For the next couple of months, I will serialize my current novel, ACoup in Paradise. Each installment will be numbered so the reader can identify where they are in the story.
Episode 3
It wasn’t long before the scenery became familiar to Trace. An old windmill he hardly noticed while growing up, now became a cherished memory. Cattle quietly grazing in a distant pasture almost felt like laying his head on a pillow. The trill of redwing blackbirds gently called to mind mellow days of work, play, adventure, and solemnity.
Adam turned off the road and onto a gravel lane. He passed under the gateway of the Royal-T Ranch. The house, the barn, the garage, the equipment shed, two silos, and a small orchard grew from the dusty lane they drove on.
“You know there’s eighty-eight fence posts on each side of the lane from the gateway to the house?” Trace said.
“I oughta know, I helped your Grandpa and my Grandpa put ‘em in,” Adam smirked.
“Still got Red and Shep?” Trace looked at the moving scenery.
“Yep, can’t run a cattle ranch without good horses and at least two good dogs. They’re older and wiser. Sometimes they think this place is theirs. But like Consuela, they know where the line is. They only bark at strangers and stray cattle.”
Adam parked the truck close to the gate of the fence that wrapped around the yard of the house. It was a two-story house made of timber cut from a woods that rested just over a rise to the west. The original structure was a cabin built in the late 1830s. That still remained, now the center of the house. Over the years every side was added to except the front and a second floor was added near the beginning of the First World War.
Grandpa, whose name is Adam also, but called Buck sat on the front porch. He quickly stood and carefully walked down the steps and walked toward Trace.
Trace dropped his bag and embraced Buck.
“How ya doin’ you old cattle rustler?” Trace said.
“Doin’ good,” Buck said, “and I’ve sure missed ya. We got some catchin’ up to do.”
“I got some tall tales to tell ya, Grandpa.”
“I bet I can match ‘em,” Buck said.
“The rules are they only have to be half true, right?” Trace said.
“Your dad says you’re not staying’, is that right?”
“That’s right,” Trace said. “I’ve been wanting to head to the South Seas for some time. I finally made up my mind to just do it.”
“I say get it out of your system,” Buck said. “You can’t dance with one girl while thinkin’ about the other. Ya go ahead and dance with the one yer thinkin’ about. Sometimes she don’t dance so good. Do you remember Lucille Carter?”
“Sure do,” Trace said.
“Back in the day, she was the prettiest thing you’d ever want to lay your eyes on. I had eyes for her and she had eyes for me. I asked her to dance.” They began to walk up the steps. “We danced and talked. I swear ta god, I’ve never seen looks and intelligent conversation so diametrically opposed. Not only that but I’ve had easier times bringing’ down a steer than dancing with her.”
“I wish I would have known that before taking her granddaughter to the prom,” Trace grinned.
“Let’s get inside,” Adam interrupted. “We can shovel it better where it’s cooler.”
Trace, Adam, and Buck stepped inside. They all slipped off their shoes and boots.
Consuela walked in from the kitchen.
“This must be Trace,” Consuela said.
“Indeed, and you are, Consuela,” Trace said. “Dad told me you make some pretty good stuffed French toast.”
“The recipe was in a little file box in the kitchen,” Consuela said. “I think it was your mother’s recipe. I follow it right to the letter.”
Consuela was what Adam described; polite but firm. She smiled kindly, but looked immediately at his feet to be sure his shoes were off.
“Don’t worry about the underwear, Consuela,” Trace said. “Maddy broke me of that habit before it became a habit. She packed ‘em in my school lunch. It only took me one time pulling my underwear out at the lunch table. Kids called me The Mystical Mr. Underwear The Magician because I pulled my underwear out of a sack. The name stuck for a few weeks and was mentioned at a graduation party years later. There’s not a time I slip my underwear off without thinking about that.”
Everyone laughed.
Consuela prepared a meal for Trace, his dad, and grandfather. Although her roots were deep in Tex-Mex cuisine, she prepared a tasty American meat and potatoes meal.
The three men retired to the living room made up of leather and oak furniture. A pair of longhorn antlers capped the mantel of the gray rock fireplace.
Adam opened a bottle of scotch. “No man leaves until this bottle is finished.” He set three glasses on a coffee table and began to pour.
“I think we’ll have to get Consuela, and call in a couple of ranch hands to help us,” Buck said.
“Ah,” Adam said, “we got until sunrise.”
They raised their glasses.
“To Ezra Aloysius Troy,” Buck said, “the man who brought the first herd of cattle to the land we own and laid the floor we stand on.”
They placed the scotch-filled glasses to their mouths and tossed the scotch down.
A stained and lacquered round coffee table sat between four dark brown leather chairs. Trace and Adam sat.
Buck stood at the fireplace. His arm rested on the mantel. “Wear do you go exactly after this?”
“Fiji,” Trace said.
“What are you going to do there?” Buck asked.
“I know this won’t sound responsible to you, Grandpa, but I’m going to bum around for a while, South Seas.”
“Looks as if you started something,” Adam said to Buck.
“What do you mean?” Trace said.
“You tell him, Dad,” Adam said to Buck.
“In 1921 I sailed to the Gambier Islands,” Buck said. “Well, not exactly. I got aboard a steamer from San Francisco to Sydney. I agreed to work aboard for passage to French Polynesia. They sailed right on by. I didn’t know it but I was Shanghaied. I was a dumb Texas kid. When they passed by Polynesia, it all began to fall into place. They had me mop the pilothouse. I was smart enough to read a chart. I could see we were near an island. For all I knew the island could have been inhabited with cannibals. All I knew was that the ship did me wrong and was going to continue to do me wrong. I went below and waited for the chief engineer to leave his post. I grabbed a hammer and busted a steam valve. They put the steamer into full stop. Everybody ran every which way. I climbed up to the captain’s quarters and broke open a money box. I took twenty dollars. I ran down to the deck and dropped a small launch into the water. The island I saw on the chart was only two miles away. I rowed there. I got to the island and hid the launch. I figured they’d be coming for me. The next morning they launched a boat and came for me. They spent a day lookin’. They tried to hire the islanders to help them. Finally, they left, and the ship steamed away. I had a laugh, a bag of gear, and twenty dollars.”
“How long were you there?” Trace said.
“It was lucky for me I was on Palmerston Island; the only island in Polynesia who spoke English. We got along fine. I was there for six months. I rigged a sail on the launch and spent a year going from island to island.”
“How did you get back to the States?” Trace asked.
“A British exploration ship happened to be in the area. They took me to New Zealand. I wired my dad for the money to book passage on a regular passenger ship this time. I sailed to San Francisco and took a train back to Texas. God, it was good to get home.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me about that?” Trace said. “Well, my story was so much better than the ones your dad told you about his time in the South Seas; I didn’t want to outshine him.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Adam said, “I have some business to take care of in town tomorrow. Dad, why don’t you get out some pictures you took when you went back there?”
“I’d like that Grandpa,” Trace said.
“I’d like that,” Buck said. “But what about you? I’d like to hear a little more about your plans, other than just bum around. That don’t sound like a plan to me.”
“Not every man has the wisdom, foresight, or resources to really reach deep inside yourself to find out who they are,” Trace said. “I spent four years on the Bering; two on a crab and fishing boats and two on a freighter. Faced a lot of things but there has to be something beyond that. I thought about Dad and how he told me. What he learned by going to the South Seas can’t be put in words or told in stories and now that I know you went there too, Grandpa, you must feel the same.”
Buck nodded and affirmed with his lips turned down.
“I know how people look at me from the outside in but I want to know what I look like from the inside out. Does that make sense to you two?”
Buck and Adam looked at each other and raised their eyebrows.
“Sound familiar, Dad,” Adam said to Buck.
“Yep,” Buck said.
Adam turned to Trace. “I think what you’ll find out more than anything is how to look at yourself from the inside out. The process—the process that will stick with you the rest of your life, the process that will be a part of every important decision you make. If you neglect the process, you might have wasted the time spent looking for it. Does that make sense?”
“It does,” Trace said. “More than you’ll ever know.”
“Ezra Troy came to Texas in 1833,” Buck said.
Trace grabbed the bottle of scotch and poured three more drinks.
Buck sipped and continued. “I think it would be safe to say he bummed around for a couple of years. He signed up to fight for the battle of San Jacinto. For that, he was given 640 acres. He bought a near-dead herd and drove them to this land. He grazed them back to health; and took care of them like they were his kids. He came from poor folks in Pennsylvania. Knew how to live off the land. This land was too hard for most of the men granted those 640 acres, and when the Mexicans came along to take it from them, they didn’t have the gumption to fight for it. The surrounding ranchers were more than anxious to sell him their land. After all, the Mexicans would probably take it. So he offered the ranchers on each side of him 500 dollars each for their 640 acres. To them, it was the deal of the century. Five other ranchers heard about what Ezra was doing so they came to him. He didn’t have the money but drew up ten-year promissory notes. That’s how our family got its start. My dad lived before Ezra passed. He always told me if you look into his eyes you look into Ezra’s. Do you get what I mean?”
“I think so,” Trace said. “When I look into Dad’s eyes or yours, I’m looking into Ezra’s.”
“That’s what I believe,” Buck said.
They all sipped from their glasses and said nothing.
Trace broke the silence. “I’m only staying a couple of days or so. Any more than that, you two will be putting me to work and then I can’t leave.”
“That’s how we kept relatives away,” Buck said, “beyond a day you gotta earn your keep.”
“I’ll tell ya what,” Trace said. “We always have strays. How ‘bout if I saddle up ole Spanky tomorrow and ride up into the hills?”
“Doug Harvey flew his plane over our hills a few days ago,” Adam said. “He said he saw a dozen or so near the big bend in the creek.”
“Sounds like Doug has done 95 percent of my work,” Trace said.
And so Trace spent the next day with Buck. The day after that, he rode Spanky into the hills and found the strays. The following day, Trace and Adam ran some errands, and he picked up a rental car in town. He didn’t want Adam to spend the time to take him to the airport and the trip back home. They checked out a pump on the southern part of the ranch. It piped water into a long trough where a hundred or so cattle drank. It was fine.
For as long as Trace could remember, breakfast was at 7:00 AM. Consuela prepared the stuffed French toast, bacon, eggs, and hash brown potatoes. Breakfast at the Royal-T Ranch was like a board meeting before the workday. Everybody discusses what they would be doing, where they would be, and any help that might be needed for the rest of the day. If everybody was there for lunch, updates were discussed. And for supper, it was all about accomplishments and plans for the next day.
They sat at a table made nearly 125 years earlier by Trace’s great-great-great-grandfather, Samuel. Although the Troys never spoke about it beyond the walls of the house, Sam Houston ate at the table on several occasions. Stephen Austin slept in the original house. “Big Foot” Wallace spent as much time at The Royal-T as anywhere.
Buck speculated that maybe more of the roots of Texas history were planned in this room than any other, but it all stayed in the house. If all that ever got out, Buck would have to be entertaining historians and researchers. The next thing would be corporate offers to make the place into a tourist stop.
Buck had a few old mementos safely tucked away in his closet. Artifacts from the days of the republic and early statehood. Buck always said, “The people who entrusted them to the Troy family did so with good reason; to keep them secret.” Thus, not one in the Troy family spoke about such things beyond the family and the house.
“Well,” Trace said, “I’d better head out. I’d rather be early than on time.” He stood. “I’m going into the kitchen to say goodbye to Consuelo.”
“You do that,” Adam said.
Trace pushed the spring-loaded door open to the kitchen. Consuelo was loading the dishwasher.
“Consuelo,” Trace said, “I wanted to say goodbye and tell you how much I enjoyed your meals.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“Continue to take good care of Grandpa and Sad but most importantly take good care of yourself,” Trace said.
“I will,” she said. “And your grandpa and father take good care of me. When they bark, I bark. If they bark back, I bark louder. They are good men and you are a good son and grandson.”
“Give me a hug,” Trace said.
“And you kiss my cheek,” she said.
“When you see the dust from my car, bring Grandpa and Dad a coffee to the front porch.”
“I will,” she said.
They hugged, and Trace kissed her on the cheek. He walked back into the empty dining room. Adam and Buck had already gone to the front porch.
Trace and Adam embraced and stood back.
“Drop a line or call when you get to where you are going,” Adam said.
“I will,” Trace said.
“If you get in a pinch, just let us know,” Adam said.
“Hope I’m never in that situation,” Trace said.
Trace stepped over to Buck, and they embraced.
“Remember this land and that you carry the Troy name,” Buck said.
“I remember you told me a Troy doesn’t look up to any man, he doesn’t look down to any man, he looks him straight in the eye,” Trace said. “And never let a man look up to you or look down to you.”
Trace stepped away and spoke to Buck and Adam. “You know I hate goodbyes and I was thinking about getting up early and leaving before you two got up.”
“We discussed that last night among ourselves,” Adam reached into his pocket. He tossed a set of keys to Trace. “I took these out of the ignition last night.”
“Gettin’ so ya can’t trust your own family,” Trace joked.
“Let us carry your bags out to the car,” Buck said.
“Nah,” Trace said, “I want you two to sit on the porch and relax. I told Consuelo to bring you a coffee when she sees the dust from my car.”
Trace grabbed hold of his bags and walked to the car. He tossed them in the back seat. He opened the door and waved.
The next thing Trace knew, he was looking in the rearview mirror of the two most important men who would ever be in his life. “I can’t wait to see them again,” he murmured.
