On the Wilde Side (In Wilde Country 0.5)

Johnny had felt his throat constrict.

His teacher was a good woman if not a wise one, because he sure as hell didn’t need or want anything from his father.

And then, on that last day of school, he came pedaling around the corner and saw his father’s black Coupe De Ville parked in front of her house.

He skidded to a stop. He could feel his heart thudding. What was Amos doing here? He didn’t want to see him or talk to him. They had nothing to say to each other.

He started pedaling. Slowly. Very slowly. All he had to do was pick up the pace and go right on by the big, ostentatious car.

He didn’t.

He brought the bike around to the backyard, the way he always did. Took his book bag out of the basket, the way he always did. Opened the rear door, the way he always did. Walked through the kitchen, down the short corridor that led into the small, always neat living room…

Miss Cleary and his father were seated facing each other, she in her favorite wing chair, Amos in the center of the sofa.

He looked from one of them to the other. Say something, he told himself, don’t just stand here, say something!

But he didn’t.

After what seemed an eternity, his father rose to his feet.

“John.”

Johnny swallowed dryly.

“Father.”

“Your teacher tells me you’ve done well this semester.”

“Yessir.”

“And that you have been helpful here.”

He swallowed again. “Yessir. I mean, I’ve tried to be.”

Amos folded his arms over his chest.

“What are your plans, John?”

“Plans?” Johnny said blankly.

“For the summer. For the coming academic year.” Amos paused. “For your life.”

Johnny glanced at Miss Cleary. She looked stern, but she gave him an encouraging nod.

“I have a job lined up for the summer.”

“Sir,” Amos said sharply. “I have a job lined up for the summer, sir.”

Johnny swallowed hard again.

“I have a job lined up for the summer, sir.”

“Doing what?”

“I’m going to work at the Texaco station part time.”

“Part time?”

“Yessir. I’ve got a weekend job at the Circle D. The dude ranch over in—”

“I know where it is. What will you be doing there?”

“Well, they hire extra hands in the summer. They get guests who’ve never ridden before and—”

“You’re going to pump gas and shovel shit. Is that right?”

“I—I guess you could put it that way. Sir.”

Amos nodded.

“And next year? Your senior year? What courses will you take?”

Senior year was, for many students, a time to ease back. You took the minimum number of academic credits necessary to complete graduation requirements and filled the rest of the day with gym, shop, whatever took the least work.

Johnny had chosen to do otherwise.

He rattled off the courses he’d signed up for. Advanced trigonometry. Mechanical engineering. Military history.

“Military history,” Amos repeated. “That’s a sudden interest for you, is it not?”

It was. Military history had been Alden’s passion. Johnny had never understood why. He’d never understood Alden’s passion for math and science, either. But these past months, studying those subject made him feel—made him feel as if the two of them were connected by more than memories.

“John? Is military history a new interest?”

“Yessir. It is.”

Amos’s mouth thinned. “I hope it is not because you believe you can somehow replace your brother in this world, John. Surely, you realize that such a thing is impossible.”

Miss Cleary rose to her feet.

“Mr. Wilde. John has suffered an immeasurable loss. He’s experienced great pain, physically as well as emotionally. I must ask you to—”

“Thank you for your concern,” Amos said in a tone that made it obvious he was not thanking her at all. “But I have no need for your advice. John is not your son. He is mine.”

Johnny looked from the elderly woman who had shown him such kindness to the man who had never shown him any.

He wanted to defend her to his father, but all he could think of was that months ago, Amos had all but disowned him.

Now, he was calling him his son.

“You want to play around with oil and horse turds, you can do it at El Sueño.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Pack your things, John.”

Johnny’s feet might as well have been rooted to the faded floral carpet.

“Or leave them. Perhaps that’s best. You have everything you need at El Sueno.” Still, Johnny didn’t move. Amos frowned. “Unless you have no wish to come home.”

“No. No, I do. I mean—I mean—”

He looked at Miss Cleary. She walked to him and put her hand on his arm, just as she had done so often in the past.

“Go on,” she said softly. “And remember, you’re welcome here anytime.”

He put his hand over hers. He wanted to say something eloquent or at least clever, but the words wouldn’t come.

Amos made a sound of pure impatience.

“I’ll be outside,” he said, “in the car.”

The front door swung shut behind him. Miss Cleary clasped Johnny’s face in her hands.

“You have a loving heart, John, and a fine mind. You’re going to go a long way.”

Impulsively, he bent his head and kissed her cheek. Her skin was soft and velvety under his lips, and she smelled faintly of lemons.

“Thank you,” he said. “For everything.”

She patted his chest. Then she went to a table that flanked the sofa where a cut glass vase held a spray of bluebonnets. Bluebonnets were the most common of Texas wildflowers. They flourished in the wild, but they needed care if you wanted them domesticated.

She had helped him grow them.

“For you,” she said, holding out the flowers.

He looked at those bluebonnets. His vision blurred. He nodded, took them from her and because he was afraid he might do or say something stupid, he turned on his heel and fled from the room, the house, the life he’d led within its walls.

The chauffeur stood at attention beside Amos’s Cadillac.

“Mr. John.”

Mr. John. Who was that? He’d been “Johnny” to virtually all the servants at El Sueño—The Dream—for as long as he could remember.

He got into the car. A shudder went through him. The air conditioner was on at full blast.

The chauffeur shut the door and got behind the wheel.

The car began moving.

Panic gripped Johnny’s throat.

“Wait,” he started to say, but his father spoke at the same instant.

“What,” he said coldly, “are those?”

Johnny followed his gaze.

“Bluebonnets,” he said, looking up at Amos.

“I know they’re bluebonnets, for Christ’s sake. What are you doing with them?”

“I grew them. From seed. Miss Cleary—”

“Miss Cleary is a foolish old woman. You are a man.”

Amos put down his window and snatched the flowers from his son’s hand. The bluebonnets went flying and the window shot up again, sealing in the chill of the air conditioning. “Now. Let’s talk about your future.”

The car moved faster and faster, and when Johnny looked back, Miss Cleary’s house was part of the past.

CHAPTER SIX

SUMMER SPED BY.

Johnny worked hard, mucking out stables, riding herd on cattle, breaking horses, doing whatever filthy, backbreaking labor a leasehand did on an oil rig.

He was generally exhausted at the end of the day and he alternated between showering and falling into bed or showering, then taking one of the ranch trucks into

town to see Connie.

Their relationship had made no real progress beyond kissing and copping a few quick feels of her tits. The truth was, Johnny, who had once been as horny as any guy his age, had lost interest in sex. Or maybe he just couldn’t get interested that way in Connie.

He didn’t know how far things had gone with Alden and her and he didn’t want to.

There was something creepy in putting his hand under her T-shirt and suddenly wondering if Alden’s hand had been there, too.

As for his relationship with Amos…

It was close to nonexistent.

Amos led a busy life. He was active in politics, both state and local. He spent a lot of time out of town, meeting with people he described as important to Johnny’s future, which struck Johnny as questionable since he, Johnny, had no idea what he wanted that future to be.

One evening in late August, Amos decided to tell him.

He rapped on Johnny’s bedroom door, stepped inside without waiting to be asked, and was seated in a chair beside the window, a glass of bourbon in his hand, when Johnny came out of the adjoining bathroom, a towel wrapped around his hips.