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Chapter 2
Lica leaned against the shovel that he’d been using and looked at his brother’s truck as he pulled into the yard. Edmond had been out getting feed for the cattle. The empty truck made him think that things hadn’t gone as well as he’d hoped they would.
“No credit, I’m assuming.” Edmond shook his head and said that they’d hit their limit with the Barn, the only place around here where someone could buy feed for cattle and such. “I guess we’ll be turning them out to the other pasture a little sooner than we thought. That sucks, too, since we need it to get them through the winter months.”
“I got a call into the Callus farm.” Without saying a word, Lica turned his back to his brother and began shoveling the shit out of the stall. “It’s a good deal, Lica. All we have to do is run their tractors for them for six months, then it’ll be all ours. I’ve looked over the contract and had Ivan look at it, too. The only loopholes in it are in our favor. At least our cattle will be able to eat for the fall and winter months and right on until spring of next year.”
“I don’t like having to get things on credit, Edmond. And we both know that’s what they mean when they say we’ll be paid well.” He said he knew that, but they had to eat. “I guess it can’t hurt for us to do the work. They still all right with us using their equipment for the south field?”
“Yes. In fact, it was their idea for us to get it ready for winter. You know as well as I do that’s going to save us a bunch of trouble. Our tractor isn’t going to make it another year, and this one, buying on credit like they said, will get us through a lot of years.” Lica knew that, but he didn’t have to like it. “I have the contract with me now. It’s been signed off on everyone but you. And since you have the most experience in driving the larger equipment, they’re going to pay you extra for teaching their hands on how to use it when we get there.”
Lica signed his name to the bottom of the contract where all the others had. They’d been partners in their farming since the day that Devlin had turned eighteen. If not for the help of Dan Wilkins, the cop in town, there is no telling what might have happened to the six of them when their mother was put in prison and their father killed. Turning to look at Edmond when he cleared his throat, he asked him what was going on.
“Do you remember what today is?” He didn’t think that there was a time in his life that he would ever forget what the date was today. “We have to go there and make sure that she doesn’t get out. I don’t know why they’d even consider her being let go, but today is the day. I’ve already lined up the attorney that we’re using. With Devlin being in his last year of college, it’s helped us a great deal in knowing who we can trust as attorneys. Are you going with me?”
“I am. Are the others?” Edmond told him that Ivan wasn’t going to be there on time, but he was going to be there. “He’s got his interview today, right?”
“Yes. If he gets that job, we’ll be looking at a better income for us.” The six of them worked and pooled their money. They paid the bills for the ranch out of their money, and then whatever was left over, usually not too much, was divided up between the five younger ones of them. Since Lica worked on the ranch full time, he had room and board, so that made him not need as big a cut of the money. “I had a strange phone call this morning. I don’t know if I was cut off or the person was, but they were asking about the year that our father died. I didn’t get an opportunity to answer them.”
“They’ll call back or won’t. More than likely, someone trying to get us to pay some money to them. I know that I don’t have to ask, but I’m gonna just for my own peace of mind, but you have all the receipts from paying off Bates, don’t you? I’m glad that we were able to pay the parents’ dues. His letting us pay it over time helped us out a great deal, but I don’t ever want a big debt like that hanging over my head again. Do you?” Edmond said that he had copies, and so did their attorney. “All right then. Let me finish up this stall and I’ll get myself a shower to get going. Are we going together or meeting up there?”
“There.” Nodding, Lica finished up his job and then made his way to the outside shower. It wasn’t anything more than a large tub with a hole in it that hug on the side of the house. But when you needed to rinse off the crap from the barn, it was a better way to clean up than dragging all the nastiness into the house to shower. He was headed to the shower, his clothing hanging on the line after his rinse, when the house phone rang.
“Hello, House of Fraizer.” He waited on the line to quiet down before he spoke again. He didn’t know the voice, so he didn’t hang up on whoever it was because it sounded like an elderly woman. Again, he said the name of their house. It was easier than naming off all of them who lived there until the person spoke.
“Which one of you boys is this? I’m thinking Edmond is who I spoke to earlier but I didn’t have a good connection.” He said he was Lica. “Lica? My goodness, you don’t sound a bit like your father, thankfully. I just heard that the old bastard is dead. Can you confirm that for me? I’ll need a year and date, honey.”
He gave her the date and the time that his death was confirmed. Still, no idea who he was talking to, and knowing that just about everybody in the state knew how his parents had come to be in trouble, he even told the woman the year that his mother had been sentenced too.
“Her hearing is today, correct? Why they’d want that cunt of a woman out of prison is beyond me, but I don’t make the rules.” Lica couldn’t help it. He laughed. “Oh, you have a good sense of humor. I’m so thrilled to know that. I was wondering if you have some room for an old woman to come and stay with you for a little bit. I can still cook a mean pot roast and bake a lemon cake that will make your toes curl.”
It took him less than a minute to know who he was talking to. “Grannie Fraizer? Is this you?” She laughed, her voice coming over the phone as lovely as he used to remember it being when he’d been a child. It was as soothing as a brush of her hand over his head when she’d come to see him to bed. “My goodness. If we don’t have any room, you can bunk in my bed, and I’ll sleep in the barn. It’s nice and warm this time of year for that, anyway. When are you coming?”
“Oh, Lica, I can’t believe…well, I should believe you’d be this welcoming. I’ll be at the courthouse when they call it to order. I got me a few things I’d like to say about that old bitch that’ll have her behind bars for the rest of her days. It will. How are you boys doing?” He told her that they were doing as well as can be. “Liar. You’re not doing well at all. I didn’t know a thing about my son being dead until just a few weeks ago. Now that I do, I can make some things…well, I’ll see you boys, all of you men now, I guess, at the court house. My goodness, I just can’t wait. I’m all giddy to see you. You tell me who they are now, I won’t know them little ones. Why Devlin, he was nothing but a babe when I got out of there.”
“He’s graduating from college in a few weeks. Going to be the family attorney for us.” The back door opened, and he heard Mrs. Wilkins squeal and he covered himself up with his free hand as best he could. “I gotta get me some clothing on, Grannie Frazier. I’ll tell the others that you’re coming. I’m not sure who will remember you, but I can’t wait.”
“I’m looking forward to it too, son. You’ve no idea.” After hanging up with his grannie, he told Mrs. Wilkins he was sorry.
“You get yourself dressed. It’s my fault. I should have knocked first. In my head, well, not today. You are still boys.” She was flittering about the kitchen while he ran up the stairs. When the door opened again, he heard his brother Edmond laughing, so he knew that she’d told him she’d caught him standing in the hall naked. Coming down the stairs, Mrs. Wilkins started talking like they’d been having the same conversion as they’d been having five seconds ago, and it being a week ago. “I put them pies in the freezer for you boys. Now, don’t be putting them in the micro-zapper or they’ll not be fit to eat. There are some homemade noodles that I made up in batches for you for your supper, too. Just cook them until they float, and they’ll be good with anything.”
Her husband, Dan Wilkins, had passed away about the time their mother was sentenced to two life terms in prison. No one, not even his doctor, knew that he had cancer, and by the time he was getting his treatments set up, he was gone. It hurt his heart something terrible for Mr. Dan to be gone. But Mrs. Wilkins had made up for them being with their parents.
For some stupid reason that no one could understand, their mother would be coming up for a parole hearing every fifteen years. This was the first one for her. He had it in his mind that the judge had been sweet on their mother and didn’t believe a word out of their mouths when they were asked about her and their living arrangements.
The judge did say that he felt sorry for their mother, her being the mother of six sons and was going to lose out on being able to raise them. He must not have been paying attention all that well when they were talking about how much they hated her.
Anyway, the Wilkins’ had been there for them since he and his brothers had purchased the Brady Ranch at an auction three months later with a loan from the Wilkins’. Then after Mr. Dan passed, Mrs. Wilkins kept them in food and darned socks since. She was about the best mother they could have had, he thought.
“I just spoke to Grannie Frazier.” Edmond remembered her, asking if she was the one that he’d spoken to earlier. “She was. She said she thought that it was you, but she’d had a bad connection.”
Edmond made the two of them a sandwich, and Mrs. Wilkins gave them paper plates and chips to go with it. After sitting at the table, he told them what she’d said about coming to visit. Mrs. Wilkins smiled at them and asked if they remembered she was going to visit her younger daughter next week.
“I did forget. But this couldn’t be more perfect timing, could it?” Edmond winked at him. They both knew that their daughter was going to try to convince her mother to live with her from now on. That living on the farm, ten acres in all was too much for the elderly woman. “You’re going to have so much fun with your grandkids you’re not going to want to come back.”
“Oh, I can’t wait to hold them. Did I tell you that her oldest is in the school band? Dan would have been so proud of her.” She turned away to shed a tear or two, and he and Edmond let her. “Well, I don’t know about me staying with her. She’ll want me to go shopping and all kinds of things when I get there. I’m a little old for that now.”
There was excitement in her voice, and you would have had to be deaf not to have heard it. Over the last couple of weeks, her older daughter, the one that lived nearby them had sold her home and everything in it to go to live near her sister, too, with their mom. Once she was settled in down in North Carolina with her family, the house up here would be sold to them. Just as Dan had wanted it to be when he passed for a buck. He didn’t have any sons to leave it to, and Dan had always treated them like they were his sons. And they treated him and Mrs. Wilkins like their dad and mom. They were that good to them.
