Chapter 57 New Hope with Grace
“What are these?” Grace called out. She had picked up the books that Evan had pulled out of the box and sat on the table before their arrival was interrupted. “You wrote a book. You wrote two books!”
“Yeah,” he said. He tried to downplay it, though he was proud of his accomplishment. “I just picked those up in town this morning. If I’d have known you were coming...”
“Then it wouldn’t have been a surprise,” she interrupted, grinning. “When did you write these?”
“It gets pretty boring up here in the wintertime,” he replied. “I started these right after I found those pups.”
“Sam and Lucy,” she said. “Is that their names or are they just their names in the book?”
“That’s their names,” Evan replied. Ryan had picked up one of the books and was already reading it. He was a quiet sort and preferred to sit in the background and listen.
“That’s great!” she cried. “I have a little surprise for you, too.”
“Being here is already a surprise,” he chuckled. “What more do you have?” Secretly, he was hoping that it was news that she was moving back to be with him.
She reached into her bag and pulled out a book, handing it over to him. “Clinging to the Edge” was the book’s title, and it had her name, Doctor Grace Williams. “That ride to Clear Creek Falls was my inspiration for the title; the theme, too, actually. You have no idea just how profound that day was for me.”
“This is awesome!” Evan replied. “I’m glad I could help.” He remembered how he had been so critical of her while he was riding in the meadow above the falls. He mentally took note and wondered if those thoughts had led to their separation. Negative thoughts had a way of inserting themselves into reality even when a person didn’t voice them. He flipped to the inside cover and noticed that she had written something there. “To Evan: I will always love you. Thank you for being my inspiration.” Maybe he should give her another chance. Maybe she was here for another chance. Should he try going back to New York with her? His stomach turned over just thinking about it, but a part of his cowboy ethics told him that maybe he had to do it to keep her. Do whatever it takes, even if it is a little uncomfortable.
“I’m a little out of my league in this room,” Ryan chuckled. His comment interrupted Evan’s thoughts.
“Hell, Ryan,” he replied. “You’re probably sharper than both of us together. It doesn’t take much intelligence to slap a few words down on a piece of paper. Grace’s book, yeah, a lot of research and such, but mine? It’s like sitting around the coffee shop telling lies. Comes pretty easy to most of us.”
“It took more work than that, Evan,” she said. “If I know you, you worked on some very detailed literary themes.”
“Actually,” he replied. “Not much. I’m just telling a story. And of course I allowed my imagination to run wild.”
“That’s never been a problem,” Ryan laughed.
“I’ve had plenty of time to develop it,” Evan responded. “Get’s pretty quiet around here.”
“I’m not sure how you could stand it,” Grace replied. “How did you make it through the winter? It must be dead quiet here in the winter.”
“It is extremely quiet here in the winter,” he said. “You can hear the dogs’ feet squeaking as they walk in the snow. I remember going out to feed when I was a kid, and the only sounds you heard were the sounds of the cattle and horses as they walked on the packed snow; that and their breath or an occasional cough. I used to love to go out and feed the yearlings at the hay rack in the early morning. It is one of my favorite memories.”
“I’ll bet that it got to feeling like you were the only person in the world last winter,” Ryan interjected.
“It did get pretty quiet and a little lonely,” he replied. “Hell, by the time you read that book, you might think that I became a raving lunatic. Taking care of those pups kept me pretty busy, and I took some rides in the snow cat, just to see the country.”
“I wouldn’t be able to take it,” she said. “It gets a little too quiet around her for me in the middle of the summer.”
That was the exact difference between him and Grace. He was rarely uncomfortable with quiet and solitude, and it drove her out of her mind. She had never learned to appreciate silence or to appreciate the very small noises; the subtle and quiet were often the most profound. He had seen that in the people back East; in his students, his colleagues, and even his friends. The louder and flashier things attracted much more attention and became the focus. Back east, they loved hearing the trash talk between basketball or football stars, but people in the West tended to respond better to players who quietly went about winning a game without talking or bragging about it. It was one of the major differences between the two parts of the nation. Those who went west to settle found that they had to work hard. What a man could “do” was of much greater importance than what he “said”. Evan reflected on how those subtle differences had formed such an enormous chasm between him and Grace. He had to choose his words carefully before he responded. “It’s really not as bad as it sounds,” Evan said, rising to fill their coffee cups.
A short lull followed as Evan poured the coffee. It was broken by Evan’s question to Ryan. “What brought you back to town, Ryan?”
“Well, you know that we had that little place outside of town,” Ryan began. “I decided to sell it. Nobody has been in it for a dozen years or so. I came to fix it up and get it ready to sell.”
“So you’re just here for a little while?”
“Actually, I thought about staying around,” he replied. “Do a little handyman work.”
“You were always good at that sort of thing,” Evan replied.
Grace sat quietly listening to the conversation between them. She knew little about Ryan, and there was a slight interest in knowing him a little better, but in some ways, she wished that she could be alone with Evan.
“I do alright,” Ryan replied. “It will take all of my time and skills to get the house fixed up, but I’ll get it by fall. It’s a bad time to try to sell a house, but at least it will be ready by next spring.”
“So you have a little place to live while you’re working on it, I guess?”
“Yeah, I rented a little place above the old mercantile store. Jordan bought that whole building and modernized the apartment upstairs. He did a hell of a job. You’ll have to come see it sometime.”
“I’ll have to come check it out.” Evan was as eager to catch up with his old friend that he hadn’t seen in twenty years as he was to talk to Grace, but he saw her eyes glazing over as the two of them talked about people that she did not know and about things from the past. When he suddenly realized that she had been sitting there patiently waiting for them to change to a subject that would include her, he stood and took his cup to the sink. “Do you have some bags and such, Babe?” It just came out of his mouth without even thinking about it. He had gotten so used to her being there and calling her Babe.
Grace suddenly snapped out of the bored stare that had overtaken her. “Umm, yes, in the back of the pickup, thank you,” she said.
“I best be getting back to town,” Ryan said suddenly. “Come to town for a cup of coffee someday, and we’ll get caught up some more. I’ll be around.” He started out the door along with Evan. “Say, Evan,” he said as they walked along the path to the pickup. “You remember Mary Stowe?”
“Yes,” he replied. “Has that place up the creek a little way from you?”
“She has a problem,” Ryan said. “She got a hold of one of those mustangs from the BLM program. It’s a pretty good-looking mare, but she can’t do a thing with her. She tears everything up around the place. Mary said she can’t keep her and was wondering if you’d be able to do something with her.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Evan said. “Mustangs aren’t an easy thing to tackle. You gotta know what you’re doing. I read about a method that some guy out in Nevada or California has been using. I’ve tried it out a few times on my horses and it seems to work.”
“I’ll let her know,” Ryan said. “It’s good to see you again, Evan.”
“Same here,” he replied. “Don’t be a stranger.”
“I’ll be pretty busy, but I’ll get up here again as soon as I can,” he replied as he got in behind the steering wheel of the truck and extended his hand through the window to shake Evan’s hand. Evan set the bags down and took Ryan’s hand.
“See ya around,” Evan replied.