The everyday kindness of the back roads more than makes up for the acts of greed in the headlines.

—Charles Kuralt
(Left by Dan and Theresa Lohman, touring Texas in their vintage motor home)

Chapter 9

Standing there looking at the tire, I had a terrible, horrible sinking feeling. This was bad. Very, very bad. The U-Haul was tipped askew, the rubber part of the tire hanging in shreds on the metal inner portion. Even I, who knew not beans about cars and trailers, knew that flat tires didn’t end up in this condition unless you’d been driving on the flat for a while.

I recalled my father berating my mother for something similar years ago, telling her she should have stopped and called for roadside assistance instead of remaining on the highway, obliterating the tire, and ending up marooned in the center median on the way home from one of my sister’s cello lessons. “Well, how was I supposed to know?” she’d insisted, her eyes big and tear-filled. “I thought if it really needed to be changed, a buzzer would go off or a light, at least. The car should—” sniff, sniff, a delicate dabbing around the eyes, an attempt to salvage mascara, and then—“say something.”

My father, saint that he was, lost his angry look and laughed instead. “Mar . . . ger . . . ie,” he coughed out between puffs. “Sweet . . . heart.” And just like that, he was taking her in his arms and soothing away the trauma of the tire incident.

“I swear, she gets away with everything,” Trudy, thirteen-going-on-thirty then, muttered in my ear. She was mortified that her friends might have seen us being delivered home in a tow truck with Mother’s car dragging along behind, little tufts of grass hanging from the axle. “If I did that, I’d be grounded for, like, the rest of the year.”

I didn’t really understand Trudy’s complaining at the time. I couldn’t relate to my sisters’ tendencies to be strangely jealous of how much my father loved my mother. I never coveted my mother’s role or admired it. My father’s role looked better. He was the one in charge. The decision-maker. The one whisking off to exotic locations in private jets and limousines.

But now here I was in an empty parking lot, having clearly pulled a Mom, as Trudy had liked to refer to incidents like this.

I looked around as Nick tapped his window from inside and enthusiastically inquired, “We gotta fat tire?”

Then I felt like a total ignoramus. Even a not-quite-four-year-old could diagnose the problem. I’d heard the scraping sound back there, felt the U-Haul weaving around since Nick and I had left the house to drive to Moses Lake. I’d assumed it was the wind, or that the trailer was wobbling because the road was bumpy. Stupid. Really stupid.

“Uh-huh,” I answered. “Do you know how to fix one?”

“Okay.” Nick began wiggling out of his seat belt, happy to give it a try. His Hot Wheels cars had flats all the time. How much different could this be?

“I think we’d better call your dad.” I leaned into the car to grab my phone, popping it off the car charger.

Nick, halfway out of his safety harness, rolled his head back and yawned, studying the ceiling as I stood in the driver’s side door and tried repeatedly to get Daniel on his cell. No answer. I left messages, texted, waited, muttered, complained, then finally gave up. What were the odds of finding a wrecker in this town? Could wreckers even tow a broken trailer?

I tried staring at the mangled tire some more, hoping to shame it into repairing itself. Unfortunately, I’d killed it beyond dead. And I was no U-Haul expert, but I did know that there was no spare tire for the trailer. Daniel had grumbled about this fact when we were at the rental place back home. The attendant claimed that was because spare tires tended to mysteriously vanish before trailers were returned. If we had a breakdown, we were to call the U-Haul hotline number for help. I wondered how far, exactly, the nearest U-Haul roadside assistance mechanic might have to travel to reach me in a church parking lot in Moses Lake. I had a bad feeling this was not going to be a quick process, and right now the folder with the U-Haul numbers in it was sitting on the counter in the ranch house.

“Where all them kids go?” Nick asked, when he saw me looking at the building. The place was quiet and empty now, the park along the lakeshore deserted. We could walk back to the hardware store, hang out until Daniel finally noticed that we’d been trying to get in touch with him. My new friend Dustin would probably help us out. . . .

I shared the plan with Nick, and he frowned, giving me a tired look. The red rims around his eyes testified to the fact that it was well past his usual nap time.

“All right, here we go.” Before striking out, I attempted one last, desperate call to Daniel. He didn’t answer, and in some inexplicable way, I felt my irritation transferring to him. He could have unhooked the U-Haul before he left with Jack West, at least. Hadn’t it even occurred to him that Nick and I would need to go to town for lunch and some groceries? He’d clearly been away from the house for hours, and he hadn’t even called to check on us?

My mother’s advice flew away like a sparrow with an alley cat on its tail, and I stood there stewing, resentful and abandoned. He couldn’t explain to his boss that he needs to go home? That he has a family to take care of? That we have to get the house into some kind of shape for us to sleep in it, and . . .

A rusty red four-door pickup with some sort of a cage on the back rolled into the parking lot, derailing my personal tirade. Holding Nick’s hand, I turned and watched the vehicle veer in our direction. When the angle of the sun changed, I caught a glimpse of the driver. Cowboy hat, tall, thin. A child was sitting next to the driver . . . a little girl with ponytails . . . no, not a girl. A dog. In the back of the truck, a larger animal of some sort was circling in the cage. Shading my eyes, I tried to see what it was.

“Wook!” Nick pointed enthusiastically. “It’s a g-raffe!”

“That’s a . . . llama, I think. . . .” Although I was just guessing, too. The black-and-white polka-dotted creature was like nothing I’d ever seen. I didn’t know llamas came in two-tone.

“Ohhhh,” Nick breathed. “Woooo.”

The llama stuck its nose through the railings as the vehicle stopped, and the cowboy got out, followed by the dog. “Flat tire?” The voice was barely audible over the rumble of the truck’s idling engine; however, I quickly realized that the driver was not a cowboy, but a cowgirl—a tall raw-boned woman wearing a loose-fitting T-shirt and jeans that looked like they might have come from the men’s department. Her cowboy boots were covered with dust and dried mud, and a ring of dirt around her straw hat testified to the fact that it had been sweated in a time or two. Her long, gray-tinseled brown hair was braided behind her back, and the tail hung over her shoulder, the end bound with a green rubber band that appeared to have been salvaged off a newspaper somewhere.

With a strange fascination, I watched her approach, the dog trailing behind her, heeling perfectly, though there was no leash. I’d never seen anyone quite like this ruddy cowgirl woman before. She moved across the parking lot, loose limbed and relaxed, but all business, in a country sort of way. “Got a flat tire?” she asked again. She tipped her head to one side slightly, and so did the dog, as if both thought I might be a little daft.

I realized I’d been so busy looking at her that I hadn’t answered. “Yes, yes, I do have a flat tire. Mangled, actually.”

Nodding, she gave me little more than a cursory glance before proceeding past me to get a better look at the leaning rental trailer. Nick and I followed in her wake like tourists having spotted a movie star in some Hollywood restaurant. “Yeah, they don’t put spares in these rentals, either,” she observed with an obvious note of disgust, then leaned over to take a look at the tailgate of the Jeep, where the vehicle’s spare was hanging. “Well, that thing won’t fit it.”

“No, I didn’t think it would.” As if it had even occurred to me that the Jeep had a spare tire of its own. I wouldn’t have known what to do with it, anyway.

Glancing up and down the street, the cowgirl woman sucked air through her teeth, a critical sound, I thought, and I wondered if it was aimed at me. Strangely enough, the animal in the back of the truck made the same noise, showing teeth that looked startlingly human. Nick slipped from my hand to move a few steps closer. “I wanna see,” he whispered.

“Don’t go too close.” I watched him from the corner of my eye as he moved toward the pickup one tentative step at a time.

“Trixie won’t hurt ’im,” the cowgirl said, shooing Nick onward. “She likes kids. She’s my pettin’ llama for school visits, that kinda thing.”

“Oh.” So it was a llama, and llamas did come with polka dots. I’d learned something today as a result of the flat tire fiasco. My father had always said that an experience you learn from is never a complete waste.

Nick moved closer to the pickup truck and stood with his hands on his hips, looking up at the llama. The llama looked down at Nick, pressing its nose to the bars as Nick squinted to get a better look at the animal’s teeth.

“It’s okay, you can pet her,” the cowgirl told him. “Al Beckenbauer.”

I realized she was introducing herself to me.

“Mallory Everson.” I reached out to shake her hand, and she crushed me in a big, bony grip that reminded me of Jack West’s. Beneath her leathery skin, lean forearm muscles bulged. I tried to gauge how old she was, but it was impossible to tell. Somewhere between forty and sixty, but she probably looked older than she was. Her skin was sun-freckled and latticed with tiny dry-weather cracks. Her face was free of makeup, other than maybe a little ChapStick. She had an air of confidence and self-sufficiency that, quite honestly, made me feel sort of froufrou and incompetent. Wimpy, really. I’d never thought of myself that way before, but Al Beckenbauer was intimidating. I had a feeling she changed her own flat tires. Probably barehanded, without a jack, and she undid the bolts with her teeth.

When I pulled my fingers away, I fought the urge to shake the circulation back into them. Sweat dripped down my back, and I wondered at the quickest remedy for my current predicament. If it didn’t cost too much, maybe I’d just pay to have the thing fixed and not say a word to Daniel about it. I was an idiot for having done such a number on the tire. “Any chance there’s someplace here in town that could put a new rubber part on the . . .” My grasp of the proper terminology lacking, I settled for, “ . . . thing?” What was the metal part inside the shredded rubber called, anyway?

Al shook her head, her salt-and-pepper braid slipping off her shoulder and tumbling down her back in a heavy coil. “Not here in Moses Lake. Ranchhouse Tire probably has replacements this size, but that’s over in Gnadenfeld.”

We went on to discuss options—call U-Haul for a repair, unhook the trailer and leave it here, or leave both the Jeep and trailer behind . . .

A school bus rumbled into the parking lot and drifted to a stop near the edge where a thick patch of forest cast heavy shade. As Al and I watched, a line of children appeared like wood sprites from among the trees. At the head of the group, a young woman in a long denim skirt walked backward, a hiking stick waving in her hand as if she were directing an orchestra. The kids watched her with rapt attention. “Five plus two!” she called out, and the kids returned, “Seven!”

“Three plus three!” she called, and the crowd answered, “Trixie!” Though not in unison. The math lesson was down the tubes the minute the kids spotted the llama. Anarchy broke out with a chorus of excited squeals, cheers, and pleas of “It’s Trixie! Can we go see Trixie? Hi, Trixie! Trixie, I love you! Trixie! Trix-eee!” Even the teenage helpers at the back of the line seemed excited to see Al’s llama.

Trixie and the truck were soon surrounded by fans, and Nick disappeared in a squirming mass of little bodies. I was struck by the fact that he was right at home almost instantly, laughing with the other kids and pointing as Trixie pressed her nose through the bars and offered a llama smile.

The teacher crossed the parking lot, greeted Al, and introduced herself to me—Keren Zimmer. Keren was a beautiful girl, with soft features and wide, kind brown eyes. Her thick blond hair was coiled in a bun on the back of her head. Like Al, she wasn’t wearing any makeup, but she didn’t need any, either.

“Keren’s your other side-pasture neighbor,” Al offered brusquely. “You’ve got Keren’s family on your west fence line, and my ranch on your east fence. ’Course, with all the land around that place you’re on, it’s quite a ways to the fences.” The last statement had a hard edge that reminded me of my chat with Pop Dorsey in the Waterbird store. Whenever the West Ranch came up in conversation, there was an undertone of taboo.

I registered the fact that I hadn’t told Al where we lived. How did she know? Was word around town already? Were there so few newcomers here that our arrival was news, or did it have something to do with the fact that we were associated with Jack West?

“You’re next door to the West Ranch?” I asked.

Al nodded. “Saw your U-Haul at the gate earlier.”

I tried to hide the note of suspicion jingling in my brain. When I’d pulled out the gate a couple hours ago, there wasn’t a vehicle in sight.

“Oh, you’re the ones moving in at the old West Ranch.” Keren seemed unaware of the undertow in our conversation. “We are neighbors, then. If you ever need any help, directions to someplace or anything like that, just call me. We’re in the book. I’m usually home after two thirty in the summer. In the mornings I have summer enrichment with this crazy bunch.” She nodded toward the llama admirers.

“Great to meet you.” I watched Keren’s students jostling for position. Nick was laughing and shoulder-butting with a little dark-haired girl maybe a year or two older than he was. “I didn’t see any houses when I looked around this morning. I didn’t know there was anyone nearby.”

“Our place is down in a draw.” Keren paused to tell two boys not to climb on each other, then turned back to me. “You wouldn’t see it, but if you go on up the road to the west, you’ll pass by our gateway. It says Zimmer Dairy on it. Stop over and visit anytime.” She eagle-eyed the kids again, then smiled. “Your little boy’s having fun over there. You know, it’s too late to officially sign up for summer enrichment class through the school, but if you want him to get to know some kids, you’re welcome to bring him to the class anytime. He wouldn’t be able to ride the bus from campus because of insurance, but you could just meet us wherever we go that day. We can always use parent volunteers. A lot of these kids come from home situations where they just don’t get much adult time—not the kind they need, anyway. We’d love to have you and ummm . . .” She motioned to Nick.

“Nick,” I offered.

“And Nick. We do everything from gardening to nature study. It’s all free. Quite a number of our kids are low-income, so it funds the program, and . . .” She paused to take stock of the group, which was starting to look like a bunch of teenagers at a Justin Bieber concert. “I’d better go get them on the bus. If we don’t head out, I’ll have parents all over the school parking lot, looking for their kids. Sorry I can’t be more help with the tire.”

“We’ll get it taken care of,” Al replied. As Keren herded her kids to the bus, Al again listed my tire-crisis options.

“I think, if you’ll just give us a ride back home, I’ll call the U-Haul roadside assistance number and have them come and take care of it. Surely someone from the ranch can bring us back here to get the Jeep later.” I’d finally arrived at the point where abandoning Grandma Louisa’s Fostoria and riding home with a llama hardly even seemed like a wrinkle in the day.

On the way back to the ranch, Nick dozed in the backseat of Al’s truck, and the llama pressed its nose against the rear window, seeming interested in the conversation as I learned more about Al Beckenbauer. She lived alone on four hundred acres she had inherited from grandparents she saw only occasionally as a child. She raised goats for milk, as well as mohair goats that were sheared periodically for their hair, like sheep. I’d never known where the mohair in sweaters came from, but now I did.

As we turned into the driveway at the West Ranch, Al fished a photo from the clutter on the dashboard and showed me what an award-winning mohair production animal actually looked like—sort of similar to a sheepdog, but with horns and dainty little feet. I wished Nick were awake to look at the photo, but he was out cold when we rolled to a stop at the house. Rather than parking beside the gate as we usually did, Al stopped the truck parallel to the fence, with my door facing it, the motion seeming to indicate that I should make a quick exit. She leaned over the steering wheel, checking the barnyard and seeming antsy as I opened my door and reached into the back to get Nick out. He lay limp on my arm, and I stood there trying to figure out how to take the car seat and my grocery sacks from the vehicle with Nick hanging over my shoulder.

“I’ll get it. I’ll just pile it by the fence there for you.” Al checked the barnyard again, her gaze shifting back and forth acutely. Sliding from her seat, she muttered something, but I only caught the last words. “ . . . before that old coot takes another potshot at me.”

I turned in the gateway. “What?”

“Nothin’, never mind.” She waved me off, hurrying to unload my things and stack them by the fence. “I’m outta here.”

“Okay . . . well . . . thanks.” I shifted Nick on my shoulder as she returned to her truck. With a spit of gravel and a puff of diesel smoke, Al was gone, the llama watching through the bars, looking as confused as I was.

I had the sinking feeling the old coot she was talking about was Jack West. He shot at the neighbors? Surely not.

That had to be just figurative language, I told myself as I took Nick to the porch and laid him on the wide wooden swing. Then I went inside and dragged the air mattress to the porch and settled him there. While bug bombs were not my forte, Dustin had given me a few tips—clear the house, close all windows, open all closets and cabinets, stuff everything you can in the refrigerator so you won’t have to wash it later, and so forth. After completing all preparations, set off the bomb farthest from the door and work your way out as quickly as possible.

I moved through the steps one-by-one, just as Dustin had described. There was a sense of satisfaction in it, as if I were singlehandedly conquering the wild, so to speak. I took a photo of myself wearing the rubber gloves and the mask, getting ready to set off a spray bomb. Only one day in Texas, and I’m a regular frontier woman. LOL! I added, and sent the photo off to the Gymies.

By the time I’d finished setting off the bombs, then called for U-Haul repairs, all I wanted to do was crash on the air mattress beside Nick. I didn’t care that some sort of menacing-looking yard fowl were pecking around in the grass not far away, or that the angel fountain by the little house made me think of Jack West’s dead wife, or that scorpions had been mentioned in the hardware store. They’re mostly on the other side of the lake, I assured myself as I let my eyes fall closed. Considering that it was only midafternoon, it had been a very, very long day.

A dream slid over me as I fell asleep, the image so clear and potent that it seemed real, rather than a conjuring of my subconscious mind. In the flower garden of the little house, the angel statue grew in size, the wings fading, the skin losing the cold pallor of stone and taking on life, until a woman, not a statue, stood among the irises. The breeze lifted her blond hair as she walked slowly up the stone steps to the house, a white sundress swirling around her legs.

I watched her cross the porch, her body disappearing into the shadows. Before opening the door, she turned and looked at me, but I couldn’t see her face.

She was trying to tell me something, but I couldn’t hear her.

She opened the door to the little house, and a child’s laughter spilled out, and then she was gone.

A quiet sleep slipped over me.

When I awoke, long rays of evening sun were slanting across the porch, and a chicken was watching me from less than forty-eight inches away, its head notching back and forth curiously. Nick was gone. I jerked upright, panicking before I noticed a note lying atop the air mattress.

Opened the windows to air out. U-Haul called. Trailer fixed. Sorry I missed all that. Can drive you back to town later.

Walked down to the lakeshore with Nick.

Past the barn.

Through the back gate, down the path.

Come find us.

Beneath that, Daniel had signed his name, and Nick had drawn a lopsided smiley face. Apparently Daniel wasn’t in any rush to rescue the Jeep and the trailer. Surely, we should go pick it up. Evening was setting in, and Grandma Louisa’s Fostoria was at risk.

On the other hand, I was sweaty and sticky, I’d been admiring the lake since our arrival, and wading in cool water sounded like heaven. Maybe the U-Haul situation could wait. There was a pickup truck parked by the yard gate now, and I assumed Daniel had the keys to it. The Jeep and the U-Haul were probably safe enough where they were. It was a church parking lot, after all.

I followed Daniel’s directions, walking past the little house, where I purposely did not look in the direction of the angel-woman statue, and then past a weathered red barn where horses watched me from dusty stalls. Beyond the barn, what looked like a wagon trail led across a field of pink wildflowers blooming in tiny bouquets beneath the dappled shade of ancient live oaks. My feet crunched on the rocky, milk-colored limestone soil as I walked, and bluebirds skipped along the path, the sun catching their feathers in impossible bursts of color before they flitted away. The air was fresh and water-scented, with not a hint of exhaust fumes or concrete—just the elemental scents of water, earth, and sky.

When the lakeshore came into view beyond the trees, I spotted Daniel and Nick in a little cove where the cedars opened along the rocky shore. The two of them were beautiful there together, Daniel immersed chest-high with Nick clinging to his neck. I stood for the longest time and just watched them, took in all the separate pieces of the picture they created together, studied them the way you’d study the brushstrokes of a master artist. The clear water sliding over skin, Daniel’s tanned and ruddy, Nick’s fair and fine in texture. The droplets flicking off the dark curls of Daniel’s hair as he stood and shook his head, the shimmering spray making Nick laugh. Daniel’s smile, Nick’s smile, the ways their mouths were different and yet the same. The way their eyes met. The love between them. The evening light touching the water. Little feet kicking rapidly, big feet swishing smoothly, parting the water without a sound.

I wanted to freeze the moment, every tiny and perfect bit of it.

These are my guys, I thought. My husband. My son.

They swam to the shore when they saw me, and both of them tried to tempt me into the water.

“How about I just watch? I didn’t bring a towel or a suit.” I fully intended to wade in the shallows, though I didn’t plan to get my clothes wet.

“Awwww,” Nick complained, then ran into the water and did a belly flop with his arms spread out.

Daniel braced his hands on his hips, his arms stiff, the muscles tight. “How about you come over here.” His eyes had that smoky look.

I thought of my father dragging my mother into the pool in her fancy loungewear. Now I wondered if there had been a fight involved that evening. Were they kissing and making up?

“Promise you’re not going to drag me in.” I took a step closer.

“You’d like it.” He smiled a cute, crooked, slightly roguish smile.

“I’m not kidding.” The practical side of me was already thinking about how much trouble it would be to deal with sopping wet shorts, and the fact that I was wearing the only bra that wasn’t packed in a box somewhere.

Daniel’s lashes lowered to half-mast. He ran his tongue along his bottom lip, as if he were considering coming after me—or at least he wanted me to think he was. We stood at a stalemate for an instant. Then he broke it with a wink. “All right. I don’t want you mad at me anymore.”

Somehow, in the weird way that you know things when you have a connection with someone, I knew the fight was over. Despite the advice of talk show hosts and relationship books that say issues should be talked out, I just wanted the big, ugly cloud between us to be gone. I crossed the empty space, kissed him, felt water dampening my clothes.

“Although you’re cute when you’re mad,” he murmured against my lips.

“Don’t even . . .” I considered giving him a shove and sending him stumbling back into the lake. He would come after me for sure if I did, though.

His eyes caught the light. “You are, you know.”

“C’mon swimmin’ wit’ me, Tante M!” Nick called, oblivious to the ongoing dance of reconciliation. He repeated his invitation a second time, but Tante M was busy at the moment. She was learning, right there on the side of the lake, all about kiss and make up. A drop of water slid over her chin, then raced down her neck and under her shirt, tracing a line down her ribs.

It didn’t feel one bit cold. In fact, it sizzled all the way.

Maybe, she decided, a dip in the lake didn’t sound so bad after all.