2.
Ollie
There was no reason to expect anyone would be there to pick me up the day I got released from the Reynolds Correctional Facility. Upon leaving, I’d been given the few belongings I’d gone in with, plus bus fare back to wherever the hell it was I wanted to go. I figured I might just get on the bus and go until I got kicked off, which might be all the way across the country—or just across town, depending on what bus I happened to get on.
But when I stepped outside, the hot sun beating down on me, the sky such a bright blue it hurt my eyes, there was that matte black Ford F150 that I’d recognize just about anywhere.
Garrett Wilson was in the driver’s seat, and he lifted his hand from the steering wheel to give a little wave as I walked over.
“There you are,” he said. I tentatively got into the passenger side. “You look surprised to see me.”
“They gave us bus fare.”
“Did they, now?” Garrett
had his beige Stetson on, the same one he always wore, his face deeply tanned
and leathery from spending most of his life outside in all sorts of weather.
“And where were you going to take a bus to?”
I paused. “I don’t know.”
“Might as well close that door then, so we can be on our way.” I pulled the door shut and Garrett put the truck in drive. Reynolds suddenly became nothing more than a building, getting smaller and smaller in the side view mirror.
“Where are we going?” I asked, after a few minutes of silence had passed. It felt strange to be in a vehicle again, to see the landscape rush by in a blur of greens and browns.
“Back to the ranch,” Garrett replied, as though it were the most obvious answer in the world. “I can take you somewhere else, if you’d like.” It was a nice offer, but he knew I had nowhere else to go. “In fact,” he continued, “I’d like to give you your old job back. Season’s about to start again, and these past years have been busier than ever.”
“What?” I said, certain I’d heard him wrong. He wanted me to work on the ranch again?
“You heard me,” he said. “You’re one of the best wranglers I’ve ever worked with, and I wasn’t just saying that to make you feel good about yourself. We’ve got seven employees already at the ranch or coming in the next couple weeks, but half of them are working in the kitchen. So, I need one more wrangler. Figured you’d be needing a job.”
“You figured that right,” I said. “I do need work.”
“Sounds like a win-win situation for everybody, then.”
That was one of the things we’d gone over in the pre-release and re-entry program I’d had to go through before getting out: finding employment, and how important that was to integrating successfully back into society. Those of us who had work were less likely to be repeat offenders and find ourselves back behind bars. At the time, I just sat there, trying to think of where I was going to work, figuring I’d have to travel to get to some remote ranch where no one had ever heard of me before. But now here Garrett was, offering me my old job back.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked him. “Don’t take this the wrong way or nothin’, but I just don’t understand. Don’t really deserve it, if you want the truth.”
Garrett shook his head. “Now, that’s where you’re wrong. How long have you worked on my ranch? Since you were about eleven years old, I’d say. Got to know you pretty good in that time. Good enough that I know you’re not a bad kid. I think of you as a son, if you want the truth of it. But I know what can happen to a man if he gets released from prison and doesn’t have any prospects. Nine times outta ten, he finds himself back behind bars in real short order. Don’t want to see that happen to you.” He eyed me, taking in the tattoos that now covered my arms. “That’s quite a bit of artwork you’ve got there.”
I looked down at my arms, feeling a pang of regret. At the time, I hadn’t thought about what people on the outside would think of them when I was finally released, because getting out seemed like such a far ways away. When a day feels like an entire year, the possibility of getting out in ten seems like an eternity.
“It was dumb of me to do,” I said. “It was just a way to pass the time.”
The guy who’d done them, Mark, had been an art student who had gotten drunk one night and drove his truck through a red light, causing a three-car pile-up and killing four people. The tattoos he’d given me were good enough to pass for something done at an actual parlor, of things that I liked: a roping horse, boots, a skull wearing a Stetson. I’d gotten the tattoos without thinking of the future, without considering the implications they might have for potential employment.
“A permanent way to pass the time,” Garrett mused. “Well, I guess that’s what they make long sleeves for.”
“You really want to give me my old job back?” I asked.
“I sure do.”
Wilson Ranch was a working ranch, a place for people to vacation at while at the same time participating in the day-to-day activities of running a cattle ranch. Which meant, unlike some of the other ranches in the area, this place had paying guests. Paying guests that most likely wouldn’t want to be around a man who had been convicted of voluntary manslaughter.
“I don’t really see how that could be good for business,” I said.
“Don’t worry—we’re not going to put a big announcement on the website,” Garrett said with a wry smile. “Seven years is a long time, Ollie. People forget. People forget after seven minutes. Nobody needs to know about your past unless you decide to tell them.”
I felt an ache in my throat and knew if I didn’t watch it, I was going to cry. Which was about the last thing I’d want to do in front of Garrett, or anybody for that matter. You certainly didn’t cry in prison.
“Well I appreciate it,” I said after a minute. “I wasn’t expecting anyone to show up here today, to be honest.”
“You’re not alone, you know,” Garrett said. “It might feel that way, but you aren’t.” He paused. “I can take you to see your mother’s grave, if you’d like.”
“That’d be nice.” I stared out the window. My mother had died five months after I’d been sent to Reynolds. She’d come out to see me, but I didn’t go out to the visitation area. At the time, I’d been stalwart in my belief that her last memory of me shouldn’t be in an orange jumpsuit. Our last interaction shouldn’t be in a visitation room. It was all I could think about, at least until she was gone, and I realized how much of an effort it must’ve been for her to get out there, and how I could have at least given her one last hug, told her I loved her and how sorry I was. How all of that superseded her seeing me in prison, but I’d been too selfish to realize it until it was too late.
We didn’t talk much the rest of the ride, though I knew Garrett would listen if there was anything I felt like I had to say. It was just so weird to be out, to be a civilian again, to know that I wasn’t going to wake up in cell 56. Everything looked so familiar, yet so different at the same time. I saw the sign for Wilson Ranch come into view.
“You just gotta keep your head down and your nose clean,” Garrett said as he turned down the long, hard-packed dirt driveway that led to the ranch. He drove up to his house, though, the original log cabin that had been built in the 1890s. “You’re going to be fine, Ollie. Why don’t you stay here up here at the main house for tonight at least, and then tomorrow if you want you can move out to one of the employee cabins. C is open. Saved that one for you.”
“Thanks.”
“Like I said, some of our employees have arrived already; the rest will be trickling in over the next week or so. They’ve all worked at least one season here before, no one’s totally green. If it feels more comfortable for you to keep to yourself at first, that’s fine. You don’t have to do anything with the guests unless you feel ready for it; Ryan and Jerry will be responsible for the leading the rides and teaching lessons, so you don’t need to worry about it.”
“Sounds good.”
Before I’d gone to prison, I’d been the head wrangler, even though I was young, and one of the ride leaders, taking guests out on the cattle drive, helping them figure out how to ride if they’d never been on a horse before, giving them pointers and demonstrations on how to get the cattle from one place to another. But now, just the thought of having to face a group of people I didn’t know seemed overwhelming, an insurmountable challenge. Ryan and Jerry, whoever they were, would have to handle all that.
“One more thing,” Garrett was saying. “Two, actually, though they both concern how you’re going to get around. The blue Ford truck’s still running, so you can use that if you need to go to town. And for around the ranch Bebop’s still raising hell and in need of a rider who’s not going to put up with his shenanigans.”
I smiled. Bebop, the chestnut Quarter Horse I’d started riding when I was fifteen, was fifteen years old himself now, but from the sounds of it, age hadn’t slowed him down any. “I’ll be glad to see him again,” I said.
“He’ll be glad to see you, too. So will Marie.”
Marie was Garrett’s wife, and had been one of my mom’s close friends. It had probably been Marie who’d driven my mother out to Reynolds that one time she came to visit me. I wondered if Garrett knew about that.
He parked the truck and we got out. Everything seemed brighter, though not necessarily in an inspiring way. I wished I had a pair of sunglasses. Some of the guys had talked about what they thought it would be like when they got out, how they’d revel in the freedom to do whatever the hell they wanted, where they wanted. A lot of the guys were like me, outdoorsmen who were not used to spending so much time inside. But now that I was actually out, everything felt like too much. There were too many choices. I could do anything right now, but I felt paralyzed faced with all the options. I reached out and rested my hand on the side of the truck to steady myself.
Garrett came around the truck, looking down at something he was holding.
“What on earth is that?” I asked. He had a rectangular device in his hand and was tapping away at the screen.
“This?” He held it out to me. “This here thing is a smart phone. Not just a phone, but a computer doodad, too. Can do all sorts of things on it.”
It was full-color, the picture as clear as a TV. Clearer, even. I handed it back.
“That sure is different than I remember cell phones being.”
“This thing is a little computer you can carry in your pocket. Never thought I’d see the day. Well, never thought I’d see the day when I’d be able to operate something like this, but they do a good job making it simple for folks like myself.”
“Isn’t that something.”
Garrett slid the phone computer thing back into his pocket. “I expect Marie will be back later this afternoon. If you want to get yourself settled in you can.” He pulled his wallet out and extracted some bills, which he handed to me.
I tried to hand it back. “Garrett, I can’t take this, you’ve done enough already—”
“This is an advance on your first paycheck,” he said. “This isn’t a handout. But you’ll be needing to get yourself some clothes. Marie looked around a bit to see if there was anything that Jacob or Keith had left behind, but really, you should start fresh in your own duds. You don’t need to be wearing their hand-me-downs.” He patted my shoulder. “It’s going to be okay, Ollie,” he said. “There’ll be a period of adjustment. Give yourself the time to get used to everything again.”
I nodded, feeling an overwhelming surge of emotion filling my chest. When I’d woken up this morning, I hadn’t been sure what today was going to have in store for me, but it was certainly not this. I didn’t even dare dream about something like this.
“Thank you,” I said. “For everything.”
“Don’t mention it. And if you need anything else, just holler.”
“Actually . . . .” I paused. “There is one thing. Could I use the blue Ford?”
“Of course. Come on, I’ll get you the key.”
I followed him into the house. “There are a few things I need to take care of,” I said, even though Garrett hadn’t asked. “Maybe I’ll get a few pairs of jeans while I’m out, too.”
Garrett handed me a keychain, with a single key on it. If he thought that I was going to take the truck out and go find some sort of trouble to get into, he didn’t say a thing. But that’s the kind of guy Garrett was; he’d give you advice if you wanted it, but he wouldn’t try to keep you from doing anything. He’d let you make your own mistakes and hopefully learn from them.
“You can just hang onto that key,” he said. “Go take care of whatever it is you need to do, and I’ll see you back here later.”
“Okay,” I said. “Thank you.” I walked back outside, thinking about just what it was I needed to do. What I needed to do was something for Jackson, because of the deal I’d made with him. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, my first week at Reynolds, not knowing how long I’d be in that hell hole. But now that I was out, I wasn’t so sure. I had to keep my word, though. I had promised him.
Jackson had made me memorize the address, after he told me what he’d wanted me to do. This was maybe five or six months before I got released, a day after his wife, Paula, had come to visit. I didn’t go down to the visitation room, of course; I’d never stepped foot in there. Jackson’s wife visited him regularly, but after that visit he’d come to me with a request: When I got out, he wanted me to go look in on her.
At first I thought it was some sort of joke, or a test of sorts. Jackson was in his mid-thirties and had taken me under his wing. I was the youngest guy at Reynolds, and I knew I’d have a target on my back. I knew the sorts of things that could happen to a guy in prison, or I thought I knew, but probably the reality of it was a whole lot worse than anything that I’d be able to imagine. It might have found out firsthand if it hadn’t been for Jackson, who later told me I reminded him a lot of his younger brother.
“What . . . what do you want me to do?” I’d asked.
“Check in on her. Take her out to dinner if she wants. A movie. You know how lonely it can be. Paula’s sister used to live a few miles away, so she had someone to visit with, but she moved to Seattle a few months ago. She’s something of an introvert, my wife, but she still needs companionship, even if she doesn’t want to admit it.”
It sounded like a recipe for disaster, if you asked me, but I wasn’t about to tell Jackson that.
“And I trust you,” he said. “You’re about the only person I do trust, which is why I’m asking. I could just tell the last time I saw her that she’s struggling.”
Which was how I found myself driving over to Jackson’s house to check in on his old lady. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was supposed to do once I got there, or if she’d even let me in. Their house was on the outskirts of town, you had to drive a ways past the state highway, past Twinturn Lake, the Rockies looming in the background. The house was one-story, cream-colored with blue shutters. The curtains were drawn on all the windows, the front door sealed shut. A maroon Toyota Camry was parked in the driveway, though it didn’t look like it hadn’t moved in some time. The front lawn was patchy and overgrown. The place looked abandoned. But I checked the number again and knew that this was Jackson’s place, so I got out of the truck and walked up to the front door.
I rang the bell twice and knocked once. Maybe she went out for a walk, or maybe a friend had come and picked her up and they’d gone shopping. Except I knew, from what Jackson had told me, that his wife wasn’t the sort to get picked up by a friend to go shopping. If she was, he probably wouldn’t have had me looking in on her in the first place.
The door opened, slowly, only an inch or so. “Who is it?”
“Paula, hi,” I said. “My name’s . . . my name’s Oliver Boardman, I know your—”
“I know who you are,” she
said. The door opened a few more inches, enough so I could see what she looked
like. She was tall, and older than I’d thought; or maybe she just hadn’t aged
well. She had an angular face and wide-set eyes, her hair was long and graying.
“What are you doing here?”
“Jackson . . . Jackson asked if I’d come check in on you. We knew each other .
. . .” I let my voice trail off, questioning whether or not this had really
been a smart idea. How much better was it really going to make her feel to have
some guy she didn’t even know showing up on her doorstep? “I just . . . Is
there anything you need?”
The faintest of smiles crossed her face, something closer to a smirk. She opened the door all the way. “Is that a trick question? Because there’s a whole lot of things I need, but I doubt you could help me with any of it.”
“Well, ma’am, I’m supposed to try to.”
“Enough with the ma’am. I know my husband told you to come check in on me. Well, here I am.” She eyed me like I had done something wrong. “What were you in for?”
There was no point in
lying; Jackson had probably told her anyway. “I killed someone.”
“Someone you knew?”
“No. Well, not really. We weren’t friends or anything. We’d gone to school
together, but he was a few grades above me.”
“And you killed him.” She looked at me closely then. “I think I remember reading something in the paper about you. It was a while ago. Killed a man with your own bare hands. Crime of passion, one of the articles said. That woman never came forward, either. The one you saved. Strange, isn’t it? You’d think she’d want to come forward and at least thank you.”
I shrugged. I didn’t want to be talking about this; I’d come over here to check in on her, not discuss the details about what had happened with me.
“So, you’re doing okay then?” I asked.
She cracked a smile. “You
suddenly in a rush to get out of here?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Good. Because I’d like to go out, actually. Jackson might have told you that I have to be in the right sort of mood for visitors, and, as it happens, I’m in that mood right now. Let me get my purse.”
She shut the door, leaving me standing there on the doorstep. Go out now? I hadn’t been planning on that; I figured I’d just look in on her, she’d tell me she was fine, and I’d be on my way. At the most maybe she’d invite me in and I’d sit at the kitchen table, the same table that Jackson used to sit at and eat dinner, and she’d make tea and I’d listen to her talk about whatever it was she might need to talk about. But no—we were going out.
She reappeared a moment later, slinging a small black leather pocketbook over her shoulder.
“Ready,” she said.
She wore a long blue skirt and a gray cardigan and she looked sort of like a crazy librarian. We got into the truck and she told me to drive back toward town.
“So, how’s it feel?” she asked. “Being a free man.”
“Going all right so far.”
“I keep imaging the day
when Jackson’s a free man, just like you.”
I kept my eyes on the road and didn’t say anything. The chances of Jackson ever
getting out were zero and zilch. He’d gone to Denver one night and when he’d
come back to his truck he found two teenagers trying to break into it. He beat
the shit out of them both and then got his antique Winchester out of the truck
and shot them as they tried to run away. According to Jackson, it later came
out that the kids were on meth, but that didn’t matter. He’d shot and killed
two kids who’d been trying to escape.
“Did you have somewhere in mind that you wanted to go?” I asked Paula as we approached town.
“I did.”
I waited for her to continue but she didn’t. “Care to share the plan with me?” I finally said.
She was looking out the window as though she hadn’t heard me, humming something under her breath. Was she a little crazy? Was this why Jackson had asked me to check up on her?
“There,” she said suddenly, pointing. “I want to go there. The food’s great and the coffee’s even better. And hey—it’s got the same name as you.”
The restaurant she had pointed at was called Ollie’s, which must’ve opened up while I’d been in prison. The last I knew, it had been the Red Hen Café, which had okay food and mediocre coffee.
“This woman opened the place almost five years ago,” Paula said. “I don’t go out too much, but when I do, I like to come here and get the chicken pot pie.”
“That sounds good.”
“You should order it.”
I wasn’t the least bit hungry. “Maybe I will.”
We went inside. I’d only been in the place once or twice when it was the Red Hen, so I only had a vague recollection of it, but the place now seemed completely transformed. The sunlight poured in and the white walls gleamed. The memories I did have of the Red Hen were of a dark, shabby sort of place, so this was quite a contrast. The bar had been reconstructed, the chipped Formica replaced with gleaming hardwood. The counter stools were also wooden, and the tables and booths had been redone to match. The place felt both quaint and chic and I was immediately overcome with the feeling of not belonging.
But Paula marched right in, waved to one of the waitresses, and sat herself down at a corner table. I followed and sat across from her. Luckily, there weren’t many people there.
“Try the coffee,” Paula said. “Everything here’s good, but the coffee’s excellent.” She peered at the menu.
The waitress came over, carrying a coffee pot. She was slightly overweight and had washed out blond hair and was wearing a shade of lipstick that was a little too bright.
“Hi there,” she said with a big smile. “Nice to see you again, Paula. It’s been a while. Nice to see you . . . .” She paused, looking at me. “I don’t think I know you.”
“I’m Oliver,” I said.
“Pleased to meet you,
Oliver. I’m Lena, I’ll be your waitress today. Can I get you guys some coffee?”
“That’s what we’re here for,” Paula said.
Lena’s smile never wavered as she poured us each coffee and then said she’d give us a few minutes with the menu.
Paula took a big sip of the coffee, made some strange moaning sound that I guess was supposed to indicate how good it tasted and then looked up, over my shoulder, scanning the dining room. “The owner’s not here right now,” she said. “This girl named Wren. She’s a looker, but you don’t want to get involved with her.”
I drank my coffee. “Okay,” I said, as though getting involved with someone was even an option. It wasn’t, as far as I was concerned. Not now, anyway. Not for a long time. I couldn’t even begin to start to think of being that settled into my life that I might actually have a girlfriend.
“No, I mean it.” Paula leaned across the table toward me. “I know you grew up around here, but you’ve been gone for so long it’s like you’re new in town again. And I might not go out a lot, but that doesn’t mean I’m not privy to the sorts of gossip that goes around.”
“I’m not that interested in gossip.”
“Most men aren’t. Not much of a surprise there. She’s a nice girl and all, Wren, but she gets around, if you know what I mean.”
I shrugged. “It’s really not any of my business.”
“I’m just letting you know.”
I kept expecting to wake up and find myself back at Reynolds, that this whole experience of being released from prison today had just been a dream. I’d open my eyes and be lying there on that cot, staring up at the concrete ceiling I’d become so familiar with over the years. Today would in fact be the day I’d be getting out, but instead of Garrett being there to pick me up, I’d take the bus somewhere. I’d be an anonymous face; I’d probably have to sleep under a bridge somewhere.
But that didn’t happen, because this, it seemed, was actually reality. I was sitting here with Jackson’s wife, at a restaurant that had the same name as me, owned by a woman who apparently got around.
“I need to be getting back,” I said.
Paula leaned across the table again and peered into my cup of coffee. “You’re not done yet.”
I picked up the cup and swallowed the remainder, and it was still got enough that is scorched my mouth and my throat on the way down. “There,” I said. “All finished.”
For a second I thought she was going to refuse; I thought she was going to insist that we stay there and order food, more coffee, talk to everyone who walked into the place. If she did, I’d have to leave her there. Except no, I couldn’t do that, not to Jackson’s wife.
Luckily, though, she decided not to do that. Maybe she could see that I was on the verge of losing my shit if we didn’t get out of there, maybe she herself was just ready to go, I didn’t know, but she pulled her wallet out of her pocketbook, left a few bills on the table, and then we left.
“I’m sorry,” I said once we were outside. “I wasn’t trying to rush you or anything, but I just needed to get outside. Maybe I should’ve waited a day or two before coming to see you.” That probably would have been the smarter idea. “But I promised Jackson I would.”
After I left Paula’s, I drove back to town, trying to find a store to get some clothes. It seemed like most of the stores had changed, or moved, in the past seven years. New shops, new restaurants, I didn’t even recognize the name of the bank. The coffee made me feel jittery, but I parked and wandered into a few stores. I bought a toothbrush and toothpaste at the drug store, and then I went into a clothing store that had the jeans I was looking for. I got a couple pairs, as well as a few work shirts. I needed a new pair of boots. I didn’t have enough money for Luccheses, which was what I used to wear, but the Ariat boots were on sale, and I found a pair in my size. What had happened to those boots? I hadn’t worn them when I went out that night; I’d left them by the front door at my mother’s, where I was always left them so I didn’t track dirt and mud all through the house. Those boots had fit like a glove; this new pair would be far inferior, but it was the best I could do, considering I was buying them with money I hadn’t yet earned.