RAIN DOGS
BURN
DIRT
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RAIN DOGS
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The offices of Tyler & Tyler sat next to a taxidermy shop with a stuffed coyote in the window. The taxidermist had the bigger awning.
Standing curbside, Tom Coleman considered the attorneys he knew. None had a grip like George Tyler Jr.’s: blunt, callused, crusted with sun spots, knuckle hair like steel wool. He almost said uncle.
“You made it, Tom.”
“Sorry to drop in on you.” He was supposed to have arrived three days ago. Tom wasn’t completely sure what he was doing here now. Yesterday had been his daughter’s fifth birthday, and he’d spent it in a twenty-dollar motel room. Today he felt a dead coyote watching him through cloudy glass. “I should have called.”
“Never mind that, son. Glad you’re here. How was the drive?”
“Long,” Tom said. “But fine.”
“Any trouble finding the place?”
“No trouble.”
Tyler must have been pushing seventy, but he didn’t seem to notice. His weekday business attire appeared to run toward stiff dark blue jeans and Tony Lamas. Tom had caught him on the way out, zipping a windbreaker against the sunny March chill.
“Well, welcome to the Heart City.” Tyler nodded down the empty sidewalk, the quiet street. Downtown Valentine. “Don’t guess it’s quite the speed you’re used to in Chicago.”
As Tom started to respond, a big eighteen-wheeler rumbled past, heading for the highway junction at the end of Main. He started again and was defeated by a pickup pulling an empty horse trailer.
He gave up and nodded at the key ring on Tyler’s finger. “Is this a bad time? I can come back.”
“Do what? Nah. I was just headed down the street for a bite. You hungry?”
Tom wasn’t. Hungover. Getting thirsty. But not hungry.
“Hell, it’s early for lunch.” Tyler clapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s go on in. We’ll get the boring stuff out of the way.”
It sounded like a plan.
There were papers to read and sign. Tom pretended to read them and signed.
They sat in Tyler’s office, one of three small rooms off a small reception area that smelled like new paint. Tyler had a scarred wooden desk cluttered with file folders, a bookcase of legal volumes, a few trout flies in shadow boxes on the walls. They had the place to themselves.
“I’ll have Judy get you copies. She comes in Thursdays.”
“No rush.”
“That one at the bottom.” Tyler pointed to another sheet. “There you go.”
Tom scribbled his signature one last time and slid the entire folder back across the desk. His grandfather’s executor took the folder up, tapped the spine on the desk, and set it aside.
“I wish he’d gotten a few more years,” he said. “Your granddad.”
“He wasn’t too old.” Tom felt like he should say something else, but he didn’t know what.
“Besides the trick pump, I don’t know anything would have killed him. He was a character.”
“Is that the legal term for cranky old bastard?”
Tyler barked a laugh. “Tough as a whip and half as personable, George Senior always said. But I liked him. He was a good man.”
“To tell you the truth, Mr. Tyler, I didn’t really know him all that well.”
As a kid, Tom had spent one summer out here, in the Sandhills, hours west of the Nebraska he knew. He’d earned an allowance doing chores on a cow/calf operation his grandfather had owned at the time. This was several years before his grandmother gave in early to the same cancer that killed Zevon and McQueen. He’d been eleven or twelve years old.
Beyond that summer, twenty-odd years ago, he’d only seen the man on a handful of occasions. Most of what he knew about Parker Coleman he’d gotten through stories from his dad and uncles. He hadn’t even attended the funeral.
“You could say this is unexpected.”
Tyler nodded. “That’s more or less the way your dad put it.”
“Oh?”
“We spoke a bit on the phone the other day.”
“I see.”
“Guess they were thinking of coming out to surprise you. Your mom thought you might use some help settling in.”
Tom sighed. It was a six-hour drive from Lincoln; he’d already told them not to bother. “I should have called.”
Tyler now wore a small, humane smile. Tom knew what was next.
“Son, I can’t say how sorry I was to hear about your little girl.”
“Thank you.”
“I have a niece in Dallas. She and her husband lost a boy the same way.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Tom said. “I truly am.”
“It’s an awful thing.”
“Is there anything else I need to sign?”
Tyler lingered a moment and shook his head. “Nope, we’re done. One last thing.” He picked up a plain white envelope and handed it across. “Your granddad left instructions to pass this along when the time came. Guess that’s now.”
Tom held the sealed envelope to the light. He tore off an end and slipped a single sheet of lined notebook paper from inside. The paper still had an edge of fuzz where it had been ripped from a spiral binding. He unfolded the page and saw lines of spiky blue ink, one running bulk of a paragraph. The man had written it just over a year ago.
Thomas,
You’re burying your little one today. Expect your heart is broke and I’m goddamn sorry as hell. Like to say I wish I was there but I don’t. Older I get the less I can stand people. Guess this river is probably the best place for an old rain dog like me. Maybe you don’t want a goddamn thing to do with it. Anyway, you get the land and the buildings and the truck, do what you want. I’m in the ground either way. Don’t have much else to say. Good luck to you, boy.
PC
He read the note a couple of times. When he was finished, he didn’t know how he felt. He didn’t know how he was supposed to feel. He looked up and found George Tyler Jr. watching him.
Tom said, “Truck?”
“Sorry?”
“There’s a truck?”
“Your granddad’s pickup. Didn’t I mention it?”
Tom couldn’t remember if Tyler had or hadn’t.
“Well, there’s a truck. Can’t promise it’s much of a truck, but there’s a truck.”
“Oh.”
After a few moments of silence, the attorney rose. He opened a drawer, took out another ring of keys, and said, “Guess you’re probably anxious to go have a look at the place.”