Samson and Sunset (32 page)

  Oh for gosh sakes, couldn’t they just
leave Shay alone for a little while? I thought. He was always at
their beck and call. I just wanted to yell at Joe, ‘Go away and
leave us alone!
I
need Shay right now!’ But it was Joe, so I
held my tongue.

  Instead, I stood up and said, “I’m
going upstairs to lie down for a while. Just go with Joe, Shay.
I’ll see you later, Joe. Take care of yourself,” and walked out of
the kitchen and up the stairs.

  I heard Joe and Shay leave and then
the sound of the Impala driving off. The glass packs always made a
cool cackling sound. Oh well, this just gave me more time to feel
sorry for myself. I also felt sorry for Shay and Kelly. Truly, the
family had been dealt a blow. I took off my robe and crawled back
into bed, naked. After about fifteen minutes I heard the ambulance
drive past the house. About thirty minutes after that I heard our
Impala go by the house. I got up to see where Shay was going. I
went to the bathroom window and looked out. He drove down the
gravel road and turned toward the lake. Go figure. I went back and
lay down. I was thinking maybe I should take the last pill and just
go to sleep for the rest of the day. But it wasn’t long before I
heard the Impala drive up out front. I was just lying there on our
bed, stretched out on my stomach with my arms at my sides, when I
heard Shay come up the stairs.

  “Callie, get dressed,” he ordered,
walking into the room. “I’m taking you out of this house for
awhile.”

  “I’m not getting up,” I said.

  “Up,” Shay said with that
authoritative voice of his. “Now!”

  “I said no, and I mean no! If you’re
going to be like that Shay, just get the hell out of here!” I
yelled.

  Shay walked over and got the western
blanket that was draped over his office chair. He spread it out on
the bed and rolled me up in it like a Tootsie Roll. It wasn’t so
tight that I couldn’t bend my knees, but my arms where locked into
the blanket. Shay picked me up and took me down the stairs. I was a
damned Tootsie Roll. Out the door we went to the Impala. Shay stood
me on the ground, opened the door, put me in, and shut the door.
Then he went around to his side, got in and drove off.

  “Shay, you bastard,” I said. “I’m
naked! Where are we going?”

  Shay just drove silently towards the
lake. We went winding down toward the riverbank and Shay stopped
the car under some trees.

  “What the hell are we doing here?”

  Shay just pointed across the river to
the south side.

  There they were: Samson, Sunset,
Starling and all the other horses. They were by the river’s edge,
some of them drinking, a couple standing in the shallow water.

  “Shay, Shay!” I screamed. “My babies!
My horses! How did you find them? How did they get out? Shay, Shay,
get me out of this blanket! Unwrap me! I want to get to Sunset, and
little Starling. Shay, hurry!”

  Shay unwrapped me from the rolled up
blanket, leaving me standing there totally naked. I didn’t
care.

  “Shay, whistle at Samson! Call him.
He’ll come to you. Call him, Shay, call him!” I said jumping up and
down, clapping my hands and crying with happiness.

  Shay gave Samson a few of his familiar
whistles. You could see Samson’s ears perk up and he headed for
Shay with Sunset and Starling following behind.

  I took off running and met Sunset
halfway in the shallow part of the river. I jumped up across her
back, threw my leg over and straddled her. I was mounted naked on
my sweet Sunset, standing knee-deep in water, laughing. I lay my
head on her mane and put my arms around her neck. I just kept
kissing her. I wanted her to know how much I loved her.

  I was so wrapped up in my own happy
world that I hadn’t noticed Shay had sat down in the grass near the
riverbank. He had his knees bent up, one of his hands over his
eyes, his fingers spread over his eyebrows. As I jumped off Sunset
and started to go over to Shay, I noticed a bit of a body movement,
like he was sobbing a little.

  “Shay, are you all right?” I asked. I
went up and sat down beside him. “I know all this has been hard,
but they’re safe! They’re safe.”

  It took a few minutes for Shay to get
himself together. He wasn’t one to break down. I’d seen tears only
for Cookie, and Marie…

  It took a few moments, and then Shay
said, “Okay, Callie, I’ll tell you. Just don’t interrupt me,
please.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “When Joe came and got me we went to
the bunk house. I can’t tell you the horrific scene I saw.
Rolland’s brother, Louis, was under a sheet. Joe lifted it and
Louis was burned so bad—arms, legs, body, hair, face. I couldn’t
recognize him, Callie. Rolland was there and he was interpreting
for me. Louis wanted to tell me what happened. It seems when Louis
saw the stable on fire he ran right in to set the horses free. He
said he wanted to save little green eyes’ and the little
hombre’s
horses!”

  My eyes filled with tears. “What?”

  “Callie. He kept saying,
‘
Gracias,
Shay,
Gracias.
’ He reached for my hand…” By
now Shay was crying again. “Callie, he reached for my hand and I
held his burned hand as he kept saying, ‘
Gracias,
Shay,
Gracias
, Shay.’ Rolland said he was thanking me for the job
and the good home I’d given him. He said Louis said to tell little
green eyes that her horses were safe. I heard the ambulance arrive
and at that moment Louis’ hand dropped from mine.

  “He didn’t make it, Callie. He didn’t
make it. He was so happy to have had a job, Callie. I’m so sad, and
yet I am so thankful for this homeless man that I hired. He gave
his life so Kelly wouldn’t be sad, his little green eyes. Rolland
said Louis’ last words were that now he was going to get to be with
his family.”

  “Oh, Shay,” I said. “I am so sorry. I
know right now he is holding his family in his arms.” I hugged Shay
and held him close. “He will always be our guardian angel,” I told
Shay. “He was such a good man. He surely entered the gates of
heaven today, Shay.”

  After sitting there for about half an
hour we got up and went to the car. I forgot that I was naked. Shay
reached in the backseat and pulled out the camel blazer and helped
me put it on. The farmhands would come get the horses, so we went
home, showered and went to bed, holding each other with a newfound
love that spoke no words, just showed itself through actions, like
Louis had shown us.

  Safe

Shay had a small memorial service for Louis.
Shay’s priest friend, Father Mike, came out and spoke—not a
service, just kind words. Afterward, there was a catered barbeque
for the crew and their families. Shay announced that the new stable
would be named Louis Stables. That really made the crew happy.
Everyone came over and told Shay how much they appreciated what he
had done for one of their own.

  Shay had Louis’ body shipped back to
Mexico to be buried with his family. Shay was strong through all of
this. I, on the other hand, was not doing so well. I don’t think
Shay noticed at first.

  I found myself asking Yonnie if she
could come over every day for a while. I needed help with the kids,
cleaning, laundry and cooking. Usually a chatterbox, I increasingly
found I had nothing to say. Over the course of a day I might say
ten or twelve words. I noticed it was making Yonnie uncomfortable,
so after a while I sat her down and told her that I loved her and
it had nothing to do with her if I was not acting myself.

  “A lot has happened to me in the last
few years,” I explained. “And I’m finding my energy is just
gone.”

  She said she understood (though she
didn’t know the half of it,) and went on happily about her
work.

  When Shay came home in the evenings
he’d find dishes in the sink if Yonnie hadn’t done them. If he was
lucky, there might be some left over Mac and Cheese from the kids’
supper. I know Shay couldn’t understand why we weren’t eating at
the table as a family anymore. Several nights he came home,
showered, dressed and just left. I think he probably went to the
Westover Bar to get a hot meal.

  One morning after he got up and I was
still in bed, he came over to me and asked if he had any clean
jeans. I told him if he wanted clean clothes, he knew where the
washer was. I saw him put on a pair he’d worn once but weren’t too
dirty. This was something Shay wasn’t used to. He bent down, kissed
me goodbye and went off to work. He didn’t get home until 2:30 in
the morning, smelling of beer and perfume.

  I was awake when he got into bed. We
lay there, the room dark except for our little night sconces, me on
my side of the king bed, Shay on his.

  “Shay,” I said after a few minutes,
without moving, “I want to move home to Hudson for awhile. I want
to stay with my parents.”

  He just lay quiet for some time. Then
he said, “I don’t know where my princess went, but I miss her and I
love her so much. Just tell me, tell me where she went so I can go
find her.”

  Shay turned toward me and I saw tears
in his eyes as he spoke.

  “What happened, Callie? Where is my
wife, the woman I can’t live without? Where have you gone? You
don’t even talk to me anymore. I feel so lonely inside. You know
what I did tonight, Callie? I picked a woman up in the Larimer bar
and we bought a twelve pack of beer and parked out in the
country.”

  “Well, it wouldn’t be the first time,”
I remarked.

  “Callie, we almost had sex and if we
had, that’s all it would have been: just sex. In my life, you’re
the only woman I’ve ever made love to or would ever want to make
love to. Oh yeah, we still have sex, but your heart isn’t in it.
Hell
you
aren’t in it.” His eyes shone with tears in the low
light of the sconces.

  “When I make love to you,” he said,
“it’s like I’m here all alone. I might as well just do it by
myself. The pleasure would be the same—absolutely no response from
you. You just go through the motions… Now you tell me you want to
move home to Hudson? Well, this is your home, princess! I told you
a long time ago that your home was in my heart, so I’m not letting
you do that, not without you telling me what’s happened to you,
woman. So you just better tell me. I think you owe me that. Tell me
where my wife went, and why did she go?”

  “Shay, I’m sorry you felt like you
needed to pick up another woman. Maybe you should have had sex with
her, maybe she’s what you’ve needed all along,” I said in a sad
cold voice, still not moving.

  I too wondered where Callie had gone.
The Callie I knew myself as would have scooped Shay up in her arms
at the sight of his tears. But that Callie wasn’t there in the
bedroom with us. I didn’t know where she was.

  “Remember all the times your little
girlfriends came to the car window or at the club and told you
right in front of me that you could do better? Well, Shay, I think
they were right. You should never have married me. Just look at the
hell your life has been since you’ve been with me,” I said in a
dull voice. “I wish you
had
married someone else, then maybe
you’d be happy. You wouldn’t be walking on eggs waiting for the
next tragedy that seems to follow me where ever I go.”

  “Callie, for God’s sake, do you think
these problems that have come up since we’ve been married are
your fault?
‘Cause darlin’, they’re not. It’s called life,
Callie! Life has ups and downs. Life in a good marriage is standing
together. It’s the way you handle the ups and downs as a couple
that counts. It’s just you’re not there to see their downs, so you
think other marriages don’t have tragedies. Well, that’s just not
true, no marriage is trouble-free. I love you, princess. I wish you
had told me how you were feeling, but you shut me out. This is the
first time in a long while that you’ve let me in, and then it was
only to tell me you want to leave me and move back to Hudson.”

  He touched my cheek pleadingly.
“Callie, I think you’ve been so torn down since Marie died that you
feel you can’t get back up. Well, darlin’, I can do something about
that. I’m taking you away from here for a week, or however long it
takes, so you can rest, babe. You and I are going to go to the
ranch in the Sand Hills tomorrow. Just us. I’m taking you away so I
can get you back!”

  I made no sounds of protest, so he
continued with a little lift to his voice. “You don’t have to do a
thing! I’ll have Hulda pack for you and I’ll make arrangements for
the kids to be at your parents’. Princess, you just need someone to
take care of you for a while, you’re always taking care of everyone
else. It’s swallowed you whole. I’ll fight to get you back,
princess.”

  He slid over and held me gently. I
gave him no response. Something in me seemed dead.

  “Everything is going to be fine,
Callie,” Shay said sadly. “Trust me, please. I love you so much.
Please don’t leave me, princess.”

  Thursday morning Shay woke me with a
hug and what did seem to be some lovemaking. I could feel his warm
body and I did love that. Then he was up and out the door, yelling
on the way out, “Get up and get dressed, Callie. I want to leave
Westover by ten for the ranch.”

  I knew Shay, and I knew he’d get us
packed, the car packed, farm work rescheduled, and kids to Mom and
Dad’s by when he said. Grass never grew under that man’s feet. Sure
enough, at ten ’til ten he was in the door calling me.

  “Callie, where are you? Are you
ready?”

  I was dressed and had my purse and
sunglasses. I grabbed several bottles of tea from the refrigerator
and told Shay I was as ready as I’d ever be. Out we went, with Shay
opening my door as usual. When he got into the car, he sat there
and looked at me a second, then said: