A Guardian Angel (17 page)

The TV flicked back
to the studio where the anchor made some awful joke about the story
that Tim had ignored because of a ringing in his ear. Something
didn't sit right with him about the news story. Seemed to be far more
attention than he'd prefer. Made him seem weak.

The rancher scoffed
as he clicked the appliance off and lumbered over to his bed.
I
doubt anything will even come of this. Nothing bad at least.

-Chapter Sixteen-

Suggestion

Just like that,
over the course of a week, Tim had begun receiving donations from all
over the local area. They piled as envelopes in his mailbox or as
large electronic donations that the rancher only discovered he had
when he asked for cash back on a bottle of organic shampoo. Notes
were sometimes attached to the donations, some typed up on papers
from the desks of certain movers and shakers with a note about how
much they care about the community and give what they can and so on.
Others, to Tim's near displeasure, were charming little letters
written on notebook paper with crayon or another colorful utensil
from children who had seen him on the news, asking God to bless him
and saying other beautiful things. Even the children donated what
allowance they could from the bottom of their little hearts.

A prayer group had
even shown up one morning with a large donation and a touching
ceremony. They prayed at the gigantic angel for Tim's safety and that
of his ranch, wished him the best, and then drove off his land in
their stretched vans.

In a small amount
of time, Tim had collected enough money from these various generous
donations, and by selling the last of his beef, to begin rebuilding
his barn. For a couple nights he stayed up and looked at the ruins.
He wondered if he could even continue after such a loss. Every time
he thought about raising cattle, all he could see was twenty-seven
mangled corpses.
Still,
he thought,
it's who I am. I am a
rancher.
He would stare deep into the blank, featureless face of
the angel. Is it sacrilege to hate the thing for killing his way of
life? He wondered. Or, was it strange that he felt a sort of
responsibility for the miracle? Some sort of new connection was being
formed for the thing. He thought long and hard.

The rancher had
planned to tear the thing out of the earth and huck it. Donate it to
someone who wanted it. On his second night of contemplation, Tim
decided instead that he would incorporate it into his designs. Allow
it to stay where it had landed. He could watch over it.

He drove into town
with a short stack of money and bought himself the supplies he
needed. He piled mounds of wood and fencing material into the back of
his truck and began construction as soon as he got back home. He
discovered that he was no professional as he struggled with the
corners of his corral. It had started off with him just winging it,
nailing the pieces together as he thought they should fit. It never
worked out well in the end. He started drawing up a plan based off of
other designs that he studied in the public domain and started
putting it into practice when a familiar car drove onto his property.

“Working
hard, Timmy?” Barney asked, pulling his sunglasses off for a
second before deciding against it and replacing them. He walked over
to the rancher, glancing over Tim's work. “Nice, buddy, how'd
you swing this out?”

“That was
you, Barney,” Tim replied. “Did you see my story on the
news?” He stopped working to turn and look at his visitor.

Barney nodded. “I
did indeed.”

“Well,”
Tim started, snapping his fingers, “just like that, money
started coming in from all over. Church groups, businesses, even
children.”

“Ah well that
is really lovely, Tim,” Barney commented. “So, you're
going to rebuild the thing, huh?”

Tim moved his hand
to block out the sun from his eyes. “I don't see what else I'm
going to do,” he said.

“No, I
understand it,” Barney replied. “I just don't know if I
could do it again after all that,” he searched for a word,
“meat.”

“It's in my
blood,” the rancher explained.

“As, I would
presume, is an abrasiveness to change,” Barney commented. Tim
looked at him in thought as the insurance agent knelt down beside the
rancher and took a closer look at the construction. “Yikes.”

Tim looked at him
with concern. “Yikes? What's yikes?”

“You've never
done this before, have you?” Barney asked.

“No.”

“Well, to be
honest, I can tell,” Barney said. Tim looked at him with an air
of slight offense. “It's not a bad project at all, you just
need some trained help.” Barney walked around the construction
without being led by his host, inspecting the fence like the judge of
a dog show. “Yeah, your walls aren't reinforced right. They
would end up falling in pretty easily.”

“Excuse me?”
a soft voice greeted from behind. Tim and Barney turned around and
saw a very plain but attractive young woman. She was small and
dressed in an outdated manner. She looked like she lived on a farm
herself.

“Yes?”
Tim greeted her. “How can I help you?”

She was timid. She
seemed so unsure of herself as she spoke. “Um, well I come from
this small town about an hour up the road,” she started, then
stopped short as if Tim and Barney were interrupting her. She didn't
speak in front of many people. “Saxdale, it's called. Yeah.”

“I know the
town,” Tim grinned with all his charismatic performing ability.
“That's quite a ways for a visit.”

“Well,”
the woman started, her voice barely above a whisper and fragile
enough to be broken with a straw. “The reason I've come out
this far is that my little brother, Timothy, he's in the hospital.
And I saw you on the news. We all did. And the miracle – you –
you don't know where the angel came from, do you?”

Tim shook his head.
He pointed. “Up,” he answered.

She beamed. His
response seemed to delight her. “Oh that's just so amazing. My
family, we all thought, maybe – maybe it came from heaven,”
she explained like a rolling train.

If there was a
gesture that Tim would use to calm overexcited speakers, that was
what he did now. “Maybe. What's your name?” he asked.

“Heather.”

“Heather,”
he echoed. “Well, you can ask me what you want about the angel.
I won't bite.” He did his best to smile for reassurance. It was
well received. She grinned back.

“What I
really wanted to know was,” she hesitated, reserving herself,
“could I pray for my brother at the angel?”

Barney's head
turning attracted Tim's attention, who turned his head, too. Barney
had a strange expression, his eyebrows raised and his mouth creased
in thought. Tim groaned to himself for a moment, more strained by
having to make a decision rather than being displeased with the
request. Then he turned back to young Heather.

“Sure,
sweetheart,” he answered.

Her smile grew like
a rising moon, spanning from nose to chin. “Thank you so much!”
she cried, moving forward to the thing looming on the far side of the
property.

“Do you need
any help or you got this by yourself?” Tim asked her as she
jogged past him. She didn't hear it. She ran up to the angel and
bowed down before it. She became a silhouette against the rising sun.

“Hey, Tim,”
Barney exclaimed in a sharp whisper.

Heather was
kneeling before the structure, saying something to herself. Tim's
attention snapped to Barney. “What?” he asked in a normal
talking voice.

“Is this
something that happens a lot?” Barney asked. “Are there
many visitors?”

“Well, ever
since the news story,” Tim explained.

Barney expressed
his interest with a stroke of his chin. “See, I'm kind of
having an idea here. Stop me if it's absurd.”

“And what's
that?”

“You could
turn this ranch into an attraction,” Barney said, his words
articulated with care. “A tourist business of sorts.”

A short moment of
silence passed where Tim stared at the man with an expression that
waited for more to be said. When nothing was, he quivered his head in
confusion. “How do you mean?” he asked.

“You know,
build a gate, build a booth. Fenced in right, you could charge a
modest admission for everyone that wants to have their picture taken
with it or pray at it, man.” Barney gestured to Heather. “She's
not going to be the last.”

“Mr. Slechta
– ”

“Barney, Tim,
I've told you.”

“Barney,
that's just an,” Tim shrugged as he searched for the words,
“impractical idea. I mean, no offense, but this excitement
about the 'miracle' doesn't guarantee a market. I'm no entertainer.
All I've ever done is tend the land and raise cattle. It's a large
investment for such a loose hunch.”

Barney nodded in
pretend agreement. “Tim, your story was featured in Time,”
he told the rancher. “Today's issue.”

“Time?”
Tim asked.

“It hasn't
been a good year, you know,” Barney said with a tone of
bargaining. “People want something feel-good. Something that
tells them, 'God is still watching us.' Because,” his eyes ran
over to the angel and the woman praying in front of it, “in
these days, I'm still not convinced.”

Barney was right.
Heather was not the last of the religious pilgrims and curious
scholars to pay the Simacean Ranch a visit. They came almost in
crowds, most not prearranged. At first Tim greeted them with warmth
and asked nothing of them. The volume of people wore in though, his
responses and conclusions all on a scripted replay. He had to start
telling them not to touch things. Started to have to keep an eye on
them. Make sure that they all respected him and his property.

He got into contact
with Barney the next day after Heather's visit. Barney showed up in
the late afternoon with three other men, all of them in dark
sunglasses. Tim pondered to himself whether or not they purchased
them together or if it wasn't even prearranged and all of them
thought it was too bright outside by coincidence. On an overcast day.

“Timmy,”
Barney greeted, then waved his arms back at his companions. “This
is my crew. All these guys are tough mothers and very capable at a
range of work. Construction composes a majority of our labor,
actually.”

“You don't
say?” Tim said with a tone of boredom, though he wasn't
uninterested.

“Insurance
claims are slow in this part of the state,” Barney said. He
snickered. “My girlfriend doesn't wanna move. Got involved with
a theater group.” Barney peered into nothing for a second.
“Anyway, let me introduce you.”

Barney gestured to
the first guy, a black man with a groomed goatee and a pile of hair
that was not graced with the same care. He was shorter than Tim but
he looked at the rancher in a way that symbolized sternness but
respect. Tim liked him already. “I'm Chase,” he said,
offering a handshake.

“Nice to meet
you,” the rancher accepted.

The second worker
was a tall blond guy with skin that tanned a pinkish hue. He wore
shorts big enough to be pants and an undone button up shirt. He
grinned a lot but seemed to struggle with keeping eye contact. Tim
thought that he seemed nice enough, but for some reason he felt mild
distrust as the man's pupils scampered around, avoiding Tim's own.
“Frank,” he said, then gave a sharp, quick hand squeeze.

The third one was
just as tall as Frank but at least three times as wide. He resembled
an ogre in Tim's mind. A big bald cretin. “My name's Gus,
pleased to meet you,” he said as eloquently as grunts can be
said.

The rancher stood
back and looked at the lot of them. Barney stared at him on his
right. “So,” Tim started, “I hear you're all solid
with construction. Is that right?”

They all nodded in
their own manner.

“Okay, so
what we want to do is, so far, without any real blueprint or plan –
”

“Barney
showed us the layout in the car,” Frank interrupted.

Tim turned to
Barney with cocked eyebrows.

Barney sighed.
“Yeah, well, when I came home last night I couldn't get to
sleep and I was thinking about your whole angel thing, and so,”
Barney explained, pulling out the plan he had drawn, “I made
this up. You know, on the off-chance you would reconsider.”