Ashes of the Red Heifer (16 page)

Though he held up better than she felt she was doing, David wasn’t his usual suave self. He hardly slept on the plane and seemed to watch everyone. He had the sense to keep her from panicking and getting herself killed when she’d wanted to make a run for it in Ben Gurion Airport. When she was ready to bolt at Kennedy Airport, he calmed her also.

Moshe didn’t sit with them at airports or on the plane. He didn’t appear to be traveling with them but never let them out of his sight.

She followed David and Moshe to the airport locker in Omaha to pick up keys, and then out to the parking lot. She didn’t argue when David climbed behind the wheel of the white Ford 250 Supercab pickup. She took her place in the passenger side, thinking that the sporty pickup with its air conditioning, plush seats and CD player, would have irritated her father who thought of luxury as a sin. Moshe climbed into the back bench-seat.

Each leg of their journey twisted Annie’s gut a little more. The closer she got to the Sandhills the more her mind conjured up images of her father. In her memory, he was always red-faced with righteous anger, sweat glinting on his skin, blue eyes bulging. He shouted scriptures, pointed to heaven, and spit words with violent force. Such replays ended with the last fight. His open palm falling in slow motion. She remembered with excruciating detail when it made contact with her temple. Blackness splintered by static flashes of multicolored lights, like sparklers on the Fourth of July.

After that had come her mother’s tears, her father’s silence, and her sister’s tortured begging as Annie packed a bag and stomped down the porch steps and out of the circle formed by the porch light, until her boots crunched the gravel on the county road.

David’s fingers brushed the back of her hand. The shock brought her out of memory and into the pickup speeding through miles of gently rolling hills. She forced a smile but her lips felt bloodless and cold.

David let his long, tapered fingers surround her hand. His warmth penetrated her skin. “You look scared.”

Annie stayed rigid in her seat, afraid to move for fear of crumbling the fragile armor around herself. She looked at the hills, the dry grass displaying colors from dull, brown death, to vibrant yellow glow, to deep reds. As familiar as her own face in the mirror, the land beyond the pickup tore at her heart. Leaving it again would bring renewed pain and longing.

It felt to Annie as if the pickup were a torpedo hurling toward her family. If she didn’t succeed in getting the heifers The Corporation’s misguided mystical regulations required they’d get them from her father any way they could. She brought danger to her family but she was the only one who might be able to save them.

David’s hand moved to her face, his thumb tracing the line of her jaw. “What is it?”

Annie took a deep breath. “I can’t go back there. I can’t. I know another breeder where we can get cattle. He’s not far from here, just another twenty-five miles north. Please, David.”

David frowned, the strain of their plight showing in the lines on his face. “I’m sure Moshe wouldn’t let us get away with that. Would you, dude?”

Moshe looked startled anyone remembered he sat in the backseat. He’d been quiet the whole trip, his black eye nearly swollen closed, his other etched with worried lines. “No. We will follow the orders. Cows from your father.”

Without thinking she corrected him. “Heifers.”

Moshe’s face unexpectedly broke into a grin. “What is the difference?”

“Cows are adult females. They have usually had a couple of calves. A heifer is a young female. A true heifer has never had a calf before. Ranchers talk about first-calf or second-calf heifers. That just means they are still young.”

Moshe’s eyebrows arched. “Wouldn’t it be easier for a cow to have a calf than for a heifer who has never done it before? Why are we not getting cows?”

The conversation was only mildly distracting. Anxiety still bubbled in her stomach like swamp gas. “I think you’ve got a natural rancher’s mind, Moshe. You’re right about cows and heifers. Unfortunately, my father has only pregnant heifers in the fall. He calves cows in the spring.”

Moshe gave her a look that said it made sense. “I think I would like to be a cowboy. I would like to ride horses and drink whiskey. Like John Wayne.”

Annie tried to laugh with him but couldn’t muster the humor.

David drove in silence for a moment, the rush of the tires on the road the only sound in the vehicle.

Damn The Corporation. Annie was tempted to grab the wheel and force David to turn around. She couldn’t go back there. They were going about their fall day, checking cows, cooking dinner, calving, and she was bringing them disaster.

She had to keep going, though. Hassan counted on her. Moshe’s wife and son and the others were still hidden inside the rock. Convincing her father to give up the heifers might be the only way to keep her family from harm.

Her desperation grew to near panic when she saw the hand-painted sign advertising Grant Red Angus instructing them to turn west in a mile. “You don’t understand. My father isn’t going to help me. He doesn’t want to see me.”

David moved his hand to rest on the back of her head and tangled his fingers gently in her braid. “Somehow we’ll have to convince him. It’s our only chance to get out of this alive.”

On the left, the three-strand barbed wire fence gave way to a brilliant white plank fence. Annie felt a smile tug at her mouth remembering summers painting that fence with Lizabeth. The warm feeling faded when she thought about the afternoon her father had made an unexpected trip to town and caught them painting in their swimsuit tops and cut offs. His anger had carried him through two days of yelling and scripture reading. She didn’t want to think about the tender red welts he’d raised with his belt on their sunburned backs.

David applied the brakes and the pickup slowed to turn off at the professionally painted sign announcing the entrance to Grant Red Angus Ranch. It featured the head of a Red Angus bull and in the corner it sported the fish symbol with “John 3:16” beside it. Those symbols hadn’t been on the rickety old sign she remembered.

Impressive. The sign was new since she’d been here.

Annie’s stomach contracted. “Please, David,” she whispered.

David covered her icy hands with his. “You’re his daughter. He loves you.”

From the back seat Moshe mumbled, “The love of a father is strong and true and forever.”

Her heart ached for Moshe. He couldn’t hold his son or hear him laugh. He couldn’t even call his wife and see if little Jacob’s cold had cleared up. Maybe Annie’s father loved her, too. But his religion bricked him away from her. Annie tried to swallow. Her mouth was too dry. “You don’t know Dad.”

They turned and started down the gravel road, pastures of rippling fall grasses on either side of the pickup. On the right, yearling steers grazed without pausing to look at the passing vehicle. Annie noted their slick red coats and estimated they weighed about nine hundred pounds each. A good crop. Her father would be getting ready to ship them soon.

Her eyes scanned the treeless expanse. They traveled up a gradual incline, the road a beige border between endless grass. She tried to slow her breathing and unclench her fists, but failed.

They topped the hill and the ranch buildings sprawled before them. Here, the elms and cedars her grandmother had planted and tenaciously watered by hand shaded the gleaming white main house, the cook house, bunkhouse, a barn, and several out-buildings. The houses all had green lawns surrounding them, but the rest of the compound was bare dirt and sparse gravel. Since Annie had left, they’d added a large aluminum building, probably a sale barn.

Behind the sale barn and the old wood barn, white paneled corrals created what looked like a maze. Running the length of the headquarters and behind all the buildings was the calving lot, now occupied by twenty-five or thirty fall-calving heifers. The lot was strewn with yellow straw to create dry, warm places for new calves.

She loved this ranch and had missed every grain of sand, every weed and stalk of grass. Coming home opened her to the enormity of her loss.

Two children frolicked on a swing set in front of the bunkhouse. A low chain link fence surrounded the yard. A mixed breed black dog stood at the fence watching the pickup’s progress. Her father must have a hired man with a family working for him now.

Moshe put a hand on Annie’s arm making her jump. He slid a thick envelope over the seat into her hand. “This is the money for the heifers. You will give this to your father.”

Annie opened the vaccine case and tossed the envelope inside. The Corporation had a lot more faith in her father’s cooperation than she did.

She saw her mother in the yard in front of the main house and her heart lurched. The older woman stood by the garden with a tomato in her hand, looking down the road, no doubt curious about the white Ford pickup.

They drove closer and David eased the vehicle to a stop beside the white fence surrounding the garden. Annie’s mother smiled politely with a look of curiosity on her face. She wore faded Wranglers and a plaid western shirt, the sleeves rolled halfway and tail hanging out. Her hair, light brown when Annie had last seen her, was mostly gray, its loosely permed curls tossed by the Nebraska wind. She’d shoved her feet into worn, cheap canvas tennis shoes, the kind she picked up on sale at K-Mart.

Annie’s throat swelled and ached. Her vision blurred from tears she hadn’t realized she cried. Although she didn’t remember opening the pickup door, stepping out, and walking through the yard gate, she somehow stood in front of her mother.

The tomato her mother held dropped to the grass. Her mother’s eyes opened wide and her mouth formed a little “o.” She seemed unable to move, as if suddenly turned to a pillar of stone.

Annie felt her nose running and reached up to swipe her arm across her face. “Mom?”

The words seemed to break a spell and a strangled scream escaped from her mother. Tears poured from her eyes and she stepped back. “Annie. Oh Lord God. You’re back.”

Annie closed the space between them and grabbed her mother in a crushing embrace. Both women sobbed and hugged, stared at each other, hugged some more.

Annie pulled away. “Lizabeth?”

Her mother wiped her eyes, drawing her face together in worry. “She’s married. Has three children. They live here.”

The family in the bunkhouse was Lizabeth’s, the kids on the swings hers. Annie fought a resurgence of tears. She’d missed so much. Lizabeth’s wedding. The births.

Annie put an arm around her mother’s back and turned to David where he stood at the gate, a tender expression softening his face. “Mom, this is David, a friend I’ve been working on a research project with. David, this is my mom, Arlene.”

David offered his hand, beaming one of his winning smiles. Her mother hesitantly shook his hand but let go quickly. She pulled away from Annie’s arm, acting uncomfortable with the contact. Her voice sounded flat. “Thanks be to God that you’ve brought Annie home to us.”

Annie flinched at the familiar invocation. Moshe climbed out of the pickup and Annie nodded at him. “This is Moshe. He’s…” she hesitated slightly, “also a friend.”

Her mother struggled with a smile but didn’t say anything. It was definitely not a typically friendly Sandhills welcome.

Annie couldn’t take her eyes from her mother. Whatever happened in her life—all the mistakes, wrong turns, and heartaches—her mother loved her. Annie had thought her mother would act happier to see her, but her mother had never been excitable. Impulsively, she hugged her again.

Arlene patted Annie’s back then put a few feet distance between them. She cast her eyes to the ground. “I was fixing myself a bacon and tomato sandwich. Why don’t you come inside?”

“Mom?” She stalled, not sure how to go on. “What about Dad? Is he still mad?”

Her mother froze. “Oh, Annie. You know your father. He, well, he hasn’t said your name since you left.”

Annie nodded and looked down at her boots in the grass. “Do you think he’ll speak to me?”

Arlene fidgeted, her face wrinkled into lines of worry. “You just come in the house. You too, David and M…?”

“Moshe,” Annie offered, knowing the name would be unfamiliar and awkward.

Arlene nodded without smiling. “Yes, you, too. We’ll sit down to dinner. Matthew is riding through the two-year old cows and I don’t think he’ll be back for a while. You can leave before he gets here.”

The knots in Annie’s stomach pulled tighter. “I’ve got to talk to him, Mom.”

Her mother hurried toward the house. “Let’s not fret about that now, all right? We’ll have a nice dinner and catch up.”

Now what? From her mother’s nervous behavior, she assumed her father wouldn’t talk to her, let alone sell her cows. David took her hand and followed after her mother. He shrugged as if to tell her not to worry. Moshe leaned against the pickup making no move to go into the house.

The cracked cement sidewalk leading to the back porch looked the same as it always had. How many times had her feet carried her across this path? The porch door banged shut behind her mother, a sound so familiar it was like the hello of a loved one. She smelled the manure and the particular scent of calving—afterbirth, blood, new life, on the breeze blowing from the lot. All of her senses swelled with joy at the memory of home.

The feeling didn’t last long, though. Before she got to the steps Annie felt a prickle at the back of her neck. She knew what she’d see when she turned around. Letting go of David’s hand, she took a deep breath to fortify herself and turned.

He stood at the gate. Like her mother’s, his face had aged in the last sixteen years. Under his greasy cowboy hat, his skin took on an angry red glow; his eyes seemed to shoot fire. “So Absolom has returned.”

Annie felt numb from her toes upward. It seemed as though all the light of the land faded to leave a spotlight trained on her father. “Hi, Dad.”

He stomped toward her. “I am not your father. Satan is your father. Return to him and plague us no more.”

SEVENTEEN