13
I
T WAS AN HOUR AND MORE BEFORE RAYMOND ROUSED
himself. Then he pulled himself up and limped across the gravel drive to the house and made the call. When the ambulance from Holt drove up in front of the house he told them to go down and collect his brother. The two men in their shiny jackets drove to the corral and gathered Harold up and carried him to the ambulance on a transfer board with a blanket spread over him, and then they drove both McPheron brothers into town to the emergency ward at the hospital. The doctor pronounced Harold dead on arrival.
Raymond lay on the narrow emergency-room bed behind green privacy curtains as the doctor examined him. The nurses had already removed his chore coat and flannel shirt and jeans so he lay now in a thin white cotton gown. The doctor felt his chest, listened to his heart and his lungs and felt tentatively along his leg. Afterward he ordered complete X rays that revealed cracked ribs on the right side of his chest and a broken bone in his lower left leg. They wanted to move him into surgery at once.
Wait now, Raymond told the nurse. Before you run me in there I want to call somebody. I ain’t going to be no good later.
Who do you want to call?
Tom Guthrie and Victoria Roubideaux.
Tom Guthrie, the high school teacher?
Yes.
But I don’t believe school’s let out yet for the day.
For God’s sake, Raymond said.
All right, she said. Never mind. We’ll call and see if we can get him on the phone.
Also I want you to call Fort Collins, Raymond said. Get Victoria Roubideaux for me.
Now who’s she, Mr. McPheron?
A young girl away at college, with her baby. Her name will be amongst the new listings.
But who is she to you? Is she your daughter?
No.
But usually we only make these kind of long-distance calls to relatives.
Just call her on the phone, Raymond said. Can’t you do that?
If she were a relative, a niece, or something like a daughter.
She is like a daughter to me. More than like a daughter. She’s what I’ve got to think of right now.
Well. The nurse looked at him. He was watching her intently, his face washed clean now, the scratches on his cheeks and forehead showing vivid and inflamed. All right, she said. But it’s not the usual procedure. How do you spell it?
Raymond turned away. Good Christ, he said.
Very well, she said. I’ll figure it out. Which one do you want to talk to first?
The girl. She’ll have to know about this.
But you’re sure you feel like talking right now. You must be in a lot of pain.
Just get me the phone once you get connected to her, he said. She’s going to hate this. I’m pretty sure she loved my brother. I sure God know he loved her.
The nurse went out and he lay in the bed with the green curtains drawn around him. They had started an IV already and had strapped a blood pressure cuff to his arm and propped up his leg with a pillow. He lay looking at the white tiled ceiling, then he shut his eyes and despite his best intentions to the otherwise he was weeping again. He reached up out of the bedsheet and wiped his face and waited for the nurse to bring him the phone. He was trying to think how he was ever going to tell Victoria Roubideaux about what had happened.
Then the nurse came in with the phone and he said: Is that her?
Yes. I finally located her. Here, take it.
He held the phone to his ear. Victoria?
What’s wrong? she said. Her voice sounded small and thin. Is something wrong? Has something happened?
Honey, I got something I got to tell you.
Oh no, she said. Oh no. No.
I’m just afraid I do, he said. And then he told her.
14
I
N THE LATE AFTERNOON TOM GUTHRIE STOOD IN THE
hospital room beside Raymond, who lay in the white bed under the sheet in his hospital gown. They had wheeled him into the room after the surgery and they had started to put him into the bed next to the door but he’d told them he wanted the bed near the window.
Along with Guthrie in the room was Maggie Jones, another teacher from the high school. They’d been together since Guthrie’s wife had moved to Denver, though Maggie still lived in her own house on South Ash Street. Now she was sitting in a chair drawn up close to Raymond’s bed. The doctor had set the bone in his leg and put a cast over the leg below the knee, and there were elastic bandages wrapped around his chest to hold his ribs securely and to ease his breathing. His broken leg was raised onto pillows. He breathed shallowly, with little sharp exhalations, and his face showed what he had suffered. His face was drawn and pale, sallow under the red weathering. He looked old. He looked old and worn-out and sad.
I couldn’t stop him, Raymond said. They’re too big. Too strong. I tried but I couldn’t. I couldn’t save my brother.
Nobody could have saved him, Guthrie said. You did what you could.
Maggie put her hand on the old man’s arm and patted him softly. You did everything you could, she said. We know that.
It wasn’t enough, Raymond said.
It was quiet in the room, the light coming in aslant through the window. Outside the hospital along the street the bare trees looked orange in the late afternoon sun. Down the hall they could hear people talking and then there was some laughter. Someone came walking past in the hallway and they looked up when he went by. It was one of the preachers in town, come to call on the sick and the lame.
Tom, can you look after things for a couple days? Raymond said. I can’t think who else to ask.
Of course, Guthrie said. Don’t even think about it.
You’ll need to let the bulls out and check they got water. And then if you’d check the cows and calves to the south.
Of course.
I still got the calves in there with the cows, and every cow and heifer is suppose to be carrying a new calf. They ain’t due till February but you can’t ever tell what they’ll do. He looked at Guthrie. Well, you know all that.
I’ll go out there right away, Guthrie said. As soon as I leave here. What else do you need me to do?
I don’t know. Well, there’s the horses too. If you don’t mind.
I’ll check them.
And can I check on things in the house? Maggie Jones said.
Oh, Raymond said. He turned to look at her. No. I don’t want you to bother. It’ll be a mess in there.
I’ve seen plenty of messes before, she said.
Well. I don’t know what to say.
Just try to rest. That’s all you have to do.
I can’t, Raymond said. I shut my eyes and every time I see Harold out there in the corral. Laying out there in the dirt and the bull hitting him again.
He was looking at Maggie’s face as he talked, looking up at her as though he were pleading some case that was already lost but one that he couldn’t let go of. There were tears in his eyes.
Yes, Maggie said. I know. You’ll be able to rest pretty soon. She touched his shoulder and smoothed back the stiff iron-gray hair on his round head. He felt ashamed to have her touch him in this manner but he allowed it for a moment. Then he moved his head from under her hand and turned away. Maggie was crying now too. Beside her Guthrie stood watching the old man. He wanted to think of words that would make some difference but there were none in any language he knew that were sufficient to the moment or that would change a single thing. They stayed quiet for some time.
T
HERE WAS A COMMOTION OUT IN THE HALL AND THEN
Victoria Roubideaux came into the room carrying Katie in her arms. She came directly to the bed and looked down at Raymond. He looked up at her and shook his head. Honey, he said.
Yes, she said. I’m here now. She tried to smile.
Let me have Katie, Maggie said. She stood and took the little girl and Victoria sat down in the chair beside the bed and leaned over and kissed Raymond on the forehead. I came as fast as I could.
I hope you didn’t take any risk driving.
No. It was fine.
Thank you for coming. I didn’t know what I was going to do without you.
I’m here now, she said again.
He lifted his hand out of the sheet and she took it. I just couldn’t stop it from happening, he said.
I know you would’ve done everything you could.
He looked into her face. He wanted to tell her one thing more but for a moment he couldn’t speak. He had told her most of what he had to say on the phone. Honey, he said, you know Harold he was talking about you at the end. You and Katie. The last thing he had on his mind was you and that little girl. I think he would of wanted you to know that.
Thank you for telling me, she whispered. The tears ran down her cheeks, and she ducked her head and her dark hair fell about her face. She held his hand and sobbed quietly.
Guthrie said softly: Raymond. Why don’t Maggie and I go on now. We’ll come back later tonight.
I’ll still be here, Raymond said. I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere else for a while.
Maggie returned the little girl to her mother and she and Guthrie went out of the room into the hall.
Victoria settled the child on her lap. Raymond looked at the little black-haired girl in her red coat and long stockings and he reached up and took hold of her foot. She was frightened by him and drew back.
Oh, honey, Victoria said. He won’t hurt you. You know who Raymond is. But the little girl turned and faced away, hiding her head in her mother’s neck. Raymond put his hand back under the sheet.
It’s just that she’s scared to see you this way, Victoria said. She’s never seen anyone in a hospital bed before. We’re all frightened to see you this way.
I don’t imagine I look like much, Raymond said. Nothing you’d care to study.
G
UTHRIE AND MAGGIE LEFT THE HOSPITAL AND DROVE
first to Guthrie’s house across the tracks on the north side of Holt on Railroad Street. Inside the house he left a note on the kitchen table for his two boys, Ike and Bobby, telling them to do their chores at the barn and then to heat up some soup on the stove, that he’d be home later in the evening. He explained that Raymond McPheron was in the hospital and needed his help but that he’d call them later from the ranch or the hospital lobby. Then he and Maggie drove in Guthrie’s old red pickup back through town and out south on the two-lane blacktop to the McPheron place. The sun was setting now and all the flat country around them was cast in gold, with long shadows fallen out from behind the ordered fence posts above the bar ditch.
They turned off the blacktop onto the gravel road and then south again down the lane going back to the house and stopped at the wire gate. Maggie got out and went up to the house and Guthrie drove on and parked by the barn and got out into the cold evening air. The six bulls stood waiting in the corral, their backs to the wind, and he walked around to the gate to the pasture, climbed over the fence, and shoved the gate open. The bulls looked at him, and first one and then the others began to move heavily out of the corral. He stood back and watched as they trotted through the gate. There was the one that came limping and even in the darkening light he could see the patch of dried blood caked on its hip. Moving into the pasture, the bulls slowed once more to their own heavy unhurried pace, and he shut the gate behind them and checked the water level in the stock tank, then went back to the barn and drove the pickup over to the south and threw open the barbed-wire gate and passed through, rattling and jarring out into the pasture as he looked at all the cows and calves and heifers. The cattle faced him in the headlights, their eyes shining like bright rubies. When he approached they shied away from the pickup, the calves galloping off with their tails up, and he saw nothing of concern. Two old blackbaldy cows followed him but soon they stopped and stood still, staring after the pickup as he came bouncing back across the rough ground, the headlights picking up the clumps of sagebrush and soapweed ahead, and he came through the gate and shut it behind him, and then walked the saddle horses into the barn and forked hay to them from the loft, and once more got into the pickup and drove up to the house.
The lights were all on inside the house now. Maggie Jones had already washed the dishes and had set them to dry on the counter, and she had scrubbed the enameled top of the old stove, tidied the kitchen table and set chairs in place around it and had swept the floor. She was in the downstairs bedroom when Guthrie came in and found her.
You about ready to go? he said.
I thought Raymond had better stay down here, she said. He won’t want to climb the stairs with that cast on his leg.
I hadn’t thought of that, Guthrie said. He watched her draw the sheet tight and tuck it in and spread a quilt over the bed. What about Victoria and Katie? I thought this was their room.
I’m going to move the crib out into the parlor. And make up a bed on the couch for Victoria.
You think she’s going to stay a while.
She’ll want to.
What about her classes?
I don’t know. She’ll want to be here to take care of him. I know that.
He isn’t going to like it, Guthrie said. Raymond won’t want her staying home and missing school on his account.
No. He won’t. But I think he’ll have to accept it. Will you help me take this crib apart so we can get it through the door?
I’ll get my tools.
Guthrie went out to the pickup and found pliers and a couple of screwdrivers and a wrench in the toolbox behind the cab and came back inside. After taking the crib apart and wheeling it into the parlor, they put it back together and stood it against the wall, then made up a bed on the old couch with clean sheets and a pair of green wool blankets and a much-yellowed pillow that Maggie found in the closet. They stood back and looked at this new arrangement. The walls of the room were papered over with an ancient flower pattern that was a good deal faded and showed water stains at the ceiling, and the two plaid recliner chairs were set across from the old console television.
I think we can go now, Maggie said.
They shut the lights off and went out to the pickup. From the outside the paintless clapboard house appeared all the more desolate in the blue glow of the yardlight at the corner of the garage. So insubstantial and paltry that the wind might blow through and find no resistance at all.
W
HEN THEY HAD COME OFF THE GRAVELED COUNTY ROAD
and had turned north on the blacktop toward Holt, Maggie said: I can’t help but worry about him. What do you think he’s going to do now?
What can he do? Guthrie said. He’ll do what he has to.
You’ll help him, won’t you.
Of course I will. I’ll be out there tomorrow morning before school. And I’ll come out again after school lets out. I’ll bring Ike and Bobby with me. But he’s still going to be alone.
She’ll want to stay with him.
Victoria, you mean.
Yes. And Katie.
But that can’t last forever. You know that.
I know, Maggie said. It wouldn’t be good if it did. Not for him or them either. But I’m still worried about him.
They drove on along the blacktop. The narrow highway looked empty and forlorn ahead in the lights of the pickup. The wind blew across the flat open sandy ground, across the wheat fields and corn stubble and across the native pastures where dark herds of cattle grazed in the night. On either side of the highway farmhouses were set off by faint blue yardlights, the houses all scattered and isolated in the dark country, and far ahead down the highway the streetlights of Holt were a mere shimmer on the low horizon.
Maggie sat next to Guthrie in the cab and stared ahead at the center stripe in the road. I think I’ll ask Victoria if she wants to stay with me, she said. She won’t want to be alone in that house tonight.
She’s going to have to stay in it sometime.
Not tonight, Maggie said. She’s had enough to get used to for one day.
She’s not the only one, Guthrie said. That poor old son of a bitch. Think of him.
Yes, Maggie said. She looked at Guthrie and slid over nearer in the seat and sat close beside him. She put her hand on his thigh and left it there as they rode along in the dark. They passed the small square sign at the side of the road that announced they had entered the limits of Holt.
In town they turned left onto US 34 and turned again onto Main Street and parked in front of the hospital. They got out in the chill air and went inside and found that Victoria was still seated in the chair beside Raymond’s bed. Since they had left two hours earlier she had not moved. It was as if she would not even consider the possibility of moving, as if she thought by sitting beside his bed, refusing to move, she might prevent anything else from happening to him, or to anyone else she loved in this world. She was still holding Katie on her lap, and Raymond and the little girl were both asleep.
Then, hearing Maggie and Guthrie come into the room, Raymond woke. He looked up and it was clear, by what showed in his face, that he had just remembered. Oh Lord, he said. Oh Lord.