Summer Winds (15 page)

I had nowhere to go, so I drove in to town and went to the Main Street Movies. The local theater marquee read buTch cassidy and The sundance kid. The theater didn’t have the clout or money to attract first-run films, or even slightly dated ones, so they’d capitalized on their problem, making outdated films their strategy, specializing in classics.

The glass, phone-booth-sized ticket office was manned by Crystal Adams, a wholesome young woman who worked in the small bakery next door.

“So you’re working double shifts, Crystal?”

“Their dough by day, my dough by night.” She waved a wad of dollars at me before making change. “You’ll love the film. Paul Newman has the sexiest eyes on the planet.” I realized the film’s debut in 1969 occurred before Crystal was even “crystallized,” so she most likely thought everyone was seeing it for the first time and that Paul Newman was still a hunky kid.

Cash has those Newman eyes. She’ll have girls falling over her
for years.
My mind had suddenly jumped track. I worked to bring myself back to the moment. “Did you know this film was voted the seventh best film of all time in the Western genre,” I said.

“No waaay.”

“Way,” I said, in teen speak.

“Who told you that?”

“I minored in film in college.”

“Next fall, K-state, and I can’t wait.”

“Congratulations,” I said of her college acceptance.

“And hi to your mom.”

In the tiny lobby, I bought popcorn and a Dr Pepper and entered the theater through the double doors, walked a few steps down the slightly sloped cement floor, and took a seat in the back row. Only half a dozen people trickled in, and within minutes the room went dark and the old projector cranked up overhead, throwing an intense light onto the screen and ultimately Paul Newman’s handsome face as he set about robbing banks. The 35mm film, festooned with dirt specks that showed up on the screen as giant worms, reminded me that this film dub had no doubt been shipped all over the country and seen more of the world than the people watching it.

Every time Newman looked into the camera with those eyes, I thought of Cash and then pushed her back from my consciousness, forcing myself to become absorbed in the story. Many gunshots later, the classic sepia freeze-frame filled the big screen. Heroes dead but immortalized.

A few people exited the theater and dispersed to their trucks, but I strolled Main Street and peeked into the shop fronts as if I’d never seen them before, thinking about Butch and Sundance’s relationship. Risk taken for its own reward.

Benegan’s dry-goods store had beaded Minnetonka moose moccasins in the window and a big sweatshirt with KC Chiefs on it. In the corner, a vest caught my eye. Dark brown suede, sheep-lined. It would look great next to Cash’s hair. Why was I constantly thinking of her?
Like a curse. She’s a furrow in my brain that my
mind continues to plow.
I turned to find Stretch Adams standing in front of me, all dressed up as if he’d been to a party.

“Little birdie told me you were alone at the movies. Now that should never happen.” As he said it, I remembered Crystal Adams was his niece and she must have picked up the phone and told him I’d just gone into the theater right after she took my money and gave me my ticket.

“I enjoyed it, actually.” I tried to move to one side but he pinned me into the glass alcove leading to the front door of the store. “What are you doing in town?”

He inclined his head giraffe-like and whispered, “Looking for
you.
Seems like I’m going to have to ambush you to get a date.”

“Stretch, I’m really not interest—”

“Now one thing I’ve learned about ladies, not that I’ve had many ladies in my life…” He chuckled and used his laughing gestures as an excuse to fling the other hand up over my head, propping himself against the wall behind me and trapping me underneath his armpits.

“I’ve learned that sometimes when a gal says no, she really just means slow, and I know about slooow…” His lips moved toward my face as he said it, and I felt revulsion, anger, the sense I was trapped and the entire thing was going to happen quickly and be unavoidable and I would hate him and myself. “Get the hell away from me, Stretch.” I darted under his arm and ran to my truck.

“Hey, darlin’, where are you going? This is waaay early in the relationship to be running away. That doesn’t usually happen till later.” He joked to save face, I was certain, but I was too mad to respond.
How dare he trap me!
I thought I heard him say “frigid bitch,” but more than likely I said it to myself.
He’s a guy wanting to
date me, kiss me, have some contact with me, that’s all.

I got in the truck, slammed the door, and sped down the highway toward home, checking my rearview mirror to see if he was following me. But there were no truck lights behind me and no lights ahead.

Wanting to shake all over like a rain-covered dog, I remembered that feeling Stretch evoked. In my own bedroom where he’d bring me gifts—flowers, candy, a book—and tell me that my problem was I couldn’t relax. He’d put his arms around me and hold me, trap me, and cajole me, and not give in to my excuses. His saliva was thick, his body smells strong, his weight demanding and probing, and I would cry and conceal my tears as he entered me.

I didn’t recall the thirty-minute trip that took me into the front gates of the ranch, where I pulled into the drive and shut off the lights. The house was dark, although it was only a little after ten p.m. Climbing up the front steps, I caught sight of her seated in the rocking chair, lounging in her white nightshirt in the moonlight, a book on the table beside her chair.

“Hey, you look great,” she said when I stopped suddenly.

“Reading in the dark?”

“My diary. A habit. Thanks for leaving me the sandwich, it was good.” I nodded in response and headed for the screen door, but she bounded from her chair. “Did you have a good time?” Her arm swept wide, momentarily blocking the doorway, just as Stretch had done, and her cologne hung in the night air like honeysuckle.

Trapped there, my heart racing, I was excited and unnerved, but not repulsed as I’d been with Stretch. I took a second to let that sink in
.

It should be the other way around, but it isn’t.

“I
did
have a good time, thanks.
Sundance Kid
. It was fate, I guess, that Steve McQueen demanded top billing and Jack Lemmon refused to ride a horse, because Redford and Newman were the perfect partners.” I was babbling.

“Partners come together in strange ways sometimes.” She removed her arm and I attempted to enter the house, brushing up against her. For a moment, I was immobile from the electrical sensation, a mild and pleasant stun-gun effect. She stood still, inches from me.

“I didn’t like it here without you.” Her voice was quiet.

“There’s nothing to be frightened of out here.” Maybe I was saying that to myself. Maybe I was the one who was frightened.

“I wasn’t afraid. I just missed you.” I couldn’t escape from the pleading look in her eyes begging me to acknowledge what she wanted me to hear, but I wouldn’t listen. The night was too complicated and I needed to deal with it right here, right now, on this porch.

“Cash, you’re my friend’s daughter. You work for me. And… I’m a straight woman.”

“Maybe not all of that’s true.” Her face was very close to mine.

“Every bit of it’s true.” I looked her squarely in the eye. “And maybe your life would be better if you stopped trying to have a physical relationship with every woman you meet.” She acts just like a man and that part of her I don’t like, I thought, and found even that idea confusing.

“You were fighting with him the night he died, because he wanted to have sex with you and you didn’t want it.” She said it as fact, without emotion, and I knew only one person in the world knew what had happened the night Johnny died and that Donnetta had betrayed my confidence.

“He left the house in anger and died in a car crash, consumed by fire because the two of us could not create our own.” I glared at her but she never dropped her gaze. “And my not wanting to sleep with him doesn’t make me gay,” I managed to whisper.

“How do you know?”

Upset over everything that had happened tonight, I couldn’t hold back the anger. “Stop trying to analyze me. You have enough demons of your own without conjuring up mine.” I turned and entered the house, leaving her on the porch alone.

Asticky heat dampened my cotton shirt, and the high winds quickly wicked it away, leaving my skin gritty and me as irritable on the outside as in. But I remained focused on the fields and hollows of the land, as if their contours were the most important in my life. Nothing neater than a newly mown hayfield. The square bales had been put up in the hay barns last week, before the round-baling began in earnest, and now the two-thousand-pound rolls lay on the ground every few hundred feet, like giant shredded wheat.

Within days neighbors arrived hauling flatbeds that lumbered in the front gates. Perry drove the loader with its spear attachment up to the round bales, stabbed them in their circular ends, and hoisted them into the air and onto the long trucks.

By midday, the fields were flat and barren like a well-trimmed lawn and the workers had taken the rest of the day for themselves, to rest up and admire what they’d accomplished. I hadn’t seen “hide nor hair” of them even through lunchtime.

The late-afternoon wind was hot and the relentless sunshine beat down on me as I swept out the horse barn and hosed off the walls to get rid of the last of the barn-swallow droppings. Swallows used hay to build bird-condos in the eves and fought one another for their territory, often slinging innocent young out of the nests during their battles. Finding it difficult sometimes to tolerate the noise and mess, and struggles to the death, I still encouraged their presence because they kept the fly and mosquito population under control and therefore helped thwart the deadly equine West Nile virus.

The barn radio played old country tunes and I occasionally glanced up to check the front gates for activity or down to see how much filth I’d splashed on my T-shirt and slacks.

Bo’s heavy, sweat-covered face appeared overhead, startling me, and I straightened from my chores to ask what he wanted, but he was already blurting out his needs.

“Cash had an accident.”

“Was she driving?” My voice rose as I wiped my hands on my pants and envisioned a pileup on the highway.

“No, ma’am. She’s out in the pasture.” I could smell alcohol on his breath.

I jumped into the XUV and floorboarded the gas pedal, heading for a pasture we rarely used on the backside of the bunkhouse. As we approached, I could see Perry on his knees on the ground next to Cash. I jumped out of the vehicle before it stopped completely, shouting “What happened?” as I ran toward them, flung myself down beside her, and put my fingers to her jugular. “Is she breathing?”

“Yeah, but I was afraid to move her. Don’t know if her back’s busted or her neck or what,” Perry said of the limp form and closed eyes that lay before us.

Relieved to feel a pulse in her neck, I put my face down next to hers and said loudly, “Cash, I want you to wake up. Do you hear me? I want you to wake up, right now. Open your eyes. Can you see me? Who am I?” She moaned. “Wiggle your fingers for me.” A long delay and then she finally did as I ordered. “Now let’s see you move your feet. Can you move them side to side?” She tried to raise up on one elbow and I caught her under the shoulder blade as she fell backward. “Feel like you broke anything? How much did you have to drink?” I asked her, and glared at the two men. Perry quickly said she’d drunk nothing.

“What was she doing?” I demanded, catching sight of a man I’d never laid eyes on herding an animal along the fence line.

“Got throwed off a bull,” Perry said, and I could tell he’d been drinking as well.

“Get that animal out of here!” I shouted, and Bo hurried off to help the man wrangle the bull and get it back into the Wileys’ pasture. I suspected by the way it sauntered off that the bull was less trouble when drunks left him alone. She was out cold again and I checked her pulse. “You could have killed her, Perry. Your job is to be the adult, not her damned drunken playmate! Get that folding cot out of the bunkhouse and let’s use it like a stretcher.” He scuttled off.

Alone with her now, I examined her still form and my heart pounded wildly. She was out too long and hard, and I was starting to think about things I didn’t want to have happen.
What if she needs
to be life-flighted to KC General? What if we move her and do some
kind of damage to her neck or back or spine? And last night when I
snapped at her and told her she had her own demons, did I summon
one and cause this?

Her eyes opened and she gaped at the heavens.

“Cash, can you try to get up?”

“My head,” she whimpered. “Can’t see very well.”

“I quickly examined her eye for bleeding or debris, but it looked clean and I assumed she’d hit her head so hard she’d jarred her eyesight.

She closed her eyes again about the time Perry came back with the army cot, Bo hurrying along behind him. Keeping the legs folded under and flat like a stretcher, they rolled Cash slightly to allow us to wiggle it under her until we had her on it. She complained that it hurt as I jogged alongside her, the two men carrying her up the pathway to the house.

I burst into the house through the back door, two steps ahead of them, and scrounged through the freezer for ice packs as the two men huffed and puffed and set the cot up on the living-room floor.

“Seasick,” she said weakly, and rolled off the stretcher, trying desperately to get to her knees. I ran to her just as she tried to stand, lost her balance, and fell forward.

“Get hold of her and sit her on the edge of the bed,” I ordered.

They obeyed, hoisting her up, one man holding her under each arm, and dragged her like a passed-out drunk to the bedroom.

“Less biscuits, girl,” Perry said, and I could tell by his tone that he loved Cash and was worried about her. He settled her onto the bed, then reached down and swung her legs up. “Call Doc Flanders and tell him he needs to come out here right now, and tell him I know what time it is, and I don’t give a damn,” I said, and Perry hurried away, seeming to have sobered up with worry.