The Pot Thief Who Studied Billy the Kid (21 page)

“Where is he buried? I’d like to at least visit his grave.”

A sad smile formed on her face. “He was cremated and his ashes scattered as he directed. You’ll like this, Hubie.
You remember that grove of trees next to the i
rrigation ditch where we picnick
ed?”

I nodded.

“He used to go there to read. His will directed that his ashes be dumped in the irrigation ditch when it was full and flowing. He said…” She choked up for a minute. When she continued, she said, “He said he wanted to be
absorbed by tree roots and aspirated into the atmosphere as oxygen to help make up for all the carbon dioxide he had put into the air with his long lectures.”

We laughed and cried simultaneously.

“He did get wound up when it was a topic he loved,” I said.

“And he loved them all,” she replied.

We sat in silence for a minute.

“I
feel lucky
our paths crossed,” I said.

“No hard feelings?”

“You’re the one who should have hard feelings. I was a typical insensitive male who didn’t even bother to ask myself why your behavior had changed a bit.”

“Changed a bit? You mean morphed from Dorothy
in
to the Wicked Witch
of the West?”

I laughed. “It wasn’t that bad. All I remember are the good times.
And if
it
weren’t for you, I never would have reconnected with your father.
”

There was another long silence.

“What will you do now?” I asked.

“You’re going to think I’m still having mood swings and making snap decisions, but I really did think this out even though it’s been
barely more than
two weeks. I’m booked on an around-the-world cruise.”

It was such an unexpected announcement that I made no response whatsoever. But my expression must have given me away.

“You think I’
m crazy,
”
she said.

“I’ve always thought
you were a bit crazy
. That’s one of the things I love about you.”

“But this is more than just a little crazy, right?”

“You know I don’t like to travel, so I’m the worst possible person to make a judgment on a long cruise. And it doesn’t matter what I think. If a cruise is what you want, you should do it. I know you loved caring for your father, but it did confine you. I bet you haven’t been out of Albuquerque for five year
s
.”

“
Nine, actually.”

“When will you be back?”

She looked down for a momenwn +0" face="t. “I don’t know. I have a flight to San Diego in the morning. We embark in the afternoon. We go to Cabo San Lucas, Puerto Vallarta, Costa Rica and the
n
through the Panama Canal. From there we go to Aruba and Martinique before crossing the Atlantic to the Canary Island
s
, Casa Blanca and past Gibraltar into the
Mediterranean
.”

“I’m
seasick just thinking about it,
”
I said.

“I’ve forgotten where we go next, but the cruise has
an option of staying in any
of the ports of call and then catching the next ship a month
or so
later. When I find a place I really like, I’m going to do that.”

“Will you send me a post card?”

“Do you want me to?”

“Sure. I’ll never
visit any
of those exotic places, but I’m still interested in them. And I’d like to know how you’re doing.”

There was another long silence.

“Are you seeing anyone?” she asked.

“I am.”

“Rats. I was hoping we could have a roll in the hay before I left. But maybe it’s just as well.
A
girl could be injured by that cast.”

I appreciated the break in the tension.

“Maybe when you get back, I won’t be seeing anyone. I don’t have a track record of long relationships.”

“At least you haven’t been divorced three times.”

So that was the number. I have to admit I had wondered

“All that proves,” I said, “is there are three
dopes
in the world.”

“
That’s nice of you to say.
I felt like such a failure, divorced for the third time and moving back in with my dad. But mom had died
,
and he needed me. It turned out to be a happy arrangement. He appreciated me more than any of my husbands did, and taking care of him made me feel useful. Then you came along and added romance to my life.”

“Gee, I thought it was you adding romance to mine.”

She stood up so I did the same. She offered her hand and I took it. We walked
to
the front door. Actually, she walked and I hobbled
using
her hand for balance.

We kissed.

“Goodbye, Hubie.”

22

“You seem kind of down.
“

Susannah and I were in the truck headed north on I 25.
It
was their ranch truck, but it still had a few creature comforts like air conditioning and useful tools like a winch and a rifle mounted on a window rack in case a coyote got too close to the sheep.

“
I am a bit down. Someone
came to see me this morning.”

“I know
.
Tristan
brought you breakfast
.”

“
After he left. It was
Dolly.
She wanted to tell me her father died.”

“Oh my God. I’m sorry, Hubie.”

“He died while I was looting a grave.”

“
Don’t get melodramatic. You weren’t looting a grave. You didn’t even know it was a grave.”

“If I weren’t a crimina
l, if I had an honest profession, I would have been home when she came by to tell me her father died. I could have comforted her, at least gone to the funeral.”

“Come on, Hubie
. Even if you had a regular job, you could have been away. You might have been making a sales call, attending a training session, whatever. Being a pot thief is not the only job that can cause you to miss a funeral.”

I stared out the window.

“Okay, spit it out,” she said. “What’s the real problem?”

“When she told me her father died, I realized I
never
love
d
her
.”

She glanced at me briefly. “I don’t get it.”

“I felt for her. I know what it’s like when your father dies. But I felt the same for her as I would
have
felt for anyone
who told me she lost
her
father. There was nothing out of the ordinary, no sense of truly sharing in her loss
.
It seems to me…
”

I was groping for the right phrasing.

“Don’t
over think
it, Hubie. Just say what you’re
feeling
.”

“If I truly loved her, her pain would be mine
. But it wasn’t. I felt for her loss, but I didn’t share it. I actually felt worse about Frank than I did about Dolly.”

“Well, duh. Frank was the one who died. No wonder you felt worse for him. Dolly can overcome her grief, but Frank can’t overcome death.”

“I almost proposed to her last fall.”

“I remember that. But she was the one who blocked that by telling you she had no interest in trying marriage again.”

“Who can blame her? Three strikes and you’re out.”

“She was married three times?”

I nodded.

“I wondered what the number was,” she said.

“After she left, I felt relieved that I didn’t ask her to marry me.”

“I thought you didn’t care about her previous marriages.”

“I didn
’t
. Still don’t. The reason I felt relieved about not proposing is I realized I
didn
’t love her. I like her a lot. She’s a good person. We had fun together. But I wouldn’t have wanted to marry her. And that made me feel
sad, as if I had misled her or just used her.
”

“
You’re an obsessive analyzer, you know that, Hubert? She wouldn’t have married you even if you had asked, so stop worrying about it. You didn’t us
e
her. If anything, she used you, going out with you with no willingness to make a permanent commitment. She even told you she didn’t mind if you saw other women.”

“
Yeah, but
I never did that.”

She smiled and said, “What about Maria, the
saucier
?”

“Sleeping on someone’s love seat is not a date.”

“You were headed for her bed before you fell asleep.”

Which led us into a rehash of my misadventure
s in a restaurant in Santa Fe called
Schnitzel
at first then
Chile Schnitzel
in its reincarnation as
Austrian/Southwestern fusion. It was fun to look back and joke about it, and it perked me up a little.

It might have perked me up even more had I not been dreading what layadi/font>

We
took the
relief route
around Santa Fe
. I think the normal phrase for it would be a bypass, but nothing is normal in Santa Fe.

I brought the conversation back to Dolly.
“Y
ou remember
the picnic Dolly and I had at
Casitas del Bosque
?”

“How could I forget it? It was your second lame stakeout of the neighborhood.”

I chose to ign
ore her comment
.

“Geronimo and I were in that little grove of tree
s
b
y
the irrigation ditch. S
everal
people
gave
us
quizzical look
s, and i
t occurred to me that perhaps the area under the trees was part of the communal property of
Casitas del Bosque
. S
o I decided to check with the
closest resident to make
sure I wasn’t going to be asked to leave by the neighborhood patrol.
”