Ranger
THE STEAKHOUSE WAS in the next town. It was the closest thing to high class that we had. Well they had. I wasn’t really a resident anymore. I had to remember that.
She knew I was coming this time, so I parked outside the gate and strolled up to the porch. There were no lights on outside, but there was plenty of activity in the house.
“Not so fast, cowboy. Or should I call you soldier?”
I stilled in my tracks, two steps up on my way to the porch, at the sound of Grammy’s voice. She didn’t scare me, just startled me to the point of almost needing a new pair of pants.
“Nowadays, I’m not sure which one you would call me. I’m a little bit of a has been soldier and a has been cowboy. Why don’t you just call me Has Been for short?”
Now that I knew she was there, the older woman was rocking back and forth in the chair her husband made for her as a present on their wedding day.
“Ain’t no name for a cowboy like you. I’ll stick with Ranger.”
“Sounds good. Is Hero ready?”
“She is. But I’m not quite ready to let you have her.”
I knew where this was headed, but for some reason, I sat down at her feet with my legs dangling over the edge of the porch.
There were so many things I could’ve said, but I didn’t. All of them sounded downright sarcastic in my head and sarcasm didn’t go well with Grammy when she was in a serious talking mood.
“When I was your age, I thought I knew it all. There was a woman down the road who came and tried to teach me how to cook and clean just like she did. I was so stubborn. I did it my way for months just to show her that I knew best. This was my house and my new husband and I was going to run it how I saw fit. Then, one day, I found a recipe that she’d left under the phone in the hallway. It had her perfect script so I knew she’d done it on purpose. Just to spite her, I brought it into the kitchen and made it, following her recipe to the T. That night, Jerry said it was the best meal he’d ever had. Sometimes we can’t see our own faces because we let our noses get in the way.”
She had lost me somewhere after recipe. It was making me more hungry than anything.
“Grammy, if you’re making a point, I’m too tired and hungry to know what it is.”
She laughed but then quieted herself. I would bet my left boot that Hero was unaware of this little conversation.
“What I’m sayin’ is sometimes we think we know everything when really we don’t know cow manure from chocolate pie.”
Well, that put a damper on my appetite.
“You’re saying I don’t know anything about Hero? I know her – knew her – like the back of my own hand. There’s nobody that knew her better, except maybe you.”
She kicked me in the kidney as hard as she could, which was hard, considering…
“What I’m saying is that people like Hero don’t change much. They may grow up and get more mature but the core of who they are doesn’t change. You remember that when you’re up there at the Burger Basket listening to all of that foul gossip.”
“I thought it was the Burger Shack.”
“Basket, shack, cornucopia, whatever. You know what I mean, donkey butt.”
At least I knew where Hero got her almost cuss words.
“I’ve heard a lot of things over the years, Gram. It’s hard to refute something you’ve heard over and over and over.”
She gave a berating sound before saying, “Not if you consider the source. I’m gonna call you soldier. After all, cowboys don’t listen to gossip.”
Cowboys were the biggest gossipers of them all.
I breathed out a sigh that held everything I’d been holding in my gut over the last few days since hearing about Garrison and the will.
“Tell me what you want me to do, Grammy. I can’t even think straight when I’m around her. She’s infuriating and beautiful and bullheaded and…”
“I can’t tell you what to do. Wait, no, I can. Don’t be an idiot. You have never been. You know Hero. A tree can’t change its roots.”
I sat there in silence while she got up, patted my head and went inside. The door shut behind her and inside I heard the bustling sounds of Hero and her getting into trouble.
There was nothing I could do. There was no reason why my best friend would lie to me about a thing like that. And the proof was in the pudding. Hero had moved Garrison into her house. She moved him into her house. They walked together in the places we walked. They played in the places we had played. They probably…I didn’t want to think about it anymore. There was nothing I could do. She had given herself to another man – my brother of all people.
I knew it would’ve been hard to wait for me, but she didn’t even try.
Grammy’s words pulsed between my temples but I knew what I had been told. Somewhere in my mind, it even made some sense. They had always been good friends. He had always made her laugh. They were friends. Friends become lovers. That was the way of life, wasn’t it?
I got up and dusted off the back of my Wranglers before knocking on the door. I waited with my arms crossed over my chest and my heart. There was no way this was for anything but show.
“Hey, Ranger. You ready to go?”
Before I knew it, she was in front of me. The light filtering in from her living room put a halo around the top of her head that told my heart I belonged there. She was gorgeous from head to toe. Her hair was up. I would always ask her to wear it down for me. I used to love when she would lay next to me and her hair would fan out over my chest and arm. She was everything I’d wanted.
Too bad she’d given it all to someone else.