Alibi Creek Read online

  Wayne used silence, which at first seemed like a clean slate on which to write the future, as a weapon. Comfortable alone, he avoided family occasions, tolerated affection, seldom returned it. A fire lookout position on Solitaire Peak came up and without consulting her, he took the job, leaving for four months every summer. When he returned, attempts to draw him out were met with indifference. Come for a walk along the creek. Not today. Let’s treat Mother and Dad to dinner at the café for their anniversary. You take them. The kids need help building a fort. I’m busy. Normal household activities, games, and roughhousing drove him outside. A portrait of Dad covered the patched wall where, during an argument over disciplining the boys, he’d thrown an Anasazi stone axe, missing her head by inches.

  She’d tried, for herself and for God, for forever and ever, whenever, however, whatever the circumstances. When Eugene stepped in, as if he’d been Lee Ann’s intended partner all along, as if Wayne’s sole purpose had been to participate in conceiving the boys, the eight-year marriage ended.

  She closed the window and straightened the drapes. They were faded and shabby, in need of washing. The color had once seemed elegant—a joke in the country. She stood on a dining room chair and unhooked the curtain rod and let everything fall to the floor. Time for something light and colorful. The window frame filled with knee-deep golden grass, almost concealing the narrow path to Mother’s. The sky to the north was cloudless and brilliant above willows crowding each other along the creek where it swung west and east again. More than once, Eugene had offered to center the window. It would take only a day or two, but it seemed more important to live with the irritation—a nudge, reminding her to appreciate Eugene all the more.

  For two years, with the help of visiting nurses from Socorro and the daily care of Grace Delgado, Mother’s health had held steady. Eugene and the boys had managed the livestock and run the place without distractions, two calves dying last winter the only catastrophes. But now Walker’s truck was parked at Mother’s, the bumper dented from drunken accidents, the doors scratched from swerving into the corral, the windshield cracked straight across.

  She’d been a mild-tempered two year old when Dad brought Mother home with an adorable bundle of trouble and all eyes turned away from her brown hair and soft brown eyes, as if captivated by a brilliant star dimming all others in the heavens. She’d coped with Walker by faking amusement, imitating her parents’ adoration of this towheaded marvel. Oh, they’d loved her, no question of that—Mother, with that sure hand and no-nonsense voice, had taught her to bake, sew, and garden. Dad, at once ornery and kind, had set her in the saddle, held her waist as they practiced the two-step, and let her tag along to the cattle auction. But even as a toddler, Walker dazzled, and each year his exaggerations doubled, tripled, his voice grew louder, his arms waved, his body bowed forward, bent back, mouth blabbing as he played the room, everyone exclaiming, “Oh, no, impossible!” while laughing, enrapt.

  He’d follow anyone, especially her—get so close she’d shiver at his breath on her neck as he yapped at her back, blurting a stream of nonsense. She’d raise her eyebrows, lips frozen in a smile, for indifference led to yammering, pestering, pleading, until she responded with put-on enthusiasm. Arguing was pointless. He out-talked, out-convinced, and out-smarted the most rational line of reasoning. She’d sneak off to walk the dogs up the canyon, or tiptoe onto the back porch with a glass of lemonade and her Bible, identify and mimic bird songs down by the creek, or snuggle up under the bedcovers with a Nancy Drew mystery. Walker couldn’t be alone. An empty room held no challenge, an open field little interest. He thrived on the manipulation of people and events.

  Shortly after her eleventh birthday, he’d stolen money from Mother’s bureau and placed one of her barrettes on the floor. She’d been questioned and punished. Crying, she pointed her finger at him and retrieved her jewelry box to prove the contents amounted to nothing more than her allowance. Sent to her room, responsible for all the chores for two weeks and ordered to stay home from the 4-H dance, she hid behind the bathroom door and jumped him, pulled his hair, punched his stomach, and kicked his legs. He absorbed the assault without a peep and went limp, his mouth curling into a grin as he left her whimpering with sore knuckles, runny nose, and red cheeks.

  With no one to turn to, she hiked up the canyon and fell on her knees asking Jesus how to handle hatred of a wily sinner who could appear innocent as an angel, who displayed affection, but would as likely throw her into the pigpen. A hand reached down and lightly touched the top of her head and Jesus answered, saying He understood, that reading and heeding scripture would instruct how to approach Walker and all troublesome situations with love and compassion. Pastor Fletcher had preached those words, but coming directly from the Lord, they took on deeper significance. Love meant more than feeling gushy about. Love implied deep appreciation, devotion, and acceptance. And compassion meant more than feeling sorry for. Compassion called for sympathizing with the suffering and struggles of all creatures. In her bedroom, she propped her pillows, kicked off her boots, and tucked her toes under the folded pink and white gingham quilt at the foot of the bed. Delicate fingers turned the Bible’s pages, thin as tissue paper. Words written in old-fashioned language transported her to the beginning, when people wore loose clothes belted with ropes and lived in tents without toilets or running water. The stories were complex—full of intrigue, twists, and turns, woven from intricate family histories, tales of betrayal and loyalty, good and evil, feuds, and acts of forgiveness. She named her sheep and rabbits Samson, Delilah, Esther, Rachel, Moses, Sarah, and Solomon and would sit among them in the barn dressed up as Queen Esther, reading aloud Ruth’s story, plopping one of her rabbits, David, before the milk cow, Goliath. “How will you, a mere bunny, gain enough power to destroy this giant? With God’s help, of course, with Him on your side!”

  The kitchen door burst open and boot heels clattered down the hall. He waved his hat and swooped her off her feet, set her down like a precious object and holding her shoulders, peered into her eyes.

  “Welcome home,” she said, patting her hair in place.

  “Lannie, you don’t know how good it feels. This good.” He spread his arms as if to embrace the entire world and everything in it, twirled around and hunkered over, dug into the pocket of his jeans and slipped the Zuni bracelet over her wrist. “Got a beer?”

  How he got anything done with one hand permanently around a beer can, she never knew. Later in the day it would be a tumbler of Jack Daniels. Her body leaned slightly to the right, in need of Eugene in his sweat-stained denim shirt, hat shielding blue eyes outlined in deep purple, the iris just like an iris. When Eugene was around, rules were obeyed, the truth was spoken, equipment was maintained, and property respected. But Eugene was out among the cattle, repairing fence, or checking the stock tanks. She adjusted her weight evenly on both legs and called on Jesus and He appeared in a crimson robe with gold trim, haloed, semi-opaque, and stood behind her as a guide.

  “In the fridge,” she said, running her thumb over turquoise and coral, the inlay smooth as polished river rock. “Then we’ll go out to the barn. I want to show you what the boys have been up to before they come in.”

  She heard the pop, waited while he took the first gulp off the top, and they set off across the field.

  “Jesus, man alive! Look at the color of those leaves! Yellow as egg yolk. Prettiest fall I ever seen. Guess those trees heard I was coming home. Guess they’re putting on a show just for me. Mother cried like I’d been gone twenty years.”

  “You must have found her improved.”

  “About the same. No better, anyway. I thought she’d be talking by now.”

  “Our routine is so regular, I can pretty much read her thoughts.” And yours, too. You think you’re going to liven up the house, bring joy to an afflicted old woman.

  “You want to be careful,” she said. “Or you’ll not ease her condition, but make it worse. The light you’ve put in her eyes w
ill turn dull if your shenanigans confuse her.” Not to mention the liquor on your breath, your quick step, and fast talk.

  “Don’t you worry.”

  Worry she must, for he flung a stick high in the air, catching it like a boomerang, as if he hadn’t a care, as if Mother, disabled and mute due to a stroke, would be thrilled to witness anything he did, from burning his breakfast toast to playing cards to resting his feet on the coffee table switching TV channels fast as he blinked. Had she, just once, commanded the same attention, she might have become gregarious, even daring, whooped and hollered at the rodeo, allowed the boys to lead her around the dance floor at the Volunteer Fire Station Bar-b-que, shared the thrill of her first kiss with girlfriends, plotted tricks on Halloween.

  They climbed the slight incline to the barn, feral cats jumping into hiding as they passed the open doors. He took a deep breath.

  “Oh, yeah! Hay, manure, and mouse shit!” he said, detouring inside to run a circle around the old lime green Yanmar tractor.

  She plodded on around the corner.

  “Well, look-ee here,” he said, catching up.

  A sow sprawled in damp earth, six piglets snuggled up to her belly.

  “Yes, ma’am!” Walker said. “I see honey glazed ham with raisin sauce and mashed potatoes.” He ran his hand along the pipe fence. “You done your research, I suppose. Remember when Dad brought home those half-dozen baby turkeys? Christ. They trailed after me like I was their mother. I’d hear them pecking at the door while I ate lunch, sending a message in code: ‘Hurry up! What are we going to do next?’ If Dad and I drove off, I’d glance out the rear window and I swear, they’d be staring at the pickup through the dust, lost as orphans.” He leaned back and gave Lee Ann the once-over. “You’re getting some gray in your widow’s peak, but you know, it becomes you. Makes you look sort of dignified. Wise. Of course, you’re still damn good looking, in a quiet sort of way. If I compared you to an animal, it’d be a doe.” He jumped the fence. “Don’t be alarmed, Mama. I ain’t going to steal your babies. Just want to hold one of these darlins. Hey there,” he said, raising a piglet to his face. “You’re going to make a mighty fine dinner.”

  “Pastor Fletcher and Harley McKenna are each taking one,” she said.

  “Harley looks like a sow. He doesn’t need but the skinniest. The fattest goes to Fletcher. It’s beyond understanding how he keeps on a pair of pants.”

  He oughtn’t talk. Prison food hadn’t done him much good. His chest sunk slightly, as if his stomach muscles had been tied in knots that wouldn’t come loose. His Adam’s apple poked out of a scrawny neck too skinny to support a head with a nose that size. Still, he looked younger than his forty-two years.

  “I’ll give you a haircut,” she said.

  “All right then. Only no buzz cut. I’ll go bald naturally, thank you. And make it quick. I’m meeting Jo at Art’s.”

  “I thought you’d join us for supper.”

  “Tomorrow. That’s a promise.”

  Tomorrow. The distant future. Twenty minutes from now any plan would be forgotten. He didn’t waste a second of today thinking about what might happen after the sun went to bed, got a good night’s sleep, and topped the mesa in the morning. She started back toward the house, weary of his behavior. Hers as well, for accepting that the bar crowd was more important than family, for forever taking second place, for trying too hard to maintain a pleasant attitude. Her two-year reprieve had ended. But wait, she must make the best of an inevitable situation. Give him a chance. Forget the shame resulting from his past schemes, believe those escapades were over. Trust the boys were mature enough to resist farfetched, ill-fated temptations. Forgive. Forgive again, and again… put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. Colossians 3:12-13.

  All right. Let’s get the haircut over with, get him out the door and off to town to hypnotize the Saturday night crowd, and end up Joanne’s concern for the night.

  In bed, she sought the arm she’d needed that afternoon. Eugene’s muscles were hard, his skin soft, excepting his calloused palms, and she pressed his hand, its touch as sensitive as its texture was coarse, to her breast and brushed her lips against his neck.

  He lay quietly, his breathing even, staring at the ceiling.

  She pulled away.

  “Tired, that’s all,” he said.

  She stroked his brow, wide beneath wavy, dark hair cut at a respectable length. Most often, a finger hooking a finger, a certain word or chuckle, or a discussion about buying a new tractor led to kisses, and more. Last Saturday he’d acted the rogue preying upon an innocent victim, making her laugh as she played at resisting, until, helpless against his charm, she swooned and submitted. Now his arms rested at his sides, his head tilted toward the wall.

  When it seemed he’d fallen asleep and she’d turned on her light and opened her book, he reached for her hand. Her finger traced the vein that ran from his wrist up the inside of his arm, the one that bulged when unloading hay or handling building materials. His voice was tender, even when quoting mundane information from a price list and his expression was intriguing when frowning over a bill incorrectly tallied. He carried a lame hen so she didn’t squawk and scooped up a kitten so its belly rested in his palm, its four legs sprawled, and before long that kitten purred as if it had found heaven. She moved his beautiful, able hands onto her hips and whispered his name, enticing him to linger over parts of her body and devour others. And he obeyed. But when she unfolded her arms from around his neck and held his face, his eyes remained closed. Coyotes howled up the canyon and he aimed his ear toward the window.

  She put on a nightgown—flannel, now that the weather had changed—and lay on her side facing him, her arm tucked under her head.

  “I’d like to buy Scott a laptop,” she said.

  “The more he studies, the less interest he’ll have in the ranch.”

  “He’ll need one for college. I’ve been setting something aside each week.”

  “We’ll need to hire a hand.”

  “He’s so smart. And lonely here, not at all interested in raising pigs.”

  “He’s never complained.”

  “I know,” she said. “That worries me.”

  He kissed her forehead and rolled over.

  “You worry too much.”

  She switched off the lamp and extended her leg, inviting his to rest alongside, or over it.

  The boys were different.

  “I want my own room!” Dee had demanded when he was nine. “I’m sick of living with snakes and bugs and lizards. They belong outside.”

  “Scaredy-cat,” Scott said.

  “He lets them out of the box. It’s creepy!”

  “The snakes I keep are harmless,” Scott insisted. “Nature is interesting.”

  “Nature is outside!”

  Scott cut out pictures from National Geographic of country houses in Austria where families lived in open lofts above their animals. Down the road, he said, Iris Herrington nursed motherless lambs in her pantry for months. Lee Ann agreed to accept the lizards, mice, and horny toads that Scott invited to share his bedroom, and raised no objection when he housed injured birds and slept across from snakes.

  Dee threw a fit.

  And so, Eugene had added an extra bedroom onto the east end of the house.

  Scott wandered the hills collecting rocks and scat, then measured, sorted, and filed his findings. He couldn’t walk from here to there without stopping to inspect a leaf or insect, turning some newly discovered specimen this way and that under a magnifying glass slipped from his back pocket. Pottery sherds were carefully arranged on his dresser next to a snake box with glass sides in which he rotated living creatures. In bed, under the beam of a flashlight, he entered data in a notebook.

  Last month Lee Ann had picked a common flower and asked Scott its name. Retrieving
a binder with fine drawings of plants that grew along the creek and in the fields, he identified this one as blue vervain or Simpler’s joy/verbena hastate/verbanacea family, an herb used to cure respiratory ailments, depression, nervous disorders, and bladder infections. She’d held the book to her chest like a newly found treasure and turned each page, studying medicinal benefits of familiar “weeds” she’d brazenly stomped over.

  Dee, a natural cowboy, was as easy on a horse as in a pickup. He would insist on herding cattle long after it was declared a failing proposition in the southwest, and protect his inheritance from falling into developers’ hands. When asked why he didn’t study, he said, “The only historical facts worth remembering are the owners of every acre of land back to when Hispanics first settled this county.” From the start, he hammered forts and go-carts, tore the rototiller apart and rebuilt it, roped the porch post, handled guns, tools, and equipment as if they’d sprouted from his fingers in the womb. He danced, competed in rodeos, played guitar, and brazenly chased Ginny Alcott, the girl he’d fancied since sixth grade.

  Dee looked at the stars, awed by their brilliance. Scott named the constellations.

  Pastor Fletcher warned that knowledge was a dangerous thing. An inquiring mind led to more questions, which in turn spurred discontent. One had only to put their faith in God and He would provide. On this point, Lee Ann disagreed. When boiled, yerba negrita could be applied as a hair rinse. Early Native Americans layered mullein leaves for diapers and used the yucca root for shampoo and its leaves to make fine paintbrushes. Brewed cota made a fragrant, relaxing tea. She adjusted the covers. Scott would have his computer.

  4

  THE SAME HEAPS WERE PARKED in the same spots in front of Art’s Bar. Only difference, a headache rack had been welded onto Perry’s dented Ford. Carl rode for years on tires with no tread, just aired ’em up daily. Those who crossed the creek had mud-splattered bumpers, those who lived in town had spotless hubcaps. Plush dice hung from Terry Lyn’s rearview mirror. Seemed like Moni was still hauling the same two years’ worth of trash in the back of his pickup, his brain or his vehicle incapable of following directions to the dump. And there at the end, Owen Plank’s spiffy Toyota Tundra, so clean you’d never guess he drove it every day over all sorts of terrain for a living.