A Prairie Dog's Love Song (7 page)

Nora frowned in confusion. Then her brow cleared, and she got a real sad look in her eyes. “Oh. Oh, hell. It’s
Ben
.”

Joshua blinked hard and fast as his eyes got hot. He started walking Jasmine again. Nora laid her hand on his arm.

“I shoulda known. This all started right when Ben left town. I’m so sorry, Joshua.”

He didn’t say anything.

“But honey, can’t you just go get that boy and bring him home?”

Joshua looked at her, surprised. “You’d be okay with that?”

Nora laughed. “Well, what the good goddamn hell does that matter? It’s your life, nobody else’s. But in point of fact, yes, I’d be okay with it. Shit on a soap, Joshua. I ain’t
that
old and narrow-minded. I did live a spell in Minneapolis, you know.”

“Then you’re the only one.” Joshua looked into Jasmine’s soft brown eyes and petted her nose, just to feel something good under his hands. He hesitated. “I… I got the horses and the kids to think about. If folks knew….”

Nora harrumphed. “Well, pardon me, but that load stinks worse than half the patties in your pasture. Joshua, your daddy, at the age of fifty-five, met a woman he was crazy about, and two months later he turned the ranch over to you and moved to Florida.”

Joshua frowned. He didn’t see the connection.

“Do you think it was easy for him to leave everything he’d ever known? Give up this place, and bein’ close to you? He did it because when you love someone, really and truly, that becomes the most important thing. So important that you just—you work out the rest, no matter what.”

Joshua’s scowl deepened. God, he hated change. Why couldn’t things just stay the way they were? Only he reckoned things had never been the way they oughta be—him and Ben, together, here on this ranch.

And for a moment, Nora’s blunt words gave him a spark of hope, like maybe it could be that simple. Then he remembered that Ben didn’t want to come back to Clyde’s Corner anyhow. He’d made that clear. Joshua started to open his mouth to tell Nora so, when he was interrupted.

“Joshua?” came a tiny voice.

“What, Lily girl?”

“Can I get down now and maybe go say hi to Valfront?”

Joshua took a deep breath, brought back to what he owed this little girl. Namely,
fun
, which he’d done a piss poor job of providing thus far. He felt terrible.

He handed Jasmine’s reins to Nora. “Tell you what, I’ll go bring him out here to say hi.”

Joshua went into the stables and saddled Valmont. He was downright huge for a horse, but Joshua had been working with him for nearly two months now, and he’d calmed down a lot. Whereas before he might have saddled nice as you please, then suddenly bucked a rider off, or taken off at a gallop, trying to drag someone to their death, there was no sign of that in him now. Joshua’s patience had calmed the horse, and the bond they’d formed was mutual—Joshua was good to Valmont, so Valmont wanted to please Joshua.

Joshua clicked his mouth and led Valmont out to the riding arena. He really was a spectacular animal, pure white, with blue eyes and a little bit of gold in his mane. Joshua led him over to Lily, who was still seated on Jasmine’s back.

With wonder, Lily reached out her hand, and Valmont nudged his nose under it, nickering at her softly.

“I don’ think he likes me,” Lily said, her constant refrain for these past weeks.

“He likes ya,” Joshua said. “He told me so when he nickered just now. Wanna ride ’im with me?”

Lily was torn. She looked at Valmont with hopeless love, but her lip trembled. Joshua got up onto Valmont’s back and held out his arms. “Come on.”

Lily hesitated just a moment, then reached up. Nora helped swing the little girl from Jasmine’s back onto the saddle in front of Joshua, where she snuggled in her butt and sat up straight, tense with excitement.

“Ready?” Joshua asked.

Lily nodded fervently.

Joshua squeezed his legs a tad, and Valmont took off at a slow pace. Joshua could feel the excitement radiating off Lily in waves as they paced the magnificent horse around the arena.

She turned her head to look up at Joshua, and her face was glowing. She wore the biggest grin he’d ever seen, like she’d just been made prom princess and rodeo queen all rolled into one.

“He likes me!” Lily said joyfully.

Joshua smiled down at her, feeling a ray of sunshine pierce his moody old heart. At last, he’d done something right for the munchkin.

And as he rode Lily around the arena, something struck him.

I can’t come back to Clyde’s Corner because they don’t want me.

Well, shit.

T
HEY
HELD
the Clyde’s Corner Christmas meeting on the first Saturday of December. It was a planning session for the Christmas Dance—who’d be bringing chairs, who’d string up the lights, who was donating what door prizes and what dishes for the buffet, and a dozen other urgent details. The answers to those questions pretty much went the same way every year, since the same people volunteered, and there hadn’t been an original idea since 1921.

Well. Folks liked Christmas traditional like that.

The bribe for attending this meeting was a town Christmas party, complete with baked goods from the ladies, pies from Nora’s, hot chocolate, and Bill Lamont’s hard cider (and that
was
almost worth showing up for). The other reason to attend was that, if you didn’t, you were likely to find your name on something you didn’t want to do—like trash duty or drunk patrol.

No one wanted to be on drunk patrol, because then you couldn’t get drunk.

Joshua never went to the Christmas meeting, because it wasn’t his sorta thing. And anyhow, he did the same job for the dance every year. He brought a team of horses decked out in jingle bells. If there was snow, he hitched ’em to a massive old red sleigh that spent most of the year parked at the town fire hall. If there wasn’t snow, then he brought an old hay wagon of his own. During the children’s hour, he gave rides. Chet and Ben used to help him out with that. And usually, by the time the kiddies went home and the band started, Joshua would excuse himself to take the horses back to the ranch. Every year, Chet tried to talk him into coming back for the dance. Once in a while, Joshua did.

But that wasn’t how it was last year, because last year Chet had been in Afghanistan, and it had just been him and Ben on the sleigh. And that wasn’t how it was this year, because this year, Joshua Braintree showed up at the Christmas meeting.

He sat in the middle of the chairs they’d set up in the town hall. The Temple family, being good Catholics, took up nine chairs to the left of him, and a very large farmer named Meyers took up two chairs on his right. He listened to a lot of talk about buying new bulbs for the light strings and using town funds for the cider and other stuff he didn’t give a hoot about. And all the while, Joshua’s arms were folded, and his stomach was in so many knots he could have started his own tack shop. He was sweating so bad, the back of his shirt got damp, and he had to wipe his upper lip on his sleeve every few minutes or so.

And finally, when Joshua didn’t think his nerves could take it anymore, Mayor Thomas asked if there was any new business. From the way he said it, and the way everyone was eyeing the table of goodies like it was a row of cancan girls and they were a pack of randy sailors, nobody expected there to be any.

But Joshua stood up. “I got somethin’ to say.” His voice sounded funny and hollow in his own ears.

Mayor Thomas looked at him with surprise. “Huh. Is that right? Well go on, Joshua. You’ve got the floor.”

But Joshua wasn’t content to stand in the middle of the chairs like that. If you were gonna do something, you might as well do it right. He made his way past the knees in his path to the center aisle, then went and took the podium.

He looked out at a sea of faces, mostly blank or mildly perplexed. But at least people seemed to be listening.

Joshua cleared his throat. “You all know we’re losing a lot of younger folks to the city. Not too many teenagers want to work as hard as you gotta to be a cowboy or run a ranch.”

A few adults nodded. A few teenagers rolled their eyes.

“Ben Rivers done left us, even though he was the finest cowboy we’ve seen come up round here in a dog’s age.”

A few people looked uncomfortable, but a few more nodded in agreement. These people knew Ben.

“Now, I’d like to convince Ben to come home where he belongs. But he’s of a mind that you all won’t want ’im here. I’d like to be able to tell him that ain’t so. But see, there’s three things you need to be able to accept about Ben….”

Joshua took a deep breath. His heart was beating so fast he thought he might pass out, like one of those fainting goats that just couldn’t take an ounce of excitement.

“The first is, he’s been filmin’ some porn in Vegas. It pays a hell of a lot of money, and I guess he didn’t figure anyone would even know about it.”

There were a few murmurs and a few pinched faces, but mostly, this wasn’t news.

“The second thing is… he’s filmed that stuff with boys, and I reckon he kind of runs on that side of the pasture. So there’s that.”

The murmurs stopped abruptly.

“And the third thing is—well, it’s my intention to court him and hopefully get him to live and ranch with me. So y’all will have a couple of homos in the area. If any of you got a problem with that, you can just say it to my face right now.”

Joshua looked out into a herd of shocked faces. Mouths were agape and bodies were frozen. Old Mrs. Turner tapped her hearing aid as if it was acting up. It was so quiet you could hear the distant barking of the Jenkins’ old mutt Hoover, and they lived over a mile away.

Yup. Deadly quiet.

“Reckon that’s all I got to say.” Joshua left the podium and walked straight down the center aisle and out the door.

J
OSHUA
WALKED
to his truck, got in it, and started it. He paused for a moment, looking at the town hall doors. But no one came running out of the church yelling and screaming, or even just to stand and stare at him all frowny and demented like those kids in
Children of the Damned
. It was as still as a boneyard.

Joshua pulled out and started home.

Well. He’d done did it. And there was no taking it back now.

He rolled down the window and stuck his arm out. The two-lane road was dark, and the stars were bright. The night was cold, but that felt all right. Good, even.

He didn’t feel anxious at all, he realized. Not anymore.

He felt free.

J
OSHUA
WAS
nearly home when it occurred to him that maybe he shoulda told Fred first. Fred hadn’t been at the meeting tonight, but he’d hear about it. No doubt.

Cursing himself for a fool, Joshua turned around and drove to Fred’s place. He pulled up in front of the ranch house but didn’t get out of the truck. He figured he might be in need of a quick getaway.

Fred came out drinking a beer. He came over to the window.

“Joshua?”

“Doc’s been after ya to get that gallbladder out,” Joshua said, by way of a greeting.

Fred looked at him like he’d gone mad. “I reckon. What’s that got to do with the price of tea in China?”

“I think Christmas’d be a good time.”

“You’re fussin’ at me about havin’ my gallbladder out? At Christmas? Joshua, you must be drunker than a skunk.”

“Nope.”

“Well why on God’s green earth would I wanna do that?”

Joshua looked Fred in the eye. “To get Ben home.”

Fred looked back for a long moment, confusion and a reluctant knowing on his face, like maybe he was seeing something he had a suspicion was there, but he’d been hoping otherwise all the same. “Is there somethin’ you came here to get off your chest, Joshua Braintree?”

“Yup.”

“Well, speak up; I’m listenin’.”

Joshua licked his lips and looked out the windshield. “Ever seen me with a woman, Fred?”

Fred thought about it. “No, I can’t say that I have.”

Joshua grunted.

Fred thought about it for a bit, rubbing his face now and then and shaking his head, as if NASA had said the moon was green cheese, and he knew he had to believe it, even if he didn’t quite know how to make himself.

Finally he said, “What about Ben? How does he feel about it?”

“I reckon I botched it up pert bad down in Vegas,” Joshua admitted. “Now he needs convincin’.”

Fred shook his head. “My stars. Seems like I understand the world less and less every day. Why two fellas would wanna pair up when there’s so many nice-looking women out there….”

Joshua didn’t bother to answer.

Fred sighed. “Gallbladder.”

“Yup.”

“Do I actually have to
have
the surgery, or can I just
say
I’m a gonna?”

Joshua shrugged as if to say it wasn’t his place to tell Fred how to mind his business.

“My stars,” Fred repeated, shaking his head. He sounded slightly disgusted. “Have you spoken to Chet about this?”

“Nope.”

“You’d best do that. Jaysus. Guess that explains why you been moonin’ around like a lovesick calf. Had us worried half to death, you damn fool.”

Joshua didn’t deny it.

“Next time Chet calls, I’ll tell him to ring your cell. He needs to hear this from you.”

Joshua nodded. He didn’t look forward to that conversation, but he knew he and Chet would survive it. Chet had a big heart.

“I want you to know, Fred…. If Ben’ll let me, I’ll be good to ’im.”

Fred snorted. “Oh, for the love of Pete! He ain’t my virgin daughter.” He took a long drink of beer and grumbled. “First porn, now this. If I didn’t like you so dang much, Joshua Braintree, I’d kick your fanny to Tulsa. I may decide to do it anyhow.”

Joshua smiled. “Well, I reckon.”

W
HEN
J
OSHUA
got back to the ranch, Nora was waiting for him on the porch. He greeted her with a tip of his hat and held the door open for her.