He put his arm around mine. “How you feeling?”
I smiled. “Like I been rode hard and put up wet.”
He liked that. “We were all scared for you.”
I swallowed. My throat was sore. Like somebody’d been plungering it. “Were you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It’s okay to be scared. It means you know what you’re up against.” He stood there. Looking at me. I said, “I been thinking…”
“Yes, sir?”
The drugs were making my head squirrelly. “How would you feel… It’s totally up to you, but I’m going to need a partner and… how would you feel about going into the cattle business with me?”
He smiled. “I’d like that.”
“We’d split everything. Fifty-fifty. Try to make enough money to send you to college.”
He nodded. Smiling wider.
I made as serious a face as I could. “There’s just one problem.”
“Sir?”
“There ain’t never been a cowboy yet who raised cattle without a horse, so soon as I get out of here, we’re going to get a loan from the bank and then we’re going shopping. Get you a horse.”
His chest swelled three inches. “Yes, sir.”
You ain’t never seen so many flowers. I pulled the cards out of several and sent Brodie down the hall. He set them in people’s rooms who were sleeping. The nurses started calling him the Flower Fairy. He liked it. My room became a revolving door, or at least the outside of it did. News media, camera crews, politicians, even the governor. They said my running the truck into the building, then charging upstairs, was the damnedest thing they ever heard of, but that I came by it honestly. I said Captain would have done the same for me. He laughed, shook his head, and said, “Knowing what I know now, I’m not so sure.”
I lay in that bed, crapping in a little white bucket for nearly a week. Finally, I got so tired of it, I sat up on the edge of my bed, leaned on my crutches, and stood. Sam was sitting in a chair reading, and it’s a good thing, too, ’cause when I stood, the whole world went tumbling and I almost pancaked my face on the floor. She caught me, said, “Better not try that again.” I nodded and slept for what she said was three more days. My body was fighting a good bit of infection. Seems you poke enough holes in a man, drain most of his blood, basically kill him, and that happens. They pumped me full of some nuclear antibiotics, and told me to hold tight.
Georgia came by, filled us in on all the gossip and gave me the closest shave I ever had. I told her she ought to start offering it as a service at her salon. Men would be lined up out the door. She shook her head and spoke as much with the straight razor as she did her mouth. “Other than you, I don’t really like too many men. Best to keep me and my razor away from their necks. I’m liable to go to work on them, especially the ones with secrets.”
I nodded, my eyes trained on the razor. “Good idea.”
Another week passed. My condition improved and my fever broke. As my strength increased, I began walking, or hobbling, around the fifth floor. The hole in my right shoulder made walking on crutches tough so I only used one on the left. Hope and Sam came by every day, often bringing Brodie after school. Andie did not. I heard she was living with Jill Sievert. Jill and her husband had a goodly-sized ranch where they raised and trained cutting horses. They had a guesthouse out back. I’d also heard she’d found work though I didn’t know where. I never saw her but I had a feeling she’d been in to see me. If you want to know the truth, I could smell her. You sleep with someone twelve years and pretty soon you can do that. Smell where they’ve been.
I had a lot of time to think. More than I wanted. Because a hospital is a terrible place to try and get some sleep, my sleep cycle was all backward and upside down so I dozed during the day and sat up nights. I also found myself looking at my hands, reliving things, like they could tell me something. But they didn’t say a thing. Couple of nights, I found myself looking in the mirror. Asking questions. One morning, about 2:00 a.m., I asked myself a question I could not answer. It started with “What if—” and never ended with any resolution.
Three weeks after the prison riot, they released me. Dumps brought me a new pair of boots for which I was real thankful. Black calf with a snip toe. Paul Bond would have been proud. He said, “A cowboy without a pair of boots is like, well, it’s just not right.” Brodie brought me a new Resistol.
Sam knelt next to the bed, pulled on my socks, and helped me slide my feet into the new boots. She was tugging on the right boot when she said, “What size shoe do you wear?”
“Twelve.”
“You have big feet.”
I tapped her on the shoulder and winked. “You know what they say about a man with big feet.”
She frowned and looked over her shoulder. “No, do tell.”
“Big”—I paused and smiled—“shoes.”
She laughed. I had grown to welcome her laugh. It was easy. Flowed liberally. And lit up a room.
I shook hands with the medical staff and thanked them for what they did. I’d been shot seven times, twice in the lungs. How they patched me up was no small task. I should not be alive. We cheated the reaper and all knew it. Brodie rolled a wheelchair into the room and the doctor told me to “sit.”
I shook my head. “No thank you.”
He said, “Ty, it’s hospital policy.”
I said, “Doc, have I been a pretty good patient? Done what you asked?”
“Yes.”
“Have I argued with you once about any single thing you’ve asked me to do?”
He smiled. “No.”
“And I’ve let you stick me with a thousand needles?”
“Yes.”
“Then please understand.” I snugged the new hat down tight on my head. “This is Tyler’s policy.” I leaned on my left crutch and extended my hand to the doc. “Thank you for what you done.” He handed me a small package wrapped in brown paper. It was soft. Like clothing. I peeled back the paper and found my blue T-shirt, washed and folded. Someone had sewn it together and patched the holes. He said, “Thought you might want that.”
I did. “Thanks.”
After the doc left, I changed into the shirt, put my right arm around Brodie, and started out of the hospital the same way they carried me in. Just with a few less holes.
Together, me and Brodie began walking to the elevator. He punched the button, the door opened, and the two of us stepped in. When the doors closed, I looked down on him. “Brodie?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You don’t have to be a lawman when you get older.”
He looked up. “I know.”
The bell dinged as we passed the third floor. It dinged again as we passed the second. “Dad?”
“Yes.”
“I want to.”
The doors opened and sunlight climbed the walls. “I know.” He got that from me.
Sam drove us home where Georgia and a bunch of the folks in town had put together a welcome home party. Captain Packer’s wife, Sophia, met me at the front door and kissed me square on the mouth. Thanked me. I sat on the swing on the porch and watched everybody fuss over me. It was a little more than I could handle. Toward dark, most everybody left. Brodie and I sat on the swing for a long time, talking about cows and horses and a canoe trip he wanted to take on the Brazos. I kept starting out across the pasture where Cinch stood by himself. Alone. May was gone. Andie had taken her.
Maybe that was a good picture of me.
Captain Packer strolled out of the house, sat down, and the three of us tested the weight limit of the swing. After a few minutes, he tilted his hat back and looked at Brodie. “Son, would you mind running inside and getting me some lemonade or something?”
Brodie stood. “Are you wanting to talk grown-up stuff and don’t want me around?”
Captain laughed. “Yes.”
Brodie smiled.
Captain looked at me. “Oh, and, you’re reinstated. Like it or not.” He shook his head
. “Besides, you need the money. And what else are you going to do? You’re not fit to be a normal human being. Normal human beings don’t drive trucks into front doors.”
He had a point.
“The DPS is giving you a vehicle allowance. You can spend it how you like on what you like. So, do yourself a favor, be a real cowboy, and buy yourself a Ford with a big diesel.” He spat. “Why you ever drove a Dodge is just beyond me.”
I laughed. He was really fired up.
“We confirmed that the prison riot was ordered by Chuarez. He’d hoped to escape during the confusion.” He pulled a toothpick from his shirt pocket, picked at his front teeth, and spat. “He did not. Eleven prisoners died. Coroner confirmed from ballistics that I shot two.” He shook his head, tried not to smile. “Some other Ranger shot the rest. A couple dozen more were wounded.” He tongued the toothpick to the other side of his mouth. “Oh, and Chuarez ain’t getting out. In case you were wondering.”
Sometime after ten, I got Brodie to bed. He’d been running on emotion and adrenaline for the better part of a month. He crashed. My sleep cycle had not improved so while the rest of Texas was going to sleep, I was just getting going. With the house quiet, I grabbed my crutch and hobbled down the path to the river. I took my time, three steps and five breaths. Five steps and eight breaths. It took me the better part of an hour. The smells had changed. I missed my cows. I missed Mr. B. And, in truth, I missed my wife.
I walked to Dad’s grave. Rolled a cigarette. Lit it, drew deeply, and laid it, smoking, atop Dad’s headstone. The smoke curled up, climbing the air. Good or bad, I’d had a lot of time to think lately. And in that time, I kept coming back around to the same couple of questions. Cinch walked up behind me. Nudged me. That was his way of saying, “Come on, old man, where we going? You’ve always said life’s clearer sitting on my back. Hop on.”
I turned around, stroked his chin. “Not yet, old friend. Might be a while. Bullets and bones don’t really go together.” He licked my fingers. I spoke across him and Dad. “How is it that I can go charging into a burning building, bullets striking my windshield, but when it comes to love, my marriage, and my wife, I run the other way?” The smoke spiraled but he didn’t answer. I leaned on my crutch, unholstered the 1911, press-checked it and felt the round in the chamber with my index finger. Then I stood staring at its dull satin finish in the moonlight. I turned it in my hand. Maybe dying brings clarity. I voiced the second question: “All the weapons I’ve trained with are designed to stop threats I can see, but when it comes to my marriage, I might as well be shooting spitballs.” I brushed my thumb along the slide. “This thing is powerless against the thing that’s killing me.” I stared down over the river and struggled with the question that had been on the tip of my tongue for weeks. The one I was afraid to ask.
I got to the bank and stood inches from the water. I was pretty sure I’d never get my boots off and certain I’d never get them back on, so I shuffled in, knee deep, then sat down next to a big smooth rock and leaned into the current.
The water rose up around my neck and rolled off my shoulders. It soaked me clean through. My mind was spinning. I lay back against the rock, staring up. I can’t really tell you what I was thinking. There was too much. Where to start? I thought about those thirsty Spanish boys, a couple hundred years ago, stumbling upon this river after having been lost in the desert. Maybe they were right. Things get a lot clearer when you look at life from the closer side of death.
I thought about the two women in my life. Yes, I still loved my wife. Even after everything. And, yes, I had fallen in love with Sam. All the way. That put me in a bit of a pickle. Split me in two. Admitting it didn’t make it any easier. Just brought it out under the moonlight.
I’d spent half my life fighting an enemy I couldn’t see. An enemy no pistol or rifle or nuclear blast would kill. Every day I came home from work, it’d been there waiting on me. I just didn’t know it, or couldn’t see it, until now. Dad was right. A prowling lion.
I stayed there long enough to get pruny. Climbing out I weighed a lot more than I did when I climbed in. And it wasn’t all water. I knew what I had to do and I knew it was going to hurt a lot more than being shot.
Both of us.
Time to rush in.
PART FOUR
If you go amongst the Philistines, it’s best to go armed.
—Louis L’Amour
He trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle.
—David
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
A week passed. I got rid of the crutch, and got pretty good at masking my limp. It only hurt when I put weight on it so half the time I was fine. It was past breakfast. Sun was up. Brodie was fishing in the river. Dumps was working in the barn. I rubbed my eyes and pulled myself out of bed. I was tired. My strength was slow in returning. With my mind spinning 24/7, trying to rehearse the words I’d need, I slept little. No matter what I did, I could not turn it off. I showered, shaved, and told Dumps I’d be back in a bit. I drove slowly, trying to find a way out. None existed.
I climbed the steps and Sam opened the door before I knocked. “Hi.” She was bouncy, happy to see me.
“Hey.”
She stepped through the door and kissed me, brushing my cheek with her thumb and palm. Not liking what she saw, she read my face. I read confusion and fear on hers. A glimmer of something she didn’t like. I’m afraid I couldn’t hide it. She spoke softly, shaking her head. “You’re not here to finish our date… are you?”
I took off my hat and shook my head.
She shut the door and we stood on the porch. Her eyes were welling up. She was barefoot and kept looking at her toes, rubbing the lime green flaking paint on the porch.
I turned my hat in my hand. “How’s Hope?”
She didn’t look at me. “Good. Real good. We got more guinea pigs than we know what to do with.” Hope appeared in the window holding Turbo and three other little pigs. She was smiling. Sam shooed her away. I set Sam on the porch swing and stood in front of her. I had a lot to get out so standing was better.
I set my hat down, shoved my hands in my pockets. “I’ve been thinking about my life lately. Being reflective. Running things over in my mind. Maybe it started in that hospital bed, but it’s a place I’ve come to. Where I’ve ended up.” Her eyes were expectant. Big as half dollars. “I suppose you can blame Texas, you can blame my dad, you can blame me for being stubborn and hardheaded, and I guess you could even blame the Rangers and the fact that I been shot full of holes, but whatever the reason, I have reduced all the events in my life to one of two things. To something rather simple. So I can make sense of it. Maybe the more educated would say it differently but I break it down to two words: thunder and rain.” She crossed her legs and swung slowly.
I continued, “These are the moments in my life. The epochs. I say ‘thunder’ because in those moments I’ve been rattled, shaken, and maybe my heart skipped a beat or two, or several. Moments when I’ve known that evil is real. That it is aimed at me. That I am opposed. Directly. Thunder brings lightning and lightning a storm. Storms like: Momma leaving, holding Daddy as he lay dying, finding Andie blue and unresponsive on the bathroom floor, getting shot and being set on fire, pulling the trigger on Mr. B, losing the herd and the Corvette, walking through a weed-covered garden, finding out about Hope and what happened to her, and finally…” I looked out toward the prison.
“Out here in West Texas, we get something other folks don’t get. We get to see a storm coming. Get to feel the wind turn, watch the sky roll into a dark thunderhead, and marvel as lightning licks the earth from a long way off. Sometimes it takes an hour to get to us. Sometimes it’s here afore you know it.”
I nodded. Paused. “I’ve known my fair share of storms. Some would say an unfair share. I don’t know. Seems about right to me. I do know that I cringe now at thunder ’cause I know what’s coming. I been through it. It don’t let up. But, but on the other side, if I can get there, if I ca
n make it, if I can hold on… is, well, on that side… is the rain.”
I turned. Stared west. “I did some reading once on rain. Went to the library and looked it up. There’s been a lot written about it. Most is utter nonsense, but people been talking about rain since before they could write. Early philosophers thought water was everywhere. Literally. This guy named Thales thought water surrounded us cause it falls from above, if you dig you hit it, if you walk you run into it. Say what you want, but he has a point.”
I turned back to her. “I guess the point I’m trying to make and not making very well is that I can make my own storms, maybe I’m a close kin to thunder, but”—I shook my head—“I can’t make the rain. All I can do is stand in it when it does fall. And I have. Gladly. In those moments, I’ve breathed deeply. Laughed quickly. Felt tenderly. Loved completely. And cried so hard I thought I’d have no more tears only to watch one more fall to the ground. Moments where I’ve reached out, and somebody’s hand found mine. Where good surrounded me. Where someone defended me. Stood over me. I’ve known these moments, too: talking with my dad behind the garage after fighting some boys after school, my first ride in that Corvette, marrying Andie, holding Brodie, Captain pinning my dad’s star on my chest, picking up Dumps on the curb and watching him learn to walk through doorways without asking permission, putting José in prison.” I paused. Made eye contact. “Falling for you, then falling for Hope, opening my eyes in that hospital and finally, walking out. There have been more.”
She was teary. I wasn’t finished. “Maybe it’s in those moments that I know I’m not alone and I don’t walk alone. That I won’t. When the thin whisper of a veil between what I can’t see and what I can is pulled back and for one brief second I get a glimpse of what will be. Where the words ‘might’ and ‘hope’ intersect.”
I reached for her hand. She stood. “Samantha, you have been rain on my face. On all of me. You washed off the storm. I won’t never forget that.” A tear trailed down her face. I shook my head once. “But years back I made a promise to Andie. We were picking out rings. I told her if she ever lost her way, that”—I nodded, looked down—“I’d come for her. Always. I told her that. Gave her my word.”