Читать книгу The Dryline - Jack Grubbs - Страница 10

Houston, Texas

Don! Don Seiler. Over here,” yelled Delana Lally above the din of the traffic and the hurried travelers heading in all directions. Bush Intercontinental Airport was built with airplane traffic in mind. Vehicular traffic was an afterthought.

Don lifted his cane, smiling beneath a straw hat, and pointed back at Delana. She closed the door with Delana’s Taxi Service written on it and hurried toward him, leaving the small van easy prey for roving police. Delana and Don hugged briefly.

“Welcome back, stranger. Where’s your navy hat?”

“Good to see you, Delana. My navy hat’s hiding from me somewhere in my house. How’ve you been?”

“Good. Business is better than expected this week. Next week will be strong, what with everyone headed home.” Delana grabbed Don’s single traveling bag and turned toward the van. She looked back at Don. “Need a hand?”

“Nope. Got my cane and put my troubles on the doorstep.” He lifted the cane so that she could see that it also doubled as a stubby fishing rod, including a small reel attached at the handle. He had to remove the hook for the flight from California.

Delana hotfooted it back to the van, placing Don’s bag in the rear. Don slowly made his way across two lanes of traffic, his right leg barely able to move. The pedestrian crossing was too far away to bother with, so he just counted on the good will of Houston drivers. A pedestrian in traffic could get away with multiple sclerosis in Texas—not so much in New York City. Don took off his hat and leather jacket, tossed them and the cane in the back, and joined Delana in the front seat. They were off to a small ranch deep in the heart of Texas. Delana drove west on Beltway 8 and north on I-45. Tom and Delana were originally introduced by Don’s brother Tom, and they had some catching up to do. The friendship began when Delana picked Tom up at Houston Hobby Airport. He found her both polite and a good driver, so he took her phone number. From that day on Delana was the brothers’ driver of choice.

“Where you been, baby? Must be six months since I last saw you.” Delana looked over at Don, then back to the snarled traffic. Don smiled at the ad hoc accent. A transplant to Texas courtesy of Hurricane Katrina, Delana arrived with seven generations worth of New Orleans dialect. Houston was OK, but she couldn’t wait to return to the end of the Mississippi River.

“Really been busy,” Don replied. “In spite of the economy, interest in offshore engineering has picked up lately in California. At least my part, the little nuts and bolts, has picked up. Also, I’ve been moonlighting on an oil field device with a friend. It’s got great potential. I called Tom about it last week and we’re going to discuss modifications that might make it work better. He understands mechanical things better than I do. I’ll be here two, maybe three days. Give you a call for a ride back.”

Delana smiled. “Just call me, baby.”

Don, the endless mixing of billboards with strip malls negating his visual fondness for Texas countryside, found it easy to forge into Delana’s family life. “How’s Pete doing? Still on the rigs?”

Delana answered, eyes on the thick traffic, “Yeah, pretty much the same routine. Three weeks on, two weeks off. He’s doin’ good. He hopes he’ll get moved back to the rigs off of Cocodrie. If he does, I’ll be headed back home.”

Don thought back to the time he spent in the Gulf of Mexico with Poole Offshore. Until his MS had taken its toll, most of Don’s life had been a strange elixir of hard work, serious hell-raising, and bit-by-bit maturing.

“When’s he get home next?”

“Friday. We’re going back to N’awlins to see my Mama on Saturday.”

“For some lagniappe, huh?” The idea of lagniappe—a little something extra—permeated life in Louisiana.

“You bet, baby. Those shrimp po’boys and that andoullie sausage are calling us home.”

Both could almost smell the aroma. Don added, “Did you know that when I got my first job in the Gulf, I lived in Gretna?”

She did know. Filled with nostalgic tales, they focused their conversation on life in bayou country.

Entering Conroe, they headed west on State Highway 105 beneath a sky shellacked in light blue, not a single cloud in sight. They drove through Montgomery and on to Dobbin. From Dobbin, the van carried them north on FM 1486. The table-flat, monotonous landscape surrounding Houston gave way to gentle rolls of land heavily covered with oak and pine trees. Don’s visual nostalgia finally kicked in. The only need to ease off the gas pedal was at a meat market–poolroom combination occupying the only turn in the road. A few homes, hidden in the trees and most needing upkeep, were just enough to give the setting an actual name: Dacus, Texas. Bluebonnets and Indian blankets were more than two months from full bloom, yet harbingers of an early spring permeated the air. They continued another couple of miles.

“Here we go. That’s it up ahead, with the stone columns.” Don pointed to the entrance to Tom and Susie’s home, a small ranch hidden in the trees.

Delana slowed the van, turning right on a gravel and sand road. Two black dogs, both mongrels, ran up the road toward the van. Their ferocious barks were betrayed by wagging tails. The van passed between the stone columns supporting a wrought iron arch with Broken Wing Ranch written in black metal letters. The road wound two hundred yards, through oaks and tall pines, in a lazy S-curve to the main house. As they broke into open space, an alabaster home emerged to their front; an open field and a long stand of trees loomed in the distance.

It was Delana’s first trip to the ranch. “Oh my, it’s beautiful. Beautiful.”

“Yeah, it’s a great place. Tom flew me out here when they moved in. Big difference from their place in Clear Lake, isn’t it?”

“It sure is.”

Don pointed to a garage that was connected to the main house by a covered walkway. “Let’s stop over there. We can scout the place out. Tom and Susie won’t be here for a while.”

Delana parked in front of the garage door, lifted Don’s thirty-pound bag with incredible ease, and opened his door before he could reach his cane and hat. Delana was small of stature, but strong as a bull.

Don took Delana on a brief tour of the outside of the house. The two dogs, Bear and Catfish, joined them. Tom’s office consumed the back half of the garage building. A small sign was affixed next to the door—Thomas M. Seiler, Accident Analysis, Inc. The main house was impressive without being overbearing. The sandstone exterior reached up to a metal roof. Two huge picture windows faced south to the open field, into which Tom had carved a small airstrip. The Broken Wing Ranch only covered forty acres, but the thin east-west rectangular shape provided the needed length for the Piper J-3 Cub to take off and land. Tom’s second plane, a Grumman Tiger, needed more runway length and was kept at the airport in Conroe. The Tiger was for business and the Cub was for play.

“It is so nice out here,” Delana sighed. She pointed to trees just off the north side of the house. “Wish I could just sit under that pine over there and let the world roll by.” Unfortunately for Delana, reality quickly set in. She sighed again and remarked, “But I’m the one who needs to roll on down the road. Will you be all right here?” She flicked her neck-length hair behind her ear.

“No problem. I think I’ll take your suggestion and sit under the pine. Tom and Susie will be here pretty soon. If I need anything, I’ll give you a call.”

“Make sure you do.”

Don reached into his wallet, took out four twenties, and handed them to Delana. She counted them and gave one back to Don. “Fifty bucks with a ten-dollar tip is more than enough. It’s important to me.”

Don felt a tinge of guilt. “Understood.”

Delana smiled. “But the hug is free.”

They hugged and Delana left. He heard the horn beep as she accelerated south on FM 1486. For a minute he stood in the roadway, bathed in gentle solitude of his adopted home state. He loved Texas. Catfish licked at his hand, waking him from his revelry. Don turned and looked across the airstrip to a spot where another little piece of heaven waited: the catfish pond. He walked to his travel bag, reached in, and grabbed a small paper sack. With his fishing rod–cane, his hat, and one hell of a limp, Don made his way two hundred yards to a bench on a wooden deck at the pond’s edge. Nailed to a deck plank at the end of the bench was a small wooden box containing several fishhooks. Each hook had the barb snipped off. He took one and, with limited eyesight and coordination, tied it to the end of the line on his combined fishing rod–walking cane. A large plastic jar filled with fish pellets sat beneath the bench. Don grabbed a handful of the pellets and tossed them in the pond. The crappie hit them en masse, the catfish hugging the bottom of the pond. They would be there soon enough.

“OK kiddos, come to Poppa.” While the pellets excited the fish, Don prepared his cane for action. He reached in the paper sack and pulled out the remains of an airport meal—two halves of a roll. He tore off a small piece of bread, added a touch of saliva, and rolled it into a small ball of dough. It held onto the hook just right. His first cast, attacked by the small, aggressive crappie, ended with an empty hook. So did the second. On his third cast, a twenty-inch catfish swallowed everything. Don snagged into him hard, the catfish answering with a surge of twisting power and a dive toward the bottom of the pond. After five seconds the line went limp; the barbless hooks gave the fish an advantage. Still, Don won his share of the battles. It wasn’t fishing for tarpon at Port Aransas, but the struggle between man and beast was food for Don’s soul. He loved fishing anywhere, anytime. Don, engrossed with landing his third catfish—the crappie didn’t count—failed to notice two figures crossing the airstrip.

“Hey, leave my damn fish alone,” Tom yelled from the far side of the pond.

Don looked up and smiled. “First time these guys ran up against an expert. How you doing? And who’s that good-looking woman with you?” He reeled in the line and stood up to greet his brother and sister-in-law.

Don shook Tom’s hand, kissed Susie on the cheek, and reached back into the sack. Tom reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a Miller Lite for his younger brother.

Susie grabbed a fishing rod from one of two deck-mounted rod holders. While kneading a small bit of Don’s bread, she asked him, “Why didn’t you take the golf cart? It’s yours anytime you want it.”

Don glanced off into the distance as if he could see that far. Then he shrugged his shoulders high in the air and answered, “To be honest, I didn’t even notice. Needed the exercise anyway.”

“So how do you like the fishing cane?” Tom said, referring to his birthday gift to Don.

Don pointed to the far side of the small pond. “Finish your beer and toss the can over there.”

Tom did as ordered. Don slowly pulled back his forearm, flexed his wrist, and quickly cast the hook and sinker toward the can. Ping. The sinker hit the can at the waterline. Don smiled and thought, I am one lucky shit.

“Well I’ll be damned,” said Tom. He shook his head. “I won’t even ask for a repeat performance.”

Don laughed. “I’ve done it ten thousand times, and I’m as good as they come. My legs suck and the can looks like a blur in the water, but my wrist action is the best in the world. I should be on the Ed Sullivan show.”

They fished for another hour, until the sun slipped behind the pine trees to the west and allowed the chill to take over.

Don’s temperature-sensitive body ached in the waning sunlight. “Well, gang, that’s it for me.” An uncontrollable shiver shook his body.

“Me too. Getting a little nippy,” said Susie, who was already shivering. “Tomorrow should be warmer. Be a better day for fishing.”

Tom stood and added, “Almost time for the steaks anyway.” He grabbed Don’s empty beer can from the deck and returned it to his pocket. Don reached down to the ground and found a small twig. He stuck it in a small crevice between two lower teeth and rotated it a couple of times. He pushed off the bench and stood up. The threesome, Don wedged between the other two, walked back to the house.

Tom and Don were as close as any two brothers on the face of the planet. Their facial features were different enough to make sibling identification difficult; Don had a slightly thinner nose and darker complexion, while Tom had slightly thinner lips. At five feet eleven, Tom was taller by an inch and a half. Don had movie star eyelashes and sparkling slate-green eyes. Tom’s eyes were coffee bean brown. Don, once an outstanding athlete, limped from the ravages of his disease. Tom still ran the Chevron Houston Marathon. They were identifiably brothers in three areas: their personalities, drinking Miller Lite beer, and male pattern balding. Once back at the house, Tom brought Don’s bag in and took it to the guest bedroom.

Don surveyed the inside of the house for the second time. “Unbelievable place.”

He was more impressed than on his first trip. The foyer opened to a large living room fronting a modern kitchen. Plate glass windows faced the small airstrip, with pine and oak straddling the far side of the runway. The stone fireplace rose starkly between the windows, ending at the cathedral ceiling. The dining room, a small game room, and the master bedroom and bath occupied the west end of the house. Two guest bedrooms sandwiching a shared bath formed the east end. Upstairs, another guestroom and small bath joined a bonus room.

Tom grilled steaks on the concrete patio while Susie finished making salad and potatoes in the kitchen. Don limped to a cushioned wrought-iron chair, affording him a ringside seat to sunset. The sun fell beneath the horizon, a glowing ember marking the waning breath of another day.

“Damn pretty out here.” He popped the tops on two beer cans, kept one, and set the other on the serving tray next to Tom.

Tom looked up from his duties and nodded affirmatively. “Yeah, sure is,” he added while turning the steaks, “and the taxes in Grimes County are half of what you’d pay in Montgomery County.”

Don asked, “Have things settled down since Alvin?” referring to the incident in which Tom killed a man, accused a prominent lawyer of murder, and caused general mayhem in Houston a couple of years before.

Tom answered somewhat reflectively. “Yeah, pretty much. I’ll still get a look or two when I’m in Houston or Conroe, but most people don’t know me from Adam.” He sliced a small piece of sirloin and offered it to Don.

Don took a bite; the hot steak almost seared off the roof of his mouth. He blew several short breaths of hot air, trying to cool the sirloin. Still, it was delicious. “Mmm… thith ith ath good ath it geth.”

As Don savored the taste of the beef, Tom added, “The good news is that my business has exploded since then. I was prepared to slowly fade into the woodwork; for the first time since I hung my shingle out, I’ve had to turn cases down.”

Don finished his western hors d’oeuvres. He asked, “Whatever happened to the bitch?”

More curiosity than contempt defined Don’s question. Tom’s confrontation with Elizabeth Harker, former Houston district attorney, and his revealing—at least to his family and to her—her immoral actions in the most sensational murder case in years forced her out of Texas, the practice of law, and the quest for political power. The trial served as the catalyst for Tom’s rise to being the most sought-after expert witness in Texas.

The question fed uncomfortably into Tom’s mind. He reflected on past history before answering. An unshakable mix of hatred and fear laced his brain. “Harker? Don’t really know. She returned to the East as soon as she could. I hope she just slithered off the face of the planet.” Tom visualized his last encounter with her. “One sorry person. She’s gone from Houston and that’s all that matters.” He turned the steaks one last time. “These puppies are done.”