Dream Wheels (23 page)

The front door opened and Joe Willie stepped out onto the porch. He let his eyes settle on Aiden. The boy felt his measure taken and he stood taller, pressing his shoulders back some, and when he looked back at the man on the porch the look was held and the eyes shone dully, flatly, with a look Aiden recognized immediately. They regarded each other for a long moment, then Joe Willie put on his hat and pulled the
brim low down over his eyes. He put his head down and walked slowly off the porch and detoured around the opposite side of the car. He never said a word. They all watched him walk in the direction of the equipment shed.

“That’s Joe Willie. My grandson,” Victoria said, stepping up beside Aiden.

“He’s crippled?” Aiden asked.

When there wasn’t a reply Aiden looked around him. “What?” he said. “He
looks
crippled.”

“My grandson was the best rider anyone ever saw at one time,” Victoria said. “He was a champion from the time he was a boy. There wasn’t anything he couldn’t ride. We don’t think of him as crippled.”

“So what happened?” Aiden asked.

“He lost a half a second,” Victoria said. She looked directly at Aiden. “It happens to the best of them. But I’d appreciate it if you didn’t bring it up to him and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t use that word again.”

“Crippled?”

“That’s right. My grandson’s still a champion to me, always will be. I’ll never see him as any less.”

“Champion what?” Aiden asked.

“Champion of the world,” Birch said. “My boy was seconds away from being World Champion All-Round Cowboy. That means he was the best at riding saddle broncs, bareback broncs and bulls. Especially bulls.”

“Is that what happened to him? A bull got him?”

There was another long silence.

“We don’t know yet,” Victoria said finally.

She had to stop the car every few miles. Claire had rented a sporty convertible, and with the top down and the sun shining
out of a hard electric-blue sky the land was invigorating. She pulled over to the shoulder and stepped out and allowed it to envelope her. It felt like it had hands. The breeze that blew across it brought the scent of juniper, pine and sage and animal smells that only served to heighten the sense of open space, so that standing there Claire felt the soul and the spirit of it all and she almost cried. There was a private place inside her that recognized it, and she allowed herself to breathe deeply and fully of it before driving on until the next vista beckoned and she stopped again. There was a song in it. She was sure of that. It was an ancient refrain that resided within everything, and she closed her eyes and let the breeze play across her face and tried to catch it, snare it with all her senses, reaching out even with her skin, so that when she hummed, a low, throaty note that was more moan than melody, it felt right and good and old as the land itself. She let it rise out of her. She stretched out her hands wide at her sides with her eyes closed and her head tilted back and let the note escape her, ragged and bruised and raw, and as it slid into the air she felt the land refill her, nestle into the spot where the note had lived and slake a thirst she never knew she carried.

She drove casually after that. The little car had pep and she let herself enjoy the thrill of it, the feel of speed on an open stretch of highway another song she felt within her. By the time she made the turn through town toward Wolf Creek she felt ready to greet her son again.

The ranch pleased her. Nothing ostentatious, merely a comfortable, settled place with two huge weeping willow trees in the front yard that framed a view of the valley that was as breathtaking as anything she ever imagined possible. Golec was the first to greet her and introduced her to the Wolfchilds. They seemed a very open family, and even though Claire had
never had anything to do with Indians before, she felt an instant ease with them. Lionel and Birch were gangly and good-natured, with a shy side that had them scratching at their hat brims at times or simply pursing their lips and nodding toward the ground while they listened to the talk. But the women were amazing. Victoria was a matriarch. Claire could tell that from the bearing she had, walking straight backed and purposefully, speaking directly to her, engagingly, and holding her with her eyes so that Claire felt present and understood. Johanna was spectacular. She was quite likely the most regal-looking woman Claire had ever seen. Johanna was taller so Claire had to look up to meet her look. At that moment Johanna Wolfchild seemed iridescent, shining with a light that seemed pulled out of the valley itself so that when she smiled at her, Claire felt drawn in to everything, made welcome and included and important in one rush of energy. She reached out to shake her hand and the skin was warm and smooth and strong, and Johanna smiled at her again, then pulled her into a deep, full hug and held her a moment before letting her go. Claire felt honoured. Johanna looked at her and she felt known, stripped bare and understood and accepted.

“Good to see you, sister,” Johanna said.

“Thank you,” Claire said, and for a moment they all stood in silence looking at each other.

“They boy’s in the main barn,” Victoria said. “He’s a mite ruffled by all this but those feathers will smooth now that you’re here.”

Claire looked at her. The old woman bore the same light as Johanna. “I wish I could be so sure.”

“Go to him,” Victoria said. “I’ve heard it’s been a long time.”

“It has,” Claire said.

“Time shrinks all on its own, girl. Go on now.”

“I’ll go with you,” Johanna said. “Might be good to have another mother around.”

Claire smiled at her. “Yes. Thank you.”

The two women stepped away from the others and crossed the rectangle of yard toward the barn. Johanna placed a hand at the small of Claire’s back and walked beside her. There was depth to the small gesture and Claire wondered how much the Wolfchilds knew about her and Aiden’s history, how much detail Golec had shared with them. “You know about our troubles?” she asked her.

“Not much,” Johanna said. “Enough to know that a mother and a son need time and a place to mend their lives. I’m honoured to be able to give that.”

“Why?”

Johanna stopped and Claire turned to face her. “I have a son I haven’t talked to in a long time too,” she said. “Only my son lives right here, an arm’s length away from me. So I know how hard words are to find sometimes. I know how life can destroy language.”

“Yes,” Claire said. “What happened with your boy?”

“We’ll talk about that in time. Right now you have to go to yours. Victoria’s got him mucking out a stall before dinner.”

“I imagine he’s happy about that.”

They found him at the far end of the barn. He was having trouble getting his footing in the wet straw, and as they watched him, he cursed quietly when his feet slid sideways as he tried to punch the pitchfork into the muck of the stall. Claire barely recognized him. He’d grown taller. His hair was longer and he’d filled out a lot. She was amazed at the lean muscle he’d developed and the strength he showed driving the tool downward and pitching the load into the wheelbarrow at the stall gate. His face was stern, flushed with the
effort of the work, and there was a driven look to his eyes she hadn’t seen before.

When he looked up and saw them through the slats of the stall he stopped and she watched his face register her presence. It was like watching a high cloud in the wind, the features dissipating, the way his face lost the intensity of the work and the anger and smoothed mysteriously into a placid, stoic mask, the eyes becoming obsidian, distant. He placed the fork against the wall and the dull thunk of it echoed in the silence. He wiped his forearm across his face. When he stepped awkwardly through the muck and out of the stall she saw no vestige of the narrow-shouldered, thin boy who’d stood in the prisoner’s box so long ago. A piece of straw clung to his shoulder, and she stepped up and reached out to remove it. He flinched but caught himself and settled and watched her hand take the straw and flick it onto the floor.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey yourself,” he said.

“Looks like a big job.”

“Yeah. From one shithole right into another.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what? This current shithole or the other one?”

“Both, I guess.”

“Yeah, well, save it.”

“Save it?”

“Yeah. I don’t need to hear it.”

“Hear what?”

He looked at Johanna. “Any slippery words of woe,” he said.

“Yes, well, I’m just glad it’s over.”

“It’s not over. It’s a long way from being fucking over.”

“You’re out, Aiden. You’re free.”

He laughed, hard and ironical, and Claire could feel his bitterness washing like a wave through the air between them. “You call this free? You and the cop set it up so I would come here. You and the cop and those bullshit words about honour. Well, I’ll do this stretch too just like I did the other one. It’s the second stretch I do because of you.”

“Aiden, I didn’t put you into prison.”

“You don’t think so?” he asked. “Think again. You built the situation.”

“What situation?”

“My fucking life, mother. You never once thought about what I might want. It was always you, always what you wanted, always another man down on the muffin. You know why I wanted to stick up that joint? So I could start buying my way away from you. Away from you and your self-centred little jelly roll.”

“That’s no way to talk to your mother, son,” Johanna said sternly.

Claire saw Aiden’s eyes flare.

“I’m not your son. I’m not anyone’s son. Don’t call me that, and you can tell your bullshit old man to stop calling me that too.”

Johanna stepped forward and stood directly in front of Aiden, who met her gaze steadily. She brushed a long strand of hair off her face, then folded her arms across her chest. “You can start using warrior words around this ranch when you start acting like a warrior,” she said.

“I am a warrior,” he said and punched his chest.

“No, you’re not. You’re a hurt little boy who wants his mother. Well, your mother’s right here, right now, and you’d do well to try reaching out to her instead of pushing her back.”

“Yeah, well, what do you know?”

“I’m a mother too and I have my own wounded son.”

“The cripple?”

Johanna dropped her hands to her sides and spread her feet a little wider. She looked at Aiden calmly. “I’ll stop using your word if you stop using mine,” she said.

Aiden held her gaze. Then he nodded. “All right,” he said.

“Okay,” Johanna said. “Now talk to your mother.”

She walked away and the two of them stood a scant yard apart, and Claire could feel each second as it ticked away. It struck her then that language is built of silences, the real words tucked away inside the wide gulf of the silences people fall into between the words. She wondered how long she and her son had struggled for talk, how many years had been built more of gulf than coastline, and she hungered for him to say something, anything so this wave of anxiety could crest and break and allow them air. As she looked at him she could see the boy beneath the visage of the man and she trembled a little in recollection of him, the wide-eyed, beaming boy she’d struggled to raise, and she wondered if he could recall him too. He only looked at her mutely, the eyes narrowed by caution and the beaming radiance of him lost in the stoic jut of jaw. She stepped forward and put a hand up slowly to that jaw and he recoiled in a small way before he caught himself and let her touch him. His skin was coarse with stubble and Claire felt like crying. She traced his cheek with her fingertips and when they got to the mouth she kept them there, the pads meeting the moist fullness of his lips and feeling the warmth of his breath. She raised the other hand and cradled his face lightly with her fingers and brushed both hands across his mouth again and then put them to her own face, her own mouth, and kissed them lightly and closed her eyes and let the first tear roll down her face. He put one big knuckle up and caught it. He
held the hand in front of him and looked down at it before slowly rubbing the tear into the skin with his other hand.

“Thank you,” she said, and he nodded and turned and went back to the work of mucking out the stall.

He didn’t like guests. Guests disrupted the flow of things, the order, the predictability, the routine. In the last year or so he’d come to depend on things being what they were day in and day out. It steadied him. He had no need for expectation and there was only the work on the old girl and the vague idea he had come to develop about getting her up and on the road again. Time wasn’t anything he counted or measured anymore. There was just the matter-of-fact satisfaction of the job. It was all he needed and all he cared to claim as his own. Guests, however long they arrived for, altered the pitch of things, and he resented the effect they had on his routine. He was preparing to lie out and examine his work on the undercarriage when there was a knock at the door before it slid open and the old man poked his head in.

“Okay to come in, boy?” Lionel asked.

Joe Willie heaved a sigh and put the flashlight down on the workbench. “Yeah,” he said.

“Don’t mean to bother you.”

“Why do it, then?”

“Call it cussedness, I guess. I just wanted a word with you.”

“About?”

“About our company.”

“Your company.”

“Yes,” Lionel said and put a foot up on the running board of the old truck. “Our company. The kid is kinda gonna need a hand getting straightened out.”

Joe Willie snorted. “Probably coulda used a hand a lot earlier. Right square on the backside. Wouldn’t have needed any straightening out now.”

“Can’t say,” Lionel said. “Don’t know the whole story.”

“No need. Convicts ain’t peaches. They don’t just grow.”

“Well, he’s a guest. He’s welcome.”

“Not around me he’s not. Don’t like convicts no matter what their story.”

“Seems to me you aren’t exactly partial to most folks,” Lionel said.

Joe Willie picked up the flashlight and turned toward the old truck. “Long as they leave me be,” he said. “I’m partial to that.”