T. Parker: Full Measure

“I don’t think you could, either.”

“I haven’t listed it but I told the realtor six months ago I’d entertain offers in the three million range. We had some interest. Then, three months ago, a two million dollar offer from a Newport Beach doctor. Of course I told his realtor to go to hell. A day after the fire came through, he dropped the offer to a million-three. It’s an insult offer. It would cover our debt and leave us with very little. Our cash flow is down to almost nothing. We lost a big part of last season’s paycheck to the frost. And of course, because of this fire, our spring fruit probably won’t develop.”

Archibald sighed and shook his head in the closest thing to defeat that Patrick had ever witnessed. In him Patrick saw himself some decades from now. He tried to imagine himself here in Fallbrook as a grower, but he could conjure to mind no more than rough sketches of this land and a small town, and the faint silhouettes of what might be a family. They seemed like the drawings of a child.

Suddenly the artillery on Pendleton boomed. Patrick saw a blast of bright light and his ears roared as panic surged through him, then he fell. The roar grew and he was grappling with something, then everything disappeared — the fear and the sound, even the light. He lay on the burnt ground, breathing hard and covering his father. He felt his father’s heartbeat and smelled his aftershave as he disentangled from him and helped him stand. Patrick laughed quietly, partly in humor but mostly in embarrassment. His ears were ringing so loud he wondered if his father could hear. Sweat drenched his back and he tried to brush the soot from his uniform while his pulse settled. “Car doors slamming are the worst.”

“It’ll take a while, Pat. It’s hard to come back. But few things in the world will ever mean more to you than what you did over there.”

The “meaning” part still escaped Patrick but he knew that he had done his duty. And now it was time to do it again. Maybe this would mean something. “All right. I’ll do what I can here on the farm, Dad. But there’s a condition — we bring Ted on board. He’d love to pitch in. It’s what he needs.”

“He’s not fit for it. I don’t mean to be judgmental.”

“Then don’t judge. He knows you don’t believe in him. But it’s time to try again anyway.”

“He posted hateful things about the mayor. I can’t go into Fallbrook without feeling notorious.”

“If we work his ass off he’ll be too tired for nonsense like that.”

“I’ve tried, Pat. A thousand times I’ve tried. I don’t need to catalogue his failures and his utter lack of attention.” Patrick considered the double meaning of “attention.”

“We’re just putting him to work, Dad. It’s the right thing.”

“Okay. He’s your responsibility. It shames me that I can’t pay either of you.”

“Ted can drive the taxi evenings and weekends. I can probably deliver pizza again.” Patrick felt constricted, as if by a large snake, and he could see his dreams puff right out of him and vanish into the foul air.

“You were just eighteen when you left. I’m very damned pleased with you, son. Very.”

Archie retired early, tumbler in hand, leading his shadow down the long hallway past the sconces and the family photographs. Patrick sat with his mother, who laid out the dismal ranch finances. In the living room the windows were all open and the acrid smell of a burned world was made heavier by the damp ocean breeze that came almost nightly up the river valleys on either side of Fallbrook.

“I can’t distract him from himself any longer,” she said. “It’s been like this every night for a year. He’s obsessed with the idea of loss, which of course creates loss. And he enjoys his gift of prophecy. Complaining. Drinking. He acts as if God sent drought, the frost, and the fire to ruin him. Personally.”

Caroline was a tall, trim woman with a regal posture and a head of striking black hair. She usually wore expensive jeans, boots, crisp white shirts, and silk scarves with subtle patterns loosely knotted around her fine neck. Her face and nails were always done. Patrick had never seen her leave the ranch anything less than put together. Even at home she would rarely let herself be seen in work clothes or thoughtless combinations of casual wear, or any garment associated with exercise or sleep. Patrick found her less vain than simply dutiful about presenting the woman who she had chosen to be. Sometimes he wondered what she had given up for this.

“But that may change now,” she said. “You’ve brought him hope. God bless you for that.” She sipped a glass of red wine and the dimmed overhead lights caught her hair and cast sad-clown shadows under her eyes. “Was it bad in Afghanistan? Your e-mails and calls were cheerful enough, though few and far between.”

Patrick nodded contritely. “When I got there and saw it, I thought, ‘Well, there’s a good chance you’re not going home.’ So I tried to put some distance between me and everyone I might not see again. Does that make sense?”

“Terrible, terrible sense.”

“It’s good to be home but hard to talk. I have to get used to not being alert all the time. You get hooked on that. I get startled easy. I haven’t slept well. I get this feeling that snipers are lining up on me. I’ve got a temper now.”

“I see it in your face.”

“I didn’t have it over there. I was too busy trying to not get killed.”

“I think I understand. Are you okay?”

He nodded.

“Pat, I’m glad you’re going to help us rebuild this ranch. But I want you to know that if you walked out of here tomorrow to seek your fortune in a larger world, I would support you. And your father would get over it, sooner or later. You are young. Personally, I find your dream of guiding fishing excursions at sea to be, well... attainable and romantic.”

“I wouldn’t get shot at or have to kill anyone. But I think I need to be here now to help with the groves. I can get my old pizza gig and save the money.”

She looked at him for a long beat. “If I had money I would help you with the boat.”

“I have some money, Mom.”

“It’s humiliating, not being able to help your own children. None of the calamities that have fallen on your father hurt him as much as that.”

“None of it’s his fault.”

“That’s irrelevant to him. He’s blamed himself for Ted since the day he was born.”

“Ted’s a grown man now.”

“We train our men to accept responsibility for everything, don’t we? Even things you can’t control.”

“I see some truth in that.”

“Hold tight to your dreams.”

Patrick poured a bourbon and took a flashlight and walked down the dirt road toward the outbuildings. The dogs trotted out ahead, noses down. The barnyard spread flat before him in damp moonlight and the sycamores towered into the sky. He saw the big barn, the metal storage buildings, and the long bunkhouse. He walked past the barn and into the grove to see how close the flames had come. In the flashlight beam he saw that Ted’s impressive brush clearing had kept the fire from jumping from the grove to the buildings.

Ted had moved into the bunkhouse when he was eighteen, having announced that it was time for him to be out on his own. Patrick had helped him. They’d taken apart and stored the old bunks, then filled up the big open room with things of interest to Ted — small animal cages, movies on tape and DVD and a big-screen TV to watch them on, a computer and peripherals.

Now Ted sat at a wooden picnic table in the center of the large room, playing a computer fantasy game. Patrick approached and looked over Ted’s shoulder at the monitor, where a massive upright humanoid with a bull’s head and horns loped through pleasant woodlands eviscerating wild dogs. Ted paid his brother no attention. Patrick knew that Ted enjoyed being watched as he played, and that his brother’s unacknowledgment was not rude but, oddly, somehow inclusive.