The Bookmobile – Part 2: Last Stop

Jack's ranch was the last stop on the route.

Willa drove the bookmobile up the long dirt drive on the final Thursday of August, with the engine rattling and the dust rising behind her in a golden cloud. The ranch house stood at the foot of a ridge, low and weathered, with a wide porch and a red barn. Horses grazed in the pasture. The mountains were purple on the horizon.

Jack was waiting on the porch with a pot of coffee and a stack of paperbacks, thirty-one of them, neatly piled. He wore a clean shirt. He looked tremendously nervous.

"I read them all," he said.

"All thirty-one?"

"I made a list."

She stepped down from the bus, laughing in disbelief. The porch smelled of woodsmoke and hay. A big yellow dog thumped his tail. Jack pulled out a chair, and she sat.

He had cooked. It was simple: a pot of beans, cornbread, a skillet of fried potatoes, a jar of peaches. They ate on the porch as the sun lowered, turning the whole prairie to honey. A pair of hawks wheeled over the ridge.

"This is the best supper I've had on the road," said Willa.

"It's the only one I know how to cook."

"It's wonderful."

"Can I ask you something?" said Jack.

"Yes."

"Is that the last stop? The ranch?"

"It's the last on the route."

"Is there a next route?"

"In the spring." She turned her cup. "I could add a stop."

"I'd be at the fence."

"May I kiss you, Jack?" said Willa.

His face lit like the sky. "Yes. And if you say stop, you must renew every one of these books."

"That's a lot of renewals."

"I know."

She kissed him, warm and a little dusty, a hand rising to his sunburnt cheek. He kissed her back with a slow, wondering gentleness, tasting of coffee and peaches. The dog sighed. The sun slid behind the ridge in a blaze of gold and rose.

When they parted, both of them were smiling.

"Green?" he asked.

"Green," said Willa. "Very green."

The bookmobile stops at Jack's ranch twice a week now. The library card has a note on the back: Borrower: Jack. Librarian: please renew.

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