James Smith: Hybrid

“But I need it now.” Michael sulked back to his room.

With Amy’s encouragement they had visited the local Boy Scout troop leader, Leonard Farmington, at his home two weeks before. Good-natured and persuasive, Farmington radiated enthusiasm for Scouting. His zeal was topped only by his love of chatter. He had good news. Because Michael received the Arrow of Light award in Cub Scouts back in Pennsylvania, he was eligible to join the Boy Scout troop in Colter, even though he was only ten. Then and there, instead of waiting until the next year. Everything was settled… except for purchase of the uniform.

Dieter peeked into his son’s room and found him cowering on his bed with a closed suitcase by his side. He plopped down next to him and started to place his arm around his shoulders when Michael quickly stood and walked to the dresser. Dieter recognized the stubborn streak. A characteristic no different from other Harmon family traits, like the wavy brown hair, the thick eyebrows and setback eyes. He opened the suitcase and stuffed another T-shirt into it while Dieter repeated the usual lecture on behavior.

Packed for the weekend trip, Amy bent her long neck slightly to keep her head away from the Datsun’s roof and thrust herself behind the wheel. Dieter waved goodbye as the car pulled away, but it stopped suddenly and returned. Megan jumped out and ran to get another hug.

When the car disappeared, Dieter rushed inside to the bathroom cabinet and grabbed the bottle of aspirin. In the kitchen he splashed tap water into a glass tumbler, then sat at the table and tossed four tablets into his mouth. He squeezed his temples with his fingertips, then folded his arms on the table and rested his throbbing head.

As he closed his eyes the scenes played out again. The tiny colt sprawled on the ground, the mare preening it. The troubled face of the Loudermilk woman as she clung to his jacket. The ugly expression of the old man. The more he thought about it, the more he realized it was just a matter of time before the old man would report the incident.

The phone on the wall suddenly rang out like a fire alarm. When he answered, Molly Schoonover’s voice boomed out of the earpiece. “How you doing, Doc?”

He mumbled something back.

“Didn’t wake you, did I? It’s the middle of the day.” Molly always arose at dawn to begin her ranch chores.

“No, I mean, yes. I was awake.”

“Can you come with me to the Pendleton place? You know, the llamas. Last night one was attacked. Brutally killed.”

He leaned against the wall. He’d heard of the llama ranch, but what was he going to do? He didn’t treat dead animals. “I really don’t know what I could do for the Pendletons, Molly.”

“It’s Pendleton. There’s only one of the old cuss. Please hurry over and I’ll take you there. This is the final friggin’ straw. This crazy stuff has gone on too long. It’s gotta stop.”

GusParsons had driven due north from Tucson for one thousand and sixty-seven miles. The cost at that point was three tanks of regular gas and two nights in motels. The food was fast and the lodging cheap. Yellowstone National Park was Mecca for many who made a living his freelance photographer’s way. Parsons drove up I-15 following a treeless landscape that went on forever and snow-covered mountain peaks far enough away to be only a blur on the horizon. His speedometer read eighty, but it felt like fifty. He thumbed through the Park pamphlets scattered on the front passenger seat as he drove, storing the facts a phrase at a time.

Yellowstone occupied the northwest corner of Wyoming and small portions of Montana and Idaho. The Park supported the largest concentration of free-roaming wildlife in the lower forty-eight. He flipped through pages with pictures published by his competition: bighorn sheep perched high on the Obsidian Cliffs; a wolf pack attacking elk in mid-winter in Lamar Valley; a Grizzly with her cubs feeding off the carcass of a moose calf in Hayden Valley.

A lone Amoco gas station south of Idaho Falls made for a rest stop. He needed to call home to check on Lily, his wife of forty-two years. Her health recently took a turn for the worse. When the door of the phone booth jammed, he kicked at it until it freed. After trying quarters, he banged twice on the phone box with the receiver to get a dial tone and the operator. His home phone rang eight rings before he hung up.

Parsons drove onto the highway and approached the ramp at the I-15 intersection, then swerved to the side of the road to stop. A trucker in an eighteen-wheeler behind him blared on his air horn. He could take I-15 South and head back to Arizona or continue north to Yellowstone. He took a deep breath then exhaled as he watched the cars speed by. What he was yearning to do wasn’t right. He should turn around and go back home. He belonged with Lily.

If only I could get some photos to make an editor sit up and take notice.

They needed the extra income, especially if they were going to have more medical bills. Lily would understand that. He pulled back on the road and took the ramp to I-15 North. Only two hours from Yellowstone and the wilderness.

God, how he needed the solitude.

Dieter Harmon parked in the gravel at the front of the white wood-framed home, shaded by tall cottonwoods. A porch wrapped around it and stiff rocking chairs stood tall, eager for company. The Schoonovers owned the largest spread around Colter, thanks to Molly’s inheritance he’d learned about when they first met.

Molly and the Judge’s dachshunds jubilantly yapped at the prospect of a visitor. Big Mac did his best to hop up and down, but the combination of weight and miniature legs stymied him from lifting off the ground. When he reached down to scratch the perky dog behind his ears, Rusty barked in protest from the open window of the nine-year-old Chevy pickup.

Dieter rushed up the steps to the front entrance as Toby and Big Mac waddled behind on his heels, their legs shuffling twice as fast as they moved. Dieter announced himself and entered through the screen door. Molly threw aside bulky window drapes that covered her lap and jumped up from the floor. Somewhere in her forties, she was as agile as any woman he knew twenty years younger. Her dark hair curled tightly to her head atop a solid frame.

Dieter tossed a white business envelope with a check inside on the coffee table. “That’s for October.”

“A little early, thanks,” she said.

“Where’s the Judge?” he asked.

“Have you ever noticed that twenty-foot antenna sticking up from our roof? He’s in the back room with his ham radio operation. I try to tell him that stupid antenna’s going to attract a lightning strike and blow us up one of these days. He shrugs it off. But I can tell you that this thing I called you about has him spooked. Let’s get out to the Pendleton ranch. Josh is expecting us.”

Dieter and Rusty followed Molly out the door to her battered ‘84 Dodge Ram. When she turned on the ignition, the engine responded with a cough.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “Just needs the carb cleaned out. Got it on my list.” She drove too fast down the dirt road that followed the fence line. He held onto the armrest, trying to avoid sliding around on the hard vinyl seat. She turned onto the highway that crossed the foothills of the Gallatin Range. Rusty sat in Dieter’s lap and hung his head out the window into the wind, his ears flapping and tongue dangling like a strip of raw bacon.

A group of Holsteins had gathered in a gulch by a small pond. “So, tell me, which one of you has driven the other crazy by now?” Molly asked.

“You mean, between Amy and me?”