He was searching so hard for how to say the next I could see it on him. “I am thinking you should go back to your Grossmutter some way.”
That, I was relieved to shrug right off. “Well, sure, we both know that. After haying and when school starts, if Gram is . . . is herself again, I’ll have to. But that’s a real while yet.”
“Now, I mean.”
His Hermanic word horrorfied exactly fit my reaction. “Just up and leave you? W-why?”
Behind his glasses he was blinking hard, and I realized his eyes were moist. “I am doing poor job at being grandpa. You are living with men who have no home except the boxcars, and are always after by sheriffs, and speak I don’t know what language, and the Smiley who is all dirty mouth. It can not be good for you, in bunkhouse. And I can not do anything about it except put the Smiley in his place once in blue moon.”
“Skip it. I’m not leaving.”
That stopped him cold. “Not yet anyhow,” I rushed on to keep him that way. “Not until after haying, and then we can figure out what we’re gonna do. Each.” I was not far from tears, either, at the thought of going our separate ways. But that was not going to happen for as long as I could put it off. “Don’t let the bunkhouse stuff throw you, okay? I won’t listen any too much, I promise.” I tried a ridiculous grin to help both our moods.
Herman wiped the corners of his eyes, blew his nose, sighed a deep surrender. “You are loyal. What can I do but try be same.” He reached over and gripped my shoulder in a way that said more than words could. Both of us were one sniffle from breaking down.
He managed to be first at swallowing away the emotion, saying huskily, “Donny, if you are not going to your Gram, very least you must call her, ja? If she does not hear from you sometimes, she will worry too much and call Manitowoc, and there the Kate is and you are not. And then we are—”
“I know, I know. Kaput.” Did I ever have that terribly in mind. Nun, Gram, Jones, they lined up like poles of the telephone line, and all scared me. One wrong word to any of them could do us in. Put yourself in my place: Gram was not even supposed to exist, according to what I had told Jones about me and Herman being all each other had, and any slipup on my part that let on to Gram about the Diamond Buckle ranch would be surefire disaster, and even Sister Carma Jean as suspicious keeper of the phone was no cinch to get past unscathed.
No surprise, then, that I lamely alibied to Herman, “I—I’m working on it. Gonna tackle Jones somehow about using the phone in the boss house, honest. Just haven’t got around to it.”
He appeared no more eager than me to tackle a foreman who was as gruff as any top sergeant, but gamely volunteered, “Ask him for you, can I, you think?”
“Better let me.” I could see no way around the risky business of negotiating a phone call. “He still thinks you don’t know diddly about things in this country and can barely spikka the language. We need to keep him thinking that.”
“Ja, do not upset the cart of apples,” Herman resigned himself to our situation. We stood up, man and boy and more than that through the bonds tying us together this life-changing summer, and he squinted wryly at the bunkhouse as if seeing through the walls to its inhabitants. “Sickles can wait until morning. Let’s go be Johnson family.”
Just as we were about to step into the yard, however, we heard the whump a car makes crossing a cattle guard too fast, then the crushy sound of tires speeding on the gravel road.
Putting a protective arm to me, Herman stepped back into the shop doorway exclaiming, “Emergency, some kind? Look at it kick up the dust.”
The car swept into the ranch yard past the outbuildings, scattering the chickens Smiley had neglected to put to roost yet, and easy as the toss of a hat, glided to a halt in front of the boss house.
“Emergency, nothing,” I yelped. “It’s Rags!”
28.
THE PURPLE CADILLAC pulled up to the house and Rags climbed stiffly out from behind the wheel, still in his classy bronc-riding clothes. For once he was not the absolute feature, though, because with him was a black-haired beauty who instantly made me think of Letty, except that this one’s uniform as she popped out of the convertible with a flounce and a laugh was a fringed white leather rodeo outfit like palomino troupe riders wear.
Herman and I tried not to gawk, without success. “Go on in and make yourself comfortable, darling,” we heard Rags shoo her into the house with her ditty bag. “I need to act like a rancher a little bit. Catch up with you in no time.”
“Promise?” said she, the word dripping with honey.
As she sashayed on in, Jones came hustling up to greet Rags. “Got a visitor, I see. Another buckle bunny?”
“Naw, she’s a performer,” Rags drawled, flicking a fleck of arena dust off his lavender shirt.