Cowboys 03 - My Cowboy Homecoming (20 page)

On the way back to the J-Bar, I explained what happened with my dad. “I don’t know what my mother’s going to do when she finds out. I don’t understand what’s going on with her anymore. She was never exactly normal, but now—”

“Grief makes people do weird shit.” Lucho draped his arm over the back of my seat. “You’re probably right she should see someone. So should you, for that matter.”

“I’m fine.”

He laughed at that. “Yeah right.”

“No really.” I don’t know if I was reassuring him or me. “I’m fine. Or I will be. I’ll work through this.”

“This thing you told me about the girl . . .”

Nausea roiled in my gut. “What about it?”

“You should have told, even if Slade told you not to.”

“I know that.” I hit the steering wheel. “Do you think I don’t know that?”

“You were a kid. Your dad’s friends would have taken the brunt of it. They weren’t going to blame a kid for that.”

I knew that.
Knew it.
I’d known it at the time but I was too much of a coward—afraid they’d arrest my dad, afraid of what would happen to my ma and Heath. Afraid we’d end up in foster care. Afraid we’d be separated until we were adults.

My ma wouldn’t have fooled anyone at CPS for a second. They’d have seen what she was like. They’d have discovered what my dad was up to, seen his wall of crazy, and that would have been that.

Yancy told me if I went to the police with what I’d seen, I’d be destroying my family. Maybe throwing my little brother into an even more dire situation, with physical and sexual abuse.

I pulled off onto the shoulder of the road and as soon as the truck was in park, I leaped out. Started walking away. I don’t know where I thought I was going. I didn’t care much either, I just needed the physical exertion, and when the notion came to me, I broke into a jog and it was good.

Except for the fact that I was wearing the wrong boots, I could have gone forever, like Forrest Gump. Taken off and run until my beard was long and my burdens felt lighter.

Until my grief was spent.

Wire fences kept me going on the paved road, while I’d have liked to jog up into the hills.

Until that moment, I didn’t realize how much I missed pushing myself to the farthest reaches of my physical limits. I should have seen how important P/T was to my well-being.

That was probably why I’d been so restless. So irritable. No wonder I’d had nightmares. It was all rising to the surface now . . .

I missed army life and I missed my friends.

I’d never really let myself mourn for Maddox.

I was pissed to be home. I was furious at my mother. I’d wanted to kill my dad. I could have done the deed before any of the guards even realized what I was up to. I could have reached out and snapped his neck . . .

I fell into the drainage ditch on the side of the road, sick again with nothing but stomach acid to spew.

Wiping my face with my sleeve, I stumbled to my feet and kept on going.

Eventually, I became aware that Lucho’s truck crept alongside me, keeping pace. The window rolled down. “You know I’m not supposed to be driving, right?”

I didn’t have the breath to answer. As much as I cared for Lucho, right then I had to run.

“I’m going to drive a mile or so ahead and park on the shoulder. When you get there, you can tell me if you want to go more. Sound like a plan?”

I glanced at him, too winded to say anything.

“How far do you normally go?”

This wasn’t normal. I didn’t feel normal. If I ever felt normal again, I might stop.

“I’ll be waiting up the road a ways. Be safe.” Lucho drove off.

My heart disintegrated when I realized what he was offering: That was love, right there.
That’s what love really looks like.
Love and acceptance. Understanding. Kindness. What Lucho brought to the table wasn’t some dumbass romantic idea of love, but the kind of love I’d been looking for all my life.

The kind that gives and doesn’t ask for anything in return.

I wanted to give everything I had, everything I’d ever have or ever be to Lucho in that moment, but I had the work of a lifetime ahead of me. Healing. Growing. Making amends where I could.

It looked like Lucho was willing to stand right beside me, or he’d wait, just ahead on the road, for me to catch up.

Christ. How did I get so lucky?

We leapfrogged along until I couldn’t run any farther. I don’t know how far I’d gone but I knew I’d probably need to do it all over the next day, and all the days after, until I’d spent whatever grief I’d been collecting up all my life.

When I decided to get into the truck at last, I dropped my sopping clothes right there on the side of the road and let the arid wind dry the sweat from my skin before putting on a clean T-shirt and jeans.

I climbed in barefoot. Exhausted. My eyes drifted closed as the air conditioner cooled my burning skin. Lucho’s hands framed my face and he pulled me in for a kiss so gentle, so tender, that moisture built up inside my eyelids. I kept my eyes closed, but was unable to keep tears from leaking out the corners.

“It’s not your fault.” Lucho whispered. “None of it.”

“You don’t know—”

“I know you regret things. You agonize over what you could have done. Should have done.” He let me go. “I’m sorry I said that about going to the police. The adults in your life gave you advice and you took it. Maybe they were right. You were just a kid. You did the best you knew how to do at the time. Who am I to second-guess you?”

“You’re the guy whose grandfather—whose entire family—paid for my cowardice.”

“Aw . . . Shit. Is that what you’ve been thinking?”

“It’s true, isn’t it? I could have gone to the police that night and stopped the whole thing from ever happening. One little confession, and—”

“Right. And if a butterfly flaps its wings it causes a hurricane on the other side of the globe, right?” Lucho pressed my hand between his. “No one knows why shit happens. You’ve been carrying all this around for a long time, and it hurts you. Do I wish someone had stopped your dad before he could have hurt my family? Sure. But does that mean I am one hundred percent sure my
abuelo
would have lived longer? Maybe not.”

I frowned at that, “But you said—”

“That wasn’t fair.
Abuelo
lived a hard life. The coroner said he died of a heart attack. The stress from the fire might have made his condition worse, but it might also have been inevitable.”

“But you don’t know either way.”

Lucho wrapped his arm around me. “Maybe we should both let the past go and worry about now.”

“All right.” I nodded. “After I go to the police and tell them everything I saw that night.”

“You really want to do that?”

“It doesn’t matter if I want to. I have to.”

“All right.” He agreed. Giving my shoulder a squeeze before letting me go. “If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

He opened the driver’s side door. “You’d better drive the rest of the way.”

God, yeah.
I’d forgotten all about his foot. “Okay. Sorry about all this.”

“Don’t be sorry, just help me to the other side. God didn’t create me to hop.”

My muscles trembled as I got down from the passenger side of the truck. I helped Lucho around and put on fresh socks and boots, and then we took off for home.

We rolled up to the bunkhouse just after lunchtime and I parked Lucho’s truck next to the truck I recognized as his uncle’s.

I got out Lucho’s wheelchair and duffel and helped him up onto the porch. When we got inside, we were met by not only his uncle and Fausto, but his mother and grandmother as well.

Nobody looked too pleased to see us.

My heart sank.

“This is unacceptable,” Lucho’s uncle started in as Lucho wheeled himself through the door. “It’s bad enough to be a
maricon
, but to go with this—with the
hijo de puta
that caused our family such grief . . . You shame us.”

“Apologize to your
abuela
,” Lucho’s mother demanded. “By doing this you show no respect for her.”

When I would have stepped forward, Lucho caught my hand and said, “I think you’d better go.”

“Lucho—”

“It’s for the best,” his mother’s eyes glittered with hatred. “My son will never choose you over his family.”

“I’d never make him choose,” I said.

“I will make him,” she said. “I’ll demand he free himself of whatever hold you have over him. After the pain your family has caused us, our community, he has no business going with you.”

“I’ll make my own decisions,
Mami
.”

“You’ll make the right decisions,
hijo
. You’re breaking your
abuela
’s heart. You need to tell this boy to go back wherever he came from. He has no business here at the J-Bar.”

“Ma’am.” Eddie stepped in from the kitchen. He looked unhappy with all of us. “With all due respect, only Malloy and Crispin have the right to say who belongs at the J-Bar.”

“Then I will take my son, and go. If this man stays, my son does not belong here.”

“No.” Lucho gripped his wheels tightly. “I’m not giving up my job just because you don’t like my friends.”

“How can you be friends with this man? His father is a
criminal.
His brother was a drug dealer.” She folded her arms in triumph. “Oh, yes. Fausto tells me this man’s brother used to sell drugs to the
children
at his school.”

I glanced around and found Fausto positioned in the corner, trying to look innocent.

“This man’s family represents everything we stand against.”

“You don’t know him. You can’t judge him.”

“I know you lied about where you were going this weekend.”

“I did not.” Lucho frowned. “Where do you think I went?”

“You went with this man to see his father at the prison in Arizona.”

I said, “Technically—”

“Tripp,” Lucho wheeled to face me. His expression fierce, his brown eyes cold and unhappy. “I really need you to go.”

“No.
Luis
—” The name just popped out, I wasn’t even aware of it until I’d said it. And then I realized it was right. I was speaking to my lover, not my co-worker. I wanted to let him know I was willing to stand by him, no matter what. Even if that meant I had to walk away. “All right.”

Lucho’s gaze softened, and he gave me a small smile. “I need to run for a bit, you understand? And you need to wait for me up the road.”

I nodded and backed away, leaving him with his family. That was all I could do.

***

The drive to my Ma’s was tense and I was exhausted. I was worried about Lucho. Worried about what he’d say about me. Worried how he’d make things right with his family.

One thing I knew. He was lucky to have them. And he knew that too, deep down in his heart. They’d nurtured him. Taught him loyalty and love, and I knew he didn’t want to lose that. Would fight for it with everything he had, even as he fought for me.

I’d probably be the loser in that equation, but maybe that was okay. They were right. My family had caused theirs nothing but grief.

I parked by the shed and picked up my duffel. The porch creaked as I made my way up the steps. The screen door stuck. Christ almighty, there was a lot of work to do around the place. After calving season was over, I’d probably have plenty of time on my hands.

I opened the door and found my mother sitting at the kitchen table, pointing my Sig at me with trembling hands.

“Tripp. What are you doing here? I thought—” the gun clattered alarmingly to the table. “I thought—”

“I’ll take that.” I scooped the weapon up and unloaded it, checking the chamber and securing it inside my duffel. “What the hell were you doing with my gun?”

“You’re supposed to be at the J-Bar and I thought they were coming.”

“Who?”

“The men. Those men I take the things to Tucson for.”

“You know about that?” I landed heavily in the chair opposite hers.

“Yancy told me. We pay for your daddy’s protection from the . . .
colored
 . . . gang at the prison. Because of what he did, he’s a target.”

Jesus Christ.
“I see.”

“Your father gets protection from the white prisoners, but only if we make our donations weekly. Your father said they were very angry about last week, and that if we miss another week, they’ll send their men on the outside after us.”

I took her trembling hands between mine. “Is that why you had my gun?”

“I thought you were going back to the J-Bar after you came home. You said you wouldn’t be back until—”

“I know. I’m sorry I startled you. I made today’s drop, Ma. There’s no reason to be worried yet.”

“But your father called.”

“He called here?”

She held up a cheap cell phone, the same kind as in the boxes of clothes she’d given me. “He said you told him we wouldn’t take his donations anymore.”

“We aren’t going to.”

“But they’ll come after us.” She turned wide eyes toward the windows. “They’ll do terrible things. They already got Heath. I couldn’t bear it if—”

“What?” I leaned forward. “What are you talking about? Heath died in a car accident.”

“Yes. Exactly.” She gripped my arm frantically. “I used to let Heath take your father’s things, but—” She put her head down on the table and sobbed. “Heath could be so irresponsible.”

“Oh, Ma, no. You think someone killed Heath because of Dad? No.” I gathered her into my arms. “We can ask for the police report, but I’m sure it was an accident. An awful coincidence.”

“Your daddy told me it was all my fault. He told me if I didn’t make sure things got to the prison something worse would happen to me. He said they’d come here and—”

“Christ. No.” I rocked her gently. “What did Yancy say? Is he threatening you too?”

“Yancy helps me. He makes everything possible. If it weren’t for Yancy, your father would be dead.”

“Maybe he should be dead.”

“Don’t
say
that.” She shoved me away. “Don’t even think that. Who’d take care of us if your daddy was dead.”

“He’s not taking care of us
now
.”

She flinched. “Don’t yell at me.”

God, there was no point in shouting at my mother. To buy time and collect myself, I got up and rummaged through the fridge for water. When I found a bottle, I fumbled the top off and took a big long swig. I breathed in and out. Got back control.

“At the best, Dad’s a racist asshole who destroyed our family.” I said as calmly as I could manage. “If you’re right, he’s responsible for the death of your son. Can’t you see what he is yet? Why do you even answer the phone when he calls?”

“I knew you’d never understand. No one understands. What else can I do? I have nothing without him. There’s nowhere I c-can go and nowhere I can hide from what they’ll do to me if—” She got up and took off running and I followed, but she got to her room before me, slammed, and locked the door.

“Ma. I swear to God, I will break this door down.”

“Leave me alone.” Her voice wobbled unsteadily. “I need some time.”

I leaned against the frame with my hand on the knob. “Ma, please. We can fix this. We need to tell someone what’s happening. We need help. Both of us need help right now and we’re not going to get it by keeping secrets.”

“I need to sleep for a bit, Junior. I just need some time. I need to know—” I heard her footsteps by the door. She must have been just on the other side. “I need to know someone’s watching out while I’m resting, just in case. Can you do that for me, sweetheart?”

I backed away, ashamed for upsetting her. “Sure. Take a nice long nap. I’ll look after things. I can even pull something together for dinner.”

“Don’t be silly.” Her voice was lighter. Teasing. It sounded fake, but a lot of what she said seemed that way. “I’ll cook dinner. Just . . . give me some time right now. I’m so tired.”

“All right.” I headed back for the kitchen and got myself a cup of coffee from the pot. I checked my phone for messages. There was nothing from Lucho.

Yet.

I had to believe that he’d call when he had news. That he wouldn’t simply fold under pressure from his family and stop seeing me without at least talking to me first.

I held my phone in my hands, thinking of the Sig in my bag and my mother’s trembling fingers. She could have killed me. She could have killed anyone. Yancy, Mrs. Cliff, or the propane guy . . .

I was damn lucky she didn’t shoot me through the door.

I dialed Yancy Slade’s number and very directly, very insistently told his service that I needed to talk to him, right away. I left my number and told them I’d expect a call, or I’d start looking for him and he wouldn’t like it when I found him.

He phoned me back three minutes later.

“What’s wrong with you, talking to my girl like that?”

“Where are you?” I asked.

“I’m in Silver City, at a friend’s wedding. Can’t this wait?”

“We need to talk.”

“Is it a matter of life and death? Because anything short of—”

“I walked in the door today and my mother nearly shot me with my own gun.”

“She
what?
”

“My mother—”

“I heard you. What did you do?”

I debated how much to tell him. Was he the sleaze I remembered from that awful night when he persuaded me to forget what I saw? Or was he really trying to help us? Whose side was Yancy Slade on?

“Let me ask you a question, Slade. Do you ever regret not letting me go to the police after Las Cruces?”

“Ah, Christ, Tripp.” He practically shouted. “I regret that every day of my life. Every. Goddamn.
Day
.”

“Then I think I need your help.”

“Give me an hour.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

I paced and I checked my phone. Between the thing with Lucho and the thing with my mother, my stomach was all tied up in knots. After fifteen minutes, I tried Lucho’s phone.

I told myself I needed to let him know I had trouble here, but I really only wanted to hear his voice, and not for the first time, it occurred to me how deeply entrenched I’d gotten myself with him.

The thing we had was serious. Passionate. I wanted something with him I’d never considered with anyone else. I couldn’t imagine walking away.

What if his family didn’t soften their position? What if they could never find it in themselves to separate me from the past? What if they’d never give me a chance? My call went straight to voice mail.

I knocked on my Ma’s door and told her Yancy was on his way, but she must have been asleep because she didn’t answer.

I took to pacing again, and another fifteen minutes passed. I looked outside and saw no sign of Yancy’s Escalade. He’d probably be there any minute, but with each second that passed, my nerves stretched taut.

I knocked on Ma’s door again. “Ma? Yancy’s going to be here any minute. We’ll figure this out. What to do about Dad. Don’t worry.”

Silence.

“C’mon Ma.” I knocked again. “I wish you’d just come out here. We can have coffee and talk. It’s not as bad as you think. I made the drop this morning, so we’re safe for now.”

On the other side of the door, there was a scrape, a crash and then a thud.

“Ma!”
With no hesitation I kicked the door in and took in the scene before me.
“Christ.”

I dropped to my knees next to her crumpled body, heedless of the broken glass that littered the hardwood around her. A prescription pill bottle lay half-covered by the bed skirt. It was empty. I wanted to hurl it into the wall, but instead, I jammed it into my pocket.

Dazed, as if I was in some kind of horrible dream, I scooped her up and ran. She weighed nothing. Less than nothing. She opened her eyelids, groggy and disoriented, before we got to the front door.

“No.” She pushed against my chest. “
No.
Leave me alone.”

“Shut up, Ma.” I was furious with her. Scared in a brand new way. How could any fear be unfamiliar? I’d lived with fear all my life and learned all its nuances. But this was . . .

“Stop.” She pawed at me. “Better ’is ’ay.”

“No.” I choked back a sob. “You’re coming with me.”

“Daddy won’t like this.”

I burst through the front door just as she started retching—awful, twisting spasms that tore at my heart.

“Hang on Ma, we’re going to make this right, I promise.”

I was paying no attention to anything but her, so I froze when I saw Lucho’s truck pull up next to mine. The passenger window rolled down and he asked, “What happened?”

“She took pills. I have to get her to the ER.”

“You two get in the back.” He unlocked the doors. “I’ll drive.”

“Can you do that?”

“I got here, didn’t I?”

I opened the rear door and climbed in, my ma still in my arms. Silent now. Pale as death, but still breathing.

“Did you call poison control?”

“No time.” I met his gaze in the rearview mirror. “I didn’t expect you here.”

“I don’t know why not.” He shot me an odd expression—a sort of wry half smile. It was reassuring and gentle and made something in my chest unfurl with a new kind of tentative happiness.

I didn’t think about leaving a note for Yancy. I didn’t think about anything but delivering my mother to the ER as quickly as possible. Lucho knew the area even better than I did, and in no time at all, he came to a rocking stop outside the hospital’s ER doors. As I got out, he said, “Get her inside, I’ll park and come find you.”

“Thanks.” I kicked the door closed behind me and ran Ma inside, and after they took her from me I lost focus enough that when a woman in scrubs asked me a question, she had to repeat it more than once.

She touched my arm gently to get my attention. “I said do you know what she took?”

“I found this,” I pulled Ma’s prescription bottle out of my pocket. “I don’t know if that’s all. She might have—”

“Maybe you should sit down.” She led me to a chair. “So you think this is all she took?”

“I don’t know.” My face felt bristly from not shaving. What must we look like, me carrying Ma in here like that? She’d hate it. “No.”

“Has she been a patient here before?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is the doctor who prescribed these her primary physician?”

“I should know this, shouldn’t I?” Did the woman’s eyes hold a hint of condemnation? “I just came back home and I didn’t think to ask because . . . I should have—”

“It’s all right. So you haven’t been around? You don’t know if she’s done this before?”

“No.”

“But you’re the one who found her?”

“I heard a noise on the other side of the door.” I saw the room in my imagination. Heard glass breaking. “She was on the floor, and that bottle had rolled under the bed. I just assumed—”

She glanced at it. “So you don’t know for sure if this is what she took?”

“No.”

“Okay.” She gave my shoulder a squeeze. “We’ll see what we can find out. If she’s been a patient here before we’ll find her paperwork.”

“Thank you.”

“Hang in there.” She stood, still making notes on a clipboard. “We’ll take good care of her.”

I was sitting in the waiting room when Lucho returned. He carried two coffees. There was a packet of those little donuts sticking out of his shirt pocket.

“Here.” He handed over a coffee.

“Thank you.”

“No problem.” He tore the plastic donut sleeve with his teeth, and offered one, giving it a sort of squeeze that popped it from the pack into my hand. “What’d they say?”

“They don’t know anything yet.”

“Even if they did, there’s no guarantee they’d tell you.”

Watching him eat made me smile. He was a big man, and in his hand, that donut was a ridiculously small treat. He ate it in several tiny bites. Powdered sugar and crumbs dusted his soul patch. I wanted more than anything to lick them off, to kiss him, to lose myself in him right there in a hospital waiting room.

Did he know what I thought when I left the J-Bar? Did he realize I’d believed we were going to have to say good-bye?

It felt like a dream that he was sitting there beside me, his shoulder brushing mine as he made inane conversation to help me pass the time until I knew if Ma was going to be okay.

It felt like a miracle.

There was a commotion at the door. I looked over and watched as Yancy Slade literally shoved an orderly out of his way. “Is she okay?”

“She’s—”

“What did you do to her?” He lifted me by the shoulders and gave me a hard shake. “What did you say to her? Why would she—”

“Knock it off.” Lucho had to hop on his good foot but he dragged Yancy off of me, fierce as a bulldog in my defense.

I pushed them apart. “Sit down please, Lucho. Keep your foot out of trouble.”

“And mind your own business,” Slade said.

“Tripp
is
my business. You feel me?” Lucho practically growled the words.

I asked, “How did you know where to find us?”

He raked his hand through his hair. “You left the front door wide open. When I looked around, I guessed what happened and came straight here.”

I nodded. “Ma’s in with the docs. I don’t know anything yet.”

“What the hell happened?”

I explained what I thought was happening—that Dad had been using one of those burn phones to call Ma, telling her his enemies would send people after us if we didn’t do what he wanted. I told him I thought he’d made her believe they’d killed Heath somehow.

“That’s pure bullshit. I read the police report. I know exactly what happened that night.” He’d never looked more furious. “What he’s claiming is utter and complete . . . And he told
Birdie
this? That Heath’s death was somehow the result of a missed drop?”