“What’s there to say? I don’t know. Rumors are just rumors until something proves they’re not.”
“But what happened to their father?”
“He died,” Chandler said. “Happens to the best of us, or so I’m told.”
Evie shook her head resignedly. “He gets like that. A few drinks in him and you start to get the attitude.”
“All I’m saying, Evie, is that this is all street-corner gossip. Someone said that someone said that someone said. It’s all bullshit. I don’t have any time for it.”
“But maybe something happened to the father,” Henry said. “You heard that much, right?”
“Okay, so what I heard was that he died in a shooting accident, and it was one of those accidents that might not have been an accident. That was all I heard, and I don’t know anything further.”
Chandler glanced at the clock above the stove. It was past ten.
“One more drink and I am gone,” he said. “I have an early start.” He refilled the glasses a second time. “Best of luck to you, Henry Quinn, even though you don’t believe in it,” he said, and downed the whiskey.
He rose from his chair. Henry rose, too, and they shook hands.
“Pleasure to meet you,” Chandler said. “Father gets protective when a man comes around after his daughter, but you could be worse.” He turned to Evie. “Have fun. Don’t get pregnant.”
“Go to bed,” Evie said, seemingly unconcerned for her father’s comments.
Henry was surprised at their transparency. They seemed to hide nothing from each other. Maybe relationships—any kind of relationships—were better that way.
“Did he mean what he said?” Henry asked when Chandler was gone. “That I could stay here?”
“Sure he did.”
“You have another room?”
“We have a couch,” Evie said, indicating said couch with a nod of her head. “But I have a bed. That is way more comfortable.”
Henry frowned. “Are you teasing me again?”
Evie leaned forward, grabbed his hand, and pulled him closer. “Why do you have to make everything so complicated? Seriously, you need to unravel a little, my friend. What’s the problem here? I’m a good-looking girl. I can see you think that. You’re a good-looking guy. I like you. You like me. Why can’t we have some fun together without making it a drama?”
“No reason, I guess.”
“So let’s get drunk and fuck like the teenagers we wish we’d been.”
“I don’t think I have ever been seduced, Evie Chandler.”
She laughed. “This isn’t a seduction, Henry Quinn … This is a sexual conquest.”
It was awkward. He knew it would be, but she had anticipated this, and she was assured and sympathetic. The first time happened before he really knew it, but they made love a second time, and it was in slow motion and sensitive, without the frenzied panic that had marked the first time, and she rolled him onto his back, leaning over him, kissing him, touching him, pausing only to smile with such warmth and tenderness that he thought he might cry right there and then.
Despite the proximity of other human beings, Henry knew he had been desperately and terrifyingly alone for more than three years.
They shared a few final words; she asked him about the scar on his torso, and he told her it was little more than a hard-won lesson. Then he held her close, and they fell asleep, their bodies curled in to one another like violin scrolls.
War changes a man. It changes his eyes, his mind, his heart, his soul. It teaches him about impermanence and fragility. It shows him the holes in the master plan, and it questions his belief in God. Most often undermines it as well.
War is for those who have forgotten how to speak to one another. It is for those who have secrets they do not wish to reveal for fear of some penalty worse than war. There is no such penalty, but their blindness and ignorance does not allow them such a rational perspective.
The defeat of the Axis was ultimately inevitable. Evil men unconsciously contribute to their own downfall. They make mistakes; they commit tactical errors. Some believe that such things occur because of the basic goodness in all man, that the criminal seeks to prevent himself from committing further crimes by leaving clues as to identity and motive.
I cannot stop myself. I need someone to stop me.
Perhaps tyrants are merely arrogant sneak-thieves.
Whatever Evan Riggs may have imagined about war, the reality was as far from his imagination as possible. And it seemed that he was alone in his thoughts and feelings, for very few—if any—of Calvary’s men had gone to war, and that was something he did not understand. Redbird County had made great sacrifices for the First World War, had even erected a memorial stone naming those who had fallen in defense of freedom, but Evan imagined that no such memorial would be granted for those killed in the war from which he’d just returned.
And the Calvary he returned to was a different place with a different atmosphere, and though at first he believed it was his own eyes and ears that had changed, he began to understand that the changes were real and specific, and most of them were attributable to his brother.
Carson Riggs, by default, by fate, by accident, had assumed the position of sheriff in November of 1944. He was all of twenty-five years of age, the cock of the walk, playing dalliance with self-importance, a gun on his hip, a coolness in his gaze, a sense of assumed authority that belied the truth of his inherent insecurity. Evan had seen such men in the army. Power and money merely exaggerate what is already there. In war, such men got other men killed and then spoke of
collateral damage
and
acceptable losses
. In peacetime, with no war to fight, it seemed such men created skirmishes and smaller wars to keep their uncertain minds occupied.
It appeared to Evan that Carson had become such a man, had perhaps been such a man all along, but the law had now given him an outlet for this predilection. A cruel facet had come to the fore, an aura possessive of cold angles and sharp corners, and the warm reception afforded Evan—the valiant hero, the decorated soldier—was neither appreciated nor condoned. Carson made comments, sly and cool, and it was obvious that envy played a part.
“You couldn’t have been more fussed over if you’d been killed out there,” he said, and Evan heard something else entirely. Had Evan been killed, there would been a sense of loss, of course, but Carson would have received the attention and the sympathy. Evan would have been forgotten, as was everyone who died, but Carson would carry that burden as if a knapsack of sorrow, and use it to his advantage. Evan could see that in his older brother, and he did not like what he saw.
William and Grace Riggs were not so devout or religiously-minded as to consider that the return of their younger son had much of anything to do with God, but even they bowed their heads and made silent thanks in church. William Riggs knew that war was a crapshoot when it came to who survived and who didn’t, and he was just grateful that the dice had fallen in his favor. Grace held her son for a long time that day, seeing him walk down the road in his uniform, the smart snap in his stride, the colors on his breast, aware—as all mothers are—that something had changed in her son. His shadow was more dense, possessive of some immutable darkness that neither time nor love would ever fade. As Plato said,
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Where Evan found the most visible welcome was on the doorstep of the Wyatt house.
Rebecca seemed in shock, even though word had gone ahead that he was returning.
“Evan …” she exhaled, and ran to him, throwing her arms around him, pulling him tight, as if to let go would see her slide right off the surface of the world and vanish into space.
Later she would speak of Carson, the things she’d heard, the things she didn’t believe, but for now her thoughts were for no one but the younger Riggs, asking him questions about his campaign medal, his Combat Infantry Badge, what acts of heroism had earned him two Bronze Stars. And Evan made light of it all, saying that his mind had been filled with images of his hometown, of her, of the songs he would write upon his return, of the future he’d planned.
The tension between them was unbearable. The effortless ease with which they had shared one another’s company had been replaced by an awkward uncertainty. They were older, perhaps somehow wiser, and—as was the case with all people—the simplicity and innocence of youth had been turned over for self-doubt and shades of cynicism. In different ways, adulthood had shown them that the world was not the magical place they’d believed it to be as children, but an altogether more sinister place.
Later, when the excitement had somewhat exhausted itself, when Evan and Rebecca were sitting out on the Riggses’ veranda, William and Grace asleep, Carson attending to some sheriff’s business, she gave Evan a reason for some of her reticence.
“He asked if I would be his girl,” she said, her voice faltering. “When they voted him in as sheriff. It was that night. He was a little drunk. He asked me if I would be his girl.”
“If you would marry him?” Evan asked, unsurprised by this revelation.
“Not in the words, no,” she replied, “but in the intention.”
“And what did you say?”
“Half of the truth.”
“Which half?”
“That I felt it wasn’t right to discuss it until after you were home safe.”
“Or you heard word that I was dead.”
“Yes.”
“I bet he was upset,” Evan said.
“No, not really. At least not visibly so. I think he wanted to hear a yes or a reason for no that made sense. He got the latter.”
“But he didn’t believe it.”
“I don’t know, Evan. He has changed, and not a small amount. He used to be so easy to read, to predict, to deal with, but now he seems to have lost his way.”
“Or found a way that winds up somewhere bad.”
“You think?”
“I think.”
“Regardless, I feel for him, and I do love him in my own way,” Rebecca said.
“You love everyone, Rebecca,” Evan said, and he reached out and took her hand. “That, perhaps, will be your downfall.”
She smiled. She knew he was right, but what could she do? She could not change who she was, and the world had yet to hurt her sufficiently to make her be someone else.
“You know that I love you, too, Evan,” she said, “but the last thing in the world that I want to do is stand between you and your brother.”
Evan smiled and did not speak for a while. What he felt and what he wanted to say were in his heart, but they could not survive the circuitous route to his lips. There was too much pent-up emotion in his chest. He loved the girl, no doubt about it, had carried thoughts of her through Italy and France and Germany and Holland, carried them like a lost man carries water from an oasis. When the battles raged and the bullets flew, he packed them deep beneath everything for fear that they would be shot from his hands, but when he came to rest he found that they were still there, still intact, perhaps scattered with dust, but nevertheless unharmed.
Perhaps it was true that those who survived war were those with the greatest desire to come home.
And yet, for all that he felt, he could see that Rebecca was torn. Perhaps it was inherent in a woman to seek some sense of stability, a sense of firm ground beneath her feet, an inherent wish to raise a family. Carson could provide that stability. He could give Rebecca a home, a place to be, a place where she could raise children and know that tomorrow was within her control. Evan couldn’t do that, either, and believed he never would.
“You don’t stand between Carson and me,” Evan said. “You never have. If anything, you have enabled us to be closer than we would have been without you.”
“That is a very sweet thing to say,” Rebecca replied, “but I don’t know if it is really the truth.”
Evan reached out and took her hand. “This is who I am,” he said. “I will always be this way, and I have no wish to change. I’ll stay in Calvary a while, but I will leave, and I have no idea where I will go. I am willing to let the wind take me, I guess.” He smiled, looked away toward the horizon.
“You know that there are disagreements between Carson and your father,” Rebecca said. “About the farm … the land.”
“Yes.”
“Oil people. You know about that, right?”
“Oil people have been chasing my father for years, Rebecca. They will continue to chase him, but he won’t sell.”
“He and Carson argue about it.”
“So I understand. Right now it is not an issue. My father will stand firm.”
“And what about us?”
“Us?”
“Yes, Evan. You and I. What about us? You are going to leave, sure. I have always known that, but isn’t there something inside that says you should stay?”
“You are the only reason I’d stay, Rebecca,” he said, “but something scratches at me, and it doesn’t stop, and the only remedy is to keep moving.”
“You are a gypsy.”
Evan smiled. “That’s what my ma used to say. I was left on the porch and she took me in, said I was her own.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me. You and Carson are so very different.”
“Enough for now,” Evan said. “I’m only just back. Let me find my feet, okay? We’ll have time to talk, to work things out.”
“I hope so.”
“Why d’you say that?”
“Because time has a way of running through your fingers. Seems like yesterday we were nothing but kids, and now here we are, making decisions that will affect us when we’re fifty and sixty years old.”
“I can’t think that far ahead. Tomorrow is enough for me.”
He leaned up and kissed her on the cheek. She put her arms around him and pulled him close, but she could feel—just like always—that there was something deep inside him that made him want to pull away.
A week later, a cool evening, Evan and Carson on the veranda as the sun glowered along the horizon.
“Sheriff seems to suit you,” Evan said. “Youngest in the history of the county, or so I hear.”
Carson smiled. “But you are the war hero, brother.”
“The war will be forgotten,” Evan replied, “as will those who fought it, even though there were so few from Calvary. And it will be forgotten because that’s what people want to do.”
“I missed you,” Carson said, and for a moment everything was forgotten but the fact that they were once as close as brothers could ever be, and this was something that could never be taken away.
“I missed you, too,” Evan said.
“A day didn’t go by when I didn’t wonder if I’d see you again. And it wasn’t easy for Ma. She cried a lot. Never seen her attend church so much as when you weren’t here.”
“Maybe that’s what brought me back.”
“Bullshit,” Carson said. “Prayers and church and whatever … all so much nonsense. A man makes his own life. A man makes his own death as well. You came back because you have things to do. Can’t say I understand them, but then again, I don’t need to because they ain’t my things.”
“I won’t stay long.”
“I know.”
“A year, maybe two,” Evan said.
“That long?” Carson asked, and there was an edge in his tone, as if the earlier moment of fraternal empathy was gone.
Evan turned and looked at his older brother. They had been apart for less than three years, but a world of change had taken place in both their lives.
“You want me to go, Carson?”
“I want you to do what you feel is right for you, Evan.”
“Am I in the way?”
“Of what?”
“The oil people. Rebecca.”
Carson stepped forward and gripped the veranda rail. “She told you.”
“She tells me everything. We are friends, Carson—always have been, always will be. You and I and Rebecca don’t have secrets. That’s not the way we were raised and not the way we are as people.”
“Maybe there are things that are of no concern to you.”
“Maybe there are, but I assure you that I have no intention of distracting you from your plans, Carson.”
Carson nodded. He inhaled, exhaled. “That presumes that you would have the means to distract me.”
Evan frowned. “What has happened to us, Carson? What happened while I was gone? I understand that you’re sheriff now, but that doesn’t mean you can quit this family or change the way this family cares for one another.”
“You and I are very different people, Evan,” Carson said, his tone matter-of-fact, businesslike. “Comes a time when you start to think about your future, and how you were as a child bears no relation to how you are as a man—”
“That makes no sense,” Evan interjected. “How you are as a man has everything to do with how you were as a child.”
“Perhaps for you, Evan, but not for me. What I want and what you want are not the same thing. I don’t understand you, and I don’t expect you to understand me. That is just how it is, and you can fight it or accept it.”
“So what do you want, Carson?”
Carson smiled. “I want everything, Evan.” He turned and looked at his younger brother, and there was a shadow in his eyes that was unfamiliar. “Everything I can get, and more besides.”
Carson let go of the railing and walked back into the house.
Evan stood there for some time in the coolness of the evening, and he felt strangely and uncomfortably afraid, not only for Carson, but for everyone else as well.