women spoke in high
tones, men laughed with each other, and children ran around the grass, chasing
each other and squealing.  With the impending rain and the successful street
carnival, spirits were high.  It was easy to get caught up in all the
excitement. 

            That was why, she told
herself as she turned the key in the ignition, she felt so happy.  She was
caught up in all the excitement.  It had nothing to do with the man who looked
at her like he could just stand there and keep looking as long as she’d let
him. 

            Her phone beeped as she
pulled into Trailertopia.

           
Everything set for
Shreveport
, the text from Alfie said.
 Double check the itinerary and
maps and let me know if you have any questions.

            “You sure know how to throw
ice-water on a good mood,” she said softly as she read the note again.

            Shreveport in five days. 
One day for travel, two days to rehearse with the house band.  Which meant day
after tomorrow, she had to hit the road.

            The depth with which she did
not want to go should not have surprised her.  She had known she was losing her
distance in Aloma, getting too close to the townspeople.  She’d let her guard
down and getting involved, not just with Luke, but with practically the entire
county.  A voice in her head had warned her, and she’d ignored it.

            She stared at her phone and
leaned against the counter, thinking about ‘the girls.’  Louise and her
recorder, manipulating her into leading the choir.  Becca and her pregnancy. 
Corinne, running around her house with curlers sticking out all over her head,
completely frazzled. Helen’s hand on Dusty’s shoulder as they posed for the
choir picture.

            She wouldn’t be around to
find out if Becca was able to carry this baby full term.  She wouldn’t see Cade
grow, or witness how Corinne and Toby were able to keep up with him.

            She wouldn’t see Luke, ever
again.

            She heard an engine outside
and looked out to see Luke slide from the seat of his pickup.  He still carried
most of his weight on his left leg and probably would for a while.

            She wouldn’t be around to
find out how long.

            She opened the door and
watched him hobble up, his hands full.

           
Maybe this time
, a
little voice in her head said.

            This wasn’t the same voice
that had warned her to keep her distance.  This voice was young.  Hopeful. 
Maybe
this time.
  

Maybe this time it would
work out.  Maybe this time it would be okay.

            Her heart pounded at the
enormity of the idea that whispered in her heart.

            She folded her arms across
her chest to hold it in, to contain it until she had the space and peace to
pull it out and examine it more closely.  Still, as Luke smiled at her and held
out a white foam cup with a straw, the voice spoke again, a little louder this
time. 
Maybe it would be different this time.  Maybe…

            “You don’t have to glare at
me like that.  I didn’t forget your vanilla Coke.”

            Thunder rumbled in the west,
an undertone voice that lived at the far edge of the world.  Luke looked over
his shoulder in the direction of the clouds, then said, “Let’s eat out here so
we can keep an eye on those clouds.”

            She sat on a folding chair
and he sat in the open doorway of her trailer, his left foot on the bottom step
and his right leg straightened before him. 

Dusty opened her box and
shook her head.  “My, my.  A heart attack in a box.”  She picked up a steak
finger and dipped it in gravy, then took a big bite.  “Delicious.”

They ate in silence as the
sky darkened and the air cooled.  Dusty pushed thoughts of permanence,
dependence and family from her mind and focused on the more relatively mundane.

“Looks like your Rain Fest
is actually working.”

“Of course it’s working. 
Mother Nature wouldn’t dare reject me.  You should see the town.  People are
lined up along Main Street staring at the sky.  I heard Dub at the Grocerette
offered a $100 reward for the first cup of rainwater brought in.”

His eyes twinkled and he
smiled as he spoke. 

“It’s almost as if this one
rain will solve the whole world’s problems.”

“You’d think that, the way
everyone is acting,” Luke said as he dipped a French fry in ketchup.  “It’s not
like a few inches of rain are going to do much.  Buy everyone some time, until
the next time we need it.”

“That’s what I’ve been
thinking for the past two weeks.  One rain isn’t going to make a good crop.”

“Right.  We’ll still need
more later.  And then we’ll need it to stop for a while, because too much is
just as bad as too little.  Believe it or not, we’ve actually had that problem
before, too.  And then we’ll have to have clear skies during harvest and
ginning season.”

“So…” She didn’t want to say
‘what’s the point?’ exactly.  But she did say, “So, why get so worked up over
one rain?”

He chewed while he thought. 
“Well…” he said slowly.  “This rain isn’t going to guarantee a good crop.  But
without it, we
are
guaranteed we won’t have a crop at all.”

Dusty ran her finger around
the inside of her gravy container.  “Man, I’m glad I’m not a farmer.”

“Me, too.  But I’m even
gladder there are people out there who are.  I’ve gotten kinda fond of eating. 
Come here.”  He put his plate down and patted the step at his feet.  “I want to
watch the storm while I hold the woman who’s so stormy herself.”

Dusty rolled her eyes, but
she felt oddly flattered, and lowered herself to the seat between his legs. 
She wrapped her arms around his calves as the wind freshened and cooled,
feeling the thick bandage around his thigh through his jeans.

            He kissed her temple and
leaned over the completely envelope her.  She felt his warm breath on her cheek
and the cool wind ruffle her hair, and again the voice spoke.

            Maybe this time.

            Maybe this time it would be
okay.

            Maybe this time she wouldn’t
get hurt.

            He smoothed her hair back
from her forehead.  “No one has any guarantees, you know.  We all have an ax
over our heads.”

            “That’s a nice image.”

            “It’s the truth.  No matter
what lengths you go to, to protect yourself, you can’t be sure things are going
to work out your way.”

            The ease with which he
seemed to read her mind unsettled her.  It was as if he knew the questions she
wrestled with.  He kept her off balance, constantly confronting her barriers,
as if they were no more than glued panels of Popsicle sticks, rather than the
bricks and mortar she’d imagined them to be.

            “I guess that’s why there’s
crop insurance,” she said lightly.

            “I’m not talking about the
farmers, Dusty.”

            “I know that.  I’m pretending
to be obtuse because I don’t want this conversation to go where you’re
heading.”

            She felt his cheek swell
against hers with his smile.

“You never want to go where
I’m heading.  But don’t we always have fun when we get there?”  After a moment,
he said, “I’m heading in this direction because we’re running out of time.”