Chapter Three
After Matt left, Etty was beside herself. She paced the floor first thinking about the kiss and wondering if she should have. Would he think she was easy? From their talks at the diner, she thought of Matt as a very moral person. She was aware that he grew up in a different era and under very different circumstances than she did. She thought that maybe he would think of her as brazen for being so foreword. She was starting to fall for Matt and wasn’t sure how he felt, but she didn’t want too do anything to scare him off.
Then she started thinking about her situation, and what would happen to her if she didn’t get together with Matt. She didn’t have much before but now she had nothing. She would have had this ranch in a few years, but that wasn’t going to happen. What kind of luck is that, losing the best thing you ever had before you even knew you had it?
She knew that she couldn’t go back to the diner. Her cook would probably keep it going for a while but he was a drifter and when she didn’t come back soon he’d most likely just empty the cash register and move on, or maybe not. He seemed to be honest enough. He might even try to find out what happened to her and maybe keep the diner going for a while, but in the end, he would walk away. The bank would take back the diner and that would be the end of it. People would talk and the County Sheriff would nose around for awhile but not too long.
She kept racking her brain about how she could convince Matt that they could use this to their advantage. She didn’t understand his fear of people finding out but he was so adamant that he imbued in her a small share of his trepidation. Etty’s main fear though, was of what the future held for herself and her child. Etty knew all too well the rigors of life without assets and she had just lost her only one.
She’d liked Matt ever since he’d started coming in the diner around nine years ago. She was hoping that he wouldn’t let her down. She always thought that he was the nicest guy she had ever met. Of course that was when he was an old man and now he was a young man. Etty had not had the best of luck with any men in her life young or old,
still, she had a good feeling about Matt. She decided she was glad she had kissed him. Men sometimes needed a little push to know what they wanted in the first place.
Right now however, the main problem was her son. She didn’t know how he was going to take this, but she couldn’t imagine that it would be good. Matt had been gone for two hours. She figured John would be home sometime that afternoon. She planned to get to the trailer after dark, just in case Sean stuck around for the afternoon.
From the ranch to her trailer was about an hour and a half so she started out a little before dusk. Although Etty was a little apprehensive of driving in the desert at night, she wanted to be sure it was dark when she drove though Cholla. She used to love driving in the desert at night and on a clear moonlit night like this, would often drive with her lights off. Driving in the desert night, with it’s multitude of stars and a full moon was similar to driving during the day with an overcast sky only prettier. The moon seemed to bathe the entire landscape with a shimmering silver patina that collected on the roadway and desert plants. The stark black shadows of the arroyos and plant life created a contrasting scene that reminded her of old cowboy movies. The ones from the forties and fifties that were filmed in full sunlight, but with filters that created the allusion of night. She far preferred that scene to the tunnel created by headlights. Driving with headlights left nothing visible beyond the pool of artificial light racing along the black strip of roadway.
Her uneasiness of driving at night came from an incident about eight years ago. She had been on her way to the diner in the early morning dark and come upon an accident. A pickup had hit a wild mustang, apparently at very high speed. The truck had continued on its path until it came to rest in a ditch and for lack of pressure on the gas pedal could proceed no further. The driver had gone partially through the windshield and had severed his left carotid artery. He was lying halfway over the steering wheel with his head on the hood. Under his head was gooey black mass of blood that had ran down the fender and pooled on the running board. There was already a black cloud of flies buzzing around his head and settling on the blood.
The horse was lying in the middle of the road with its head at an unnatural angle and had collected it’s own cloud of flies. Even though it appeared that, the accident had taken place a good while earlier, the engine of the truck was still running. The engine-cooling fan was clattering against the radiator and a plume of steam was rising from the hood. There was also an unidentified screeching sound coming from under the hood. With the cacophony of noise being emitted from the engine compartment, Etty was afraid of a gasoline fire.
She went to turn off the ignition through the broken driver’s window but couldn’t bring herself to lean across the body. She went to the other side of the truck and tried to open the door but it was jammed. She picked shards of glass from around the window and leaned in through the opening. Reaching the ignition switch required her wriggling almost halfway into the truck. After shutting off the ignition, she thought about moving the horse out of the road but knew she couldn’t do it. She opened her trunk, found a flare, lit it and left it in the middle of the road. This being before cell phones were common, she’d had to drive the rest of the way to Cholla to report it. Even had cell phones been common Etty couldn’t have afforded one on her income. It really didn’t matter since the man was dead anyway, but it still shook her up quite a bit. She was very thankful that she hadn’t known him.
Ever since that morning, driving in the dark bothered her. Consequently, she tended to drive slower at night and always with her lights on. She reasoned that with her lights on at least the critters could see her coming.
She was brought back to the present by the faint lights of Cholla twinkling in the distance. She also noticed the gas gauge and realized she needed gas. It then came to her that she couldn’t stop at Jake’s and his was the only station for sixty miles. Of course, there was gas at the ranch, but being unused to having gas at home she had forgotten to fill up. The only thing she could do now was hope she could make it to the trailer and back to Jake’s. The other problem was that she didn’t have much time. Jake, like most businesses in Cholla closed early.
She was approaching her trailer when she saw the pickup sitting in the drive. She kept on driving for about a quarter mile, made a U-turn, pulled off the road and killed the lights. It was Sean’s ragged pickup in the drive and if he was still there, it could only mean one thing, he intended to spend the night.
Etty sat on the shoulder of the road contemplating this unforeseen development and trying to figure out how to handle it. She couldn’t just spend the night in the car. To start with, the first car that came along would surely stop and offer help. Secondly, there was a good chance that anyone passing by would recognize her car. She thought she could go back to town and spend the night in the diner, but she was afraid that she might not have enough gas to get to town, back here and back to town again. Moreover, there was no telling how long Sean would stick around tomorrow.
Etty finally decided on the direct approach. Jake’s would close in less than an hour and then she would be stuck for the night. She started the car, drove up the road to the trailer and pulled in. She blew the horn until John came to the door and called him out to the car. She kept her head averted while he approached and when he was close, she told him to get in the car.
“What’s going on?”
“John, just get in the car. Now!”
John barely had the door closed when Etty looked back over her shoulder and started backing out of the drive.
“Mom Sean’s in the house!”
“I know.”
As she turned the wheel and started toward Cholla, she turned her head foreword and for the first time John got a look at her face.
“What the hell’s going on here and who the hell are you? Where is my mom?”
“John watch your language! I am your mother. Calm down and I’ll explain.”
“You’re not my mom. What do you think I’m stupid?”
“John just settle down and take a close look at me.”
John looked at his mother and thought, she looks kind of like mom, she sure sounds like mom, but she has to be at least twenty years younger than my mom. She’s driving our car and she seems to be wearing mom’s clothes. He didn’t believe for a minute that this woman was his mother but there was something very familiar about her. He couldn’t fathom what was happening but he was sure this woman was nuts. He was starting to worry that she may have done something to his mom. On the other hand, he didn’t feel in any danger at the moment. He thought it best to just stay calm and try to figure out what she was up to.
“John, think of something no one but your mother would know and ask me.”
He pondered for a moment and then said, “I have a birthmark. Where is it?”
“It’s a strawberry birthmark in the shape of a horse’s head on your butt. The left cheek, to be exact.”
“OK, but there are probably other people that know that.’
“John, when you were twelve years old you were in love with Annie Dunn. When you were seven you fell into a cactus and I spent an hour pulling stickers out of you. When you were six I backed the car over your puppy. His name was Trailer. When your father died, you were eight years old. You wouldn’t speak to me for a week.”
“Lots of people probably know those things.”
“OK, you asked for it! When you were fourteen I walked in you’re bedroom and caught you masturbating.”
“Mom!”
“See. And besides that you have girly magazines under your mattress”
Although John wasn’t completely convinced, that last one about him masturbating really got to him. He sure never told anyone and he sure would hope that his mother wouldn’t share that kind of information with anyone. He had thought that even his mother didn’t know about the magazines. He figured his buddy Sean was the only one with that information. God, he wanted to sink through the floor.
By now, they were approaching Cholla. Etty pulled off the road and told John to take the wheel. She gave him a twenty and told him to stop at Jake’s for gas. John got out of the car and walked around to the driver’s side. Etty just slid across to the passenger side. When he pulled up to the pumps she slouched down and pulled her hat down over her face. John pumped ten bucks worth and walked in to pay.
“Evening John, I see your Mom’s letting you drive tonight.”
“She’s not feeling very good. I’m gonna run her over to Albuquerque to see a doctor in the morning so I figured I best get gas tonight.”
“Peoples been wondering why she hasn’t been at the diner. Sorry to hear she’s sick, everybody sure misses her. When you spose she’ll be back?”
“It’s hard to say right now Jake. It may be a while.”
“Well, it’s a good thing you got here when you did. I was just about to lock up.”
John went to a rack and got a bag of chips and a candy bar. He had missed supper and hunger was setting in. John paid for the gas and food. When he got his change, he thanked Jake and said, “Gotta run Jake.”
“Tell your mom we been thinking of her and hope she gets well real soon.”
When John got back in the car he said, “Gees, I wish that man would take a bath.”
“Now John, Jake’s a good man. He just doesn’t know any better.”
“I’m starting to think you really are my mother.”
By the time they got back to the ranch, he was convinced. If he needed any further proof, he got it in the person of Toby bounding out to meet their car. John’s mind was racing a hundred miles an hour. John couldn’t wait to talk to Matt about this thing. His mom interrupted his thoughts.
“You’ve got to call the trailer and explain to Sean why we took off and left him there that way. Tell him I was really sick and had to get to a doctor immediately. Tell him we won’t be home for awhile and just lock up when he leaves in the morning.”
After the call John sat thinking about what his mother told him about Matt’s fear of people willing to do anything to get their hands on this thing, but there had to be a way around that, there just had to be. He and his mother talked about the pitfalls and the wonders of this long into the night without resolving anything. He hoped that Matt would contact them soon or better yet, come back. The one thing they had resolved was to wait two days and then return to the trailer for the things that they didn’t want to leave behind. Tomorrow they would go in to Roswell for supplies and clothes for Etty.
Two weeks later John was down at the ranch pond fishing. Mostly he was just killing time until Matt got back. A thought occurred to him and he laid down his pole and went looking for a frog. When he found one, he put it in his tackle box, picked up his pole and headed back to the house. There he cut the frog’s hind leg off at the knee. He took the frog in to his Mom and with a grin on his face asked her to hold it.
Noting his grin, Etty cocked her head and said, “Why.”
“It’s an experiment.”
She took the frog and commented that it was missing a leg. He said he knew. With a sudden look of understanding Etty said, “You’re trying to find out if the power of the ball was passed on to me?”
“Yep.” He replied.
“Well, I guess that would be a good thing to know. It’s something I never considered.”
John took the frog out by the barn and put him in an empty horse trough. He put enough water in the trough to keep him from dehydrating and checked him every day for a week. The last day he checked the frog was dead with no sign of regrowing his limb.
Three weeks later John did what he had promised not to do. He confided in his best friend Sean. John Talked his mother into letting him go back to the trailer to get some things he’d left behind.
“You go after Cholla’s shut down for the night. You don’t talk to anyone and come straight back here.”
“Don’t worry Mom. I know what I’m doing.”