Authors: Newton Thornburg
“Christ, that was fun,” Shea said. “I can see why you wanted to be a rancher, Robert. Especially that part where you get to ride the bull until he tosses you twenty feet on your ass. That was nifty.”
“You liked that, huh?”
“Oh yes. Great sport. A masochist's debauch.”
“It's not for everyone.”
“I got that feeling.”
“You seem to have cooled off,” Blanchard said to him.
“Naturally, with my sweet nature.”
“You think you can keep it sweet?”
“You mean no more performances like last night?”
“That's what I mean.”
“No more. I promise. If anyone strikes me, I'll turn the other cheek.”
“I'm serious.”
“Me too. You've got nothing to worry about. Okay?”
Blanchard nodded, and Shea swung up into the cab of the truck. As he started the engine, Blanchard followed Ronda
around to the passenger's side. In the headlights from the other trucks he saw that there had been no change in her. She looked somber, and her eyes avoided his.
“You all right?” he asked.
“I'll be fine.” She climbed up into the cab.
“I'll see you tomorrow night at your place,” he said.
She nodded.
“Take care.”
And she looked at him now, even smiled, a kind of smile anyway. “I will,” she said, pulling the door closed.
Then the engine revved and the truck moved forward, following the others. Above the roar of the engines Blanchard could hear the cattle, the angry beller of the cows, the bawling of the calves. Then the sound diminished and finally died as one by one the huge semis lumbered off through the woods, like a column of mastadons.
When they were gone, Blanchard put the metal feedbunks and his trail bike back into the pickup. He started to unwire the panels and then thought better of it, reasoning that they would be one more piece of evidence that the cattle had been loaded out of the corral, and therefore had been stolen. The insurance company, he knew, would not pay off on what it called “mysterious disappearance.” There had to be evidence of theft. And there was no reason to worry that the panels could be traced to him. Every rancher had them, and he himself had at least a dozen more.
So he made one last check, scouring the area in the truck's headlights, looking for anything he might have forgotten, any items that could have been tied in with him or the others. But there was nothing, only the thousands of hoofprints, the battered corral, and the tire tracks of the semis. Satisfied, he got into his pickup and drove out through the woods lane to the county road, again taking the long way home, almost three miles longer. And he was grateful for the distance, for it gave
him time to try to gather up the pieces of himself and stick them back together, in the hope that he could deceive his brother, pass himself off as the same man he was before.
As he drove up to the house, Tommy came running out to greet him so recklessly he stumbled and fell in front of the truck. Blanchard braked in time, but he was still trembling when Tommy clambered inside.
“You okay?” he asked him.
Tommy nodded, smiling. “I sure glad you're back.”
“Sorry it took so long.”
“I sure glad you're back,” he said again.
Blanchard drove on to the barn and unloaded the pickup. Then he took the empty feedsacks and burned them in the incinerator, hoping Tommy would not ask how they came to be empty. Instead Tommy asked what had happened to him, why he was so dirty.
“Some guy's cows got out on the road over near Ronda's. I helped round them up.”
“And you fell down?”
“Something like that.”
Back in the house, Blanchard took a shower and changed his clothes. Then he made hot cocoa for Tommy. He put marshmallows on top of it and served it with packaged powdered doughnuts.
Tommy smiled happily. “You sure good to me.”
“Yeah, I'm a real prince.”
“You a real prince,” Tommy echoed.
Blanchard made a double scotch and water and sagged into the chair across from his brother. Before he finished it, the phone rang. It was Susan.
She asked how he was and he said he was getting by, nothing more.
“How about you?” he asked. “And Whit?”
“We're doing fine,” she said. “Except that we miss you. Very much. Do you miss us?”
“Of course I do.”
“When are you coming to see us, then?”
“As soon as I can.”
“And when might that be?”
“You know I'm tied up now, Susan. There's a lot of hay to be put up yet. And I'll have to be testing for Bang's.”
“Then you do have it,” she said.
“Yes.”
“And what about the bank? Did Gideon extend the notes?”
“I don't know yet.”
She was silent for a few moments. “I have a feeling you do know,” she said finally. “And it's negative. I have the feeling it's all over for you there, and you know it, but you're too stubborn to admit it.”
“What else is new?”
She asked him if he wanted to talk with his son.
“Of course. Put him on.”
The boy spoke haltingly, like a child being forced to speak with a stranger. He told Blanchard about his swimming and that his grandfather had bought him a set of golf clubs and that he was learning to play the game at the country club. Blanchard said that sounded like fun, and then he told the boy that he missed him very much. Whit asked him when he was coming home.
“I
am
home, son.”
Whit started to cry.
Susan came on again. “Well, you haven't lost your touch,” she said. “You always make him so happy.”
“Yeah, I know.”
She told him that she had been talking with the new management at Darling and it looked as if she might be able to get
her old job back in the broadcast department. “At a very healthy salary,” she added. “Isn't that good news?”
“Terrific,” he said. “I'm happy for you.”
She told him that she was going to send him a list of the furniture and art objects and other items she wanted, and would he mind having them ready for a mover to come and pick them up. “I'll pay the mover,” she added.
“Was that all?” he asked.
“I think so. For now anyway. Take care of yourself.”
“You, too.”
After he hung up, Tommy asked him when Susan and Whit would be coming home and he said he was not sure. He finished his drink and then told Tommy that it was time for bed.
“I ain't tired,” Tommy said.
“Sure you are. We both are.”
Tommy looked at him. “You going out again?”
He
was
going out of course, to the Sweet Creek to establish an alibi in case the police questioned him later about where he had been and what he had done on the night the cattle were stolen. But he had reached the point where it was getting hard for him to stand there and say yes, he was going out, and then watch his brother fighting to smile instead of cry.
“No, probably not,” he said. “I think I'll stay home tonight. But listen, Tommy, even if I changed my mind and you woke up later and found I wasn't here, that's no reason to be afraid, is it? Because I'll always come back. I'll always be here.”
Tommy nodded. “You always be here.”
“So there'd be no reason to be upset.”
“No reason.”
“That's right.”
Tommy smiled hopefully. “But you ain't going out tonight, huh?”
Blanchard smiled too, in spite of himself. “I don't think so, Tommy,” he said. “Come on, let's get you in bed.”
It was almost eleven when he arrived at the Sweet Creek, and he had to wait another five minutes before Reagan deigned to wait on him.
“I don't s'pose you know where Ronda is,” the bar-owner said, bringing him a beer.
“No, I thought I'd find her here.”
“Well, she ain't here. And she ain't to home either. I been callin' her all night long and no one answers.”
“Maybe she's at her grandmother's.”
“I tried the old lady's number, too.”
“I got no idea, then. If I see her, I'll tell her you've been trying to reach her.”
“You do that.”
Blanchard lit a cigarette. “That was some affair last night,” he said. “How'd Jiggs make out? Is he in a hospital?”
“He's at home.”
“He's okay, then?”
Reagan gave a laugh. “Oh sure, he's just fineâexcept for a busted arm and nose and a concussion and one eye he cain't see out of.”
“I was afraid of that.”
“You was, was ya?”
“Yeah. Shea doesn't know his own strength.”
“Yessir, that's some buddy you got there. He's a million laughs, ain't he?”
“I guess he thinks so.”
Shaking his head, Reagan went back down the bar. He leaned forward and said something to the regulars, something that made them laugh. A couple looked over at Blanchard, grinning, enjoying his isolation. And Blanchard wondered what he was doing there, why he was fighting so hard to
remain in this backwoods where he was not wanted, and knew he never would be.
The next morning a storm front moved through the area, darkening the sky at first and then turning it a brief yellow in those dead oppressive moments before the wind came, like a tidal wave of air surging over the distant rim of hills and striking the old farmhouse and the oaks surrounding it, massive trees that bent like saplings, creaking and soughing in the raging air, raining branches and leaves all over the yard. And then just as suddenly the wind was gone and the sky was black again, rumbling and crashing as the first few drops began to fall, splatting in the yard and on the roof like snowballs for a few seconds before the rain began in earnest, a cataract so heavy Blanchard could barely see his black cattle down the hill standing with their heads lowered and their pinbones to the wind and the water.
Hour by hour the storm went on, letting up for a while every now and then only to redouble its fury moments later. Twice during the day hail fell, so intensely Blanchard did not doubt that somewhere in the Ozarks a farm or small town or trailer park was being decimated by a tornado. And occasionally as he stood looking out through the rain sheeting over the windows, he would see long black fingers dangling from the wall of clouds passing overhead, and he would find himself wondering if one of them might not reach all the way down and touch him, single him out for a just retribution.
Through most of the day Tommy watched television, the one channel whose signal was strong enough to come through despite the storm. But it was obvious to Blanchard that his brother was not really interested in the shows that were playing or in the toys he had spread out on the floor. Almost every time Blanchard glanced his way he would catch Tommy looking at him, with a worried expression. And Blanchard knew
why. During bad weather it was not his custom to stay indoors. In fact it was the one time above all others when he felt he had to be out checking the cattle, making sure they had feed and driving them to shelter if he could, especially any animal that looked sick, a possible prey to pneumonia. But on this day Blanchard did not even venture outside. He listened to the markets on the radio, and he kept refilling his glass of scotch and water. He smoked cigarette after cigarette, and he stood at the window looking out at the stormâwithout really seeing it. What he saw instead were the four trucks and their drivers, and his cattle jammed into the rickety trailers. Could they have been unloaded yet? he kept wondering. Could they already have started through the sale ring? Would they bring “top dollar”? Would Ronda get the check in time to cash it at a bank there? And, finally, would the three of them manage to be back that night, as planned, to divide the money at Ronda's trailer?
There were times when he thought the rain falling just outside the window was answer enough, a sure augury of what was to happen to his own fortunes. But that, he knew, was more than a little stupid, in fact was nothing less than that hoary old villain the pathetic fallacy. And anyway, in a rancher's life rain was almost always a blessing, he reminded himself, the very precondition of his survival. In any case, he knew there was nothing he could do about it except tough it out, wait it out. And maybe, just maybe, it would all come right in the end.
Every time he refilled his glass Tommy would ask him what was wrong.
“Nothing,” he would say.
“Should we check the cows?”
“No, they're all right.”
Tommy would nod as if he understood, but Blanchard could see that he did not, that he was still troubled.
For supper Blanchard heated two TV dinners but found that he could not eat his, that his stomach was in no shape for such a labor. So he stayed with his scotch and somehow managed to get through the evening, to ten o'clock and bedtime for Tommy. This time he told him that he would be going out, to Ronda's, but only for a while, and that he would be home by midnight.
On the way he tried to drive slowly, knowing that he had drunk more alcohol than he was used to and that the road was wet, but his foot seemed to have a will of its own and within a short time he was there. He was the
only
one there, however. Her mobile home was dark and when he checked the door he found it locked. So he went back to the car to wait. The storm was over now but the sky was still overcast, a vault of blackness deepened if anything by the lone polelight burning across the river road at Ronda's grandmother's place. And to that single light he added the burning coals of cigarettes, one after another, as he sat smoking and waiting, trying not to think about all the things that could have gone wrong.
By eleven-thirty he decided to go to the Sweet Creek to see if by any chance the others had stopped off there to celebrate. He knew it was an absurd idea, that they would not have had anything to celebrate until the job was finished and the money divided. And even then, Shea and Ronda would not choose the Sweet Creekâhe knew that. But he went there anyway and had a couple of beers. And he called Ronda's number twice, each time letting the phone ring ten or twelve times before he hung up. Finally he drove back to her trailer and this time sat it out, waiting until almost three in the morning before he gave up and returned to the ranch. Even then he kept calling her number every fifteen minutes or so. And he got out the bottle of scotch again and sat drinking in the dark. Once, on the way to the phone, he knocked over a lamp and Tommy came hurrying downstairs to see what had happened. Blanchard
angrily told him to go back to bed and stay there, and Tommy went, like Spot or Kitty fleeing him.