The Ticket

by Moa-Osen

Upon hearing that Tom Branson has been exiled from Ireland, Martha Levinson decides to give the Branson's a once in a lifetime opportunity. They inherit a piece of land in the far reaches of West Texas before the oil boom- they are also given a chance to change lives and live their dreams as a family with their first born daughter. Travel, politics and love.

1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

Marfa, Texas: Summer 1921

The sun had always had a warming effect, but neither of them had known the terrible heat that it could produce before now. It hung in the sky, pure white and unmoving. There were no clouds, only a stagnant blue that stretched on from earth to eternity. A high wind rose from the mountains and flattened the plains—the desert was dry, deathly hot in the day and freezing at night. The sky was so huge and clear one felt as though they could make a misstep and fall off the face of the earth, drift into the cosmos. Sybil sat on the porch of their small clapboard house and starred out into the distance. She could see, far and away, the silhouette of the mountains—a sign of life, the county seat in Alpine. She held Saoirse in her arms, the child dressed in a light linen dress. She was asleep, caught up in a dream. Sybil felt as though she were asleep too—that she would wake up and be far from here.

The persistent heat, the night's freezing, the strange ghost lights on the horizon—the land, the oil lease, the oddness of all of it. Their voices didn't match the land, their blood was too thick for the temperatures. She longed for Tom to come home, longed for him all day, until the night fell—she longed for him, as she longed to work again, longed for people and the rush and bustle of life, rosy cheeks in the winter, rain, the seashore.

They would only have to wait until the end of the summer to decide what they were going to do—by that time this whole excursion would be over, and they would be free to do as they wished. And yet being in the middle of nowhere, this strange and haunted desert, proved a wonder to them both. They'd promised one another that they would see the world, travel together—and oddly enough their plans were coming to fruition, but in unexpected ways.

"My beautiful darling, you've been far already." She whispered to her daughter, smoothing the mess of dark curls that framed her face. The child was a perfect mixture of she and Tom—so much so that the features were blended with imperceptible brilliance. It was impossible to tell where she ended and he began. If looks were like spirit they were in for life with a wild thing. In her first year she was as unbroken as a mustang—time would only tell what else would progress.

Tom drove the old car over the flat desert, Tio Juan and Mr. Garrett sitting in the motor. Dust flew up around them as they drove. Out here, on the open plain, Tom could drive the car as hard as he wanted to. They had only made it out of the swath of mountains, were returning from their excursion in Alpine. The county board of directors held their meetings in the only hotel within two hundred miles on a weekly basis—brutally boring things that reminded him more of Downton than the Wild West. Brandy was taken and cigars were smoked as they droned on about this detail and that detail, staying cool underneath a low moaning ceiling fan.

Tio Juan looked out to the North, his eyes treading over the broken ridge of mountains that made Marfa feel as though it were sunk into a bowl. Low shrubs bristled in the constant wind, surrounded by Opuntia cactus and the occasional Octillo. This was an alien world, to be sure.

He had the strangest feeling about what he had been told earlier in the day, and was longing to relay the information to his wife. Tom cut across the plain, driving the clutch into the floorboards. No one out in Texas was proper about his driving. He liked that about these people—there was a madness about them.

"Look, it's Daddy." Sybil whispered to Saoirse, coaxing her to wake up. They'd sat on the porch for the last hour, waiting for him to come home. The sun was tilting again in the sky and clouds were beginning to gather, signaling the end of the day and the beginning of the night. Out in the distance she could see the car winding its way back to the house, kicking up dust as it approached.

Sybil lifted one hand in an ecstatic wave, which Tom returned. They were tied together with a golden string—the closer they were, the more magnificent life felt. Lately, when Tom came home at the end of the day, it was as though they were both returning to their real lives. Everything else felt imaginary.