Chapter 16

It had gotten over much too quickly, of course. And not just because I got sex every night I was there. It was great seeing everybody. I hadn't realized how lonely I'd been. Being in the military is strange in a way non-vets can't possibly understand. You live elbow to elbow with strangers, and yet you depend on each other for your lives. Intense friendships are born, but then the friends are sent to different parts of the world from each other. There is no permanency in the relationships. Oh, you may write to each other, or call each other for decades, but it isn't the same as real family. So there is a pervasive loneliness in serving your country, even if it's in the United States. The fact that I had chosen to live out in the boonies, with only Jake as my companion, was simply an unconscious extension of that lonely style of life. He had suffered under similar circumstances, though not the same, but it still made us well suited to live together.

And, as much as I was saddened by having to leave my family again, I was glad to see Jake when I got back. Interestingly, I was greeted by someone else before I saw Jake. It was a dog, and he acted like he owned the place and I had no business being there. He was a strange looking beast, who looked like there was a Rottweiler in his past, and maybe a Labrador. But there was some kind of terrier in the mix too, because his legs were short. He sounded ferocious, and by the time I got out of the car he was set in a wide four point stance, as if to say, "Come on, stranger. I haven't eaten yet today."

Jake came out on the porch.

"Hey dog!" he yelled.

The dog stopped barking and looked over at Jake.

"Shut up, you stupid animal," said Jake.

The dog sat down. He looked at me and his tail wagged in the dirt.

"I didn't know we had a dog," I said.

"Me neither," said Jake. "Got adopted while you wuz gone."

"You adopted a dog?"

"No, he adopted us. Showed up the day you left. Looked like he hadn't eaten in weeks. I was fool enough to feed him and next thing I knew, he was struttin' around marking the whole damn place as his territory."

I squatted. The dog came to me like we were old friends and leaned against my leg as I stroked his head.

"You shouldn't have done that," said Jake in a dismal voice. "Now he'll never leave."

"What do you call him?" I asked.

"Dog," said Jake. "That's what he is. Didn't figger on keepin 'im."

I hadn't lived with Jake all that long, but I thought I knew him pretty well.

"So ... you want me to put him in the car and take him somewhere else and dump him?"

"Ain't right to dump an animal," said Jake. "That's probably what somebody did with him. Damn thing won't leave you alone. Follows you everywhere you go, and barks at anything that moves. I could see how that would drive a man nuts, but it ain't right to dump him somewheres."

"Surely we have a humane society around here somewhere. I'll just take him to a shelter then."

"Mebbe later," said Jake, scratching his back. "Wouldn't hurt for the coyotes to get scared off a bit. I was thinkin' about mebbe getting a calf to fatten and butcher."

I was pretty sure I was right that all his complaining was a front. "Well, where's he going to sleep?" I asked.

"I made him up a place in my room," said Jake.

"In your room?" I tried to sound surprised.

"Didn't know if he'd chew things or not. Needed to keep an eye on him," said Jake, gruffly.

I grinned at the man. "He sleeps in your bed with you, doesn't he, Jake."

Jake looked pained. "Well, I give him a bath, and put flea stuff on him. And he seemed so pitiful when he first showed up..."

I patted the dog on the side. "Welcome to the family... " I looked at Jake. "We have to give him a name."

Jake looked off to the side. "I sort of been callin' him Tucker. He kinda reminds me of a feller I knew a ways back who was always yappin' and struttin' around and such."

"And I suppose this Tucker fellow was a friend of yours," I suggested.

"Well, he was such a pain in the ass that none of the other hands wanted anything to do with him," said Jake. "Why are we jabberin' so much? It was right peaceful while you wuz gone. You gonna stand there all day spoilin' that dog or what? I suppose you need help carryin' things in."

"I saw Frankie while I was home," I said.

He stopped talking and squinted.

"She said I was supposed to give you a kiss for her."

"Well then you just call her up and tell her if she's a-handin' out kisses, I expect her to be here in person," he said. "I might live with you, but I ain't about to go all San Francisco."

I laughed and got my bags out of the car. We went in and he peppered me with questions about what the trip was like, and what Frankie looked like. He asked if she still made all that racket in bed, and seemed genuinely disappointed when I said it hadn't been like that.

Of course I didn't tell him about Phee.

So life went on. I had never had a pet before, and didn't know much about dogs, but if there could be a better one to have around than Tucker, I'd be amazed. He was smart and loyal. Why somebody abandoned him is beyond me. Well ... he did lay turds the size of a summer sausage, but they were easy to see and walk around. Jake did get a calf, which we kept in the corral next to the barn, or in a stall in the barn itself. It turned out the loft of the barn was full of hay, which Jake said doesn't go bad as long as it stays dry. I taught, and in my free time Jake was the foreman of our two-man repair and construction crew. We got the house scraped and painted, which made a world of difference. We tore down two old collapsed outbuildings, and used the lumber to build a gazebo that was Jake's design and was beautifully intricate, with a latticed roof that wouldn't keep out rain, but made the place airy and cool. He came up with ivy to plant at each upright, and which he said would eventually cover the roof. When it was finished, I stood and admired it.

"I didn't figure you for the gazebo type, Jake," I said.

"Ain't fer me," he said.

"So you think I'm the gazebo type?"

"Ain't fer you either."

"Who's it for, then?"

"It's fer somebody like Frankie," he said. "Assumin' you're smart enough to snag you a woman like that."

"You designed and built a gazebo for a woman you never even met?" I laughed.

"I met Frankie!" he said, stubbornly. "What that told me is you ain't as stupid as most people would think. A stupid man don't have a woman like that sniffin' around him. Though there is some question about that. I do notice you ain't invited her back."

Actually, that wasn't true. After my night out with the girls at Thanksgiving, on the way back out to the cars, I had sidled up beside Frankie and said, "So ... you coming to visit me anytime soon?" She had looked at me sideways and said "Oh, I bet you'd like that, wouldn't you." I'd said, "Yes," of course, and she'd looked back to the front. "Maybe. We'll see."

Since then we'd exchanged emails, but nothing had been said about visits.

I had established regular email contact with all of them, though they were usually short messages. They were busy with school, and so was I. With our fix-up plans well under way, I didn't have all that much extra time.

I had already told my mother that I couldn't really afford to come back again for Christmas. Fixing up the ranch ate up all my extra money, even when Jake took the monthly house payment I handed him, and gave it back, saying it was for his rent. A couple of times I insisted he keep it, and all he did was go buy a new faucet, or whatever else was on the list to repair or replace. The weather was wonderful, though, and I figured we'd just use the semester break to tackle the really big job we had - replacing the shingles on the roof.

We were two days into doing just that when Tucker started barking and faced the driveway in that four point stance that said, "Stop right there, motherfucker!"

I was on the roof itself, removing shingles and pushing them over the side. Jake was down on the ground picking them up and putting them in the back of the pickup so we could haul them to the dump. Being up so high, I got to see what was coming before Jake and Tucker did. It was a van, and if I hadn't known it was impossible, I'd have sworn it was being driven by Frankie, based on the way it slewed around corners. It looked like whoever was in there was running from the cops, though there was nothing behind it.

It pulled up next to the pickup in a cloud of dust.

I laughed out loud as Frankie jumped out of the driver's door and she ran to throw her arms around Jake, kissing him squarely on the lips.

I started to yell at Tucker, but he went strangely quiet and sat down. His tail hesitantly wiped the dust behind him a couple of times. The passenger door of the van opened at the same time the side door slid back.

Danni got out of the front, and Denise stepped out of the side door, followed by Beth, and then Phee.

"Oh look!" I heard Denise squeal. "A doggy!" She squatted, and I started to yell, but Tucker went to her and leaned into her like she lived there too.

"An ugly doggy," I heard Beth say.

"He is not!" cooed Denise. "He's a pretty doggy!"

"Everybody! This is Jake!" announced Frankie, who left one arm around him as she stepped aside. I couldn't see his face, but I knew he looked stunned. I had told him I did, in fact, tell Frankie he expected a real kiss, and not one that was passed along. I'd told her about his San Francisco remark too. But I knew he never expected this.

I went to the ladder, and heard several female voices asking where I was. Jake didn't say anything. When I got to the bottom of the ladder I could still see the glazed, unbelieving look in his eye. Frankie's arm around him might even have been helping him stand up on shaky knees. Tucker had been moving from girl to girl, getting a snootful of each one, but as soon as I was down he bounded to me, excited. It was like he was saying, "Look what I found! Aren't they wonderful? Can we keep them?"

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