Page 4 of Baker
Thankfully, nothing stops a tractor with new tires. After we got the long black Caddy freed, we took a group vote and Cash was removed from the hearse and placed in the back of my ’87 Ford F-250 four-wheel-drive pickup. She was so rusty I’d reached the point where I worried parts might fall off when I drove her to town, but I’d not give up on her. She ran like a champ but did tend to burn a little oil. Farm trucks weren’t supposed to be pretty. It was hard to keep a fancy truck fancy when you worked it hard. Ten years ago, I was tossing split firewood into the bed when I miscalculated the throw. Busted the shit out of the back window. So now it had the backrest from an old lawn bench that Granny had owned as a firewood deflector to shield the plastic taped over the busted window. I liked to say the rusted floral garden bench back and the shuddering clear plastic gave her personality.
Like the ranch or Prissy, some things you held onto for as long as you could. Bella and Granny rode in front with me. The others and Cash in his casket were in the bed. Poor old Milt had taken quite the jouncing. Thankfully, there was loose clean hay in there as I’d just hauled hay bales to the stables last night, so their fancy clothes would be moderately clean.
“So, honey, what do you do for a living?” Granny asked as we bounced and trundled over the roughest path I was sure any of my passengers had ever traveled. I kept checking my rearview and counting heads in case someone flew out. “Are you one of those drag queens?”
I almost swallowed my tongue.
Bella smiled a charming little smile before patting my grandmother’s liver-spotted hand.
“Granny,” I whispered in a soft, chastising way.
Bella spoke right up as she looked around at me. “No, it’s fine. Honestly, I would rather someone who doesn’t know me ask.” She turned her attention back to my grandmother. “Thank you for asking. I am not a drag queen. I’m just a gay man who loves pretty things on his body. If someone requires terminology, I always liked the South Korean aesthetic of a flower man, although not all flower men are gay. I am also happy with transfemme.” She gave a tiny shrug. “As long as people are respectful, I don’t get too flustered. As for my work, I’m looking to diversify from my previous employment and open up a small boutique for women with refined tastes but who live within moderate means.”
“Oh so you’re a fashion consultant?” Granny asked as we jounced merrily—or not so merrily for those in the back—along.
“Yes, a fashion consultant,” Bella quickly agreed.
“I could use some consulting on my fashion. Baker, imagine me showing up to Sunday services looking as elite as Miss Bella here!”
“You’d cause quite a stir,” I replied, keeping my eyes on the so-called road.
“When you open your shop, let us know. Baker is good at the computer and can order me a fancy New York City dress from my dear friend Miss Bella Buttercup, the transfemme flower man.”
“I will make sure you are my first customer. I’m not sure I’ll do much western wear, though. I doubt I could make a Stetson look as good as he does.”
I blushed to the tips of my ears. Stetson was a little out of my price range. I got my hats online or at the local feed store.
Bella flashed me a brilliant smile.
“Miss Bella Buttercup. Your smile is as bright as a wildflower. What a pity your last name is so opposite of your personality. I see nothing bitter about you.”
Bella blushed. Granny was right. Shewasas bright as a buttercup.
“That’s delightful. Thank you. I do try to leave the bitter behind.” Bella gave Granny a tender hug and then grabbed the dash when we rolled over an old woodchuck mound. Granny sat buckled in, chattering away, as Bella and the guys in the back yelped in fear. Cash didn’t bounce out, so that was good. Or not. Personally, I would have been happy to leave him out here for the coyotes to dispense of, but the law frowned upon such things. We’d had to do a fancy dance to allow Cash to be buried in the old cemetery. Fencing had to be redone and a ton of papers filled out, but his final wish had been granted. Why I had gone to so much trouble was beyond me. If not for Granny…well, we knew what I would have done with the bastard.
We rolled over acres and acres of land, most still showing signs of winter but with a few bursts of spring here and there. Granny served as tour guide for Bella, pointing out the old line cabins spread out over the land. There were several, all lookingdingy. Since we didn’t have big cattle drives anymore, those one-room camps along our grazing lands had turned into homes for raccoons and rodents. Just another sign of the hard times that had befallen not just Bastian Acres but the whole farming industry. Bella gasped at the landscape, waving a small hand at a flock of wild turkeys. The Arbuckle Mountains stood in the distance, coated with what remained of the last snowfall.
“…after General Mathew Arbuckle, who was a commander at Fort Gibson,” Granny was saying when we made a sharp left at a wooden post with a splash of yellow paint that marked the end of the Bastian land. To our right, I saw my tractor parked inside the old cemetery, the bright green paint standing out against the snow, the backhoe bucket resting on the muddy dirt beside a freshly dug hole. Unsurprisingly, I saw the lone official police vehicle, a well-loved Jeep with a star on the doors, parked on the other side of my tractor. Ollie had shown up to pay respects to a man he had never met. Ollie knew my father’s not-so-illustrious past. I’d shared that with him over beers more than once, yet he had shown up to offer his condolences. He was a good friend. “Oh, and this is the family graveyard. Over fifty of our ancestors have been laid to rest here.”
“This is quite the spot to spend eternity,” Bella whispered, her gaze moving to the snowy mountains in the distance. “It is so beautiful out here. I never imagined I’d see anything like this!”
“We like it here,” Granny softly replied. “Never lived anywhere else. Never wanted to. My father used to say that if it’s outside Oklahoma, then it ain’t worth seeing.”
Bella nodded politely. I myself didn’t hold to that philosophy too strongly. I knew there was a wide world out there that should be visited. Seeing other cultures expanded the mind and the heart, but until I stumbled into a few million I’d be here, trying to save my family legacy.
The truck slowed, and I cranked her hard to get her in position near the hole in the frosty soil. The men in the back piled out, each sporting runny noses and red cheeks, as Bella and I assisted Granny down from the cab. Ollie appeared, brown cap in hand, with a stranger at his side while I was leading Granny to the lone seat by the grave. A folding chair that I had nabbed from a hunting blind a few hundred feet south. Good hunting here when a man could find time to spare to sit with his rifle. That man wasn’t me. I wasn’t much into killing something just to kill it and hang its head on the wall.
“Mrs. B,” Ollie said, nodding his dark head to Granny. Ollie wore his Cherokee heritage incredibly well. Everyone called her that, or Granny B, as she was the matriarch of this assorted can of nuts that was our family. “Sorry to hear about the loss.”
“You’re so kind to come out,” she said and took her seat.
My brothers gathered around her as Mike began to flip through a small black Bible he’d brought along. I’d asked for the basics, which meant no pastor who required money. I’d spent enough on Cash. Granny and Reverend Cox had not been pleased, but God could listen to Mike for free as well as he could listen to the good reverend for a hundred bucks. Maybe that would send me to Hell, which was fine. Dad would be there so we could talk about his abandonment of his son. Sons plural, I amended, as he had ditched us all.
I gave Ollie and the stranger a nod, then jogged back to my truck to fetch an old blanket from behind the seat. After I had Granny wrapped up, I turned to Ollie and the stranger. Good-looking man, wavy blond-brown hair that needed a trim, pretty green eyes, whiskery, wearing good stout outdoor clothes. Solid boots. Probably someone wanting hunting rights to our land. Maybe been scouting things out some before Ollie rolled up. That happened a lot.
“This is Hanley Welsh,” Ollie explained as Milton, looking quite windblown and disgruntled in a stern, lawyerly way, went to stand with Granny while keeping a cautious eye on Bella. Sexy outdoorsy man nodded. “He’s out here for a photo shoot. Wildlife. Making a book. Found him walking along the hedgerow between your land and Hillman Banks’ property, so I stopped to ask him what he was doing.”
“Which was probably the most polite police request I’ve ever gotten,” Hanley replied in a soft New England accent. “Most of the time I get a little rangy when I’m out camping and end up looking like a mountain man. Law tends to get all Sheriff Teasle on me.”
