Seeing Things (22 page)
Authors: Patti Hill
“She misses you. She asks for news.”
“She
could
call.”
could
call.”
“You and I both know that won't happen.”
If this good-bye took any longer, I would jump in the cargo area with Bee. I said to Emory, in my best good-soldier voice, “You better get going.”
“Will you be okay?”
“That old dog snores like a freight train.”
“I snore a little.”
My heart fluttered. “Everybody does.”
“Birdie . . . ?”
“Lord willing, I'll be walking without restrictions in three weeks. We'll have all the time in the world to talk about the future.”
“When you get home, I have a surprise for you. But first I'll grill you a steak with a touch of pink, just the way you like it, and I'll sauté some mushrooms for the top with lots of butter and garlic. And I'll trade a bottle of Elsie's blood-pressure medication for a loaf of her sourdough bread. If she balks, I'll throw in a can of Gold Bond. She goes through that stuff like water.”
Tears threatened again. “I'll bring a pie.”
“Elderberry?”
“I thought you liked my apple best.”
“I like your apple pie fine. But your elderberry pie makes my toes curl.”
Talk of curling toes warmed my face. “You better get going,” I said with more authority than I felt. “That storm's supposed to hit the mountains before midnight.”
“I've driven through lots of storms. In fact, I'd drive to hell and back to see you.”
“Thanks for answering my distress call. I wouldn't trust Bee with anyone else. I'm awfully glad you came.”
“How glad?”
“Glad enough to tell you I don't deserve your kindness, but selfish enough to want it all the more.”
Emory got quiet, and I feared I'd played my hand too boldly.
“There's a woman watching us from a window,” he said.
“To the south?”
“About two hundred years old?”
“That's Ruth, and she's watching out for me, so you better mind your manners.”
“I don't think I will.” He hooked my chin with a finger and covered my lips with a hungry kiss. A flood of warmth weakened my knees. “I'll be seeing you,” he said. I stood at the curb, leaning hard on my walker until the grind of his motor accelerated into traffic at the corner.
“Is there room in your life for a misbehavin' dog and Huckleberry Finn, Sir Emory?”
“YOU SENT BEE HOME? Why? You said I was doing a good job with her.”
“Sit down,” I said, patting the bed, but Fletcher remained at the door. “This has nothing to do with you. You were great with Bee. She loves you. You're not so bad with old women either. This one loves you.”
He turned to look out the door. “Did you send Bee away to make Suzanne happy?”
Yes. No. It's not that simple. “Bee needs room to run. She's a mountain dog. If she doesn't chase a rabbit every now and then, she gets herself in trouble, or worse yet, I get her in trouble thinking booties will turn her into a lapdog.”
“This is about Suzanne,” he said, collapsing into the recliner.
“Fletcher, come visit us when school's out. We'll go for hikes. Bee will be awfully happy to see you, and so will I.”
Fletcher held his head in his hands. He whispered, “Joe DiMaggio. Center field. New York Yankees from 1936 to 1942 and 1946 to 1951. Played in ten World Series.”
“Fletcher?”
He looked up. “Joe had a 56-consecutive-game hitting streak in 1941. Some say that's the most accomplished statistic in baseball. I'm not so sure.”
“When I feel overwhelmed, I remember a Bible verse my pa taught me.”
“Huh?”
“When life gets out of control, I say this to myself: âSome trust in chariots, and some in horses: but I will remember the name of the Lord my God.'”
I didn't have to see Fletcher's face to know I'd completely confounded the fellow. “Have you seen
Ben Hur?
It's a movie, kind of old but very dramatic. There's a chariot race. Terribly bloody. I think you'd like it.”
Ben Hur?
It's a movie, kind of old but very dramatic. There's a chariot race. Terribly bloody. I think you'd like it.”
“It's not one of those musical things, is it?”
“Heaven's no. The story takes place when Rome ruled the known world. Four-horse teams pulled chariots at a full gallop around a huge racetrack, with the drivers snapping whips over the horses' heads. One of the chariots is rigged with blades to shred his opponents' wheels. Oh, it's quite the nail-biter. Evelyn spent that whole scene in the bathroom. Not me. I cheered on Charlton Heston.”
“Who?”
“You don't know Charlton Heston?”
“Did he ever play James Bond?”
For the sake of the story, I overlooked Fletcher's ignorance, however heartbreaking. “You'll have to check him out on the Internet.”
“What happened in the chariot race?”
At least he was paying attention. “The pounding of the horses' hooves rattled my rib cage. The race was thrilling and terrifying at the same time. I watched a lot of it through my fingers. Charlton Heston wins, of course, but his childhood friend is trampled to death by horses.
“But that was just a race. The chariots and their mighty horses represented the strength of the Roman Empire. I can only imagine how their enemies trembled when teams of chariots thundered toward them and their puny swords. Surely the ground shook. The point is, to this day, when things go bad, people reach for their most powerful weapons. The Egyptians and the Romans brought out their chariots. Today we fling hateful words about. Sadly, some resort to violence. When I'm threatened, sarcasm is my weapon of choice. But when I stop to remember the name of the Lord my God, I know he is faithful to look after me. No sarcasm needed.”
“I don't getâ”
“Fletcher, bringing Bee here was a big mistake, selfish on my part. I knew Suzanne wouldn't like it, even though your father finally relented to bring her along. You did a great job exercising her and keeping her out of trouble, but her presence caused more problems than she solved. You mustn't worry about her. She's staying with a good friend of mine who lives above Ouray. She'll have the run of the mountain.”
Fletcher fumed, then bolted for the door, slamming the wall as he walked out of the room. “I hate her! I
hate
her!”
hate
her!”
I lowered the bed to stare at the ceiling, now covered with a constellation of purple flowers. “Go away,” I said. But if anything, more flowers bloomed.
No wonder I'd botched everything. I was nuts. Crazy nuts. Mixed nuts. Spiced nuts. I promised myself to talk to a psychiatrist when I got back to Ouray. Surely they had a pill for people who grew flowers on the ceilings, fell down imaginary mountainsides, and carried on conversations with literary characters.
The bigger the pill, the better.
HUCK SAT CROSS-LEGGED ON the floor by the bed, his shoulders rounded, his head bent low. He traced the shape of an oak leaf in the rug. “I sure miss that hound of yourn's.”
“The lady of this house isn't crazy about dogs,” I said. “Bee made her nervous. And to be fair, Bee did rip the skirt off her sofa. A very expensive sofa.”
He met my gaze. “I heard your humbug talky-talk with her, all polite as pie. All I can say is ladies is ladies, and you got to make allowances, but yourn dog was a sockdolager.”
“A sockdolager? Is that a good thing?”
“If I'd a-wanted a dog, there warn't one better.” He drew deep furrows in the rug. “That is, if I'd a-wanted one, which I don't.”
“There's no better companion than a dog if it's approval you're looking for. Of course, they can be a lot of trouble too. Bee nearly eats me out of house and home.”
“That ain't no matter, not if a hound will eat catfish.”
I watched Huck rub away the furrows like swiping writing in clear sand. “I couldn't help noticing that you touched Bee and she responded.”
“Geewhillikins, I 'bout swallowed my tongue when she showed her belly. I warn't sure at all if I should touch her. But then I put a hard think on it. I can touch this here rug, and I can feel the coolness of the grass through my pants at the park. But I ain't never touched nothing breathingâat least not that I can tell.”
“Huck, is this your first time out of the story? Do you mean to tell me you've never visited anyone before me?”
“No ma'am, I ain't never been out of the story a-fore, although I'd like to light out for the territory. There's injuns out there, and space for a body to do as he pleases. But I always end up where I started, back with the Widow Douglas, trying my best to be respectable.”
“Let me get this straight. As far as you know, you're always living the story. You run away to Jackson Island, find Jim, float down the river, come across con men and pirates, but you have never ever stepped out of the story to explore the real world? If I was pulled out of my world to visit another, I'm afraid I wouldn't be as calm as you.”
“Afeard of you? You're a gentle lady, âwellborn' as the saying is, and that's worth as much in a woman as it is in a horse. Besides, I could shinny through the dark and you'd never find me nohow.”
“That's all well and good, but how did you get here, Huck? Did you walk into a wardrobe? Drink a mysterious brew? Eat a poisoned apple?”
“I reckoned it was you who called me out with the magic of a hair-ball oracle or some such thing. Tom would know. He reads books about magical and romantical things all the time.”
“If I called you, I don't know what I did, but I'm awfully glad you came. At the very least, you've made a difficult time quite interesting. Beyond that, you've filled an old woman's life with wonderment and a breathless expectation that anything's possible.” I swung my feet over the bed. “Huck, you must tell me if I'm asking too much, but I would very much like to touch your shirt. That may seem like an odd request, but I haven't seen a homespun shirt since I was a young girl in Tennessee.”
Huck drew his hands into his lap. “After I touched the hound, I had a long think about this. Do you suppose there's rules about what a body should do in t'nother world? It pulls on me pretty tight that I could end up in an awful peck of trouble.”
“I would never hurt you. You believe that, don't you?”
He stood and paced the length of the bed. “I touched a rattlesnake skin once and that fetched me some powerful bad luck.”
“Look at me, Huck. I'm not a rattlesnake; I'm a grandmother. And I wouldn't be touching your skin. Quite frankly I'm not sure I should do that either, but I would very much like to touch your shirt. My pa wore a homespun shirt when we read in front of the fire. I spent many nights sitting on his lap, leaning into his chest, feeling the pebbliness of his shirt against my cheek. He read us Bible stories that puzzled me something awful back then. Of course, Evelyn felt all superior whenever I asked a question, but Pa didn't mind.
“He read about a talking donkey, a woman turned into a pillar of salt, and a Levite who chopped his concubine into twelve pieces. Pa would never let me read a story like that from the library, but there it was, right in the Bible. He said some stories are meant to teach us what not to do.”
Huck yawned and stretched. “Aunt Peggy only told me about loaves and fishes, and I knowed plenty about fish already.”
I swallowed hard. “What do you think, Huck? Should we chance it?”
He raised his arm to me, cocked at the elbow. I reached out like he was a snake until my finger lit on his cuff. His eyes opened wide.
“Do you feel that?” I asked.
“Yup. Do you?”
I traced small circles on the fabric. Saddle leather. Wet wool. Tobacco.
Pa.
“Oh my.”
Pa.
“Oh my.”
Huck withdrew his arm like he'd touched a hot iron.
I reached for him. “No, don't.”
“Your eyes went somewheres else. I seen mesmerizers and phrenologists do that. Gave me the willies, it did.”
“I can't hypnotize you, Huck. But when I touched your sleeve, I smelled my pa.” I reached out my hand. “Please, may I touch your shirt again?”
“This ain't no deviltry, is it?”
Was it? Surely not! “I'm a good Christian woman. I don't give the devil any credit for all that God the Father delivers through his beloved Son.”
He lifted his arm again. I rubbed the fabric between my fingers. And then Huck did the most surprising thing of all. He rested his fingers, as light as a sparrow, on my hand. I felt the calloused tips of his fingers and the pulse of blood under his skin. He pulled away and jumped up.
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