High Plains Hearts (52 page)

“Some country,” Hayden offered, “especially the old songs from the early days.”

“Yes, Patsy Cline, for sure.”

“A lot of classical, especially Bach.”

“Bach’s music is big—it takes over the room.”

“Exactly! And Debussy is sweet.”

“Sweet?” She tilted her head, questioning.

“ ‘Clair de Lune.’ I have to confess though, that’s the only Debussy melody I know. I took piano lessons when I was in grade school, and Miss Henrietta, my teacher, gave me ‘Clair de Lune’ to learn. I thought I’d never heard such a beautiful song.” He smiled at the memory of sitting at the piano in his house, leaning over the keys, trying to find exactly the right phrasing for the song.

“ ‘Clair de Lune.’ I haven’t thought of that for ages! It’s so pretty!”

“I played it so often that if my parents heard it on a store’s audio, or on the radio, they clapped their hands over their ears. I suspect I didn’t play it all that well, to be honest. I wasn’t exactly a piano prodigy. I lasted through third grade, and then baseball called my name.”

“I can see you playing baseball,” she said. “You’re a Red Sox fan, I hope.”

“Sorry.” He chuckled. “Around here pretty much it’s the Twins all the way. Almost everybody supports the Minnesota teams, since North Dakota doesn’t have major league sports. So it’s the Twins for baseball, the Vikings for football, and the Wild for hockey—or the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, of course—although hockey’s so big here that local hockey is more important for most.”

“I like hockey, but of course in Boston it’s the Bruins that everybody roots for.”

“It probably won’t matter. You’ll be a huge fan soon of the ObsMarWin team.”

“ObsMarWin?” she asked.

“Obsidian-Martinville-Winston Consolidated School District, home of the Landers, which is short for Badlanders. It used to be the Badlanders but some kids got the bright idea to call them the Baddies, which wouldn’t do at all, of course, so they became the Landers.”

“The Landers. I like that!”

“They rarely get to the final rounds of any sports, but they play with all their hearts, and you’ve got to give them credit for that. You’ll see folks around here sporting the green and gold as soon as the first puck flies.”

“Green and gold being the Landers’s colors, right?”

“Right. The school is here in Obsidian. It’s that big prairie-style building we drove past on our way out of town. Sort of a sentinel here in the Badlands. I’ll point it out on the way back.”

The turn to Sunshine was still noted by a sign that had faded almost to the point of not being legible. How long had it been there? He didn’t know. Since he was a boy, it had pointed the way to Sunshine. It had weathered everything from deep snows and blizzards to hot summer winds and blistering heat.

The sign, shaped like a smiling sun with once-rosy cheeks, was tilted to one side. Someone had probably taken the turn too sharply and clipped it.

He pulled over to the side of the road and tugged the sign back into place, shoring it up with one of the large stone chunks around the sign, there for that very purpose.

Livvy called through the open truck door, “That’s a really cool sign. I’m surprised it’s still here.”

“I think Gramps just never got around to replacing it,” he said as he put one foot on the running board and heaved himself onto the seat. “It’s a bit out of the way for him, and I suppose other things were more important.”

“I think it’s charming,” she said. “I meant though that I’m surprised someone hasn’t taken it.”

“Why would they?”

“It’s old and it’s retro. It would probably sell for a lot of money. Don’t you ever watch those antique shows on television?”

He shook his head. “I’ve heard of them but never watched them. We don’t have cable at Sunshine.”

“Oh, they’re my favorites.” Her face took on a dreamy, faraway look. “Those, and the home remodeling ones, and the travel programs. One day I’m going to go to Alaska and touch a glacier with my bare hands, and then I’ll go to China and see the Great Wall and try to take in how big it is, and Egypt to look at the pyramids where I’ll imagine what it must have been like during the days of the pharaohs.”

“You like to travel?” He put the truck into gear and edged back onto the road, now headed toward Sunshine.

“I think I would.”

He shot her a startled glance. “You haven’t traveled?”

“This is as exotic as it gets for me.”

He hooted. “North Dakota? Exotic?”

“It is, for someone who’s spent her entire life in Massachusetts.”

“You never left Massachusetts? I don’t believe it.” He avoided a rabbit that darted in front of the truck.

“Oh, I visited other New England states, but I never got much farther west than a ways into New York. But I’ve always wanted to see more of the world. Have you traveled much?”

“Not a lot. Minnesota, of course. Everybody goes to the Cities at some point.”

“The Cities?” she asked. “Which cities?”

“The Cities are what we call Minneapolis and St. Paul. They’re the Twin Cities, you know, so most people here simply call them the Cities. It’s even capitalized, so if you see a reference to ‘the Cities’ and the
C
is uppercased, that’s what it means.”

“I see,” she said. “I think.”

“And I have gone into Canada, but not recently. It seems like every free minute quickly becomes not-free.”

He rubbed his hand over his forehead, trying to erase the frown lines that he knew had carved themselves there. The truth was that Gramps had needed him more and more, and as it became clearer that the old man was edging toward heaven, he’d in fact needed his grandfather more. Needed to be around him, needed to hear his voice, needed to see him as much as he could.

Every August, when he’d had to start spending his days inside the big tan brick building preparing for school and then teaching, he’d hated being away from Gramps. And as the year slipped onward, from summer’s blazing glory to unpredictable autumn, when there might be a forty-degree variable from one day to the next, he began to dread winter’s arrival.

One day last winter, driven from desperation and exhaustion, he’d sent out applications to schools along the far southeastern coast of Florida. He could see himself with Gramps on the beach, soaking up the sun and the warmth and escaping the cold and the snow and the relentless wind.

But nothing had come of it, and he’d let it slip past, and here he was, heading into another school year, and he dreaded the deep winter that was coming.

He couldn’t get out to see Gramps at night then—he often had school responsibilities that kept him in Obsidian—and the weekends were iffy at best. Usually the highway to the turnoff was clear, but after that, it was anybody’s guess how bad the drifting might be.

Worry about his grandfather was never far from his mind.

“You spend most of your time with him, don’t you?” she asked gently, startling him as if she had been reading his thoughts. “You don’t have to say it. It’s clear without the words. He’s why you stay here.”

“No!” he objected, perhaps more strenuously than necessary, and he immediately modified the word. “Well, not entirely. My heart is in Obsidian. It’s in Sunshine, and it’s in Gramps.”

He refused to consider the day when he would not have either of them.

Fortunately he wasn’t able to continue that train of thought, for when he pulled into the yard at Sunshine, Gramps was waiting for him, a fishing pole in each hand.

“Grub!” Gramps called, as he hobbled toward the truck. “I’m ready. Even dug up a nightcrawler or two.” He gestured toward a tomato soup can in the shade by the front porch.

“You got us worms?” Hayden asked, taking the poles from his grandfather. “How did you do that?”

“I took that shovel over there”—the old man gestured toward a small camp shovel with a pointed tip—“and dug.”

“Well, that’s the way it’s usually done,” Hayden said. He walked over to the can where an earthworm was making its escape out the top of it. He dropped it back into the can, where three other worms were, and returned to the truck.

“I told Livvy we’d take her fishing.”

“So we shall. There’s an extra pole in the blue shed, and Grub, you’d better give her one of the canvas hats so she doesn’t get burned.”

Within minutes, Livvy was outfitted with fishing gear and one of Gramps’s old hats that was so big it insisted on sliding down over her nose.

“You can swim, right?” Hayden asked.

“Swim?” She had a look of faint panic on her face. “We’re going swimming, too? I don’t have a suit.”

Gramps cackled. “The goal is not to go swimming.”

“Not to—? Oh!” She laughed. “I can swim. I’m no Olympic gold medalist but I can get from one side of the pool to the other.”

“There aren’t sides to this pool. You need a life jacket,” Hayden said. “They’re in the boat. Let’s go on down there and get things set up. I’ll get the can of gasoline, and Livvy, why don’t you grab that soup can? Those are the worms.”

“Worms,” she said faintly.

He had to smile at her reaction. “Not a worm fan, I gather. I’ll put them on the hook for you.”

She nodded. “I appreciate that.”

Soon they were all at the boat, each one clad in a life jacket, smudged from being stored away, and thoroughly doused with bug spray. A blue and white cooler filled with root beer was tucked away next to the tackle box.

Hayden coaxed the small motor into life, and they headed out into the middle of the small lake. Sun sparkled off the water like reflected diamonds, and a light breeze ruffled the surface.

Hayden cut the motor, and the only sounds were of the river and the wind and the birds.

“Could you hand me the can of worms?” he asked, reaching for his fishing pole.

“Livvy, they’re by your foot,” Gramps said.

Hayden turned just in time to see the side of her pant leg catch on the can, and it fell onto its side, spilling out dirt and earthworms.

For a split second, Livvy paused, and then she leaned over and quickly scooped everything back into the can, soil and worms alike.

“I’m impressed,” he said. “Some women wouldn’t do that.”

She shook her head vigorously. “That is so old-fashioned. Most women could pick up a worm. We might not want to, but we’ll do it.”

“I thought you said you wanted me to put the worm on the hook for you,” he said.

“Picking up a worm is one thing. Impaling it is another.” She took the rod that Gramps handed her. “That is something I can’t do.”

“You don’t have to use a worm,” he said. “You can use a lure instead.”

“Worms are good,” Gramps said. “Fish are smart. They know food when they see it, and they know that a plastic thing with a hook hanging out of it isn’t usually something to eat.”

“Now, now,” Hayden chided him gently. “You’re a worm guy. I’m a minnow guy. Others insist that this lure or that is the way to go.”

Gramps shook his head and muttered as he reached down, picked up a worm, and threaded it onto a hook.

Hayden grinned at Livvy. “I’m guessing you’d rather have a lure dangling on the end of your hook than a worm.”

“Right you are. Show me how to do this, please. Is this one going to work?” She held up a bright green lure she’d taken out of the tackle box.

“Whether or not it works is up to the fish,” he said. “If it bites, it works. Doesn’t bite? Doesn’t work. Actually, you probably want this chartreuse one.”

He leaned over her, and the faint scent of soap, clean and fresh, drifted through the sharp smell of the lake and the boat, of algae and fish and tarps.

Get a grip
, he told himself.
You’re in the middle of the lake with your grandfather, and this is the woman who’s buying the ancestral home. And you’ve just had a talk about worms. Hardly the stuff of romance
.

He took her fishing rod and tied the lure onto the line. “You do it like this. See? You want it to stay on so you need to make sure it’s pretty well knotted.”

“Or else the fish will bite it and run away with it,” she said.

“I don’t think it’ll run. Maybe swim.”

“Okay, swim. So I tie it on …” She bent over the lure and examined it. “I can do that.”

“Then you cast it as far as you can away from the boat, like this.” He flicked the fishing rod back and forward, and the line swung out in a graceful arc. No matter how many times he did it, he loved the vision of the transparent line bowing across the water before settling under the lake.

“And then you wait.” Gramps spoke from the other end of the boat.

“Hold on to your pole,” Hayden added, giving her back the rod.

“Yup,” Gramps added. “If it goes over, so do you. That’s the rule of Sunshine. Otherwise we’d lose poles right and left. Can’t afford to keep this place open if we have to buy new poles all the time. You kids, like Ellie said the other day …”

His voice trailed off, and Livvy shot a quick look at Hayden, her brow briefly knotted with concern before she spoke again.

“What are we going to catch here?” she asked, leaning over the edge of the boat and peering into the water.

“Crappies and sunnies, usually. Sometimes a pike wanders in.”

“Crappies, by the way, are spelled with an
a
even though you’d think they should be spelled with an
o
by the way the word is pronounced. I always explain that to people who are new to fishing up here.”

Gramps laughed as he moved his line back and forth in the water. “Some folks get a bit upset when they see it in print, because it sure looks like a not-nice word. But it’s pronounced
croppies
.”

“Why?” she asked, resuming her seat on the boat again.

“Why are the folks upset, or why is spelled that way?” Hayden asked as he watched the line play in the water.

“The spelling. I know there’s a fish called carp. I thought a crappie was a misspelled carp when I saw it in a magazine on the airplane.”

Hayden had to laugh. She was so genuine. A misspelled fish!

“I don’t know why it’s called that. Do you, Gramps?” he asked his grandfather.

The older man shook his head. “Nope. It is what it is.”

The fishing lines draped into the water, the filament looking for all the world like strands of silk in the sunlight.