Skies Like These (17 page)

“Is he coming?” Jade was referring to Roy.

“He'll do what he needs to do.”

“Which is come and support his mom, right?”

“If he's ready, he'll come. If he's not, he won't. You never know what will happen—which reminds me, I have two more stargazing bookings. Tuesday night is another group of Boy Scouts—you were right about getting referrals from the last event—and next Saturday I'll host Sandy and her family. They wanted to try it out.” Aunt Elise straightened Jade's necklaces. “I'm sorry you won't be here for them.”

“It's all right,” Jade said. “I like that you'll keep hosting classes after I go home.”

“I can't believe our time together is almost finished. Tomorrow is our last full day.”

“It's gone by so fast,” Jade said.

Aunt Elise's mouth sagged down for a moment before she pulled it up into a grin and asked, “Are you interested in coming back next summer?”

“Absolutely,” Jade said.

“Excellent! And how about we go hiking tomorrow? That would be a nice way to celebrate your last day.”

“Up Grand Teton?” Jade asked nervously.

Aunt Elise laughed. “Heavens no, that's a ten-hour hike. It would take you two or three summers to train for a hike of that level. No Grand Teton this time. They have over two hundred miles of trails in that area, something for every level. Let's take it easy tomorrow. Maybe we'll go on the Cottonwood Creek trail. It has the most breathtaking meadows, which should be bursting with summer wildflowers this time of year.”

Jade was relieved. “That sounds pretty.”

Aunt Elise stood on her tippy toes, trying to look over the crowd. “What's the line like at the coaster?”

Jade looked. “Medium.”

“Let's go.” Aunt Elise started pushing Jade through the multitude of people, weaving by families and dodging baby strollers. “If we hurry, we can ride it before we have to go over to the pavilion for the reading.”

Jade wasn't exactly a roller-coaster type of girl, but this one looked small enough and her aunt seemed so eager to share the experience. When they got to the line, she watched the pirate-ship cars jerk and wobble along the portable rails. “So they set this up with a couple of screws and wire?” she asked, watching a little boy jostle within the car as it whipped around a corner.

Aunt Elise brushed a hand through the air. “It's two feet off the ground. Even if it completely collapsed, how far would you fall?”

“Still…”

Aunt Elise stepped up to the front of the line, paid her fifty cents, and all but skipped into the fenced area and onto a coaster car. Jade followed. Once she was crammed into the car next to her aunt, with the metal bar—hot and sweaty from the day's use—pulled down across her thighs, Aunt Elise leaned over. “Can you feel your blood pumping?”

“I guess.”

Aunt Elise nodded. “That's how you know you're alive.”

As she said those words, the freckled-faced coaster worker pushed a big red button, sending them off with a solid jerk.

It bobbed and bounced at first, building up speed on the straightaway and then tossed Jade into her aunt as it flung them around the corner and up a small incline.

“Wheee!” Aunt Elise was waving both hands high above her head. She had completely surrendered to the moment. “Whooo!”

Forty-two seconds later, another jerk brought them to a stop in front of that freckle-faced festival worker.

“You have to admit,” Aunt Elise said as she climbed out, “that was a good time.”

Jade's heart was flopping and thumping around her chest like a fish out of water, but her aunt had been right about one thing: there was no question she was alive.

Aunt Elise looked at her watch. “Time to scoot over to the pavilion if we want good seats.”

They stopped and got giant snow cones on the way and then met Mr. Parker, Angelo, and Tilly down on the first row.

“Is she nervous?” Aunt Elise asked Mr. Parker.

“As a cat in a car wash,” he said.

Angelo cleared his throat. “She's all spunk, that one. She'll do fine.”

“Have any of you heard the poem?” Tilly asked.

Mr. Parker shook his head. “She's kept it under wraps. Says it's top secret.” He flicked a finger to his lips when he said
top secret
.

“But it's about Western stuff, right?” Jade asked.

Aunt Elise put a reassuring hand on Jade's knee. “I'm sure it is.”

Jade sat up straight and looked around for Roy.

The MC, a tall, knobby man with a hat brim wider than his whole self, cleared his throat into the microphone and began the contest. He announced they would follow the written program, which put Brenda Parker in the number-seven-out-of-nine spot.

Up first was a weary-looking cowboy, older than the hills. The moment he stepped onto the stage, Jade knew he had something to say. Something wise and meaningful. Something nostalgic.

He spoke in rich tones about the life he loved so much and about a certain time on a cattle drive when a baby calf got lost and no one could figure out where it went. He told about how he sent that calf's mama out after him and how she went directly to her child, lost and wandering in the woods.

The poem nearly brought a tear to Jade's eye. It was a story about an old cow, but the way he told it you knew it was about much more. It was about things like fear and love. Things like family.

Jade pushed the red plastic straw through her snow cone. Her visions of a fat blue ribbon and big check faded with every new poet that took the stage.

They were real cowboys. Every last one of them. Even Sandy came out wearing a suede vest and boots and a pretty straw hat. Her poem for this year was about a dark mountain shadow crawling across the land at dusk, and it was perfect.

And then it was Mrs. Parker's turn. She swept onto the stage the same way she had breezed across Aunt Elise's rooftop Jade's first night in Wellington—flowing rainbow chiffon and smiling entirely too wide. There was none of the stoicism, none of the thoughtful gazes out across the crowd. It went without saying that she wasn't wearing anything close to the appropriate attire for such an occasion. Jade's heart sank.

“I'd like to dedicate this poem to my son, Roy Parker,” she said. The microphone squeaked and squawked as she adjusted it to her height. She raised her arms out to the side and began:

“Tell me of a cowboy's heart

A gentle spirit under unyielding skies

Tell me of his courage strong

A brazen faith that never dies.

“A cowboy doesn't shun the fight

He dares to live, to make a stand

And when you feel you've lost your way

He reaches out and takes your hand.

“A cowboy is that faithful friend

With kindness from the very start

You'll find this if you dare to look

Within a cowboy's loving heart.”

When the last word fell from her lips, everyone started cheering and clapping. Jade nearly toppled her snow cone in the bustle. She looked over to Aunt Elise, who was about to bust clean open with joy and then over to Mr. Parker, who was dabbing his eyes with a napkin and then over to Angelo, who suddenly, and quite amazingly, had Roy standing next to him. Roy was looking down and fiddling with the back handle of Angelo's wheelchair. Jade scooted past the others and over to him. “Didn't you love that?”

Roy nodded, his face still down.

Jade touched his arm. “She may not know a lot about Western life, but she knows you.”

“Yep,” Roy said, looking up. “I guess she does.”

 

35

Brenda Parker didn't get the twenty-five-hundred-dollar grand prize. She got third place, which was a yellow ribbon and two free rides on the Pirate Coaster. Mrs. Parker offered the tickets to Angelo and Tilly.

“Don't you think we're too old for this sort of thing?” Tilly asked.

“Not at all,” Angelo said, taking the tickets and wheeling himself into the line.

Jade found her way to Mrs. Parker's side. “I loved your poem. Too bad you didn't win the prize money for your store.”

Mrs. Parker pinned her yellow prize ribbon on her blouse. “No need to worry about that. William has two job interviews this coming week. Something will turn up.”

“It absolutely will,” Mr. Parker said, reaching an arm around Roy's neck and pulling him in playfully. “Glad you decided to come.”

“I wouldn't have missed it,” Roy said. “Not really.”

“Are you feeling better?” Mrs. Parker asked.

“I got looking in that box of stuff in dad's workshop. You know, the one Jade was poking through the other day?”

Mrs. Parker tilted her head. “The one full of cat pictures?”

“There was other stuff in there, too,” Roy said. “Did you know we had a relative who made really good soup?”

“Lulu?” Jade asked, remembering.

“She was married to this George guy who was my long-ago uncle. One day he took his lunch break and saw this kid sitting on a bench. Come to find out, the kid was all alone because the economy was struggling and jobs were hard to find so both his parents had left town to look for work. Can you imagine leaving a fourteen-year-old boy all to himself in a big city?”

“Goodness, no,” Mrs. Parker said.

“I guess that's what families had to do in those hard times,” Roy went on. “The first week or so, this Uncle George of ours sat next to the boy and shared his soup. After that, he invited the boy home and gave him a place to sleep at night. Took him off the streets without a second thought. I mean, who does that?”

“A Parker does that,” Roy's dad said.

“Later,” Roy continued, “this boy talked Uncle George's wife, Lulu, into opening a soup kitchen out of her backyard and they fed families and migrant workers and anyone who needed a hand up. That's what Uncle George and Aunt Lulu liked to call it, a hand up, not a handout.”

“How remarkable,” Mrs. Parker said.

“That's not the half of it. I found this letter that Lulu wrote to George describing why she decided to marry him. She wrote about an experience in their town with a boy named Harold. Harold had special needs. I guess some of the kids gave him a hard time, but most ignored him. Anyway, one day George came to pick Lulu up in his truck and take her into town, which was kind of a big deal if you lived out in the country.” Roy was on fire, bobbing and bouncing and shining bright. “Lulu gets in the pickup truck and off they go. All of a sudden, she notices Harold walking along the side of the road. Without saying anything, George pulls over, rolls down his window, and says, ‘Get in, Harold. We're goin' to town.' Just like that!” Roy snapped his fingers. “‘Get in, Harold.' That's when Lulu knew George was a keeper because he was kind to Harold when no one else would be.”

“Cool story,” Jade said.

“It's not a story.” Roy seemed annoyed. “It's who we are.” Then he linked it all together: “Did I ever tell you about the time Butch Cassidy returned a horse to a little boy?” He launched into the story before Jade even had a chance to answer. He told about how a member of the Wild Bunch rode into camp one afternoon on a newly stolen horse and how he bragged about stealing it from a boy in town. “Can you imagine what Butch did when he heard that?” Roy shook his head and giggled before he told about how Butch had pulled out his gun and ridden with him all the way back into town to return the horse to the boy. “Then he made him walk the four miles back to camp. Butch Cassidy was someone who helped those who couldn't help themselves. Butch cared about the little guy when no one else did.” Roy turned to his parents. “And George Parker was exactly that same kind of man.”

Both Mr. and Mrs. Parker were standing with their jaws scraping the pavement. Mr. Parker regained his composure and said, “Is that so?”

Roy gave a single nod. “Sure is.”

“And you got all of this from that cardboard box?”

“It got me thinking,” Roy said. “If Butch Cassidy was in Wellington today, he'd probably volunteer to build a new wheelchair ramp for Angelo or put up a pen for the Wilsons' calf. He'd probably do it on his own time and not even charge the folks who couldn't afford to pay.”

Mrs. Parker was glowing. “Who needs the grand prize when you have boys like this?”

Standing there, Jade could see Roy had finally found whatever it was he had lost. Only this time it was better, because it was real.

 

36

After the coaster ride, Mr. and Mrs. Parker took Angelo and Tilly home. Tilly looked a little shaken from being jostled around the tracks, but Angelo was radiant. Aunt Elise scrounged a handful of quarters from the bottom of her purse and held them up to Jade and Roy. “Shall we take one last ride?”

Roy shook his head. “I'm in the mood for some cotton candy.”

“Me, too,” Jade said.

“You two go on, then.” Aunt Elise jumped back into the coaster line. “I'll meet you at home, Jade.”

Jade and Roy wandered over to the food trucks, squinting against the bright afternoon sun. Blue sky stretched tight and wide overhead. They had only been in the cotton-candy line for a minute when Farley came across the park, taking long strides right up to Roy.

He dipped his chin and tugged at the brim of his hat in greeting. “We've missed seeing you over at the ranch,” he said to Roy.

“I haven't been feeling well.” Roy was shifting in his boots.

“I understand,” Farley said. His tone told Jade that he knew what Roy had been through. “But I want to say that you're welcome to come back to work whenever you're feeling better. Stuart said you are one of the best trainees he's ever worked with. I've seen you with him. It's effortless the way you ride.” Then he did that hat-tug thing again, smiled at Jade, and walked away.