Yellowstone Memories (18 page)

But she had this … sparkle. A glow under her skin when she smiled. A confidence that bloomed pink in her cheeks when she shared about Jesus to the schoolkids—well spoken and unashamed.

Until that day he saw the light die in her eyes. She couldn’t have been more than fifteen when her father passed away, and small for her age. A scrawny slip of a girl, her cheeks still chubby with youth.

Lia opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, she heaved again—coughing into her handkerchief.

Justin winced, trying not to look at the handkerchief, and then peeled off his CCC bandanna and handed it to her.

She hesitated, and then to Justin’s astonishment, reached out and took it. Nodding her head in thanks before bending over double.

If Lia had come all the way from Bozeman by car, no wonder she was carsick.

“Do you want to … go see the doc?” Justin felt awkward again, finer points of conversation still eluding him. “He’s over there in that building. I’ll get him for ya.”

Lia nodded, arms wrapped around her middle. “I told Cynthia I was going to the bathroom, but—” She broke off, her face too green for conversation.

“Crackers?”

She turned those blue eyes toward him again in question.

“Soda crackers. You know, the kind you eat with soup. My sister Margaret swore they helped her seasickness when she went out on the lake.” Justin slapped his mouth shut, ashamed of his blabbering. Of course Lia knew Margaret was his sister. Everybody knew everybody in Berea, and they’d all gone to school together practically forever. Until Ma died first and then Pop, leaving nobody but Margaret and Justin to take care of Beanie.

And there’s no way Lia would want anything to eat after retching up breakfast for hours. What a ridiculous thing to ask.

Lia was nodding again.

“The crackers? You mean you … you want them?” Justin’s face brightened with inexplicable joy, like a flash of sunlight glancing off the Snake River.

“If you don’t mind. I’ll try anything.”

Justin’s heart leaped. For the first time in his life, he was going to do something right. True, it was just crackers—but if Lia had asked for an angry she-bear, Justin felt like he’d willingly chase one down and wrestle it for her.

“Wait here. Okay? I’ll come back.” Justin’s breath came fast, giddy, as he backed away, and then he broke into a frantic run toward the barracks.

L
ia Summers. What were the odds? Justin moved ghostlike through the scattered crowds who were heading to the bathhouse, laughing, stopping by the PX for a Pepsi or a smoke before formation and then dinner. Somebody reached out to trip him as a joke, waving a hand in his face, but Justin didn’t even look up. His eyes glazed, registering none of it.

Instead he saw the reverend’s simple walnut table the day he’d invited Justin over for dinner years ago—the light of compassion in his eyes so pure and strong that Justin felt, in his clumsy Bible ignorance, that he’d pulled out a chair across from God Himself. Mrs. Summers and little Miriam passed the biscuits, and the reverend spooned extra strawberry jam on Justin’s biscuit when he hesitated. Pushing him the whole glass jar.

“Take it home, son,” he said with a wink, resting his hand gently on Justin’s head. “I heard your father’s fond of strawberries. And you’re a good fellow. You’ll do it for him, won’t you?”

At the sound of the word
father
, Justin’s stomach buckled. Just how much did the reverend know anyhow?

“Naw, I couldn’t take something of yours, sir.” Justin felt like he’d forgotten how to talk, dropping his knife as he tried to cut off the thinnest slice of butter possible. After all, with the drought and Pop’s throwing the family money away on liquor, it had been ages since Justin had seen anything as beautiful as homemade jam. And made with white sugar! He tried not to look at it there in the cut-glass jar, quivering glorious red.

“Please, son. You’ll do us a favor. Isn’t that right, Lia?”

Justin glanced over at her as she sat straight in her chair, her face so refined and so confident—yet she’d refilled his glass three times without even waiting for thanks, never once making him ask. And not a second glance at his poorly bandaged hand or the ragged shirtsleeve he so desperately tried to hide in his lap.

All that pretty, curly hair of hers pulled back in a chocolate-brown ribbon, leaving tendrils on her cheek.

“Please, Papa. I’m sick of seeing strawberries after all those weeks of picking.” Lia twirled a curl of her hair around her finger like a young schoolgirl, an action that caused Justin to stare for a second, although he didn’t exactly know why. “Can’t you give him the rest? I know we’ve got two more back in the kitchen, and I can’t look at them another minute.”

“Well of course, Lia.” Reverend Summers crossed his arms over his chest, glints of fading light from the windows reflecting his warm smile. “Since it bothers you that much. If Justin will oblige us, that is.”

Justin scratched his ear, embarrassed and tongue-tied. “I reckon, sir. If it’ll … you know. Help.”

“Thank you,” Lia said to Justin in a soft voice, shooting him a shy and grateful smile over her plate. “How is your father, anyway? Someone said he wasn’t well these days.”

Justin searched her eyes, but he saw only innocence glimmering there. Lashes blinking, waiting. Politely folded hands. Mrs. Summers gently touched her arm, and Lia looked up, blank-eyed in surprise. Lips parted.

Before Justin could reply to Lia’s question, dry-mouthed, Reverend Summers straightened his glasses and leaned forward quickly, making both their heads turn his way. “Lia,” he said in a bold, bright tone, “have I ever told you about the time I pulled an alligator out of Yellowstone Lake?”

“What?” Lia laughed, letting the curl of hair slide off her finger. “That’s impossible!”

“Why, no, not at all! Listen.” And the reverend scooted his chair closer, raising his hands, orator-fashion, to begin the story.

When Justin came scrambling back across the rustling Wyoming grass, a chilly bottle tucked in his hand, Lia hadn’t moved much. She huddled there on fragrant pine straw with her arms around her middle. With her arms like that, he noticed—for the first time—a barely visible row of stitching on the underarm seam of her pretty jacket that showed it had been mended. The material of the elbow was a bit threadbare, and her shoes—rounded toes with a slight heel he’d never seen Lia wear—had worn through the soles, revealing the cardboard patch she’d fitted into the bottom.

Even her white gloves, tossed carelessly on a clump of grass by her hat, had been mended along the seams multiple times, and a tiny hole showed in the index finger.

The Depression obviously hadn’t been good to the Summers family.

Especially without a father
.

Justin swallowed hard and knelt next to Lia, setting down the bottle and popping open his battered tin of soda crackers.

“Here ya go.” He shook a cracker into her hand, ashamed of his dirty fingernails and calloused hands. “See if it helps any. I called for the doc, but he’s over on the ridge sewing up some idiot who practically whacked his leg off with a machete.” Justin started to spill more lurid details then reminded himself that Lia was a girl. He had a hard time keeping a rein on his tongue after living with two-hundred-plus sweaty, grubby, out-of-work joes.

Lia nibbled the corner of a cracker without reply, twisting Justin’s CCC bandanna in her free hand and swabbing her chin.

“I brought you a ginger ale, too. Here.” He knocked the bottle cap against a fence post a couple of times until one fluted edge crumpled, releasing a curl of fizzy steam. He passed the bottle to her, glad he’d had a few cents to plunk down at the PX. Most of the guys went there so often to buy 7UPs, Clark Bars, and Lucky Strike cigarettes that the PX kept a running tab; the guy on duty just now didn’t even know Justin’s name.

Lia wiped her mouth and took a sip of ginger ale then scrubbed her swollen eyes with the back of her hand. Her gaze cool and almost stiff but at the same time so wounded that Justin wanted to kneel there in the grass and cry.

Neither spoke, and Justin cleared his throat awkwardly. He flipped the bottle top in his palm, trying to think of anything to say that didn’t bring up raw wounds. “So, you must be about twenty now, huh?”

“Next month.” Lia wiped her mouth and took another sip.

Justin scratched his head, squinting at a stand of sparkling aspens before speaking again. “You … uh … been to the Rockies before?”

“Never.”

Another long pause. A bee hovered over a scarlet Indian paintbrush bloom, buzzing.

“You like hiking, then? Or Cynthia does?” Justin tried again.

“I don’t know. I haven’t really been much, and neither has she.” Lia took another hesitant sip and wrapped her arm around her middle, looking so fragile there against the pine fence that Justin’s heart twisted inside his chest.

She set the bottle down, her eyes meeting his in a brief flash of blue, and then smoothed a strand of windblown hair out of her eyes. Twisting a curl around her finger as she drank.

Justin stared, opening his mouth and closing it. “You still do that,” he said, his words coming out a hoarse whisper.

“Do what?” She curled the strand again.

Justin couldn’t speak for a second. Then made an awkward motion toward his head. “That … that thing with your hair. You used to do that.” He dropped his eyes. “A long time ago.”

Lia let the piece of hair slip off her finger as if embarrassed, a hint of a smile on her lips. “I was shy, I guess.” She shrugged, smoothing her hair back.

He looked down in the grass, afraid to meet her gaze. Shy? Around him, even back then? Justin Fairbanks, son of the town drunk—all nerves and chunky build and not knowing how to properly hold a knife and fork?

“Listen,” he said, trying not to look at the strand of hair Lia had wrapped around her finger, now blowing in a thin, frizzy coil against her cheek. He licked his lips, wondering if he should say it—if he
could
say it. His mouth felt like pine straw. But it needed to come out. He felt it there inside his breastbone, burning like acid. Begging to be released.

A milkweed pod floated by on the breeze, which felt suddenly chilly, smelling of sun-warmed fall and damp leaves.

“About your … your … dad. Your father.” Justin licked his lips, feeling his palms perspire. He dropped the bottle top and fumbled in the grass for it with shaking fingers. “I’m sorry. Real sorry.” He couldn’t finish because his throat choked. Wondering what it might have been like to have kind Reverend Summers as a dad instead of drunken Pop. Those deep eyes and smile lines around his mouth. The gentle way he rested a hand on a head, as if in blessing.

And then to leave him in a church cemetery, Indian grass and wild violets covering over the raw wound in the ground.

Justin kept his burning face turned down, praying that Lia would say something. Anything.

But she didn’t.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the bottle freeze at her lips, and her position seemed to stiffen.

“Where did you say the doctor’s office is?” Lia finally asked, drawing up her knees and reaching for the fence post to stand. Justin blinked back moisture, hoping with all his heart she hadn’t seen his emotion. He rushed to help her up, humiliated and all nerves, and she seemed not to notice.

“I think I’ll wait for him there.” Her words carried a hint of frost, like the edge of chill on the warm September air.

Justin nodded miserably then gathered up her gloves and hat and gave them to her. Dropping one glove on the grass in his agony and stooping to dig for it.

She took them without touching his hand and kept her face turned away as she strode ahead of him toward the doc’s quarters.

J
ustin stared up at the long, rough planks of the barracks ceiling, which were barely visible in the moonless darkness. The wool army blankets on the Camp Fremont beds scratched like maddening fleas, but they kept Justin warm. Back in Kentucky he’d sometimes awakened with snow from the broken window in the folds of his threadbare quilt.

“Boy, that kitten is one hot tamale,” whispered Frankie from the next bunk over, shaking Justin’s bed with his foot. “You awake, Fairbanks?”

Justin kicked Frankie’s leg away as hard as he could.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Frankie flopped over on his side. “So, ya saw her? I looked all over for ya, but you’d split like a big yella banana. Missed everything. Man, what a dish,” he sighed. “Too bad for you. She’s a real peach, I’m tellin’ ya.”

Justin bristled. He hadn’t seen Lia the past two days and hoped she was okay. But doggone if he was gonna go asking around for her after the way she’d stalked off. Not that he blamed her. Not one bit. But it was best if he left her alone. He’d said what he’d needed to say, and nothing remained but empty space.

Justin had worked as hard as he could, clearing brush and pounding nails for handrails, trying to forget. After evening formation and dinner in the mess hall, he’d taken his high school books over to the school building and studied by lamplight until bedtime. After all, life with Pop and weeks of delinquency hadn’t exactly been conducive to higher learning. Soon as he finished his high school studies, he’d take some college classes for sure—and learn a trade to help his family.