Windrow Garden Page 12

  “What are you up to?” she inquired.

  “Come on. Get in this rig. I forgot to go to town this morning and get feed for the critters,” he declared.

  “It takes two of us?”

  “Does now, sergeant. 'Sides, don’t you want a bit of free time in town? You haven’t set foot off this place in weeks. Come on, let’s go blow some of the stink off. Better hurry, too. That feed store’s likely to close iffen we don’t hurry,” Jake urged.

  “Fine, fine. Give me a second,” Nicole responded as she walked around to the driver’s door of the big truck. Settling into the driver’s seat, Nicole realized Jake was right. She hadn’t been anywhere, gone anyplace, or seen anything other than her unabridged need to be with Sally. What Jake suggested was reasonable and might do her some good. His offer for a little friendly conversation and company combined with their need to get the chores done was as good an excuse as any to go to town again.

  Nicole reached out and turned the ignition of the truck. It sparked and sputtered. She released the key, pumped the gas, and let out the choke on the old truck. She tried again, and the engine coughed, strained, and finally turned over and came to life. “Remind me to take a look at the ignition system when we get back,” Nicole said, laughing at the worried look on Jake’s face.

  “You got it,” Jake said as they rolled toward town.

  Jake seemed to fidget in silence as they approached the city limits. Nicole had been watching him for some time. She had known the old man long enough to be able to tell that something was on his mind.

  “Spit it out, Jake, before you choke on it,” Nicole braved.

  Jake glanced in surprise at Nicole’s announcement and went back to staring uncomfortably out the window. He lit a cigarette, inhaled, and let the blue smoke fill the cab. He took off his hat, scratched his head, and wiped invisible dust from the brim. Nicole’s concern for what he was holding back grew as the long seconds ticked away.

  “All right,” he said finally. “The feed store is a ruse.” He turned to face Nicole as she frowned in apprehension. “Oh, don’t look like that, we do need the feed and all. It’s just that…it’s…well, I figured it was time you and I had another snort together. See, there’s this bar right across from the feed store. Kinda a favorite place of mine. I’m buying the first two rounds,” he announced gallantly.

  “That’s it? That’s the mystery you’re fretting?” Nicole asked, feeling relief wash over her. She’d been apprehensive that something, someone, somehow might ruin or disturb the love she’d been reveling in. Healthy paranoia. That’s what she’d called it in the Army, and nothing other than Sally’s devoted attention was different in her mind in the civilian world.

  “Sergeant, if there was anything else that I had been thinking, if there was anything I disapproved of,” Jake said, “I’d tell you for sure. As it is, I’m as happy as a pig in shit.”

  “Is that a good thing?”

  “It’s a right good thing. You can bet your bottom dollar on that. The girl tells me you’re the best thing that’s happened to the farm and to her in years.” Jake grinned widely at Nicole. “I’d call that a very right good thing.”

  “Then maybe I’ll buy that first round,” Nicole said, wondering if he had any idea what he was talking about but not inclined to enlighten him more than he was.

  “No way in hell,” Jake protested. “I said I’d buy the first two, and so I will. And I’ll wrestle you for it if I have to, sergeant.”

  “No need to, Jake,” Nicole said as they pulled in front of the feed store. “I wouldn’t want you to embarrass me in public.”

  “Never happen, sergeant. You have my word on that,” Jake said as he climbed out of the truck and began yelling his needs to one of the workers standing on the dock.

  Two hours later Nicole carefully drove the loaded two-and-a-half-ton truck back into the hay barn. On mutual agreement, Nicole and Jake decided not to try to unload the truck until morning.

  The fire in the café started sometime after midnight.

  = Chapter 10 =

  Garden Chaos

  Mark Twain is credited with having said that if one doesn’t like the weather in the Midwest, just wait a few days and it will change. And it does, like clockwork. To people who merely pass through the central plains, it’s a curiosity as to why the natives spend so much time talking about the weather. It’s not because there’s a lack of conversational creativity. The truth is simpler and more pervasive than that. Natives spend much of their time talking about the weather because there is so much of it.

  Natives of the middle kingdom are acutely aware that all things, like the weather, shift. And the best way to prepare for shifting weather or fortune is to anticipate that everything has its place on the cycle, circle, or season.

  Gardeners, and all women ever born, know that little truth the best. They have seen it in their labors and have noticed it in their lives. There is very little an astute observer of life might guarantee with unwavering certainty, other than that things will change. Like it or not, the effect of the weather is a matter of perspective. Helpful rain on one field harms another. Definitions of good or bad are more matters of opinion than fact. Sometimes the turbulence of change provides an opportunity to consider or reconsider the intentions and schemes that habit has made one become attached to.

  Groundwork

  By the time the county’s volunteer fire department arrived at Windrow Garden, they found every able-bodied farmhand struggling to contain the fire. They were spraying down the blaze with every accessible garden and well-house hose they could get their hands on. The engine company joined them and worked furiously. The café flared as flames engulfed it, and they were barely able to keep the propane tank from exploding from the heat.

  Four hours later, strained and soot-smeared faces could be seen reflected in the orange glow of sunrise. The propane tank and the charred, shell-like remains of the café stood in mute testament to the night’s struggle. The paramedics who had followed the fire trucks to the scene treated the firefighters for minor burns and smoke inhalation. Near the edges of the smoldering ruins, small clusters of weary firefighters and farm residents stood in motionless dismay.

  Nicole, with her arm around Sally as Gwynn Marian clung to her mother, watched as the firefighters knocked down the smoldering remains of the café’s walls. There was nothing to say. The devastation of the fire defeated any thought before it could be uttered.

  Sally turned and looked up into Nicole’s set jaws. “I don’t know what we are going to do.”

  “Something,” Nicole said holding her closer. “Something,” she hoped fervently.

  The state fire marshal and several deputy sheriffs showed up two days later. They asked Sally for permission to rummage through the fire in an attempt to find reason and cause behind the disaster. Sally quickly agreed, knowing that the insurance company would insist on speedy conclusions in order for her to recover from the loss. At the end of the day, a stern-faced fire marshal told Sally that he was unable to immediately determine the origin but felt fairly confident that a leaky gas line had been ignited by a pilot light.

  Over the next six days following the fire, Nicole spent most of her time loading debris onto a flatbed wagon and hauling the mess of kindled wood to a pit in a nearby field. Ruined stoves, furniture, and refrigerators were hauled away by a local salvage yard. By the end of the week, with Jake’s intermittent help, she managed to have the area cleared of all but the scorched remains of the basement.

  Work on the farm proceeded as best it could under the cloud of forlorn melancholy that pervaded every act. Nicole spent her evenings talking with Sally and entertaining Gwynn Marian as Sally tried to get the farm accounts to balance toward some kind of hope. After Sally would go to bed, weary, worn, and hopeless, Nicole would sit staring at the accounts and see the stark realization that immediate recovery was slim. It was an unhappy time.

  * * * *

  Sally’s mother, Gwynn O’Conners
, arrived at the farm early the following Saturday morning and hours before the greenhouse was scheduled to open. She had no intention of starting work that early, but she had every intention of confronting what she saw as a hindrance to her daughter’s happiness. She pulled her car in front of the greenhouse and, after locking it, squared her shoulders and walked determinedly toward Nicole’s cottage. She was going to put her foot down. Sally was her daughter and she was determined not to let her throw her only chance of happiness away.

  As Gwynn passed the window next to the cottage door, she glanced in and saw Nicole moving about the interior. Gwynn took a deep breath and pounded on the door. As it opened, she looked critically at the tall, solidly-built woman who stood blinking at her in surprise.

  “Mrs. O’Conners?” Nicole asked in wonder.

  “I need to talk to you,” Gwynn responded stiffly.

  Nicole watched the older woman’s face. The woman’s stern countenance sent a stab of dread through her. “Would you like to come inside?” Nicole asked uncertainly.

  “No, not really, but I suppose it can’t be helped,” Gwynn O’Conners said as she strode inside the cottage.

  Nicole stood watching in puzzlement while Gwynn’s hard little shoes marched noisily over the wooden floor and carried her equally rigid body into the room.

  “What can I do for you?” Nicole asked, shutting the door.

  Gwynn O’Conners turned around, and her glaring, mottled face hardened in her resolve. “You can stop bothering my daughter and my granddaughter. I want you to go away from here and leave them alone. And I want you to do it yesterday. That’s what you can do for me,” she said, letting the words fall in a smothering avalanche on Nicole.

  “I’m not sure I understand…” Nicole sputtered in astonishment.

  “Oh, I think you understand exactly what I mean. I don’t have any idea what people are like where you come from, and I don’t care. This simply won’t be allowed. No, you won’t be allowed to continue to come in here and corrupt my family. I’ll see to that,” she said as she raised her voice to ever-sharper levels of belligerence.

  “Mrs. O’Conners,” Nicole began as she tried to keep her emotions under control. “I’ve not corrupted anyone. And I certainly have not bothered your granddaughter.”

  “It’s just a matter of time. You and your filthy habits, your filthy mind, and your disgusting ways. You’re trying to ruin my daughter, if you haven’t already.”

  “I’ve done nothing…” Nicole began.

  “The hell you haven’t. What decent man would have anything to do with her after you’ve touched her? My God, it’s a miracle that Donald Bradley would even think of having her, knowing what you might have done!” Gwynn raged as she stood rigidly in the center of the room as though the air itself might contaminate her.

  “Mrs. O’Conners,” Nicole began again under the stinging onslaught, “I suggest you speak with your daughter. And regardless of what you might think, I am not a monster,” Nicole fumed as she struggled to respond without letting herself walk over and slap the woman.

  “The hell you aren’t. Bradley’s shared…told me…told me…” the woman choked into silence.

  “What did he say? What could he ever fathom to say to you? And why would he want to make you so obviously disturbed and angry?”

  “To save my daughter!” Gwynn retorted. “He knows what he’s talking about, all right. He’s not a stupid man. He obviously has his ways of finding things out. But it really doesn’t matter. It’s nothing more than I suspected about you. He simply confirmed what I already feared to be the worst.”

  “I…” Nicole began.

  “Don’t…don’t you dare say a thing,” Gwynn said, cutting Nicole off. “I want my daughter to be happy again. I want her free from this ugly taint, and I want you out of here. Bradley doesn’t hold it against her. He knows she’s been lost and lonely. Easy pickings for some predatory creature like you. You took advantage of her, but you’re not going to have your way one more second, if I have anything to say about it!”

  Nicole’s head swam under the vicious attack and vile accusations directed at her by the delicate looking woman. She slowly raised her hand to stop the abuse. “Your daughter’s happiness, whatever you think that might mean, is her business, Mrs. O’Conners. Not your business and not Bradley’s. She’s an adult. Don’t you think she knows her own mind?”

  “I do not. Because you’ve twisted and confused her. You’re the one to blame here. Not my daughter. I bet you started laying your nasty little trap for her the minute you arrived here. I’ve heard all about your kind before. You prey on weakness, susceptibility, and vulnerability. You’re a scavenger, Miss Jeager. A hideous, contemptible scavenger.”

  “I’m going to ask you to leave,” Nicole said as she deliberately turned her back on the woman and opened the cottage door. She had to get the woman out of her house. If she didn’t get her out quickly, Nicole knew she would say things to Sally’s mother that she might regret later, and things that could harm Sally’s relationship with her mother.

  “Oh I’ll leave, but not before you know how precious little time you have left here. You’re going. Mark my words. Bradley has been doing some checking. He has a friend at Fort Leonard Wood. It seems that you left the Army with a bad taste in its mouth,” Gwynn said smugly.

  “If you do that, if you have him come after me, you’ll end up hurting your daughter. Think how your actions would affect her and Gwynn Marian. Why would you do that if you love her as much as you say?” Nicole ventured in shock.

  “To save her. To save her from you. To make sure that she gets a real man, a good man to love and marry, to do things for her that you’d obviously never understand.” Gwynn spewed.

  “I’m not a man. I am a woman, and I don’t want damage to come to your daughter, regardless of what you might think. And take this warning back to your banker friend: He can come after me all he wants, but if he dares to hurt either Sally or her daughter, I’ll make him wish he’d never been born.”

  “Good. He loves a challenge, but then I don’t think you can trouble a real man like that. We’re in agreement, then?”

  “Hardly,” Nicole swore.

  “But, I th-thought…” Gwynn O’Conners stuttered.

  “You’ve been doing far too much thinking by what I can see,” Nicole warned. “Thing is, you haven’t had the decency to hear your daughter out on this matter. As I said, she’s a grown woman, and she knows her own mind. I’m not sure she would appreciate your trying to run her life at this late date.”

  “You’re right. But if you step aside, and let love, not your unnatural lust, have an opportunity, I think you’ll see that Sally doesn’t need you or want anything to do with your kind.”

  “You think so?” Nicole retorted as sensations of uncertainty raised their nauseating little heads in her psyche.

  “I’d be willing to put money on it. Or would you like some money now to encourage you with your packing?”

  “No, I would not. Not now or ever,” Nicole responded as vague fears crept through her shoulders. What she was suggesting was probable. Sally had been basking in the glow of love and lovemaking. It was a far cry from the hateful, disparaging treatment she might receive at the hands of a community turned against her. The fear of losing her business, customers, and the farm, Nicole reasoned, might be enough to scare Sally back into the deepest closet imaginable. Nicole knew from Sally how she had hidden her yearnings away before. She knew how she’d locked them away to embrace the safety and security of convention. The threat of certain reprisal, Nicole worried, could be the trigger that would send her into hiding again.

  Nicole swallowed hard and let her anger seep into her voice. “You have a hard, mean-spirited little heart, Mrs. O’Conners.”

  “I’m a mother, Miss Jeager. All mothers have sharp teeth. Although I’m sure it’s not something someone like you would know.”

  “You don’t know me,” Nicole responded.

 
“Maybe not, but I certainly know all I care to. I think you’re a coward and you’re afraid my daughter will come to her senses.”

  “Mrs. O’Conners, I’m not afraid of any decision your daughter makes.”

  “Then back off. Give my daughter breathing space, time to think, and time to come to her senses. This isn’t the first time she’s flirted with someone like you. That was a mistake. This, this is a phase, and nothing more in a lonely woman’s life. And if you’re not the coward you say, you’ll give her the freedom to choose. I think you’ll be amazed how quickly and ravenously she’ll reach out for the chance at a normal happy life. You’re no comparison to what Bradley would give her.”

  “That would be a fair statement,” Nicole conceded as she bit her tongue to keep the words of love she felt for Sally from passing her lips.