Between Heaven and Texas (24 page)

“I don't know why we have to go. Daddy doesn't care if we're there or not.”

“Because he's your father, and you're wrong. He does care about you. He's just not very good at showing it, that's all. Guess what Aunt Mary Dell and I did last night?” she asked, making her tone deliberately more cheerful as she changed the subject. “We helped Graydon deliver six baby lambs.”

“You did?” Cady's eyes went wide.

“We sure did,” Mary Dell confirmed. “And we're going to help deliver a whole lot more. Your momma and I are the newest hands on the F-Bar-T.”

“You are?” Jeb asked.

“Yes, indeed. Everybody is going to help. Me, and Momma, and Grandpa are going to work with the stock. Grandma and Granny Silky are going to take care of the house and the cooking and the babies. Aunt Velvet too. The whole family.”

“What about me?” Jeb gave his mother a hopeful look. “Do you think Graydon would let me help?”

Lydia Dale looked in the rearview mirror again. “He might, but I won't. I don't want your schoolwork to slide.”

“It won't!” Jeb promised eagerly. “I'll keep up with it, I swear I will. I'll do my homework on the bus. And if I don't finish it on the bus, I'll stay in at recess and do it then.”

“Yes, I'm sure you would,” Lydia Dale said. “Especially since you're already staying in at recess. Mrs. Floyd sent me a note and said you're being punished for shooting spit wads at the girls during a filmstrip. Jeb, I am sick and tired of you always being in trouble at school. I want it to stop, do you hear me?”

“Yes, ma'am. I'm sorry. If you let me help with the lambs, I promise I won't get into any more trouble. I'll do my homework and pay attention in class and be nice to the girls, even Rhonda Jane Reynolds, and . . .”

Lydia Dale cast a doubtful glance into the mirror. “Promise?”

“I do!” Jeb said, eagerly. “I promise!”

“All right,” Lydia Dale said slowly. “But if I get one more note from Mrs. Floyd, if she even looks at you sideways, if you miss or rush through even one homework assignment, that'll be the end of it. Understand?”

“Yes, ma'am! Whoo-whee!” Jeb was so excited that if he hadn't been wearing his seat belt, he would have bounced into the roof of the car. Mary Dell smiled. Lydia Dale winked at her.

“What about me?” Cady pouted. “I want to help.”

“You can help take care of the babies,” Mary Dell replied. “Howard eats kind of slow from the bottle and Grandma is going to be awful busy. Would you like to be in charge of sitting in the rocker and feeding him?”

“Yes, ma'am! I can do that!”

“All right, then. Every day, after school, that will be your job.”

“Okay!”

Mary Dell looked over at her sister and smiled. “Now, you see what I'm saying? We'll be great together. It's all about teamwork.”

“That's right,” Lydia Dale said in a teasing tone. “If enough Templeton-Tudmores put their heads together, there's nothing they can't do. Birth a lamb, open a quilt shop, conquer a medium-sized country . . . Did you ever think about running for Congress?”

Mary Dell laughed and Lydia Dale joined in. They laughed as they passed through the outskirts of town, where the spaces between the houses grew longer and longer until, finally, there were no houses at all, to the end of the pavement and the beginning of the dirt, bouncing over potholes and gravel and bumps in the road, past flat plains and rolling hills of grassland, driving to the northwest as the sun rose high and hotter in the sky, until they passed under the arch of the wrought-iron gate, to the land and life they shared with each other and those who had come before.

C
HAPTER 40

T
hree nights later, during a particularly difficult delivery, Lydia Dale reached in and repositioned an unborn lamb that was in trouble and delivered it all on her own. Graydon was impressed.

“I wasn't too excited about letting you and Mary Dell help with the lambing . . .”

“Really?” Lydia Dale teased. “Gee, I'd never have guessed. You being so reluctant to give your opinions and all.”

Graydon scratched his left ear and smiled a little. “I deserved that. Anyway, I wanted to tell you I was wrong . . .”

“Beg pardon?” Lydia Dale cupped her hand to her ear.

“I was wrong.”

Lydia Dale laughed. “I just wanted you to say it again. That's the first time in my life I've ever heard a man come right out and say so.”

“Well, savor the experience. Could be a long time before it happens again.”

It was close to morning. Lydia Dale smiled to herself as they walked through the half-light of the coming dawn, past a pen where newborn lambs slept peacefully next to their dozing mothers, toward another that held ewes with blue marks on their coats, indicating the presence of twins in utero. It was quiet. For the first time in days, none of the sheep seemed to be in labor, not one of them was bleating or bawling in distress. It was nice to have this moment of rest, to feel tired but peaceful, knowing she had done a good night's work. And it was good too to have shared that night's work with Graydon. She liked him. That shouldn't have been a surprise to her considering that so many years ago she had loved him, but this was different. She
liked
him now.

She appreciated his quiet humor and solid good sense, his character, the way he talked to the men who worked for him, with authority but not a hint of arrogance. She liked the way he treated her kids too, the way he listened to them, the way Jack Benny never had, not to his children or to her. And she liked that he could admit when he'd been wrong. She felt comfortable with him, in some ways more comfortable than she'd ever felt when they were engaged. That had been wonderful, that experience of being so breathlessly, hopelessly in love, exhilarating and intoxicating, like tippling champagne, but it had also made her feel a bit out of control. Even at the time, she'd found love a little frightening.

But now they were friends, and friendship was what she needed. She felt like she could be satisfied like this, just walking silently, matching her steps to his, for a long, long time, but when Graydon's voice broke the silence, that was all right with her too.

“I don't know how you manage it, Lydia Dale. Not you or your sister. I swear I don't. All day long you take care of the kids, or help on the ranch, or both. Then you take turns staying up all night to help with the sheep. And come breakfast, you still look fresh as a daisy while the rest of us sit staring into the bottom of our coffee cups, using toothpicks to keep our eyelids open. How do you do it? Mary Dell says it's due to clean living and Aqua Net hair spray, but I have to think there's more to it.”

“Well”—Lydia Dale laughed—“you can't underestimate the power of good beauty aids, but I suspect it's just practice. I've been a mother for ten years, which means I haven't had a full night's sleep for a decade. I'm on call every night, sometimes all night, to deal with everything from croup and teething to nightmares and bedwetting. Getting up to make the rounds of sheep every couple of hours isn't all that different.”

“Well, you're a wonder,” he said, in a voice that sounded as if he really meant it. “The way you handle yourself, and your kids, and everything that comes your way . . . I respect you, Lydia Dale. I really do.”

She ducked her head, glad for the semidarkness that hid the blush of pleasure she felt rising on her cheeks.

“Another first,” she whispered.

“Excuse me?” Graydon said, tipping his head to one side.

“Nothing,” she replied, not knowing how to explain how much the word meant to her. She had been valued and pursued for beauty, and discounted because of the same. Never before had she earned a man's respect. Until this moment, she had not realized how much she had desired this.

“Thank you, Graydon.”

He nodded and shoved his hands in his pockets. They stood together next to the fence, listening to the silence.

“Well,” he finally said, “seems like everything is under control for the moment. Guess we should try to catch a few winks while we can.”

“I was wondering if it'd be all right for me to take a day off tomorrow?”

“Sure. You've earned it. We'll be all right for one day.” Graydon started toward the barn. “See you at breakfast.”

“Graydon,” she called after him, “I won't be at breakfast. I'm going to sleep for a little while and then go run an errand. Will you tell everybody I'll be home later? Probably in time for supper, but if I'm late, tell Momma not to wait.”

“You're running an errand before breakfast and won't be back before supper? What are you up to?”

Lydia Dale squirmed under his questioning. “It's a surprise. But I don't want anybody to know about it because I'm not sure how it'll turn out. Promise you won't tell.”

“Not if you don't want me to.”

C
HAPTER 41

B
y the time Graydon showed up in the morning, everybody already knew that Lydia Dale wouldn't be there for breakfast.

A little after six, Taffy went into Lydia Dale's bedroom, the same room she had shared with Mary Dell when they were children. She decided to sneak Rob Lee out of his crib, dress him, and feed him so Lydia Dale could sleep a little longer. But when she quietly opened the door to the bedroom, neither Lydia Dale nor the baby was there. Puzzled, Taffy went back to her room to look for Dutch, but he was missing as well.

Taffy was Methodist, born and bred, and had been raised to take a practical, measured and, well . . . methodical approach to religion. But Too Much was full of folks who took every word of the Bible absolutely literally, chapter and verse. She'd gone to school with plenty of children from those families and, as a child, had been fascinated, and sometimes frightened, by their interpretation of the scriptures. She remembered, in particular, what they'd told her about the Rapture and how, in the Last Days, the righteous would be miraculously spirited to heaven while the unrighteous would be left on earth to endure floods, famines, and other horrors.

Her pastor had never preached about the Rapture, not once in all the years she'd been going to church, but as her schoolmates had pointed out to her, it was right there in black and white, in the book of Matthew
and
in Luke: “Two men shall be in the field; the one will be taken and the other left behind.”

It had been a long time since Taffy had thought about this, but when she couldn't find her daughter, grandbaby, and husband, it all came flooding back and a terrible thought occurred to Taffy—what if she'd been left behind?

She hadn't always been the sort of woman she ought to be; she knew that. She was vain and covetous and often short-tempered with her husband. Dutch was a good man. She was lucky to have him. But . . . where was he? Where was everybody?

She scurried down the hall, her heart pounding in her ears as loudly as the kitten heels of her silver lamé bedroom slippers pounded against the Mexican tile floor. She opened the door of the catchall room-turned-bedroom that the children shared and was relieved to see two tousled heads resting on the pillows. She sighed and rested her hand over her palpitating heart.

Thank heaven! They were still there, both of them.

She suddenly felt very foolish. Of course they were still there. Where else would they be? How could she have let herself get so worked up? And Dutch must be around as well, Lydia Dale and the baby too. They couldn't just have disappeared into thin air. Of course not.

 

Dutch, too impatient to wait for the coffeemaker to finish brewing, was standing in the kitchen with his cup positioned directly under the drip mechanism when he heard Taffy scream.

Leaving his cup behind, he ran toward the direction of her howls as quickly as was possible for a man missing half his left foot. Upon arriving in the living room he saw his wife, pink foam curlers still in her hair, sobbing as she stood in front of the display cabinet that held all of Lydia Dale's old tiaras and pageant memorabilia. Or rather, that had previously held those items. The cabinet was empty.

His first thought was that they'd been robbed, but the television, the stereo, his autographed picture of Tom Landry, legendary head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, and everything else of value was still there.

Why would anybody steal all of the girls' old pageant memorabilia? Or almost all of it? There were two tiaras left in the case, both of which belonged to Mary Dell, the only two crowns she'd ever brought home during her brief career as a beauty queen.

Dutch was about to return to the kitchen to phone the sheriff but was interrupted in his errand when Taffy emitted an even louder wave of sobbing and ran off toward Lydia Dale's bedroom. He hobbled along behind as quick as he could, nearly stumbling when his ears were pierced by another shriek from Taffy.

“They're gone! All gone!”

Taffy stood at the door of the cedar closet, the one she'd had him build specifically to hold the girls' old pageant dresses. The gowns were missing—all except those few that had belonged to Mary Dell.

Taffy spun around to face him, tears in her eyes. “I don't understand,” she said weakly. “Who would do such a thing? Lydia Dale is gone, the baby too. Where could they be?”

Dutch scratched the stubble on his still-unshaved chin, just as baffled as his bride. Taffy's eyes grew wide with fright as a new possibility occurred to her.

“Oh, Dutch! Oh, my gosh . . . what if they've been kidnapped! What if someone snuck in here in the middle of the night and kidnapped them?”

Dutch looked at the window, closed tight to keep the air-conditioning in. No one had tampered with it. And when he'd let out the cat a few minutes before, the door was still locked.

“Honey,” he said. “Calm down. Our room is right next door. If somebody had broken in, we'd have heard it. There has to be some explanation.”

“Then what is it?” Taffy's voice was high and shrill, verging on hysterical. “Where could they be? And why would their pageant treasures be missing?”

“I don't know,” Dutch said helplessly, “but there must be—”

The sound of Graydon's voice, coming from the kitchen and sounding somewhat urgent, cut Dutch off in mid-sentence. He headed for the kitchen with Taffy on his heels and found Graydon on his knees, using an enormous wad of paper towels to mop a pool of hot coffee from the linoleum.

“Shoot!” Dutch exclaimed, then pulled another bunch of towels from the roll and joined Graydon on the floor. “I ran off and left the cup under there when Taffy started hollering. Forgot all about it.”

“Hollering about what?”

“Lydia Dale and Rob Lee,” Taffy said in a panicked voice. “Somebody kidnapped them! And the dresses, the tiaras . . . all Lydia Dale's pageant treasures. They're all missing. Will you two forget about the coffee? We've got to call the sheriff right now!”

Graydon smiled and sat up on his haunches, the wet brown paper towels still in hand.

“You don't need to do that, Miss Taffy. Lydia Dale got up early to run some errands. She hopes to be back by supper but wants you to go ahead and eat without her if she's not. She asked me to tell you when I saw you at breakfast.”

“Errands?” Taffy sniffled and put her hands on her hips, her fright replaced by irritation. “She got up to run errands in the middle of the night and won't be back until supper? And she took all her pageant treasures with her? Why?”

“She didn't say, just that she'd be back tonight and to tell you not to worry.”

Taffy threw her hands up in the air. “Oh, she did, did she?”

 

Taffy delayed serving until eight, then she fed the children and sent them to bed. But in spite of what Graydon said, Taffy was worried. Everyone was. They assembled in the kitchen so they could worry together and speculate as to what could explain this very strange behavior on the part of Lydia Dale.

“It's just not like her,” Taffy said, passing a platter of barbecued ribs down the table. “The last time she did something like this was when she ran off and got married. You don't think . . .”

“Of course not,” Mary Dell said, dismissing the suggestion with a wave of her hand. “That's the last thing on her mind. She's not interested in finding another husband, now or ever. She told me so.”

Graydon choked on the lemonade he'd been drinking. Dutch gave him a look, then started pounding him on the back.

“You all right?”

Graydon nodded, then coughed. “Fine, thanks. Swallowed wrong.”