A Bride For The Asking -- (on hold)

Chapter 21--Michael Makes It Home

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“How are Pa and Ma?”  Michael asked over the brim of a steaming cup of coffee in Yankton’s only restaurant.

Michael could swear The Yankton Cafe had not changed an iota since the day ten years ago when he and his parents had eaten their last meal together in this very same café. They were waiting for the steamboat that would take him to Savannah and out of their lives for ten years.

Even the same moth-eaten stuffed Elk’s head stared down at him with its yellowing glass eyes from over the fireplace. God, when were they going to bury that poor beast? Its nose was completely bald now. Michael shuddered and looked back his table companion, unable to endure the Elk’s silent suffering.

Whereas the Elk had aged dreadfully, those same years had been kind to Isaac Jorgenson.  He looked the same as he had when Michael still had to crane his neck to look Ike in the eye. Well, maybe not exactly the same, Michael reconsidered. Ike no longer looked bigger than life to him, as he had when Michael was a boy. Now Michael could see Ike was merely a tall man much like any other. In fact, Michael would wager he was every bit as tall at Ike Jorgenson now, if not as heavy-set.

“Your Pa’s gout keeps him housebound a lot more than it used to. He looked good when I saw him last during spring roundup. He can still sit a horse. I reckon that’s about all you can expect of this country.” Ike shrugged and gave Michael a sour grimace. “Your Ma’s the same as ever,” he said cryptically. Michael’s mother, Pearl, and Ike, had sworn enmity years before Michael left. “Oh, by the way, you have a sister now.”

Michael stared at Ike. “You’re joshing me. How in the world did that happen,” Michael said before he thought. Michael’s face flamed. No man wanted to think of his parents in that light. Especially not his Ma. Not even Michael could deny the harridan his mother had turned into.

“I wouldn’t josh even you like that, Michael,” Ike confessed, favoring Michael with his famous ‘Ike’ grin. “Jewel—that’s your sister’s name. That little minx could charm the rattles off a snake’s tail,” he grinned fondly. Apparently, even Ike was not immune to his sister’s charms. “Got your dad wrapped around her finger tight as a banjo string.”

Michael tried to imagine a sister—his sister--and could not. Ennis Rice. He thought. The man he called Pa. The man who had married his ma, and taken Michael to raise as his own child. Michael barely remembered John Charles McFarland, his birth father. That one memory was tainted with the smell of liquor and his Ma crying. As far as Michael was concerned, Ennis was the only pa he had. Michael suddenly felt a pang of homesickness so great he feared he was going to lose the greasy breakfast he’d just consumed.

“I need some air,” said Michael, standing up without warning. He scraped the chair back with the back of his legs without thinking. The clunking noise was hardly audible in the packed café, but Ike heard it and looked up at Michael, suddenly alert.

“Sure,” Ike agreed. I need a chew anyhow.”

Michael breathed easier once they were out on the boardwalk. Stiffly, he filled his pipe, waiting for the question that was bound to come. From beneath his dark brows, he watched while Ike cut himself off a hunk of tobacco and crammed it in his mouth. Not for the first time in his life, Michael wondered what kept Ike from choking on the fat cud of tobacco bulging out his jaw like a prairie dog’s cheek.

“When did you lose the leg, Michael?” Ike finally asked once he had the cud chomped around in his mouth to suit himself.

Michael turned and began walking. “Near Savannah in ’64. That’s all I got to say about that, Ike.”