Authors: Avery Stark
At the end of the day, she knew that her heart was buried in the thick Appalachian forests.
But that warm, glowing sun sure was giving Virginia a run for its money.
"Anyway," her friend continued, "I just wanted to tell you to travel safe and I'll see you in the fall."
Emily smiled. "Thanks. Same to you."
With that, the young blonde ducked back out, leaving Emily alone again. She sighed and leaned forward in her chair.
"Might as well get this show on the road."
Leaving her water bottle behind, she peeled herself out of the comfortable seat and started toward her room. There wasn't going to be much for her to pack since she had put almost everything in storage.
Besides
, she thought as she shoved the last few garments into her suitcase,
I'll be back soon
.
—
The flight into Richmond wasn't the worst part of the trip. That title was given to the three hour car ride that eventually dumped her onto the footsteps of her childhood home. Fortunately, the aching throb in her lower back was quickly forgotten when she threw the door open and got a big, cool whiff of the pure mountain air. The fresh smell of pine trees alone gave her goose bumps. So many good memories were tied to that scent.
In the months that she was gone, her parents had pulled up all the plants within two feet of the house and replaced them with a soft blanket of what were simply called "green and golds". Their yellow, daisy-like flowers were connected to the bright green leaves by a mass of light, fuzzy strands. They were actually one of Emily's favorites. In the early mornings when the glistening dew still blanketed everything, the plant's hairy stems would catch the drops with ruthless efficiency, making the whole spread look like it had been encrusted with diamonds.
"Emily?!"
Her mother's excited voice wafted out through the open row of windows.
"Emily is home, Carl!"
Her parents stomped through the house and flew down the short flight of stairs. In seconds, her mom had snatched her and was hugging her tightly.
"Mom!"
Her mother, Caroline, was a slender, olive-skinned woman with raven hair that was pulled back in a loose pony tail. She had always been the emotional one in their small family, though Emily came in at a close second.
"When she was five or six," her mother would tell people, "she accidentally stepped on a snail and cried for two days!"
While it was the truth, as Emily stood there with her weeping mother clinging to her neck, she simply smiled and patted her on the back.
"It's okay, mom. Really!"
Her father quickly paid the driver and grabbed her bag.
"Let's get inside, huh? It's been pretty cold the past few days."
Aside from the new flowers, the house was exactly how she remembered it. Spreading out from a large central area were several winding hallways that led to the home's eight rooms, including Emily's. When she left for college, she tried to convince them to rent it out and earn a little more money, but her mother had refused. In a way, Emily was glad.
There was nothing quite like going back home.
A few hours later, as the young brunette sat back in a chair at the head of a long table, she was surrounded by her mother, her father and three of the Inn's four expected guests. The last one, a young artist from New York, wasn't set to arrive for a few weeks.
"So tell me, dear." An old woman named Barbara patted her arm. "What are you studying?"
"I'm not really sure yet."
She smiled. Barbara was a hefty older woman with hair like threads of silver. Her wrinkled hands were home to countless rings and shining diamonds so bright that they were almost blinding. Her husband, Gary, was a decidedly simpler man. That night he was dressed in a pair of wrinkled slacks with a button-down shirt that didn't even match. Nearly every day after breakfast, Emily's mother would later inform her, they would hop into their immaculate town car and disappear until the sun started to go down.
Fortunately, Gary and Barbara made it a point to be there for Emily's first dinner back.
"Well that's okay. You have plenty of time to figure out what you want to do."
Emily nodded and took a sip of her water. It tasted so much sweeter than California's.
Barbara turned her attention back to her plate. Further down the table, an older man with a pot belly and perpetually dusty boots cleared his throat and rested his elbows on the table. Mid-chew, he pointed at Emily with his fork and spoke with a hearty southern drawl.
"Don't you worry, miss. Some things have to come looking for you."
The single traveler, known only as Tex, was an ornery old man who loved his guns almost as much as a good glass of whiskey.
Almost.
His nightly drink glistened in the tumbler near his plate, casting an amber shadow onto the white table cloth below it. When he wasn't eating with the family or drinking on the porch, he was up in the mountains with the menagerie of rifles that he brought with him. There were so many that he always had to leave behind a few behind, along with the distinct impression that he wasn't happy about it.
Tex swirled the glass and raised it to his mouth. Before the drink passed his lips, the very corners of his scraggly moustache twitched gleefully.
"Mmmm," he smacked his lips together. "That's the ticket right there."
"So Tex," Emily leaned forward in her seat, "I hear you're an okay shot."
His weathered face dropped into an exaggerated frown for a second before he bellowed out a hearty laugh. He smacked the table with his palm, sending everyone's plates up into the air by almost an inch, and pointed a finger at Emily's father.
"Did you put this poor girl up to speaking such nonsense?!"
Carl just laughed and shook his head. Tex turned back to the young woman and raised a fist.
"Why, I'm the best shot for a hundred…no, a thousand miles around. Maybe the best in the whole damn country!"
Barbara choked on her peas.
"Sorry about the French, ma'am. Sometimes I just can't help myself."
Emily's mom piped up, "You know, he builds his own targets with stuff he finds around the property. He doesn't want to admit it, but Tex here is quite creative."
He waved his hand as if to dismiss the thought and shoveled fork-full of meat behind his crooked, yellowing teeth.
Emily looked over at her dad.
"You said that there's one more guy coming, right?"
"Yes, there is." Carl blotted the corners of his mouth and continued, "His name is Adam. I don't know much about him besides the fact that he is coming up here to work on a project."
Greg looked up from his plate and spoke softly, "What kind of project?"
"I'm not sure. I guess we will find out eventually, won't we?'
Everyone around the table nodded in agreement.
Later on that evening, after Gary and Barbara had turned in and Emily was finished helping her mom with the dishes, she wound up on the porch with Tex as he polished off the last of his daily liquor ration.
The sun had long since set, leaving behind an inky landscape below the endless swath of stars above. From somewhere out in the swaying fields of burgeoning blossoms, a few early crickets sounded their song for anyone who would listen.
"So," Tex asked over the steady creaking of the swing that he was sitting on, "you grew up here?"
His words were surprisingly crisp.
Emily, seated on the top of the stairs leading up to the wrap-around porch, leaned forward with her elbows on her knees and her face cupped in her hands. She looked out over the familiar woods surrounding them and savored every sweet gust that rolled over the landscape.
"Yep. All my life."
Tex tapped the plastic bottle against the arm rest. Its hollow ring made the portly, graying old man sigh. He leaned forward and dropped it down onto the porch.
"Did you enjoy it?"
"I guess…," her voice trailed off when she looked up to the blanket of stars. They never looked like that in California. "You don't really know what you're missing until you get out into the world and see it for yourself, you know?"
"Ah yup," he patted his belly and burped. "But you're always going to be missing something no matter where you go."
"I guess that's true."
Emily stretched her legs out and bounced her heels against the bottom stair.
"Is your name really Tex? Is that what your parents named you: Tex from Texas?"
"Well why not?!"
Emily laughed and finally turned around to face him, resting her back against a peeling, vertical beam.
"You don't think that maybe 'Tex from Texas' is a little much?"
"There is no such thing as too much Texas, young lady, and you would do well to remember that!"
"Whatever you say, boss."
"You're all right, kid," he leaned back in the chair and rested his hands behind his heavy head. "You should come shootin' with me sometime."
Emily paused briefly before answering, "Sure thing. That would be fun."
"You bet your ass it would be!"
His crooked teeth were locked in a sincere, albeit drunken, grin. Emily was surprised how he could look like the hottest of messes and yet still speak like not a single drop of liquor had passed his lips. His thinned hair was disheveled and stuck up in several different directions. One half of the bottom of his shirt had come un-tucked and flapped loosely over the soft breeze, exposing skin so pale that it almost glowed on its own. His wrinkled eyes were almost closed.
He was quickly rocking himself to sleep.
"Tex?"
His head snapped up.
"Huh? What?"
"Maybe you should go inside.
"I, uh," he wiped the spit away from his mouth with the back of his sleeve, "maybe you're right."
Emily leaned her head back until it rested on the antique wood.
"I would bet money on it."
"I'll take-"
He stood up from the swing and wobbled so dramatically that it made Emily flinch. She thought for sure that he was going to tumble right down the stairs but he somehow managed to grab onto the guard rail just in time. He pointed a swaying finger at Emily.
"-I'll take that bet!"
Emily laughed and said to him, "Goodnight, Tex from Texas."
With that, the unstable cowboy staggered into the house and disappeared from sight, leaving behind the creaking swing. Emily could almost see him stumbling out of an old West saloon, with his rugged features and his Texas swagger.
"Maybe in another life," she mused out loud and let her head fall to the side.
When she opened her eyes again just a second later, the verdant peaks and hills whispered as countless leaves rubbed up against one another. Though she couldn't see it, Emily could hear each ripple in the air as they rolled in from the Northeast and continued onto wherever they wanted.
Something about it was so soothing; so peaceful.
In a flash, Emily's mind raced back into the darkened woods. She thought again about the old man's story, but it wasn't the only thing on her mind. The smell in the air evoked a handful of other nights from her youth, pulling up a myriad of different emotions that swirled together on the wind. She could feel the rough bark on her fingertips and the soft caress of fresh leaves between her toes. The lingering taste of popsicles tickled the back of her throat. For a moment, she forgot the warm California sun completely.
Emily slept on the groaning swing that night, lulled to sleep by the dancing breeze and the warm embrace that only home can give.
Almost three weeks after arriving back home, Emily woke up to the sound of someone stomping up the hall leading to her door. She rolled over in her bed and rubbed her eyes with the backs of her palms.
"Even his boots sound like Texas," she mumbled to herself.
A second later, Tex knocked on her door.
"You up, miss?"
Emily stretched out in her bed and yawned again.
"Yeah."
She threw her legs over the side and forced herself up. Waiting on the other side of her door, the old man had his thumbs hitched into the loops that held up his snake-skin belt. His wide-brimmed hat was tucked under his arm with a kind of tenderness that surprised Emily a little.
It almost looked like he was cradling a baby.
When he saw Emily, he nodded his head at her, "Morning, miss."
"Good morning, Tex. What can I do for you at this fine hour?"
He suddenly looked a little flustered.
"Oh, I'm sorry miss. I didn't mean to bother you or anything."
Emily thought that his humble nature was charming. He was, in his own way, a unique force in the world. His jokes were crass, but the kindness of his soul often cut right through the words that he spoke. Nobody could be mad at good 'ole Tex from Texas. Not for very long, anyway, as was the case on that warm morning at the tail end of May.
"You're not bothering me, Tex. What's up?"
He smiled and clenched his arm around his hat a little tighter.
"You said you would go shooting with me, remember?"
Emily was shocked that
he
remembered, considering he could barely walk. In fact, she had hoped that he wouldn't. Considering her docile, almost timid nature, firing a gun was running at the very bottom of her list of must-do activities. All that she could think about was accidentally shooting herself or someone else. The thought of it made her physically ill.
In spite of her mind screaming no, she nodded her head.
"Well today's the day, missy. Now get dressed and let's get out there before it gets much hotter."
He plucked his shirt away from his chest and let it fall back down, sending a little puff of air up into the wild grays framing his head.
"Is this kind of heat normal?"
Emily watched as he pulled a handkerchief out of his back pocket and wiped the glistening beads of sweat from his forehead.
"No, not really."
"Praise Jesus," he exclaimed and shoved the blue rag back into his faded jeans. "I'll wait for ya down in the living room."
"You got it."
Tex nodded and walked back the way that he came. Something about the old man was captivating to her. She wasn't able to put her finger on it, but every time that he was around she felt nostalgic. In his own way, he personified every kind elderly man who had passed through over the years.