Cowboy Sing Me Home (38 page)

            It was only then that he
realized he had left his pickup at the top of the hill, beside Dusty’s
trailer.  The hill looked impossibly tall now, his legs sore and weak.  He
turned to Dusty.  “You want to wait here while I get the pickup? I can come
back down and get you.”

            “I can make it.”

            He smiled at her, and reached
for her hand.  After a second, she slipped her hand into his. 

            “Okay then.”  He squeezed. 
“Let’s get going.”        

            Luke rubbed his eyes and sat
back in his chair, looking down the hallway in the direction Dusty had left
over an hour ago.  He and Buddy had gone over the events of the early morning
several times, but all Luke could think about was Dusty.  How terrified she’d
looked with that gun jammed into her jaw.  The way she’d clung to him, after
everyone was gone.

I love you
, she’d said, tears in her eyes and
despair in her voice.

            “You’re beat.  I think we’re
through here. If I have any questions, I’ll call you.”

            Luke groaned as he stood and
braced his weight with his hand on the table.  “I am beat.  I’m going to go get
Dusty and go get some sleep.”

            He stopped by the nurse’s
station on his way through to check on Wayne, but he’d been taken to Abilene to
a bigger hospital.  There was another officer walking through, and Luke
motioned to talk to him.

            “Do you know anything about the
third guy, the young one we held here last week?”

            “Yeah, both your guys were
real generous with information.  Somehow they got the idea that they’d get a
better deal if they told us where he was.  He was holed up in some motel in
Denver.  He was taken into custody about half an hour ago, no problem.”

            “I’m not surprised.  Kenny
wasn’t really the one I was worried about.”

            “From what we’ve gathered,
he was just a mule, really.  Schotts siphoned off information and Kenny carried
it out, then Broeker took it to their buyer.”

            Luke looked forward to
testifying at Wayne and Broeker’s trials, but he hoped they went easy on
Kenny.  “I think Kenny got in over his head and didn’t know how to get out.  Do
you know where they took Dusty?”

            The officer shrugged.  “No
idea.  Oh, wait.  Is that the gorgeous blonde?”

            “That’s her.”

            “They finished with her
about forty-five minutes ago.  Last I saw she was headed out the door.”

            Luke frowned.  He had
assumed she would wait for him.  Dread sprouted in his stomach almost
immediately, and he recalled waking alone last night, knowing she’d run out on
him.

            But he’d driven her here
himself, and she couldn’t very well walk all the way back to Trailertopia.  She
was as exhausted as he was.   

            He checked the hospital
cafeteria, actually little more than a break room with some vending machines,
and then the lobby.  Finally he walked out into the parking lot.  The morning
air was cool, scrubbed clean from the previous night’s storm.  The parking lot
was empty.

            Surely she hadn’t really
left without saying a word, after what they’d been through together.

            I love you.

            She’s said the words.  He’d
said them back. 

            He went back inside and
talked to Jolene at the reception desk.  “Have you seen Dusty?”

            “Yeah, she got a ride home
with Geralynn at the end of her shift.”  Jolene looked at the clock behind
her.  “About forty-five minutes ago.”

            The feeling of dread grew. 
He dragged his body to his pickup.  Maybe she was just too tired to wait around
for him.  Maybe she thought he would be tied up with Buddy for a long time.

            But he knew why she’d left. 
She’d told him she loved him, and now she was in a panic.  He knew, because
he’d told her the same thing, and he was kind of ready to panic, himself.

            It would be okay, he told
himself.  She wouldn’t leave town.  The big Jubilee celebration was tonight. 
She’d promised to stay for that.  She would keep her commitment.

            As he drove back toward the
courthouse, he rolled down the window and let the cool morning air blow through
the cab to keep him awake.  He had a lot of paperwork to take care of now, but
it was still a struggle to keep from going to Trailertopia first.

            He couldn’t push now.  That
would be his worst mistake.  Obviously, she was pulling back because she was
afraid.  He had to give her time to adjust to what they shared.  If he pushed
now, he would only succeed in giving her reason for that fear.

            He pulled into the
courthouse parking lot and sat in the pickup, arguing with himself.  He could
just drive out there and make sure she was okay.  She’d been pretty shaken up,
and it might not be a good idea for her to be alone.

              But if he saw her now, he
wouldn’t be able to keep from pushing.  To force a reassurance from her that
she really meant what she’d said, to make her know that he’d meant every word
of what he’d said.  He would not be able to give her the room she needed.

            Her feelings might be hurt
if he didn’t at least check on her, he told himself.  But that was just a
desperate grasp at a straw and he knew it.  Dusty was not the type to get upset
over an imagined slight.

            He was still arguing with
himself when his dad pulled up and got out of his own pickup.

            “Heard about all the
excitement this morning.  You okay?”

            Luke nodded and slid out of
his seat.  The soreness in his leg was still fresh from all the rigors it had
been through during the night, and his fatigue wasn’t helping any.  “Yeah, I
think I’m going to live.” He’d already talked to his mother so she could get
the details straight from him.  If she learned everything through the gossip
mill, the tale would take on events that would be more dramatic than factual. 

            He wasn’t surprised, though,
that she hadn’t passed on the news to his dad.  Luke had learned a long time
ago that he had to repeat everything at least once.

            “I’m glad to hear it,”
Claude said.  “I’m proud of you.”

Luke
was
surprised to
hear that.  And even more surprised when his father took the hand Luke had held
out for a handshake and pulled him into a hug.  Words of praise and
demonstrations of affection were a rarity.  But then, Luke figured, he had
never before been shot and captured dangerous felons in the span of a week. 
Circumstances were unusual all around.

            He returned his father’s
hug.  “Now I have a truckload of paperwork to take care of.  Want to come in
and watch me fill out forms?”

            Toby was inside talking on
the phone. “You look awful,” he said casually as he hung up the phone.  “Too
bad you have all that paperwork now.”

            “You could fill them out for
me.”  Luke pulled out the rolling chair in front of the typewriter stand and
dropped into it.

            “Sorry, against the rules. 
But I’ll stay here and keep you company while you do them.”

            “Big of you, man.”

            Claude sat beside Luke,
fidgeting in his chair.  When Luke asked if everything was okay, Claude
insisted that it was.  He pulled off his John Deere cap and turned it over and
over in his hands.

            Luke tried to ignore him as
he pecked his way through the form in the computer.

            Claude had creased the bill
of his cap until it formed and inverted v.  He cleared his throat and sat back
in his chair, then leaned forward again.

            “You want a soft drink?”
Luke asked, saving one form and opening another.

            Claude shook his head. 
“Nah.  I’m fine.”

            Luke nodded.  “Yeah, I can
see that.  What’s going on?”

            “Nothing’s going on.  I
just…”

            “Yeah?” 

            Claude leaned back in his
chair again.  “The other day when your mother was giving you all that baby
stuff…”

            “Yes?  What about it?” He
was too tired to be patient.

            Claude sighed.  “I don’t
know.  She sure was mad.”

            Luke didn’t remember his
mother acting mad at the time.  Confused and thoughtful, but not mad.

            But he nodded silently and
pecked a few words onto the form.

            “Well?”

            Luke turned back to his
dad.  “Well, what?”

            “Well, what was she so mad
about?”

            “How should I know?”

            “Did she say anything?”

            “Like what?”

            “Like anything about me?”

            This was bizarrely like
dealing with Corinne and Toby in the sixth grade, Luke decided.  He also
decided he was too involved in his own problems, for once, to get wrapped up in
those of his parents.

            “I don’t remember her saying
anything about you.”

            “Think.  She’s really mad
about something.”

            “So what else is new?  She’s
always mad about something.”

            “This is different.  She
won’t even talk to me.”

            Luke shrugged.  “You miss
the constant arguments, then?”

            “At least when she’s arguing
with me I know she cares.  Now, even if I try to get a rise out of her, she
just looks at me like she doesn’t know who I am.”

            Luke gave a gusty sigh and
tapped the backspace key to erase the error he’d just made.  “Maybe she’s not
mad.  Maybe she’s just remembering how things used to be between you two, and
wondering why you have to argue all the time.  She was looking at that picture
of you with your new car, when you were first married.”

            “We were still in honeymoon
mode when that picture was taken.  You can’t stay like that your whole life. 
That’s not how it works in the real world.”

            “A, you don’t have to fight
all the time in the real world, either.  People in the real world are capable
of treating each other with respect and kindness, even after years of
marriage.  And B, don’t tell me, tell your wife.”

            Claude snorted.  “If she
would –”

            “’If she would’, ‘if he
would’, ‘if she would stop’, ‘if he wouldn’t insist’.”  Luke rose from his chair
so fast it rolled back and hit the filing cabinet.  “That’s all I’ve heard, my
whole life.  If you both weren’t so busy blaming each other and looking for
ways to find fault, you might discover that you have a pretty good thing
going.  If you would open your eyes and see how lucky you are, you might
realize that not everyone has the blessing of spending their lives with the
person they fell in love with.”

            He picked up a manual,
hefted it a couple of times, then dropped it to the desk with a loud bang and
turned back to Claude.

            “You know, you two deserve
each other.  You’re both pig-headed stubborn and care more about being right
than you do about being happy.  You have messed up your relationship so much
that you actually see an argument as proof that she cares.  Maybe Mom is
realizing how ridiculous that is, finally.  And maybe it’s time you woke up and
quit taking your marriage for granted.”

            Claude looked at him like he
was crazy.  Toby pretended to be hard at work, not hearing a word.

            Luke didn’t care if he heard
or not.  Toby had grown up seeing how the Tanners acted toward each other.  It
was no secret with anyone in town that they fought constantly.  Luke didn’t see
any reason to be discreet now.

            Luke grabbed his hat off the
rack by the door.  “If you were any kind of man at all, you’d be home talking
this over with your wife, instead of pumping your kid for information.  I have
problems of my own to deal with.  I don’t have the time or energy to deal with
yours.”

            He slammed the door on the
silence in the room behind him.

            He finally found her at
Tumbleweeds.  She sat alone on the stage, her head bent over her guitar,
picking out a new song.  He stood in the doorway and watched her for a few
seconds, marveling as he always did at the magic she worked with the strings.

            He wouldn’t push, he
promised himself.  He would give her the space she needed.  But he would not
let her run away, either.  He took a deep breath and thought about how he was
going to handle it.

            He didn’t realize she knew
he was there, until she lifted her head and said, “I figured since this was the
big finale for the Jubilee, we ought to work up something special.  Take a look
at the list I made there and see what you think.”