Nancy Pickard - The Scent of Rain and Lightning

He grabbed a nearby towel and rubbed his face and arms dry.

“I can’t believe you did that,” she accused him.

“Did what?” He turned toward her, his broad, plain face looking hurt, his voice plaintive in a way that only annoyed her more. “Try to love my wife?”

“In the middle of the day? In the kitchen? With Jody right here?”

“I wouldn’t have done that in front of her!”

“You shouldn’t have done any of it.”

“I’m sorry. You’re right.”

Before they married, she hadn’t objected to anywhere or any time, or even to the chance that somebody might see them. He was the one who’d been straitlaced and worried about getting caught. She remembered that; she knew he did, too. Neither of them reminded the other of it.

Hugh-Jay, noticing something shiny under the kitchen table, bent down to pick it up, but his daughter ran back into the room and beat him to it. “Here, Daddy.” She placed a silver cigarette lighter into his hands, along with a doll in a new dress that she’d brought down to show him.

“It’s Unca Chase’s,” she said. “He left it. Do you like her dress?”

“It’s very pretty. I’ll bet Uncle Chase left this at breakfast.”

“Nope! Later, when he came back and drank all Mama’s coffee, didn’t he, Mama? You always say Unca Chase drinks all your coffee.”

“I don’t say any such thing.”

Jody frowned, but didn’t argue with her mother.

Hugh-Jay asked, “Chase came back this morning?”

“Yeah, and he swung me!” Jody exclaimed. “On the swing!”

“What did he want?”

“Just coffee,” Laurie muttered.

“But Mommy-”

“Jody! Take your doll and go play somewhere else!”

Hugh-Jay saw his daughter’s lower lip start to tremble, so he stuck the lighter into his back left pocket and grabbed her onto his lap. Softly, he said, “When did Mommy get your dolly a new dress?”

Laurie whirled around to face them. “What difference does it make? It’s just a dress, it doesn’t matter when I got it, I can get my daughter a dress for her doll if I want to.”

Upset by her mother’s anger, Jody started to cry.

It only made Laurie sigh angrily and roll her eyes, leaving the comforting to Hugh-Jay. The oven timer went off, and Laurie put on padded gloves to remove her pies and set them on racks to cool.

“Maybe pie would make us all feel better,” Hugh-Jay said, hugging Jody.

“Not yet!” Laurie’s tone was still furious. “They’re still too hot.”

“That’s when they’re good.”

“Yeah,” Jody agreed, wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands, hiccuping little sobs. “I’m hungry.”

“No, they need to set up more,” her mother insisted, which settled it.

LAURIE WOULDN’T EVEN let them have any pie after they ate the tuna fish sandwich and potato chips she put out for them.

“I made the pie for supper tonight,” she said.

“I won’t be here for supper tonight,” Hugh-Jay told her.

“Why not?”

“Where are you going, Daddy?”

Jody had recovered from her tears, helped along by the tuna sandwich.

“ Colorado,” he said, avoiding his wife’s eyes.

“Why?” she asked sharply.

“Dad’s sending me.”

There was a silence, and then Laurie repeated, “Why?”

Hugh-Jay shrugged, and bent his face toward his empty plate, as if there might be crumbs he’d missed.

“Well, then,” Laurie said, her voice hard, “if you’re leaving, I guess you won’t be getting any, will you?”

“He won’t get any pie?” Jody looked anxious. “Are you mad at Daddy?”

“I’m not mad at him.”

“Yes, you are,” Jody said, starting to cry again.

“No!” Laurie suddenly slammed down a fork and shouted at both of them. “I’m not!”

Her husband and daughter stared at her, but neither of them spoke. Even to a three-year-old, the truth was obvious.

OUT AT THE RANCH HOUSE, Hugh Senior came up with a plan.

“Don’t say anything to Bobby about what’s happened,” he instructed Annabelle. “He’ll just go roaring off to find Billy and get himself in trouble. And don’t tell Chase, either.”

She stared at him, waiting to hear his reasons.

Instead of explaining, he got on the telephone and let her listen.

First he called their eldest child at his home in town. “Son, I want you to bring Billy Crosby back out to the ranch for some work today.”

Annabelle’s eyebrows rose in surprise.

“Yes,” Hugh Senior said into the phone, apparently in reply to his son’s reminder of what had happened the day before, “but I have a special job I want him to do. I’m going to need you, too, and if you see your brothers, tell them to show up ready to mend fences.” He paused to listen, and then said, “Somebody cut some of our fence lines, son. They let the weaned calves back in with their mothers. But the worst thing is, they killed a pregnant cow. Sliced the poor girl’s throat.”

Standing a foot away, Annabelle heard their son’s exclamation of shock.

And then she heard his father tell a lie.

“No, it wasn’t Billy.” He listened. “Of course I’m sure of that, or why would I allow him back on the ranch?”

When he hung up, Annabelle said, “You lied to your son.”

“Well, I had to. Hugh-Jay can’t lie worth beans, and I don’t want him giving the game away to Billy on the ride out here.”

“What game are you playing?”

“A serious one.” He leaned over to kiss her forehead.

“What are you up to, my darling?”

“Getting Billy to clean up his own mess, that’s what.”

He then made another call, this time to the county sheriff’s office in Henderson City. “This is Hugh Linder Senior,” he said with easy authority to the deputy who answered. “I am reporting that Billy Crosby killed one of my cows last night… Yes, I’m sure. He also cut my fence lines and tried to set fire to one of my pastures. I have arranged for him to be away from his house for a few hours this afternoon. I want you to go there while I’ve got him safely out of your way. Talk to his wife about where he was last night. Look for evidence while you’re there. You should find the knife or some bloody clothes. Look for wire clippers. When you’ve done all that, then I want you to come out here to the ranch and arrest him.”

“Speaking of misbehavior,” Annabelle said after he hung up the phone, “what about Colorado?”

“What’s wrong out there, you mean? We’re getting overbilled on some things. It could be nothing but sloppy clerking. Or it could be that our man is lining his own pockets. Hugh-Jay should have caught it in the bookkeeping. It shouldn’t have had to wait for me to find. I’m sending him to clean up his own mess. It’s the only way either one of them will ever learn; it’s the only way anybody learns.”

A little later Annabelle said, “He won’t appreciate that you lied to him.”

Her husband’s reply was confident. “It won’t do him any harm.”

LAURIE AND JODY accompanied Hugh-Jay onto the back porch after lunch. He set his suitcase-a battered old leather one that his grandfather had used-on the porch floor beside his feet.

“I’ll be driving into rain tonight,” he predicted, observing the western sky.

The clouds looked taller, darker, and closer now.

Laurie squinted at his truck, which he’d parked under cottonwood trees at the rear of their driveway. The dogs came running over. When they pressed against her, she shoved them with her knee and said, irritably, “Go on! Get down from here, you hot, smelly things! Hugh-Jay, is there somebody in your truck?”

“Billy Crosby, probably.” He took hold of the dogs’ collars and tugged the Labs down onto the gravel, away from her. “Didn’t you hear me call him on the telephone? I told him to walk on over.”