He said, “What in the hell am I going to do today? Why in the hell didn’t I just sleep in or something?”
Marybeth didn’t have an answer to that.
AFTER RETURNING FROM Nate’s house the previous night in the rain, Joe and Marybeth had sat down with Sheridan and Lucy and told them he’d been fired.
Their questions were practical, if somewhat uncomprehending:
Lucy asked if it meant that she would no longer have to go to school.
Sorry, dear, Joe said. No such luck.
Sheridan asked if it meant they could get a new vehicle to replace the lousy old Game and Fish truck.
Maybe someday, Joe said. In the meantime, they’d have to settle for the van and maybe borrowing one of Bud Longbrake’s vehicles.
Lucy asked the toughest question of alclass="underline" “Does this mean we’ll be safer? That we can move back to our old house now?”
Joe and Marybeth exchanged glances. Marybeth said, “We’re going to be staying here for a while, Lucy. Our old house doesn’t really belong to us. It never did. And as for being safer, I suppose so. Right, Joe?”
Joe said, “Yup.” But he had no idea. Whoever had been targeting them might stop now, but then again . . .
“I like our old house,” Lucy said, starting to cry and tear Joe’s heart out. “I’ll miss our old house . . .”
Sheridan studied Joe’s face for a long time, saying nothing. Joe wished she would stop. She understood better than he’d expected how devastating it was to him, how doing the thing he loved had been taken away. He doubted she thought much further than that yet. But he was somewhat reassured by the fact that her demeanor reflected concern for his feelings, not what it would mean for the family. Yet.
IN BED, JOE had told Marybeth about finding Nate. He watched her reaction carefully, and she knew he was doing exactly that.
“And how was he?” she asked.
“Naked as a jaybird,” Joe said.
“You know what I mean. Was he doing all right? Is he just passing through, or what?”
“We didn’t really discuss it. I suggested he put on some clothes and he did. I don’t know why he goes around naked all the time. He thanked me for keeping his birds fed. I told him there were a lot of people looking for him, starting with the FBI. Then I left.”
Marybeth wanted to ask a million questions, it was obvious, and Joe really didn’t want to answer any of them. He was tired, and beaten down. Nate was a subject he didn’t have any energy for. Plus, he was unemployed.
“I don’t understand men sometimes,” she said. “How could you see a friend you haven’t seen in half a year—a man you’ve been through hell with on more than one occasion—and just say hello and go home?”
Joe shrugged. “It was pretty easy.”
“Where has he been all of this time?”
“He didn’t say.”
Marybeth shook her head in disbelief.
“If you’re wondering if he asked about you, he didn’t,” Joe said, turning away from her in bed.
“That was cruel, Joe,” she said.
“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry I said that.”
Someday they would need to talk about what had happened while he was away in Jackson. But for reasons he couldn’t really grasp, he didn’t want to know. Marybeth seemed to want to explain. Nate had even acted as if he was looking for an opening. But Joe just wanted the entire thing to go away, and thought it had. But that was before Nate came back.
“I CAN’T BELIEVE it,” Lucy said at breakfast, lowering the telephone into the cradle. “They haven’t canceled school.”
Sheridan moaned. Both girls had convinced themselves over breakfast that the rain and flooding would mean that school would be canceled. But Lucy had called her friend Jenny, the daughter of the principal, and received the news.
Joe found himself hoping school would be closed as well. He wanted the girls around the ranch house. He couldn’t imagine spending the day not working, rambling around the place, ducking Missy.
“I’ll drive the girls out to the bus,” Joe said, pushing away from the table.
AS THEY DROVE to the state highway in one of Bud’s ranch pickups where the bus would pick them up, Sheridan asked Joe, “Are we going to be okay?”
“Yes, we are. Your mother has a great business going, and I’ll find something soon,” he said, not having a clue what it would be.
“It’s weird thinking we won’t be going back to our house. Can we at least go get our stuff?”
“Of course,” Joe said, feeling instantly terrible for putting her through this. “Of course we can.”
They drove in silence for a few minutes.
“Julie will be on the bus,” Sheridan said.
“Isn’t that okay?”
“Yeah. I just don’t feel the same way about her anymore,” she said. “I feel really guilty about that. I used to think she was so cool and now, well, I know she’s weird but it isn’t her fault.”
“Things change,” Joe said.
“I wish I could be more girly-girl,” Sheridan said. “I wish I could see Julie and squeal and pretend nothing was wrong, but I just can’t. Other girls can do that, but I can’t.”
Joe reached over and patted her on the leg. “You’re okay, Sherry,” he said, meaning it.
“Look at the ducks,” Lucy said, pointing out the window at a body of water that had once been a pasture.
THE BUS ARRIVED at the same time Joe did. Because they were now living so far out of town, there was only one student on board—the first to be picked up. Julie Scarlett pressed her face to the window and waved at Sheridan as the girls climbed out into the mud and skipped through puddles toward the bus.
Joe waved at the driver and the driver waved back.
27
“I NEARLY DIDN’T MAKE IT THIS MORNING,” JULIE Scarlett told Sheridan and Lucy. “Uncle Arlen had to drive through a place where the river flooded the road and we nearly didn’t make it. Water came inside the truck . . . it was scary.”
The school bus had another five miles to go before picking anyone else up on their way to Saddlestring. The three girls were trying to have a conversation but it was hard to hear because huge wiper blades squeaked across the windows and standing water sluiced noisily under the carriage of the bus.
“I still don’t know why they’re having school,” Lucy said. “It’s stupid.”
“For once I agree with you,” the bus driver called back over his shoulder. “They should have given us all a day off.”
“Why don’t you call them and tell them we’re flooded out?” Lucy suggested coyly, and the driver laughed.
“What is this?” the driver said, and the bus began to slow down.
Sheridan walked up the aisle and stood behind the driver so she could see.
A yellow pickup truck blocked both lanes of the road, and the bus driver braked to a stop.
“What an idiot,” the driver said. “Maybe his motor quit or something. But I’m not sure I can get around him because of all of the water in the ditches.”
Sheridan watched as a man opened the door and came out of the truck. The man wore a floppy wet cowboy hat and was carrying a rifle.
Her heart leaped into her mouth.
“I know him,” she said, then called to Julie over her shoulder, “Julie, it’s Bill Monroe.”
Julie screwed up her face in puzzlement. “I wonder what he wants,” she said, getting out of her seat and walking up the aisle next to Sheridan.
Monroe was outside the accordion doors of the bus now, and he tapped on the glass with the muzzle of the rifle.
“You girls know him, then?” the driver asked cautiously, his hand resting on the handle to open the doors.
“He works for my dad,” Julie said. “But I’m not sure what he’s doing out here.”