C Box: In Plain Sight

Marybeth wanted to ask a million questions, it was obvious, and Joe really didn’t want to answer any of them. He was tired, and beaten down. Nate was a subject he didn’t have any energy for. Plus, he was unemployed.

“I don’t understand men sometimes,” she said. “How could you see a friend you haven’t seen in half a year-a man you’ve been through hell with on more than one occasion-and just say hello and go home?”

Joe shrugged. “It was pretty easy.”

“Where has he been all of this time?”

“He didn’t say.”

Marybeth shook her head in disbelief.

“If you’re wondering if he asked about you, he didn’t,” Joe said, turning away from her in bed.

“That was cruel, Joe,” she said.

“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry I said that.”

Someday they would need to talk about what had happened while he was away in Jackson. But for reasons he couldn’t really grasp, he didn’t want to know. Marybeth seemed to want to explain. Nate had even acted as if he was looking for an opening. But Joe just wanted the entire thing to go away, and thought it had. But that was before Nate came back.

“I CAN’T BELIEVE it,” Lucy said at breakfast, lowering the telephone into the cradle. “They haven’t canceled school.”

Sheridan moaned. Both girls had convinced themselves over breakfast that the rain and flooding would mean that school would be canceled. But Lucy had called her friend Jenny, the daughter of the principal, and received the news.

Joe found himself hoping school would be closed as well. He wanted the girls around the ranch house. He couldn’t imagine spending the day not working, rambling around the place, ducking Missy.

“I’ll drive the girls out to the bus,” Joe said, pushing away from the table.

AS THEY DROVE to the state highway in one of Bud’s ranch pickups where the bus would pick them up, Sheridan asked Joe, “Are we going to be okay?”

“Yes, we are. Your mother has a great business going, and I’ll find something soon,” he said, not having a clue what it would be.

“It’s weird thinking we won’t be going back to our house. Can we at least go get our stuff?”

“Of course,” Joe said, feeling instantly terrible for putting her through this. “Of course we can.”

They drove in silence for a few minutes.

“Julie will be on the bus,” Sheridan said.

“Isn’t that okay?”

“Yeah. I just don’t feel the same way about her anymore,” she said. “I feel really guilty about that. I used to think she was so cool and now, well, I know she’s weird but it isn’t her fault.”

“Things change,” Joe said.

“I wish I could be more girly-girl,” Sheridan said. “I wish I could see Julie and squeal and pretend nothing was wrong, but I just can’t. Other girls can do that, but I can’t.”

Joe reached over and patted her on the leg. “You’re okay, Sherry,” he said, meaning it.

“Look at the ducks,” Lucy said, pointing out the window at a body of water that had once been a pasture.

THE BUS ARRIVED at the same time Joe did. Because they were now living so far out of town, there was only one student on board-the first to be picked up. Julie Scarlett pressed her face to the window and waved at Sheridan as the girls climbed out into the mud and skipped through puddles toward the bus.

Joe waved at the driver and the driver waved back.

“I NEARLY DIDN’T MAKE IT THIS MORNING,” JULIE Scarlett told Sheridan and Lucy. “Uncle Arlen had to drive through a place where the river flooded the road and we nearly didn’t make it. Water came inside the truck… it was scary.”

The school bus had another five miles to go before picking anyone else up on their way to Saddlestring. The three girls were trying to have a conversation but it was hard to hear because huge wiper blades squeaked across the windows and standing water sluiced noisily under the carriage of the bus.

“I still don’t know why they’re having school,” Lucy said. “It’s stupid.”

“For once I agree with you,” the bus driver called back over his shoulder. “They should have given us all a day off.”

“Why don’t you call them and tell them we’re flooded out?” Lucy suggested coyly, and the driver laughed.

“What is this ?” the driver said, and the bus began to slow down.

Sheridan walked up the aisle and stood behind the driver so she could see.

A yellow pickup truck blocked both lanes of the road, and the bus driver braked to a stop.

“What an idiot,” the driver said. “Maybe his motor quit or something. But I’m not sure I can get around him because of all of the water in the ditches.”

Sheridan watched as a man opened the door and came out of the truck. The man wore a floppy wet cowboy hat and was carrying a rifle.

Her heart leaped into her mouth.

“I know him,” she said, then called to Julie over her shoulder, “Julie, it’s Bill Monroe.”

Julie screwed up her face in puzzlement. “I wonder what he wants,” she said, getting out of her seat and walking up the aisle next to Sheridan.

Monroe was outside the accordion doors of the bus now, and he tapped on the glass with the muzzle of the rifle.

“You girls know him, then?” the driver asked cautiously, his hand resting on the handle to open the doors.

“He works for my dad,” Julie said. “But I’m not sure what he’s doing out here.”

“Well, if you know him…” the driver said, and pushed the door handle.

The smell of mud and rain came into the bus as Bill Monroe stepped inside. Sheridan gasped as he raised the rifle and pointed it at the face of the driver.

“This is where you get off,” Monroe said.

Beside her, Sheridan heard Julie scream.

A HALF-HOUR LATER, the phone rang at the Longbrake Ranch. Missy was having coffee with Marybeth and reading the Saddlestring Roundup. Marybeth was ready to go to work. Joe was in their bedroom, doing who knows what.

Missy answered, said, “Hi, honey,” then handed the phone to Marybeth. “It’s Sheridan.”

Marybeth frowned and took the phone. Sheridan had never called this early because she shouldn’t be at school yet. Maybe they had canceled school after all, Marybeth thought. Maybe Sheridan needed someone to meet them on the highway so they could come home.

“Hi, Mom,” she said.

Marybeth sensed something was wrong. Sheridan’s voice was tight and hard.

“Where are you?”

“I’m on the bus. I need to ask you a question. Is it okay if Lucy and I go out to Julie’s house after school tonight?”

Marybeth paused. The scenario didn’t work for her. She asked Sheridan to repeat what she had said, and Sheridan did. But there was something wrong in the tone, Marybeth thought. There was something wrong, period. What were Julie and Sheridan cooking up? And why would they want to include Lucy in it?

“You know I don’t like it when you spring things like this on me,” Marybeth said. “What are you girls scheming?”

“Nothing,” Sheridan said. “We just want to hang out. There probably won’t be practice.”

“You want to hang out with your little sister?”

“Sure, she’s cool.”

“That’s a first,” Marybeth said. “Let me talk with her.”

“Just a minute.”

Marybeth could tell that Sheridan had covered the mouthpiece of the phone so she could discuss something that her mother couldn’t overhear. Marybeth sat forward in her chair, straining to hear. She could sense Missy looking at her now, picking up on her alarm.

“She can’t talk,” Sheridan said, coming back. “She has food in her mouth.”

“What?”

“She’s eating some of her lunch early,” Sheridan said. “You know how she always does that? Then she doesn’t have enough to eat at lunch and she has to mooch from either me or the other kids?”