Thunder In Her Body (44 page)

The group stood there in stunned silence as Lucinda cried the tears of desolation that all mothers know when their child is in trouble.

Lynette looked up at Blaze.  He saw the expression on her face.  She was constructing something – a way to help Lucinda and her son.  “Lucy, I’ve got a house full of furniture, some of it just waiting to put into the new house,” she said, with her mind working – problem solving.  Blaze knew what she was about to suggest, and he tagged into it.  “You can –
we can
buy all new furniture for the new house he said,” confidently.  “You’re gonna want a different kind of furnishings anyway,” he continued.

“Lucy, I’ve got three full bedrooms.  There’s a king-size bed in one, a queen-size bed in the second, and a twin bed in my office.  My couch is like new because I recently had it reupholstered.  There’s a full dining room set, book shelves, TVs.  I…I don’t…” she stuttered, looking up at Blaze.

“I’ll have to clear out my china and stuff, but…there’s a whole house full of furniture just waiting for someone, Lucy,” she said in a calm, soothing way.

“It’s nice furniture,” Blaze added.  “
Lynn has taken good care of it.  And I can tell you that the king-size and the queen-size mattresses are perfect,” he said with a sly smile.

“Hush, bad ol’ man,” Lynette said, waving him away with a laugh.

“Lucinda, does your son own just his cab or does he own his whole rig?” Lynette asked.

“He’s paying for his whole rig.  He doesn’t own it outright,” she responded.

Both Aaron and Blaze knew where she was going with this question.

“I can go back to
Austin, clear out all the personal stuff.  If he can drive to Austin, and maybe bring someone with him, he can load up the entire household, and drive it back to Tucson in his own truck,” Lynette said, a bit of excitement rising in her voice.

“I’ll buy his gas,” Aaron offered.

“
We’ll
go back to Austin,” Blaze added.  “You’re not going to do all of that by yourself,” he added protectively.

“Hey,
we
makes three, ‘cuz this is as good an excuse as any to be with Clare,” Aaron added.  “I’m goin’ too!”

Lucinda climbed down off her stool and started to get down on her knees, but Blaze quickly pulled her back to her feet.

“Don’t ever do that.  We are your friends.  You are a part of my family.  Don’t ever do that,” he said lovingly, but with a tone of sternness.  Blaze was a proud man, from proud people.  He did not want one of his own on her knees to him.

The first phone call was to Lucinda’s husband.  She conducted the call in Spanish, but everyone knew what she was saying.  Blaze and Aaron were fluent in Spanish and Lynette could catch snatches of the conversation from her years as a social worker.  The phone call to the son was made.  The full offer was discussed.  Her son would meet them in Austin three days from then.  Aaron caught Clare at work, as he walked toward his bedroom to talk privately.  Blaze told Lucinda to take the day off – “go home and comfort your husband,” he said to her like a son to a mother.  Every minute that her husband was alone, was wasted time in a family crisis like this.  They needed to hold each other, to get through this together.  That was the way Blaze believed.  That was the way he and Lynette would live.

Blaze and Lynette drove out to the fields to find Maurice or Hawk. She packed up the plump little puppies and put Suzie Q and Rusty up in the truck, to take down to the bunk house.  They would be in charge while the three-some were on the road again.

Very early the next morning, they turned the Chevy Cobalt around and pointed her east again for the ten hour drive.  They stopped in Artesia, New Mexico for a coffee break, lunched in San Angelo, Texas, bought ribs and chicken at Cooper’s Barbecue in Llano, and rolled into Austin, about 7 pm, tired but with a mission.  Clare met them at Lynette’s house and they ate at Lynette’s shiny, pecan-wood dining room table for the last time.  Lynette was a little nostalgic as she remembered all the good meals and good times had at that table.  Clare spilled more of her stories about Lynette, and they laughed.  It was good to laugh here.  This house had heard tears at times, but it had ultimately been a happy house.

With care, and some joy, Lynette packed the boxes Blaze purchased at the U-Haul storage place.  She decided to send almost all the bed linens for the three different size beds; sheets, pillows with cases, blankets and comforters.  She had more than enough towels; peach color in the hall bathroom and blue in her bath.  The blue ones were the best so she packed those on top.  Blaze packed out the kitchen with all but a few of the pots and pans she wanted to keep.  The box with the every-day dishes, serving pieces and miscellaneous cooking items was so heavy, they just pushed it to the side in the kitchen.  She hoped Lucinda’s boys were strong.  Her china, and especially those pieces that had been her grandmother’s, she packed carefully, and put them in the trunk of the red car.

As the huge 18-wheeler clamored to full throttle and roared off down the street full of a life’s collection of her possessions, she waved to Lucinda’s strong and handsome sons, who had shown her such gratitude.  There was a sadness that tried to creep over her, but she wouldn’t let it.  She wasn’t loosing everything she’d ever had; she was giving up the past in a way that made her joyful.   There would be children sleeping safely in her beds by tomorrow night; snuggled under fluffy, warm quilts and pretty comforters.   Surely there would be laughter again at her dining room table.  In time, maybe they’d fill the huge pecan china cabinet with cherished items, as she had.  And hopefully, Lucinda’s son would hold his wife, and lie in her king-size bed making love, as she and Blaze had done.  Maybe they’d, too, be listening to Alabama’s
Feels So Right.

C
HAPTER 30

¤

The October Incident

I
t was now mid-October, one of the most beautiful times in the Asombroso Mountains.  The nighttime temperatures at the lower elevations slipped into the high 30s with days restored to the low 60s.  Responding to nature’s demand, the aspens turned brilliant yellow, and began to shed their leaves in preparation for the long sleep of winter.  There was a stillness about the hills, as everything waited for the first snows of the season.  The village council looked with anticipation for an excellent ski season upon the mountain.  The ski shop owners intently watched the long-range weather forecasts, to determine when they should begin to increase their inventory.  If Mother Nature was good to the people of this immense mountain, the slopes would open on Thanksgiving and the economy would, again, be bolstered by families filling the hotels and rental cabins.  Single, youthful men and women in their ski coats and boots, would stand in line to have their turn on one of the many lifts.

Lynette waited for the first inkling of snow on top of
her
mountain.  Though she enjoyed the view of Asombroso all year, she thought
she
– the mountain – was at its most splendid when the snow fell, crowning just the top third of the peaks.  Sometimes, she looked at the mountain with binoculars, certain she saw some icy dusting.  At other times, she just sat and watched the sun change the colors of the peaks, or the clouds dip down and play peek-a-boo with the summit.

All of the walls, windows and roof were permanently installed on the cabin now.  The electricians had been in boring holes through which the wiring would run.  Blaze insisted on a security system throughout the house.   He had it wired for the computer and cable, if they ever got cable out that far, plus a total home stereo unit.  The huge stone fireplace in the Great Room and the smaller Kiva version in the master bedroom were finished.  Workmen began to lay the tile in the bathrooms and the hardwood flooring had been delivered in long, flat boxes.   Blaze and Lynette often walked through the work-in-progress together, checking to make sure everything was done to their specifications.  On this day, Lynette stood looking out the bay-windowed wall in the “Owners Suite.”  Blaze eased up behind her in that silent way he had.  He slipped his arms around her waist and hugged her tightly.

“Do you think you’ll be happy here, my wife?” he asked jokingly.

“Here in your arms, here in this room, here in this house?” she replied, “for the rest of my life, Dear One, for the rest of my life,” she responded.

Lynette had chosen the style of kitchen cabinets, which would be made from pieces of Blaze’s downed or burned trees.  Rather than smooth, one-piece faces, they would be constructed with vertical seams in a picture-frame type effect.  This would allow for the least waste of tree materials.  The handles and knobs took more time to select than the design of the cabinets, but she finally chose black, wrought iron door pulls and knobs.  Blaze liked the careful way she selected items.  Wherever possible, she wanted recycled products.  She scoured old blacksmith shops, antique stores, and even drove out to estate sales, hoping to find bargains and things that would make their home something special and ecologically friendly.  That’s how she came upon the wrought iron door pulls for the kitchen.  She found thin strips of rusted wrought iron at a junk store off a secondary highway in the middle of nowhere, which she had a blacksmith bend and shape into stylized “S”s for Snowdown.  He sprayed the dozens of handles and knobs with a sealer to insure that they would never rust again, and then finished them with two coats of a shiny black paint.

One would have thought she had a box of gold bullion the way she brought the heavy box into the living room of the ranch house.  It was heavy, so she tied a rope around the box and dragged it like a kid pulling a snow sled.

“Look what I’ve got,” she called out to the men proudly.

Blaze and Aaron sat in the living room, near a raging fire in the large Kiva fireplace.  They appeared concerned about something, and though they acknowledged Lynette’s joy, something was wrong, and she knew it.

“What’s wrong?” she asked after taking off her coat.  There was a long, pregnant silence.

“You might as well tell her,” Aaron told Blaze.

Blaze sat on the edge of one of the couches.  He patted the cushion next to him
.

“Come on and sit down here, Honey.”

Lynette eased over to the couch and sat next to Blaze, looking across at Aaron who had a distinct look of worry on his face.

“What is it?  The puppies, the house, my mother – what is it?” she asked insistently.

Blaze hesitated.

“Beverly and Patrick are in the area,” he said slowly.  “That only means trouble.  Every time they show up, its trouble.  They want money.  They’re both crack and meth addicts and they cause trouble.  Over the years I gave them what they wanted and they left the area.  The last time, about two years ago, I had to have ‘em arrested for theft and mayhem.  They stole my truck and trashed it after they couldn’t sell it to another drug dealer.  They tried to exchange it for drugs and money to get across the border.  That’s why I’ve got the one I have.  I had to buy a new one.  I told ‘em that if they ever set foot out here, I’d shoot them like rabid skunks.”  Blaze’s eyes grew small and dark when he said, “…and they know I mean it.”

Aaron spoke up.

“I’ve notified the sheriff’s office and they’ll keep an eye out this way.  The police already have a look out for them.  We shouldn’t have any problem here.  It’s when me or Blaze go into town, that there might be a problem. “

“Then stay out of town for awhile,” Lynette urged.

“They may hang around for a couple of days, maybe weeks.  We can’t be hostages in our home because of that trash,” Blaze said angrily.  “But they’ll call.  You wait and see.  They always want more money.”

“I’ve already talked to Hawk and Maurice.  Now I’m telling you both,” Blaze said to Lynette and Aaron.  “I don’t want you goin’ anywhere by yourself as long as they’re around here.  If you have to go over to the log cabin, somebody will go with you.  Or you call Alberto on his cell phone, and have him or one of the guys to come and get you.  If you need to go into any of the towns around here, you do it with someone driving you.  I’ll stop anything I’m doing to take you wherever you need to go, but do you understand me when I say you are not to go anywhere alone?” he said, raising his voice uncharacteristically.

“Yes, Sweetie, I do,” she said a bit shaken by his tone and manner.

“And Aaron, I don’t want her left alone at any time, ya hear?  If I’m not here and you have to leave, you call me on my cell phone.  Can’t nothin’ be so urgent that you can’t wait until I can get back over here,” he said, in a way that Aaron knew he was deadly serious.

Later that night, Blaze rolled over and held Lynette very tightly but he didn’t say anything.  Lynette wasn’t naïve.  She’d been a social worker. She’d worked with chemically addicted people long before crack cocaine and methamphetamine became an epidemic; when morphine and heroine were the common scourges.  But she’d read and heard enough about it to know how crazy those addicts could be.  So she didn’t have to ask why they should be cautious.  When Blaze finally spoke, he said, “If they contact me, I’ll just give them whatever money they want like I’ve done before, and they’ll be out of our lives for another couple of years,” he said matter-of-factly.