As Good As Gone (9781616206000) (16 page)

Without hesitation, Beverly points down the street. “You need to turn left at the next intersection. We're almost there.”

At that announcement, Calvin Sidey's heart hammers a little harder and a little quicker. He pictures his .45 back in the dresser drawer. If he hadn't left the house so abruptly, if he'd given himself a few minutes to think through what he was about to do, would he have gone downstairs, retrieved the pistol, and brought it with him? But opening that drawer means bringing that bottle of whiskey into view, and he spends far more time thinking about that and the use he could put it to than he could a gun.

NINETEEN

Once they cross the narrow bridge spanning the Elk River, they are in a section of town that Beverly seldom has reason to visit. The houses here are small and often dilapidated. Lawns are sparse and yellow-­brown or nonexistent, yet grass sprouts freely in cracks in the concrete or asphalt. Driveways aren't paved and sidewalks gap and tilt. Beverly never uses the term herself, but she knows that this area is frequently called Dogtown. And though she was born and raised in Gladstone, she had never known how the section got its name. So she finally asked Burt. As usual, he waited a long time before answering, a maddening tactic that was calculated to make Beverly withdraw her comment or question. When she demanded to know, he answered her question with one of his own: “Who lives there?” She had to concede that the area had a large Indian population. Burt hesitated even longer, but finally said, “And what do Indians eat?” “Oh my God,” she said. “That's absolutely ridiculous! That's
hatefu
l
!” Her response, however, did nothing to prevent him from continuing to use the term.

As they turn onto a narrow unpaved street that has neither curb nor gutter, Calvin says, “Right around here I drove my first motor car. It belonged to George Ellingsen, one of my father's business partners. Of course there weren't houses or streets around here then. Just an old wagon road and a couple of hardpan fields and he didn't give me a damn bit of instruction. Put me behind the wheel and told me to go to it.”

“How old were you?”

“Twelve? Thirteen maybe? Too young to be doing what I was doing. Of course there was nothing around here for me to run into or run over. Later I found out the expedition was my father's idea. He had a notion that cars were going to be the way of things and he thought if I was going to take over the business someday it would be good for me to know what to do behind the wheel. He was too old to learn, he said, but I wasn't going to get left behind.”

“Your father must have been a wise man.”

“Only where it came to turning a dollar.”

“A few years ago,” Beverly says, “some developers were interested in this area for a supermarket. They wanted to buy up all the land and houses around here and tear them down. Put in a parking lot and a big new Red Owl. Or SuperValu, I forget which. Your son opposed the plan.”

“Not a good idea to stand in the way of progress.”

“I can't believe you're saying that.”

“I can't either.” He leans forward and looks for a house number. “Are we getting close?”

“Take a left up ahead.”

They turn onto a paved street. Beverly peers out, trying to see a house number. “Okay,” she says. “The third house on the right. That must be it.”

Calvin Sidey pulls to the curb in front of a tiny house with peeling white paint and torn screens. An old once-­black Hudson with a flat tire slumps into the tall grass of the side yard, and a cardboard box outside the front door overflows with beer cans.

Calvin reaches past Beverly and opens the glove compartment. Inside are a box of safety matches, a crumpled bandanna, a Sir Walter Raleigh tobacco tin, and a stag-­handled hunting knife in a leather sheath. Once she sees the knife, Beverly knows that's what he's searching for, but she still lets out a little groan when he brings it out.

“Take it easy,” he says, opening his door. “Whether I need this or not won't be up to me.” He slips the knife and sheath into the back pocket of his jeans.

“Won't you reconsider? I really think this is something for the sheriff to handle.”

“We're here. No sense turning back now.”

“Should I come with you? To make the identification?”

“I'll signal if I need you.”

He hasn't quite finished arming himself. As Beverly watches him through the back window, he walks to the back of the truck, unfurls a canvas tarp, and lifts out a tire iron. He holds it close to his leg as he crosses the grass and steps onto the foot-­high concrete slab that passes for a porch.

He pulls open the screen, holds it with his boot, and knocks on the door. Beverly takes it as a good sign that the inside door is closed. If people were in there, surely they'd keep that door open to try to get some air moving through the house.

She looks again at the eviction letter. It's addressed to a woman, Brenda Cady, so Beverly has to wonder who came banging on the Sidey's door. A husband? No, his name would have been on the lease. A boyfriend? A brother? A son?

Calvin has stepped off the porch and is peering inside the front window. Beverly cringes. If someone were inside with a rifle, this is when he'd open fire. But there's no gunshot, and soon Calvin is out of sight, having walked around to the back of the house.

Early in her marriage, before Adam was born, Beverly sometimes accompanied Burt on business trips. There was nothing glamorous or exciting about these excursions; the two of them usually did nothing more than travel to a county seat to look up deeds or other documents in the courthouse. They seldom even stayed overnight, but Beverly enjoyed getting out of Gladstone, even for a day, and she liked riding with Burt, seeing new parts of the state, and helping him search through dusty county records.

Late one summer night they were coming back from Bentrock, where they'd spent the day in the basement of the courthouse, when they came upon an accident. A car had flipped over into the ditch. Broken glass and twisted chrome glittered in the gravel along the shoulder of the road, and the beam of one headlight stared off crazily into the night sky.

Burt grabbed a flashlight to investigate and told Beverly to stay in the car. She understood that he didn't want her to see what gruesome sight might be waiting in the wreck, and his concern touched her, even through her fear for the car's occupants.

She did as her husband instructed, but it was difficult; curiosity and a desire to be of some use kept trying to propel her from the car.

She was startled by someone who suddenly appeared in the ditch, stepping high over the tall grass and coming her way.

It was a young man, and when he saw Beverly he said, smiling, “Can you give me a hand? I ran into some trouble here.”

She called for Burt, and he came running. They soon got the young man's story. He had been in a baseball tournament in North Dakota, and he was on his way to his home in Livingston, Montana. He must have dozed off, he said, and missed the curve. When the car rolled, he was thrown clear, and he came to in the weeds. He wasn't injured seriously, he insisted, nothing more than a few scratches on his hands and face and “a hell of a bellyache.” He reeked of beer, and though his speech was slurred, he made no effort to stop talking. “If my mama hears me complaining of a bellyache I'll get a dose of castor oil. I hate that castor oil!” They took him back to Bentrock, delivering him to the sheriff who assured Burt and Beverly that the young man would receive medical attention—whether he wanted it or not.

Weeks later, over breakfast, Beverly said to Burt, “I wonder whatever happened to that young fellow who rolled his car.” It was nothing more than an idle comment.

Burt barely looked up from his eggs. “He died.”

“Died? When—how do you know?”

“He died the very next day. Internal injuries, the sheriff said. Not a damn thing they could do. He gave me a call at the office.”

“And you didn't think—what?—that I should know? Why didn't you tell me?”

“I'm telling you now.”

Perhaps most people would have taken from that incident a lesson about the danger of driving Montana's highways at night or the fragility of the body's organs, but what Beverly learned was that what might seem to be gallantry could be just another way for a man to control what a woman sees and knows. She climbs out of Calvin's truck.

BEVERLY FINDS CALVIN IN
the backyard, crouched over a couple of sagging cardboard boxes filled with hunks of greasy iron and steel. Nearby another disabled car—this one with at least two flat tires—crushes what little is left of the grass. This automobile—Beverly believes it's a Studebaker—looks to have once been maroon, but its paint has oxidized and the finish is fading in places to a shade that isn't far from the color of lilacs.

Calvin startles at her approach, but he doesn't get up, not immediately. “I told you I'd let you know if I needed you.” It takes some effort for him to push himself to his feet.

“You said you'd signal me. But you never told me what the signal was. For all I knew, you being gone for more than ten minutes might have been it.”

He points down at the boxes. “Damn near all the parts I'd need to rebuild my carburetor.”

“Well, maybe after you bend that tire iron over his head you could work out a deal to buy some spare parts.”

He gives her a long stern look. “Go wait in the truck. I'll be right along.”

Beverly is aware that the smile she gives him is the same one she would shine on Ivan Kuntz just before she pinched a sizable hunk of skin on his arm and led him off to the principal's office. “We might as well walk together.”

Back in the truck, Calvin rolls a cigarette, but before he puts it to his lips, he offers it to her.

What a strange set of manners this man has, thinks Beverly. “Thanks,” she says, “but I don't smoke.”

He licks its seam once more before lighting it. “And if you did, you wouldn't smoke these.”

“I like the smell. My father smoked a pipe, and his tobacco had a similar aroma.”

He scratches a match into flame, lights the cigarette, and inhales deeply. “On the job I smoke tailor-­mades. No foreman wants to see someone stepping off to roll himself a smoke.”

“The foreman . . . that's not you? Ever?”

“I've never been anything but a hired hand.”

“And that's the way you want it?”

“It is.”

Beverly isn't trying to send Calvin a message, but once again the springs poking her butt make her move closer to him. “If you don't mind my saying so,” she says, “I have trouble imagining you taking orders.”

“Those of us who take orders don't have to take on the order-­givers' responsibilities.”

“You told me you're looking to take as much pleasure out of life as you can. Do you also mean to avoid as much responsibility as you can?”

“I'd just as soon keep the weight off my shoulders, if that's what you're asking.”

“For a man who doesn't want responsibilities, you sure took on a few when you came back to town this time.”

There hasn't been a car driving this street for at least five minutes, but Calvin still leans out his window to look up and down the street for any sign of activity. Fine, Beverly thinks, don't answer me.

“Do you mind telling me what we're doing right now?” she asks. “And I'm not talking about responsibilities. I mean, why are we parked on Lanier Avenue staring at a house with nobody in it?”

“We're waiting.”

“For how long? What if I have to be somewhere?”

“Like where?”

“I'm on the school library board. We usually meet today.”

The skirt of Beverly's sundress is partially spread across the seat, and Calvin pinches a bit of the fabric between his thumb and index finger. “Is that why you're all dressed up today? For the library board?”

“We usually meet at the Harmon House. They provide a lunch for us.”

He doesn't let go of her dress. Instead, he tugs gently on it. “That's the second time you've used the word ‘usually.'
Does
your board meet today?”

“You are paying uncommonly close attention to my choice of words, sir.”

“I sometimes go a week or more without hearing a human voice. That's good training for listening close.” Now he rubs her dress between his fingers as though he's assessing the strength and quality of the material. “And you still haven't answered my question: Do you have a board meeting today?”

Merely considering a lie is enough to make her flush. “No. But I could still have something planned for today. Something that doesn't include staring at—” she looks again at the letter—“Brenda Cady's house.”

He lets go of her dress. “It's not her house.”

“I know whose house it is. And you know what I meant. Do you have a length of time in mind for staying here? An hour? Two? Twenty-­four?”

“If you need to be somewhere, I'll take you. I can find my way back.”

Beverly twists up a handful of hair at the back of her neck and lifts it to let any trace of a breeze cool her sweat. She lets out a sigh of resignation. “Mr. Sidey. The dress was for you. And the casserole that's sitting on your cupboard right now was nothing but an excuse to come over to see you. So I guess I got what I wanted out of the day: Time alone with you. Although I was hoping the circumstances would be a little different.”

He flips his cigarette into the street. “I appreciate your attentions.”

“My attentions? You appreciate my
attentions
? Oh my, I'll float on those words for a week!” She leans toward Calvin Sidey in an attempt to make him look at her. “Tell me: Have there been other women in your life recently?”

“White women, do you mean?”

The broken spring be damned—Beverly has to slide away from the man who makes such a remark. “A woman, Mr. Sidey. Any kind, any size. Any living, breathing woman. Have you had relations with another woman in the last, oh, ten years?”

He turns his intent gaze on her. “There's a woman who cooks and cleans on the Jarman ranch, not far from me. We've occasionally found ourselves in each other's company. She's a Blackfoot. That's a distinction that matters to some folks.”

“But not to you?”

He shrugs. “I saw fit to mention it, so maybe it does.”

Beverly is responsible for the silence that now fills the truck's cab. She can't give voice to her next thought both because she's ashamed of herself for thinking it and because she's afraid of how he might answer. She doesn't ask, And am I more to you than she is?