Wrangled (13 page)

As we left, I noticed a Help Wanted sign in
the window, and nudged Celeste. She looked at it, and mouthed, “Go for it.” So,
I turned around and asked the agent what kind of help he wanted.

“I need an assistant. Do you have a real
estate license?”

“No,” I said, feeling glum. “I have a GED
and I know some about word processing and spreadsheets. But I don’t have a real
estate license, or even a driver’s license.”

He looked surprised, and then said, “Can
you get your driver’s license?”

“Yes, sir. I just have to take my test.” He
nodded, made a note on a pad he had in front of him.

“Are you available for full-time work?” I
glanced quickly at Celeste, who nodded hard.

“Yes, sir. I’d need to work full time. I
have two kids to support.”

“Would you be willing to study for a real
estate license if I paid for it?” I wasn’t sure what I was hearing, but it
sounded like he might be offering me a job.

“Yes, sir. I’d study hard. But, Celeste and
I are sharing babysitting, so if I’m working days, she’s going to have to get a
night-shift job. When would I study for the license, and where?”

“Most of the classes are available online,
you could study here in the office while you work. I’ve had that sign out for
three months, and no takers. If you want the job, it’s yours.”

Excitement flared inside me, but I still
had some questions that needed answers. “What are the hours, and what is the
pay, if I may ask?”

“Nine to five weekdays, and you’ll need to
do some open houses on weekends once you have your license. Two thousand a
month to start, and when you’re licensed there’ll be commission share.” I
wasn’t the fastest at math, but that sounded like plenty to get started on, and
best of all, it led to a career.

“Then yes, sir, I’d like to have that job.”

“When can you start?”

“As soon as we can move into the house.”
Celeste was almost bouncing, she was so excited.

We called Russ from the real estate office,
to tell him the good news and ask him to come see the house, which he said he
could do that afternoon, so instead of going back to the ranch, we went
shopping in thrift stores for the furniture we’d need. We met Russ at the house
at three, and he approved. Then we went around to where we’d found some used
beds, a youth bed and a couple of cribs, hoping he’d loan us the money to get
them. It wasn’t a fully-furnished house, but it was a start. When he saw them,
though, Russ balked.

“I don’t want you sleeping on used beds.
When is the house available?”

“It’s empty now. Mr. Clark said we could
move in anytime we wanted.”

“Okay, then let’s go home. You can shop for
the furniture you need online at the R.C.Willey website, and we’ll have them
deliver it all from Salt Lake.”

We just gaped at him. Judging from the
prices of used furniture, we were talking about several thousand dollars worth
of furniture. It was more than we could have expected. Celeste found her voice
first.

“Russ, we’ve lived with you for nearly a
year and a half, now, and we know you must have some money. But seriously, just
how rich are you?”

I hadn’t ever seen Russ laugh that hard. He
threw his head back and just roared, until Celeste started to get mad. Then he
put his arm around her and whispered, loud enough for me to hear too, “Can I
tell you a secret?”

“You better,” she hissed.

“I’m very, very rich. Don’t worry about
it.”

That was all we were going to get, but it
came as a big relief. I asked him if we could pay him back on time, and he said
he wouldn’t dream of it. Then he went in to talk to Mr. Clark, asking us to
wait outside.

I was so excited that things had worked out
so quickly, that I almost forgot to be sad about Cody, until we got back to the
ranch. Dinner was already started, so everyone looked at us as we came in. Russ
announced that Celeste and I would be moving into Rawlins in a few days,
setting the younger girls to chattering and asking questions faster than we
could answer them. When I said I already had a job, I saw Cody jerk his head
up, but I was trying not to look at him, so I didn’t react.

For a long time after dinner, I wondered if
I should go out to the barn and try to talk to Cody, but there didn’t seem to
be much point. I decided that if he wanted to talk to me, he’d come to the
house and ask for me, but of course he didn’t. That settled it in my mind. He
didn’t want me. I’d have to get over him somehow.

That night, for the first time in several
weeks, I touched myself for comfort. Before Cody left for the rodeo, I made
love with him every night, and while he was gone it felt kind of disloyal, so I
didn’t do it. Now it occurred to me that it may be a long, long wait for
another night of sweet loving. I couldn’t get anywhere, though. Those feelings
had no place to land without a man beside me. If I was honest, without
Cody
beside me. I wondered how it had happened, that I came to love him so much
after I just chose him from among the others because he looked good to me.
Looking back, it seemed to me that we fell in love because we wanted to fall in
love. At least, I did. I didn’t remember a single time when he’d said he loved
me.
That should have been my first clue
, I thought bitterly.

It was lucky that I’d have plenty to keep
me too busy to think about him for the next few days, starting with the very
next morning when Russ called Celeste and me into his office after breakfast
and we all crowded around his desk to choose furniture. Celeste and I tried to
be thoughtful and get cheaper things, but Russ would always find a better piece
and order it after making sure we liked it. By the time we were done, we had a
living room set complete with end tables and lamps, an enormous flat-screen TV
and a low, wide entertainment center for underneath that would hold the DVD
player and DVDs. Also, two bedroom sets, one to suit Celeste’s taste, and one
for mine. He bought a set of bunk beds for the little boys that could be
unstacked until Al was old enough to sleep in the top bunk, and one had a
trundle bed for Tali. One six-drawer dresser would be enough until they got a
little older, so we decided not to crowd the room with more. It would be a few
years before we’d have to get a bigger house to separate Tali from the boys.
Right now, Celeste’s little Daniel was her best friend because they were so
close in age.

Though the house had all the kitchen
appliances, even a microwave over the stove, we needed pots and pans, dishes,
bath towels, so many things we hadn’t thought of. We ordered those from another
online store, and Celeste started wondering if there would be anywhere for her
to work, since Rawlins didn’t seem to have much to offer in the way of retail
jobs. Russ asked her what she wanted to do.

“Well, it needs to be a job I can do in the
evening, so Annalee and I can trade babysitting. Are there any office jobs in
the evening?”

Russ said he’d give it some thought, he
wasn’t sure about that, at least in Rawlins. He thought maybe a waitress job at
a truck stop would have the best chance at those hours. You’d have thought he
offered her his own job, the way Celeste reacted. “That’s perfect!”

We stared at her, waiting for her to tell
us why a job that hard would be perfect, but she just said it was because she
might could get the hours she wanted. Later, I quizzed her about it, and she
said, “Think about it, Annalee! Who comes into truck stops? Truck drivers! Men!
I could maybe meet my dream guy if I’m working at a truck stop.”

I didn’t want to burst her bubble by
pointing out that truckers were just passing through, but I had my doubts if
that’s where she’d find her dream guy. Still, if she was thinking that and she
was happy with the decision, I wouldn’t argue with her. It should be good
money, Russ had said.

That afternoon, Russ took us to buy a used
car we could share. He would have bought both of us a car, but we felt bad
about all the money he was spending, if he wouldn’t let us pay him back. I
figured we could get another one when we’d saved enough money from our pay.
While we were in town, Celeste applied for work at several truck stops. Most of
them said no, because she had no experience. But one said if she was willing to
work the ten to six shift and every weekend, they’d train her behind the
counter and then let her serve at the tables. The hours were perfect, so she
shook on it and they told her where to go to pick up a couple of their uniforms
to start with.

We got back to the ranch just before
dinner, and again all the talk was about our move, since it was mostly Ciara
and Janey talking. Amber looked like she might cry, though. After dinner,
Celeste and I told her she could come into town to visit any time she wanted,
and that we’d be out to visit when we could, too. That cheered her up some.
Things were moving so fast, I didn’t have time to miss Cody that day, until I
went to bed, and then it came rushing back. In spite of my excitement over my
new job and starting a life of my own, my tears soaked my pillow again before I
fell asleep, exhausted.

Two days later was when our furniture was
supposed to be delivered, and then we could move into our house and I could
start work. Celeste wouldn’t start until the next Thursday, so she’d be able to
get the house put together while I worked. Charity took us aside on the last
day before we moved and asked us if we’d ever handled money or kept a budget
before. Our blank looks must have told her everything she needed to know,
because the rest of that day was a lesson in household money management. I
thought I had a handle on it when she was done, and though Celeste still seemed
confused, I’d be there to help her and we’d manage. It wasn’t like we were
moving to the Far East, after all. Rawlins was just fifteen miles from the
ranch, and we knew Charity and Russ would both be there for us if we needed
help.

By the time we’d been in Rawlins for a
month, we were settled in proper. Celeste was good at food service, probably
because as one of the younger wives in Bethel City, she’d been responsible for
chores that were very similar back then. She graduated to waiting tables in
just two weeks, and was soon bringing home tips that rivaled my salary. I loved
real estate school, learning all kinds of things about property that I never
would have dreamed of. I finally understood how Russ had managed to run the men
out of Bethel City after the Prophet was convicted. Mortgage terms, property,
water and mineral rights, how to measure a house and how to figure a commission
when the seller wanted a certain net price, I soaked it all up like a sponge.
My job was pretty easy, besides going to school. I answered phones, and I
organized the paperwork files just so, like Mr. Clark taught me, when he had a
listing or a new buyer. Once I had my license, I’d be able to take listings of
my own, and Mr. Clark would have me show houses to buyers and do open houses.

One day, I was putting old files into the
archive drawers, when I saw Russ’s name on one. I probably shouldn’t have done
it, but I was curious, so I opened the file. That’s when I learned that he’d
bought the house where Celeste and I were living, paying probably more than it
was worth because the previous owner hadn’t intended to sell it. So Russ was
our landlord! When I told Celeste, she said she felt better about the furniture
thing, now. If we moved, he could rent the house out furnished, with good
furniture. We’d make sure the kids didn’t spill on any of it now, not that we
would have let them run wild before. We were just more careful.

I’d stopped crying myself to sleep the
first day of work, because I was too tired to stay awake long enough to cry.
I’d get home at about five-fifteen, and find the kids napping and Celeste
asleep. When the kids woke up, I’d feed them and try to keep them quiet until
bedtime. We kept them up until after nine, so Celeste could kiss Daniel
goodnight and so they’d sleep late in the morning, then she’d go to work and
I’d go to bed. By the time I got up to get ready for work and get the kids
their breakfast, Celeste would have had an hour to nap, and be ready to take
care of the kids all day. On weekends, she got to sleep all day and get up
earlier, but she found out that didn’t work too well, as the days she went back
to the other schedule were pretty rough. Still, it gave us the chance to get
out to the ranch for a visit on Saturday or Sunday.

I was glad that Cody wasn’t there very
often when we visited, since weekends were when he’d go to the nearby rodeos.
There were enough of them in the small towns in Wyoming, Idaho and Utah to keep
him close to home, rodeoing on weekends and staying at the ranch to work during
the week. So I didn’t have to see him, and that was fine with me. I’d gone from
grief to anger over what had happened between us, and I wasn’t sure whether I’d
speak nicely to him or slap him. Celeste would have slapped him, for sure. She
had more anger in her than I did.

It was on one of those Saturday visits that
I thought my life would end.

Alma was four years old, now, and a more
curious little boy you never met. He was smart as a whip, too. I was thinking
of finding a preschool for him in the fall, when we would buy a second car, so
he could have something to do with all that curiosity and energy. Most of us
were in the swimming pool, or sitting around it, watching the kids. I had been
talking to Charity, telling her all about my job and how excited I was to get
my license if I passed the exam next week, when I realized Alma wasn’t in sight.

I jumped up, alarmed and made a quick sweep
of the pool with my eyes, while Charity followed me out of her chair and said,
“What’s wrong?”

“Where’s Alma? I can’t see him, oh God!” My
worst fear was quickly set to rest, as we got the rest of the girls involved
and made sure he wasn’t under the water. I was asking Celeste to keep an eye on
Tali while I went looking for Alma, when I heard his voice from over in the
direction of the corral and barn.

“Mama! Come here.”

“No, Alma, you come here. What are you doing
over there?”

“I found something, Mama! Come see it!” I
started to answer him, when all of a sudden his scream pierced the air. Then I
ran.

I hadn’t yet located Alma visually when he
began to scream, but his continued screams drew me straight to him, lying on
the ground about three quarters of the way to the corral where I’d watched Cody
so many times. As I got closer, I could see that he was writhing in pain, but I
couldn’t see what was causing it.

“Baby, what happened?” I cried, as I
reached him. Horrifyingly, his little legs were beginning to swell with big,
ugly purple lumps and there was one on his right hand. I was examining him
frantically when Charity reached us.

“Oh, my God. Those are snake bites!”
Charity half-screamed, and then screamed in earnest, “Help! Girls, get Russ!
Tell him Alma’s been snake-bit! Hurry!”

“What can I do? What can I do?” I moaned.
Alma had stopped screaming, but was still crying and his little body was
wracked with a pain that I couldn’t imagine.

“Keep him still, calm him down. We’ve got anti-venom,
Russ will be here with it in a minute. Will you be okay here until he gets
here? I need to find the snake.”

“Charity, be careful!”

“I know, hon. You take care of Alma, and
I’ll take care of the snake.”

She got up and started scanning the ground,
looking for where the snake had crawled off, and I turned back to Alma. He was
beginning to twitch uncontrollably, and drool came out of his mouth in bubbles.
My sobs mixed with his as we waited for Russ. It probably wasn’t more than a couple
of minutes, because the girls who’d been in the pool had just started arriving,
their wet kids in their arms, when he ran up. Only Ciara was missing.

“Back off, girls. In fact, go in the house.
If there’s one snake around here, could be more. Watch where you step.”

They all fled, Celeste last, holding Daniel
in one arm and Tali in the other. “Annalee…”

“Go!” Russ yelled at her, and she ran.

All the time, he’d been feeling Alma’s
legs, trying to get an idea of how many bites there were. He opened the snake
bite kit and took out a rubber thing that he squeezed and then applied to each
place he could see a hole where the snake’s fang went in. That’s all there was
he could do, and I could tell he was worried. “Russ, is he going to be okay?”

“Annalee, you need to be strong. I can’t
say because I don’t know. But we’ll do everything we can.”

Just then, a loud noise, so loud I couldn’t
think, coming from above made me look up, to see a helicopter approaching over
the roof of the house. Russ stood up and waved his arms back and forth, until
the helicopter started to settle into the flat, empty space between the
swimming pool and the corral. Two men with medical bags got out, ducked low and
ran from the ‘copter toward us. Thankfully, the noise went down a little, so
Russ and the men could talk.

“What’s it look like?” one asked him.

“Snakebite, looks like several to the legs,
maybe as many as four, and one to the right hand. I suctioned them, and my wife
is looking for the snake.”

“Any idea whether it was a rattler?”

“That’s what we’re afraid of,” Russ said.
Alma’s eyes were open and glazed over, but I thought he might be able to tell
us something.

“Alma, baby, did you see a snake?”

“’Nake,” he said.

“Did it make any noise?”

Alma stuck his tongue out between his lips
and blew a raspberry, though it wasn’t very effective.

“Did it rattle like that, baby?”

“’Nake rattle.”

I looked up at the EMTs, who both had
concerned looks on their faces. “What’s wrong? Can’t you just give him the
medicine? He’s just a baby! Help him,” I sobbed, running out of breath.

One EMT knelt on one knee beside me and put
his hand on my shoulder. “You must be his mother. What’s his name, ma’am?”

“Alma. Al. Why aren’t you helping him?”

“Ma’am, we need to be sure Al was bitten by
a poisonous snake before we give him anti-venom. Otherwise, it could make him
almost as sick as the snake bite.”

“He said it rattled,” I said coldly.

“Ma’am, he’s a smart little boy, but it’s
clear he’s sick, and you were leading him. We can’t take a chance.”

“So you’ll take a chance on him dying?” I
wished the bitter words back as soon as I said them. These men were doing their
best, it just wasn’t good enough. He stood up and consulted in a low voice with
his partner, then took off at a trot in the direction Charity had gone.

In a few minutes he was back. “Prairie
rattler,” he said. “Mrs. White followed a clear trail ‘til she could see it.”
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the other man whipped the
medical bag around and reached in for a vial of anti-venom. As he got it
started, the first one gestured to Russ and they went back to the copter, then
came back with a stretcher. They loaded Alma onto the stretcher, and the EMTs
carried him to the ‘copter with me trailing behind.

“Can I go with him?”

“Yes, ma’am, we need you to. We need to get
your little guy to the hospital, and we’ll take a medical history on the way.
The sooner we get him fully treated, the better it will go for him.”

“Is he going to be okay?” I pleaded.

“We’re going to do our best to be sure he
makes it, ma’am.” It was a peculiar answer to my question, that didn’t really
answer it. Making it and okay were two different things in my mind, and I
wondered what they weren’t telling me.

While I answered questions that one EMT
asked and he recorded the answers on a tablet computer, the other worked on
Alma. He drew blood, took his temperature and blood pressure and started an IV.
Al babbled now and then, but even I couldn’t understand him. Nevertheless, the
EMT answered him as if he were an older child, explaining in simple terms what
he was doing. I didn’t know if it was a comfort to Al, but it was to me.

“I’m sorry I said that, when you didn’t
know what kind of snake it was,” I apologized, ashamed of myself.

“Don’t worry about it ma’am. We’re used to
moms being upset, and it’s natural that you would be.”

“Why did he take Al’s blood, to see how
much poison is in it?”

“That, and to type it, in case he needs a
transfusion. Do you know your blood type ma’am?”

“No, I’m sorry.”

“No worries. His is going to either be the
same as yours, or the same as his daddy’s. Was his daddy back at the ranch?”

Guilt flooded me as I realized Alma’s
father hadn’t heard from me in months. When he went to prison, I applied for
sole custody of the kids, and though he was supposed to pay child support,
there was no way he could. I had written him off, and we hadn’t heard from him,
either. “No,” I answered, shortly. The EMT continued to look at me expectantly,
and when I said nothing else, entered a note on the tablet and went on with his
other questions.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t answer most of
the questions about his dad’s family. Later, I’d realize that the EMT would
have thought I didn’t know who the father was. But nothing mattered except
getting Al the treatment he needed.

The helicopter ride was over almost before
it began, as it was a short hop to Rawlins, where I ran behind the EMTs as they
rushed Al into the emergency department. There were doctors and nurses there
already waiting for us, and they went right to work on Al. I sat numbly and
watched, unable to summon the thoughts that would lead to any questions, as
strangers cared for my baby. I just had to trust that they were doing the best
they could for him. I couldn’t take in everything they were doing, measuring around
his legs and arm, taking his vital signs it seemed constantly until they hooked
him up to a machine that reported them in a constant stream of green pixels on
the screen.

Suddenly, a technician was in front of me,
asking for a blood sample. “Why?” I said.

“We need to type your blood, ma’am. Your
son may need a transfusion, and he has a rare blood type that we don’t have on
hand. It isn’t accepted practice, but you might be his best bet if we have to
send to Casper or even Cheyenne for it.”

I let him take my blood, and then sank back
into lethargy. It was maybe an hour later when Charity entered the area, and
came to my side.

“How are you holding up, hon?” she asked.

“I don’t know. They can’t tell me he’ll be
okay. Charity, what if he dies?”

“Honey, don’t think like that. It won’t do
him any good and it’s doing you a lot of harm. I think you’re in shock, I’m
going to get someone to look at you.”

“No, let them take care of Al!” I wailed.

“There are plenty to go around, Annalee.
I’ll be right back.”

True to her word, Charity was back in a
minute with a technician on her heels. He took my temperature and pulse,
nodded, and told me to wait there. In a few minutes, a gurney was wheeled in
and he insisted I lie down on it and put a warmed blanket over me.

“I can’t leave my son,” I murmured, and he
told me that’s why they’d brought the gurney. They would put me right beside
him, and I could hold his hand if I wanted. I did. Throughout the night, I
would drop off to sleep, only to jerk awake when I felt a nudge to my gurney,
or heard a soft voice. Each time, terror filled me and I’d look over at Al,
lying so still and white except for the hideous bruises on his legs. Sometimes,
I couldn’t tell if he was breathing, and my own heart would stop until I
thought to look at his vital signs monitor and assured myself that the
heartbeat was there, if sometimes unsteady.

Somehow I knew it was morning at one such
time. There was a different feel to the hospital, and it seemed noisier. We
were still in the ER, where Al could be monitored constantly, until they could
tell whether he was going to react to the anti-venom or whether he would need
more. Once when I looked at my son, he reminded me of an angel I’d seen once on
a child’s grave, white and lifeless. I convulsed into sobs, bringing an
attendant of some kind running. Sometime during the night, they’d hooked me to
a vital signs monitor as well.

“Can I help you with something, Mrs.
Nielsen?” she asked.

“My son,” I choked, unable to articulate
the unspeakable fear that gripped me.

“He’s doing as well as we can expect,
ma’am. He’s not in any danger right now.”

“Will he recover?” I begged her, with my
voice, with my eyes, with every fiber of my being, to tell me he would be okay.

“I’ll have the doctor speak with you as
soon as he comes in,” was her only answer. Why wouldn’t these people answer
with a straight answer? I began to shake as I feared I knew the answer…that if
he did make it through the early crisis, Alma would be permanently damaged in
some way. For the first time in over a year, I prayed to a God I wasn’t sure
was interested in me or my children any more.

It was nearly ten a.m. before the doctor
came in to examine Al. I watched anxiously for signs of anything he was
thinking, without seeing any. This doctor was like the EMT who had cared for
him in the helicopter. Each time he touched Al, he explained what he was doing.
Again, I found it comforting. Surely he wouldn’t bother to do that for a
comatose or dying child, though Al did seem to be unconscious.

Then, he came to my bedside and checked my
vitals.

“Mrs. Nielsen, good morning. I’m sorry to
see that you’ve joined my patient load. How are you feeling today?”

How could I answer that? All I had for him
were emotions, and he wanted to know how I felt physically. How about
nauseated, exhausted, shrunken into myself as if I were looking at the world
through twin tunnels that led from somewhere far back in my head to my eyes.
All I could think of to say was, “Terrified.”

“I understand. And I hope I can put some of
that to rest this morning. Are you ready to hear how your son is?”