By unspoken agreement, both of the brothers got out of the truck, slamming their doors behind them. It was only when Hugh-Jay walked up to Valentine and her boy that he realized Chase had hung back and was leaning against the truck, even though it must have felt hot as a branding iron. Maybe he was resting his weight on his belt, Hugh-Jay thought.
“Hey, Valentine,” he said politely.
He winked at her son.
The seven-year-old cocked his head to one side as if evaluating the gesture, and then looked down at his toy gun, pausing in his play in the serious way he had, the way that made people worry about him.
“I didn’t see you out here before,” Hugh-Jay told her.
“I thought you might come in,” she said rather mysteriously.
He didn’t know why she’d think that, since he never had been in their house before. He looked down at himself. “Not with all this dirt on me.”
“Billy wanted us outside.” She didn’t sound resentful, just resigned, as if this was something to which she was accustomed-her young husband ordering her and their son to get away from him. She looked scrubbed clean and so did the boy. A smell of soap wafted from them, as if she had gone to some trouble to make them both look nice for when their husband and father came home. For all the good it did either of them, Hugh-Jay thought. His own wife, Laurie, didn’t do that for him, but then she didn’t have to fix herself up to make her husband want her.
“He went into the bedroom to take a nap,” Val was saying. “He wants some peace and quiet.”
Hugh-Jay frowned but didn’t say anything to embarrass her.
He didn’t find Valentine Crosby attractive, though he knew some men did. He’d overheard his wife Laurie comment to his sister Belle one time that Val Crosby could be pretty if she put on some makeup and “did something with that stringy hair.” Hugh-Jay didn’t think any of that would help much; although she had big breasts, he thought she otherwise looked scrawny. She had dark circles around her eyes that didn’t flatter her like his wife’s eye shadow flattered her brown eyes. He looked for the rumored bruise on Valentine’s jaw but didn’t see any sign of it. He felt suddenly guilty and grateful that his own beautiful, healthy, loved wife would never look like this defeated-looking girl and that his own daughter would never have the wary look of this somber boy.
Valentine Crosby glanced shyly up at him, a foot taller than she.
She hadn’t grown up with all of them the way Billy had; Billy had found her in Scott City, a county away, when he was working a summer job in a cattle feed lot. She’d been a clerk in the office there, sixteen years old, and soon pregnant, and then married to Billy and moving to Rose.
“How old is he now?” Hugh-Jay asked, even though he knew.
“Seven.”
She sidestepped a few inches and looked past him, toward his truck where Chase lounged.
Hugh-Jay nodded, unable to think of a single other thing to say about children, and also unable to think of how to ask what he wanted to ask her. He could have kicked Chase for hanging back.
“How’s your little girl?” she asked him in her high, light voice.
Every time she spoke now, she glanced over at the truck.
“Jody’s fine. Thanks for asking.” He gnawed on one side of his lower lip. “Uh, Billy had a kind of rough day, I guess you know.”
“What happened?”
“He ticked off my dad-”
“Your dad?” Her pale eyes widened and she looked panicked beyond anything he expected. “But your mom and dad, they’re the very last people who’ll hire him! Is your dad going to hire Billy anymore?”
He wanted to reassure her but couldn’t. “I don’t know.”
“Oh, God!” She brought both hands to her mouth. “What’ll we do?”
“Are things that bad?” he asked, feeling awkward and stiff.
Her eyes filled with tears. “We can’t live on what I make three days a week checking at the grocery. And Billy won’t take welfare, won’t even let me apply for it. He hates charity.”
Not enough to decline a free beer, Hugh-Jay thought, or my ten bucks.
He suddenly realized those extra dollars had probably always gone to please Billy, and never to help his wife or son. Hugh-Jay reached for his wallet, took out every bill in it, and handed them to Valentine. “Take this. Don’t tell him. I know it’s not much, but I’ll talk to my dad about hiring him again.”
She didn’t argue, just took it, and slipped it into a pocket of her shorts.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “Your family’s always been good to Billy.” And then she said a thing that sent shivers down Hugh-Jay’s spine on that hot day. He thought at first that it was a non sequitur. “I sold Billy’s truck. Just before he got home. I haven’t told him yet. What do you think he’s going to do?”
“Sold his truck?” he asked dumbly.
Her son stared up at them, frowning, letting the toy gun hang limp.
“It’s not really Billy’s. He hasn’t got any credit. It’s in my name.”
That didn’t mean Billy didn’t think it was his, Hugh-Jay thought. He wondered who had the balls or was crazy enough to buy Billy Crosby’s truck out from under him.
“Who’d you sell it to?”
She looked surprised at the question. “Your dad.”
Hugh-Jay stared at Valentine and felt dumb again. “My dad?” he said, as if she must have meant somebody else’s father.
“Yeah, he called a little while ago and made an offer.” Innocently, she added, “I wouldn’t have thought it was worth that much.”
“Did he say why he wants it?”
Again she looked surprised at his question. “Because he needs a truck, I guess? He told me you were bringing Billy home. He said to tell you and your brother to pick up the truck and drive it to your house, or out to your ranch.” She shaded her eyes to look into his. “I said you don’t have to wait on the paperwork, or till it’s officially yours. You should go on ahead and take it now. It’s out back. The keys are in it. Maybe you can drive it away real quiet so it doesn’t wake Billy up?”
Good idea, Hugh-Jay thought wryly. “What are you going to do?”
“Me?”
“For a car.”
“Collin and I never go anywhere we can’t walk.” She looked back at her house. “And now he won’t, either.”
“Listen,” Hugh-Jay said, and then didn’t know where to go from that beginning. When she frowned, he said, “If you need help… I mean, if you need anything, call Laurie or me, okay?”
He had a nervous feeling about promising that his wife might help, especially when it came to helping somebody about whom she didn’t give two hoots. Which, Hugh-Jay had to admit in that uncomfortable instant, described most people that Laurie had ever known.
But they lived only three blocks from Val and Billy.
Surely, Laurie wouldn’t refuse to help if Valentine really needed it.
He heard a car rev up a couple of blocks away. Then he heard the sound of some kid-probably in the high school marching band-practicing on an instrument that sounded hideously like a tuba. It was all bleats and squeaks. Hugh-Jay wondered how the band director would ever get the young “musician” ready to play in time for half-time at Homecoming in November.
We’re such a small town, he thought.
Val Crosby glanced away in embarrassment at his implication that she might need rescuing, but then she nodded, with her face bent toward her son. The boy was still concentrating on his toy gun, and in that instant he aimed and “shot” it toward the sound of the tuba practice.
“Bang,” the boy said. “Bang, bang, you’re dead, but not really.”
“Not really?” Hugh-Jay asked him.
Collin looked up at his great height. “On TV. They shoot them, but they’re never really dead. It’s like a game.”
“Real guns aren’t a game,” Hugh-Jay reminded him.
“I know,” the boy said solemnly, and then he aimed his toy at his own head and pulled its trigger.
