Fourth of July Creek (20 page)

The judge was a long time coming up, pausing, at times asking, then practically begging Pete to come down to him. When he arrived next to Pete he panted, furiously unbuttoned his coat and vest, loosened his tie.

“You’re a goddamn ass,” he said.

“You’re fat.”

“I can lose weight. What are you gonna do?”

The judge breathed heavily for some time longer and then procured a dip of tobacco.

“Where the hell’s your brother?”

“On the lam.”

“Because of the fight with the parole officer. I heard. But where is he really?”

“I don’t know,” Pete lied, in the vague wish that it were true that he didn’t know, that he didn’t have an address.

“He should be here,” the judge said.

“I said I don’t know where he is,” Pete said. “It’s not my job to know where he goes to ground when he fucks up.”

“I didn’t say it was, Pete.”

“Sorry.”

They could see various people eat from paper plates on the front porch of the house.

“Not a drop of alcohol down there,” the judge said. “Reminds me of the time I was at a fund-raiser with these blue hairs out in Dillon. A little luncheon. I ask is there anything with a little kick to drink. And this old lady says to me,
We don’t approve of alcohol.
And I says,
Well, ma’am, we need to remember Jesus did turn water to wine.
And she says,
And we’re none too crazy about that stunt, neither
.”

The judge punched Pete’s arm.

“That’s funny.”

“I can tell. You’re in stitches.”

“I’m at a wake.”

“You’re uphill of one.”

Dyson arced a brown bullet of spit that plashed a plate of stone.

“Mom would hate this.”

“Yeah, I don’t think she’d be much pleased to bury your father.”

“Bunnie. This Jesus stuff, I mean. When we put Grandpa in the ground, the preacher just said a few words and that was it. What was that gibberish they were singing when I was walking away?”

“I think they were talking in tongues.”

“What the hell is that?”

“Like you’ve never been around religious people.”

“Not in my own
family
. Even Luke.”

“Well, that one could use a good dose of religion.”

“No, he needs a dose of jail.”

The judge put his hand on Pete’s arm.

“Your pa just died. You’re upset. It’s all right.”

“No, it’s not. Let me tell you something about Charles Snow,” Pete said. “When his truck ran him over, he wasn’t thinking it was a great goddamned opportunity to get some other son of a bitch into heaven too.”

A laugh escaped the judge and he tried to cover it with a cough.

“I never heard anything so stupid in all my life,” Pete said.

Wes Reynolds exited the house. They watched him cross the yard, look up the hill, and then hike to them.

“Who’s the fella in the cast?” the judge asked.

“The PO.”

They watched him make his way up, and then try to stay balanced just down from them, teetering on the incline, his cast throwing off his balance somewhat. Pete introduced him to the judge.

“I know Judge Dyson. One of your father’s friends,” he said, hiking the last few feet up to shake the judge’s hand. A red yolk of blood on the white of his eye.

Pete thanked him for coming.

“It was a good service.”

“I didn’t care for it,” Pete said.

“I can imagine. It’s a sad time,” Wes said. “But it’s good to get everybody together. To see people you haven’t seen in a long time. Friends and relations. Most of ’em anyhow.”

“He ain’t here,” Pete said.

“Who’s that?”

“You know who.”

Wes sniffed, looked off.

“We just come to pay our respects, Pete. It’s like a whole era ended today.”

“What in the hell is that supposed to mean?” the judge asked.

“It means what it means. It means Charles Snow can’t protect his sons no more.”

Pete stood, grabbed Wes, and pushed him backward so that the only thing keeping him from tumbling down the steepness behind him was Pete’s grip on his belt. Wes paddled the air trying to regain his balance.

“My father never called in a single favor for us. Any slack we were cut was because he was a mean fucking son of a bitch, and I’m glad he’s in the goddamn ground.”

“Pete,” the judge said, perhaps more at the disparagement of Pete’s father than at what he was doing to Wes, who now grabbed Pete’s wrist with his good hand.

“And Luke,” Pete went on, “was in jail on my wedding day and has just missed his own father’s funeral because he couldn’t stop himself from kicking your ass.” Pete swung Wes into the hillside, where he winced, landing on his shoulder instead of his cast. “I’m not protecting anybody.”

Pete hid in the outbuilding until the last of the mourners and condolers left, sitting in the quitting light with the discarded horse tack, bits and bridles, coils of rope, wooden pallets, old glassware, carboys, and reams of tar paper. Then he went up to the house. Bunnie’s cats dashed under the porch at his approach. She was at the dishes.

“I’m gonna head home.”

“All right,” she said, drying her hands.

He didn’t know what to say to her. She set the towel by.

“I don’t want anything from here,” he said. “If Luke ever comes back, you can work it out with him. But you won’t get any trouble from me.”

She turned to the sink and seemed to be crying or about to, but when she looked up, all he saw was ferocity and fear, like he’d come to take something from her rather than just the opposite.

How is Austin?

It is a cute little bungalow in a funny neighborhood of hippies and college kids. A room for each of them and their things and otherwise furnished throughout, colorful towels and antique furniture, cacti and pots and pans and spices. A cat that comes and goes. Bright Mexican tile. Tins and colored glass in the trees. A bird feeder and hummingbirds.

It’s shining water at Barton Springs, the two of them lazing on the grass, marveling at this Texas October.

It’s brunch. Huevos and tortillas.

It’s her mother leaving at four in the afternoon to work her shift at the bar and not coming back until three in the morning.

Is Rachel alone?

There’s a deal. Her mother calls at ten to see that she’s going to bed. Says,
You better be getting in bed.

I will if you let me off the phone.

You have school in the morning. You can’t skip tomorrow.

You’re the one who always wants me to stay home with you.

What?

Nothing. Good night.

Go to bed.

That’s what I said.

What?

Good night.

Are there already people at the house?

Not yet. But in the coming weeks there will be. She is getting good at this.

At what?

At making introductions, fast friends. At playing host. At pretending the place is all hers. At kicking everyone out at two in the morning and cleaning up.

Covering her tracks.

Yes. She won’t drink. She will hold the same can of Lone Star all night. She likes being part of something, even just a party, a clique. But of her choosing. Not just mother, father.

Does she think of her father?

Yes. Certain guys will remind her of him. A laugh. A build.

Does she miss him?

She will remember with a certain curiosity that she used to.

In Waco?

Before that.

When he went to Tenmile.

Before that.

When she was a little girl. She used to favor him, the way girls sometimes favor their fathers over their mothers. She would pine for him when he was gone all day and into the night. And later, when she was older and started to understand what he did for a living, she would wonder why does he help these other families when I miss him so much when I need him here why does he have to be the one?

Does she feel that now?

No. She quit a while ago.

When?

When she realized that he chose the job, that he wanted to be there for the other families. That he didn’t want to be there for the one he had.

That’s not true. Does she really think that?

What else could she possibly think?

T
hey often slept deep into the day so complete was the dark, but come this morning bars of light cut the room and woke him. Ell was sitting cross-legged in front of a guy, a skinny blond guy with a wispy dandelion mustache and beard, tattoos on his long fingers, fingers that were feeling her arms, her hair, her face. Cecil stifled a cough. Ell looked over. Then the guy, slowly turning his head to Cecil but not looking away from her until the last second.

“Bear, this is Cecil,” she said.

“Cool,” he said.

Bear had a little money. They went to the Safeway for donuts. Bear and Ell ate on a spot of grass by the road and held hands, and from time to time Bear put his head on her belly and listened. He cupped his hands over her bump and spoke into them and tapped out soft beats on his baby’s entire world. He tickled her. The leaves were quitting the trees.

Cecil was scared. He knew they were going even before Ell asked did he want to come with them to a place out in Hamilton. A little house they could stay in. They were set for a few months there if he needed a place. Bear was rubbing her neck as she explained these things and his fingers made her eyes roll back in her head like she was a puppet. This was distracting. He wanted Bear to quit touching her and knew he had no right to want that. Still, it didn’t seem okay that you could touch a person and they’d be helpless to it.

The taste of his mother’s mouth, wet burned peppermint, was always on his tongue.

“I think I might just stay in that spot of yours, try my luck here in Missoula. I’m gettin’ the hang of downtown,” he said, spitting onto the curb.

“You sure?”

He nodded. She smiled dimly at something Bear did behind her ears.

“Bear and I think you should come,” she said. “You don’t got anybody here.”

“Neither do I got anybody in Hamilton.”

That this hurt her feelings was plain, which made him feel better, briefly. Then mean.

“I met you,” he offered. “I bet somebody else turns up.”

She went into the grocery. He and Bear stood together, not much looking at one another, let alone saying a word. She returned with a pen and came back with an address written on a piece of sack paper.

“It’s not far,” she said. “You can catch a ride out there and find us, you want to.”

Bear shook his hand and thanked him.

“I owe you,” he said.

Cecil asked for what, but Ell hugged him, said something in his ear, but he was too far gone to hear it.

Cecil watched the department store ladies undress the mannequins in the windows of the Bon Marché. They took off the arms and set them on the floor. An old hunched cowboy walking spraddle-legged with his wife winked at him and jerked a thumb at the nude armless bodies in the window.

Cecil walked along the river, down through a tangle of brush for want of anything at all to do. He came upon a pair of men at something by the water, but it wasn’t fishing. One spotted him upstream on the broken concrete and rebar that made the upper shore of the river. The men spoke and then they both stood watching him. Cecil was afraid they would follow him if he left, so he hazarded a mild nod and squatted and looked innocently out over the water.

One of the men called out something Cecil couldn’t hear. The man said it again or something else entirely. Cecil shook his head no, and started to climb back up through the Russian olive and bullrush. He heard the man shout and he scampered up the rocks and flailed through the small trees and didn’t stop running until he made West Broadway and all the traffic there.

Two nights later the board to his building had fallen. He held the bag of produce he’d selected from a Dumpster and stood in the alley facing the building for some time, unsure what to do. His blankets and few utensils. He set the sack under a small tree and crept to the hole. The board had been put aside and shadows wavered in the laughter of the men who made them.

He walked up and down the tracks working up his courage. The men went quiet before he reached the hole, were already regarding him with candlelit bearded faces, hazardous eyes.

“Hi. I left some things . . .”

The men drank from their beers. None spoke.

“I think I left some things in here.”

“Come in and have a look around,” one of them said.

Cecil hadn’t thought that far ahead. How he’d negotiate his things out of the room. If objections arose. You go in, you might not ever come out.

He trotted away. They didn’t even laugh, he was so insignificant.

He went up Orange and over to Higgins heading toward the river again. It was cool, might not be too cold to find a spot under the bridge. He eyed fire escapes, the unlit windows of the offices above the street. Then he spotted Pete and a pretty woman inside the Oxford at a poker table. He couldn’t believe his luck, was in fact afraid to mess with it, and so he just looked through the window at him, but Pete was hunched over his cards, the woman talking in his ear. A cup of coffee appeared at his elbow, and he drank it and never once looked out the window. At last Cecil opened the door, but the bartender happened to look up from his wiping and shook his head no at him.