Samson and Sunset (21 page)

  This was alarming. I made a mental
note to tell Shay. I didn’t even want to imagine what a wild animal
might do to these precious horses. They had become such a big a
part of our lives.

  Well, I finished up with the horses
and grabbed my jacket.

  ***

I didn’t get to the house until around 4:30.
My back was hurting horribly. As I entered the house I was sick,
just plain sick to my stomach. I stood in front of the big kitchen
window looking out, so I could put my head down in the sink if I
threw up. I was gagging.

  Yonnie came in, and asked if I was
okay.

  “I’m just sick,” I said. “I’ll be
fine.”

  To which she responded with those four
words I most dreaded:

  “Kathrine, are you pregnant?”

  “Oh, heavens no,” I told her. “I’m
just sick.”

  I went to the phone and called Mom. I
told her I was feeling ill and asked if she could come out and be
with me today. Of course, Daddy brought her out right away.

  ***

Yonnie said she’d stay until my mother got
there. I told her I was going to go soak in the tub. I was soaking
when Mom got there. She made us hot honey tea, I got out, put on
some warm PJs and we sat by the fireplace, sipping our tea and
visiting a while. I still felt sick and went to the bathroom to
throw up again, though by then there was nothing left.

  “Kathrine, are you pregnant?” Mom
asked as I came back into the room.

  “No, Mom, I’m just sick,” I said
firmly. “I want to go to bed now. Will you fix supper for Shay and
the kids?”

  I could always depend on my mom. She
spent several nights and I stayed in bed all day, with the darken
curtains shut so I could rest.

  ***

Thursday evening Mom asked if I was feeling
better, and I said probably as good as I was going to feel, so
Daddy came and got her. That night, Shay brought me some chicken
soup. After putting the kids to bed, he came to bed himself and
said through the dark:

  “Hey, I miss you, princess. I want to
do more than just hold you. Do you think you’re up for some lovin’
from your hubbin’?”

  I thought for a second. “My eyes
hurt,” I said. “As long as you don’t turn the bright lights on, you
got yourself a deal, babe.”

  Shay turned on one of the wall
sconces. It had such a soothing glow. We came together like shadows
in the dark. It was good to have Shay inside of my life again, as
he still always called our lovemaking. Two nights without Shay was
torture.

  ***

About 3:00 in the morning I was taking
another soak in the bath when Shay came rushing into the
bathroom.

  “Callie! The Straw House is on fire!
You stay here; don’t come out. There could be toxic smoke. I’ll be
back later!”

  He dressed quickly and rushed out the
door. I must have soaked another hour. Every time the water would
start to cool, I’d let some out of the drain and add more hot. I
went back to bed for a while and got up at 6:30 that morning. Shay
came in about 7:00 and showered in the mudder room. I think he was
surprised to find me up and dressed. I had decided to rally
today.

  “Well, what happened?” I asked

  “Gone,” he said, sadly. “The Straw
House is gone. It burned to the ground.”

  “I know, I can see from the kitchen
window. It’s all just ash.”

  “Guess you don’t have to look at that
old eyesore out your window anymore,” he said, sitting down.
“Still, I’m going to miss it. It was a longtime fixture of the
family.”

  “I know, sweetie,” I said soothingly.
“Well, Maggie will be happy, at least.”

  “Yeah, it’s always about what makes
Maggie happy isn’t it?” Shay said darkly.

  We had some light conversation over
breakfast. Then Shay got up and said he’d like to sleep a couple
hours. He asked me to wake him around 11:00 so he could help
Sterling when the insurance adjuster came out.

  ***

Several nights later, when Shay and I were
lying in bed, about to go to sleep, I asked him if his dad would
get enough money from the insurance to build a smokehouse where the
old Straw House had been. There had always been talk about turning
the old building into a smokehouse, and I thought it was a cool
idea. Shay said, yes, they would be getting enough from the fire to
rebuild.

  “Sterling should have burned that old
building down years ago,” I commented.

  “Yeah, it was pretty ugly,” Shay
admitted. “But if he’d have burned it down on purpose, he couldn’t
have collected on the insurance. That would be insurance fraud, and
Sterling would never do something like that.”

  Shay was right about that. Whatever
else they may have been, the Westovers were an honest family, a
proud family.

  ***

Every time I looked out the kitchen window
for the next few days, I could see the burned mess.

  “Shay, why aren’t the hands clearing
the junk away?” I asked.

  “Because first the insurance company
has to give their okay. It will be gone soon. Out of sight, out of
mind—for the rest of your life, babe! By the way, your dad called.
He’s coming to get Kelly this morning.”

  It was one of my daddy’s favorite
things to do.

  “You going to be here for lunch?” I
asked Shay.

  “Nope.” He told me that their
insurance man, Delmer Meyer, was coming out that afternoon to
finish the paperwork. “I’m just going to eat at the Big House
before the meeting,” he said.

  “I want to go with you, Shay.”

  “You don’t need to be there, princess.
It’s just family business.”

Now that hurt. Wasn’t I family? I started
crying.

  “Callie, are you pregnant?” Shay
asked, “’cause you were kind of like this when you were pregnant
with Wessy.”

  Finally, Shay realized I felt left
out. “Call Yonnie to watch Wessy,” he said. “You can come.”

  I went to the Big House at a quarter
to twelve. Shay’s car was already there. Everyone ate in the
informal eating area—Maggie, Sterling, Grandpa and Grandma Westover
were all there. The guys did a lot of reminiscing about the good
old days, inspired, no doubt, by the disappearance of the old Straw
House.

  After lunch everyone moved to the
formal dining room for tea and coffee. Around this time Delmer
Meyer and Mac arrived. Mac’s real name was Doug McMillian, he was
the Westover sheriff, and a friend of the family, so naturally he
came as well.

  There were eight of us around the big
table. Sterling was at the head; Delmer, to one side of him, and
Mac to the other. Grandpa Shannon had the head chair at the other
end of the table. I was sitting across from Shay, next to
Maggie

  “Well,” Delmer said, “I think you’re
going to be a bit surprised at the check Sterling, it’s a bit more
than we discussed because your farm is an official Nebraska
Farmstead, so it’s covered under that act now.”

  “It must be my day,” Sterling grinned,
“got rid of that old eyesore, made Maggie happy, and now, a
check.”

  As Delmer was digging in his briefcase
for the check, there was a moment of silence while everybody
waited.

  “Stop! Just stop!” I yelled, suddenly.
“I burned the Straw House down!”

  Well, all hell broke loose when I said
that.

  “What in the hell are you saying,
woman?” bellowed Sterling.

  Shay chimed right in behind him. There
was so much disarray at the table; it all became a blur. Everyone
spoke at once. Grandma Lila grabbed her chest, saying, “Oh, Lord,
no!”

  By this time I had my head buried in
my hands, sobbing.

  “Shay,” Maggie said. “Do something!
Help Kathrine. She’s falling apart, help her!”

  “Hell no,” Shay said. “What do you
mean,
you
burned down the Straw House? That doesn’t make any
sense, Callie. Tell me you’re lying. I don’t want to believe you
did this!”

  I couldn’t get control and Maggie put
her arms around me. This was the first time I had seen such
compassion from Maggie.

  “Woman, you’d better start
explaining,” Sterling said with his high, angry voice. Then Mac
stepped in and asked everyone to settle down. It took awhile, but
Mac got everyone back into their chairs. Then he brought a chair
around and sat by me.

  “Kathrine,” he said calmly. “Now, this
is very serious. We need some answers. Do you think you can tell us
what happened if everyone just settles down and listens?”

  “I don’t know,” I said shakily. “I
just don’t know if I can.”

  Mac said I had to try. I looked around
at the lynch mob facing me, including my own husband, the love of
my life, and right then I knew that life as I’d known it with Shay
was over.

  “Simmer down everyone, just simmer
down,” Mac said. He asked Maggie if she’d ask the cook to refill
everyone’s drinks, coffee or tea, and we could all have a couple
swallows, then continue. Maggie called in the cook, and she
refilled everyone’s cups.

  Mac patted my shoulder several times
saying, “Kathrine, you really owe everyone here an explanation for
what happened, don’t you think they deserve that?”

  I looked through tear-filled eyes at
Shay. I could see a mixture of disbelief, anger and disappointment
on his face. The one thing I couldn’t see anywhere, and needed to
see the most, was compassion. I took a few swallows of my tea. I
knew they had the right to know. I thought to myself, who am I?
Just a nobody who married Shay, against their better judgment, I’m
sure. So I told them everything the way it happened. I wasn’t
leaving out one detail, or sugarcoating anything. What difference
did it make now?

  “Several weeks back,” I started,
“around the middle of September, the night it had been misty from
midnight on for the next several days, Shay said they were going to
move cattle and he wouldn’t be home to go riding because it was too
slippery.

  “Well, I decided to go groom Samson
and Sunset. I wanted to be back by 4:00, my back was really
hurting. When I got to the stable, Frank was there and he told me
something about wolves and the horses. When I was through, I
grabbed my jacket and was whistling, and started to skip like I
usually do…” I took a sip of tea. My hands shook as I put the cup
back on the saucer.

  “Well, I was about six feet out the
stable door, when someone grabbed me from behind and put their hand
over my mouth. He dragged me backward toward the Straw House. Just
when he was grabbing me, the Hispanic hand that doesn’t speak
English—the one with the old green pickup—started to drive in
toward the stable. He had someone with him. They stopped fast,
backed up and left. Guess he could tell what was happening and
didn’t want to get involved.”

  Everyone’s eyes were on me. I could
barely form the thoughts in my head, I was so nervous. I took
another sip of tea and continued.

  “He dragged me into the Straw House,
through cobwebs, dirt, and old moldy straw. I could see now that it
was Frank. He threw me on the floor, in the straw, and ripped the
snaps on my blouse open, unzipped and forced my jeans down.”

  Tears streamed down my face. “He was
smelly and sweaty. He bit my breasts. He bit around one nipple so
hard it drew blood.”

  By now Shay was on his feet with a
look on his face I can’t even describe. “I’m going to kill that son
of a bitch!” he yelled.

  Both Sterling and Delmer grabbed Shay
and held him back. Sterling said, “Shay let her finish. We need to
know what happened and so do you.”

  “After God knows how long,” I
continued, “he must have gotten off on me, because he was shaking
uncontrollably, like an animal. Like he was out of his head. As he
lifted up a bit I was able to bring my knee in real fast and kick
him in the testicles. That sent him in pain to the side of me and I
was able to crawl out from under him real fast.

  “I ran out of the shed, snapping my
shirt shut as I ran. I got into the mudroom and locked the door
quickly. I didn’t even take off my boots. I was sick, so sick I was
throwing up. Poor Yonnie thought I was pregnant.”

  I was sobbing hysterically by now.

  “After I called my mom to come out, I
went right to the bathroom, where I douched six or seven times. I
didn’t think I could get clean.”

  By now Maggie was just as hysterical
as I was. Poor Lila was holding her and trying to settle her down.
I could tell it was taking all the force of two men to hold
Shay.

  I heard him say, “Let go of me, I want
to hold Callie, she comes first.”

  They did let him loose and he came
around the table and sat down in the chair that Maggie had been
sitting in. Shay was holding me with his head buried in my chest. I
could tell he was crying.

  “Like I said, I ran upstairs before
Mom got there and douched six or seven times, and I couldn’t get
clean, so I filled the tub and soaked. I washed my hair to get the
straw and stink out of it. By then Mom was there and I was just
numb. I couldn’t tell Shay because I knew Shay would kill him, and
I can’t live without Shay. Plus, I didn’t know if he could look at
me the same, knowing what had happened.

  “I stayed in bed several days,
thinking about taking my own life. Then on Thursday night Mom went
home. Shay wanted to make love, and I couldn’t let him see the
teeth marks and bruises on my breasts, so I told him my eyes hurt
because I’d been sick, and not to turn the lights on, just the
sconces; that way he wouldn’t see the marks.

  “After Shay was asleep, I kept
remembering what my daddy had always told me to do if something bad
happened. Like the time I almost drowned, he made me go right back
into the water. So I decided to go back to the Straw House and
conquer my fear. I put Shay’s t-shirt on over my bikini briefs and
went downstairs in the middle of the night. I went to the kitchen
drawer to get the flashlight, but it wasn’t there.”