J. Jance - Desert Heat

For a moment all the adults stood still, watching the antics of the girl and the dog, then Eva Lou hurried forward to greet Joanna while the two men hung back. Tears streamed down the older woman’s round cheeks as she gathered her daughter-in-law into her arms.

“I can’t believe it,” she murmured over and over. “I just can’t believe it.”

Joanna was glad to see Eva Lou. Her relationship with Andy’s mother was far more cordial than with her own. The elder Bradys were rock-solid, salt-of-the-earth-type people whose very presence comforted her.

“How did you hear?” Joanna asked, pulling back from Eva Lou’s embrace. “Did my mother call?”

Eva Lou shook her head, and wiped her tears on the tail of her borrowed apron. “Jimmy and I were on our way home from Tulsa when a police car pulled us over in Lordsburg. At first we couldn’t figure out why they were stopping us, if Jimmy was speeding or what. But then the officer told us what had happened. It was such a shock. Someone from the sheriff’s department here must have called over to Lordsburg and asked them to keep a lookout for us.

“When he told us we were already too late, we just pulled over on the side of the road and bawled like a couple of babies. That young officer was so nice. He waited right there with us and wouldn’t let us leave town without buying us a cup of coffee.”

Ken Galloway had walked up beside the two women and stood there awkwardly, holding Joanna’s single suitcase. “Should I take this on inside?” he asked.

Joanna nodded. “Yes, please. Come on, Jenny,” she called to her daughter. “Leave Sadie out here for now. She’s way too excited to be in the house. Come inside and get her food ready.”

“Oh, we’ve already fed the dog,” Eva Lou said quickly as they trooped toward the house. “After Lordsburg, we didn’t see much point in going on to Tucson. We thought we’d just come on over here and look after things for you. But Clayton got the jump on us. He was here and had the cattle fed and watered. He was about to take Sadie home with him to feed her as well.”

Joanna stopped in front of Clayton Rhodes, a man who had befriended several succeeding generations of owners on the High Lonesome Ranch. A lifelong resident of Cochise County, Clayton Rhodes was bowlegged and bent, with a limp that came from some long ago bronco-riding mishap. Clearly a relic from an earlier age, he was a genuine, old-fashioned cowboy who had spent much of his life in the company of livestock. Small children were drawn to him because of his ability to tell tall tales, and they were fascinated by the set of ill-fitting dentures he usually carried in his shirt pocket, but Clayton Rhodes was terrifically shy around adults.

“Thanks so much, Mr. Rhodes,” Joanna said. “It was very thoughtful of you to stop by and look after the animals.”

He shied away from her thanks like a spooked pony. “Nothin’ to it,” he mumbled reticently, tipping his hat and edging off the steps toward the safety of the gate. “Nothin’ to it a-tall.”

On the top step of the back porch, Joanna paused long enough for Jim Bob Brady to en-fold her in a bearhug, then they went on into the kitchen. The room was warm and inviting, filled with the enticing aroma of Eva Lou Brady’s mouthwatering, baking-powder biscuits. On the counter a newly made pot of coffee was just finishing brewing.

“I didn’t know if you and Jenny would be hungry,” Eva Lou was saying, “but biscuits and honey are always good, even when people can’t think about eating anything else. Would you like a cup of coffee, Ken?” she asked, taking the suitcase from his hands. “It’s fresh.”

Ken Galloway shook his head. “No, thanks. Appreciate the offer, but I’ll just head on home.”

“Now, Mama,” Jim Bob Brady warned. “Don’t go pushing food and drink on people. They just this minute stepped inside. Give them a chance to catch their breath.”

Joanna looked at her father- and mother-in-law with a combination of appreciation and amazement. That afternoon she had lost a husband and Jenny a father, but these two wonderful old people had lost a son-their only son. And yet, here they were only a few hours later, bustling around, pitching in, and taking care of everybody else. It was astounding and yet so like them. Jim Bob and Eva Lou Brady were the exact antithesis of her own mother. That was one of the things Joanna liked about them.

“Well,” Eva Lou said, ignoring her husband’s caution. “Are you hungry?”

“I am,” Jenny declared.

Joanna shook her head. “Not me. I’m more dirty than hungry. I want to take a shower. ”

With her suitcase in hand and still carrying the precious plastic bag holding only pitiful reminders of the man who had owned its con-tents, Joanna made her way through the kitchen and dining room and on into the bed-room. Just walking into that now too-familiar room took her breath away. Everything there reminded her of Andy, from the rolltop desk with its broken, patched-together chair, to the frayed cowboy hat that he wore around home, to their bed. Especially the bed. She couldn’t face it. She dropped the plastic bag on the desk, then, gulping for air, she grabbed her robe and retreated into the bathroom.

There she clambered into the old-fashioned, claw-footed tub with its make-do shower and turned on the water full blast. She stood under the water for a long, long time, letting the steamy spray mingle with the tears on her face while the roar in the pipes muffled the sound of her sobs. Usually, Joanna was conscientious about taking three-minute showers. This time, she came to her senses only when all the hot water was gone. By then she was no longer crying. It was as though the well of tears in-side her had finally run dry.

She toweled herself off and felt a surprising rush of gratitude that she was doing so in the familiar surroundings of her own bathroom in her own home. At least that part of her life was the same, and it would continue to be so. In Tucson, at the hospital, she had focused to-tally on dealing with the immediate problem of paying the hospital bill, but now she realized that through the insurance she owned, life insurance on both of them which Milo Davis had encouraged them to buy and helped them keep, she and Jenny would be able to stay in their own home for as long as they wanted. In fact, she could probably pay Eva Lou and Jim Bob off completely if she wanted to. But if the choice lay between having the house paid for and having Andy back…

Hastily pushing that thought aside, she tied the belt on her robe and emerged from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her wet hair. In her absence, both Eleanor Lathrop and Marianne Maculyea had appeared. They, along with Jenny and the Bradys, were seated at the dining room table. For a few moments, Joanna stood silently in the hallway door with-out anyone noticing her.

Hollow-eyed, Jenny sat listening while her Grandmother Lathrop recounted her version of her son-in-law’s death while the Bradys, too, heard the story for the first time. Eleanor, reveling in the attention of her audience, warmed to the telling.

“So when the doctor came back out,” she was saying, “I left Margaret sitting there watching television and went over to ask him how Andy was. I mean, Joanna had been gone for some time by then, and none of the rest of us had been allowed in to visit. The doctor said that everything was just fine, that we shouldn’t worry about a thing, but then, a few minutes later, some kind of alarm went off. After that there were all kinds of people rushing in and out of the room. I’ve never seen anything like it, but by then it was too late. They just couldn’t bring him back.”

Jim Bob Brady nodded solemnly and patted his wife’s hand while she wept quietly into a hanky. Jennifer pushed back her chair and hurried to Eva Lou’s side where she clung to the old woman’s neck and helplessly patted her shoulder. By then Jenny was crying, too.