“This is good enough. Pull off to the right.” Forrie steered off the road and Forrest put on the brake. “Now, set it in reverse so we won’t slide down.” He guided Forrie’s hand on the gear shift and together they set the handbrake.
When they got out, Forrest tussled with Forrie a bit, ruffling his hair. “Pretty good job, buckaroo,” he said. “Billy, can ya find a rock to put under a wheel?”
The children walked half a step before their parents and guided them the surest way down the gully and up the other side. Forrest held Forrie’s hand and Jean held Faith’s. A furrow in the hardened dirt threw Jean sideways into Forrest. “Careful. Pull her back on course, Faithy.” He was feeling exultant, just like he used to as a teenager after a track meet when he’d vaulted well. He talked heartily while they made their way slowly up the half mile of dried-up Santa Maria Creek to town. He liked the way the heels of his boots dug into baked silt, crunching at every step.
Ramona was a one-street town, less than ten blocks long. Forrest knew it well. Main Street was lined by grayish green eucalyptus trees whose branches drooped from the heat. Toward the end of the day everything in Ramona was tired. Even though the street was paved, dust rose when a car went by and it made him swallow as they walked along the sidewalk. The shade of a row of eucalyptus trees gave only slight relief from the heat. Forrest felt whole and proud walking with his family down Main Street.
“Pop, there’s weeds growing right out of the sidewalk,” Hap said. “They’re scratchy.”
“What else do you see?”
“A dog.”
“What’s he look like?”
“Dead.”
They laughed. “He’s probably just hot. Have we passed Johnny’s drugstore yet?” Forrest asked.
“Just now,” Faith said.
“Did I ever tell you I worked there in high school?”
“Yes, Pop, at the soda fountain. We already know,” Forrie said with a sigh.
Ransom Brother’s Hardware was next, after the big crack in the sidewalk. Across the street was Whiting’s Feed Store.
“Is the feed store painted yet?”
“Nope. It’s still all peely.”
The roof of Riley’s Cafe, warped by years of sun and rain, sagged a little to the right, leaning toward the Ramona Four-Square Church. The screen door squeaked its customary high-pitched welcome. Inside, a ceiling fan with one paddle missing stirred up the air and the flies. It was just as hot inside, but at least the air was moving.
“Forrest Holly, where you been keeping yourself?” Pat Riley hollered from the kitchen like he always did.
“Jean didn’t give me any money this week. Can’t come in unless Jean gives me my ’lowance.”
“Then why don’t you get out and work, heh?”
“Don’t have to. Got Jean.”
Several voices in the restaurant laughed.
“Jean, Forrest. Come on over here.” Warren Kenworthy’s voice came from somewhere in the rear of the narrow cafe.
“Hey, hey. Sounds like my itty bitty buddy. Is your girlfriend here, too?”
“Sure am,” Betty said.
“Got room?”
“We can make room.”
The children led them onward and Warren slid two tables together. Often they’d meet a friend at Riley’s. Ramona had only one other restaurant. Forrest thrived on chance meetings with friends. This one felt especially good, a cap to his driving victory.
“I want a cheese sandwich and—”
“Grape soda. We know, Billy,” said Faith.
“Mommy, do you think Mr. Riley would make gingerbread man pancakes?” Forrie asked. “They’re my favorites.”
“I’m sure he would if you asked him nicely.”
Talk ranged over domestic events and local affairs, the move from turkeys to chickens in the valley, wells going dry, efforts to join the Colorado River Authority.
“I tell you, we’ve got to get into that or the whole town’ll dry up like a raisin,” Forrest said, keen on organizing.
“I know, but for right now, here she comes with your plate,” Warren said.
“Did you get your Nehi, Billy?” asked Forrest. He marched his first two fingers across the table until they bumped into Faith’s arm. He grabbed hold. Faith giggled at the attention. Then he did the same in Billy’s direction, but he couldn’t find him. He was sure he had the direction right. In others ways too, he couldn’t find him. Instead, Forrest’s fingers ran into Billy’s plate.
“Do you mind if I take the toothpick out of your dill pickle, Forrest?” Betty’s voice was solicitous.
“If you need a toothpick, Betty, for heaven’s sake, help yourself.” He explored his plate a moment, then said, “Hey itty bitty, would ya cut up my meat for me?”
Warren took the plate and cleared his throat. “How did you come tonight?” He spoke the question softly.
“Drove.” Forrest sat up straighter in his chair, ready to draw off the conversation from the one subject odious to him. “Forrie and I did together, didn’t we? He can manage that steering wheel just like a trucker. Show Warren your muscles, Forrie.” Talking about blindness would erode the vigor he needed to deal with it daily. Let others gain mileage out of their limitation, or use it as an identity. Not for him the tame shelter of some suffocating institution, some limited world apart. Instead, he competed in the construction business with people who could see. Forrest took another bite.
He heard Warren shift positions in the rickety wooden chair. Knives and forks clanked for a moment against plates, and then Warren spoke softly. “I think I ought to tell you, I’ve heard some talk around town that people think you shouldn’t do that.”
Forrest kept eating.
“He doesn’t do it on the streets, only private roads,” Jean said.
Warren put his knife down against his plate. “You know, anytime you want to come to dinner here or go anywhere, Betty and I’d like to come along.”
Forrest lifted some peas on his fork, but when he reached his mouth, nothing was there. “Thanks, buddy.” He tried for a jovial tone, but the words sounded flat.
The next morning the house was a flurry of activity. “Bring your shoes here.” Forrest stood in the service porch, ready for the Sunday morning ritual of shoe polishing. It was essential to Holly respectability as well as to making the shoes last, at least until the children’s feet outgrew them. Discarding shoes that still had some sole left was against his doctrine of gratitude for present riches, so it was important that their tops be preserved as long as their bottoms lasted. He spit in the tin of shoe polish and scrubbed his rag in little circles in order to make just the right moist mix. The sweet, musky odor had always meant Sunday to him, even in his youth when his father did the polishing. He counted four little pairs and two adult pairs lined up on the washing machine top, and hummed intermittently as he worked.
While Jean cooked breakfast, Forrest got the children ready for Sunday School. He soaped the little-boy body of Hap, feeling the smoothness of the slippery skin under the soap film. Week by week, Forrest found the limbs growing stronger and more stable. He scrubbed the head, playing with the lather. He wormed his finger behind the ears, into the ears, making a funny slurping noise until Hap giggled. Forrest felt the toddler’s arm twine around his leg below the knee, infinitely precious at that moment, dependent in its wet nakedness. With tenderness he wrapped him in a towel and patted dry his round stomach, the plump bottom, the wiggly fingers. Preparations for Sunday church were among his most cherished hours in the week. It was time for a fatherhood of touch.
One by one, he called the children to him to cut their fingernails. Billy hung back. Hap squeezed his hand into a tight fist. Forrest had to pry it open. After three fingernails, Hap’s giggles turned into wails.
“What are you crying for?”
“They’re going to bleed,” Hap whined.
“Does a tree bleed when you cut it? Nails are just like trees.” When Forrest had finished three pairs of hands, he called out, “Billy, where are you?”
He heard him down the hall. “Mommy, I don’t want Pop to cut my fingernails.”
“Why?” Jean asked.
“He always cuts them too close and they bleed.”
“Billy, come in here,” he bellowed. Letting one child go without would set a precedent. “Billy.”
Shoes shuffled toward him in the hall. “Here I am.” The voice was low and grumpy. Forrest reached forward, found a fist, and the struggle began again.
After breakfast they assembled outside when they heard Mother Holly’s car come up the driveway.
“Everybody here? Sound off,” said Forrest.
“One.”
“Two.”
“Four.”
“Where’s Billy?”
Forrie, the organizer, went off to look.
“Faith, check to see if Hap has underpants on,” Jean said. “I can never be too sure.”
After a while, Forrie came out with Billy in tow.
“Uh-oh.” Mother Holly’s voice sounded concerned. “I think Billy’s got the mumps. His cheek’s swollen out like a golf ball.”
“Guess I have to stay home.” Billy’s voice was bursting with triumph.
“That doesn’t impress me,” Jean said. “Come here.” She poked her finger into Billy’s puffed up jaw. “You packrat.”
“What are you doing?” Forrest asked.
“He had a soggy piece of sausage stashed in his jaw.”
“How did you know?”
“I knew I’d cooked enough, but the plate was empty in two minutes.”
Forrest laughed in amazement. “You just can’t fool your mom, Billy, so you might as well give up.”
After church the children had their shoes off before they got out of the car. “Change out of your good clothes before you go play,” Jean said.
“What are you going to do, Billy?” Forrest asked.
“Go to the barn.”
“You want to take a ride?”
“Nope. Gonna climb on the roof.”
A few door slams and a little shuffling in the hallway and they were gone—except for Hap who hunkered down and stuck his nose into a coloring book.
It was Faith and Forrie, not Billy, who were crazy about horses. Forrest knew that, so it was Forrie he looked for after lunch. He thought he’d give him a tough decision. “Hey, Forrie, do you want to try out the new mower or take a ride?”
Forrie didn’t answer right away, just what Forrest expected. He knew Forrie’s fascination with mechanisms had to battle a moment with the lure of adventure. Whenever Forrest took the children on a ride, they went farther or to some new place the children weren’t allowed to go on their own. “Try out the new mower,” Forrie said.
“Aw, let’s take a ride. Go get your sister. You can trade off on Honeybunch. Meetcha at the corral.”
This fine, breezy Sunday was too good to waste staying home. He loved to have a child ride with him on Mort, his hefty paint who could easily handle two riders. It gave Forrest a chance for physical closeness, and he could tell how they were growing when their bodies nestled against his chest. Lance often teased him about these rides, saying that the reason Forrest wanted a kid with him on Mort was because Mort was too dumb to pick out a decent path and a child could do better. Forrest knew that in the horse world, Mort was a plug, but he loved him anyway. Now Honeybunch, there was a horse with promise. So gentle with the children, Honeybunch could offer them a widened sphere of activity and companionship as well as play. Forrest saddled her first, simply because she was the first one he found. “We’re going for a little ride, Honey,” he crooned.
When Forrest was teaching the children, their usual ride was to Indian Rock, just across the Ramona-Escondido highway past Earl Duran’s and the pomegranate bushes up the hill. Indian Rock was a flat granite promontory shaded by a tree and edged by sagebrush that had purple stringy blossoms from late spring to fall. When they went to Indian Rock, they brought back the deserty sage smell on their clothes. If Rusty went with them, his coat carried the smell of sage the rest of the day. The children called it Indian Rock because of the
metates
, hollowed-out places in the rock where the Indian women used to grind their corn. Once in a while, if they were particularly purposeful, they could find an arrowhead. When riding to Indian Rock became tame, Forrest took them farther, out to what he called The Eighty Acres. They’d have to jump a wide ditch at a gallop in order to get there. This Sunday, though, he felt like going far beyond that. “No. On second thought, Honey, I think we’ll take a long ride.” He stroked her on the neck and then went on to saddle Mort.
On the ride out, the children were in high spirits. “How far we going, Pop?” Forrie yelled from behind when they passed right by Indian Rock.
“How far do you want to go?”
“I want to go all the way to the ocean,” Faith said, the bounces making her speech sound funny.
“The ride’s kinda lumpy bumpy, eh?”
Forrest heard Honeybunch stop behind him. He reined in his horse and called back. “What happened?”
“He fell off,” Faith said. When they got back to where Honeybunch waited, Forrie was dusting himself off, but crying.
“You all right?”
“Yes.”
“You standing up?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not hurt?”
More crying. “No.”
“Then what are you crying for?”
“I don’t know.”
Forrest waited, but only heard more sobs. Crying like that was like wallowing in a mud puddle of self - pity. He could stand it for only a few seconds more. He shifted in his saddle. “I’ll give you one minute to quit bawling. If you can’t do it, then you’re going to have to walk home. Faith’ll ride Honey both ways.”
Sniffles.
“And we’re going up the mountains on the other side of Eighty Acres.” Forrest knew that would get him.
“You are?” Forrie sniffled one more time, picked up the reins and hoisted himself on. They headed off through brush and live oak, Mort and Faith picking out a safe path, Honeybunch following. Along the way, Forrest asked his usual, “What do you see?”
“Hills,” said Faith.
“Come on, you can do better than that. What’s growing on them?
“Oak trees.”
“Anything else?”
“Big boulders.”
“I smell orange trees. Why didn’t you tell me about them?”
“Dunno.”
“What’s right ahead of us?”
“Just sagebrush. And some trees.”
“What kind?”