Somewhere Along the Way (30 page)

MONDAY MORNING
FEBRUARY 18, 2008
WINTER’S INN BED-AND-BREAKFAST

TYLER PICKED UP MRS. BIGGS AT NINE THIRTY MONDAY morning. Martha Q had been taking her to the cemetery, but she complained of a cold when she called asking Tyler to assume the duty.

He didn’t mind. He drove over to the cemetery a few times a day, checking on one thing or another. Mrs. Biggs was a quiet woman, but not bad company. She always thanked him for his kindness.

“I’ll be back in an hour.” He pulled away, leaving her with a blanket for her legs. “Weatherman says there’s a cold front coming in today.”

“That would be fine,” she answered, already lost in the past.

Tyler thought of asking her if she needed another blanket, but he knew she wouldn’t answer. This was her time with her ghosts. The only good thing seemed to be that over the weeks she’d shortened her visits to an hour. He didn’t know if she was passing through her grieving or if Martha Q’s constant advice had gotten to the dear woman.

The thought of Martha Q made him smile. Everyone around town called her Mrs. Anyone. Maybe that was because after all her marriages, no one knew which name she preferred. Tyler remembered seeing her when she was young. She had a beauty about her that even a boy could recognize as something special. She might not have slept with every man in town, but she certainly flirted.

She was a woman who liked to play with people. Say outrageous things to see how they reacted. Ask questions that removed them from their comfort zones. Younger, she’d been dangerous; now she seemed more comical.

She was also unhappy. Probably for the first time in her life she was without a man. She knew she didn’t need one, didn’t want one, but she couldn’t quite figure out what to do without one. Tyler hoped she picked up a hobby before she drove everyone around her crazy.

He frowned, wondering why her manipulation didn’t bother him. He usually hated people who tried to talk him into anything from insurance to religion. He disliked people who weren’t truthful—even embellishments bothered him—and he doubted any of Martha Q’s stories were true.

Tyler grinned as he drove out to the trailer park at the edge of town. Maybe he’d write Kate tonight and ask her what she thought.

When he pulled up to Edith and Lloyd Franklin’s mobile home, he reconsidered what he was about to do. Over the years, he’d almost become friends with Edith. She served him breakfast a few times a week at the diner. Like everyone who ate there, he guessed there was trouble between her and her husband. Lloyd had been a big high school fullback when Tyler was in school. Edith was six or seven years younger, but Lloyd started dating her about her freshman year. He was long out of school, but she seemed mature for her age. They married long before she graduated high school. Tyler remembered hearing Lloyd brag that he was going to keep his little woman barefoot and pregnant. He’d said he wanted her young enough to raise her up right to be a good wife to him and a mother to all his kids.

Only they’d been married almost twenty years with no children except the three premature babies Tyler had helped her bury alone because Lloyd was too drunk with grief, she claimed.

Not long after the third baby didn’t survive, Tyler started seeing bruises on Edith. He liked to stay out of people’s lives except when called in, but he’d finally got up the nerve to tell the sheriff his fears.

Dan Reeves, the sheriff then, had told Tyler he wasn’t the first to notice. He said he’d been by to talk to her, but she wouldn’t press charges. She claimed she was just accident prone and bruised easily. Sheriff Reeves might have been in his sixties, but he was a bull of a man. He went out and had a little talk with Lloyd and the accidents Edith seemed to be having on a regular basis stopped, or at least they had until six months ago when Lloyd lost his job.

Tyler wasn’t like Dan Reeves. He’d never threatened anyone in his life. So he thought up another plan. Maybe if he offered Lloyd work, at least until he got a regular job, it would help.

With determination, he got out of his car and walked up the steps to the Franklins’ front door. Little Lady put her paws on the window and watched from the backseat. For once she didn’t look like she wanted to come with him.

Lloyd answered on the third knock. “Tyler Wright,” he said. “I remember you. You were a few years behind me in school. Didn’t go out for football, did you? I seem to remember you played in the band.” He laughed as if he’d told himself a joke no one else would understand.

“Drums,” Tyler said, surprised Lloyd remembered him. Even in a town as small as Harmony, it was unlikely their paths would cross often. “Lloyd, how are you?”

“I’m doing just fine. Thanks for stopping by to ask.” Lloyd laughed, knowing this was not a social call. “My wife forget to pay you for the last burial?”

Tyler knew Edith had paid him out of her tip money because the envelope had mostly one-dollar bills in it. “No,” he said, “I just came by to ask you a favor. The guy who handles my backhoe at the cemetery is down with his back. Doctor in Lubbock says he may have to have surgery. I was wondering if you’d like the job. It’d only be temporary, and I’d understand if you quit when you got a full-time job.”

Lloyd looked like Tyler might be trying to trick him. “Why would you be offering me a job? I barely remember you.”

Tyler had already prepared a lie for this question. “I didn’t expect you to remember me. I was just a sophomore the year you were a senior and took us to state finals. You were a hero to the team.”

Lloyd’s yellow smile crossed his face. “That’s right. I could fly that year.”

Tyler knew the rest of the football story. He lost his scholarship before Halloween his freshman year in college for fighting in the locker room. Some said he would have been gone in a few months anyway because Lloyd never considered going to class a priority. “You were fun to watch. We almost won that year. After you left we were three and eight my junior year and four and seven my senior year. Nothing to brag about those years.”

Lloyd nodded, taking all the credit. “Look, pal,” he said in a friendlier tone than before. “I’d like to help you out, but I got this project with my cousin going that might pay off big.”

Tyler tried to act like he was disappointed. “I understand.” Maybe Lloyd did have some other work. Maybe his and Edith’s hard times were over. “Thanks for listening.”

Lloyd closed the screen door. “Anytime.”

Tyler backed down the steps and climbed into his car. He still had forty-five minutes before he needed to pick up Mrs. Biggs. He wanted to drive a few miles farther down the road, past the Truman place and the Matheson ranch.

He’d heard that two hundred years ago there had been a Spanish hacienda near the river. The men had come up from Mexico long before the fort line formed to protect settlers and set up a ranch. Legend was, the Mexicans had made a treaty with the Apache and Comanche in the area. They were allowed to live in peace and raise sheep for the price of a dozen head a year. If the rumors were true, maybe he could walk the river’s edge and see some sign of where the stucco buildings would have been. If the wagon ruts still existed at the Washington-on-the-Brazos where men hid out in 1835 to write the Texas constitution, maybe there would be some signs leading from the river to what had once been a small ranch.

For Tyler, this exploring was high adventure.

Ten miles past the Matheson place, he turned off on a dirt road and found a spot where he could drive to within a couple hundred yards of the river. Tyler didn’t get out of his car. Clouds had gathered above, making the day seem colder with the sun blocked. He needed to get back to Mrs. Biggs. Tomorrow he’d try his luck again. The trail had waited two hundred years. It would wait a little longer.

He drove back thinking what a find it would be if there was still part of the foundation or better yet, one side of a wall.

When he picked up Mrs. Biggs, she seemed ready. He drove her back to the bed-and-breakfast, then went home to his quarters over the funeral home. He thought of his place as an apartment, built by his grandfather, but in truth his living quarters held five bedrooms, three baths, a kitchen with an elevator for bringing up supplies, a dining room to seat a dozen, and a game room he’d converted into a TV room. More than three thousand square feet for one person.

Tyler went upstairs, changed his sweater for a suit jacket, and went back downstairs to his office to catch up on paperwork and wait until five before e-mailing Kate. There were no funerals today, no one lying in state, and no calls, but he would be ready if someone walked in. He believed in being dressed and ready to work all day. When the day ended at five, he relaxed, sometimes had a glass of milk, and put back on his sweater. Then, every night, he opened his e-mail.

He was like an alcoholic who didn’t think he was a drunk because he only drank in the evening. He might have been e-mailing the same person for two years without an answer, but he wasn’t obsessed unless he e-mailed early.

Evening, Kate, hope the weather’s better where you are. I wonder if all people feel as lost on Mondays as I do. It’s the only day of the week I don’t usually have a plan for. I just have to wait and see what happens. I don’t have any family to have dinner with, which from what I see of some families that could be a blessing. I’ve never liked football so the game on Monday never interests me, but I’ll check the scores at news time because in Texas, if you don’t follow football you’re considered a talking form of plant life. Even the vegetarians will eat you alive.

He laughed at his own joke and signed off.

WEDNESDAY EVENING
FEBRUARY 20, 2008
LEARY FARM

GABE WALKED HIS LAND AT SUNSET. THE COLD WIND BLEW hard from the north, whispering another round of snow, but he barely noticed. He needed to think. For four years he’d held himself away from people. He’d made a life alone and he was comfortable. Maybe not happy, but comfortable. He had his work and Pirate to keep him company. Happiness wasn’t something he thought much about.

Denver, on one of his general rants, had told him to think about what he wanted. Gabe had never done that. It seemed he’d lived his whole life reacting to what he didn’t want to happen. He didn’t want his father to beat him. He didn’t want to starve on the streets. He didn’t want to die.

Pulling his hood up against the wind, Gabe tried to think of one thing he did want. His feet turned toward town, but ten yards later he shifted direction and headed toward the barn and his Land Rover. He wanted to see Elizabeth, and it would take too long to walk. Maybe he’d just stand outside her office or maybe he’d tap on the door and offer to answer a question. He didn’t care. He just had to see her.

Reason told him he could also drop by the sheriff’s office and see if there had been any more Smith break-ins. Alex had shared two meals with him last week; surely she’d talk to him. He couldn’t remember if Elizabeth had mentioned that his pen name was Smith, but he’d tell Alex that fact. He wasn’t ashamed of his writing; he just liked to keep everything in its place. His life—correction: his lives—had always been in compartments. Here, in Harmony, he was Gabe Leary. In his work he was G. L. Smith. In his nightmare he was still Wiseman, running with a lie, fighting to stay alive.

Winter seemed like a recurring cough this year, blowing in snow and frost every few days, but tonight Gabe could feel the temperature plummeting. If he didn’t take this chance to see Elizabeth, it might be a few days before he could get into town if snow started to pile up.

His uninvited houseguest, Denver Sims, had left before supper, saying he wanted to go into town for a while. He lived his life around strangers and didn’t handle the silence of Gabe’s house well. Gabe gave him directions to the little mall and knew he was there by now downing fast food.

In the morning he’d complain about the few thousand calories he’d downed wrapped in fat. He’d put on his running shoes and head for the pavement of the main road. An hour later he’d return exhausted and starving for a hamburger before he went through the machines in the basement. Denver was on a vicious cycle interrupted only occasionally by a salad.

They still maintained a security watch, but both finally agreed that the shot that almost killed the dog had probably been just what the sheriff said it was. Kids driving by looking for coyotes.

Gabe parked his Land Rover in the back parking lot beside Elizabeth’s sports car and bound up the steps. He didn’t even bother to check his mail before he tapped on her door.

No answer.

He tapped again. It couldn’t be much after seven. Where could she be on an icy Wednesday night? The few minutes they’d shared Sunday night behind the swinging door seemed a lifetime ago. He’d wanted a real kiss, but she’d been giggly, complaining that her family was only a door away. Finally, they’d struck a bargain. One kiss, then they’d join the others. At the time he thought there would be another time alone before the night ended, but the party was over without them even hugging.

Reason told him if her car was parked, she couldn’t be far away. He checked the used bookstore downstairs. A dozen ladies were circled around knitting. They clutched their yarn to their chests and looked up at him as if he might be an armed robber when he stormed in.