Hell, Yeah (28 page)

“Could be.” Cathy swallowed hard. “He’ll do for a romp every so often when he comes to town. Remember that Mark Chestnutt song about when a cowboy called old country came to town? Remember it says that she’d never been loved at all until old country came to town.”

Daisy nodded. “You satisfied with that?”

“He’s still flying and I’ve put down roots.”

“You ever been to a tree nursery?” Daisy asked.

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“They transplant those big old trees and they don’t die. I thought I’d die without my security blanket which was the Honky Tonk. Sometimes I still get the itch to bartend. When I do, Jarod takes me to this little dive up there in Payne County and I get a taste of loud country music and dancing. It’s been two months now since the last time. The urges are coming around less and less.”

Cathy started the engine and drove north toward Mingus. “I can’t do it, and besides, Jarod asked you to marry him. Travis danced with me and walked out the door without looking back.”

“Did you call out to him? God, girl, I went out to the ranch in the worst getup in the world. My house shoes didn’t even match and I told Jarod exactly how I felt.”

“Travis knows.”

“Does he?” Daisy asked. “Or does he think you’ll never leave the Honky Tonk?”

* * *

Travis flew to Dallas and boarded the two thirty flight to Portland, Oregon, where he’d have a two-hour layover and then an eight-hour flight to Anchorage.

An elderly gentleman with gray hair and a thin mustache sat down next to him. He wore a three-piece suit and a red and white striped tie. “What’s your name, son? Did you just come from a funeral?”

“I’m Travis Henry. On my way to Anchorage, Alaska. Been wanting to live there my whole life and no, I didn’t come from a funeral.”

“I’m Mason Albertson. I’m on my way home to Houston. Been visitin’ with the grandchildren. Had a wedding today and didn’t have time to change from this monkey suit into my jeans before the flight. I see you’re a cowboy by them jeans and boots. What in the hell you going to do in Alaska, son? Look on your face says you want to stay right here.”

“I’m a petroleum engineer. I sniff out places to drill for oil.”

“Ain’t your nose any good in warmer country?” Mason asked.

“It could be.”

“Guess it takes all kinds to make up the world. Some of us stay where there’s hurricanes and take our chances. Some of us live in tornado alley and wouldn’t move if there was a class five whirlwind comin’ right at us. Then there’s those like you out huntin’ an adventure,” Mason said.

“How many grandchildren do you have?” Travis tried to change the subject.

“Eight grands. Sixteen great-grands and one great-great. I’m eighty-five years old. My wife died five years ago. She’d have liked the weddin’ today. She liked gettin’ all dolled up and steppin’ out on the town. That woman loved to two-step and I believe she’d have left me for Hank Williams if he’d of lived long enough and she could have got a chance at him. Pretty as she was he might have give up that drinkin’ for her. I was a lucky man.”

“Sounds like you got a nice family,” Travis said.

“I do and I did. Had the best of both worlds. When Gracie was alive I was the king of the mountain. Now I’m all alone with my memories, but let me tell you they’re fine memories,” Mason said. “You married?”

Travis shook his head. “No, sir.”

“What’s her name?”

“Who?”

Mason poked him on the arm. “You know who. The one you let get away here lately. What’s her name?”

“What makes you think I let one get away?”

“Son, your face is a picture of sadness and you tell me you are off on an adventure so it ought to be happy as hell. Only a woman could put that hurt in your eyes and you’re about to make a mistake. Alaska is too damn far from Texas.”

“Cathy. Her name is Cathy.”

“Why ain’t she goin’ with you?”

Travis looked out the window so long that Mason figured he wasn’t going to answer the question.

“She owns a beer joint in a little town and she loves it. She says she’s not ever going to leave it,” Travis said without looking back.

“You ask her?”

Travis shook his head.

“How’d you know she won’t leave it if you don’t ask her? Maybe she didn’t plan on leavin’ it until you come along. Maybe she changed her mind but she’s too much of a lady to ask you to take her with you. Maybe she wants you to stay close by rather than runnin’ off to dig up frozen dirt in Alaska,” Mason said.

“I didn’t have to ask. I know the answer,” Travis said.

“Young folks today sure are different than we were. We wanted an answer, we asked the question. We didn’t sit around lookin’ like the world was about to come to an end,” Mason said. “I’m going to take a nap. If I don’t hear the captain tell us to buckle up for the landin’ you wake me up.”

Travis nodded.

Mason was wide awake when they landed. When they were off the plane and everyone was meeting someone in the rush, Mason sat down in the nearest chair. “My daughter is comin’ to get me. She ain’t never been on time for anything in her whole life. I reckon she’ll be late for her own funeral. You got to rush or you got a few minutes to spare?”

“I got two hours. Want a cup of coffee? I’ll go over there to the McDonald’s place and get us a couple,” Travis said.

“And two of them little apple pies?” Mason asked.

“You got it.” Travis didn’t have to wait in line. He gave the girl his order and she took his money. It reminded him of filling a bucket with bottles of beer and hurriedly making change so he could move on to the next customer.

He carried the coffee and pies to the seats Mason had chosen and they ate and sipped coffee while they watched the people hurrying from one place to the other.

“So what does your Cathy look like?”

“Classy. Six feet tall. Blond. Pretty blue eyes. The color of steel and they can look right into my soul. She was kidnapped a couple of weeks ago,” Travis said.

“Tell me about it. Old man like me likes to hear stories.” Mason finished his pie and sipped his coffee.

Travis told him the story and Mason slapped his leg and guffawed at the part about putting the curse on Oscar and Duroc. “Then she marched into the place where her ex-boyfriend works and knocked the hell out of him and walked out just as classy as when she walked in.”

Mason frowned. “And you let a woman with that much spunk get away from you? Man, you got empty space that should be filled up with brain cells. How’d you ever get to be a hotshot oil man anyway?”

A tall dark-haired woman touched Mason on the shoulder. “Daddy, I’m sorry I’m late.”

“No you ain’t. If you was, you’d be on time. Besides, if you’d a been on time I would’ve missed the best story I’ve heard in years. Travis, this is my daughter, Mary Lynn. This is my new friend who might be the dumbest man on earth, Travis.”

Mary Lynn laughed nervously. “He’s always picking up a new friend. Pardon him for calling you dumb.”

“He’s probably right.” Travis’s tone was filled with gloom.

“You don’t have to keep that title. You can give it away if you want. Thanks for the coffee, the story, and the pie… and enjoy Alaska,” Mason said as Mary Lynn led him away.

Travis checked his watch every fifteen minutes and was ready to board at the right time only to hear an announcement that his flight had been delayed thirty minutes. Was it an omen? Another half hour for him to change his mind?

At five o’clock a lady in uniform appeared at the desk and the announcement was made for passengers with small children and those who were handicapped to board first. Travis waited until she called for the rest of the passengers. He shut his eyes and saw Cathy in those flannel pajamas in the hotel in Jefferson, Texas. He took a deep breath and caught a whiff of her perfume. He’d take the memories with him and hope they’d fade in a few years.

He boarded the plane. No one sat next to him so he wouldn’t have to listen to another Mason telling him that he was making a big mistake. That was definitely an omen that he was doing the right thing. He buckled up and waited, then the captain’s voice came over the speaker.

“I’m sorry but there has been a complication and we will be getting off this plane. In an hour we will board another jet. We are sorry for the inconvenience,” he said.

Travis took his carry-on bag from the overhead and went back out to wait another hour. He bought another pie and cup of coffee at the McDonald’s and sat in the corner away from anyone who might try to talk him out of going.

* * *

Cathy and Daisy worked behind the bar together that night. Jarod sat at the end on what had been his favorite bar stool back when he was falling in love with Daisy. It was still hard for him to believe that Daisy had given up her precious beer joint and married him.

The first guitar licks from the jukebox caused several women to yell “hell yeah” as they jumped up and hurriedly lined up for a dance. Daisy yelled with the rest of the crowd when Gretchen asked for a big hell yeah from the redneck girls like her.

“You still got your Christmas lights on like Gretchen sings about in the song?” Cathy asked.

“You bet I do and I plug them up when I want to,” Daisy said. “Remember what you said on my wedding day when I gave you the motorcycle?”

“I said ‘hell yeah’,” Cathy said.

“You ever going to be that happy again?”

Cathy shook her head.

The dancers were thirsty after a couple more fast songs and hit the bar for buckets of beer and pitchers. Cathy noticed that they were down to their last tray.

“I’m going to gather up trays. Be back in a minute,” she told Daisy.

She made it to the middle of the dance floor when Elvis’s started singing “I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You.” She shut her eyes and swayed to the music, remembering the night when Travis danced with her after hours.

When she opened them he was coming right at her. His eyes locked with hers. She blinked a dozen times but every time she opened them he was still there. If the fool didn’t stop he was going to plow right into her. Maybe he was just an apparition like she’d seen so many times the past few days; just a hologram that would walk right through her and keep going.

He stopped inches from her. Every nerve ached to lean forward and feel her heart beat, touch her lips, push that strand of blond hair back from her cheek. He looked deeply into her eyes and saw his future all the way to the end of his life.

She was afraid to breath for fear he would disappear but she had to know if he was real. She wrapped an arm around his neck and touched the curls on his neck. They felt real. She took a step forward and pulled his lips to hers for a long, hard, passionate kiss which left no doubt that Travis was not an apparition. When the kiss ended, he looped both hands around her waist and began to two-step to the music, singing the words softly in her ear as they danced.

Tinker made his way over to the jukebox and unplugged it the minute the song ended, then swiftly plugged it back in so that whatever songs had been bought were erased. He quickly fed money into the slot and replayed Elvis’s song twice more.

Travis winked at him and kept dancing. Everyone in the place made a circle around the couple and Elvis’s voice was the only one in the Honky Tonk that evening as two hearts melted together.

When the last words were sung and the last piano note faded, Travis Henry dropped down on one knee and looked up at Cathy. “Will you marry me, Cathy O’Dell? I don’t want to live without you.” He raised his hand and there was a diamond engagement ring sparkling on the first knuckle of his pinky finger.

“Hell yeah,” she whispered.

Amos leaned back in his chair in his Dallas office the next morning. “Well, it damn sure took you two long enough to figure things out. Sit down and let’s talk. I thought for a while I was going to have to bring that engineer home from Alaska.”

“Why’d you send me if you already had someone there?” Travis asked.

“To see if you’d really leave Cathy. If you did then you didn’t deserve her. And to see if you came back if she’d leave the Honky Tonk. From the look on your faces and that ring on your finger, Cathy, I expect that you are?”

She smiled. “Yes, I am.”

“Larissa buying it?”

“Can’t sell it, Amos. That would be like taking money for my child. I’m giving it to her just like Daisy gave it to me.”

Amos nodded seriously. “Not a very good business deal but I can understand. Ruby would like that. Now let’s get down to business.”

“I’ll resign if it’ll make it easier,” Travis offered.

“Hell, son, I ain’t lookin’ to fire you. That’d be cuttin’ off my right arm. What I’m thinkin’ is this. I’ve got a little office in Shamrock, Texas. My office manager is retiring in a month. You ready to settle down?”

Travis nodded. “Is there a beer joint close by for sale or are we going to have to build one for Cathy to run?”

“Cathy?” Amos asked.

“That office got room for an accountant? I reckon I’d be satisfied for this cowboy to dance me around a honky tonk floor once in a while. I wouldn’t have to own one.”

Travis squeezed her hand. “You can own one if you want. I’m not a bit ashamed to say my wife is a bartender. Hell, I’ll even help you run it after hours.”

“I think I’d just as soon close up shop at five and have you all to myself after that,” she said.

“Okay, then, here’s the deal. You are both hired to run my Shamrock office. Get in there and get your feet good and wet and I’ll sell it to you in one year if you like the area. If not, then I’ll move you to another place until you find one you do like.”

“Why would you do that?” Cathy asked.

“Ruby Lee should have married me. If she had you and Daisy could have been my children. You both have her spirit. Travis is already like a son. You are just getting your inheritance while I’m alive instead of after I die,” he said.

“Thank you, sir,” Travis said.

Cathy jumped up and hugged Amos, tears running down her cheeks and wetting his shirt collar. “And you’ll walk me down the aisle like you did Daisy?”

“Of course, I will. In the Honky Tonk?”

“Hell yeah!”

* * *

They were married two weeks later with all the old crowd and the new like the past and future blending together. Chigger and Jim Bob, along with the rest of the Walker clan and Chigger’s mother, who declared that she’d had something to do with Cathy and Travis finding each other. The rig crew was there and Tessa, the office lady who was already a regular at the Honky Tonk. Daisy and Jarod flew down in the McElroy plane. Larissa insisted that she was officially taking over the bar that very day.

Daisy, Larissa, and Cathy waited in the apartment for Amos to come in and tell them that it was time to begin the ceremony. Larissa and Daisy both wore bright yellow satin gowns and carried a single calla lily tied with long yellow ribbons. They sat at the kitchen table while Cathy paced the floor.

“I can’t believe I’m a bridesmaid,” Larissa said.

Daisy smiled. “I can believe I am. Only thing that surprises me is that it happened so quick. Took me seven years. Cathy caught my bouquet and I knew I’d get to stand up with her someday.”

Cathy stopped at the table. “I didn’t catch the damn thing. You gave it to me.”

“And it worked.”

Larissa held up her hands. “Don’t you dare throw yours at me. I’ve found my happiness right here in Mingus in this bar and I’m not leaving it for any man. Which reminds me, I’ve got something for you. It’s in your suitcase in a big manila envelope.”

“What is it?”

“You couldn’t sell me the Honky Tonk because it was your baby. Well, your wedding present is this beautiful old restored two-story house in Shamrock not too far from the office. I didn’t figure y’all would want a staff or grounds so big that you’d have to spend all your time mowing and weeding so I only bought two acres with the house. The keys and deed are in there.”

“Holy shit!” Cathy said.

“I’m not sure if angels shit, but if they do, it’s probably holy.” Larissa laughed.

Cathy hugged her. “You’ve almost made me cry.”

“If you do I’ll take back my present. Daisy spent too long on that makeup for you to be messing it up. Fill up those five bedrooms with kids. All three of us know it’s not any fun being an only child.”

Amos poked his head through the door. “It’s time. Now, ain’t you all lovely. I swear y’all are all three just like daughters to me.”

“Even me?” Larissa asked.

“Yes, you,” Amos said and offered his arm to Cathy.

The bride wore an ivory brocade sheath with lace cowboy wedding boots and a circle of red roses in her hair. Her hands shook when Amos walked her through the door and across the dance floor to give her hand to Travis in front of an arch covered with ivy and red brocade bows in front of the pool tables.

Was she doing the right thing? Would she regret her hasty decision? Would she miss the Honky Tonk?

She looked into Travis’s eyes and every single doubt disappeared. Her future was with him, not in an old weathered building with a bar and two jukeboxes.

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here this fine afternoon to join Travis Henry and Cathy O’Dell in holy matrimony,” the preacher began.

After vows were said and rings exchanged the preacher told Travis that he could kiss his bride. He led her to the very spot where he’d kissed her the first time and the long hard kiss he put on her lips had everyone in the place whooping and clapping.

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you back.”

“How long do we have to stay?”

“Until Chigger’s Momma and Jezzy say we can go. Don’t worry, darlin’. We’ve got the rest of our lives together.”

“That’s just barely long enough,” he whispered.

“But we’ll make every minute count, won’t we?”

“Hell, yeah!” He grinned.

The End