Montana 1948 (12 page)

Three

W
E had planned, of course, to attend Marie’s funeral, but when my father asked Mrs. Little Soldier about when and where it would be, he was told that Marie would not be buried in Montana. Her family was coming from North Dakota and they would take Marie and her mother back to their home in North Dakota. When my father told my mother about this conversation, he said, “I tried to tell Mrs. Little Soldier that this was Marie’s home also and that we thought of her as a member of the family, but she didn’t want to hear. She wants to get out of Montana as quickly as possible.”

My mother nodded knowingly. “Try to find out where we can send flowers. It’s the least we can do. And we have to do something.”

Quietly my father replied, “I am doing something, Gail. You know that.”

I knew what he meant. In the days right after Marie’s death my father was working all the time. He left early in the morning, and he did not return until late at night. When he was home, he was on the phone. (He left his office a few times to come home and use the telephone; there were some matters he didn’t want to discuss in his office.)

His work habits were familiar enough to me that I knew what was going on: he was building a case, and my father did this the same way he ran for reelection—by gathering in friends and favors. I suppose he was collecting evidence as well, but that part was never as obvious to me. What he seemed intent on doing—just as boys at play do, just as nations at war do—was getting people to be on his side.

Earlier in the year there had been a controversial arson case. Shelton’s Hardware Store burned to the ground, and my father suspected Mr. Shelton, a well-liked businessman, of setting the fire himself to collect the insurance money. While my father conducted his investigation I was amazed at the change in him. I saw him on the street or in the Coffee Cup, telling jokes and laughing at the jokes of others. He passed out cigars like a new father. He inquired about families; he asked if there were favors he could do for people. Then, when he felt he had garnered enough good will, he made his arrest, exactly at the moment when his popularity was highest in the county. Naturally the consequent community feeling was, “Well, if Sheriff Hayden says it’s so, it must be so.” That feeling frequently carried juries as well. Mr. Shelton was convicted of arson and sent to Deer Lodge State Penitentiary for five years.

In short, rather than become grim and dogged when closing in on a suspect, my father became good-humored and gregarious. He became charming. He became more like his brother.

In the few days following Marie’s death there was one significant change in this usual pattern....

Three days after my mother found Marie dead in our home, around four o’clock on a rainy Thursday afternoon, my father brought Uncle Frank to our house. I had had something planned for the day with my friends, but the rain changed my plans, so I passed the day indoors, working on a balsa-wood model of a B-29 bomber. When my father and Uncle Frank came in the back door, I was at the kitchen table, my fingers sticky with glue and a hundred tiny airplane parts spread out on a newspaper in front of me. Uncle Frank walked in first, and he greeted me jauntily. “Good afternoon, Davy me boy. Wet enough for you?” He was carrying a small satchel, but it was not his medical bag.

He saw what I was doing and asked, “What’s that you’re working on?”

I showed him the box the model came in. “B-29.”

“The B-29,” he said. “I saw a few of those overhead. Always a welcome sight.”

My father came in right behind Frank, and about him there was nothing of Frank’s good cheer. Unsmiling and mute, my father simply pointed toward the basement stairs, and the two of them crossed the room and descended, my father closing the door behind them.

They were down there a long time, but I didn’t move from the kitchen. I strained to hear what was going on in the basement, but I heard nothing. Finally, when slow, heavy steps began to climb the stairs, I pretended to be concentrating on my model, though I hadn’t fitted a single piece since they came in.

My father came through the door—and he came through alone. He closed the door tightly behind him.

He looked exhausted, as though climbing the stairs had taken all his energy. His face was pale, and he simply stood still for a moment, his back against the basement door. Then he went to the cupboard under the kitchen sink, rummaged around for a moment, and came out with a bottle of Old Grand-Dad. He took a juice glass from the shelf, poured it half full of whiskey, then held the glass to the rain-streaked window as if he were examining the liquid for impurities. He tilted his hat back on his forehead, raised the glass to his lips, closed his eyes, and took a small sip.

I watched him and discovered that adults could, like kids, be there yet not be there (as I often was in school). As my father took another drink of whiskey, this time a longer one that shuddered through him, I could tell that he was making a long journey while he stood in our kitchen. I waited until I thought he was back and then asked as softly as I could, “Dad?”

He put his finger to his lips. “In a minute, David. All right? Your mother will be home soon, and I only want to tell this once. We have a new development here.”

So my father and I remained silent. He continued to sip his whiskey, and I packed up all the tiny pieces of my model plane. The rain clattered and gurgled through the gutters around the house. Once—only once—I thought I heard a noise from the basement that could have been Uncle Frank moving around.

But was that possible? How could Uncle Frank make any noise when my father had killed him?

I almost believed that.

I almost believed my father had taken his brother to a corner of the basement and—and what? Strangled him? Clubbed him? Shot him with a pistol equipped with a silencer? He had somehow killed him soundlessly. My father had tried to find a way to bring his brother to justice for his crimes, but finally, inevitably, unable to do that, he had opted instead for revenge. He had taken his brother into the basement and killed him. What else could explain that look on my father’s face?

When my mother came home from work, she took one look at my father and asked, “Wes, what’s wrong?”

He pointed to the basement door. “Frank’s down there.”

Both my mother and I stared at him, waiting for him to go on.

My father took off his hat and sailed it hard against the refrigerator. “He’s in the
basement.
Goddamn it! Don’t you get it—I’ve arrested him. He’s down there now.”

He stared at us as if there was something wrong with us for being more mystified than ever. Then he turned around, and instead of explaining to us he addressed the rain. “He didn’t want to go to jail. Not here in town.”

“Frank’s in the
basement?”
my mother asked.

My father turned back to us but didn’t speak. He walked over and picked up his hat. He looked it over and began to reshape it, denting it just so with the heel of his hand, pinching the crown, restoring the brim’s roll with a loving brush-and-sweep. He dropped his hat in the center of the table and said solemnly to me, “My brother—your uncle—has run afoul of the law. I had to arrest him. You understand that, don’t you? That I had no choice?”

He looked close to tears. “I understand,” I said.

My mother had her purse open and was looking frantically through it as though she could find among its contents the solution to this problem. Without looking up from her search, she asked, “Where in the basement?”

“In the laundry room. I’ve locked that door.” He held up the key for proof.

Our basement was unfinished, but the laundry room and its adjoining root cellar were closed off from the rest of the basement by a heavy wooden door (the door used to be in a rural schoolhouse; my father rescued it when the school was going to be torn down). The room where Uncle Frank was locked had a wringer washer, an old galvanized sink, the shower where I had once seen Marie naked, a toilet, and a couple of old dressers for storing blankets and winter clothes. The root cellar had wooden slats over a dirt floor, and shelves stacked deep with jars of home-canned pickles, tomatoes, rutabagas, applesauce, and plum and cherry jam. In another section of the laundry room was our ancient furnace, a huge, silver-bellied monster sprouting ductwork like an octopus’s tentacles.

“In the basement?” repeated my mother.

“I wheeled the roll-away in there. He can sleep on that. I’ll take him something to eat after we’ve had our supper.”

“You’ve turned my laundry room into a
jail!”

“Look,” said my father, “Frank said he’d come with me without a fuss. But he’d like to keep this quiet. He didn’t want to be locked up in the jail. I said I’d respect that, and he’s going to cooperate. Cooperate—hell, he’s acting as if this is all some kind of joke.”

“Who knows he’s here? Have you talked to Mel?” She was referring to Mel Paddock, the Mercer County state attorney. If my uncle were formally charged with a crime, it would be up to Mr. Paddock to bring those charges on behalf of the state. Mr. Paddock and my father were good friends; during every election they pooled their resources and campaigned together for their respective offices.

“No one knows about this but the people in this house. I talked around it with Mel, but I didn’t name any names. First I’m going over to tell Gloria.” He looked at his watch. “I should go over there now. I figure she has a right to know—”

“—that you have her husband locked up in our basement.” My mother groped for a chair as if she were blind. She sat down heavily and let her head rest on the heel of her hand.

“I’m not saying this is the best—”

My mother stopped him with her question. “How long?”

“I’m not sure,” my father replied. “I’m going to call Helena in the morning. Talk to the attorney general’s office and see if we can’t get him arraigned in another county. Or maybe I’ll check with Mel, see if we can do it quickly, get bond set—”

Again my mother interrupted him. “What are you going to tell Gloria?”

“Maybe that Frank’s in some trouble. . . .”

“Tell her the truth. She’s going to hear it anyway. Don’t lie to her.”

He nodded gravely but made no move to leave the kitchen.

“Go
now,
Wesley,” urged my mother. “She has a right to know where her husband is.”

My father took out his handkerchief and blew his nose—had he been crying quietly and I hadn’t noticed? He put on his hat and went out the back door.

After a moment he was back, calling me outside. “David, could I see you out here?”

I went out immediately, thinking that now my father was going to tell me, man to man, what Uncle Frank’s offense was.

The rain had almost stopped, and my father was waiting for me along the west side of the house. He stood back under the eaves and seemed to be examining the house’s wood.

“Look here, David.” He pointed to a section of siding. I looked but couldn’t see anything.

“What? ”

“The paint. See how it’s blistered and peeling?” With his fingernail he flicked a small paint chip off the house. “It flakes right off.”

I didn’t understand—was there something I was supposed to have done?

“We’re going to have to paint the house,” he said. “But before we do, we’re going to have to scrape it and sand it right down to bare wood. Then prime it good before we paint it. And we might have to put two coats on.” He picked off another paint chip. “It’s going to be hard work. Think you’re up to it?”

“I think so.”

He looked closely at me as if he were inspecting me for signs of peeling, chipping, or flaking. I must have passed inspection, because he clapped me on the shoulder and said, “I think so too. As soon as we get this business with your uncle straightened out, you and I are going to tackle this job.” Was this another of his promises—like a trip to Yellowstone—to make me feel better? Was this the best he could do?

Then, as if it really were houses and paint that he wanted to talk about, he turned back to the wall. “Though if it was up to me, I’d probably just let it go. Let it go right down to bare wood. If I had my way, I’d let every house in town go. Let the sun bake ‘em and the north wind freeze ‘em until there isn’t a house in town with a spot of paint on it. You’d see this town from a distance and it would look like nothing but fire-wood and gray stone. And maybe you’d keep right on moving because it looked like nothing was living here. Paint. Fresh paint. That’s how you find life and civilization. Women come and they want fresh paint.” He looked up at the eaves and gutters, judging perhaps how tall a ladder we’d need. Then he rapped sharply on the wall, three quick knocks to warn it that Wesley Hayden and his son were coming with scrapers, sandpaper, paintbrushes, and white paint, paint whiter than any bones bleaching out there on the Montana prairie.