The Loves of Ruby Dee (28 page)

Then she hurried away from him, back to the house, and to the old man waiting there.

In that instant, stabbed with jealousy, Will had a sudden understanding of his father and what had happened with his mother, her just nineteen and the old man forty-three, his time running out and his manhood running hot.

But the old man had had his chance, Will thought angrily.

* * * *

Hardy knew when Ruby Dee came in that she had been with Will. Passion was all over her face, and her lips were moist and swollen. There were tears in her eyes, too.

He pretended not to notice any of this, pretended to work intently on the bridle he was making, all the while wanting to reach over and draw her to him. His gaze stopped on his hands.

They were old hands, spotted with age...hands he hardly recognized anymore. It was like he was two men. The one inside, the Hardy he knew, was strong. And if some might call him coarse and hard, he was an honest man and a powerful one, too. Then there was the other man, the one in the wheelchair, who was bent when he walked, whose face resembled Father Time and who sometimes had to struggle to not piss on himself.

He clenched his fist, damning the putrid body that trapped him, because that was what it was, a trap from which the only escape was death. People never realized this when they were young, never thought about it, but the truth of the matter was that everyone was trapped in a mortal, aging body, and there wasn’t one damn thing on God’s green earth that anyone, much less Hardy and his sinful ways, could do about it. The most he could hope for was to have what little pleasures he could enjoy, like working with his leather and drinking his whiskey and annoying everyone else in the Goddamn universe. And being able to see and smell and touch this gal here from time to time.

His mind sped back and lighted on himself and Jooney, running among the cemetery markers. He was chasing her, and then he was kissing her, and she was sweet as candy. Her skin was soft and warm beneath his hand, her eyes begging him to fill her.

He blinked, and the image was gone.

Then, not really knowing he was going to do it, he said, “Let’s go for a drive.”

Ruby Dee whirled and looked at him in surprise.

“I don’t know, Hardy. My car may not make it down the muddy road.”

“We’ll take my pickup. It needs to be driven, ‘fore it dies.”

"But..."

He had already pushed himself out of the wheelchair and was reaching for his cane. “Come on. I like to look at things after a storm.”

He went out to the truck on his own. He was more stiff than usual—always was after rain. But he got out to his pickup easily enough, and managed to get behind the steering wheel. Ruby Dee opened the door on the passenger side and said she thought she should go tell Will.

“Get in, gal. Will’s smart enough to figure it out.” They rolled down the windows, and the sweet, rain-fresh air blew through, because now the wind was coming up again. Just as Hardy turned down the drive, Will came out of the barn. Hardy didn’t so much as turn his head or slow down, although Ruby Dee waved and called that they were going for a ride.

Hardy drove out the lane and turned west. The road was river-bottom sand, and the rain drained away quickly, except for puddles here and there, and through those he pressed the accelerator and sent mud spraying. Each time they came up on a rise, they could see all the way to Texas, where the sun already shone on the high plains, making it like a glistening jewel.

On the highest rise, Hardy stopped and gestured. “Either side of the road here, far as you can see clearly, is Starr land.”

Ruby Dee didn’t say anything, just looked at him in a curious
way, with her dark, quiet, coffee-black eyes. Jooney’s eyes.

Coming to a rough oiled road, Hardy turned north for a mile, until he turned into the old gravel road beneath the wrought-iron entry that proclaimed, White Rose Cemetery.

It was a sparse acre set on rugged earth, sand and rock and sparse clumps of grass, not the planted Bermuda of fancy church cemeteries. Along the edge of the cemetery grew a line of hedge-apple trees.

The ground was soft from the recent rain, and Hardy’s cane sank into it. Some of the markers were worn, so the names were all but gone. The place was tended. The last Hardy knew, Lindy Penny had taken on the job. Hardy had not come here in a long time, not since Lila had left him.

He pointed out the names on the markers. “This here cemetery was started by the four families to begin homesteadin’ this land...Starr, Penny, Cotton, Gattenby.”

There was his grandpappy’s grave, and his mother’s and father’s, their three babies’, who hadn’t lived over a day, his brother, Wild, who one day had been pounding in a fence post and just dropped dead.

Hardy propped himself on Pappy’s large marker, where he could look straight across at Jooney’s. He watched Ruby Dee walk around, reading the names. Names like Delight Penny and Honey Bee Gattenby. Hardy’s mother had been named Arta Bellah.

When Ruby Dee came to Jooney’s gravestone, Hardy watched her carefully. “Jooney Moon Cotton,” she read aloud and looked over her shoulder at him. “That’s so pretty...That’s your friend, isn’t it? The healer?”

Hardy nodded, and she looked again at the marker. She looked at it a long time, ran her hand over it. Hardy stared at her slim back, and for an instant he was young again, and here on a Sunday afternoon with Jooney.

Chapter 21

Through the filmy, dusty windshield, Will saw the swather at the far end of the field, speeding over the grass as if in a race.

“Lonnie looks like he wants to be done,” Wildcat commented.

“Shit.” Will shifted gears and sent the big old truck bouncing across the field. They were halfway across the field from the swather, when they saw the reels stop. The swather gave up a couple puffs of smoke and seemed to settle down on the grass like a dead elephant.

Will barreled up and braked, threw himself out of the cab. “Damn it all to hell, Lonnie!”

Lonnie came stepping down from the swather. “I guess it got plugged up,” he said, same as he would have said hello. “Geez, it’s hot. Did y’all get the beer?”

Will jerked off his hat and flapped it. “You aren’t drivin’ on the interstate, damnit! You’re cuttin’ grass. I know it’s askin’ a lot of you to pay attention and do the job decently, but it does pay the bills.”

“You don’t like the way I do the job, you do it yourself,” Lonnie said, swept off his Western Plains Co-op ballcap and sat on the swather step.

“That’s your answer for everything, isn’t it?”

Will stood for a second, feeling the frustration roll inside him like a tornado trying to get out of a plastic bag. And then the bag burst, and he leaped over, grabbed hold of Lonnie, jerked him up and slammed him back against the swather.

“I’m tired of havin’ to do your work and mine, too, by God.”

“Nobody asked you to!”

They went at it then, letting loose the pent-up heat and sweat and frustration. It was so hot that both of them lost their burst of fighting energy after a few good punches, and they went to rolling and scraping on the ground. They ended up on the grass that had been cut, and the prickly stalks poked and stung their faces and necks. Seeds and dust choked Will’s nose, and his lungs began to burn. Lonnie’s face was smeared with blood from his nose.

“You ain’t so pretty now,” Will huffed.

“And you never were.” Lonnie lunged at him. “Had enough, old man?”

Will bent his head and tackled Lonnie again, taking him down. Grunting and gasping for breath, they pounded each other’s bodies. With each punch he took and each one he gave, Will felt the pressure release.

Suddenly they were being sprayed.

“That’s enough, boys. We can’t get this grass cut with you two wastin’ energy like this.”

It was Wildcat. He had two bottles of beer, one in each hand, and was using them like a fire hose.

Lonnie stumbled backward. “Damn, Wildcat, you’re blindin’ me.”

“You’re wastin’ good beer,” Will cried out and jumped toward the older man.

Then Lonnie was beside him, and the chase was on, Will reveling in the recklessness that had taken hold of him.

He and Lonnie, stumbling more than running, chased Wildcat, who was high-stepping through the uncut grass and calling, “Snake..
.
get away, snake...I’m comin’!” while he held the foaming bottles of beer out in front of him.

Will made a flying tackle for Wildcat’s legs and missed but succeeded in knocking him down. Lonnie landed on top of them, and they were all half-laughing, half-groaning. It was at least five minutes before any of them could say a good word. Lonnie spoke first, when he jumped up and went to smacking at the air.

“Shit! That damn thing thinks I’m a flower.” He swatted again and ran off.

“I don’t think you can outrun a yellow jacket, Lon,” Will said, dragging himself to his feet.

The sticky mixture of sweat, beer and traces of blood drew the buzzing critters like nectar. Will smacked a fly on his neck and scratched gnats out of his ears.

“I guess we’d better get back to the house and get showered before we get carried off to Oz.”

They found the two bottles of beer Wildcat had thrown when he fell. Lonnie gratefully finished what was left, and each of them quickly drank one of the remaining cold beers from the six-pack Will and Wildcat had brought.

The plan had been to trade off on the swather and keep it going into full dark, trying to make short work of the grass cutting. No rain was in the forecast, but it always seemed like when they went to haying, rain came in.

“You want to come up to the house, too, Wildcat—take a break for supper before we start in again?”

“Naw...I’ll get the header dug out and see if the sickles are okay. You could bring me out somethin’....Ruby Dee, she sure does make some great biscuits. I don’t say anythin’ to Charlene, ‘cause it wouldn’t set well, but she just can’t seem to get ‘em as light as Ruby Dee does. Oh, and you better bring them extra sickles you bought the other day. And maybe some ice tea.”

“Would you like to make out a list, Wildcat?” Lonnie asked, as he slid into the old dually pickup.

“No, I don’t reckon...unless you think you need one."

Slowly Will made a circle in the field, avoiding the windrows of cut hay this time, and headed back to the road. The wind felt good blowing in the windows, but the flies and gnats came in, too. Lonnie swatted at the flies that landed on him, and said something that Will didn’t quite catch.

“What?”

“My hat...I forgot it back there. Wish I hadn’t.”

“You want to go back for it?”

“Naw. Plenty more ball caps at the house.”

“Yeah.”

Will wanted to explain to Lonnie what had happened to him back at the swather, but he couldn’t find the words. How was he going to explain that he was on edge because he needed to do something that was going to make everyone mad at him and because he was wanting to screw Ruby Dee so bad it hurt?

Lonnie said, “How many ball caps you reckon we have? You think we have as many as fifty?”

“I think the old man has fifty of his own.”

“I have at least ten in my room, and I’ll bet there’s ten or better in the tack room.” He paused, then asked, “Are you gonna take half of them with you when you leave?”

Will glanced at him. “I’m not concerned with ball caps, Lonnie.” A feeling of dread crept up his back.

Lonnie was looking out his side window. “No...I didn’t think you were.” After a minute, he said, “So when are you gonna move out to Ambrose Bell’s old place?”

Will looked over at him, hit a rut and had to look back at the road. “How do you know about Ambrose’s place?”

“Same way I know that George Jensen is foolin’ around behind Jenny’s back with a man from Elk City, and that Margie Waggoner lost all of hers and Rob’s savings over at Remington Park. I hear things. And it sure wasn’t gonna stay secret too long, with you buyin’ all that stuff down at Harney Lumber. Then one night, I just followed you.”

Will drove on, keeping his eyes on the rutted dirt road. Suddenly Lonnie mumbled something and then was swinging out the door, even as Will drove along at forty miles an hour.

“Damnit, Lonnie!”

Will braked. The passenger door fluttered like a bent wing, creaking like it was about to break off. Lonnie was back in the road, just standing there. Will shoved the shift arm into reverse and roared backward, causing Lonnie to jump out of the way. Then Will got out and slammed the door.

The two of them glared at each other over the hood of the truck.

Then Lonnie let loose and banged his fist on the hood. “Damn you, Will! I can understand you not tellin’ the old man, but why didn’t you tell me? I’m your brother! We...Damnit, didn’t you even think about how what you’re doin’ might affect me?”

The raw hurt on Lonnie’s face shot straight through Will’s heart, but his brother’s words also made him mad. That was Lonnie—always thinking of himself!

“You heard very well what I told the old man that day and the next morning. And as for me thinkin’ about how this might affect you, let me just say that every fuckin’ decision of my life has been made by thinkin’ how it would affect you and the old man. This one time I couldn’t afford to do that. This one time I’m doin’ this for me.” And he jabbed his finger at his chest.

Lonnie glared at him a second, and then he turned away, walked a few steps and stopped.

Already guilt was settling on Will shoulders. He tried to find the middle ground, to explain his feelings.

“Lon—you’re my brother. I..." Will broke off, and then tried again. “When you’ve gone off to the rodeo, leavin’ me behind, or gone foolin’ around with women, leavin’ me to carry the load of the ranch, you know good and well you didn’t spend a lot of time thinkin’ about how any of that would affect me. But still—did any of those times mean that you thought any less of me as your brother? Did it have anything much to do with me at all—or was it more what you needed for yourself?”

Will paused, waiting, refusing to go on until Lonnie looked at him. Slowly, Lonnie turned.