Tina Leonard - Catching Calhoun

“DID YOU SEE THAT?” Kenny asked Minnie as they spied on Calhoun across the pavilion. “That little girl is shopping for Calhoun.”

“I don’t think so,” Minnie said, making certain their mother’s attention was on merchandise in one of the makeshift booths. “She has a father with her. Now if she had her mother with her, I’d say she might be shopping for him—”

“I don’t see why we can’t talk to him,” Kenny grumbled. “He’s nice.”

“Yeah.” Minnie certainly agreed that the cowboy was nice. So she understood Kenny’s concern. They’d sort of chosen Calhoun for themselves. And they didn’t like sharing, especially not with a little girl who was younger and cuter, who wore a pretty pink dress and white ankle socks with lacy edges, and who had blond ringlets and cotton candy.

Minnie’s lips pressed together as she looked down at her overalls and scuffed shoes. Did she remember to use her hairbrush today? Momma always said she should, and usually Momma made sure of it, but tonight her mind had been elsewhere, and Minnie had taken advantage of that to slip out without brushing. Self-consciously, she ran her hand over her long hair, smoothing it, then spit on her hand to flatten down Kenny’s hair.

“She’s already got a father,” Kenny said. “I want to go push her off that barrel.”

Minnie stopped her spit adjustment of Kenny’s bristly head. “She does seem to have everything.” Feeling badly for her jealousy, she glanced toward her mother, who had moved to the next booth. “Sometimes life doesn’t feel quite fair.”

“We need a father,” Kenny said stubbornly.

“We have Grandpa.”

“Yes, but if he’s getting too old to jump in and out of barrels, then…”

Then what else might he be too old for? Minnie thought. Playing? Living? She glanced back over to Calhoun, then gasped as she saw him painting something on the little girl’s plump cheeks. “Come on,” she said to Kenny, “I can’t see when we’re this far away!”

“I CAN PAINT A WOMAN on a saddle for you,” Calhoun said, “but I’m afraid it won’t last.”

“Still,” the man replied, “my butt will be happy while she does, if you know what I mean. And it’s probably longer than most real-life women last.”

Calhoun held back a grimace. Rough as the Jefferson household could be, he was pretty certain a man didn’t talk about naked women in front of a child.

“Let me see your unicorn, sweetie,” he said, as he finished the last strokes of sparkly paint he was applying to her cheek. “It’s almost as pretty as you,” he told her, though he’d wager cotton candy would be dulling the sparkle in no time. The child seemed very impressed with her treat, and not as impressed with Calhoun’s rendering on her face, but he figured with both of his customers happy, the world was good.

At least he thought so, until he saw two little faces peering at him from behind an easel that held a large portrait.

“Thank you, sir,” he said, pocketing the money he’d been paid. “I’ll get on that saddle right away.”

The man grinned, taking his daughter by the hand. “I can’t wait to see what you can do.”

Calhoun waited until the customer was gone, then glanced around. No Olivia. “Okay, you two, come on out.”

They did, rather sheepishly. “What are you up to now?” he asked.

Minnie blinked at him. “I want a sparkly unicorn on my face.”

“And I want a sparkly deer,” Kenny said. “A reindeer. Like Santa has.”

“Er—” Calhoun squirmed. How could he turn them down? And yet, he couldn’t go against their mother’s wishes. “Where is your mom?”

“Over there,” Minnie said airily. “Don’t worry. She won’t want her face painted.”

“Yeah. You can just do us.” Kenny beamed.

Calhoun sighed. “You two are a pack of trouble, you know it? Your mother says I’m to stay out of your clutches.”

Minnie nodded. “And we’re not to bug you.”

“Bug me?” Calhoun cleaned a paintbrush. “Bug isn’t the word I’d use. And I don’t think that was the word your mom used. Was it?”

“No.” Kenny frowned thoughtfully. “She said we were not to take up your time. Which means ‘bug.’”

Calhoun shifted as he thought through his dilemma. Should he tell the children to go away? That would hurt their feelings. He’d seen the look in Minnie’s eyes as she’d watched him painting the little girl’s face. He’d seen a lot in that moment. “Hey,” he said suddenly, “what exactly is it you two want from me, besides some face painting? Tell the truth.”

“We told you,” Minnie said. “We think you’d make an awesome barrel act with Gypsy on account of how fast you can run. But,” she sighed, “now Kenny’s decided you’d make a better father.”

Calhoun halted. “Father?” He glanced at Kenny.

The kids shrugged at him. “Maybe,” Kenny said. “I’m thinking ’bout it.”

Whoa. Olivia would freak if she heard her son say that! “Ah, okay. Here’s the deal. This is my price for face painting.”

The kids edged closer to him, eager to barter.

“I will paint one thing for each of you, but you have to promise me that you will never say to your mom what you just said to me.”

They stared at him.

“Why?” Kenny asked. “We don’t usually keep secrets from Mom.”

“Trust me, this is a good one to start with.” He patted Kenny’s back. “Is it a deal or not?”

The kids nodded. “Deal. We won’t tell Mom how fast you can run,” Kenny said.

Calhoun squatted down to where they could look down into his face. “That wasn’t it, exactly. Skip the part about looking for a father. That’s not something she wants to hear.”

Kenny sighed. “Okay.”

Minnie stared at him. “We’re not dumb, Calhoun. We know it’d never work.”

After a moment, he nodded.

“I mean, there are other girls in the world, ones who wear pretty dresses and ribbons in their hair and who don’t spit-comb their brother’s hair,” she said mildly.

He glanced at Kenny’s hair with some interest. “Spit-comb?”

Minnie shrugged. “Works better than water.”

“Hmmph.” He took her small hand in his. “Just for the record, I’m the kind of guy who’s more impressed by ingenuity than froufrou, okay?”

“Cowboy, I’m pretty smart because my momma homeschools me, but I don’t know what froufrou means. And neither does Kenny.”

Kenny shifted from boot to boot. “Can we start now? Before Mom finds us and drags us off for another lecture on how we’re not supposed to be bothering Calhoun?”

Calhoun grinned. “Just remember what I said,” he told Minnie. “One day you’ll meet a guy who feels the same way I do about froufrou, and you’ll know he’s the one.”

Minnie sat on the barrel, taking the little girl’s place and feeling pretty good about it. “Maybe Momma would like you better if you spit-combed your hair,” she commented.

Calhoun smiled and picked up his paintbrush. “Keep your head turned this way and don’t glance at the paintings.”

“We already saw them,” Kenny said. “They’re naked women. You must like naked women a bunch.”

“And you’re going to paint a naked woman on a saddle for that man, to make his butt happy,” Minnie said. “I guess that’s what you mean by froufrou.”

Calhoun looked at Minnie, with her honest eyes, her straight hair and her wide mouth, which was, coincidentally, budded up into the same expression of disapproval he’d seen on her mother’s face earlier. On Olivia’s face he’d found it cute—but on Minnie’s face, it was disconcerting. Olivia was right: her child was a worrier.

And her equally worried brother sat beside her, with eyes like Minnie’s, only Kenny’s had a deeper reservoir of sadness, almost like Charlie Brown, as if his world was never going to be quite right but he’d keep searching for the good in life anyway. Catch ’em being good, adults liked to say about children. In Kenny’s watchful gaze, it was as if Kenny was waiting to catch Calhoun being good.