The Vern Stephens Operation Read online

The Vern Stephens Operation

  by

  Robert James Allison

  Names, characters, and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  First Suitor Enterprises

  www.RobertJamesAllison.com

  Copyright © 2013 by Robert James Allison

  ISBN: 978-1-30177-742-6

  May 2013

  Cover photo:

  The end of the rainbow taken by the author at Moweaqua, Illinois

  All rights reserved

  Table of Contents:

  Title

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  End

  About the Author

  One

  “Think he’ll stay around here, Doc?” Joe Ranney asked as he leaned back in the kitchen chair and stretched his long legs out under the table.

  “Hard to tell, Joe. Don’t know why he would with his wife dead and the exhibition over,” Doc Collins replied from across the table as he picked up his coffee cup and noted it was empty again.

  “Too bad about his wife. She was a real nice lady or so I heard. Never met her myself,” Joe said dispassionately.

  “Well, I met her and she was the salt of the earth,” Doc responded, as he got up from his kitchen table and crossed to the counter to get more coffee.

  “Too bad her husband wasn’t. I did meet him. I never ran across a more greedy and disagreeable man in my life. He lived to make a buck and never gave a hoot about his charming wife,” Joe said with disgust as Doc held up the coffee pot inquiring if Joe wanted more. Joe nodded and scooted his cup toward the edge of the table.

  “Don’t be too quick to judge, Joe. You and your brothers have been on that sheep ranch too long, you don’t get out enough. The world’s not all black and white you know,” he responded in a gentle admonishing tone as he poured Joe another cup of coffee.

  “Yes, father Doc,” Joe drawled facetiously with a smile. Joe’s real father and mother had died years ago, leaving him and his brothers to fend for themselves on their ranch. Doc had always been their father figure.

  In a serious tone, Joe continued, “Still, you’ve got to admit he’s the most disagreeable fellow to be found in these parts.”

  Doc retook his seat, poured several spoons-full worth of sugar into his coffee and as he stirred it in he said, “maybe, but I’m not so sure there isn’t more to him than meets the eye. I think he’s just lost. Some people get that way, Joe. They get off on the wrong foot or head in the wrong direction. Sometimes they wander around for years before they find themselves or their purpose in life.

  “Mary must have seen something in him, she stuck with him, so maybe, just maybe, there’s more to Mike Maltby than meets the eye. This might change him.”

  “I hope you’re right. I’d hate to think a fine woman like Mary Maltby died for nothing, but I have my doubts,” Joe ended cynically.

  “No one dies for nothing, Joe. Everyone and everything is in the plan. I’ve drummed that into you and your brother’s heads for years. I figured it took, but maybe it didn’t.”

  “Yeah, it took alright. That and a lot of other things. Mostly things we didn’t want to hear, but needed to. Maybe we ain’t always acted like it, but we appreciated your guidance, Doc. With no parents we were up against it,” Joe finished as he took a drink of coffee.

  “I was proud to do it and likely I’ll keep on doing it until I die. Mark my words, Joe, Maltby may just surprise you…if he stays around.”

  Joe responded, “Man at the boarding house says he still has his room. He also says Maltby hardly leaves it. Even eats up there, all by himself.”

  Doc took a sip of his coffee and after a moment of thought responded, “He’s a lonely man. He has been for years, but it just now hit him. If I get the chance I’m going to talk with him. Maybe I can get him to come to church.”

  “Sure you can, Doc. You got us Ranney boys to go to church. We had no use for church or God after losing our mom and dad like that, but you made us see the light. If anyone can make this guy see the light it’s you, but you got your work cut out for you on this one.”

  “Not me, Joe. I just talk. The light comes from somewhere else. It ain’t my plan. I just play along.”

  “Well just the same I think Maltby got what he had coming. He was on top of it all and didn’t care about anyone or anything else. He drove the best cars, stayed in the best hotels and always went first class. I heard he could really throw a fit if he didn’t get things just his way. He got people fired and ruined their careers on a whim and in less time than it took to make a phone call. He grabbed and grabbed and then grabbed for more, not caring who lost in the end. Just so he won. You say what you want and you do what you want, but it’ll be a long time before you convince me that there was or is an ounce of good in that man,” Joe pronounced as he grabbed another donut off a plate in the center of the table and then continued, “his wife now, she was a different story. Like you say and I hear tell from others that she was a real gem. How she put up with that creep for so long is beyond me. Could be you’re right. Maybe no one dies for nothing. Personally I think she died because Mike Maltby needed to be brought up short.”

  “You’re a hard man, Joe and that’s a hard attitude you take toward a man you barely know. I thought I taught you better than that.”

  “You taught me and my brothers to fend for ourselves, Doc and along with that comes the ability to spot the likes of Mike Maltby and avoid him like the plague.”

  ~*~

  Alone in the dark room Mike Maltby sat staring out the window watching the moonlight shimmer off the snowy landscape. His mind was as dark and dismal as the room. The beauty of the snowy landscape was wasted on him. His eyes were unseeing. His mind drifted back over the years when he and Mary had traveled the country hopping and running from one deal to the next. His deals, not hers.

  He could still deal, he had the contacts, but his heart was no longer in it. Without Mary the money meant nothing. The money was for Mary, though he had never told her so. Had he told her it would have made no difference—she lived for him, not money. He still had the money, but Mary was gone.

  Back in time his mind drifted. He could see her face and hear her voice. Just like yesterday. She was here with him again.

  “I want a house and a place to call home, Mike.”

  “Soon, Mary. Just this one more deal and then the one in Santa Fe. Just a little more money and then we can take it easy.”

  “I like it here, Mike. This little community has accepted me and would you, in time. Please, Mike. Let’s stay here and get a nice house in the country. One with a nice shady yard and a garden to tend. Here…in this place, please. No more running, no more deals. Just a little place in the country.”

  “No, Mary! I don’t want to be accepted here or anywhere. I don’t care about the snide remarks and jealous looks. Besides, we’re too young to retire. We’ve got the time to put together a few more deals. Plenty of time to make some more money so that we can be on ‘easy street’ the rest of our lives. Plenty of time….”

  Mike’s mind came back to the present, where he least wanted it to be. Time was gone and so was Mary. What good was time without someone to share it with? All the time in the world, when you were alone, was useless. Why could
n’t I see that before? he asked himself. Why couldn’t I see the hands of time spinning around?

  No, he thought, I’m wrong. Mary’s time is gone, but mine isn’t. I can still get that house in the country. It won’t be the same, but I can still do it. For Mary’s sake and her memory, if for no other reason. Just a small place with a nice shady yard. Here, in this community where she so wanted to be accepted and live. Where instead she was buried. Besides, he had no urge to move on now. Not without Mary. He couldn’t leave her here by herself. She was the only good thing to happen to him in a very long time. Too bad I didn’t recognize that before she died.

  ~*~

  Mike sat in a wrought iron chair in his front yard, under the massive white oak tree, gazing down the dusty lane toward the hard road about 300 feet distant. He was intent on watching someone doing something to a bicycle. The midsummer sun had been up for about three hours and his third cup of morning coffee sat on the wrought iron table opposite his chair.

  He continued to look out over the front yard to the hard road and watch the small figure through the shimmering heat waves. The figure was working furiously on something. Maybe the bicycle, maybe not.

  He finally got up out of his chair and walked a few steps down the lane to get a better look and saw that the figure was a small boy working on his bicycle. He went back to his chair and coffee, but a few minutes later when he looked up again, the boy was just sitting by the road, staring at the bicycle.

  Again, he put down his coffee and walked down the lane, but this time he walked all the way to the hard road. When he reached the road, he asked, “Can I help?”

  The boy looked up, saw him for the first time, and stood up. As the boy walked across the road toward Mike he said, “lost both nuts off of my rear axle. The wheel and chain come clean off and I can’t figure a way to keep them on without the nuts.”

  “Well, I don’t know if I have the type of nuts you need, but I can give you a glass of lemonade and after you sit in the shade and rest for a while we can have a look in my barn.”

  “Sure. That’d be great, Mr. Maltby.”

  “You know my name, but I don’t know you.”

  “Yes, sir, everyone around here knows about you. My name is Billy Stephens. I live down the road, south two miles and west one mile.”

  “Well, nice to meet you, Billy. You grab a chair under the tree and I’ll get some lemonade. I could use one myself.”

  Mike went into the house to get the lemonade as Billy parked himself in a chair and gazed out across the road toward his bike.

  When Mike had brought the lemonade and Billy had guzzled one whole glass, in less time than it took to pour one, Mike said, “after we rest you can come inside and call your dad. I’ll bet he can fix that bike or haul it home for you.”

  Billy said flatly, “No. We don’t have no phone and besides, pa don’t drive no more.”

  “Oh, then how do you get to the store and such?”

  “My bike mostly. That’s where I was going this morning, but I didn’t get far.”

  “How about your mother? Doesn’t she drive?”

  “Sure, she drives, but she works late and I usually go to the store on my bike, because she don’t have time to stop on the way home. Sometimes she stops, but usually it is too late and the store is closed. She don’t have the extra gas to go to the big town up the way where the stores stay open later. She don’t make much money. So I usually do most of the shopping.”

  “How about on her days off?” Mike asked.

  “Sunday is the only day off mom gets and with all the other work she has to do she don’t have time to go shopping on Sunday.”

  “Oh, I see. How come your father doesn’t drive? If you don’t mind telling me,” he asked cautiously, not wanting to butt in to other people’s business.

  “He used to, but he was in an accident a few years ago and banged his head real bad. Pa don’t do anything anymore. He has real bad headaches when he tries to do much of anything and we have to be real quiet all the time so he won’t get a headache. Pa usually just lays in bed and sleeps or reads some.”

  This was all news to Mike, but then he hadn’t lived here too long and didn’t know the community. He hadn’t really tried to get acquainted, either.

  Billy continued, as if feeling the need to defend his father. “It ain’t that pa don’t want to help, but he just can’t. Before his accident he was a real hard worker. He worked down the road at the grain mill and did real good. Since pa was hurt though we ain’t done so good. Don’t tell nobody I said that, because ma and pa don’t want anyone to know we ain’t getting along so good.”

  “I won’t, Billy, but tell me, do you have any brothers or sisters to help you?” Mike asked, compelled for some reason to understand this boy’s situation.

  “I got a little sister, but she ain’t big enough to do much. I can ride my bike and go to the store and stuff, so I get to do that. Sis washes dishes some and helps with the laundry.”

  “How old are you, Billy?”

  “Ten last May.”

  “I’ve seen you ride by here a lot now that I think of it, but I thought you were going into town to practice baseball.”

  “No, sir. I’d like to, but it costs fifteen dollars to sign up and we can’t afford that,” he said dreamily.

  “You must be in about fifth grade.”

  “Yes, sir, I start fifth grade this fall. My bus comes right by here, too. Sometimes I see you sitting right here under this pretty tree. This year you watch for me on the bus and I’ll wave. You can’t miss me ‘cause I always wear a bright yellow coat.”

  Mike was remembering something now. Yes, he thought, I remember overhearing some ladies in town talking about how their kids were doing in school. I remember one lady talking about her little girl’s reports on the other kids at school. This little girl reported to her mother that there was one boy who never brought his lunch. He always forgot it and the other kids gave him parts of theirs that they didn’t want. The little girl couldn’t figure out why the boy was so forgetful. She said his name was Billy and that he always wore a bright yellow coat.

  A raincoat, whether it was hot and dry or raining, even in the winter, when it was too cold for anything except a very heavy coat. All the kids thought he was strange, but they wanted to get rid of some parts of the lunch they didn’t like and this boy would take anything. Mike wondered if this wasn’t that boy and if the reason he forgot his lunch was because he didn’t have any lunch to forget.

  “How are the lunches at school, Billy?”

  “I don’t eat them school lunches.”

  “You know I remember hearing about a boy who always forgets his lunch. I’ll bet he goes hungry a lot.”

  “Oh no, sir. The other kids always have parts of their lunch that they don’t want. You can always eat that if you are hungry,” he said and then stopped as if he had said something that maybe he ought not to have said.

  Mike changed the subject at that. “Do the doctors know what is wrong with your father?”

  “No. Pa ain’t been to no doctors since he got out of the hospital. We got no insurance so he would have to pay himself and that costs too much. He says he will get better if he just rests enough.”

  “Is he getting better, Billy?”

  Billy pursed his lips in thought and responded seriously, “I don’t think so.”

  “Doesn’t your father know that the government will give him help if he really needs it?”

  “Pa don’t abide by no government money. No siree. Ma and pa don’t take nothing from nobody. Why if they knew I was taking parts of other kid’s lunch they’d…well, I got to go, sir,” he said, obviously realizing that he was saying too much.

  “But what about your bike?”

  “I’ll drag it home and fix it, I guess.”

  “Wait. Come and look around in my workshop. Maybe you can find some nuts to fit your bike. Then you won’t have to drag it home.”

  Billy hesitated, thinking. Wit
h a shrug he finally said, “okay, I guess.”

  “Come this way and I’ll show you where to look.”

  Mike’s home in the country was a real country home. It had a barn, a detached garage, and a workshop he rarely ever used. The place had just come with a workshop and typical of an old farm homestead the workshop was full of almost everything you could imagine. Farmers never threw anything away; and when this farmer retired and moved to town Mike bought the place lock, stock, barrel, and junk.

  The light wasn’t real good inside the workshop, just a bare 60-watt bulb and no windows to let in more light, but Billy went right to work digging through box after box of junk. After a good 30 minutes he had come up with all kinds of nuts, but none that would fit the axle on a bike. When Mike inquired how Billy could be so sure they wouldn’t work without trying them, Billy responded, “A bike axle has a special thread, Mr. Maltby, it is called a machine thread and they are different from the threads on these nuts. No, sir, I got to find a machine thread and it has to be just the right size or it will just come right off again.”

  Mike pondered that a moment furrowing his brow and then said, “hey, you know out in the barn loft there is all kinds of big junk. I’m pretty sure I saw an old bike up there. Would the axle nuts from it fit your bike? I mean are they all pretty much the same size?”

  “Yes, sir they are. I made my bike out of several old ones I scrounged up. I’ll bet I can make it work. Where exactly is it?”

  Mike motioned Billy out the door and as he crossed the yard to the barn he was thinking, For only being ten years old this boy is pretty sharp.

  He showed Billy the bike and Billy went to work immediately. He said that he carried a little tool kit with his bike because he was always having to fix something on it and he liked to be prepared. Not ten minutes later Billy had the nuts on his bike and pronounced it fit to ride.

  “Time for another lemonade, Billy?”

  “No, sir, thanks though, but I got to get going. I got to get the groceries and get back home. Thanks for the lemonade and the nuts, Mr. Maltby.”

  “Anytime, Billy.”

  ~*~

  After Billy had left, Mike decided he wanted the full story on this boy’s father. Just why, he didn’t know, but he felt compelled to know. Something inside of him had been awakened. He was feeling things he hadn’t felt since long before Mary’s death. For the past several months he had been devoid of emotion, but not now. Now he was feeling some emotions and those emotions told him to find out more about this boy and his family. He thought he knew where he might find out.