Jodi Thomas - Ransom Canyon

He dropped his almost empty backpack on the post office steps and watched the bus leave. Then, alone with nothing but the sounds of freedom around him, he closed his eyes and simply breathed for a while. He’d known he was low-down worthless since he was five, but now and then Yancy wanted to forget and just think of himself as a regular person like everyone else who walked the planet.

At twenty-five, he wasn’t the green kid who’d gone to jail. He was a hardened man. He had no job or family. No future. Nowhere to go. But, thanks to positive-thinking classes, he had goals.

The first one was simple: get rich. After he got past that one all the others would fall in line: Big house. Pool. Fast car.

On the positive side, he had a lot going for him. Without a plan, he didn’t have to worry about holes in his strategy. He wasn’t running away from anything or anyone, and that was a first. He’d also learned a little about every trade the prison tried to teach.

Yancy had bought a bus ticket to a town he’d once heard his mother say was the most nothing place on earth. Crossroads, Texas. He figured that was where he’d start over, like he was newborn. He’d rebuild himself one brick at a time until no one who ever knew him would recognize Yancy Grey. Hell, he might even give himself a middle name. That’d be something he hadn’t had in twenty-five years of being alive.

Sitting down on the steps, he leaned against the tin door of the twelve-foot square post office and looked around at a tiny nothing of a town that sparkled in the early light. He might not have much, but he had his goals, and with some thinking, he’d have a plan.

He wasn’t sure, but he thought his mother met his dad here. She never talked about the man who’d fathered him except to say he’d been a hand on one of the big ranches around. She’d fallen in love with the hat and boots before she knew the man in between. Yancy liked to think that, once, she might have been happy in Crossroads, but knowing his mother, she wouldn’t be happy anywhere unless she was raising hell.

Yancy warmed in the sun. The café would probably be open in an hour or two. His first plan was to eat his fill of pancakes, and then he’d think about what to do next. Maybe he’d ask around for a job. He used to be a fair mechanic, and he’d spent most of his free time in the prison shop. There were two gas stations in town. One might have an opening. Or maybe the café needed a dishwasher? He’d worked in the prison kitchen for a year. If he was lucky, there would be a community posting somewhere around for jobs, and he’d bluff his way into whatever was open.

If nothing came up, he’d hitch a ride to the next town. Maybe he’d steal enough lying around here to hock for pocket money. Six years ago he’d caught a ride with a family in Arkansas. By the time they let him out a hundred miles down the road, he’d collected fifty dollars from the granny who rode in the back with him. The old bat had been senile and probably wouldn’t ever remember having the money in the first place. That fifty sure had felt good in his pocket.

Another time, when he was about sixteen, he’d hitched a ride with some college kids. They’d been a fun bunch, smoking pot as they sang songs. When he’d said goodbye, they’d driven away without a camera that was worth a couple hundred. Served them right for just wandering around the country spending their parents’ money. No one ever gave him a dime, and he’d made it just fine. Except for one dumb partner and one smart cop in Norman, Oklahoma.

Yancy pushed the memories aside. He had to keep his wits about him. Maybe try to go straight this time. He was halfway through his twenties, and hard time would start to take a toll on him soon. He’d seen guys in prison who were forty and looked sixty.

Taking a deep breath, he let the air sit in his lungs for a minute. It felt pure and light. Like rain and dust and nothing else.

A few cars passed as the sun warmed, but none stopped at the café. Yancy guessed the place might not open until eight or even nine on Sunday. He’d wait. With twenty dollars in his pocket, he planned to celebrate. Maybe if they had pie out early, he’d have it for breakfast.

One man in a pickup stopped and stuffed a few letters in the outside drop. He tipped his hat in greeting, and Yancy did the same with his baseball cap. It had been so long since he’d been in the free world he wasn’t sure how to act. He needed to be careful so no one would recognize him as an ex-con. Most folks probably wouldn’t anyway, but cops seemed to have a knack for spotting someone who’d served time.

Yancy went over a few rules he’d made up when he was thinking about getting out of jail. Look people in the eyes but not too closely. Greet them however they greeted him. Stand up straight. At six-one he wasn’t tall enough to be frightening or short enough to be bothered. He continued with his rules. Answer questions directly. Don’t volunteer much information, but never appear to be hiding anything.

About eight o’clock he heard one of the church bells. The day was cold but sunny and already promising to be warm. The dusting of snow from last night was blowing in the street like a ghost snake wiggling in the frosty air. In an hour it would be gone.

He decided to set his first freedom goal. He’d buy a coat. After all, winter was already here. The first year in prison he’d been either hot or freezing. If he had a good wool coat, he could be warm all winter, and then if he ever got hot, he’d just take off his good coat. He sighed, almost feeling it already covering his shoulders. The old sweatshirt he’d found in the lost-and-found bin at one of the bus stops last night was too worn to last the winter.

Yancy smiled, knowing that if anyone passed by, they’d think he was an idiot, but he didn’t care. He had to start somewhere. Daydreaming might not get him anywhere, but a goal—now, that was something he could sink his teeth into. He’d listened to all the tapes. He had to think positive and do it right this time, because he was never going back to prison.

Two old men came out of a couple of the small houses across the street. One had a saw and the other carried a folding chair. They must live in the cluster of little bungalows surrounded by a chain-link fence. The sign out front, looking as old as the two men, said Evening Shadows Retirement Community.

As he watched the men, he almost felt sorry for them. In Yancy’s mind the place looked little better than prison. The homes were in bad shape. One roof sank in at a corner. One porch was missing a railing. The yard had been left on its own for so long it looked like nothing but prairie grass and weeds. A few of the homes had flowers in pots with leftover Christmas greenery, and all had tiny flags tacked up by the door as if they’d been put up as Fourth of July decorations, and no one had bothered to take them down.

Yancy stopped studying the place and decided to pass his time watching the old men. One at a time they each tried to stand on the folding chair to cut dead branches off the elms between the little houses. One kept dropping the saw. The other fell through the opening in the back of the chair and would have tumbled to the ground if his partner hadn’t braced him.

Yancy laughed. The two were an accident about to happen, and he had a front row seat.

The second time he laughed, one of the old men turned toward Yancy and pointed his cane like a rifle. “You think you can do any better, mister, you get over here and try.”

“All right, I will.” He headed toward them. “If one of you break a leg I’ll probably get blamed.” With nothing to do until the café opened, he might as well lend a hand. That’s what normal people did, right? And Yancy wanted to be nothing but normal.