This Love Will Go On (16 page)

“When can I see my name?” Kevin asked.

“Right now,” Raine said, smiling.

She swiveled around, knowing that out of the fifteen pair of bright eyes, it was Tate’s that captured her attention. The machine began its rattle and bang and soon Kevin's name came sliding out. Each child had written his or her name on a card and Raine watched those cards and tapped out the correct letters. In minutes, she finished the last name and turned off the machine.

“My name looks funny.”  Kevin was clearly disappointed.

“That's because it's the mirror image of itself. Let's put some ink on it and see what happens.”

She went to the marble table, swabbed the lead letters with an ink dauber and pressed it on the large sheet of paper she had prepared for the purpose. She held up the paper for Kevin's inspection.  He grinned.  “It’s my name.”

She was besieged by voices saying, “Do mine, do mine.” One by one, she inked each name and pressed it on a separate piece of paper, explaining that this process was called letterpress printing.  As she handed out the sheets, she cautioned the children not to touch their names after she’d inked them and to keep the lead slugs wrapped in paper.  She explained that the ink was called permanent because it was very hard to scrub off.

When she did Tate's and handed it to him, he accepted it gravely. It was a revelation seeing him with his class. He seemed quieter, more controlled.  His resemblance to Jade was overwhelming. On an impulse, she asked Tate for his name, made an imprint of it and held the paper up for the rest of the class to see. “Notice that Tate has two ‘Ts’ in his name and part of those t's rise above the letters ‘a’ and ‘e.’ That part is called an ascender. Tammy on the other hand,” she turned to a blue-eyed girl standing next to Tate, “has an ascender and a descender.  See how the ‘y’ comes below the line?”

“Why did you tell us that?” Kevin asked, his eyes tightened into a squint.

“I just thought you might be interested in how each letter is different, just as each one of you is different."

“Oh.” Kevin subsided and clutched the lead slug that spelled his name inside the paper as if it were gold.

Later after the children were shown the press and the paper folder, they got back into boots and slickers and trouped out the door.

“Thank you,” Mrs. Calhoon said to Raine.  “You've sharpened their interest in letters and words immensely. Reading is going to be much more interesting to them from now on. I only hope I can answer all the questions they're bound to think up when we get back to school.”

“If you have get any tough ones, give me a call.  I’ll be here all day.”  Then she added lightly, “I wasn't being altogether altruistic when I suggested this, you know.”

“You've been a real help with Tate, Jade tells me.”

Raine kept her voice casual. “I suppose I'm trying in a small way to undo the damage.”

“Last fall I wouldn't have thought that was possible. I worried about Tate. But now, he seems quite content.”

A cry went up from one of the children out on the sidewalk. Mrs. Calhoon raised her eyes heavenward. “I'd better go.  Thanks again.”

Doug had told Raine that casting the names of the grade school children in type was a tradition in newspaper offices around the country, but she had never done it before.  She wished she had. This would be the last year there would be schoolchildren in Verylon.  It would also be the last year she would be working in the print shop, if she didn’t do something about it.

Seeing Tate with his classmates was interesting. He'd matured so much in the last year. She wanted to be here to watch him grow, to see him turn into a man with Jade's integrity and fortitude. She had to stay. She'd tackle Julia about buying the Linotype and the press as soon as possible.

She had no chance to talk to her aunt that day. It was Friday and the children's visit had put Raine behind schedule. The time flew by and suddenly it was three o'clock and time to collect Tate from school. Since Raine was the Linotype operator, the task fell to Julia.

“Don't come back here,” Raine told her.  “Take him home and give him his snack and milk. I can finish up here by myself.”

Julia looked doubtful.  “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I'm sure. If I get a couple of uninterrupted hours, I’ll have this done by five-thirty.”  Julia agreed and hurried out the door.

Raine had just finished typesetting the last page and had turned off the Linotype machine when she heard the bawl of a calf.  She must be hallucinating. She carried the heavy galley over to the marble table and was leaning over scanning it, when she heard a calf bawl again.  She raised her head and looked out the window. There, out in the street, several Hereford calves ambled lazily.  They were the nearly full-grown kind that Jade would soon be sending off to market.

It wasn't a stampede, it was an invasion. A curious steer poked his nose at Harry's screen door and another munched on the small tree Raine had planted in a square flower box in front of the shop.

“Here, you get out of there.” She opened the door and waved her arms. The steer merely raised his head and gave her a long, unbelieving stare and went back to eating her tree. A quick look down the street told her there were at least fifty head of cattle on the loose. Some of them were grazing on the grass in the park, their hooves marring the turf softened by last night's rain. John would be furious.  She swore softly under her breath and ran back through the still open door into the shop to pick up the phone with shaking hands, thinking it was a heck of a time for Jade to be out of town.

“Sandy?"  She remembered Sandy's condition and forced her voice to a lower level.  “Where's Marc?”

“He's over on the old MacKinsey place helping them with the branding.”

“All right, thanks.”

“Is anything wrong?”

“A couple of Jade's calves are loose and wandering around town,” she said in what she knew to be the understatement of the year.  “Maybe I can get Harry and a few of the men in town to help me get them back behind the fence.”

“I can page Marc…”

“Do that.  Although by the time he gets here we'll probably have everything under control.”  A bellow came from across the street.  She hung up the phone and went to stand at her open door to see what was happening.  Harry, roaring, exploded out of his establishment to stand on his doorstep and swear at the top of his lungs at the hapless cattle, as if he could make them disappear by the very force of his shouting.  At the same time, from the opposite end of town, Jade's pickup raced up the street.  The commotion startled the steer who was making a meal of Raine's tree.  His head came up.  Panicked, he headed toward what his cow brain thought was shelter, the print shop.  He put his head down and came straight at the open door…and Raine.  Thinking only of saving herself, she jumped aside.  With the path cleared, the calf barreled right into the shop.

She ran for the safety of the desk and stood behind it, her eyes glued on the animal.  That darn calf stood eye to eye with her, switching his tail, he on one side of the desk, she on the other.  Even with her staring at him, that stupid animal didn’t have the wit to be afraid. “What have you been doing, taking lessons from Jade?” she groused.

She stayed where she was, thinking the last thing she wanted to do was spook him.  The amount of damage that eight-hundred-pound steer could do in this room of printing equipment was unthinkable.  “Now you just turn right around and get out the same way you came in,” she told the wide-eyed animal.

“And of course, he’s going to do just as you say.”  Jade came through the door, his smile half-mocking.

“Great.  Just what I need.  A critic.  If you’re so darn smart, get your animal out of here.” Jade began to walk slowly around the calf, but the calf swung startled eyes at Jade and galloped in the wrong direction, heading past the Linotype machine and squeezing through the doorway to the back room.

“Well, that’s just dandy.  Did they teach you that in Cattle Herding 101?”

“I missed the lecture that day.”

“Very funny.”  Raine was not in the mood to be placated.  “Do you know what a mess he can make back there?”  As if on cue, there was an ominous crash. Raine’s fury escalating, she ran past Jade into the back room. The steer was investigating the spilled sugar canister, lapping the white grains.

Infuriated, Raine waved her arms and charged the intruder head on.  “You get out of here.”

A hard hand clamped over her shoulder like a vise. “Stop scaring him to death unless you want him to do more damage to the place than he's already done.”

For the first time, she looked at him, really looked at him. He wore a soft suede suit in camel brown and a creamy lawn shirt. His facial skin was smooth and faintly scented with a woodsy male cologne. Jade hadn't been so close to her in months and he hadn't touched her in what seemed like an eternity.  “Let go of me,” she said huskily, “and concentrate on getting your livestock out of here.” Desperate to be away from Jade before she betrayed her clamoring reaction to his closeness, she tugged free of his grip, startling the steer.

The animal's head came up. His hooves clumped on the floor and he was off again, running in a frenzied circle. He staggered into the small table that held the stove and sent it crashing to the floor. He did a clumsy bovine dance to regain his balance and lurched against the cot.  One of the legs on the frame collapsed and the bed tilted crazily.

Raine cried, “No!” Her voice sent the steer into another agitated gyration.

“Get away from the door.  Let him through.”

Raine jumped away. The steer bounded through the doorway and ran headlong into the press. The crank snapped off and clattered to the floor and the electric cord whipped from the wall, crackling with sparks.  The blank pieces of paper awaiting the running of the press flew loose from the tray and scattered into the air.

Raine’s only thought to get the animal out before he burned the place down, she ran at him.  He turned and dodged around the Linotype machine, tripping over its heavy ropelike cord, which then popped loose from the socket with a crackle and hiss.  The ends wrapped around the animal's hock and sent him sprawling, wedging him behind the Linotype, his legs bowed outward like the warped legs of a table.

Raine erupted with fury.  Reason gone, vengeance uppermost in her mind, she picked up the push broom and brought it down on the calf's back.  The calf could only dodge his head from her clumsy brandishing.

“Get out of here, you stupid animal.  Get out!”

The calf gathered his legs under him and scrambled desperately to be away from this apparition with an instrument of death in her hands.  The wood floor was slippery with the mud from his hooves, but he got to his feet and raced to safety on the other side of the Linotype machine away from Raine.  She threw the broom down and ran after him.  Behind her, Jade gave chase.

They circled the machine once, then again.  “Raine,” Jade roared.  “Raine, stop!”

He grabbed her shoulders and brought her hard up against him.  “Stop acting like a crazy woman and use your head.  Get over behind the Linotype and keep him from circling again. I'll head him toward the door.”  His hands on her shoulders brought a shuddering reaction that stilled her.  He didn't seem to notice.

The calf came round again and halted wide-eyed in front of Raine.  Jade thrust her to one side, stepped directly in front of the excited steer and caught the animal's ear.  “You crazy fool. Get the hell out of here.”

The calf reacted to Jade's voice and touch on the tender part of his anatomy by lowering his head and shaking it hard.  When that didn't loosen Jade's grip, he braced his feet and charged, butting Jade into the wall.  Jade lay pinned and helpless and a grunt escaped him. 

Raine cried out in horror, “Let him go, Jade.”

Raine's cry startled the calf, and he raised his head.  She flung herself at the animal's rear, grabbed his tail and jerked furiously.  The calf turned his head to peer at this new menace.

“Raine, get away.” Jade's attention was divided and the calf gave one violent twist of  his head, shook himself free of Jade’s iron hold, scrambled around, and in a burst of speed, ran straight out the door.

“We’re a hell of a team, aren’t we?” Jade said, smiling.  When she gave him a shaky answering smile, he came toward her.  “Are you all right?'”

His quiet concern increased the trembling relief she felt at seeing him upright and apparently unharmed. “I wasn't the one he butted into the wall.  Are
you
all right?” In the aftermath, her knees trembled. He could have been seriously injured.

“I’m used to dealing with stupid cows.”  He moved closer, eyeing her.  “Are you telling me the truth? Do you hurt anywhere?”

She laughed nervously and gestured around the room.  “Only when I think of how much work it will take to clean this up.”

“Don't worry about the shop.  I'll make it right.”

She couldn't bear to let him see how shaken she was because of his tussle with the calf.  “If you don't get out there and round up the rest of your herd,” she told him, the mud stain down the front of his expensive jacket triggering her sense of how ludicrous it all was, “you won't have anything left to make it right with.  Your cattle are ruining John's park and if you don't get them out of there, he might decide to have a steakburger barbecue on the next Fourth of July, compliments of you.”