Alibi Creek Page 4

  6

  HER BIBLE RESTED BESIDE A portrait of Jesus on a small round table in the corner of the dining room. The table was covered with Grandma Edna’s tatted, floral and honeycomb patterned tablecloth with scalloped edging. A bookmark with praying hands and the words Do Justice/Love Mercy/Walk Humbly remembered the section currently under study. Lee Ann smoothed the embossed leather and carried The Book out to the truck where Dee, in pressed jeans, plaid shirt and vest, sat behind the wheel and Scott, in one of his cleaner baseball caps, held the door.

  Vines covering the wire fence that enclosed the small churchyard had been nipped by frost, the leaves shriveled and brown. At one time the fence had supported Cora Russnell’s wild roses, and after Cora died, church members tried to maintain the garden, but over the years everything but the roses thrived, weaving unruly tendrils through the open mesh. Each spring new growth sprouted over old vines, creating a thick wall of weeds no longer in need of an armature. Lee Ann led Scott and Dee through the gate, frozen in place by untended growth. Something ought to be done about it.

  Folding chairs, eight on each side of a narrow aisle, made up nine rows. Grace, always early, had saved their seats. Lee Ann remarked, as she did every week, how tall Grace’s great grandson had grown. She nodded at the sheriff and his wife, slipped by the county commissioners and their wives and sat down, a son on each side. Pastor Fletcher stepped in front of the pulpit and reached for the heavens, calling on the congregation of seventy souls to rise for the first hymn. Lee Ann sang, and as her voice blended with the rest, the song grew from timid to exuberant, lifting her on her toes. The pastor’s tall, skinny form faded. Scott and Dee fell from her sides. Parishioners dissolved and the beam of skylight expanded and spread throughout the room. Her chest swelled and the cross hanging behind the pulpit glowed and the piano’s notes rang pure and clear. The magic spot on top of her head opened, connected to certain eternity, from where she and all living things originated and would return.

  And she sang:

  My opening eyes with rapture see

  The dawn of this returning day;

  My thoughts, Oh God, ascend to Thee

  While thus my early vows I pray…

  And God selected her voice from the melody all around, from the harmony of millions of worshippers in distant cities and other lands, calling upon her singular devotion, asking specifically for her requests, reassuring her to place all problems in His hands. And she prayed, Lord, guide me. Silence my tongue so that You may do Your work. Increase Eugene’s patience for Walker. Lead Walker to meaningful, honest work. Generate peace between them. Instill the glory of Your kingdom. Assure Mother that she will continue to be cared for. Ease her suffering. Edgar’s, too—winters are so hard on him. Provide the means for Scott to attend college in January. Clear my conscience while performing my duties at work. Correct my superiors’ misdeeds. Amen.

  Pastor Fletcher’s sermon went on and on, endlessly on, drawing sighs from various parts of the room, ending when all hope of a conclusion had been abandoned. As a reward for their endurance, the congregation filed into the adjoining kitchen for coffee, tea, and cake. Ginny Alcott sidled up to Dee with a flirtatious smile that broke into a loud laugh at something he said. She wore black jeans and a frilly white blouse with too many open buttons, her hair swept to one side and held in place with a red plastic clip. Hard and soft, boisterous and subtle all at once. Lee Ann turned to Eileen and Jim Raines and congratulated them on their new grandbaby. Scott disappeared with a couple of teenage boys and would remain outside until it was time to leave. Agnostic, he called himself, skeptical about God and religion. He was wrong. Logic and science could never explain the miracle of creation.

  At five o’clock, she carried a Corningware casserole to the back of Mother’s house, swooshing through a mess of leaves by the kitchen door. Autumn roused memories of chile roasting, Mother canning tomatoes and making jam, a favorite gray wool sweater scratchy against her skin, kicking stones across the highway while waiting for the school bus, Dad rising before dawn to go hunting, Edgar organizing the hired hands for roundups, butchering and branding, and with all the work done, the anticipation of a long winter’s rest.

  These days, after the chutes were closed and the lassos wound and hung, Eugene’s longing to doze in a recliner by the woodstove lasted about three short weeks. He and Dee would fidget, exchange a private signal, and mosey out to the workshop, using any excuse to escape on horseback as soon as the sun stole the frost from the day, leaving Scott slouched on the couch researching the developmental stages of a certain beetle.

  Lee Ann swung her leg from side to side clearing a path with her foot, the sound crisp as stuffing tissue paper into a box. The wind came up and corralled the leaves into a spiral before whisking them away to settle in the field. This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. Psalms 118:24.

  “It’s me, Mother,” she called.

  On Mother’s return from the hospital, the family had gathered for dinner in this kitchen. Lee Ann had served Eugene first. A man needs to feel special. She’d tied Mother’s bib. A mother needs respect. Dee, pass Dad more potatoes. Here, Mother, let me get you some rice. Eugene, the rare meat is at this end. Mother, just one more spoonful of applesauce. Eugene, more iced tea?

  She’d told Eugene, “Toss your work gloves on the counter. Put your elbows on the table. You can burp in front of Mother,” but he ate in a hurry and after wishing Mother a good evening, excused himself. She wasn’t his mother, after all. A week went by. Two. And when he wouldn’t, or couldn’t relax, Lee Ann began preparing an early dinner for Mother, and after feeding her, joined Eugene and the boys at home. An extra hour on her feet, when she could have contacted Perry about buying the right laptop for Scott, or shortened her black skirt to fit with the current style, or planted a cherry tree in the spot where the peach tree had died.

  Whistling “The Farmer in the Dell,” she set the dish on the old cook stove that served as decoration these days. Grace had cleaned up, down to the perfect fold of a dish-towel, tidy in the way of older women with time on their hands, who paid attention to dust on the telephone and mud on the welcome mat, crumbs on the counter, and spots on the windows. At the end of the day, her tea cup remained the only item in the dish rack. Although they’d grown up on ranches miles apart, Grace and Mother had remained best friends since childhood, tight as fingers locked in prayer. After marrying, they’d met most afternoons on horseback and synchronized shopping trips by car to the closest grocery store, two hours away in Round Valley, Arizona. When telephone service came, with the men cleared out and kids off to school, they’d found an hour to exchange recipes, gossip, and confide worries. Now, close to eighty and widowed, Grace visited every day to fix Mother’s lunch and despite Lee Ann’s protests, kept the house as neat as Mother would have wanted it.

  Lee Ann envied their friendship. She didn’t share secrets. She talked to God and asked for His help while planting the garden, driving to and from work, and hiking to her special place up the canyon. “Dear Lord, help me… Help me discipline the boys so they know I mean business, yet cherish them. Help curb my suspicion of two co-workers snickering on their break in the common room. Help me show respect to my superiors. You know I find them unworthy. Help me care for Mother tenderly. You know of my impatience. Help me sustain compassion for Walker. You know of my contempt and resentment and loathing.”

  Scott or Dee checked in on Granny at some point during the day, wiping their feet, sitting by her chair or bedside, Dee talking weather and livestock, Scott reading from a novel selected from the Bookmobile. The decision to bring Mother home, rather than install her in a nursing home, had taken only a moment. Lee Ann had told the boys, “If circumstances were reversed, Granny’s top priority would be her children and grandchildren.”

  When Lee Ann’s father had lost the race for county treasurer, Mother beamed as if he’d won. When the 1979 Archaeological Resources Protection Act prohibited digging I
ndian artifacts on public lands, Dad got out his shovel, anyway, and Mother declared the pottery had been discovered on the Walker Ranch. And Walker… the trucks he’d wrecked, people he’d lied to, money he’d scammed, equipment he’d borrowed and “forgotten” to return—Mother supported every excuse and alibi, swore on the Bible in court in his defense, and allowed him to sell off large portions of the ranch to cover his debts. If she’d been well, the worst weather wouldn’t have kept her from making weekly visits to the prison.

  As for Wayne, Mother had run him off with a hoe, threatening to use a rifle if he showed his cheating face on the property again (the wretched recluse could have invited any number of women up to the lookout tower!). Truth was, Lee Ann had been the one to respond to Eugene’s smile the morning they’d met by chance at the dentist’s office in Round Valley. Her hair had been shoulder length at the time, and after her teeth cleaning she was headed to the hairdresser to have it cropped to ear length before going to the feed store.

  Eugene said, “I’m curious to see how it turns out.” A man couldn’t possibly mean that, but Eugene did, and when he met her at the feed store, he cocked his head and grinned. He loaded the dog food, cat food, straw, and protein pellets and asked her to share a pizza at the new place down the street. He’d been sent from Wyoming to manage the 7 Bar Ranch, eighty sections owned by a wealthy Californian, and had been there about a year.

  He said, “I’d love to show you the prettiest view in the whole world.” And they’d gone to the red cliffs overlooking the gorge along the New Mexico/Arizona border. And from there… well, from there…

  She hadn’t asked, but begged the Lord’s forgiveness for deceiving Wayne and worse, for abandoning to lust. She searched the Bible for examples of pardoned infidelity and finding none, appealed to God’s mercy, all the while giving in to the churning in her pelvis at the sight of Eugene leaning against his white pickup, ankles crossed, waiting for her.

  “It took only a second, Lord, for a friendly conversation to veer toward flirtation, for an innocent look to suggest something more, for that something more to turn into a rendezvous and for that rendezvous to develop into love. You judge the act, Lord, and make no exceptions. If You can’t understand, I must forgive myself.”

  Mother’s good hand rested in her lap, the right one curled into itself. Her wheelchair faced the TV, with Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant bantering back and forth in Bringing Up Baby. Leaves dropped to the ground outside the window and black walnuts bonked against the roof. Lee Ann passed in front of the screen and removed the light blanket covering Mother’s knees.

  “I brought tuna casserole,” she said, releasing the brake and turning the chair. “Remember the pale blue shirt with white fringe and pearl buttons you made on the treadle sewing machine for my first county fair competition? And the raspberries we collected in the Apache willow basket? How the bees loved those blossoms! Mother, I’ll be honest. I’ve asked God to watch over Walker, because although Eugene thinks I can influence him, I can’t. And although you believe he can do no wrong, he can. I’ve placed the future in the Lord’s hands, as you have taught me, and trust He will increase Eugene’s tolerance and curb Walker’s unrestrained impulses.”

  She kissed Mother’s cheek, smelled her hair, thin and wispy as a summer cloud. She’d need a shampoo this week. Grace had laid out the evening’s pills in a neat line of various sizes and colors. Lee Ann tied a clean bib around Mother’s neck and spooned a portion of the casserole into a bowl, poured iced tea, added a packet of Splenda, inserted a straw, and stirred.

  “Thirsty?” she said, holding up the glass.

  Pale blue eyes gazed toward the cookie jar on the counter. Slip the straw between her lips. Place a fork in her good hand. Poke a noodle. Pick up the fork when it falls on her lap. Do not sigh. Do not show impatience. Mash the noodles, alternate with mouthfuls of pureed prunes. Please, hurry and finish. Eugene and the boys are hungry and the beans need to be heated.

  With Mother’s arm over her shoulder, she carefully, inch by inch, one baby step at a time, guided her onto the porch to feel the breeze. She eased her back in the chair, parked her in front of the TV, and changed channels. Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune aired from six to seven p.m. She covered Mother’s legs.

  “I’ll be back in an hour to get you ready for bed.”

  Only six o’clock and already the sun touched the top of the mesa. The weeping willow’s shadow darkened the path. Tomorrow, she’d bring a flashlight. Pants and blouses for work lay in a heap in the dryer, needing ironing. Ham should be thawed for lunches during the week, the beans had to be heated. Walker might take over the morning routine, but he couldn’t be depended upon to wake up on time, if he came home at all. He’d never leave a note, or call to say he’d be late. Expectation would lead to disappointment. Here it was Sunday night and it was anyone’s guess where he was.

  7

  MONDAY OCTOBER 1, 2007

  LEE ANN ROLLED OVER, SHUT off the alarm and rested her arm across Eugene’s pillow, his covers already pulled up. Wayne, first to share her bed, had started the night lying still, then like a great machine, sputtered and heaved, taking the blankets with him. Eugene slept quietly and soundly on his left side, facing the window, his leg in contact with hers throughout the night. Before bed, he emptied his pockets, placed his billfold, loose change, and keys on his night table, stepped out of his boots and set them together beside the closet, toes to the wall. He folded his jeans and put the day’s shirt and underwear in the hamper.

  From his hand, she accepted a cup of coffee made just right, a little milk, no sugar. The mornings were dark now, the sun waiting until after seven to send its rays over the mesa, the plaid bedspread lit by the lamp on her nightstand. One of the boys ought to rake the leaves around Mother’s house and spread them on the vegetable garden and flowerbeds.

  “Thanks,” she said. “Today, will you remind Dee to…”

  “Rake the leaves by Kay’s back door.” He stuffed his billfold in his back pocket and picked up his keys. “Everything’s under control,” he said. “Except your brother.”

  She wrapped her hands around the mug.

  “Pretend he isn’t here,” she said, matter-of-factly—no problem, unless you choose to make one.

  “That’ll work for about a week.”

  She poked her feet out from the covers.

  “Eugene, he’s a fact of life. Even if he’d leave, which he won’t, I have no right to kick him out. Mother would die. After she’s gone she’ll watch from heaven, heartbroken, when he sells his half of the ranch and squanders the money.” She ran a hand through her hair. “Hopefully, she’ll know I did all I could. She must know I’m doing all I can now.”

  “You can set rules. If he breaks them, out he goes.”

  She patted the mattress, please, sit down and talk this over.

  He stood at the end of the bed, solid as a tree trunk, and as still.

  “It isn’t up to me to make rules,” she said. “He and I are equal. You’ve disliked him from the first moment you saw him.”

  With the edge of his palm, he swept yesterday’s loose change into a metal box. “As I remember it, at ten in the morning I could smell booze twenty yards away, upwind, while he sauntered around, assuming I’d fall for the B.S. he’d concocted to get out of doing a decent day’s work.”

  “He’s always been a drinker.”

  “A drunk.”

  “Call him what you want, he’s here to stay.”

  “Until his next prison stint. He’s one step away from a hard-core criminal.”

  She tucked her feet back under the covers and yanked the covers up around her chest.

  “Please, a little compassion.” Enough of this talk or she might cry.

  “I’m not God, Lee Ann. I don’t pity the weak, unless they make an effort. In my book, everyone does his share, drunks don’t get special treatment, and rules aren’t meant to be broken.” He reached into the closet for his vest. “I’m off to Round
Valley. I’ll pick up any groceries you need.”

  Down the hall, the boys were getting breakfast, their morning talk muffled behind silverware and cereal bowls sliding across the table, the fridge door opening and closing.

  “Some green beans, if they have any, and a sack of potatoes. He might want to help with roundup and branding.”

  “So long as he keeps a good distance from me.”

  She stood up, tipped her head forward, back, and around, stretching her neck. The simplest way to co-exist with Walker was to ignore him. The Lord taught turn the other cheek, seek humility and forgive those who trespass against others. Trouble was, Eugene didn’t believe in the Lord. If pressed, he said nature was his god and when she explained that God created nature, he stepped back with a pleasant expression and cast his eyes somewhere near her elbow, a reluctant student receiving a lecture, counting the minutes before being released from class.

  “Be safe,” she said, straightening her side of the covers. The ranch still belonged to Mother. Lee Ann had power of attorney. Eugene and the boys ran things. Walker helped.

  Eugene took a notepad from his vest pocket, added green beans and potatoes to his list.

  “You be wary,” he said.

  She whistled “Moon River” while buttoning Mother in a yellow housedress with a Peter Pan collar and wheeled her into the kitchen.

  “Monday mornings are so rushed,” she said, heating water for instant oatmeal. “Today, I’ve got to organize the paperwork for Thursday’s meeting. It’s Tina Wiley’s birthday and the girls are taking her to lunch at the café. I suppose I’ll have to go. You know how I hate Vera’s food—she’s dipped into the same can of bacon grease for twenty years.”