Greatness is not in where we stand, but in what direction we are moving.

—Oliver Wendell Holmes
(Left by Jay, who drove a truck to earn his pay, and learned some things along the way)

Chapter 19

The world’s most unusual gift arrived three days later. I was out in the yard with Nick, enjoying another sudden bloom of rain lilies. Overnight, they had popped up and carpeted the grass, and the first thing Nick wanted to do after we came home from summer enrichment was pick bouquets and put them all around the house again.

On the back porch, the intercom buzzed, indicating that the front gate was closed and someone was out there. I answered, thinking it might be Keren, who’d been working with me on some article ideas about the gardening program. I was hoping that a few human-interest pieces about specific families involved in growing supper gardens might help to generate media interest. So far, I hadn’t had any luck getting major media coverage for the program, although readers of The Frontier Woman were clamoring for updates on the kids in Chinquapin Peaks and their plans for family gardens.

The voice on the intercom definitely wasn’t Keren’s. The words came in the thickly accented pidgin of Spanish and English that was typical of many of the guys who came up from Mexico to work on ranches around the area. “I gottee dees mee-lk cow for jou, pero este gate es close.”

“You’ve got my what?”

“Mee-lk ca-owww.” He slowed the words down. “From de cow sale dis morn-een. Jou buy her. I gottee the b-eel of sale. It saying, de-liber her here.”

It occurred to me that maybe Al was at the gate, and she’d solicited someone’s help to play a joke on me. I’d shared Jack’s comment about the hormones in milk last week, and for once, Al was actually in agreement with Jack. She’d been threatening to bring me my very own milk goat, and I’d been telling her that if she did, I was going to sneak over to her house with the goat and put it in her living room. My one attempt at goat milking was a funny blog and a bad memory. “I think you’re at the wrong place. I didn’t order a milk cow.”

“I gottee de-liber her here. She for Mal-lo-reee E-ber-soon. Mee-ilk cow. Cow is para ti. Hace mucho calor out here. Bery hot, okay?”

“I didn’t buy a cow,” I said sweetly, smirking to myself. I was not going to be sucked into this. Al was probably watching through those ever-present binoculars of hers, just waiting for me to open the gate.

“I gotte de-liber her. I gonna tie her to dees fence, okay?” The man actually sounded perturbed. “She kick-een my trailer.”

“Okay, okay, wait.” Even if I didn’t open the gate, I’d have to go down there, on the off chance that some poor cow might be tied to the gate in the afternoon sun. Maybe the deliveryman didn’t know this was all just a gag. “Hang on. I’ll buzz you in.”

I pushed the button and moved to the yard fence, shading my eyes and looking down the driveway. Nick, his fingers clutching a batch of rain lilies, followed me. He had learned some time ago that a cute ranch kid standing at the fence was a magnet for delivery men with packs of gum, bags of suckers, or rolls of stickers to give away. Pecos, who knew that the UPS man carried Beggin’ Strips and Milk-Bones, waited with us, his nub tail wagging hopefully.

The usual swirl of white caliche dust followed a truck and livestock trailer up the driveway. Apparently, Al had gone all the way this time. There was actually a cow in the trailer. I could see it moving around as the vehicle stopped and the delivery man exited with a clipboard in hand.

“You gotte escribé.” The deliveryman made a motion for me to sign the delivery ticket.

A plaintive moo-ooo-ooo traveled through the air.

I held my hands palm-out, giving the international sign for, No way, dude. That’s not my cow. “I . . . didn’t order . . . a cow. I promise. No . . . uhhh . . .” I searched my limited Rolodex of college Spanish. I was much better with French and Italian. What was the word? “No . . . uhhh . . . comparlo. No.” I thought that should translate to, I didn’t buy it, but the poor man only thrust the sheet at me again.

“I gotte leeb here.” He made the motion of unloading the cow. “Muy caliente.” Pointing to the trailer, he pantomimed the last words, even though I understood them well enough. It’s hot. No telling what the temperature was inside that trailer. The cow looked miserable.

Balancing the clipboard atop the gatepost, he hurried toward the trailer. I caught the clipboard as it slid off.

“No, but . . . wait . . .” There was no point in arguing, though. The man was determined. In fact, he couldn’t seem to move fast enough as he secured my new cow in the barn.

I called Al as soon as the truck and trailer rolled away. “Very funny, sending the cow. You can come get it now, though. The man said it needs to be milked, and not that I know anything about cows, but she looks uncomfortable—like she might explode or something.”

Al didn’t answer at first. I was waiting for laughter, but instead she said, “Hang on a minute, Mallory,” and brusquely left me dangling on the line while she ordered food at a drive-through.

Apparently, she wasn’t staked out somewhere on a hilltop, enjoying the drama of the cow delivery. She actually seemed confused. “So, what’s up? What’d the old so-and-so have a cow about now?” She was referring to Jack, of course.

Nick tugged at the hem of my shirt. He wanted to go back out and see the cow. She was charming, as cows went, I supposed. She had big brown eyes and long eyelashes, and she seemed to like children. “The cow, Al. Really. That was funny and all, but if someone doesn’t do something . . . well, can cows actually explode? The guy didn’t speak much English, but he used the sign language for She needs to be milked. I know what gorda and mucha leche means. I did take a little Spanish in college. Come pick her up, okay?”

Nick tugged harder on my shirt. “I wanna see the cow-w-w-w,” he whined. In all the excitement over rain lilies and then the cow, we’d neglected naptime.

“Nick, shhh,” I snapped. “It’s not our cow, it’s Al’s. It’s going to Al’s house to live.”

A huge pout lip formed, and Nick’s forehead lowered over his eyes. Releasing my T-shirt, he crossed his arms and staged a sit-in on the kitchen floor.

“Nick, cut it out. We can’t keep the cow.”

“It’s not mine,” Al insisted. “I’m a strictly a sheep and goat girl, remember? Shoot, I hardly even know what to do with a cow.”

Nick uncrossed his legs and pummeled the kitchen floor with his heels, sending a dirty look my way.

“All right, you know that’s not okay.” I pointed the mommy finger at Nick. I was learning not to cave in to the threat of snotty hum zingers at inopportune times and in public places. “If you’re going to throw a fit, go do it in your room.”

“Well, I would, but I’m over in Gnadenfeld, getting a sandwich.” Al was laughing on the phone now.

Nick flopped over on his stomach and started wailing.

“I told you what to do about that kind of thing,” Al offered. Somehow, she was an expert on parenting techniques, too. “Just tell him to throw the biggest fit he can come up with, and cheer him on while he does it. The minute he thinks you want him to throw the fit, he won’t want to anymore. Reverse psychology. It works. Learned that from Foster Cline and Jim Fay, Parenting With Love and Logic.” One incongruous thing I’d discovered about Al was that she’d read more books than anyone I’d ever met. She had a penchant for self-help and psychology. “I’ll come by and take a look on my way home, but it’s not my cow.”

“Well . . . but wait . . . who . . .” Then I landed on a completely new thought. “You don’t think that Jack . . .”

“Can’t hear ya. Give me an hour or so. I’ll call Keren and see if I can bring her, too. This oughta be fun.” Al hung up, and I was left with the phone and the fit. Nick wore himself out and quieted to a whimper, and I put him down for a nap. Then I called Daniel at the lab.

“Do you think Jack would have sent us a cow?” I blurted.

“A what?”

“A cow, Daniel. A man showed up with a cow, and it had my name on the delivery notice. Please tell me this cow isn’t supposed to be here . . .”

“Jack did go to an auction this morning. But I can’t ask him about the cow because he just left with Mason. Something about looking at a site to build a lake house. I guess Mason’s thinking he might spend more time here.” Daniel sounded happy and hopeful, but the more often I rubbed elbows with Mason, the more vaguely uncomfortable I was around him. The day after he’d given Nick the toys, I’d had a phone conversation with him and tried to bring up the bridge in Chinquapin Peaks. The only thing Mason seemed interested in was luring me over to the big house for breakfast. I’d politely declined again.

I hadn’t said anything to Daniel, but Mason was definitely angling toward something. I just couldn’t figure out what it was.

“So, do you think that Jack sent me a cow?” I asked.

I heard metal clinking, and what sounded like one of the centrifuges in the lab whirring. “Anything’s possible. He’s on a buying spree. I just got two four-foot crates of used lab equipment he found on eBay. Looks like it came from some university. I’m trying to figure out if there’s much I can actually use, and the thing is, Jack doesn’t seem to care. When he came by here and saw it this morning, it was like he’d almost forgotten that he’d bought it. He said, whatever I don’t want, just donate it to the school. So I’d say a milk cow is a definite possibility. Jack’s happy, and when Jack’s happy, I guess money flows. Nobody knows for sure, because nobody’s ever seen Jack like this. Do you need me to come help you with your new cow?” He was laughing when he said, it.

“No, Al’s coming.”

“Well, fine, I’ve been usurped by Al again.” He sighed, trying to give the impression that he was greatly wounded by the fact that I’d called Al first.

“Do you know anything about milking cows?”

“Only what I learned off Gunsmoke.” He chuckled, then added, “You’re probably better off with Al, and I should try to get some things done here before the parade of roses ends. I’m going to drive out to the test plot in the Cedar Break pasture and gather some samples. Jack said he and Mason would grab some for me, but there’s no telling where they’re at right now. They might have forgotten all about it. I should be back in the lab in an hour or so, if you need me. I want to run tests while I can.”

We said good-bye, and I hung up the phone, leaving the undercurrents of Daniel’s last comment unexplored. We both knew that Jack’s recent phase of nirvana, or joy over his family reconciliation, or whatever was happening couldn’t go on forever. Sooner or later, we would all have to find out what the landscape of Jack West was going to look like after Mason’s return.

The days of new wall-to-wall carpet and free cows were undoubtedly numbered.

I tried not to ponder that too much as I did some things around the house and waited for Al and Keren to show up. An hour and a half later, when we walked into the barn together, the subject of Jack’s recent outlandish behavior came up. It was bound to, considering that the gift cow was standing right there.

“The old fart has gone round the bend this time,” Al observed while Keren checked the cow over, then found a crate to sit on and washed out a bucket to use for milking. The cow looked greatly relieved that someone qualified had arrived.

Nick leaned in to watch, bracing his hands on his knees, fascinated as Keren settled in and began the milking.

“My sister’s doctor told her not to drink raw milk when she was pregnant,” Keren pointed out. “Of course, they tell all the farm girls that, and a lot of them do it anyway, but you should be careful.”

Crossing my arms over my stomach, I leaned in and watched the milk scooshing into the bucket. I’d never really thought about where milk came from. In the store, it looked so . . . pristine and white and . . . sanitary. “I think I’ll just buy organic.” In general, I preferred to believe that food just appeared in the world, neatly packaged in hermetically sealed containers. “I’m hoping it’s a misunderstanding about the cow. Maybe Jack wanted it or something. Surely, he wouldn’t buy me a cow.”

Both Keren and Al turned incredulous looks my way, as in, This is Jack West we’re talking about, remember?

Al scoffed, then sifted a horseshoe from the dust on the barn floor and handed it to Nick. “The way that old coot’s been acting lately, I wouldn’t be too sure. He passed by me when I was coming out my gate the other day, and he waved. Actually waved. I heard he went into the Waterbird last Friday and asked a couple of the Docksiders how the fishing was.”

Keren nodded. “Our bull ran through the perimeter fence last week, and instead of calling and threatening to sic his lawyer on us, Mr. West sent a couple of the ranch hands to help us pen up the bull and fix the fence. He didn’t even ask us to pay for the repairs.” Her eyes were wide with disbelief.

Leaning against the side of the stall, Al hooked her thumbs in her pockets. “This keeps up, the old man’s not going to be any fun at all to have as a neighbor.” She pulled a face and I chuckled, but I felt guilty for laughing at Jack. In spite of all that we’d been through here, there was something incredibly sad about Jack’s life.

“I feel sorry for him.” Keren offered a mirror of my thoughts. “He must have been so lonely all these years. I can’t imagine what it would be like, not having your family. I mean, we might have our little differences in our clan—there are so many of us, for one thing—but family means everything. I don’t know how we’d survive without each other.”

Al turned toward the corner, hiding something. If she had any remaining family, she had never mentioned them. Her life, in some ways, seemed a lot like Jack’s, though I would never have said that to her.

She cleared her throat before she spoke. “Well, I hate to say it, but he’s putting his eggs in the wrong basket with that son of his. That man is trouble.”

“Oh, I hope not.” Keren cast an anxious frown at Al.

Al’s expression was flat, her lips a thin, confident line. “If Mason West is spending this much time away from the wine, women, and song down in the state capitol, he’s here for a reason. And it’s not to reconnect with his daddy.”

A chill ran over me. Chrissy had said the same thing, and with the same sense of certainty. “Then why? Why do you think he’s here?”

The milk bucket went silent, and Keren looked up, waiting.

Al shrugged. “I’m not a mind reader or a fortune-teller. I’m just saying, look at the man’s record. He’s a slash-and-burn politician—more coal plants, more strip mining, more access to public lands so his cronies can make money off resources that should belong to the public. Less money to teachers and schools, and more money to testing companies to produce state tests. Over a hundred million, last year alone. Who do you think the investors in those testing companies are? His contributors. His cronies. Mason West has made himself a multi-multimillionaire by serving up favors for the right people. He’s living the high life down there in Austin, and now he’s looking at a national bid. You tell me if you think he’s got any real interest in this ranch, his daddy, or in the development of grain that’ll make some farmer in Africa able to grow corn on the savannah. Mason is here for a reason. If I knew what it was, I’d . . .”

My cell phone rang, the sound echoing through the barn, high-pitched and out of place, stirring the guinea hens from the rafters. Both Keren and I jumped, and then I slid the phone out to look at it. Daniel. Probably calling to check on the cow milking. I popped it onto speakerphone.

The minute he said my name, I knew something was wrong.

“Daniel, what’s the matter?” There was noise in the background, either voices or the radio. He wasn’t in the lab. “Where are you?” I was aware of Al, Keren, and Nick watching me.

“Jack’s had an accident,” Daniel’s reply was rushed and breathless. “We’re on our way to the hospital in Gnadenfeld. I’m following the ambulance.” Al pushed off the wall, and Keren steadied the milk bucket.

“An accident? What happened?” The day suddenly felt surreal, as if everything around us had stopped moving.

“I don’t know all the details. Something happened on the cliffs above the Cedar Break plot. His truck slipped out of gear and rolled over the edge. I’ve gotta go, Mal. I’ll talk to you at the hospital.” He hung up, and I stood there staring at the phone, trying to process. A sense of dread and disbelief filled the sunny day with sudden shadows.

Al’s gaze met mine again, and she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, slowly shaking her head. “Wonder where Mason West was when that happened.”

The words were an unnerving echo of my thoughts. I was wondering, too.