“Pull out a chair and have a sit.”
Ramon did.
Tyrel cut the corn bread into large hunks and put them on a plate. He put the plate on the table, then got the butter-fresh-churned, none of that store-bought stuff-from the refrigerator. His wife had always made it before she died, but he did now because it reminded him of her.
“What would you like to drink?” Tyrel asked.
“Anything will be all right,” Ramon said.
Tyrel opened the refrigerator and peered inside. He ran on coffee all day, but he kept milk and some juice and soda pop for Don and Joanie’s kids.
“I got juice and pop,” Tyrel said.
“Either will be fine,” Ramon said. “Thank you.”
“I got strawberry pop,” Tyrel offered. “Don and Joanie’s kids seem to like that.”
“I like strawberry.”
Tyrel took a can of pop from the refrigerator and stopped himself short of just plunking it down on the table.
“You want a glass?” Tyrel asked.
“The can is fine.”
Tyrel handed it to the boy, then poured himself a tall glass of buttermilk. He sat at the table and took his hat off.
“Do you want to give thanks, senor?” Ramon asked.
The question caught Tyrel off-stride. Normally he and Ramon didn’t take meals together. Tyrel provided food, but generally food was eaten on the run, microwaved from the refrigerator, and eaten out of hand or alone.
Tyrel blinked at the teenager and felt increasingly uncomfortable. He didn’t give thanks for meals. There hadn’t been much in his life to give thanks for in a long, long time.
“If you don’t want to…,” Ramon said.
“No,” Tyrel said. “Giving thanks is all right. Your mama and daddy raised you up right. I was just forgetting myself, is all. I’m not used to eating with somebody and saying it out loud.” He hesitated. “You know the words?”
“ Si, senor.”
“Then why don’t you say ’em?”
“If you wish, but my father always reserves the right to lead prayer at his dinner table. He says it is a father’s duty to show the way to God and all things in the world.”
“Well,” Tyrel said, “I’ve always thought your daddy was a smart man. One of the smartest I’ve ever known. Now and again, I’ve told him that.”
Ramon smiled, more at ease now. “ Si, senor. Very smart.”
“But this here’s my table, and I do things a little differently. Don was always the one to give thanks.”
“Pastor Don?” Ramon grinned. Don was well liked by most of the community.
“Since he ain’t here, why don’t you do it?”
“Of course, senor. I will be glad to.” Ramon put his hands together, closed his eyes, and bowed his head.
Even though he felt like a hypocrite, Tyrel put his hands together too. He didn’t close his eyes or bow his head, though. He wasn’t that much of a hypocrite.
Ramon prayed in a strong, steady voice. All of the insecurity he had shown was gone. “God, we give our thanks for this meal and for your blessing. Thank you for the fine young horse you gave to Senor McHenry. He is beautiful. Thank you for our chance to be together today. Keep us in your sight and always guide us in your ways. Amen.”
Tyrel took a deep, slow breath and tried not to think too hard on the fact that he didn’t feel the trust the boy obviously did. God had turned away from him a long time ago. He’d accepted that.
›› 1328 Hours (Central Time Zone)
Tyrel and Ramon ate in silence. Tyrel was never moved much to talk while he ate. Eating was a chore, something to be done so he could move on to his next thing to do. But he remained conscious of the boy, and he was beginning to think he’d made a mistake to ask Ramon to stay. Tyrel still didn’t know why he’d done that.
As Tyrel had watched the boy praying, still clad in his dust-covered clothes, he’d been reminded of how many times he’d seen Shel and Don sit across that table from him. He’d watched them grow up at that table, had talked with them about the ranch and chastised them there too. But he’d missed a lot of dinners with them because there was always something to do around the ranch.
Had he attended more dinners than he’d missed? Tyrel honestly couldn’t remember, and it hurt him that he didn’t know. Then he got angry because he hadn’t been the one to choose to be away from the table on those evenings. He would have liked to have been at dinner instead of chasing cows, mending fences, or working on the equipment.
His life hadn’t gone the way he’d wanted it to in a long time. Still, the guilt even at this late date was sharp and jagged-edged. It cut especially deeply today, and he didn’t know what had caused that.
Looking at Ramon in his work-stained clothes, Tyrel remembered how Shel had been as a boy. Quiet and methodical, always giving himself to everything he’d ever wanted to do. He had constantly challenged himself and everything around him, like he could throw a saddle on the world and ride it till he had it in hand.
But listening to Ramon’s words had made Tyrel think of Don. Like his mama, Don had always been pulled toward the church and God. When he’d been young, Tyrel had been like Shel, but he’d given his Sundays to the Lord. That was how he’d met the boys’ mama. They’d gotten to know each other at Sunday school, then started dating at church socials.
When he’d gone away to Vietnam, Tyrel had known she might forget about him or give up on him. A lot of women during that time did. After the events that night at Qui Nhon, he hoped she had forgotten about him. He stopped writing her back; he started drinking and just put in his days on patrol, expecting the bullet that would cut him down and balance the scales that he owed.
But that bullet never came. And when he’d gotten back to the States, she was waiting. Despite his best intentions to turn away from her because he knew he wasn’t the man she thought she knew-and definitely not the man she deserved-he’d been drawn to her.
“Senor?”
Tyrel looked up at Ramon. “What?”
“Are you going to call Pastor Don and his family?”
“Why?”
“To tell him about the colt. You promised him you would call.”
Joanie and the kids wanted to know when the colt was born. Tyrel had forgotten that.
“The children will want to see the baby horse,” Ramon went on.
“I’ll give ’em a call when we finish up here,” Tyrel said. He felt resentful about having to do it, though. Don and Joanie knew how to keep their distance from him, but their kids didn’t. They kept trying to treat him like a grandpa.
“Good.” Ramon smiled. “They’ll like the colt.”
Looking at the boy, Tyrel suddenly missed Shel and Don when they were that age. Shel had been the fireball of the two, always in the middle of something and always pushing himself to go faster and higher. Don had been more quietly contemplative, but he’d let Shel talk him into trouble more than a few times. They’d never gotten into bad trouble, but often enough they’d gone and done when they shouldn’t have been going and doing. It was just how boys became young men.
He pushed those feelings away. He had no place for them. More than that, he didn’t deserve them. Their mama had been the real parent in the family. Not him.
He turned his attention to eating and walled away from the past like he’d done every day since Qui Nhon. He’d lost his past the night he shot that soldier, and he had denied the future every day he’d lived since.
That was the best he could do.
He’d held up for forty years doing that. If Victor Gant’s name hadn’t come at him, he was sure he could have finished out his tour on this world and been done with it. He concentrated on that and thought about the work he had ahead of him.
›› Visitors’ Room
›› Presbyterian Hospital
›› Charlotte, North Carolina
›› 1432 Hours
“See? I told you he was here.”
Don gazed across the room and saw Max lying at Remy Gautreau’s feet. Remy was busy chatting up a young woman in a neighboring chair.
“I still don’t understand how you knew that,” Don said. Over the years that Shel had been paired with Max, he’d often been amazed at the connection between the two.