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Boys and Bluebonnets

Nora McDonald

    It was the look that did it.
    The day after the tornado.
    The temperature had dropped thirty degrees and the Texas landscape was raw and suffering. The usually bright, irrepressible carpets of bluebonnets, the Texas state flower, that I could see from the coach window, seemed flattened and dejected.
    Like me.
    It was a tough life all right, I thought, as I passed myriads of them, hugging the sides of the freeway as though they might absorb the heat from the vehicles that sped by. Those little flowers had to survive the icy blasts, the scorching heat and the tornadoes that turned up out of nowhere. And yet they survived. Like those early pioneer women whose blue bonnets they were named after.
    Like me.
    That’s why I’d come to Texas. To survive. To escape.
    A Scot transplanted in Texas. I laughed at the thought. And the little blue flowers seemed to echo back my laugh in some sort of private welcome.
    Yes, we had a lot in common, I thought. Bluebonnet. The Scottish term for the traditional blue coloured version of the Tam O’Shanter hat. Had another transplanted Scot, in the distant past, named them to remind him of home?
    Not that I wanted to be reminded of home.
    Home reminded me of failure. Failure to find a soul-mate. Failure at thirty three. Not that I hadn’t tried.
    First there had been Nigel. Kind, caring, practical, a real new-age man. The kind most women would give their soul for. And I’d given mine. But Nigel hadn’t given his. At least he had. But to his mother. Not me. Two years had passed before I’d figured that out and decided I didn’t want to play second fiddle any longer.
    Then there was Josh, free-spirited Josh, who decided he enjoyed spending more time away from me than he did with me. I didn’t get the message. He dumped me for a girl who was happy to sit at home with the baby while he roamed far and wide.
    Next there was Kevin – a real man’s man – who loved football and the pub – and himself.
    That’s when I decided I’d had enough of British men. Foreigners were much more attractive.
    Ali certainly was. He was a Turkish chef who wanted to know on our first date if I could cook. I dished up my usual offering of burnt macaroni and I never saw him again.
     Then there was Luigi. Luigi was Italian-American air-crew. And Luigi was handsome. The way Italians always are. He called me Babe and said romantic things like, “Whad’s up?” His number was when the customs found a large stash of heroin in his suitcase and the telephone number of a Mafia don in his hand luggage.
    And finally there was Elvis. I say finally because he’s the reason I’m finished with men. Finished after five years.
    Five years of my life frittered away. Friends warned me But when you’re in love you just can’t see it, can you? Trouble was. I’d done the whole hog. Moved in with him. Made him part of my life. But he’d had another life - and wife - back in Rumania.
    So here I was in Texas. To forget. And Texas was doing a great job. The warmly welcoming people, the laid-back lifestyle, the wide open spaces, the vast unending canopy of blue sky. A promise of better things. And I didn’t want it to end.
    I looked around at the other occupants of the coach travelling to Fort Worth. The majority of them were on their own.
    Free, independent, secure in their own identity.
    It should have made me feel better.
    Who was I kidding?
    They were alone. Like me.
    We vacated the bus and scattered like loose buffalo on the prairie, some intent on visiting John Wayne’s favourite saloon, others in search of the perfect “cow-town” souvenir, knowing we’d soon be rounded up to watch the cattle drive later in the afternoon. The highlight of the trip.
    And highlight it was. Because that’s when I saw him. As they made their way, cowboys and long-horn cattle, slowly down the street, lined with camera-wielding tourists.
    He was handsome all right. A big, calm, slowly-moving, strong, muscular brute. Not someone to be messed with. And yet as he turned and looked at me, there was the utmost gentleness and understanding in his eyes that I wanted to rush up and throw my arms around his neck.
    I turned away. His gaze was too powerful.
    You’re being ridiculous, I told myself, making my way back up the street through the hordes of onlookers. Pull yourself together.
    The crowd was already beginning to disperse and I followed them into the souvenir shops of the stockyards, all too aware that the time to catch the tour bus was rapidly approaching. I emerged ten minutes later, armed with my prized possession of a key ring covered with bluebonnets and made my way back down the street.
    That’s when I saw him again.
    And he saw me. Our eyes locked from across the street. And I knew I’d already wasted too much time. I crossed the street and threw my arms round his neck, feeling his warm body next to mine.
    “He sure does love that,” said a voice.
    I looked up.
    Sitting high on a horse was one of the cowboys who had been leading the cattle drive.
    “It’s not everyone that Old Lightning will let get that close,” said the drawling Texas voice. “Most people think he’s got a mean old eye.”
    “Oh, he’s got an eye all right but it’s anything but mean,” I said, giving Lightning another big hug.
    So he was a long-horn cow. I didn’t care.
    Lightning twisted his long-horned head obligingly.
    “Well now, maybe it takes a special sort of person to see that,” said the voice. “Ah reckon Lightning needs to introduce me to such a special person. How about it, Lightning?” said the stranger getting down off his horse.
    Even though the sun was in my eyes, I could still see the shadow of the stranger towering above me.
    I released one hand from Lightning’s neck and put it up to shade my eyes.
    The cowboy removed his large Stetson from his head with one hand and extended the other towards me.
    “Jake Johnston, ma’am,” he said as his hand clasped mine.
    The faintest flash of electricity, like the lightning before the tornado, ran through my hand. So quickly I thought I’d imagined it.
    I looked at that big Stetson he was holding in brown, rugged hands. There, tucked in the brown band of the large hat was the smallest, most delicate, spray of blue flowers.
    And even before he stepped out of the sunlight, I knew what colour those eyes would be.
    I’d found it in this wind-whipped Texas town. I’d found what I’d been looking for. And as I gazed into those deep, blue eyes that reminded me of a vast prairie of bluebonnets, friendly and familiar, I knew, just like that earlier transplanted Scottish soldier had known, that I wouldn’t be going home.
    It was the look that did it.

 

first published in “The Pink Chameleon” in 2013.

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