Chance McCall (14 page)

“So what are you telling me?”

“I’m saying that whatever you two decide will be fine with me.”

A weight lifted! For the first time in days Chance felt good inside. Even if he didn’t remember it himself, he was obviously held in high regard. He didn’t think Marcus Tyler would gladly suffer a fool.

“Okay,” Chance said, trying unsuccessfully to mask a grin, “then I have another question. And this one may be a little harder for you to answer.”

Marcus would have bet money on what was coming next, and he would have won.

“What do you know about my past? Did I have references when I hired on? Who did I list as next of kin? Have I ever received any outside visitors or mail? Did I—”

“Whoa, boy. I can save you a whole lot of breath,” Marcus said. “I don’t know a damn thing about your past.”

Chance wilted. He’d been afraid that was what he would hear. He just hadn’t wanted to face it. Henry had already said as much when he’d questioned him.

“But I do know that you’re the best and longest temporary help I ever hired.” He punctuated his answer with a grin. “You were eighteen years old. You told me that you could fix just about anything with an engine. From the looks of the old truck you drove up in, I believed you. How you came as far as you did in that thing was a source of amazement to me. You told me that you’d work for board and keep, and you sounded desperate. That was the reason I hired you. I followed a hunch. From your appearance, it would have seemed likely that I’d hired a troublemaker. I couldn’t have been more wrong.”

Chance stared. “What do you mean, my appearance?”

Marcus sat upright in his chair. “That’s right! You wouldn’t have remembered. Hell, boy! You walked in my office favoring your right shoulder. Your face looked like you’d gone ten rounds with a bulldozer and come out the loser. You’d been beat to holy hell and back, that’s what!”

“Well, I asked, didn’t I?” The sarcasm was not lost on Marcus.

“Yes, but don’t let any of that worry you, Chance. I have faith in the fact that one day everything will come back to you full force. You’ve just got to be patient.”

Chance shook his head and headed for the door. “I’m real long on time, Marcus, but a whole lot short on patience. I don’t want to wait too long to remember what I may not want to hear.”

He left Marcus to mull over their discussion.

Marcus didn’t like what he was thinking. The idea of Chance and Jenny wasn’t as strange as it might once have been. But Jenny wasn’t Chance’s problem. His past and his memory were holding him back from commitment. And if he knew Jenny, she wouldn’t buy either of the reasons on a bet.

“Did you see the boss?” Henry asked, as Chance came through the stables.

“I saw him,” he said shortly.

Henry nodded. He didn’t have to ask to see that Chance hadn’t gotten the answers he’d wanted.

“Henry, what did I bring when I first came to work here? Did you ever see—”

“Say,” Henry nearly yelled, “now that you mention it, you did have a suitcase. In fact, when I was helpin’ you move to the foreman’s quarters a few years back, you tossed it into the storage room off the bunkhouse. Said something about not needin’ to move ghosts.”

“Ghosts?”

Henry shrugged. “That’s what you said.”

Tension pulled across Chance’s gut. “Where did you say that suitcase was?”

“I’ll get it myself and bring it to your room,” Henry said.

Chance stared at the aging cowboy’s retreat and felt a strange desire to tell him never mind. Something…some instinct…was obviously telling him he was about to open a big can of worms. He headed toward his quarters instead.

“Here it is! Just like I claimed,” Henry said as he burst through the door and dropped it down on the bed. “It was a bit dusty. I wiped it off before I brung it over.”

“Thanks, Henry,” Chance said, staring at the small brown bag as if someone had just thrown snakes on his bed.

“Don’t mention it, boy,” Henry said. “You know, it’s nearly suppertime. I’m gonna head on over to the bunkhouse and wash up. Juana is fixin’ enchiladas tonight and they’re my favorite. You take your time. If you don’t make it up for supper, I’ll bring you back a plate.”

“Don’t bother,” Chance said. “I don’t think I’m going to be hungry.”

Henry shrugged. His heart went out to the young man, but there wasn’t a thing he could do or say to help him. Chance McCall was lost inside himself, and only Chance could find his way back.

“See you tomorrow, then,” Henry called, and shut the door on his way out.

Chance took a deep breath and then went into the small kitchen area of the two room house. He opened the refrigerator, took out a cold brown bottle of beer, and popped the cap. It went spinning out across the hardwood floor, metal against wood, and clattered to a stop beside the wall. He left it there as he drank the sharp brew, letting it run cold and slow down his throat until his eyes watered. He emptied the bottle, tossed it into a wastebasket, and stared at the suitcase on his bed. He hadn’t really needed the beer for fortification. He’d simply been postponing the time that was now at hand.

His fingers curved around the old rusty locks and pressed. One snapped open loudly, startling him with a clear, sharp click. The other resisted. Chance picked at it with his pocketknife and, finally, it too came open with a resounding noise. He tossed the knife onto the bed and opened the bag.

He didn’t know what he was expecting, but it was definitely more than this. His hopes plummeted.

It was almost empty. A few old matchbooks lay scattered across the faded cloth lining. An old bolo tie with a longhorn steer head pull was coiled in a corner. He fingered it, hoping to stir something familiar. The matchbooks were an advertisement for a gas station in Odessa, Texas, that probably didn’t even exist anymore. The name meant nothing to him, but he stuffed them back into the suitcase for reference. It was a place to start, and Chance had already made his decision.

He ran his fingers along the gathered pockets on either side of the suitcase. One was empty save for a straight pin that caught the tip of his little finger. He cursed and yanked it back, and then searched the other side of the pocket more carefully. An old wallet fell into his hands.

At first glance, it was as empty as the suitcase shedding dust on his bed. He poked and pulled, searching through every pocket, and almost missed the concealed flap. Even before he lifted it, he knew something was there. He could feel the difference in bulk through the dry, brittle leather. As he lifted the flap, the contents fell out onto the bed.

It was a picture of a girl, and it wasn’t Jenny. Images swirled around in his head and, for a moment, he thought he heard laughter. Long blond hair, wide-set eyes, and a slender figure were caught in time. It was signed,
Love, Victoria
.

Victoria! The name meant nothing. Neither did her face. He turned the picture over and read the penciled note he recognized as his own handwriting.
V. Henry. Picnic. 1980
.

1980! That was just before he’d come to the Triple T. Depending on the month of the year, he couldn’t have been more than seventeen or eighteen. He dropped the picture into the bottom of the suitcase and continued his search. Maybe there was something else…

And there was. In the wide stretchy pocket of the lid, he found an old high school yearbook, also from Odessa.
Odessa High School…Broncos
. His frustration grew. It took some time to find a picture of a fresh-faced boy with hair too long who bore the name, Chance McCall, class of 1980.

“Well, boy,” Chance said softly, as he traced his finger across the page. “You’re coming with me. I’ve got to see a man about a life I’ve lost, and maybe…just maybe…you can help.”

He tossed the yearbook back into the bag along with the matchbooks. He stuck the picture into his own wallet and headed for the closet. It didn’t take long to pack what he needed.

“I’ll need cash,” he muttered to himself. “I can get that at an ATM.” Then he grinned wryly. “I can’t remember a goddamned thing that matters, but I can remember how to get money out of a stupid machine.”

He shrugged and continued tossing things into the nearly full bag. It didn’t matter. Nothing was important but finding his past, and his memory, and then getting back to Jenny. Something inside him kept telling him that if he’d just remember, then everything would be all right.

The next and last thing he had to do was also the most difficult. There were letters to write. And he didn’t know what to say that was going to make this easier. He sat down at the table and wrote the first one to Henry. It didn’t take long. There wasn’t much to say. He’d simply ask him to tell Marcus that he’d gone looking for his past, hoping that it would help him remember the present. He wrote that if it meant his job, then so be it. He couldn’t live in this vacuum any longer and not do something.

The next was to Jenny. This was not difficult, it was downright impossible. Finally, all he could say was that if she was willing to wait, he’d be back.

He folded the two separately, left them laying on the table, and closed the rusty locks on the bag. There was little left to do except wait until later, when everyone would be asleep. He didn’t want any scenes. Leaving when no one was around to say goodby seemed the easiest way out.

“Oh holy hell,” Henry said to himself, as he unfolded his note and began to read. There was another addressed to Jenny. He didn’t need to look to know that it was more of the same. Chance was gone! And, from the sound of the note, he wouldn’t be back until he had some answers. The only thing that worried Henry was, if Chance didn’t find answers, would he ever come back?

Jenny walked up onto the porch and started to knock when she saw Henry through the screen door.

“Hi!” she called. “Tell Chance that mare is about ready to foal. He’ll want to be there. You know how he is about…”

Something about the way Henry was standing told her to hush. She started to shake. It was instinctive. And then when he picked up a piece of folded paper, came outside onto the porch and handed it to her, she began to cry.

Dear Jenny, I need to find some answers from my past before a future is even possible. Please try to understand. If you’ll wait…I’ll be back.

Chance

“He didn’t even say he loved me.”

Henry heard the pain in her voice. She was bent almost double, as if the simple reading of Chance’s message was more than she could bear. He didn’t know what to say.

Ever since Chance had awakened in the hospital, with that lost look on his face, Jenny had known that this could happen. It was what she’d feared most in the world. Chance was gone, and she was sure he hadn’t told Henry where he was going either.

“Now, honey,” Henry said, patting her awkwardly on the shoulder, “he’s coming back. He said so.”

“When?” she asked. She wanted to scream, but it would have done no good.

This was the part she wasn’t going to buy. “Just as soon as he finds out what he needs to know.”

“Oh, great,” she shouted, wadding up her note and throwing it against the wall. “And what happens if he doesn’t find the answers to his questions, Henry? Does that mean he’ll come home a wiser man…or does that mean he won’t come home at all?”

There was nothing he could say. He’d asked himself the same things less than five minutes earlier. He tried to comfort her, but there was no comfort to be had for Jenny.

“Where you goin’, girl?” he called, as she ran from the bunkhouse.

“To hell, Henry,” she screamed back at him. “To hell. It’s the only place I haven’t been.”

His heart broke for her, and there was a look on her face that scared him. He turned around and headed for the phone in the bunkhouse. He had to call Marcus. He’d better know now, and he’d better know fast. Someone had to be there for Jenny. And, for once in his life, Marcus was going to have to behave like the father he’d never been.

Henry’s news pumped adrenaline into his system. Marcus hung up the phone and made a dash for the kitchen just as Jenny burst through the back door. The panic in Henry’s voice had told him this was serious. From the look on Jenny’s face, Henry had been right.

“Jenny!” She pushed past him and staggered blindly toward her room. “Wait. You need to talk about—”

She turned, lashing out in pain. “With you? You want to
be there
for me, Marcus? Are you having a father attack again? Well don’t bother. I don’t need you. I don’t need Chance. I don’t need anyone, especially a man. All they do is lie and then do exactly what they promised they wouldn’t. Did you know that? Is it inbred, or is it a learned thing? Do men practice cutting out a heart by degrees, or is it the preferred method to just give it a yank and to hell with tact?”

“Jenny! Don’t talk to your father like that,” Juana cried, as she stepped between the pair in the hallway. “You have no—”

“I have no father, you meant to say, didn’t you, Juana? Before, it never mattered. There was always you. And then there was Chance.”

Her voice was shaking. Her whole body was shaking. And for a moment, Marcus feared she would faint. Her face paled as she leaned against the wall and closed her eyes.

“Honey…” he began.

“Now he’s gone, too. And God help him if he doesn’t come back for me. I’ll haunt him in hell,” Jenny whispered.

Tears poured down Juana’s face as she gathered Jenny in her arms and rocked her against her ample bosom. “
Madre de Dios
,” she muttered. “It’s going to be all right. It’s going to be all right.” She shook her head at Marcus and mouthed,
not now
.

Marcus watched the woman he paid money to clean and cook for him lead his daughter away. He hadn’t paid her to mother Jenny. She had done that out of instinct and love.

Juana stripped off Jenny’s clothes and urged her into bed. She tucked a lightweight cover over her and tried to ignore the violent quaking of the girl’s slender shoulders. She knew it was shock and that it would pass. But she feared the dull, lifeless look in Jenny’s eyes would not. Jenny’s world had just been cut out from under her. And, God help them all, there was no one but a lost man who could put it back together again.