This is the last chapter of the series. Enjoy.

In the pasture, from a couple hundred yards away, Whiskey could see Mason outside the barn. He was moving cars around outside and tending to details Whiskey knew nothing of. He seemed to be doing everything with a specific purpose, if slowly.

Whiskey was surprised to see the red 1960 Ford Thunderbird come out of the barn, its top lowered into the trunk. Mason hadn’t mentioned this car needing to be prepared for anything, though the entire collection was always maintained to be ready to drive at any given time. He went back to working on the old John Deer tractor. It had crapped the bed halfway through dragging some cut down mesquite trees into a pile to be burned. Later, as he glanced back towards the barn, he saw Mason walking from the house across the yard and over to the Thunderbird, carrying a rucksack type bag, which he threw into the back seat of the bird.

Sutton seemed more animated than he had been in a while. The dog had seemed to lose a step and age at the same pace Mason had, whether it was for chronological reasons based on his lifespan or out of sympathy for his master. Sutton was actually running and jumping, as though there was something afoot only he was aware of. The unfolding scene caused Whiskey to stop and watch longer than he normally would have.

Mason disappeared into the barn. He came out a few minutes later with what looked like a few books in his hand and headed over to the T-Bird. Before he reached the car, he turned around and looked at the barn, then the house. Eventually his gaze scanned the horizon. That’s when he noticed Whiskey looking back. He gave a slight tip of his hat and a nod. Then he opened the passenger door for Sutton, who jumped in without even the slightest urging. The big door on the barn was still open, making Whiskey think Mason wasn’t really going anywhere.

But sure enough, the Thunderbird started. The brake lights lit up, then went dark as the Thunderbird headed down the long asphalt drive towards the country road out front. The right blinker came on, the car pulled out on the highway and quickly disappeared over the horizon. Whiskey didn’t think that much about it. Not at first, anyway.

When he came back to the barn at quittin’ time and saw the big sliding door still open and the Thunderbird not back, he pondered the earlier events through a different lens. It wasn’t till he’d gone into the house, grabbed a cold Lone Star longneck and made his way back out to the barn that he saw the letter laying on Mason’s desk addressed to him and written longhand, torn from a yellow legal pad.

While it made the earlier event make more sense, the letter did nothing to ease Whiskey’s mind as to Mason’s whereabouts.  He’d assumed that at some point Mason would be relegated to home care.  He thought those plans were probably in place, but never had the courage or wherewithal to ask.  Even now, Whiskey thought there was a chance Mason had gone someplace to seek cures or treatments not available in Fort Stockton.  He’d be back soon, maybe a couple days at most.

But a couple days later, there was still no sign of the Thunderbird, Sutton, or Mason. Not a call. Not an email. Not a text. Nothing. It wasn’t till the third day when Whiskey thought to look in the glove box of the old F-100, just on a hunch really. The letter had referred to the title for the pickup being in there; he should have known to look. He sat on the passenger side of the brown vinyl bench seat, door wide open, and took a look inside. Under the title of the F-100 was another letter.

Whiskey –

You’re probably wondering by now.  Take a look in the center console of the GT 350.

MM

Kicking himself for not checking the glove box sooner, Whiskey went back into the barn, stopping by the bar and pouring himself three fingers of Macallan 30 Year Old Double Cask Scotch. The bottle Mason had been saving. Then he headed over to the Gulfstream Aqua Mustang 350 GT convertible. The ’69 convertible was always secretly one of Whiskey’s favorites of Mason’s collection, though he would have been embarrassed to have ever spent so much money on a car. One of 139 convertibles made that year, its six figure value was more than Whiskey could wrap his cowboy mind around.

Slipping into the driver’s seat, Whiskey set his drink down between his legs on the black Corinthian vinyl bucket seat. He opened the center console. Inside was a copy of The Last Picture Show, MacMurty’s second novel.  Inside the front cover was another letter.

Amigo-

You’ve always loved this car, just like I have. You just never admitted it. It’s yours now. But not without strings.

First of all, you need to break this wild horse. Drive it like you stole it. (The title is in the glove box, just in case someone thinks you did.) It was meant to be driven hard on the open road. You’ve got no investment in it to worry about. See what it’ll do and wring every horse out of that 351 Windsor V8. Drive it fast enough that they can’t catch you to give you a ticket.

Next, share this gift and pay it forward. Kristen has a couple grandsons about the same age you and I were when we first discovered girls and cars. They’ll figure out girls on their own. Help them figure out cars. Teach them how to drive a stick in the greatest automotive classroom God ever created.

Then, after you’ve taught those boys about cars, teach them how to be men.  They’ve not had the benefit of being around a man with some wisdom; they have no idea what’s involved.  Teach them that freedom only comes from self-discipline.  Show them that a real man takes more than his share of the blame and less than his share of the credit.  Train them how to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.  Make sure they learn that if you never heal from what hurt you, you bleed all over the people who didn’t cut you.

Finally, show them the lesson that Sutton taught me.  Tell them to handle every situation like a dog.  If you can’t eat it or play with it, just piss on it and walk away.

Mason

Under the letter and the book were the stock certificates for Mason’s 17% stake of Frontier Ford, “Home of the Straight Shootin’ Deal”.  No explanation.  Mason knew Whiskey would put his minority ownership to good use, no matter what he did with it.

By the time Whiskey folded the letter up and tucked it back into the front cover of the book, Mason was four states away, top down and doing better than 85 miles an hour with a waggish look on his face. Sutton was lying in the passenger seat beside him, occasionally getting up, sticking his head over the top of the door, the wind blowing both ears back as far as they’d go. Mason wished he could see the look on Whiskey’s face.

Back in the barn, Whiskey drained the last of the Macallan from the glass. He closed his eyes for a minute and wondered what the clear, salty liquid was that seemed to be running down his cheeks. Despite being a master at accismus, not even Whiskey could have turned down everything Mason had provided.

As word spread through Fort Stockton that Mason had left, folks still thought they’d hear something at some point.  They never did.

A couple months after Mason had driven the Thunderbird down the driveway and turned right, headed for the great beyond, Kristen moved into the house. Whiskey had moved into the barn a month before that. They had dinner together a couple times a week, Kristen cooking southern meals from scratch in the big gourmet kitchen. Her boys and their kids were out at the place all the time, the grandsons spending more and more time with Whiskey. Mending fences and driving a Shelby had more in common than they first realized.

Less than a year later, Whiskey moved into the big house, as well. A small wedding ceremony out by the pool, presided over by Pastor Peterson, was attended by a handful of family and friends. Kristen’s brother, Kyle, and his family were there. Perry Silverman made it, though his health was failing. He needed help getting in and out of his Kaiser Darrin. Lucinda served as the maid of honor. “Always a bridesmaid, never a bride,” she whispered in Delgado’s ear as they danced to Boz Skaggs being played by the disc jockey. Delgado had asked her a hundred times, and the answer was always the same. Yet, she liked to tease him. Hell, she liked to tease all of Fort Stockton.

A few weeks after that, the newlyweds were out by the pool having coffee on the deck. They saw a semi tractor-trailer come to a slow stop out in front of their place, right at the end of the driveway. The passenger door opened from the inside and an old dog hopped out. Before Kristen and Whiskey realized the old dog was Sutton, the driver of the tractor trailer had put it in gear and was heading over the same horizon Mason had a year earlier.

The poor old dog took forever to make it all the way up the driveway, but looked relieved when he finally got to the pool. And happy to be home. It was never clear how he’d made it back home, but it was assumed it was one of the final details Mason had seen to. “Bet he paid that truck driver ten grand just to be sure the old dog got back home to live out his last days,” Kristen said later.

But it did spark an idea.  Kristen got on the internet and started searching for the VIN number of the Thunderbird.  It took some digging, but she finally tracked it down.  It was on a used car lot in Anchorage, Alaska.  After three attempts, someone finally picked up the phone when she called.  “Yeah.  I got the ‘Bird right here.  You interested?” the voice on the other end of the line asked.

“What I am more interested in than anything is how you came to be in possession of the car.  I know someone who used to own it,” Kristen answered.

“Don’t have a lot of details on that. I picked it up at an auction. It had been donated by someone to a charity. A Catholic church of some kind down in Fort Stockton, Texas of all places, do believe,” the salesman relayed.“Said they were told it would fetch a pretty penny. Suppose they were right, based on what I give for it. Whoever give them sisters that car couldn’t have known just what it was worth or he damn sure wouldn’t have given it to a bunch of nuns.”

Kristen thanked him for his time and wished him luck with the Thunderbird.  She poured a fresh cup of coffee, walked back out to the deck by the pool, sat down and took a long sip.  And then called Sister Thelma.

If you’ve enjoyed this series, consider buying the Captain a cuppa Folgers at the Grounds for Divorce to help offset the cost of maintaining the blog. He’d be grateful, and promises to leave a big tip for Lucinda.