Water and Stone (4 page)

When she finally fell into a fitful sleep her dreams were as surreal as any she'd ever had save for back in Cuba... for what seemed like hours packs of gray wolves stalked her from the shadowy recesses of the bedroom and when they vanished they were replaced with something even more terrifying though she couldn't see what.

A shadow seemed to materialize in the corner of the room and though she thought she might be dreaming the soupy darkness whispered to her the way a lover might and she wondered for an instant if Rancher had come back to her. Only the shadow was taller than her lover and when it moved she let out a scream awakening both herself and the sleeping baby who started to squall as if he too might be having the same dream.

The next morning Yani took little Willem and the box as well as her spade piling them all into a little wagon which she hauled to a long abandoned church not far from the chabola. Eons ago a fire must have savaged the building leaving the adobe brick walls still standing though blackened on the inside. In the center of the church grew an enormous sycamore tree testifying to how old the church really was.

Digging at the roots of the tree Yani managed to hollow out a sort of cavern underneath it large enough to insert the box inside. All the while she worked at the church she kept raising up and looking about making sure no one else came around. Willem gurgled happily in the wagon watching his mother as she dug and he seemed to be humming along to the same song she'd been hearing since the box arrived.

Once she felt satisfied the hole was deep enough that the box would be in good hands beneath the tree she covered it with dirt taking care to reestablish the covering of debris just the way she found it. Surveying her work before leaving she felt satisfied that even should someone come prowling around the church there was no indication that someone had buried a treasure on those hallowed grounds.

The box still lay buried there. She knew it was there because it sang to her just like it used to sing to Maria, only the melody didn't frighten Yani. It seemed a familiar tune, one she had heard many times in the past.

Despite herself she smiled as she thought about the tall giraffe looking down upon her while humming softly, and poor old Josephine. Or maybe she imagined it all... she could never be certain. All that happened so long ago that it may well have been but a mirage. Who could she ask? No one... speaking to Evalena about the past might well dredge up matters best left sleeping.

Yani wondered if she should dig up the stone and hand it over to Evalena... after all, it had been sent to her years ago. But she discovered that she didn’t want to part with it. Even though she'd forgotten all about the box and the object inside of it until Evalena showed up again, having it close lent her a sort of comfort that she'd never known before.

The stone sang her to sleep each night though Evalena didn't appear to notice the melody. Yani wondered if only a special few were capable of hearing the stone or if it acted upon everyone in different ways. Perhaps the stone became a part of a person or more likely it had already insinuated itself into their flesh even from the beginning.

She decided it wouldn’t hurt to keep the piedra safe a while longer. Besides, Evalena might become angry when she found out it had been buried under the old church close by the chabola all this time. The stone inside the box might turn out to be something treasured and if lost, Yani imagined herself searching the rest of her life to find it.

No one seemed to remember how Rancher Ford hailed from the east.

He came west as a boy of thirteen after running away from an abusive father and an uncaring alcoholic mother after living all his life in a dysfunctional family only they didn’t call it that back then... the man merely beat his son black and blue with a razor strap while sober and with his fists when drunk to teach the boy manners as everyone conveniently turned their heads including his own mother and the pastor at the church where father forced him to go each Sunday.

Father Ford had named the boy Rancher as a drunken joke on his wife and by the time she came out of the anesthesia from the caesarean and he'd sobered up the birth certificate had been notarized and it was too late to change the name upon it without going out of their way. To Rancher Ford, however, it became one of the only good things his father ever did for him.

The man had been a boxer in his army days but apparently not a good one from the looks of his nose that must have been broken and poorly set a hundred times until it resembled an ear gone bad. He constructed a boxing ring in the basement of the house and insisted upon teaching Rancher the manly art though mostly through body blows that used to send the boy shivering to his knees and stealing his breath.

It seemed a cruel irony that the man so enjoyed honing his lost boxing skills upon his family yet when confronted by a worthy opponent—like the time the neighbor had gotten angry over the trash accumulating in the back and spilling over onto his property and threatened Father Ford with a beating—the man invariably retreated into the house and called the police.

Mother Ford would win no mother of the year prize either. A short and squat woman with red hair gone bad and worse teeth she seemed to enjoy playing the punching bag. One time, when father had been giving her a particularly vicious beating, Rancher had the temerity to come up behind the man and cold cock him with the iron skillet mother cooked ham and eggs in every Sunday morning after church. When she saw what he'd done to her husband his mother had gone berserk on Rancher, tearing at his face with her fingernails and kicking at his groin like some old mule gone crazy.

The hate he felt for them both lodged deep in his throat finally growing so large that as soon as he deemed he was old enough he set his sights on California where he felt sure he'd find fame and fortune on the stages and back lots of Hollywood. Rancher Ford had once played the role of Hamlet in his middle school play drawing rave reviews. The sound of applause had rung in his ears for a long time after that night.

He only made it as far as Texas. After seven days and so many starts and stops he lost count the railroad box car in which he rode had lurched to a halt in a town called Guthrie and curious to get a good look around at a countryside he'd never seen the boy jumped down from the train and wandered up Main Street. He remembered that early morning well: the sun had yet to raise itself over the horizon, the sky just pink, and the town starting to wake up.

The freshly-baked bread smell seemed as if it wafted up from the ground. The scent from the bakery had overwhelmed his senses and set his mouth to watering so that drool ran down his chin and he had to keep wiping it away with the back of his hand. Rancher Ford didn’t miss much about his home back in Indiana other than his mother's cooking. He hadn’t eaten since he jumped on the train and it felt as if his stomach might have become attached to his backbone.

He had no money in his pockets and no shoes on his feet. A hobo riding in the same box car had been the beneficiary of Rancher Ford's worldly possessions in exchange for teaching him a bit of the ways of the world. The boy learned the lesson well and it served him the rest of his life.

Though still just a boy the fact that Rancher was powerfully built—partly due to the few good genes he inherited from his bulldog of a father but mostly from the years of absorbing the abuse handed out by his parents and something shining in his eyes... the confidence to give a punch as well as take one, perhaps—must have told the old derelict that he wasn't a person to be trifled with.

The bum had treated him as an equal, a thing rare and precious to Rancher Ford. Though he considered disembarking from the train in a dozen cities along the way, something in the old man's mannerisms kept Rancher from leaving him... an opportunity to learn something, maybe, or simply the company of a kindred spirit.

The hobo talked like a professor gone to seed... someone who'd learned the hard ways of life and now longed to share his vast and inscrutable knowledge with another before shut of the cruelty and the suffering that constituted the world.

"If you want something, take it."

"Shouldn’t I ask for it first, mister?"

"Believe me... no one will give it to you, son."

"But how do you know that for sure?"

"Let me tell you how... I've fought a war, been across this great country of ours too many times to remember, and not one living soul has ever offered me a hand up. Remember that, especially when your ship finally comes in... and it will. Mark my words."

"But there must be good people somewhere in the world, mister."

"Everybody is only out for themselves, son. If you're ever tempted to think otherwise just look out that door there... do you see all those lights?"

"Sure, I see them."

"Those are all people living the high life at the expense of someone else... someone like me and someone like you. Don't let them do it, son. Stand up for yourself."

It ended up being the best piece of advice anyone had ever given him. The old derelict bought a bottle of cheap whiskey with the money Rancher gave him and regaled him with stories of the road and of the many nights spent in various county jails and of the look on men's faces that he had just shot dead and how he saw himself in the eyes of every one of them. The boots the man wore were past saving so Rancher had given him his shoes to wear knowing more would come his way.

"Now you can't say no one has ever helped you out, sir."

The man never heard him but Rancher figured it didn’t much matter. The old hobo would only think him weak.

Rancher Ford saw by a sign by the tracks that the town where the train stopped was called Guthrie and he liked the name. The hobo had fallen into a stupor and didn't notice when the train pulled up and though Rancher thought to wake him he decided against it. They'd done all they could for each other and a parting of the ways seemed overdue.

It was full summer. As he walked toward the only building in town with a light on he noticed while crossing the asphalt road how it was still warm under his feet from the day before. It felt good after the chill of the boxcar.

A hand-painted sign over the door said: Sugar Buzz Bakery. The store, one of a half dozen or so that lined one side of the street, seemed a thousand years old. All the buildings were two stories tall and joined together at the hip and looking as run down and dilapidated as Rancher felt that morning.

His parents refused to buy clothes for him—alcohol had always of primary importance in that household for as long as he could remember—and what little work the boy could find back in Hobart paid so poorly that he shopped at the Goodwill store situated in the bad part of town.

Once purchased, he made a habit of wearing the clothes until they fell apart. Of course the other kids didn't have to live like Rancher Ford did so they teased him constantly about not only the state of his attire but how much his shoes smelled when he had to take them off for gym class.

Sometimes he thought about explaining to the boys and to the girls how he never had a chance to take a bath at home since they had no running water due to his parents failing to settle the account and the city shutting them off but from the looks in their eyes he figured it would give them more fodder to feed the flames of torment that they seemed intent upon igniting around his person. After a while it didn’t matter.

Leaving Indiana behind meant more to Rancher than simply running away from an abusive home... during his short time on earth he'd come to the conclusion that if he had to live like he did, he'd rather die. He had no illusions about making it big somewhere else and coming home to show off... rather, he knew that if he ever got away from Hobart the only way they'd ever get him back was in a box. He hated everyone there and everything about that town.

He hoped Texas might be different and if not he could always go back to the rail yard, jump another train, and head farther on down the line. Sooner or later he expected he'd find his place in the world.

Rancher Ford walked up to bakery and tried the door to the building but found it locked. A man, apparently the proprietor, must have seen him or perhaps heard the rattling of the door knob and walking over to the entrance he had opened up to speak with the boy.

"What are you doing out at this hour, boy? I don't recall seeing you around here before... and where are your shoes? The soles of your feet won't last a minute once the sun comes up... you can fry eggs on the sidewalks hereabouts."

"I'd sure like one of those biscuits, mister."

"I'm not open yet but you can have one for two bits, son... five for a dollar."

The look on his face must have betrayed empty pockets as Rancher Ford turned and slowly began walking away with his bare feet flopping on the sidewalk still cool in the early morning twilight.

"Wait a minute, there... come on back here, son."

Rancher Ford thought for a frenetic moment that he was in for it... the man would surely call the law on him and have him sent to the local juvenile hall or worse yet back to Hobart. It was all too obvious he was underage and looking down at the dirty rags he was wearing the boy knew it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out he was a vagabond and little more.

"What do you want, mister?"

He asked the question from a distance of twenty yards or so... far enough away that he figured he could get a good running start if the answer was what he expected it to be but the man had surprised him.

"I could use some help. You look like you've got a strong back. If you're up for it, I have a truck to unload. It'll take the better part of a day, I expect. I'll pay you a couple bucks an hour. That's fair wages around here... it'll be enough you can get yourself something to eat, anyway, and maybe a pair of shoes."

It turned out the baker was one of those perennial go getters who always had a dozen irons in the fire, forever trying different ways to scare up a living. He ran an antique shop in the building next door to the bakery where he sold goods he bought by the truckload at estate sales where old folks died and left a house full of old furniture and other stuff nobody wanted.

"Yes, sir... I don’t mind working. I'll help you."

"What's your name, boy? Mine is Hank Jordan... you can call me Hank... everyone else does... none of that Mr. Jordan for me."

"I'm Rancher... Rancher Ford."

For a moment he realized he had given the man his real name when he had planned on using an alias... a way to keep from being caught out for being a runaway. Of course he suspected his parents wouldn’t put up too much of a fuss about him leaving anyhow so in the end it probably didn’t matter what name he used.

"Rancher... I like that. That's a true Texas name if I ever heard one. Tell me... is that the name you were born with?"

"Maybe..."

"Well, I don’t much care if it is or if it isn’t... if you're worried about me turning you in to the police for something, I'm not that sort. I've been making my own way in the world since I was twelve years old. Sometimes a man has to do what he can to get by. I suspect you know that already though.

"I have an old truck that I use to pick up furniture I buy at auctions and estate sales. I've been thinking I need a driver for it. I don't suppose you have a driver's license, Rancher... do you."

"No... not yet, Hank... I'm not old enough, at least not back from where I come from."

"Well, I don’t reckon that matters all that much around here. If the cops know you're working for me they'll like as not leave you alone as long as you don’t go driving around the streets all crazy like some of the kids do around here. Come on in... I'll get you some breakfast before you get started... say, what size feet do you have? I might have a spare pair of shoes in back."

It'd been Rancher Ford's first real job and his last. He soon discovered that Hank Jordan hailed from Guthrie, born and raised. The man knew everyone in town and in short order Hank had introduced Rancher Ford around explaining that the boy was a nephew who had come from Kansas to visit for a while.

In time the boy forgot about his Hollywood dream though every so often he would go to the old movie house and see a film with someone who looked a lot like him in the title role and wonder what might have been.

All the same, however, something told Rancher Ford that whatever destiny life had planned for him began and ended right where he was, in dry and dusty Guthrie, Texas... and if he tried to run again, this time he'd only find his death.