Skies Like These (7 page)

“I'm Elise Bennett's niece and I'm just visiting,” Jade corrected.

Kip Farley shook Roy's hand and then reached out to Jade, taking her hand in his two strong palms, sandwich-like. “It's a pleasure to meet you, Just Visiting.” There was an easiness about him that surprised Jade, a warm hospitality that stood in stark contrast to the tall fence and fierce rottweiler.

“We saw your sign about needing ranch hands and came to apply,” Roy said.

Kip Farley tilted his head. “A bit young to be looking for work, aren't you?”

“Twelve is old enough and we're good workers.”

Kip leaned sideways, toward Jade. “This little cowboy's all business, isn't he?”

She folded her arms. “I told him we shouldn't come.”

Kip Farley worked his fingers through a ring of keys hanging from his belt loop. They
clink-clinked
against each other like ice cubes in a glass. “No, no. I'm glad you did. Good workers are hard to find and I've never been one to hold a man's age against him.”

“What's the work and when can we start?” Roy asked.

“There's no need to rush headlong into those discussions. Why don't we take a load off and wet our whistles before we get into that bag of nails.” His cowboy talk rolled off his tongue in waves and lilts.

Roy looked so proud you would have thought he'd been crowned rodeo king.

“We're not thirsty,” Jade said.

“You got root beer?” Roy asked.

Kip Farley's smile widened. “I got whatever you need.” He placed a hand on Roy's back and started ushering him into the house.

“He'll take it out here,” Jade piped in. “On the porch.” She pulled Roy over to her side.

“All right, I see who's in charge,” Kip Farley said. He called out “Anita!” and an old woman in an apron came to the door. “One root beer,” he requested. The woman nodded and disappeared into the shadows behind the screen. A moment later, she reappeared with a dark brown bottle on a tray. She set the tray down on a side table and went back inside. Roy wrapped his hand around that bottle and eyed it, then eased on a smile, and took a long drink.

“Real refreshment for a real cowboy,” Farley said.

Roy pushed a shoulder back and raised his chin.

“The work I have around here is basic ranch care, but if you prove yourself I'd consider allowing you to work your way up to some horse wrangling. Are you interested?”

“Am I!”

Jade knew it was over. Wrangling horses was the one thing Joshua “Roy” Parker would never be able to resist. Whatever wrangling was.

“I'd like you to start the day after tomorrow, around ten in the morning.” Then he turned to Jade. “Will you be joining him?”

“I'm only going to be here for a few weeks and I'm supposed to be helping my aunt over at her dog ranch, but I'd like to try.”

“That's fine, you come when you can.” Farley turned back to Roy. “It seems we have a deal.”

“Yes, sir,” Roy said, taking Farley's hand and working it up and down, up and down like he was pumping for oil. “It seems we do.”

“I'll look forward to seeing you both, then.” Farley tugged on his hat once more and went back inside.

Jade followed Roy down the walk.

“What was that?” she asked when the gate was shut behind them.

Roy shoved Jade's shoulder. “That was you spoiling a prime opportunity to look inside Farley's house. We were so close!”

“He gave me the creeps—all smooth and glossy with that deep voice, calling you a cowboy. I can't believe you fell for it.”

“Excuse me, but I am a cowboy. Besides, you're forgetting that it's all part of my master plan. I got a paying job, another way into Farley's world, and a cold root beer to wet my whistle.”

“What do you mean
another
way?”

“Even a city girl like you has to know there's more than one way to skin a cat. I'm playing Farley like a campfire fiddle.” He moved his arms through the air like he was working a violin.

“I don't know. I somehow get the feeling that he's the one playing you.”

“Are you kidding me?” Roy poked a thumb toward the fence. “That went precisely as I had planned. Now you've got to promise me you won't go shootin' your mouth off about us working for Farley.”

“Why not?”

“Parents are nosy by nature and I need some space to work my magic. Do you promise?”

“I don't know if I can keep a secret like this.”

“Come on, Jade. Open up to some real adventure.”

The way Roy said the word
real
made Jade suspicious. “Why would you say that?”

“Trust me on this one,” Roy said.

Jade shielded her eyes and looked up at the sun tucked behind thick, downy clouds. “I better head back to the dog ranch. Aunt Elise will be wondering where I am.”

“Okay, but meet me in front of my house at one tomorrow,” Roy said. “I've got to run some errands with my mom in the morning and then I want to show you a few things.”

 

12

As she had promised, Jade met Roy at one. He led her through the twisted streets of Wellington and right up to what was left of his dad's store, County Hardware. It sat at the end of a long, narrow parking lot, next to the bright orange Harold's Hot Dog Shack. Something about the words
Summer is here! Pop in and get your pansies
swirling across the front window in blue-and-green paint made Jade sad. It reminded her of the time, in second grade, when she walked into Classic Skate for Randi Waterford's eighth-birthday party, only to find a wide and empty room. She had stood there trying to will the pink-and-white polka-dotted present to stop trembling in her hands as the pimply-faced teenager behind the counter told her mother the party had been the day before.

That was how this felt—like the Parkers' store was all dressed up for a party that wasn't going to happen.

“There was a time when this parking lot would get packed with cars. We'd put our vegetable starts and potting soil out there by the front doors in the spring and swap them for bags of salt and ice melt in the winter.” It was like Roy was showing Jade around his bedroom, getting all sentimental about the shopping carts and chipped-up paint on the front curb.

When they were standing in front of an electronic keypad on the side of a sliding metal door, Roy said, “Let's hope they haven't changed the code on us yet.” He punched in six numbers, followed by the pound key. The door shuddered and started rolling up,
click, click, clacking
the whole way. When it jerked to a stop and the puffs of dust cleared from the air, Roy stepped inside. He stood in the middle of the storeroom, hands proudly on his hips, surveying the mostly empty shelves that lined the walls.

“Isn't it grand?”

Jade noticed two dusty toilets and a tower of bricks in the corner. “Sure.”

“This isn't even the best part.” Roy walked over and pushed a wide, swinging door open. Jade followed him into the main store area. Sun was streaming in the front windows, illuminating a blue-and-gold mosaic-tile pattern in the floor. Roy ran the point of his boot along the edge of one of the tiles. “My dad put this floor in all by himself.” He walked over to a counter, which had two cash registers. “And we replaced this countertop last year—I got to pick out the stone. See how it has these gold flecks in it? The building owner let us do whatever improvements we wanted. It was like our own place.”

Jade patted the countertop. “It's real nice, Roy.”

He turned, leaned his back against the counter, and looked out across the expanse of the room. To Jade it looked like old shelves half-spotted with boxes and clearance signs but she knew it looked like paradise to Roy.

“Did I ever tell you about what happened to Butch Cassidy when he was a little older than us—only thirteen years old?”

“You know?” It was a silly question. Of course he knew.

“He went by the name Roy back then and his family lived in Beaver, Utah. One day, he rode into town to talk to the shop owner about buying some overalls. He was hoping to strike a good bargain. When he got to the general store, it was closed. He could have come back another day, but it was a long ride into town and he was kept pretty busy on his family's ranch. So he decided to let himself in and leave a written IOU note in exchange for the pants. He left his real name and everything!”

“That sounds fair enough,” Jade said, though she wondered what her local grocery store manager might think if she helped herself to a case of Oreo cookies and left an IOU note. Maybe he wouldn't mind, but she doubted it.

Roy went on. “When the store owner came in the next day, he saw the note and called the sheriff. Without even talking to Butch!”

“Who went by Roy at the time,” Jade clarified.

“Right.”

Jade shook her head.

“Back in those days, a person's word was their bond. Butch Cassidy never made a promise he didn't keep. He had every intention of coming back and working out a fair deal for those pants, but folks never gave him a chance to make it right. They wrote him off as some crazy thief and filed charges. They didn't even try to understand him. That was the beginning of it all for Butch.”

Jade looked at Roy. He was hanging his head, staring down at the tips of his cowboy boots. She wondered how much that last part of the story fit the Roy standing next to her. “Thirteen is awfully young to be so misunderstood,” she said.

“You know something?” Roy said. “I think you would have gotten along real well with Butch.” Then his round cheeks spread out into a smile. “Care to walk four stoplights down the road with me?”

 

13

Jade knew where Roy was taking her, she just didn't understand why. After being shown around County Hardware and seeing how connected he was to that place, she couldn't imagine why he'd want to rub in the sight of their empty parking lot by contrasting it to Farley's busy store.

When they came upon the Hammer and Nail, Roy crossed the street and settled in behind the wide trunk of an old walnut tree. “Come on,” he said with a jerk of his head.

Jade crossed and stepped up to his side. “What are we looking at?”

“Nothing from down here. There's too much risk we'll be seen.” He grabbed a low branch, hooked the toe of his boot into a knothole, and began pulling himself up. The way he moved let Jade know he had made the climb before. Hand over head, sure and confident. When he reached a thick branch near the middle, he turned back. “You coming?”

“I'll watch from here.”

“That's no fun. Come on up with me.” He moved over and brushed his hand across the thick branch. “There's plenty of room.” He had a teasing look in his eyes. “Unless you're afraid or something.”

“I'm not afraid,” Jade said. “It's just that we don't go around climbing enormous trees in Philly. It's dangerous. Besides, I'm pretty sure it's against city ordinance.”

Roy looked surprised. “I never knew a person could live twelve whole years without ever climbing a tree.” He got all determined. “You can do this, Jade Landers, and I'm the one to talk you through it. Grab the first branch and shove your foot into that big knothole.”

“Fine,” Jade said, tugging on the hem of her shorts and then reaching up for the low branch.

“Now take hold of that next one, off to the right.”

Jade hauled herself up, following Roy's direction at each step. She was three full branches into the climb when her foot hit a patch of moss and slipped, sending her tumbling and crashing to the ground.

“Are you all right?” Roy asked from his perch.

Jade rolled over on her side, trying to find some air in her lungs. “I fell,” she said.

“I saw that part.”

Jade looked down and noticed dark red blood pushing up out of some torn skin on her kneecap.

“Is anything broken?”

“No.”

“Well, are you just going to lie there and bleed?”

Jade was speechless. She sat up and brushed the hair away from her face. She took a cold, wet clump of leaves and gently pressed them to her burning, tattered knee. She paced her breaths. She ignored Roy.

“I said—” Roy began.

“I heard you,” Jade snapped. “For your information, I'm hurting here!”

Roy tempered his voice. “Yes, I know. And you have a choice. You can sit there feeling sorry for yourself or you can cowboy up and climb this tree.”

Frustration pulsed underneath Jade's skin and water rimmed her eyes. She sank her head into her hands and groaned. Her knee was searing with pain, but she knew Roy was right. It was only a medium-size scrape.

“A little sympathy wouldn't kill you,” she said, standing up and returning to the base of the trunk. A trickle of blood ran down her shin.

“What do you mean? I asked you if anything was broken.”

Jade grabbed on to the bottom branch and began working her way back up into the tree. She moved with more surety this time. Hands first, double-checking her footholds as she went, not looking down. Soon she was at Roy's side.

“I knew you had it in you.”

“Thanks,” Jade said. Looking out through the broad canopy of leaves, Jade could see a half-full parking lot and a cluster of people standing around the front of Farley's store. The sight of those people milling and chatting and gathering made her heart slump. “They must be having a big sale or something,” she said. “It looks busy.”

“Sure it is.” Jade expected to hear some measure of sadness in Roy's voice, but it was as light as could be. “On the outside.”

A couple of employees came out of the store dressed in their red Hammer and Nail aprons, joining those who were already in the parking lot. Jade noticed how they were pinching their noses or waving their hands in front of their faces.