Yes, ma’am, I believe you should. I’m just going to get out of here and leave you to it.
V
ICTORIA PUT ON THE SOFT BLUE CASHMERE SWEATER
that set off her black hair and put on a short gray skirt, and the boy was wearing a pair of good black jeans and a plaid shirt, and they drove out in her car to Holt to eat dinner and to attend the movie. After they were gone Raymond and Katie were busy in the kitchen. He warmed up some leftover ham and gravy, with mashed potatoes and creamed corn, and the little girl sat on her box on a chair at the table, and while they ate he looked across at her and listened. She was taking regular bites as she talked, and she went on without stop, talking about whatever came into her mind, with no need for Raymond to remark on any of it at all, though he paid heed to all she said, whether it was about a girl he didn’t know at her day care in Fort Collins or about some black-and-white dog that barked in the yard below their apartment. For dessert he got out a quart container of chocolate ice cream and they ate some of that too while she continued to talk, sitting on her box at the table like some miniature black-haired black-eyed church woman at some basement bazaar, like some tiny Presbyterian female starved for the sound of her own voice. Then they cleaned up the kitchen, and she stood on a chair beside him to help rinse the dishes, still talking, and afterward they went into the bathroom and she climbed onto a little wooden stool in front of the sink and brushed her teeth. Then he took her into the downstairs bedroom and she put on her pajamas and they both lay down in the ancient double bed and Raymond began to read. He didn’t read long. Three pages into the book he was already falling asleep. She poked him and touched his weathered face with her hand, feeling along his stubbled chin and the loose skin at his neck. He woke and turned to look at her, then squinted and cleared his throat, and read another page before drifting off again, and now she lay close beside him and went to sleep herself.
When Victoria and Del Gutierrez came home at midnight, the old man and the little girl were lying in bed under the bright overhead light. Raymond was snoring terrifically, his mouth wide open, and the little girl was burrowed into his shoulder. The book he had started reading lay off to the side among the quilts.
36
E
ARLY ON SATURDAY EVENING MARY WELLS GOT HERSELF
out of bed and she and the girls drove to the Highway
34
Grocery Store at the edge of town to do the shopping that had not been done in days. There was nothing to eat in the house and Mary Wells was indifferent whether she had food or not, but the girls were hungry.
On the highway east of Holt a man from St. Francis Kansas was pulling a gooseneck stock trailer behind his Ford pickup, hauling five purebred Simmental bulls. He’d meant to sell the bulls in the fall, but his wife had been so sick that he had never gotten around to it, because of the daily care and the hurried trips to the hospital and finally the wearying bitter arrangements for her funeral. Now he was hauling the bulls to the sale barn in Brush for the auction on Monday, planning to feed and rest the bulls on Sunday, and make sure they drank enough that their weight was up so he could get all he could for them though it was not an opportune time to sell bulls.
He was not driving fast. He never did drive fast when he was pulling a stock trailer, and he made a particular point of slowing down because of the increase in traffic at that hour and more especially because of the glare of the setting sun shining in the windshield. He entered Holt and then a car suddenly pulled out in front of him from the grocery store parking lot.
Mary Wells was driving the car. Ten minutes earlier she had seen Bob Jeter standing at the refrigerated meat case in the Highway
34
Grocery Store beside a blonde woman, and Bob Jeter had had his arm wrapped around the woman’s waist.
Her older daughter, sitting in the passenger seat beside her, saw the pickup coming toward them and shouted: Mama! Look out!
The man from St. Francis did what he could to stop, but he had all that weight behind him and the pickup crashed into the side of the car and drove it skidding across the highway into a light pole that broke in half and fell over, dragging the wires down.
The younger girl, Emma, sitting in the backseat behind her mother, was thrown against the back door and knocked unconscious. Mary Wells’s head was slammed against the driver’s-side window and when her head cleared she discovered she could not move her left arm. It had already begun to throb. Next to her, Dena had been hurled forward and sideways, and a piece of the windshield had made a long deep gash through her right eyebrow and cheek. When the car rocked to a stop she cupped at her face with her hands. And then her hands filled with blood and she began to scream.
Honey, Mary Wells cried. Oh my God. She brushed the girl’s hair away from her face. Look at me, she said. Let me see. Oh Jesus. Blood was streaming down her cheek onto her shirt, and her mother wiped at it, trying to stop it.
Across the street a man in the parking lot ran back into the grocery store and called for an ambulance, and it came roaring up within minutes and the attendants jumped out and pried open the doors on the one side of the car and lifted Mary Wells and the two girls into the ambulance and raced them to the emergency room at Holt County Memorial Hospital on Main Street, just a few blocks away.
T
HE PICKUP, THE STOCK TRAILER, AND THE CAR WERE
still blocking traffic, and the five tan-and-white bulls had stumbled out of the trailer when the tailgate had crashed open. Men from other cars and pickups were trying to herd them into a makeshift pen of vehicles at the edge of the road, but one of the bulls was lurching about, slipping on the blacktop, bellowing, its left hind leg severed almost in two at the joint, with the lower half flopping and dragging behind. The bull kept stumbling, trying to put his back foot down, while the blood pumped steadily out onto the pavement. The man from St. Francis kept following the bull, shouting: Somebody shoot him. Goddamn it, somebody shoot him. But no one would. Finally a man produced a rifle from the rack in the cab of his pickup and handed the rifle to him. Here, he said. You better do it yourself.
A patrolman who was directing traffic saw the rifle and came running over. What do you think you’re doing? You can’t fire off a gun out here.
By God, I’m going to, the man from St. Francis said. You want to let him suffer like that? I’ve seen all the suffering I’m going to see for a while.
You’re not going to shoot off that gun.
You watch me. Get out of the way.
He walked up to the bull, shouldered the rifle and shoved the end of the barrel point-blank at the bull’s head, then pulled the trigger. The bull dropped all at once to the pavement, rolled over on its side and quivered and finally lay still, its black eyes staring at the streetlamp. The man from St. Francis stood looking down at the dead bull. He handed the rifle back to the man who owned it, then turned to the patrolman. Now go ahead and arrest me, goddamn it.
The officer looked at him sideways. I ain’t going to arrest you. How am I going to arrest you? I’d have a goddamn riot on my hands. But you never should of done that. Not in town.
What would you of done?
I don’t know. Probably the same damn thing you just did. But that don’t make it right. By God, there’s a law against shooting a gun off inside city limits.
A
T THE HOSPITAL THE DOCTOR SEDATED THE OLDER GIRL
and put seventeen stitches in her face while Mary Wells waited outside in the emergency room with her limp arm hanging painfully, supported in the palm of her hand. She cried quietly and wouldn’t let anyone attend to her arm until they had completed the surgery on her daughter. In the bed near the wall the younger girl was now coming awake. She had a severe headache and there were abrasions on her arm and a blue knob forming on her forehead. Though they would have to watch her through the night, it appeared she would recover well enough.
The doctor finished sewing up the older girl’s face and they wheeled her out and brought her into the emergency room. She was still asleep and her face was bruised and yellow where it wasn’t bandaged. Mary Wells stood looking down at her.
That will all heal, the doctor said. It was a clean cut. She’s fortunate it didn’t involve the eye.
Will it scar? Mary Wells said.
He looked at her. He seemed surprised. Well yes, he said. It usually does.
How much?
We can’t tell that yet. Sometimes it turns out better than we think. She’ll probably want to have a series of treatments with a cosmetic surgeon. That would take some time.
So she’ll have to go through life until then, looking like this?
Yes. The doctor looked down at the girl. I can’t predict how long that will take. She’ll have to heal completely before they can do anything more.
Oh God, what a fool I am, Mary Wells said. What a stupid little fool. She began to cry again and she took up her daughter’s hand and held it to her wet cheek.
T
HEY KEPT ALL THREE OF THEM IN THE HOSPITAL
overnight for observation. In the evening one of the police who had been out on the highway came to the hospital and left a traffic ticket, for reckless driving and the endangerment of life, and he informed Mary Wells that her car had been towed away.
The next morning a nurse drove them home. Mary Wells’s arm was in a sling, and she and the girls each walked up to the house with great care. Inside the house it was quiet. It felt as if they had been gone for days. Will you come out to the kitchen, please? Mary Wells said. Please, both of you. I want you to help me say what we’re going to do now. I don’t know what that will be. But we have to do something.
They sat down at the table. The younger girl sat watching her mother, listening, but the older girl, Dena, sat with her head turned away. She kept touching the bandage on her face with the tips of her fingers, feeling along the edges of the tape, and she refused to look at her mother and would not say anything at all. She had formed an idea already of what was coming for herself.
37
W
HEN RAYMOND AND THE BOY CAME UP TO THE HOUSE
after working outside all that Saturday afternoon, Victoria said it would be a good idea if they both took a shower and cleaned up before they sat down to supper. Do we smell that bad? Raymond said.
It wouldn’t hurt you to clean up a little.
You go ahead, the boy said. I’ll shower after you.
If that’s what it takes to get any supper around here, Raymond said. All right then.
He went back to the bathroom and showered and scraped off the bristles on his face and came out with his hair wetted down, wearing a freshly laundered pair of work jeans and a worn-out flannel shirt. Victoria said supper was ready and they should sit down and eat.
You’re going to let him eat without cleaning up first? Raymond said. How come?
He’s not as dirty as you were. And you’ve taken so long in the bathroom this food’ll burn up if we don’t eat it now.
Well by God, Raymond said. That don’t seem fair. It sounds like you got favorites, Victoria.
Maybe I do, she said.
Huh, he said.
They sat down together at the table in the kitchen as they had for each of the meals that week, and before they had eaten much of their supper a pickup drove up in the yard and stopped in front of the house. Raymond went out onto the little screened porch to see who it was. Maggie Jones and Tom Guthrie were coming up through the wire gate.
You timed it about right, Raymond said. We just sat down to eat. Come on in.
We’ve already eaten, Maggie said.
Well. Is something wrong?
We came out to see you. There’s something we want to talk to you about.
Come in. I’ll be done eating pretty quick. Can it wait that long?
Yes, of course, Maggie said.
They came inside and Victoria brought chairs from the dining room. Raymond started to introduce Maggie and Guthrie to Del Gutierrez, but Maggie said they had met the night before at the movie theater.
Then I guess we’re all acquainted here, Raymond said. He turned to Victoria. They say they don’t want to eat. Maybe they’ll drink some of your coffee.
Victoria poured them each a cup and Raymond sat down and began to eat again. Victoria and Maggie talked about school and about Katie’s day care in Fort Collins. Then Raymond was finished and he wiped his mouth on a napkin. What did you want to talk to me about? Can you talk about it here, or is it something we better go into the other room for?
We can talk about it here, Maggie said. We just came out to take you into town to the Legion. To the firemen’s ball.
Raymond stared at her. Say that again, he said.
We want to take you out dancing.
He looked at Tom Guthrie. What in hell’s she talking about? he said. Has she been drinking?
Not yet, Guthrie said. But we’ll probably have a few drinks pretty soon. We just thought we’d better get you out for a night.
You did.
Yes. We did.
You want to take me to the firemen’s ball at the Legion.
We figured we’d come out and pry you loose. You wouldn’t go otherwise.
Raymond looked at him and turned and now he looked at Victoria.
Yes, why don’t you? she said. I want you to have some fun.
I thought you kids would want to go into town again yourselves. This is your last night. You have to go back to school tomorrow.
We need to get packed and you can’t do anything to help with that. Why don’t you go? I want you to.
He looked across at the boy and Katie as if they might be of some help. Then he looked at nobody. It just appears to me like this is a goddamn conspiracy, he said. That’s what it appears like.
It is, Maggie said. Now go put on your town clothes so we can get going. The dance has already started.
I might do that, he said. But I’m going to tell you something first. I’ve never been so pushed around in all my life. I don’t know if I care for it, either.
I’ll buy you a drink, Maggie said. Will that help?
It’ll take more than just one drink to wash this down.
You can have as many as you like.
All right, he said. I seem to be outvoted. But it’s not right, to treat a man like this in his own house. In his own kitchen, when he’s just trying to settle his supper.
He stood up from the table and went upstairs to his bedroom and put on his good dark slacks and the blue wool shirt Victoria had given him and got into his brown boots, then he came back downstairs. He told Victoria and Del and Katie good night, then followed Maggie Jones and Guthrie outside. They waited for him to get into Guthrie’s old red pickup, but Raymond said he would drive his own vehicle so he could come home when he wanted to. At least you can’t stop me from doing that, he said.
But we’ll follow you into town, Maggie said. So you don’t get lost on the way.
Well, Maggie, Raymond said. I’m beginning to think you got kind of a mean streak in you. I never noticed it before.
I’m not mean, she said. But I’ve been around you men for too long to harbor any illusions.
You hear that, Tom?
I hear it, Guthrie said. The best thing to do is just go along with her when she gets like this.
I guess so, Raymond said. But I’ll tell you what. She’s going to make me think of a barn-sour horse yet, if she keeps on this way.
T
HEY DROVE OUT THE LANE AND ALONG THE GRAVEL
county road onto the blacktop, the headlights of the two pickups shining into the night one after the other along the barrow ditches. Then they entered town and turned west on US
34.
There was a wreck across from the grocery store and the highway patrol routed them around it. They went on through town and parked in the crowded graveled lot outside the white-stuccoed American Legion and went downstairs and paid the cover charge to a woman sitting on a stool at the entrance to the barroom and dance hall. A country band was playing at the back. The music was loud, and the long smoky room was already filled with people standing two and three deep at the bar and sitting in the booths along the walls, and there were more people clustered at the foldout tables in the big side room where the sliding doors had been pushed back. Men in western suits and women in bright dresses were dancing in the thin scatter of sawdust on the floor in front of the band.
Come on, Maggie said. Follow me.
She led Raymond and Guthrie to a dark booth in the far corner that a friend from school had been saving for them. It’s about time, the woman said. I couldn’t have kept it much longer.
We’re here now, Maggie said. Thank you. We’ll take care of it.
They sat down. Raymond peered around in silent amazement and interest. There were other ranchers and farmers he knew, out for a Saturday night of dancing and partying, and a great number of people from town. He turned to look at the band and the people out on the floor dancing in wide circles. Presently a barmaid came up and they ordered drinks, then Guthrie and Maggie got up to dance to a song she said she liked. While they were gone the barmaid brought the tray of drinks and Raymond paid for them, and then the band stopped for a break and stepped down off the riser, and Maggie and Guthrie came back to the booth looking sweaty and red-faced and sat down across from him.
Did you pay for these? Guthrie said.
Yeah. It’s all right.
I still owe you a drink, Maggie said.
I ain’t forgetting.
Good, she said. I’m not either.
Maggie drank deeply from her glass, then she stood up and said she’d be back in a minute. Don’t let him disappear, she said to Guthrie.
He’s not going anywhere, Guthrie said.
The two men drank and talked about cattle, and Guthrie smoked, and Raymond asked him how his boys were doing, and all around them the big room stayed alive with movement and noise.
B
EFORE THE BAND STARTED UP AGAIN MAGGIE RETURNED
to the booth. With her was a woman Raymond didn’t know. She was short and middle-aged with curly dark hair, and she had on a shiny green dress with a bright floral pattern and short sleeves that revealed her round fleshy arms. Raymond, Maggie said, I want you to meet someone.
Raymond stood up out of the booth.
This is my friend Rose Tyler, Maggie said. And Rose, this is Raymond McPheron. I thought it was time you two got to know each other.
How do you do, Rose said.
Ma’am, Raymond said. They shook hands and he glanced at the booth. Would you care to join us?
Thank you, she said. I would.
She slid in and Raymond sat down beside her on the outside edge of the seat. Maggie sat down beside Guthrie across from them. Raymond put his hands forward on the table. He removed his hands and set them in his lap. Would you care to have a drink? he said.
That would be a very good idea, Rose said.
What would you like?
A whiskey sour.
He turned and peered out into the crowded dance hall. I wonder what you got to do to get that barmaid to come back, he said.
The band was playing a fast song, and Maggie nudged Guthrie and they stood up.
Where you two going? Raymond said. You’re not leaving, are you?
Oh, we’ll be back, Maggie said, then they moved out onto the floor and Guthrie swung her out and they began to dance.
Raymond watched them. He turned toward Rose. Maybe I should move over there to the other side.
You don’t have to, she said.
Well. He drank from his glass and swallowed. I’m sorry, I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of you, he said. Do you mind if I ask you about yourself?
I’ve lived in Holt a long time, Rose said. I work for Holt County Social Services.
Welfare, you mean.
Yes. But we don’t call it that anymore. I take care of people who need help. I have a caseload and try to help these people sort out their lives. I distribute food stamps and see that my clients get medical treatment, that kind of thing.
It must be a hard job.
It can be. But what about you? Rose said. I know you live out in the country. Maggie tells me you have a cattle ranch south of town.
Yes ma’am. We have a few cattle.
What kind?
Mostly crossbred blackbaldys.
I think I know that means they’re black with white faces.
Those are the ones. That’s correct.
I’ve heard of you, she said. About you and your brother. I suppose everybody in Holt heard about two men out in the country taking in a pregnant girl to live with them.
It was kind of hot news for a while, I guess, Raymond said. I didn’t much care for it myself. The way people talked. I couldn’t see how it was much of anybody else’s business.
No, Rose said. She looked at him and touched his arm. And I’m so sorry about your brother. I heard about that too. It must have been very hard.
Yes ma’am, it was. It was pretty bad.
He looked out to the dance floor but couldn’t see Maggie and Guthrie. Finally he said: I wonder what become of that barmaid.
Oh, she’ll be here after a while, Rose said. Wouldn’t you care to dance while we’re waiting?
Ma’am?
I said wouldn’t you care to dance.
Well, no ma’am. I don’t dance any. I never have done any dancing.
I have, she said. I can show you.
I’m afraid I’d step all over your toes.
They’ve been stepped on before. Will you try it?
You don’t think we could just sit here.
Let me show you.
Ma’am, I don’t know. You’d be awful sorry.
Let me worry about that. Let’s try.
Well, he said. He stood up and she slid out of the seat and took his hand and led him onto the floor. People were swirling around in what seemed to Raymond a violent and complicated commotion. The band finished the song to a small scattered applause, then began another in slow four-beat time. Raymond and Rose Tyler stood in the middle of the dance floor, and she drew his hand around the soft silky waist of her dress and set one of her hands on the shoulder of his wool shirt. Now just follow me, she said. She clasped his free hand and stepped back, pulling him toward her. He took a little step. Don’t look at your feet, she said.
What am I supposed to look at?
Look over my shoulder. Or you could look at me.
She moved backward and he followed her. She backed again and he stayed with her, moving slowly. Can you hear the beat? she said.
No ma’am. I can’t think about that and not step on you at the same time.
Listen to the music. Just try it. She began to count softly, looking at his face as she did, and he looked back at her, watching her lips. His face was concentrated, almost as if in pain, and he was holding himself back from her, so as not to press too close. They moved slowly around the floor among the other dancers, Rose still counting. They made a complete circuit. Then the song ended.
All right, thank you, Raymond said. Now I guess we better sit down.
Why? You’re doing fine. Didn’t you enjoy it?
I don’t know if you’d say enjoy exactly.
She smiled. You’re a nice man, she said.
I don’t know about that, either, he said.
The band began to play again. Oh, she said. A waltz. Now this is in three-four time.
The hell it is.
She laughed. Yes, it is.
I wasn’t even getting used to that other kind yet. I don’t know a thing about waltzes. Maybe I better take my seat.
No you don’t. You just have to count it out. Like before. I’ll teach you if you let me.
I suppose I can’t do no worse than I already done.
Put your arm around me again, please.
Like before?
Yes. Exactly like before.
He encircled her waist with his arm and she began to count it out for him. They moved slowly, one step, two steps, sliding around the floor, part of the crowd. Rose kept them moving.
L
ATER THEY WERE SITTING IN THE BOOTH AGAIN WITH
Maggie Jones and Guthrie and they had each taken a second drink and were talking, and then a tall heavy man in a string tie and a brown western suit came up and asked Rose if she would care to dance. Raymond looked at her. All right, she said. He stood up and she slid out of the booth and the man led her onto the floor. Raymond watched them. The man knew how to dance, and was light on his feet despite his weight, and he twirled her around and they disappeared among the crowd of dancers.