More Things in Heaven and Earth

A boy. No, a man, a young man, blue dawn across his fluttering eyelids. Out his open window, purple and gold through the mesquite tree. Yucca flowered breeze. Iron smell of pumped water. Bird chittering. Flitting silhouettes. Swoop and dip, swoop and dip, choreographed dancers in a stillborn sky. Raven-guttering from the corrugated barn roof, an eerie echo reverberating across the valley

Awakening slow, with a shuddering yawn, blissful dreams of boyhood tugging. Another raven’s cry, pulling him out all the way, and remembering returns, panic and dread gallop through his gut. The urge to run and never stop.

The young man, no more than a boy, the biggest landowner in Texas. All this, his now. 

To manage all alone.

Before trying, though, this long day before him. This terrible, long day.

Black suit laid prim on the chair, a corpse in the growing light. Lydia, steady, always one step ahead. Lydia, in the kitchen now, bacon and eggs frying and coffee brewing, enough food and drink for ten laid out in the dining room. Same as always, her “Come and get it, or I’ll throw it out!” ringing through the empty house. Just the two of them at the table this now. 

Suddenly, black clouds darkening skies over the eastern mountain range, then silver sheets of rain tearing across his plains, his valley, the bowl of his world filled with tears. The land’s grief.

Greater and wider and deeper than his. 

---

“This man.” Preacher, choked up, shaking head in disbelief, anguish. Real or feigned, not clear to the boy, his father a rare churchgoer. “A great man. Struck down in his prime. God’s will, my dear congregants. Such a mystery.” Eyes heavenward. Lightning, on cue. 

A show of God’s wrath, or God’s pain?

Eulogies. Too soon, his turn. All eyes on him. Even Preacher’s. Even God’s.

Before rising from the hard pew, Lydia’s blessing, a warm smile, a squeeze of his hand. So sweaty, his palm, though the air is cold. So cold. 

Stepping up to the heavy oak podium…what to say before everyone and God? In the few days since his father’s death, restless and sleepless, mind flapping and frozen like a damp sheet in a February wind. Not the truth, surely, of his father’s swaying, slurred goodnights from the doorway when the boy was too young to put himself to bed, the rages and near fistfights when the boy closed in on manhood. The broken-down scarecrow at the breakfast table, spicing up his coffee with just a little tot from his hip flask. Not those things, surely.

But. Maybe one thing. Maybe this one good thing, held tight, cocooned like a desert grass seed in his darkest heart. Give it to them and have nothing left, sure. But don’t, and stand mutely and wither and disappear under the curious onlookers’ gazes. 

His story, not about the façade they think they know, the wealthy man, the good rancher, tough but fair. Not a story like the others have told.

“Once, Dad...” Throat constricts, threatening to close, to stop him. But those gazes, friendly, curious, cold, pinned on him. So. Voice breaking, telling how at the County Fair when he was six, when the ranch’s prize bull took the blue ribbon, Mom’s apple pie, the yellow. His father’s whoop and dance, so proud, so happy, his hugs tight and warm and foreign. 

“A good shot, too, Dad. Won me a giant stuffed polar bear that day. Such a perfect day. Like God was smiling down on us.” Nods from some of the friendlier attendees. Lydia beaming, water in her eyes. Tears for him, his courage and discretion, he knows, not for his father. 

Stepping from the podium, fingernails biting into his palms, reigning in another memory. A few months after the Fair, that cleared brush bonfire. His father’s slurred, teachin’ that boy not to be a sissy. Holding the boy’s shoulders so hard he had to watch his beloved bear immolate gold, shrivel to brown, black. Ash. 

Soon after, his mother packing up and leaving.

Family tradition, mothers leaving, small boys left behind. 

--

At the cemetery, only employees. The family lawyer, Lydia, longtime ranch hands. Undertaker, gravedigger. No one from town save Preacher and the boy’s two best friends.

Dirty gray, the sky. Cold, soft drizzle streaking faces in place of tears. Sour smell of dust and wool and sweat. 

His father’s grave, a scar, a dark yearning in the rocky earth. Leading straight to hell, the boy’s surmise. Maybe his wish. Along its edge, shivering pear cacti, many-armed, reaching like hungry pagan gods. 

Coffin lowered, deeper with each word of Preacher’s “Yea, though I walk through the valley….” 

Valley dirt falling from his hand onto the coffin lid with a muffled thud.

Handshakes, murmured words, and the lawyer’s whisper, “Need to talk, come by tomorrow.” Then finally, over. This dreadful day over. Lydia’s “Home. Lunch,” a full stop. 

His own hell yawning before him.

--

Lawyer’s face a grim mask, his long, bony index finger tapping figures on the paper between them. “Not much we can do, son.” 

“This correct? The truth?” 

The lawyer’s brow, furrowed in concern. “Verified. Got to sell it all. Damn, son, practically the clothes off your back. After paying out the men, nothing left for debts racked up over a decade. Ranch goes back to the bank next week.” 

A guffaw, loose, escaping his chest. 

The lawyer’s searching look, like the boy has lost his mind. “Understanding the seriousness of this, son? All you own, everything. Gone in a week.” 

The boy’s laughter an undammed river before speaking. “Gettin’ it loud and clear, sir.”

His father, in the end, not a fair man, not a tough man. A drunkard and a failure. His reputation, gone.

And now, his legacy gone, too. The cattle, the horses, the house, the acres and acres of hungry land. Gone. 

The weight of it no longer the boy’s to bear.

Not his. 

Not. His. In those two words, freedom. 

Freedom.