Nancy Pickard - The Scent of Rain and Lightning

“NOBODY EVER GOT close to her,” Annabelle remarked as she and Jody worked in the barn together in the mid-afternoon, after turning the horses out into their pasture.

Both of them had on long-sleeve shirts, rubber gloves, and jeans tucked down inside rubber boots so they could muck out the horse stalls, a daily chore that Red usually performed. As a teenager, Jody had learned a lesson about stubbornness when she insisted on wearing her leather boots to clean the stalls, and horse urine ate through the stitching on the soles.

Continuing her thoughts about Valentine Crosby’s quiet personality, Annabelle added, “I never heard of anybody being a close friend to her except maybe Byron at the grocery store.”

“Her son felt close to her,” Jody said, a little sharply.

“Oh, honey.” Annabelle was contrite. “I’m sure he did.”

They were removing twenty-four hours-and more, thanks to Red’s absence-of manure and laying in fresh straw bedding. They’d hauled the feed and water tubs out into the corridor, giving themselves room to work. Shooting Jody a curious look before returning her attention to her pitchfork, Annabelle plunged the five prongs into the horse’s bed and then lifted the manure and soiled straw into the metal wheelbarrow Red used for the job.

“Grandma, he told me he always hated his father.”

Annabelle put down her pitchfork again. “Collin said that?”

Jody nodded. “He said he used to watch his father all night when he was drunk, to make sure he didn’t hurt Valentine. He claims he was watching Billy all that night-the night everything happened-and so he knows his father didn’t do it. I said, maybe he fell asleep and just didn’t know it, but he swears he never did that, ever. Red says Billy was too drunk to go all that way in the storm and do all those things. Bailey says the same thing.”

“Good grief.” Annabelle sounded a little stunned. “When did you hear all this?”

“Yesterday,” Jody said, omitting the part about how some of these discussions had gone on around midnight and later.

“When did Collin tell you that? Was it when you ran into them at Bailey’s yesterday?”

“No. Later. Between then and when his mom was shot.”

She realized her grandmother was staring at her.

“I sneaked over there to get a look at their house, Grandma. Last night, after I left here. I never intended to talk to Collin, but he was sitting outside on the curb and he saw me and came over to talk to me.”

“He was just a little boy.”

“Red and Bailey weren’t.”

Nervously, she waited to hear what her grandmother would say to that, but when Annabelle spoke again, she changed the subject completely: “Your mother would never have done this job.”

Jody didn’t say anything at first, partly to adjust to the abrupt change of topic, but then she said, “That doesn’t make me better than her.”

“I think it does.”

Jody propped her shovel against a wall. “Uncle Chase thinks that if she’d had a chance to grow up more, she’d have been a better person.”

“He may be right.” Annabelle seemed about to add to that, but then closed her mouth.

“What?”

Her grandmother glanced up. “What do you mean, ‘what’?”

“You started to say something else. What was it?”

“Oh.” Annabelle stopped working again, too. “I started to say that if it had been your uncle Bobby who said that, I’d have put it down to the crush he had on her-”

“Uncle Bobby had a crush on my mom?”

“He did. I found a photo of her in one of his jeans pockets shortly before she-disappeared-but it took me a while to put the clues together. I suspect grief over her was one of the reasons he took off for the Army. I think he had a huge crush on her. I don’t believe your uncle Chase did, so I’m more inclined to take his opinion on this matter.”

“I would have thought it would be the other way around.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because Uncle Chase is so handsome and women fall for him.”

“Well, maybe that’s why, since he had lots of other girls.”

“Poor Uncle Bobby.”

“Well, he shouldn’t have had a crush on his own sister-in-law!” Annabelle eased off a little on her indignant tone. “Not that he could help it. Your mom was just as pretty as you’ve always heard she was.”

“What? You did it again, Grandma. You started to say something and you stopped yourself. What is it?”

“Nothing. Really, it was nothing.”

“Please, Grandma. Please tell me whatever you were going to say.”

Annabelle started to push her hair off her face, but remembered she wore now-filthy gloves. She brought her hands back down to her sides. “I was just going to say-” She hesitated, and Jody could see that her grandmother really didn’t want to say whatever it was she was forcing her to say. “I was going to say that your mother was as pretty as she was dishonest.”

“What?”

“I know that’s a mean way to put it, and I’m sorry, but the truth is, she stole from us, honey. Little bits of cash from one of the ranch accounts. We found the evidence after she was gone. I’m pretty sure your father knew about it and he was worried about it. And about her. And I was worried about them, without knowing that was the cause of it. I hate the fact that she gave him any trouble or grief at all. I don’t think I’ve ever quite forgiven her for that. So I don’t know if your uncle Chase is right or not. Maybe she would have changed, maybe she would have grown up to be a nicer person. I want to think it’s true. I want you to think it’s both possible and true.”

They finished their dirty job in an uncomfortable silence.

At one point Annabelle said in a voice full of regret and a bit of accusation, “You wanted me to tell you.”

“I’m glad you did. Well, maybe not glad. You know.”

“You want the truth.”

Jody nodded, and then pretended it was straw dust that was making her take off one glove and raise her fingers to her eyes to wipe the tears away. Her grandmother, sniffing as if she, too, was affected by the dust, didn’t try to comfort her, but left her alone to absorb this new information that her beautiful mother-her spoiled and snobbish mother-had also been a petty thief.

Nothing more was said between them about Collin Crosby.

Jody spent the rest of the afternoon working near her grandmother, but thinking about him. Where was he now? What was he doing? How was he doing? Was there anything she could do to help him-

She shook her head, feeling heartsick for him, and lonely.

It was impossible. The violently intertwined lives of their families stood between them. Her own family, alone, was an obstacle bigger than the Testament Rocks, as hard and unyielding as stone when it came to the subject of Billy Crosby.

I should stop thinking about Collin and stay away from him, because that is the best and only way I can help him.

FOUR HOURS LATER Jody found out she wasn’t the only one who would determine when and how she could help Collin Crosby. When the ranch phone rang after supper and she went to answer it, she saw his name in the caller ID window. Quickly, she picked up the portable receiver, said, “Hold on,” and hurried out to the porch and then kept walking into the front yard, away from ears that might overhear her.

“Collin,” she said. “How-”

He didn’t give her a chance to ask anything.

“Jody, I need to tell you something that nobody else wants to hear.” There was no “Hello,” no “How are you?” and no news. He just launched right in as if he didn’t have much time, or thought that maybe she wouldn’t. She clung to the receiver, but she was really clinging to the sound of his voice, not knowing if and when she’d hear it again. “If you can’t talk, just listen. I don’t think Billy killed Mom. It took me about half an hour to get over the first shock and then I realized-where’d he get the gun? There was no gun in the house. He sure didn’t come out of prison with one. There wasn’t one in my car, there isn’t one in my mom’s car, and I swear to you there wasn’t one in the house.”