CHAPTER II OF A SEVEN PART STORY
Folks in Fort Stockton are mostly cut from a conservative cloth. They believe in Jesus and John Wayne, generally in that order, though there are days when the order gets quietly reversed without anyone filing a complaint. They consider the right to bear arms biblical, the right to speak whatever they’re feeling constitutionally guaranteed, and the right to judge silently but thoroughly a civic obligation. Anyone who disagrees with any of that is welcome to relocate to Marfa with the rest of the misinformed miscreants trying to turn West Texas into something with public art and opinions.
Given all that, it surprised more than a few people that Howard “Howie” Hermleigh became one of the most trusted men in town.
Howie arrived in Fort Stockton during his sophomore year at Jim Bowie High School with a single suitcase and a smile that looked practiced. His mother had died when he was young. His father had either died or left. The difference never seemed important enough to clarify, and Howie never volunteered details. An older sister, already drowning in a life of her own, couldn’t take on a teenage boy, so the last available branch on the family tree was an aging aunt in Fort Stockton who believed in church attendance, strong tea, and giving people one more chance than they probably deserved.
Howie moved into her spare room, unpacked neatly, and behaved like a boy who understood that he was living on borrowed grace.
At Jim Bowie High School he drifted briefly between the marching band and the choir. The clarinet proved acceptable but forgettable. Choir revealed something else entirely. Within six weeks he was lead tenor. By the end of the semester, he’d won the role of Tony in West Side Story, despite being heavier than the other boys auditioning and, as Rusty Hammer would later phrase it at the Lucky Lady Lounge, “decidedly light in the loafers.”
That observation didn’t go unheard.
Before Fort Stockton trusted Howard Hermleigh, it watched him.
That watching happened quietly, the way all meaningful evaluations do in town. No one confronted him. No one challenged him outright. They simply paid attention. They noticed whether he lingered too long in conversations or left too quickly. They clocked whether his kindness came with expectations attached. They listened for gossip and found surprisingly little of it.
There were discussions, of course. There always are.
At the Lucky Lady Lounge, a handful of men debated him one slow afternoon over beers that had lost their fight with the heat. Someone mentioned his singing voice. Someone else mentioned his bachelorhood. Rusty Hammer, never one to waste words, finally said, “I don’t care who he loves. I care how he shows up.”
That became the measuring stick.
At Almost United Methodist, the women debated him in kitchens, not pews. One wondered aloud if grief work could be learned or if it was something a person either had or didn’t. Another pointed out that Howie never talked about himself. A third noted that he always remembered birthdays, anniversaries, and the names of grandchildren who didn’t even live in town anymore.
The deciding factor came quietly.
When a long-time parishioner collapsed during a potluck, it was Howie who knelt beside her, calm and competent, directing people without raising his voice. He stayed until the ambulance left. He stacked chairs afterward. He took the leftover casseroles to the fellowship hall refrigerator and labeled them neatly.
No speech. No credit.
After that, the watching stopped.
Trust in Fort Stockton isn’t declared. It settles. And once it does, it’s nearly impossible to dislodge.
Howie Hermleigh had passed whatever test the town never admitted it was giving.
Fort Stockton is polite, not progressive. It does not confront difference head-on. It evaluates. Quietly. Thoroughly. Howie noticed the sideways looks before he noticed the applause. He heard compliments that stopped just short of comfort. Church ladies adored him publicly and debated him privately, over kitchen tables with cups of coffee growing cold.
One afternoon, while helping arrange folding chairs in the fellowship hall, Howie overheard two women speaking in voices they thought were low enough to be safe.
“He’s sweet,” one said.
“Sweet doesn’t always mean right,” the other replied.
“Well, he’s useful,” came the answer, followed by a pause thick enough to feel.
Howie didn’t flinch. He finished arranging the chairs. He thanked them both when they noticed him. He learned, in that moment, that affection in Fort Stockton was conditional, and trust had to be earned without ever asking for it.
That lesson would serve him well.
When West Side Story closed, the Stockton Telegram-Dispatch called his performance of “Maria” the most awe-inspiring thing to happen in Fort Stockton since the Piggly Wiggly got remodeled and added a deli counter. Widows wept openly. He received a standing ovation, three curtain calls, and a bouquet of roses presented by a fire lieutenant whose admiration was unmistakable.
Applause, however, is temporary.
What lasted was how Howie behaved afterward.
He went everywhere with his aunt. Teas. Showers. Fundraisers. He wrapped gifts for the annual Christmas drive for the children of men lost to oilfield accidents and feral hog hunts. He possessed a talent for ribbons and bows that bordered on divine.
“What that boy can do with wrapping paper is a gift from God Himself,” Trixie once said, watching him tie a bow that looked like it belonged in a department store window.
Girls would have dated him if he’d shown interest. He didn’t. He joked that he was “single and ready to mingle” with the ladies at Almost United Methodist Church, which pleased them because it felt safe. Pastor Peterson hired him each summer to tend the church grounds. Those responsibilities soon extended down the street to Bridges Funeral Parlor, where mowing grass quietly turned into helping inside.
That was where the town began to trust him.
Death in Fort Stockton functions like a ledger.
It tallies who mattered, who still matters, and who was quietly written off long before their heart stopped. Howie understood this better than most, though he never spoke of it. He learned it by watching where people sat, who brought food, and who didn’t come at all but made sure their absence was noticed.
At Bridges Funeral Parlor, Howie became a kind of emotional bookkeeper.
He knew which families required soft lighting and which preferred it harsh and honest. He knew when to smooth lines from a face and when to leave them, because erasing too much history could feel like a lie. He knew which widows needed silence and which needed something solid to hold onto, even if that something was just the edge of a chair.
He also knew secrets.
Who hadn’t spoken in years. Who had forgiven without telling anyone. Who deserved to be seated up front despite what the family wanted, because the town was watching.
He never abused that knowledge.
That restraint mattered.
So when Melba Duncan entered his world, Fort Stockton noticed not just what she did, but how Howie responded. They saw the way he absorbed her sharpness without surrendering his dignity. They saw him redirect without humiliating. They saw him refuse to gossip, even when gossip would have been justified.
What mattered was that Howie continued to show up the same way he always had. Same tone. Same care. Same refusal to leverage intimacy for advantage.
By the time Prairie View State Bank recorded the purchase, Fort Stockton had already made its own entry in a different ledger entirely.
Whatever came next, whatever trouble followed, the town knew exactly where it stood.
Howie Hermleigh had earned his place.
Melba Duncan had not.
Before the Duncans, before Melba, there was the funeral of Earl Mendoza.
Earl had been a ranch hand. Fifty-eight years old. Quiet. Divorced. Lived in a trailer with a screen door that never quite closed. He died alone, found by a neighbor who noticed the dogs hadn’t been fed. The funeral was small and awkward, attended by people who felt they should show up but weren’t quite sure why.
Howie handled everything.
He placed Earl’s estranged daughters on opposite sides of the room without making it obvious. He seated the foreman up front, not because Earl had loved him, but because it mattered to the men watching. He noticed which neighbors didn’t come and which ones stood in the back pretending not to cry.
He fixed Earl’s hair with care. He smoothed the lines from his face without erasing them. He made Earl look like a man who had mattered quietly.
Afterward, one of the daughters hugged Howie hard enough to surprise him.
“Thank you,” she said. “He didn’t always make it easy.”
That funeral did more for Howie’s standing than a dozen church solos ever could.
By twenty-five, he had an associate’s degree in mortuary science from Pecos County Community College. He handled most of the embalming, nearly all of the cosmetology, and became the go-to employee for shepherding widows through grief. At Almost United Methodist, he remained the tenor soloist, helped with the youth group, and occasionally filled in for Pastor Peterson when schedules collided.
“He preaches a better sermon than Pastor Pete,” Rusty Hammer would mutter at the hardware store. “But if you ever repeat that, I’ll swear you’re a damn liar.”
The UPS truck stopped at Howie’s apartment at the Alamo Arms almost daily. Packages arrived from catalogs no one else in town had ever heard of. Gifts appeared quietly. Lucinda received a custom-embroidered apron. Pastor Peterson found books of inspiration with neat bows and handwritten notes. Even Rusty Hammer received a tin of exotic beard balm.
He claimed indifference. Rex Hall later swore Rusty got misty-eyed.
So it was natural that Howie was assigned to handle all arrangements for T. L. Duncan.
When Melba Duncan drove her new Cadillac into the funeral parlor parking lot, Howie was already waiting. He escorted her into the consultation room and allowed the silence to stretch exactly as long as it needed to.
She cried. Then she issued instructions.
She questioned flower placement. She corrected phrasing. She snapped at him once, sharp and sudden, when he suggested a simpler program.
Howie didn’t retreat. He adjusted. Redirected. Held his ground without raising his voice.
That earned him something close to respect.
He recommended the Titan’s Golden Majesty casket in dark cherry with rose-gold hardware.
“It’s like you knew him personally,” Melba said.
Howie nodded. Widows appreciated agreement more than accuracy.
As a personal favor, he offered to sing “E lucevan le stelle” as the casket was sealed.
“With that tenor voice of his,” Melba told Pastor Peterson, “Howie will sing my husband straight into heaven.”
Pastor Peterson nodded and handed her a Kleenex.
After the service and interment, Howie made sure Melba got home safely and stayed awhile. He met Douglas Duncan, who appreciated the attention being paid to his mother. It spared him the discomfort of trying to play the role of consoling son.
Douglas left town the next day. Melba barely noticed.
Howie began stopping by regularly. At first a few times a week, then nearly every day. When Melba wanted to go out, Howie drove her in the Cadillac Fleetwood.
One afternoon, grief turned ugly.
She accused him of abandoning her when he left for an hour to attend another funeral. She implied that kindness came with obligations. She said something sharp about his life that crossed a line.
Howie stood quietly until she finished.
Then he spoke, gently, and said, “I can’t replace him. But I can help you through this.”
Melba stared at him for a long moment.
Then she nodded.
Six months later, she handed him a signed blank check from Prairie View State Bank.
“I want you to get yourself new to drive. Anything you want. Anything. Just not a Cadillac,” she said. “Too many memories. But get something befitting your talents. Your style.”
Howie took her at her word.
He went to Frontier Ford-Lincoln-Mercury and asked for Roger, whose aunt he’d buried the year before.
The car Howie selected was a 1994 Lincoln Continental Executive Series, finished in White Opalescent. It rode smoothly. It behaved itself. It smelled like leather and restraint. Compared to the old Plymouth Reliant he’d driven for years, the Continental was as smooth as his tenor voice and as stately as the finest service he’d ever been a part of at Bridges Funeral Parlor. The pleated Opal Gray Leather interior was solemn and understated. Comforting, even. Just like Howie.
Roger called Melba to confirm her wishes. He knew acts of kindness could be misperceived and limits on expressions of appreciation miscommunicated. And, he’d heard stories in town about her frugality.
She approved, although irritated that she would be questioned about it.
Howie drove west on Interstate 10 less than an hour later.
For a woman who once refused to pay a ninety-dollar vet bill, Melba Duncan had just spent nearly forty thousand dollars on a car for a man fifty years her junior.
Fort Stockton noticed.
They did not resent Howie for it.
They never would.
They remembered the funerals. The care. The way he showed up when it counted.
And Prairie View State Bank recorded everything.
One response to “TROUBLE IN PARADISE, CHAPTER II: The Undertaker”
Jeez, Captain, after yesterday’s installment, I thought there would be an axe murder committed or at least the Grand Prize Quilt drawing at the Almost United Methodist Lady’s Social being rigged, on the orders on Melba Duncan. Seems you’ve put us on a road with lots of twists and turns…I’m holding onto my seat!