| Walker’s Gold
Prologue
The old man stepped out into the gray morning, strapping on his motorcycle helmet while shutting the front door of his house with his foot. He stood in the dark doorway to pull on leather gloves against the wet chill of early dawn. A knitted, cream-colored scarf, a gift from his deceased wife, was wrapped once around his neck and fell incongruously over his brown leather jacket like blonde pigtails. His shoulders almost touched the doorframe on either side of him; his helmet was only inches below the top of the doorjamb.
He walked through the wet grass to the shed by the side of his house with a slight limp from sleeping on the wrong side again. With each step, his hip limbered up a little. By the time he pulled his motorcycle out of the shed, he was able to get his leg over the seat on the first try.
From years of practice, the key found the ignition and the engine started. He hoped it wasn’t too loud for the neighbors. He smiled wryly. If the tests he was going in for came back positive, he wouldn’t have long to worry about the neighbors. Why is it that test results that come back labeled positive can really mean a death sentence? he wondered.
Pointing his motorcycle toward Main Street, the old man accelerated, feeling the rush of euphoria and a return to youth that never failed him on his motorcycle rides. If the doctors found cancer, he would not have many more rides like this, if any. If he did have cancer, he wouldn’t tell his children until he absolutely had to. If he had his way, they’d never know. He didn’t want his daughter to come back to Manti to fuss over him. He didn’t want to burden his two sons with worry.
On Main Street, he turned north out of town, welcoming the cold wind on his cheeks, his eyes squinting behind his glasses as the air swirled up under his helmet visor. He tucked his chin into the scarf around his neck as he passed the Manti Temple, glowing dimly white in the early morning mist, perched majestically on top of Temple Hill.
He was on the highway now, pushing his motorcycle, flying along with the exhilaration of speed.
He felt some annoyance as he drew closer to the taillights on the back of a big, gray livestock trailer moving slowly on the highway ahead of him. This morning he needed to roll, to fly down the highway, to feel the numbing cold on his face, the carelessness of speed, to temporarily escape the looming possibility of a slow, lingering death.
He pulled out to pass the sluggish trailer. No headlights were coming his way in the opposite lane. He sped past the big rig, then checked his mirror and quickly glanced behind him to make sure he could pull back into his lane with enough room to spare. When he turned back to the highway stretching out before him, he saw the deer. Two of them standing on the road, staring at him with large, frightened eyes. The old man’s heart leaped, his arm muscles stiffened, he pressed the brake and turned the handlebars to avoid running into the animals.
His tires refused to grab the rain-slick road. The motorcycle slid across the cold, wet asphalt like a skater over ice. The speed of the bike propelled it past the edge of the road and across the barrow pit, until it came to a sudden crashing halt against the wooden bars of a feedlot fence.
Chapter 1
“Jennica! Sandals?” Mattie asked as she followed her daughter up the steps and into the church. The willowy fourteen-year-old shrugged and kept walking. “March in Utah is different from March in California,” Mattie warned.
“They’re my feet,” Jennica said firmly, and bent to take a drink from the water fountain, her long blonde hair falling into a curtain between herself and her mother.
“Good point,” Mattie conceded, knowing it was easier than arguing. Jennica couldn’t change her shoes now even if she wanted to. “We’ll meet you in the viewing room down the hall. C’mon, J. J.”
Her ten-year-old son followed her into the room where her grandfather lay in his coffin, quietly unmoving as she’d never seen him in life. Tears unexpectedly spilled from her eyes, blurring her vision of his mask-like face.
She quickly turned away, replacing the lifeless visage in her mind with a remembered smile, his teasing voice, his arms opened to her for a hug. Unable to see clearly, she bumped into her son who was standing beside her.
“Sorry, J. J.,” she mumbled.
“It’s okay, Mom,” he said, and slid his hand into hers, something he hadn’t done since he was eight years old. Mattie gave his small hand a grateful squeeze. J. J. kept hold of her hand until they entered the chapel and found their places in the family section. Jennica slid in beside them a couple of minutes later.
When the funeral began, Mattie shifted her heart into neutral. The service seemed long, and Mattie moved impatiently on the cushioned pew, then focused her eyes on Uncle Daryl, who was speaking. With practiced detachment, she refused to tune in to what he was saying. She wasn’t going to cry now. She didn’t want to let her sorrow out for this roomful of strangers to observe, examine, and analyze.
She closed her eyes and let Uncle Daryl’s voice become the backdrop for her own thoughts.
As she relaxed her muscles, she could feel herself sitting on Grandpa’s lap again in the old rocking chair. He was singing a nonsense song to her, “Mattie, picalilly, Mattie, dilly silly, Mattie sweetie sugar pie.”
Mattie knew that she was in love with her grandpa. Dear Grandpa, who didn’t care that Mattie was bigger than her sisters, who never gave her the smallest dessert or made sly comments about her size.
His big arms completely surrounding her, she could feel the vibration of his deep voice as she snuggled into his broad chest, her head barely reached his chin as he leaned back and rocked and rocked and rocked.
“Mom, J. J. kicked me!” The harsh whisper broke Mattie out of her reverie. She glanced down to see her son throw an elbow into his sister’s side. Jennica grabbed her ribs melodramatically, and opened her mouth in a silent expression of exaggerated pain.
Mattie put her arm around J. J. His blonde head was bent slightly, a pugnacious thrust of jaw bulging out under his straight nose and classic Nordic cheekbones.
“J. J.?” she whispered.
The blonde head came up. “What?” he whispered harshly, immediately on the defense.
Mattie looked into eyes so blue she felt washed over by deep water. The angel eyes held a challenge as they returned his mother’s look unblinkingly.
She suspected that a bored little boy at a funeral had been swinging legs that didn’t quite touch the floor, and his foot had accidentally brushed the leg of his sister who, of course, had claimed the aisle seat. It was no coincidence that across the aisle was a teenage boy who was stealing glances her. Impulsively, Mattie bent down and kissed J. J. on top of the head.
“Mom!” he exclaimed, shoulders hunching forward, darting a quick look around to see who was watching.
“Sorry,” Mattie whispered. “Want gum?”
J. J. nodded, the public kiss forgiven at the prospect of some distraction from the funeral service.
“Where is it?”
“You get it,” Mattie replied, “You can reach my bag better than I can.” J. J. ducked down as easy as a squirrel popping into its h ole, and after a moment of rummaging, came up with the prize nut, a pack of Juicy Fruit gum. “Give some to your sister,” Mattie said.
With her children temporarily pacified, Mattie looked down the row at her mother sitting two sisters away.
Technically, her mother was not supposed to be here. Her father wasn’t either. They had been serving an LDS mission in Canada, but came home for Grandpa’s funeral and to help settle his affairs.
They sat together like a couple from the pages of a Family Home Evening manual. Both were reasonably trim in their grandparent years, her father, Edward Carlisle, had wavy brown hair like Mattie’s own, but his was distinguished with gray. At six foot one, he was only about three inches taller than Mattie. She had never heard him say that he was unhappy he didn’t have a son, yet he had convinced her mother to name each of their three daughters with a variation of a boy’s name.
Her mother, Sarah Sommers Carlisle, wore a charcoal gray suit with a peach satin shirt. She really had class, a mother to be proud of, unless people wore looks of disbelief when you stood there with all the grace of a gorilla and told them that this amazing looking woman was your mother.
Mattie shifted in her seat again, pulling self-consciously at her tight size 18 dress. Why hadn’t she worn something more comfortable? The dress had seemed right for the occasion, the black color being both somber and slenderizing, and it traveled well because it didn’t wrinkle, and it had fit her two years ago.
Uncomfortable, she pushed her fingers through her short brown hair. Even though it wasn’t glimmering blonde, it had probably been her best feature when she was nine years old. Then it had almost reached her waist. Now short brown curls framed a pair of deep denim blue eyes, all the more startling because they were set in between a pair of sultry dark lashes. Mattie easily dismissed her full, sensuous mouth and single dimple in the left corner as beauty traits.
Mattie sighed. When will this be over? She wondered. She closed her eyes again and unwillingly re-lived the unbelievable moment when she got the phone call that Grandpa was dead.
A wash of grief pounded against Mattie’s heart. She shuddered, dangerously close to uncontrollable sobbing as she pictured the accident in her mind. Had Grandpa been afraid? Did it happen so fast that he didn’t have time to worry? Did it hurt?
Involuntarily, she put her hand to her mouth, stifling the trembling lips. Her mind cast about desperately for something to dam the crack that threatened to split open and release all the tears that were nearly bursting her heart. Her imagination took her beyond the twisted bike and the inert figure of her beloved grandpa, and she saw the astonished look on the faces of the feedlot cows who had witnessed the accident. What if they could speak?
“Land sakes, Marigold, what was that awful noise?”
“Well, Blossom, I do believe a human was loose on the highway again.”
“Did you see what happened, Dolly?”
“Yes, indeedy. I don’t think that Bossy will every recover from the shock, after all, she was standing right by the fence when it happened. She just about jumped out of her udder, I can tell you!”
Mattie’s hand tightened over her mouth as an unreasonable, hysterical giggle fought to release itself from her throat. One thing was for sure, Grandpa had certainly given those bored cows a day to remember!
Mentally Mattie yelled at herself, Stop it! Stop right this minute! It’s not funny!
As she thought the word funny, Mattie was horrified to hear the beginning of a giggle escape her lips and leak out between her fingers. She hunched forward, clamped both hands over her mouth, and shook with a disquieting mixture of giggles and sobs.
She didn’t expect anyone else to understand how she could feel like laughing at a time like this, but Grandpa would understand. And it was his funeral, so Mattie refused to feel bad. When she got control of herself, Mattie wiped her eyes. With a sense of warped amusement, she noticed a few sympathetic looks cast her way.
Finally the closing prayer was said and the congregation was instructed to stand as the coffin was moved into the hearse. Mattie stood obediently, and then felt an odd sensation on her hips. Casually pressing her forearms against her skirt, she detected the telltale dent of pantyhose elastic. It had worked its way down from her waist to her hips. Why here? Why now? There was no way she was going to grab the hose through her dress and pull it into position here in the church. As Mattie shuffled slowly out of the pews with the other family members, she thought of ducking into the bathroom, but J. J. was practically running ahead of her, and the restroom doorway was besieged by a wall of dark dresses. She figured she could give the errant hose a sufficiently domineering tug in the car to make it behave itself at the cemetery.
When Mattie hit the chill outside air, it felt like she had woken suddenly from a bad dream. This was all a hoax. She felt like Grandpa had to be there, somewhere. Her eyes searched the dormant lawn, the crowded parking lot, the bare brown trees that stood stiffly by the church. She knew if she could spot him, he would yell, “Good to see ya!” and take everyone to his modest, two story house. They would all eat popcorn, drink homemade root beer, and have an impromptu family reunion.
But, of course, Grandpa did not greet them, and Mattie, Jennica, and J. J. made their way to the cemetery in their old Subaru.
It wasn’t until Mattie saw the coffin poised over the grave, which was draped with fake green carpet, that the reality of Grandpa being gone hit her.
A sob in Mattie’s throat caught her by surprise. Her hand flew up to her chest and pressed hard, holding the heart closed just a little bit longer, just another hour or two; then she could let out her sorrow in private. Her mother smiled a watery smile and pressed a clean white tissue into her hand.
Grandpa’s oldest son, Uncle Walter, gave the dedicatory prayer. Mattie closed her eyes and bowed her head reverently, then gave an angry tug to her pantyhose, trusting that everyone else had their eyes closed, too, like they were supposed to.
With her eyes closed, Mattie felt a cold wind on her face. The brisk air pulled her mind back to the time Grandpa had gone sledding with her when she was about seven years old. He had an old-fashioned toboggan with a curved front. Mattie loved to tuck her legs inside the curve and face the almost terrifying slope of Red Point. Behind the curve of the toboggan she felt like she could face the slopes of the high Uintahs. Most of the time you only see kids sledding, but Grandpa was a kid … a big kid in an old man’s body.
He sat behind Mattie, and they took off down the slope, the cold wind painting their cheeks pink, the snow sliding easily under the polished wood, Grandpa yelling, “Oh no! We’re going too fast! We’re going to crash! We’ll all be killed! Aaaaaaaaaaaaa!” It had made Mattie laugh so hard she almost fell off. But Grandpa had his arms on either side of her, so she knew she wouldn’t fall off no matter how much she laughed.
Her sleigh ride came to an abrupt halt when a group “Amen” signaled the end of the prayer. Mattie opened her eyes reluctantly and then stared in wonder as big, fat, white flakes of soft snow fell reverently into the graveyard and settled gently on the earth. The hard black coffin was softened with flurries of pure white.
Mattie lifted her face toward the heavens where she was sure her grandpa was orchestrating this snowstorm. He was saying, “Remember the toboggan. Remember the good times. Remember I love you.”
Gunshots made Mattie flinch. She looked frantically for her children as more shots rang out before she realized that the uniformed American Legionnaires were giving Grandpa a 21-gun salute in honor of his service to his country.
When it was finally over, people formed clusters and hurried to their cars. A small, wiry older man with wrinkles and a thin mouth who looked vaguely familiar came up to Mattie and took her hand. “I’m Buzz,” he said, “I hope I was a friend of your grandfather’s.” He smiled weakly at his self-deprecating joke. “He was a good buddy, a good man.” Buzz paused. “I’ll miss him,” he finished shortly.
“Thank you, “ Mattie said as Buzz turned abruptly and hurried away. He was soon swallowed up in the snowfall, and then Mattie heard a motorcycle start up, rev, and growl off into the distance. It was a comforting sound, as if Grandpa weren’t too far away. Then she realized where she’d seen the man before. Buzz was one of the Bald Bikers. Grandpa was proud to be a Bald Biker, part of a countywide group of senior citizens who volunteered their retirement years to helping local organizations. They collected food for the food bank, clothes for the clothing bank, volunteered to sit on the dunking booths at the Fourth of July fundraisers. They worked in the Church cannery and spent a couple of days each summer at Palisade State Park, helping with fun, food, and activities for mentally challenged people. Trading in white hats and horses for motorcycles, they were the volunteer junkies of Sanpete County.
“Let’s go, Mom,” Jennica said urgently.
Mattie looked down at her daughter and saw her shifting her weight from foot to sandaled foot.
Mattie didn’t believe in saying “I told you so,” so she just gave another ineffective quick tug at the slipping pantyhose, which now felt about thigh high, and decided she could just make it to her car. She ducked her head to keep the snow out of her eyes and led her children through the flakes toward the Subaru wagon. Just as they reached it, a man’s hand appeared out of the snowstorm and clicked open her car door.
Startled, Mattie peered through the fat flakes and saw the last face she had expected to see. Peter James was grinning at her through the falling snow.
|
