Home To Copper Mountain

You fly down for weekends

To your twenty-acre spread,

Then you wonder why,

Your cattle all lie dead.

You’re the dreaded windshield rancher invading the Hill Country,

You wanted a part of Texas,

And by golly,

You destroyed habitat and birthright during a bad economy.

You came, you saw, you conquered,

You took my legacy.

Because of you, you, you, you,

This happened to me, me, me, me.

I’m an uprooted bluebonnet,

I no longer have a home,

Do you hear me, windshield rancher? Thanks to you I’m alone.

The light has now gone out,

I can’t see in front of me,

There’s no home to go back to,

Fear is my destiny.

The past is gone forever,

It walked out the door.

What once excited, excites no more,

The song ended, jerking Rick back to cognizance of his surroundings.

Damn. He’d been so mesmerized by what he’d heard, he’d overshot the turnoff to the ranch by four miles. Since no one was around, he made a tire-squealing U-turn in the middle of the road and flew back down the highway.

“And now for all you night creatures like me who can’t sleep because your demons won’t let you—oh yes, I’ve got them, too—shall we have a change of pace? I’ve had a lot of requests for Gounod’s Ave Maria for voice and harp. Enjoy this last number before we say good-night.”

Rick almost missed the entrance again because the female disc jockey had started to play the next recording. The second he heard the voice, he realized it was the same vocalist who’d performed the amazing country song. This time she was singing to an exquisite harp accompaniment.

Why didn’t the disc jockey give out the name of the singer?

Whoever she was, she had extraordinary talent to be able to perform such diametrically opposed pieces of music with equal ability. He wanted her name so he could look for some of her records.

Parts of the first song resonated with him.

The light has now gone out,

I can’t see in front of me,

There’s no home to go back to,

Fear is my destiny.

The past is gone forever,

It walked out the door,

What once excited, excites no more.

Rick could have written those lines himself. Whoever the composer was had to be a native Texan, considering the subject matter. It sounded like life had dealt them a hard blow.

Realizing someone else out there in the cosmos was going through the same disquieting experience helped him to understand he wasn’t the only person who felt as if they were losing their mind.

Absorbed in his painful thoughts, he was slow to process the fact that the white three-quarter-ton pickup truck moving toward him came to a stop as Rick passed it. He blinked, then reversed.

His father’s familiar half smile had never been more welcome than in this back of beyond. They both put down their windows at the same time. The air still held the earth’s warmth. He could smell skunk.

“Dad—” His throat swelled with unexpected emotion.

“It’s good to see you, too, son. You told me you’d be driving a new M3. For a moment I thought I’d come upon James Bond. So…how did your first car handle?”

Rick’s lips twitched. “A lot better than my first homemade go-cart.”

“That’s reassuring. I’ll turn around so you can follow me the rest of the way.”

Beyond tired, he was grateful to be led down the dark, dusty road. When they reached the ranch house three miles from the entrance, Rick regretted having to turn off the beautiful voice with the harp accompaniment. He wished her music could have kept him company all the way from Colorado.

He got out of the car eager to feel Clint Hawkins’s famous bear hug.

Silhouetted against a night sky partly obscured by clouds, the Queen Anne–style house loomed behind his parent. The two-story structure had many gables and a tower with a conical roof. For a ranch house it looked totally out of place and unlike anything Rick had been imagining.

“IT’S THAT TIME AGAIN, ladies and gentlemen. We’re coming up on three in the morning. I’ll be taking your requests Friday at midnight on KHLB, the Hill Country station out of Austin at 580 on the AM dial. Thank you for listening to the Red Jarrett Show, where I aim to bring you a little bit of the best of everything.”

The line-board operator back at the station in Austin turned the switch, and Audra Jarrett was off the air. Her boss had arranged for her to do her program from the ranch while she was recuperating from her accident. Several technicians from the studio had come out to the house to set up the mixing board, stands, plug-in mike and Telos digital sound system. So far everything had worked perfectly, but it seemed she had a ways to go before she was fully recovered.

She let out a groan of exhaustion and ran her fingers through her hair, which was damp at the roots from exertion.