The Loves of Ruby Dee (22 page)

Lonnie thought he was the better rider, but Will came off better in this game, Lonnie guessed, because his own horse was trained for calf roping, not turning. He was surprised at how well the scrub mustang could turn, and the way Will was acting annoyed him. He wasn’t used to Will acting so flashy. He let Will be the one to break off to rest.

“What’s wrong, gettin’ old?” Lonnie knew Will’s weakest point.

But Will just said, “Years bring experience, boy.”

The three of them rode until the sun started down behind the hills. They would ride a bit, then sit a bit and talk, letting the horses breathe. Every now and again, Ruby Dee would ride over to the rail and talk with the old man sitting in the car. He’d give her instruction, and she’d practice whatever he said.

Lonnie felt a stab of envy. The old man never had given him riding instruction, not like that, anyway. What the old man gave him was criticism, whenever he bothered to act like Lonnie was alive at all.

Perspiration stuck Ruby Dee’s dress to her skin, but she was having a wonderful time, and could have ridden all night. However, she felt a little guilty that Hardy was getting tired of sitting and watching something he could no longer do. And Lonnie and Will seemed on the verge of wearing themselves out, vying for her attention. She felt a little like a pulley bone from Sunday’s roast chicken, everyone tugging on her at once.

“I’ve really had enough,” she said. “I’m ready to go get a glass of ice tea.” Giving the mare a final caress, Ruby Dee left her in Will’s care and slipped behind the wheel of the Galaxie.

“You know, you were right about this dress not being a good idea,” she told Hardy as she shifted into gear. “Sweat and saddle leather have just about taken the hide off the inside of my thighs.”

Hardy looked as surprised as if she had flashed those bare thighs at him, and then a very rare grin split his face. He actually laughed, a deep, resonant belly laugh, the first she had ever heard out of him. Then he actually lifted his hand to the back of the seat, patted her shoulder, and left his hand there.

Sitting there on the back of the mustang, Will heard the old man’s laugh. It hit him hard. He watched them drive off, Ruby Dee and the old man, and got a sick, sinking feeling. Later, Ruby Dee would be taken up with reading to the old man or playing dominoes.

Here he and Lonnie had been vying for her attention like two cowboys set on proving their manhood, and still the old man was getting Ruby Dee in the end. And there wasn’t a single damn thing Will could do about it.

It all made him so aggravated that soon after Lonnie left for Harney, Will went, too...as if he could drive away from the gnawing inside of him.

He hadn’t really intended to go down to Reeves’s Quick Stop, since that was probably where Georgia would be and where he shouldn’t be at all. But he felt the restlessness churning and bubbling inside him, taking hold of him and edging out good sense. He embraced the restlessness. It was as if he were standing off and watching himself, knowing he was going to get into trouble and knowing that was the entire point of the mood. He could understand trouble.

At Reeves’s, Georgia was behind the check-out counter. She was sure surprised to see him, but Georgia never did stay surprised long.

She said, “Well, hello, Will. Haven’t seen you around in a while,” and with those words and her expression she practically invited Will to come into her bedroom.

“Hello, Georgia.” He stood there for a second, looking at her. “Where’s Frank?”

“Somewhere between here and Fort Worth with a load of cattle.” Something like memories lit her eyes, and he had to smile at her.

Then he walked to the back, got a bottle of Red Dog from the cooler and went over to the pool tables, where Lonnie was already playing with Cletus Unsell. Lonnie was so surprised to see him that he missed his shot. Crystal sat on a stool against the wall, Lonnie’s hat on her head.

Lonnie and Will paired up against Cletus and Roman Torres and played for beers. Will was rusty, but Cletus was half drunk, so Lonnie and Roman being pretty good evened things out. Will and Lonnie would win a game and Cletus and Roman would win a game, and either way the beers kept coming.

It seemed like the more beer Will drank, the better his pool playing got. The beer loosened him up, gave him the feeling he was ready for the world.

Georgia came over and shot a few balls with them. “You’ve gotten good,” Will said, standing aside with her while Lonnie made his play.

She leaned against his arm. “Frank’s gone a lot,” she murmured, and then she reached up, took his beer and had a drink, then gave it back to him.

Realizing that Georgia was unhappy with Frank suddenly made Will feel very low. He felt guilty that he hadn’t missed her, and that she seemed like she missed him.

He walked away from Georgia and over to the table where they were setting their empty beer bottles. The table was loaded with long-neck bottles and aluminum cans, twice as many cans, because Cletus was drinking from them. Cletus never had been known for having good taste. Will felt called on to point this out to him, as he got another round of beers from the cooler.

Cletus said, “And I guess you know all about taste, don’t you, Will? You got a taste of little chicky ass out at your place, don’t ya?”

“You have a nasty mouth, Cletus,” Will said, twisting the cap off his beer and tossing it on the table. “You can shut it now.”

“What’d I say?” Cletus cast Will a lopsided grin, his eyes going like a snake’s between Will and Georgia. “I’m not makin’ anything up...I’m just repeatin’ what everybody’s sayin’. And we all know how it is. It’s envy talkin’, that’s what. The only thing we’re all wonderin’ is, what do you fellas do—draw straws for turns for a piece of pussy?”

“There’s ladies present, Cletus. Am I gonna have to teach you what your mama didn’t?” Will gripped his pool stick. It would have been easy to whip across and catch Cletus upside the head.

“Oh, sure, Will. Okay. All the little chicky does is cook and clean and take care of daddy.” Then he laughed and said something to Roman that Will couldn’t hear but knew was not something he would like.

What it amounted to was that Cletus had a low mind and was envious, and Will had a low mood and wanted to fight. He was all worked up, restless as a stud kept too long next to a mare in heat.

“Aw, Will, it’s not like anyone ever listens to Cletus,” Lonnie said, trying to divert him. “Come on, I’ll bet a ten I can sink these three balls with one shot.”

Lonnie didn’t want to fight. Cletus Unsell wasn’t worth fighting with, and everyone knew it. He was one of those people who plain hated baths and work of any sort. He had never in his life held a job for more than six months, even during the oil boom, when everybody and their half-brain cousin had a job. Even the army had sent him home. In Lonnie’s opinion, Cletus was about as sorry as a man could get and still show his face in public.

Lonnie figured a better way to get Cletus to shut his mouth would be to get him drunk enough to pass out or to get him all involved in the game, either way leaving Lonnie free to keep paying attention to Crystal, rather than getting in a stupid fight and having his lips all busted up. When Lonnie got a few beers inside him, he would rather make love than fight. He considered the trait the high point of his character.

Cletus and Will continued to toss insults at each other, and Lonnie got dragged into the dang argument because he was Will’s brother and had to back him up when Roman stood up for Cletus. Roman had do that because he was staying at Cletus’s house.

“You boys go outside to play,” Georgia ordered, shoving them all outside.

“Oh, Will ain’t got the balls to come outside with me,” Cletus said.

“I’m breathin’ down your neck, Cletus, so don’t look behind you.”

The few other customers in the Quick Stop came out to watch.

As fights went, this one was a medium. Cletus was a real blowhard and got into fights with some regularity. He got Will pinned against a pickup pretty quickly and got a couple of good punches to his face. But Cletus had put away more beers than Will, and he gave out sooner, so Will managed a good blow to his midsection, which doubled him over. Will knocked him to his knees, and then all the way down and sat on him.

Lonnie and Roman really only pretended to fight, and when Will looked up from sitting on Cletus, he saw they were both sitting back watching. Crystal went over, knelt down and took Lonnie in her arms to comfort him.

“You’ve done well, my brother, in defending the honor of women everywhere,” Lonnie said.

Will breathed hard. The burning was gone from inside him, and now all he felt was tired and depressed. And old.

Cletus started hacking and choking, like he was going to vomit. “Get off me, Will.”

Will struggled up. He looked around for his hat. He felt as if he were moving in slow motion. He wasn’t drunk now, not too much anyway. He was just beat numb and depressed as hell.

At least he wasn’t throwing up, which Cletus was doing pretty good.

Then Georgia was there, saying, “Come on back to the house with me, Will, and get cleaned up.”

“No...I don’t think so.” His head felt as if ocean waves were washing through it—clear and smooth one second and foamy the next. “I haven’t sunk that low yet.”

He wasn’t aware of how that sounded, until he noticed Georgia turning in a huff. He called after her, but she kept on going back inside. Lonnie came up as Will was slipping into his pickup. “You okay, buddy?”

“I’m not so old that I can’t live through half a fight,” Will said. He touched his fingers to his lip; they came away bloody.

He dug some napkins out of the console while Lonnie said, “I didn’t say you were. You’re closin’ in on being stupid, though, fightin’ the stupidest man in Harney.”

Will closed the truck door in Lonnie’s face.

“Where in the hell are you goin’, Will?”

“Shit, I don’t know. You want to come with me? Maybe we’ll just drive over to Amarillo and get us a steak.”

He really wanted Lonnie to go with him, just to ride with him. But then Crystal was at Lonnie’s side and Lonnie was walking off with her. Will never had stood a chance with Lonnie against some pretty girl.

As he turned the pickup and headed it for the highway, he began to be aware of aching all over. He might have come out on top of Cletus, but he didn’t feel like the winner.

It made him sick to think about Georgia coming on to him the way she had. He was glad he hadn’t married her—although he didn’t think his life could be much worse off than it was at that moment. How much worse could being married to a woman with a wandering eye be than being forty-two, single and living a life of a monk in the same house with a sexy-as-hell woman and his own daddy, who still called him boy?

He went home, of course, though he didn’t realize where he was going until he got there. The light was on above the kitchen sink. Ruby Dee’s bedroom window was dark. He looked at her window for long seconds, and then he slowly slid out of the seat of the pickup and headed for the house, his hands stuffed in his pockets, his gaze on the ground.

Suddenly Sally came wiggling out of the darkness beneath the elm tree, pressing her nose against his leg for her pat. Knowing sliced through Will, and he looked up, peering across the dark yard. In the patches of light filtering through the tree from the pole lamp at the corner of the yard, he saw Ruby Dee sitting on the back steps.

“Hello, Will,” she said softly, her voice sultry as a gulf breeze.

"Hi."

He slowly walked toward her. She was wearing her pink robe, though it didn’t look pink in the dim, silvery light. He could see no color, only shades of gray. She was a small figure. Her eyes looked very large, and her hair fell in waves around her face. She had her arms draped over her bent knees. The ruffle of her nightgown and her bare toes poked out from the edge of her robe.

He stopped a few feet away. “It’s a nice night for sittin’.” With the light behind him and his hat on, he knew he was in deep shadow.

“Yes, it is...You want to sit down?” She scooted over to make room for him.

Easing his pants legs, Will lowered himself beside her. He looked down, keeping his face shadowed by his hat. He caught her scent, sweet, like roses. Roses in the hot sunshine. Sometimes he smelled that scent in the bathroom after she’d had a bath.

“Listen,” she said in a bare whisper.

He sat very still. “Coyotes,” he said. He’d heard them all his life and rarely noticed them anymore. “They’re down in the spring canyon, I imagine.”

He sensed her continuing to listen, while the sound moved further and further away. They sat within an inch of each other, though not touching. Will was so aware of her, he could practically hear her heartbeat.

He knew he should get up and go inside, just get up and go away. But he couldn’t. He wouldn’t. The wondering about how it would be to kiss her had been a long time in the back of his mind. Now would be a perfect time to find out.

Chapter 18

Ruby Dee had
been sitting there for over half an hour, hoping that Will would come. She’d imagined sitting with him in the warm summer night, with night birds calling and the cicadas chirping.

But now that Will was actually sitting right there beside her, she felt suddenly shy and a little fearful, too. Without touching him, without really even looking at him, she was aware of his virility.

He shifted, removing his hat and plopping it on a nearby bush. He dug into his pocket and came up with a cigarette. He held it up to the light. It was bent.

Ruby Dee chuckled, and then she saw his face in the silvery light. It didn’t look right—the corner of his mouth was cut, and there was a black streak along his jawline.

“Oh, Will!”

He cast her crooked grin. “It’s nothin’... just had a little altercation.”

Meanwhile her gaze was moving downward, and she saw that his shirt pocket was half ripped off and the placket was torn.

“Well, come on inside where I can see the extent of the damage and get you tended.”