Water and Stone (16 page)

Perhaps it was something she'd eaten for breakfast.

Like her father Lorraine always had a robust appetite. It didn’t matter what time of the day or night it was she liked to eat and she liked to surround herself with others who also enjoyed their meals. It didn’t make her feel like such a hog.

Even as girl she was bigger than most of her peers but after Billy was born Lorraine seemed to inflate like a dirigible filling to the point of bursting. Being around Yani at the Triple Six hacienda made her feel like an elephant in a room with a hyena... the girl who fed them and kept the house clean was as tiny as a child even after it was clear she too had given birth.

Lorraine didn’t want anyone else to know who the father of Church was... she already knew it was her husband's child. She'd made peace with his playing around long ago but it hurt her to think all the other women of Guthrie were cackling behind her back about the little boy named Church and how like all wives in similar situations poor Lorraine would be the last to know.

She had never liked Texas. For years she tried to pry Rancher away... to get him to at least buy a place back east where they could vacation. All the man ever did was work and despite her protestations that he needed to take time to enjoy himself he was resolute about the lifestyle he led.

"Father's asked me to help him on his upcoming campaign. I'm thinking of leaving at the end of the week. I'm really hoping we might go together this time, Rancher... you need to get away from this dusty old place if only for a week or two."

"You know there's nothing in the world I enjoy more than ranching, Lorraine. Why, if I was to take a trip east all I'd be doing was thinking about the Triple Six. I couldn’t take pleasure in some high-falutin' eastern country like Virginia. I'd be as out of place as an oyster in the desert."

She knew he enjoyed her trips back east as much as she did. It gave him more opportunity to pursue his real vocation: women. Oh, she'd no doubt that he loved ranching every bit as much as he claimed but chasing the parade of pretty Guthrie women seemed to occupy just as much of his time.

They'd never shared a bed. She snored. She'd tried all the remedies for her affliction except for losing weight which was what the doctor finally told her was the only solution for her problem.

Lorraine had gone on a billion diets in her life... some lasted minutes while others lasted nearly a full day... some of the most dreadful days she could recall. She'd tried all the fads even giving up meat, ice cream, chocolate, and all the other foods she craved. It didn’t matter what she ate... it made her fat.

Looking around the hacienda for the last time she wondered if that was why Rancher had married her... because he knew her father would give them the money to build the immense ranch house. But how could he know that? And besides, Rancher was already a wealthy man when she met him the first time.

He lived like a pauper, however. Driving through the dust of Texas to reach his home Lorraine kept imagining an enormous three story mansion with a row of enormous white colonnades in front and forty servants and barns spread out everywhere. Instead, when they drove up the long drive to the shack hunkered like a vagrant in the weeds she thought they had been given wrong directions.

"I like to spend all my money on land."

He knew she disapproved of his abode but laughed it off. Maybe that was the moment that she fell in love with him. All her life she'd been surrounded by vast wealth and suddenly here was a man probably richer than all of them yet living like a vagabond... the shack didn’t even have running water.

"I don’t see how any man can live like that, Miss Townsend."

Edward Best had accompanied her on that trip. They had gone to Rancher Ford to enlist his help with her father's Presidential campaign which ultimately had faltered right out of the starting gate. Still, Rancher had been extremely accommodating to both her and Edward... he had even ordered a portable toilet brought in exclusively for their visit.

"I like the rustic nature of his home, Edward. Still, one would think he might at least drill a well."

"I'd like it a little better if he at least had an indoor toilet."

She remembered how she tended towards Edward's sentiments and yet something intrigued her about Rancher Ford... his intensity and single-mindedness was almost legendary in that county and she could see why.

"How old do you think he is, Edward?"

"I know exactly how old his is, Miss Townsend."

"How do you know so much about that man, Edward?"

"Per your father I ran a background check on him."

"Are you going to tell me what you discovered or do I have to bribe you with a hundred dollar bill?"

It was an old family joke. Edward's father had held the office of Secretary of State in Pennsylvania for some thirty five years. In fact the man died while still in office. Upon his death, some fifty shoe boxes filled with hundred dollar bills were discovered stacked neatly in the old man's closet. Rather than being ashamed of it, Edward actually seemed proud of how his father had gotten away with his malfeasance for so long.

"Rancher Ford is twenty five years old, he hails from Hobart, Indiana, and he has no family to speak of. Apparently he left home at an early age and no one cared too much that he was gone... at least not enough to report him missing."

"So he was a throw-away kid. There's nothing special about that, Edward."

"Well, according to my sources Rancher Ford showed up in Guthrie penniless and without shoes on his feet. He went to work for a local business man and within a decade ending up buying him out along with most of the other buildings in town."

"I see... that's impressive. Tell me more, Edward."

"As near as I can make out he's telling the truth about spending all his money on land. He doesn’t drink. He doesn’t gamble. He has no lady friends. During the last ten years he has acquired nearly ten thousand acres of land and he runs twice that many cattle."

"That is an odd name for a man from Indiana, Edward. Did he change it?"

"No, that’s the strange thing. He was christened Rancher Ford."

"So you say he has no lady friends... how is that possible, Edward? Is he gay?"

Edward had turned an ever so slight shade of red when she asked the question. It was her fault. She had forgotten about Edward's predilection toward men. Though she nearly apologized she caught herself knowing it would only make matters worse.

"If he is, he stays deep inside the closet, Miss Townsend."

She wondered momentarily if he too had eyes for the rugged individualist who lived like a hermit in a shack she wouldn’t allow her dog to frequent. She was nearly embarrassed by the feelings she had for him and giggled thinking about introducing Rancher Ford to Senator Townsend.

"I like him, Edward. I think he'll be a real asset to our campaign in Texas."

It wasn’t long after that Rancher Ford asked for her hand in marriage and she accepted. Somehow, when she looked into her mirror now, an old woman stared back at her. When had all that happened?

The pain started as something slight, a twinge, nothing more. At her age she had become accustomed to the aches that seemed to accompany the changing of the calendar. Sometimes if she shifted her body to just the right position the hurt might subside but this time it only grew worse.

She'd been sitting too long... that had to be it. The doctor warned her that would happen. It was like having a needle stuck into her back right under her left shoulder blade and when she breathed deeply to help dispel the throbbing it only hurt all the more.

During the last few days she had noticed a darkness to her urine that disconcerted her... it was like brown ink staining the toilet bowl. She had read articles about how blood in the urine was often a sign of cancer and other more ominous maladies but it was easier to ignore it and hope the normal color returned than to make too much of a fuss over it.

Her diet was probably the culprit. She remembered eating asparagus and how her pee smelled funny for days afterwards and how she was sure she was coming down with diabetes. Maybe the copious amounts of chocolate candy she'd been consuming lately had a role in coloring her urine brown... it made sense in a weird sort of way.

Lorraine thought how she might lay down for an hour or so before tea, just to allow her stomach to settle. It had to be the eggs benedict that the awful waiter served at the Senate dining room that morning. She thought about calling father up to see if he had the same symptoms... if he did, it was obviously food poisoning.

Instead she decided to rest and if she didn’t feel any better upon rising she would pay a visit to Dr. Nelson, her father's personal physician. She couldn’t remember falling asleep but told herself she was dreaming when the hair began to materialize in the corner of the bedroom ceiling, a big bushy head of hair.

As she watched astonished a young girl no more than fifteen floated down to the floor... she was a dark-skinned beauty with eyes that seemed on fire, as if something inside of the woman was burning with such intensity it had to be let out.

The wraith walked over to the bed where Lorraine lay. Darkness seemed to pool around the girl's feet as she came ever closer. For an instant she wondered if she should be afraid but she told herself it was only a dream, if a particularly scary one. A second later the darkling girl reached out a hand to touch Lorraine.

She felt her heart cold inside her chest, as if a clawed hand had grasped it and was squeezing tightly. When she tried to scream only a whimper emerged. She was in a tunnel... no, by slow degrees the blackness edged ever closer to the center of her vision until she felt as if she was peering through a periscope like the time she toured a nuclear submarine with the old letch of an admiral who had eyes for her and hands of a Roman.

A vague sense of consternation began building in the back of her mind... was she dying? Her doctor had continually advised her to lose weight... to exercise more... all the things she hated to hear. Maybe it was the cancer after all. She told herself that father was a big man who carried his weight well so there was no reason why she shouldn’t be able to do the same.

Just when her vision had become but a pin prick of light in the middle of a sea of darkness and she had given up on holding onto life—at least the life she had known—the ocean of forgetfulness threatening to swallow her began to recede, slowly at first and then with a suddenness that startled her.

She had passed through some sort of portal... was she in heaven? If so, where were the angels and the music she always associated with that blessed realm? Where was Jesus the Christ? And then she heard it... a haunting melody that seemed to come from all around her... the same tune she thought she might remember hearing on the day she was born.

Listening with all her might she realized the music wasn’t something she heard in her ears... then again, if she was in heaven why did she think she might still possess the same five senses as she had while alive?

As the light grew around her she discovered she was no longer in her condominium. Wherever she was, she realized with a start that she'd no idea how to get back... how to return to the place where her body must still be sleeping. Though she tried waking herself up as she had done countless times in the past when her nightmares grew unmanageable she had no success.

She was awake. Her body felt far lighter than she ever remembered, even as a girl. Looking down at herself she realized with a start that she was naked. She saw but a slip of a girl where before had always existed a behemoth.

There was someone else there... lots of others, in fact... she could sense their presence. Still... there was one that she recognized though had never met... her husband's son, the one he thought he kept hidden in the little shanty at the edge of the property.

His name was Church and she owed him an apology.

It was odd how he didn’t feel more pain at hearing the news of his wife's passing.

Perhaps he'd become numb to the suffering of the world. Growing up like he did with parents who were indifferent to him at best and downright hateful at their worst had instilled a sort of barrier inside of him that kept all deep emotions at bay. He knew enough to understand how it was a defense mechanism—a symptom of post traumatic stress that soldiers sometimes carried home with them from the wars—yet for the life of him he couldn’t understand why anyone would want to subjugate themselves to such pain.

Had he ever loved his wife? He wondered about it while staring up at the deep Texas sky watching the constellations swirl overhead like sparks from an enormous campfire... like fireflies lost in the heavens and forever seeking home.

Of course they'd been apart so long if someone was to ask him he could no longer tell them the color of Lorraine's eyes. Had he ever loved her? The question kept coming back like the ache deep inside his bones after the pain killers wore off. Did he know what love was? It was a question that often haunted him most of all just after he closed his eyes to sleep or perhaps just after waking.

Being estranged from his parents had instilled a certain independence in Rancher Ford from an early age. When he heard of their deaths it was years after the fact and it was only in passing that he even marked their significance in his life.

Lorraine had been found dead in her room apparently of a cerebral hemorrhage but the autopsy would have to confirm that opinion. Still, no one had any reason to suspect foul play. The woman was loved by everyone. She'd laid down for a nap and never woke up. In his opinion that wasn’t an altogether bad way to go and one he might choose if afforded the opportunity.

There could have been any number of mitigating factors in her death. The doctor had warned her countless times about the possibilities of a stroke. She carried way too much weight for a woman of her stature but she loved to eat. He was glad to see that Billy didn't favor her in that regard... the boy was strong and muscular like he was at that age.

"I suppose her father will want her buried out east, Billy. We'll have to abide by his wishes."

"But why can't mom be buried here, dad? We'll never get to visit her grave if she's back east."

He agreed with what the boy was saying: Lorraine did belong out west. There was an old graveyard on the southern section of the Triple Six where all three of them had talked on being buried. Of course that was before Lorraine had forsaken the ranch and moved east to be closer to her father, that and the county where they lived in all its wisdom had deemed it improper as well as illegal to be buried upon private property.

"You're right, Billy. Let's both talk to your grandfather about it when we fly out for the funeral. I'd like to have your mother here too."

Peter Brown, his family's attorney, could pull some strings and perhaps get permission for them to lay Lorraine at rest on the Triple Six. The good Lord knew he paid the lawyer enough in retainer fees to handle what seemed like a simple request.

"Let me talk to grandfather... he'll do what I ask... he always has."

The boy was right. Though Senator Townsend and Rancher Ford had always been cordial with one another, they had never been on friendly terms. Though he never said so directly Rancher had always gotten the impression that the old man thought his daughter could have done better. What's more, Rancher agreed.

He remembered the first time he had met his future wife and how he had subtlety teased her about wearing two shoes of different colors and how her face had gone white when she realized he had noticed and how the notion grew in his mind even then that she would make a fine bride for a man of his nature.

Their marriage had been relatively happy, however, even with the obvious differences in their backgrounds. Rancher lived in blue jeans and hand-sewn boots and his ten-gallon hat while Lorraine had always favored her elegant dresses and fine shoes which were totally unsuited for the Triple Six.

She liked to dress for the black and whites while Rancher Ford hated the balls and dances Lorraine looked forward to all year. In another time and place they'd have never become man and wife but there was something about the stark Texas sky that had brought them together even if it couldn’t keep them as man and wife.

His teasing had never been meant in a malicious way but sometimes he wondered if Lorraine understood that. He enjoyed teasing Billy too until his wife put an end to it by telling him in no uncertain terms that he was ruining the boy with the nasty comments he made. Perhaps the woman was right.

He dreaded going to Virginia. Everything moved too quickly and the number of people staggered his imagination. After living at the Triple Six for over thirty years when he went east and saw the tiny houses clumped together on minute pieces of land they called yards he realized how blessed he'd been to have landed in Texas.

Rancher Ford had half a mind to simply bring Lorraine home, hold the funeral in Guthrie, and bury her on the ranch where they had always planned on spending eternity together. Senator Townsend would throw a fit, however, and he couldn’t afford to anger such a powerful man... not when his plans were coming so close to fruition.

The Senator had been instrumental in helping Rancher Ford procure a contract to supply beef to nearly all the army bases west of the Mississippi... the logistics of which were astronomical and yet the payoff ran into the hundreds of millions of dollars over the length of the agreement.

No... it was better to go east for the funeral. If Billy could talk the old man into allowing Lorraine to be buried in Texas, all the better. If not, then it didn’t matter that much to him. He never understood the need to visit the dead. Rancher Ford figured once a body took leave of the world they had no further interest in the people left behind or their doings.

He'd been struck lately at how beautiful Yani was, even in her work clothes and without a hint of makeup. Most all the women he frequented seemed to believe by spackling on the rogue and loading up their eyes with smoky colors they somehow became irresistible to men folk. He simply found it silly.

Rancher Ford had been fighting a hankering to pull Yani aside, get right down on his knees, and beg her to forgive him for his cruelty... to ask her to move into the hacienda now that he was a widower and to bring Church with her. The boy spent most of his time there anyhow.

He kept imagining the girl turning him down flat. Rejection was something foreign to Rancher Ford, at least when it came to his dealings with the women over the last couple decades. Oh, he figured they talked about him behind his back—the townsfolk—like all common people gossiped over those more fortunate than themselves. Still, he was accorded respect even if grudgingly by everyone he met, at least to his face. He wasn’t sure if he was ready to ask Yani to be his again only to have her refuse him.

It was hard to believe Church was eighteen already. Though Billy had long ago given up on going to the university out east Rancher wondered if his second son might cotton to the idea. The boy was always reading and he seemed to have a genuine longing to learn as much about the world as possible.

He decided it would be better to wait a decent period of time before approaching Yani... the town of Guthrie seemed to be fueled by the talk that ran thick and hot like lahars through the diner and the other stores that littered its streets. He didn't need more enemies than he already had... he was still amazed at Billy for buying the old Craven place after the old man had refused to sell for so many years.

Though he was proud of him Lorraine had been bitterly disappointed in Billy. Perhaps that was one of the reasons for his wife's departure from the Triple Six though of course he'd never voice that opinion to the boy. She seemed to think that as his father Rancher should have taken a firmer hand in cajoling the boy into getting an education but to force Billy into doing something against his nature seemed both pointless and foolhardy.

Perhaps he was trying too hard to be the antithesis of his own father, a heartless alcoholic bastard whose only joy in life was abusing his wife and son. When Rancher Ford had left Indiana inside that old boxcar he swore to himself he'd never have children, not if that was the world they'd be brought into.

The years had softened his outlook or maybe it was his age that had brought a sense of wisdom he sorely lacked in those long ago days. One thing he did know, however, was that a college education didn't add nearly as much to a man's knowledge as did ranching.

Each day on the Triple Six was a challenge. Lorraine had harangued him for years about how he was working himself into an early grave by putting in the hours he did on the ranch. It was true that he could afford to hire help but at the same time Rancher Ford had learned how only a person who truly cared would do the job properly... the rest would only play around the edges.

That was what he loved about both his sons, among other things, of course. Billy and Church understood the value of hard work. They seemed to know instinctively that what they did today would echo down through the generations. While other boys their age were off at college partying and chasing girls Billy and Church seemed to have set goals for themselves that made him proud to call them his sons.

While it was true that he would rather Billy had taken up with someone other than Evalena he didn't begrudge the boy his happiness. Yani's younger sister seemed a tad more than the boy could handle but at the same time she was a woman who could teach a man many things... not the least of which was how to be happy.

Was that wedding bells he kept hearing at night when the wind was right?