By Shawn Inmon
Prompt: Celia Rhodes Photography, Image #3
Sun shone around the blinds in the otherwise darkened bedroom. Wherever a beam cut through the darkness, motes of dust floated lazily in the still air. An old man sat hunched over a still form on the bed. An observer could have justifiably drawn the conclusion that both were statues and not the flesh and blood they really were.
The old woman in the bed pulled a sudden, sharp breath into her lungs and opened her eyes in surprise. When she had fallen asleep, she had thought she was saying her last good-bye to this world. Now, here she was again. The old man leaned forward. He had been praying beside her all day, but he wasn’t sure if he was praying for her to live or finally let go.
Their eyes met and her eyes crinkled as she miled at him one last time. When he had seen that smile across the room at a Grange dance fifty one years earlier, she had captured him. On that happy day, the had never considered this day and the inevitable bookend to that first smile.
“You know where I want to be, don’t you honey?” she asked.
He nodded and said “I won’t forget. In the shade of the elms.”
She used the last of her strength to reach her hand out and lay it on his. She closed her eyes for the last time and as she was drifting away, she heard him say “I’ll never leave you. I’ll will wait right here until I can be with you again.”
* * * * * *
Twenty Years Later
Dust boiled up from the wheels of the Land Rover as it sped along the last half mile of the road that led to the entrance of Riffe River Ranch. Steve Wright drove with one hand draped casually over the steering wheel and the other fiddling with the radio. No matter what he did, he picked up only static.
His headlights lit an arched sign that spanned the road and told him he had arrived at the ranch, his latest acquisition. Unlike most of his investments, this one wasn’t really for profit. This was a getaway, 4500 acres of solitude and luxury. He slowed and turned into the large circular driveway.
He had bought the place sight unseen, basing his decision on a 32 page brochure his business manager, Ted, had sent him. Ted assured him that it was a steal, and that he could get his money back plus a profit if he didn’t like it. His first impression of the place was that he had, indeed, gotten a good deal. The main house was eight thousand square feet, with 6 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms. The overwhelming size of the place was a little ironic, since he couldn’t think of five other people in the world that he would want to stay under his roof, but he liked the look, the immensity of the place.
It had once been a working cattle ranch, but that had gone away in the 80’s. Like so many others, Riffe River Ranch had gone bankrupt and was sold at auction. The new owner had been the owner of a 24 hour cable news network. The first thing he did after the hammer fell at the auction was tear down the original three bedroom farm house. In its place, he built this tribute to excess and questionable taste.
The sun had gone behind the horizon, and he realized that there were lights on inside the house, casting a contrary light into the gathering darkness.
That’s odd. Why the hell would there be lights on in a vacant house?
He walked up the wide, curving sidewalk to the front door and tried the knob, but it was locked, as it should be. He reached in his jacket pocket and fished out the oversized brass key. It slid home and turned the tumblers with a satisfying clunk. The door swung silently open.
“Hello?” Steve realized his voice sound tinny and almost a little scared.
“Hello?” he said again, dropping his voice down to his lower register. That’s better, he thought, as though an intruder would flee at the sound of a more-masculine voice.
There was no reply.
Steve walked into the immense great room off the foyer. The previous owners had left all their furniture as part of the sale, and there were leather couches and chairs arranged around the room, facing a large river rock fireplace or the windows that looked out on the mountains off to the east.
“Hello?”
Steve jumped, but was able to mostly catch an embarrassing squeak before it left his mouth.
“Oh, sorry, Mr. Wright, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Steve turned to see an old man standing in the foyer. He was a small man, lean and slightly bent. His face was deeply lined and looked to be made of the same leather as the gloves he had tucked into his belt. He wasn’t tall by any means – maybe 5’5”, even in the cowboy boots he was wearing. He looked as though anything that wasn’t absolutely necessary had been stripped away from him and discarded.
He stood in stark contrast to Steve Wright, who was tall, genteel and at least a few big meals on the wrong side of well-fed.
Trying to recover his balance, and remembering he was standing in his own house, Steve said “And you
are...?”
“I’m Roberts, Bob Roberts.”
“You caught me off-guard, Mr. Roberts. I wasn’t expecting anyone here. Can I ask what you’re doing in my house?”
“I live here. Well, not in the house itself, of course, but out in the barn. I’ve always lived here. I expect I’ll
die here, eventually. Didn’t Mrs. Condry up at the real estate office tell you?”
“No, she definitely did not. If she had, you wouldn’t still be here. I’m a private man, Mr. Roberts. I paid a lot of money to buy this property to guarantee my privacy. It’s not that I’m not sympathetic to you and your position. I feel for you, but unless you can show me a lease or other agreement that allows you to be here legally, you are going to have to leave immediately.”
Steve knew this couldn’t have been good news for the old man, but he seemed unaffected. His steady blue eyes never wavered.
“No, I’ve never had a lease, or a contract, but you see, Mr. Wright, I don’t cost you anything. I don’t need much, and what I do need, I buy with my government check. I’ve always worked and earned my keep. I chop wood for the fireplace and do a little handyman work to keep things going. If you wanted to have animals, I’d be glad to take care of them for you too…”
“That really won’t be necessary. I have no interest in having animals, and I have the same amount of interest in having a tenant living in the barn. I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist that you leave. You can stay tonight in the barn, but I want you to be gone first thing in the morning. Do you have a way to get somewhere?”
“Yes sir, I do. I’ve got my old pick up and she’ll get me anywhere I want to go. I’ve just never wanted to go anywhere other than here.”
The old man’s shoulders slumped a little as he absorbed his defeat. He was not the kind of man to go on about what had already been decided, so he nodded, and let himself out of the house.
Steve moved to the window and watched the old man as he walked slowly to the barn that sat on the edge of the meadow that was ringed by a stand of elm trees. He disappeared into the barn and a moment later a flicker of light shone through the cracks in the wood.
I am going to call that real estate office and raise holy hell first thing in the morning.
Steve walked outside and retrieved his bags from the back of the Range Rover. The night air was heavy with the smells of spring. Steve wasn’t sure he liked it. He quickly retreated into his fortress and slammed the door behind him.
I’ll explore the rest of the house in the morning. I’m still on east-coast time, and way-past ready to go to sleep.
He searched the house and located one bedroom after another. Finally, he found a set of double doors that opened into a bedroom even more luxurious than the rest and knew he had found his home for the night. Like the rest of the house, it was furnished and ready.
The master bathroom was epic, of course. There was a jetted tub the size of a small pool and a marble shower that had eight different shower heads. He was tempted by the thought of standing in it, being massaged by half a dozen different jets of hot water, but decided to wait until morning. Even though the old man was sleeping out in the barn, Steve knew he wouldn’t be able to relax and let his guard down until he was completely gone off the property.
He unpacked the few things he needed to get ready for bed and shook out his nightly dose of sleeping pills. He swallowed them down with tap water, grimaced at the taste of spring water and went to bed. He opened the latest Grisham on his Kindle and thirty minutes later was out.
* * * * * *
Roberts walked along the edge of the meadow, moving so quietly the frogs never stopped their croaking. It was a dark night with only a sliver of moon overhead, but he walked with a sure step. He had been walking this meadow for eighty-seven years and had been going to this particular spot twice a day for the last twenty.
Just before he reached the ring of elms he stopped and with some effort, knelt in front of a simple wooden cross planted in the earth.
“Honey, I don’t know what to do. I promised I would never leave you, and I haven’t. Not for a single day. Now I’m in over my head, though. This man says I can’t stay here. I don’t want to leave you, but I’m wandering in the desert tonight. I don’t know what to do. We always said ‘The Lord provides,’ but this time I’m stuck.”
Unbidden, a thought leapt into his head. The Lord provides for those who do for themselves.
“Is that it then, wife? Is that what we have to do? I don’t like it. Not one bit.”
He waited a long time, but no new words came to him and he knew he would hear no more from her tonight. He reached out and picked a few stray pieces of grass that had sprung up, kissed his hand and laid it gently on the cross.
It was almost midnight, and he had work to do.
He walked back to the barn and retrieved the 100’ hose from inside. He climbed into the cab of his ’76 Dodge pickup and started the engine. It kicked over immediately and idled quietly. Like the man himself, it was old, but running on all cylinders.
He pulled away from the back of the barn and up the driveway, parking just outside the front door. Reaching in his pocket, he retrieved the brass key and opened the front door. The sound of the lock opening was horribly loud in the stark quiet of the night. He stood there patiently for two minutes, three, four, but never heard another sound.
He retrieved the hose from the seat of the truck, walked to the back and stuck one end clear up inside the tail pipe, far enough that it wouldn’t come out on its own. He took the rest of the hose and uncurled it, one loop at a time, moving further inside the house as he did. He put the hose down just outside the master bedroom then went back to the Dodge and got the pile of towels he had brought.
As silent as death itself, he opened the bedroom door. Mr. Wright was snoring. A black mask covered his eyes. Roberts checked all the windows, but they were shut tight against the fresh night air. He stuck the hose inside the room and shut the door as tight as he could, blocking the gaps with the old towels.
He went outside and sat on the porch, looked at the stars and waited.
* * * * * *
The next morning, Sheriff Adams responded to Mr. Roberts call. When he pulled up in front of the house, he was rolling slow and steady. He already knew this wasn’t an emergency and hadn’t even bothered to turn on his lights.
“Hello, Bob,” the sheriff said, smiling broadly. “How the heck are you?”
“I guess I’m doing better than the young man inside. He asked me to meet with him this morning at nine o’clock sharp to go over my duties, but when I let myself in I found him as dead as could be.”
The sheriff shook his head and made clucking sounds at what a damn shame it all was.
“Did he look ill last night when he got here?”
“No sir, he looked just fine. I don’t smell anything, but I wonder if there was a gas leak from the
furnace?”
“When they sell a house these days, they’re supposed to install those new Carbon Monoxide detectors in every bedroom. Do you know if they did that?”
“Well, the real estate lady said she was going to have them installed, but the last time I saw them, they were still sitting in the kitchen, waiting to be put in.”
“We’ll have to wait and see, of course, but you might be right.
“Wouldn’t surprise me a bit,” Mr. Roberts said.
“What a shame, and on his first night here, too. How long did it take for this place to sell this last time,
anyway?”
“Well, close to five years. Not too many people around here got that kind of money and not too many people from the city that have that kind of money want to live out here.”
“I’m sure Mr. Wright’s heirs will want you to stay on and be the caretaker of the place, don’t you think?”
“I guess they probably will. Nobody else knows this place like me and the missus.”
The sheriff looked at him, cocked his head sideways a bit and thought Old Bob is finally starting to slip a couple of gears. His wife’s been dead 20 years.
Roberts said “Let me know if there’s anything else I can help you with, Sheriff,” and turned toward the barn, his gait steady, whistling his tuneless song.
Prompt: Celia Rhodes Photography, Image #3
Sun shone around the blinds in the otherwise darkened bedroom. Wherever a beam cut through the darkness, motes of dust floated lazily in the still air. An old man sat hunched over a still form on the bed. An observer could have justifiably drawn the conclusion that both were statues and not the flesh and blood they really were.
The old woman in the bed pulled a sudden, sharp breath into her lungs and opened her eyes in surprise. When she had fallen asleep, she had thought she was saying her last good-bye to this world. Now, here she was again. The old man leaned forward. He had been praying beside her all day, but he wasn’t sure if he was praying for her to live or finally let go.
Their eyes met and her eyes crinkled as she miled at him one last time. When he had seen that smile across the room at a Grange dance fifty one years earlier, she had captured him. On that happy day, the had never considered this day and the inevitable bookend to that first smile.
“You know where I want to be, don’t you honey?” she asked.
He nodded and said “I won’t forget. In the shade of the elms.”
She used the last of her strength to reach her hand out and lay it on his. She closed her eyes for the last time and as she was drifting away, she heard him say “I’ll never leave you. I’ll will wait right here until I can be with you again.”
* * * * * *
Twenty Years Later
Dust boiled up from the wheels of the Land Rover as it sped along the last half mile of the road that led to the entrance of Riffe River Ranch. Steve Wright drove with one hand draped casually over the steering wheel and the other fiddling with the radio. No matter what he did, he picked up only static.
His headlights lit an arched sign that spanned the road and told him he had arrived at the ranch, his latest acquisition. Unlike most of his investments, this one wasn’t really for profit. This was a getaway, 4500 acres of solitude and luxury. He slowed and turned into the large circular driveway.
He had bought the place sight unseen, basing his decision on a 32 page brochure his business manager, Ted, had sent him. Ted assured him that it was a steal, and that he could get his money back plus a profit if he didn’t like it. His first impression of the place was that he had, indeed, gotten a good deal. The main house was eight thousand square feet, with 6 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms. The overwhelming size of the place was a little ironic, since he couldn’t think of five other people in the world that he would want to stay under his roof, but he liked the look, the immensity of the place.
It had once been a working cattle ranch, but that had gone away in the 80’s. Like so many others, Riffe River Ranch had gone bankrupt and was sold at auction. The new owner had been the owner of a 24 hour cable news network. The first thing he did after the hammer fell at the auction was tear down the original three bedroom farm house. In its place, he built this tribute to excess and questionable taste.
The sun had gone behind the horizon, and he realized that there were lights on inside the house, casting a contrary light into the gathering darkness.
That’s odd. Why the hell would there be lights on in a vacant house?
He walked up the wide, curving sidewalk to the front door and tried the knob, but it was locked, as it should be. He reached in his jacket pocket and fished out the oversized brass key. It slid home and turned the tumblers with a satisfying clunk. The door swung silently open.
“Hello?” Steve realized his voice sound tinny and almost a little scared.
“Hello?” he said again, dropping his voice down to his lower register. That’s better, he thought, as though an intruder would flee at the sound of a more-masculine voice.
There was no reply.
Steve walked into the immense great room off the foyer. The previous owners had left all their furniture as part of the sale, and there were leather couches and chairs arranged around the room, facing a large river rock fireplace or the windows that looked out on the mountains off to the east.
“Hello?”
Steve jumped, but was able to mostly catch an embarrassing squeak before it left his mouth.
“Oh, sorry, Mr. Wright, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Steve turned to see an old man standing in the foyer. He was a small man, lean and slightly bent. His face was deeply lined and looked to be made of the same leather as the gloves he had tucked into his belt. He wasn’t tall by any means – maybe 5’5”, even in the cowboy boots he was wearing. He looked as though anything that wasn’t absolutely necessary had been stripped away from him and discarded.
He stood in stark contrast to Steve Wright, who was tall, genteel and at least a few big meals on the wrong side of well-fed.
Trying to recover his balance, and remembering he was standing in his own house, Steve said “And you
are...?”
“I’m Roberts, Bob Roberts.”
“You caught me off-guard, Mr. Roberts. I wasn’t expecting anyone here. Can I ask what you’re doing in my house?”
“I live here. Well, not in the house itself, of course, but out in the barn. I’ve always lived here. I expect I’ll
die here, eventually. Didn’t Mrs. Condry up at the real estate office tell you?”
“No, she definitely did not. If she had, you wouldn’t still be here. I’m a private man, Mr. Roberts. I paid a lot of money to buy this property to guarantee my privacy. It’s not that I’m not sympathetic to you and your position. I feel for you, but unless you can show me a lease or other agreement that allows you to be here legally, you are going to have to leave immediately.”
Steve knew this couldn’t have been good news for the old man, but he seemed unaffected. His steady blue eyes never wavered.
“No, I’ve never had a lease, or a contract, but you see, Mr. Wright, I don’t cost you anything. I don’t need much, and what I do need, I buy with my government check. I’ve always worked and earned my keep. I chop wood for the fireplace and do a little handyman work to keep things going. If you wanted to have animals, I’d be glad to take care of them for you too…”
“That really won’t be necessary. I have no interest in having animals, and I have the same amount of interest in having a tenant living in the barn. I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist that you leave. You can stay tonight in the barn, but I want you to be gone first thing in the morning. Do you have a way to get somewhere?”
“Yes sir, I do. I’ve got my old pick up and she’ll get me anywhere I want to go. I’ve just never wanted to go anywhere other than here.”
The old man’s shoulders slumped a little as he absorbed his defeat. He was not the kind of man to go on about what had already been decided, so he nodded, and let himself out of the house.
Steve moved to the window and watched the old man as he walked slowly to the barn that sat on the edge of the meadow that was ringed by a stand of elm trees. He disappeared into the barn and a moment later a flicker of light shone through the cracks in the wood.
I am going to call that real estate office and raise holy hell first thing in the morning.
Steve walked outside and retrieved his bags from the back of the Range Rover. The night air was heavy with the smells of spring. Steve wasn’t sure he liked it. He quickly retreated into his fortress and slammed the door behind him.
I’ll explore the rest of the house in the morning. I’m still on east-coast time, and way-past ready to go to sleep.
He searched the house and located one bedroom after another. Finally, he found a set of double doors that opened into a bedroom even more luxurious than the rest and knew he had found his home for the night. Like the rest of the house, it was furnished and ready.
The master bathroom was epic, of course. There was a jetted tub the size of a small pool and a marble shower that had eight different shower heads. He was tempted by the thought of standing in it, being massaged by half a dozen different jets of hot water, but decided to wait until morning. Even though the old man was sleeping out in the barn, Steve knew he wouldn’t be able to relax and let his guard down until he was completely gone off the property.
He unpacked the few things he needed to get ready for bed and shook out his nightly dose of sleeping pills. He swallowed them down with tap water, grimaced at the taste of spring water and went to bed. He opened the latest Grisham on his Kindle and thirty minutes later was out.
* * * * * *
Roberts walked along the edge of the meadow, moving so quietly the frogs never stopped their croaking. It was a dark night with only a sliver of moon overhead, but he walked with a sure step. He had been walking this meadow for eighty-seven years and had been going to this particular spot twice a day for the last twenty.
Just before he reached the ring of elms he stopped and with some effort, knelt in front of a simple wooden cross planted in the earth.
“Honey, I don’t know what to do. I promised I would never leave you, and I haven’t. Not for a single day. Now I’m in over my head, though. This man says I can’t stay here. I don’t want to leave you, but I’m wandering in the desert tonight. I don’t know what to do. We always said ‘The Lord provides,’ but this time I’m stuck.”
Unbidden, a thought leapt into his head. The Lord provides for those who do for themselves.
“Is that it then, wife? Is that what we have to do? I don’t like it. Not one bit.”
He waited a long time, but no new words came to him and he knew he would hear no more from her tonight. He reached out and picked a few stray pieces of grass that had sprung up, kissed his hand and laid it gently on the cross.
It was almost midnight, and he had work to do.
He walked back to the barn and retrieved the 100’ hose from inside. He climbed into the cab of his ’76 Dodge pickup and started the engine. It kicked over immediately and idled quietly. Like the man himself, it was old, but running on all cylinders.
He pulled away from the back of the barn and up the driveway, parking just outside the front door. Reaching in his pocket, he retrieved the brass key and opened the front door. The sound of the lock opening was horribly loud in the stark quiet of the night. He stood there patiently for two minutes, three, four, but never heard another sound.
He retrieved the hose from the seat of the truck, walked to the back and stuck one end clear up inside the tail pipe, far enough that it wouldn’t come out on its own. He took the rest of the hose and uncurled it, one loop at a time, moving further inside the house as he did. He put the hose down just outside the master bedroom then went back to the Dodge and got the pile of towels he had brought.
As silent as death itself, he opened the bedroom door. Mr. Wright was snoring. A black mask covered his eyes. Roberts checked all the windows, but they were shut tight against the fresh night air. He stuck the hose inside the room and shut the door as tight as he could, blocking the gaps with the old towels.
He went outside and sat on the porch, looked at the stars and waited.
* * * * * *
The next morning, Sheriff Adams responded to Mr. Roberts call. When he pulled up in front of the house, he was rolling slow and steady. He already knew this wasn’t an emergency and hadn’t even bothered to turn on his lights.
“Hello, Bob,” the sheriff said, smiling broadly. “How the heck are you?”
“I guess I’m doing better than the young man inside. He asked me to meet with him this morning at nine o’clock sharp to go over my duties, but when I let myself in I found him as dead as could be.”
The sheriff shook his head and made clucking sounds at what a damn shame it all was.
“Did he look ill last night when he got here?”
“No sir, he looked just fine. I don’t smell anything, but I wonder if there was a gas leak from the
furnace?”
“When they sell a house these days, they’re supposed to install those new Carbon Monoxide detectors in every bedroom. Do you know if they did that?”
“Well, the real estate lady said she was going to have them installed, but the last time I saw them, they were still sitting in the kitchen, waiting to be put in.”
“We’ll have to wait and see, of course, but you might be right.
“Wouldn’t surprise me a bit,” Mr. Roberts said.
“What a shame, and on his first night here, too. How long did it take for this place to sell this last time,
anyway?”
“Well, close to five years. Not too many people around here got that kind of money and not too many people from the city that have that kind of money want to live out here.”
“I’m sure Mr. Wright’s heirs will want you to stay on and be the caretaker of the place, don’t you think?”
“I guess they probably will. Nobody else knows this place like me and the missus.”
The sheriff looked at him, cocked his head sideways a bit and thought Old Bob is finally starting to slip a couple of gears. His wife’s been dead 20 years.
Roberts said “Let me know if there’s anything else I can help you with, Sheriff,” and turned toward the barn, his gait steady, whistling his tuneless song.