Running Barefoot (37 page)

“Am I really so different?”

“Samuel . . . I don’t understand how you can equate yourself with David. Even so, David died in God’s good graces. He had repented for his sins, and we have the book of Psalms to prove he was favored by God.” I was truly befuddled. Samuel’s silence lasted several minutes this time. I was getting better at waiting him out. When he spoke,
the subject had seemingly changed, and I mentally cart wheeled to catch up.

“I got a letter from my Grandma Nettie when you got engaged, Josie. She thought I would remember you; she mentioned it kind of in passing, kind of ‘Oh by the way’….” Samuel paused.

“I remember where I was when I read that letter - where I was sitting, what I had been doing in the moments leading up to it. I was completely leveled by the news, to say the least. I’d been gone for almost five years, hadn’t seen you for more than two. You were still so young, and I thought I had time. You see, in my mind, I always kept track. I would mark time with your birthdays. Josie is sixteen - but I’m 21. Josie is 17, still too young. Then, out of the blue, this kid came in and snatched you up, and you were suddenly taken.”

I stared at Samuel, my mouth hanging open, completely undone by what he had revealed. Samuel expelled a short, harsh laugh at my stunned reaction, and suddenly his wet hands gripped my shoulders, and he rose to his feet, pulling me with him.

“I didn’t know who Kasey was; my grandma mentioned his name and said that he was a nice local kid. I just remember how angry I was and how much I wanted to hunt him down. I had another two years on my contract with the Marines, but all I wanted to do was come to Levan and kill him and plead my case to you. I wanted to beg you not to marry him. I even wrote a letter to you
telling you to wait for me.”

“I never got a letter.” My lungs were burning. I realized I was holding my breath.

“I never sent it. I couldn’t. I had absolutely no right.”

Samuel suddenly held my face in his hands. They were cold and still a little wet from the water. I shivered as his eyes burned holes down into mine. “A few months after that, my grandma sent me a letter telling me Kasey had been killed. I felt sick because in my heart of hearts I had wished it. I had wanted him gone. So am I really so different than David?”

I couldn’t answer immediately; my head was spinning with the passion in his voice and the intensity in his eyes. He interpreted my stunned silence as censure once more, and he dropped his hands from my face. “I’m sorry, Josie. I had no intention of telling you any of this. But I just couldn’t let you kiss me and comfort me, and let you tell me what a good man I am, without telling you everything. And the worse part is…I’m
glad
he’s gone. I’m not glad he’s dead, I don’t wish that, but yes, I’m glad he’s gone. And I don’t know what kind of man that makes me.”

“I guess it makes you an honest one,” I whispered, finally finding my voice, unsure of what to say beyond that. He stared at me intently, and I met his gaze without blinking. “I never would have guessed you would have reacted like that . . . that you even thought of me after you left. I didn’t know
you . . . you cared.” I finished ineptly, unable to communicate the awe I was feeling at his confession.

“I did, and I do.” Samuel responded flatly. His mouth was drawn into a tight line, his eyes on mine. I exhaled slowly, feeling faint. The water from my dripping hair found its way down my back, and I shivered violently. Samuel reached down and took my hand, and we walked back towards the truck, the blanket trailing behind me. He stooped and picked up the cooler and set it in the back as he opened my door and helped me in.

With the heater on full blast, we drove back towards Levan. Music tinkled softly from the speakers, and I heard a hint of Rachmaninoff’s
Elegie
. I had always loved this piece. Rachmaninoff was considered one of the finest pianists of his day. Sonja had a live recording of him playing
Elegie
, and it had brought me to tears when I had first heard it. It had been many years since I had enjoyed the expressive breadth and the rich lyricism in his piece. Hesitantly, I reached up and slid the volume louder, allowing the music to fill the cab and reverberate off the glass.

“This is my favorite piece of music, by my favorite composer.” Samuel’s voice broke through as the music slowed and sighed.

“You always did love Rachmaninoff.” I remembered the first time he had heard Rachmaninoff on the bus and his reaction to the power and the intensity of Prelude in C Sharp
Minor. “Rachmaninoff was the last of the great Romanticists in classical music. He was often discouraged by the modernist music that was becoming popular. Once, in an interview, he said that the modern music of the new composers was written more in the head than the heart. Their music contained too much thought and no feeling. He said the modern composers ‘think and reason and analyze and brood, but they do not exalt.’” I held up two fingers on each hand and wiggled them to indicate quotation marks. “I looked up the word ‘exalt’ in the dictionary when Sonja made me memorize his quote. The meaning I liked best was to “make sublime’, to magnify, to praise, to extol. Rachmaninoff’s music raises us up, it elevates.”

“I love
Elegie
because it is what yearning sounds like.” Samuel stared ahead as he spoke.

I stared at Samuel for a moment, moved by the simplicity of his description. “I think
Elegie
actually means lament. Some say Rachmaninoff was depressed when he wrote it - but there’s such pronounced hope woven throughout the piece that I tend to think, in spite of his suggested moroseness,
Elegie
wasn’t an expression of defeat - he was just.....yearning.” I smiled at him slightly as I echoed his simple synopsis. “He considered quitting early on in his career. His philosophy was one rooted in spiritualism - he wanted to create beauty and truth in his music, and he felt like his music didn’t belong. It’s ironic though, he gave his last major interview in 1941, when the world was at
war. The world needed truth and beauty then more than ever.”

We drove through Nephi and out on to the long ridge connecting the small towns. Soon, the lights of Levan twinkled before us, and we pulled into the sleepy little town, turning on to a pot-holed side street, driving past the bar and the old church before heading up the dimly-lit street towards home.

We crunched over the gravel in front of my house. It was dark and empty, my dad long gone on his way to Moab and the beckoning Book Cliffs.

“Would you like to come in for a minute? You could check the house for bad guys, and I could make us something yummy to eat. I think I have ice cream in the freezer and I could make us some hot fudge topping to put on top?” I waggled my eyebrows at him in the dim interior of the truck, and he smiled a little.

“Bad guys?”

“Oh you know, I’m here all alone, the house is dark. Just look under the beds and make sure no one is hiding in my closet.”

“Are you afraid to be alone at night?” His brows were lowered with concern over his black eyes.

“Nope. I just wanted to give you a reason to come inside.”

His expression cleared, and his voice lowered even further. “Aren’t you reason enough?”

I felt the heat rise in my face. “Hmmm,” was all I said.

“Josie.”

“Yes?”

“I would love to come in.”

We climbed out and walked inside. I flipped on the lights and excused myself for a minute. I ran upstairs to my little attic room and pulled off my wet clothes. I ran around looking for something to wear – sweats? No. Pajamas? No! I settled on a loose pink sundress and ran my fingers through my damp ringlets - my hair smelled a little like pond water . . . ugh! I spritzed myself with lavendar and pulled my hair up into a clip, not wanting to look like I was trying too hard. I left my feet bare, of course, and ran back downstairs. My feet got a little tangled up, and I came hurtling off the last stair into the washroom like a bat out of hell. I steadied myself on the dryer and took a deep breath. “Geez! Calm down, woman!” I told myself sternly. When Samuel was around I seemed to be one frazzled bundle of gooseflesh and hormones. “That’s just what we need, fall down the stairs and spend the rest of the time Samuel has in Levan on crutches,” I muttered.

I walked into the kitchen where I’d left Samuel a few minutes before. I gathered the butter, evaporated milk, sugar, vanilla and cocoa powder as we chatted about this and that. Soon the smell of hot fudge sauce wafted through the kitchen, and I sighed in contentment. Grabbing a couple bowls, I scooped up two large servings of cookie dough ice cream and drizzled generous amounts of hot
chocolate over the top.

“Let’s eat!” I declared, sitting down and scooping up a giant spoonful of ice cream.

Samuel laughed right out loud, a rich rumble that echoed in my heart.

“What?” I said, my mouth full of ice cream.

“You make me laugh.”

“Why?”

“You’re this beautiful girl, blond curls, big blue eyes. You always wear dresses and paint your toenails and you’re completely old fashioned - books, music, you name it…you’re completely all girl. I just didn’t expect you to dig in like that. You did the same thing earlier tonight at the pond. You like food. I thought for sure you’d put a napkin on your lap and eat very small spoonfuls like a dainty little lady.”

“Lady, schmady,” I giggled. “I love to eat. That’s why I run every morning. Otherwise, I might grow to be very voluptuous and rubenesque.”

“I’m not sure what rubenesque means exactly, but I’m sure it would look good on you.” Samuel dug in to his bowl as well, and we enjoyed our ice cream in silence, until the last of the hot fudge sauce was scraped away. I restrained myself from licking my bowl. Samuel didn’t.

“That was unbelievable sauce,” he said appreciatively.

“Yep! My mom’s own recipe. It’s an original.”

I washed our bowls, and Samuel wandered in
to the family room and sat on the piano bench, watching me through the narrow door, opposite the kitchen sink.

“Will you come with me to see my grandma?”

“Nettie?” I questioned, confused.

“No. I want you to come to Arizona with me and meet my Grandma Yazzie.”

My eyes flew to his face, and I could from the firm set of his wide mouth that he was serious.

“When?”

“Tomorrow.”

“But . . . I have to work at the shop tomorrow and…how long would we be gone?”

“Your aunt wouldn’t let you go?”

“Of course she would. I don’t have anything scheduled. I would just be there for walk-ins.”

“Dilcon is over 700 miles away. We’d need an entire day of driving each way, and I want to stay for three days in between. So five days. Tomorrow is Saturday. We’d be back late on Wednesday night. Could you arrange it?”

I bit my lip as I mulled it over. I was so tempted. The long hours of driving were incredibly enticing - conversation with Samuel was always enlivening, and the thought of listening to music and talking for hours on end with him were more than I could pass up. My dad was gone. He wouldn’t be calling home - cell phone reception wasn’t available where he was going. I would have to cancel my piano lessons - but the loss of revenue wouldn’t hurt me. What did I have to spend my
money on anyway? I guess I hesitated a moment too long.

“Please, Josie?” His voice was insistent. “I want you to meet her. I’ve told her about you. You’ll love her.”

I turned to face him. “All right. I’ll go. I’ve always wanted to meet her. But!” I held up one finger as a stipulation, “I can’t leave bright and early - I have to call my students and Louise -”

“Call them on the way, Josie. Bring your cell phone. I’ll pick you up at 6:00 a.m.”

So much for ‘please Josie.’ Bossy Samuel was back. Bossy really wasn’t the right word. He was more blunt and plain-spoken, but calling him bossy made me feel better when he started giving orders. He continued on:

“I want to get to the reservation before dark. It’s hard enough to find Grandma’s hogan in the daytime. And she could be anywhere. I called the trading post when I got back stateside and left a message for her. I told her to plan on me this weekend. I got word to her through the man that works at the trading post. I called him today, and he said she’d been in with one of her rugs. He gave her the message for me.”

“Is that how you communicate?” I said incredulously.

“It works. Grandma doesn’t read or write and she doesn’t have a phone.”

I felt a frisson of unease that this meeting might be awkward. Talk about two different
worlds. Samuel must have seen something in my face, because he stood and walked to where I still stood, leaning against the sink. He reached out and ran a hand lightly down my cheek.

“Don’t worry. Grandma is easy to love. Just think of it as an adventure.”

I smiled tremulously.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” He said, his voice husky.

“I promise to pack some jeans and boots.” I said with a grimace. I’d given up wearing my Wranglers and hand me down t-shirts long ago. I still had them, (who doesn’t in Levan?) but they weren’t my preference.

“My grandma wears a skirt every day too - but, yeah. You might want to bring some jeans, unless you have a big long pioneer skirt you like riding a horse in,” he teased. He slipped quietly out the door, and I heard the truck start up and drive away.