by April Smith
“Never complain about you,” T.W. said, making doe eyes and pulling on her sleeve.
“Get away from me.”
Shirley Hix was groomed. Every night she did her hair in rollers and rubbed her hands with cold cream because they were in hot water all day. She wore jeans and boots like everybody else, but tight around the waist, as if she were still in those jeans when they got washed and kept them on to dry. She was no less pretty than the high school cheerleader she’d been twenty-five years ago, and well aware of being the only lady there—except for goofy Lucille Thurlow—yet if a man expressed interest, she would smack him down with a stare as mean as a hind kick from a lazy horse.
“What can I get you, Dutch?”
“Coffee and cherry pie.”
Shirley looked at Cal. Looked right through him, really.
“For you?”
“Same. Coffee.”
“No pie?”
“No, thanks.”
Her face screwed up into a hostile stare. “You don’t want any pie?”
Cal realized his mistake.
“Sure, I’ll take some pie. Apple,” he added meekly, as she showed him her back.
“I got stuck in the mud three times,” T.W. was repeating, as he tucked into his one-dollar roast beef dinner.
Ignored up to now, Cal saw his moment and jumped in. Putting his forearms on the table, he leaned toward T.W. in a friendly way, as if he’d known him all his life.
“I’m right there with you, buddy. We got stuck the first night I got here with my wife and kids. Luckily Randy Sturgis came by and pulled us out.”
At this offhand mention of a local, the weathered faces around the table came up and shot skeptical looks at Cal.
Who the hell are you?
“Randy drives a flathead six, far as I know,” Charlie pronounced. “What’d you guess is the horsepower on that thing, Spanky?”
“Couldn’t pull a mole out of a molehill.”
The others chuckled. Cal was unfazed.
“Sorry, gentlemen. I misspoke. Randy didn’t pull the wagon out, but he did drive us over to the Roys’. Otherwise, we’d still be there.”
“How in hell would you know Randy?” Charlie demanded.
Cal shrugged. “We just met.”
There was silence. Dutch took his time putting three sugars in the coffee Shirley had set down. The table was littered with used white mugs, but out of spite, it seemed, she left them there.
“This is Calvin Kusek,” Dutch said finally. “He’s a big lawyer from New York City, out here for an education about the regular world, and he’s getting one, ain’t you, son?”
Cal smiled his most priestly smile, full of gentleness and humility. “Yes, sir. Every day.”
“Why, he just witnessed his first broke-down tractor.”
This sparked laughter and a bevy of suggestions and complaints about the starters on 1947 Ford 8N tractors, until Dutch waved them off.
“I ain’t worried, because Cal’s gonna find the answer. You know how? He’s reading the manual!”
Cal took the hooting and laughter good-naturedly. In fact he welcomed it. He sat back and let them poke each other and roll their eyes, urging Dutch to let them know the minute the city boy got the tractor rolling again. Initiation, he thought. That’s good.
“How are you and Dutch related?” T.W. asked shyly, for family was the only way he knew.
“We’re not, but almost.” Dutch became solemn. “You see, Cal was with Scotty in the service,” he continued in a respectful tone. “He’s the pilot who flew the plane.”
That changed everything. They all stood up at once and there were congratulations all around.
“I flew an old Jenny biplane back in World War I!” Charlie declared, shaking Cal’s hand.
“You were on the mission in France?” said Spanky.
“Italy,” said Cal.
“Dutch told us all about it. Friendly fire, wasn’t it?”
“Scotty tells it better,” T.W. interrupted. “How he parachuted down right in the middle of the American army on the beach and told those fellas they was making a terrible mistake and to stop firing at their own planes.”
This was news to Cal. It was nine years ago, but he could still recite the coordinates where his paratroopers were deployed, and there was no doubt they’d been inside Italy, well behind enemy lines and nowhere near the beachhead, where Scotty Roy claimed to have jumped and single-handedly warned the Allies to stop shooting their own guys.
“He says he landed with the Americans?” Cal asked, completely perplexed.
Somewhere inside the auction barn a bell was ringing.
“We better go,” said Dutch, getting up.
But the ice had been broken.
“So what brings a New York City lawyer to South Dakota?” Spanky asked in a decidedly warmer tone.
Dutch threw some coins on the table. “He wants to be a millionaire rancher,” he said.
“If you want to be a millionaire rancher,” Charlie suggested drily, “you better start with two million.”
6
They left the café and joined the crush in the hallway heading for the auction. Like their animals, the ranchers ambled along in a sociable pack: big-boned, cowboy-hatted, wearing brown or denim work jackets and jeans, boots encrusted with the ubiquitous dried manure of Pennington County. With Cal and Dutch somewhere in the crowd ahead, the regulars were able to regroup and compare notions about the newcomer.
Charlie spoke his mind right off: “What’s Dutch doing with that egghead?”
“Just havin’ some fun,” answered Vaughn Anders, the unsmiling hunter.
“Show some respect. Mr. Kusek is a war hero,” Spanky reminded them. “What kind of a name is Kusek?”
“Jew?”
“Maybe.”
“I wanted to join the army,” T.W. remarked. “But they said my eyes ain’t good.”
Charlie looked skeptical. “Then how come you can shoot a rattlesnake at twenty feet? I seen you do it. What do those signs say over there?”
T.W. stared at the words BUYERS and SELLERS and shrugged.
“Dunno. Can’t read ’em.”
“He can’t read, period,” Spanky snorted.
The shutters had been opened and the office was all lit up and buzzing with anxious customers. Whatever tension arose from the unfamiliar task (for cowboys) of filling out paperwork was cheerily handled by a pair of blowsy gals, who knew everyone by name, property, wife, kids, grandparents, and church affiliation. While business was carried on politely enough, you couldn’t miss the cutthroat competition among the dozens of buyers entering the arena, strong as the smell of horse piss and sweat.
Very quickly Cal came to appreciate why the men had kept their coats on in the café. Inside the sale barn there was no source of heat. They might as well have been standing around in the freezing weather outside. Instead of outside, though, the crowd of grubby working cowhands was ensconced in grandeur, and that was the oddest thing: the seating arrangements.
Dutch explained that when Shirley Hix’s late husband, Woody, who owned the local feed store, bought the sale barn in 1946, he’d made a deal with a defunct movie theater in Rapid City, which allowed him to outfit the place with old-fashioned tiers of fancy ironwork seats. Cal found it entertaining to watch the rough, tough cattlemen squeeze themselves onto narrow red velvet cushions with barely enough room to cross their timber-like legs, as if they were waiting for a Hollywood double feature, or a fund-raising speech by a well-heeled candidate, when actually what they were looking at was a sawdust pit where live commodities were up for sale—as primitive as it gets—and not that different from the political arena, when he thought about it.
The main event started right on time, with a crash of metal doors as a brown bull with a big white chest and massive horns was chased out of the holding pen. A groundsman waved a white flag to maneuver him to the center of the pit, shouting, “SHHHA-SHHHA!” while the auctioneer took off at nin
ety miles an hour in a nasal whine Cal could barely comprehend.
“Goodageyoungbullverygoodyoungthingbidderbidderbidderbidder.”
Dutch leaned over to explain. “The trick is to know if they need more pasture time, versus the market price per pound.”
Cal could see nothing about the bull to indicate whether it needed more pasture time. It looked like a muscular brown prizefighter in top condition. A straight-faced clerk pointed with both outstretched hands at certain men in the audience who didn’t seem to be doing anything, but in less than thirty seconds it was announced that the bull had been sold, and it was shooed out the exit door. Cal was stumped. Along with Whiskey the dog, who knew when to stay and when to follow, the buyers had invisibly communicated with the auctioneer. Was everyone in South Dakota born with mental telepathy?
Cal realized that enterprise here was not carried out with words; you didn’t win with an eloquent argument in court, or by making brilliant conversation at the dinner table of a powerful city commissioner. Like the sensitive prairie with its fine-tuned climates of sandy, rocky, grassy, and dry, he’d have to look a lot harder to read the signs. When he really paid attention to the subtleties of this assemblage, he began to notice the dip of a pen over there and a thumb wag down front, signaling the bids. You needed a sharp eye to pick up on the action, but it was there—camouflaged to hide the game from adversaries. The men held crumpled scraps of paper literally close to their chests, on which they scrawled pencil marks to tally up their holdings. In a glassed-in phone booth, a man spoke animatedly with his back toward the arena so nobody could read his lips, Cal assumed. Dutch pointed out that he was a buyer for a big meatpacker in Chicago with thousands of dollars at his disposal.
“That’s who I got to compete with,” Dutch said. “Aw, hell. Lee Brothers’ Red Angus is up next, and Hayley Vance from the air force just walked in. Run interference for me, will you, son? Keep him busy.”
Hayley Vance was easy to spot at the open door, exhaling great gusts of steam, wearing a dark blue air force uniform with the chevron of a senior noncommissioned officer, and shamelessly overweight. Relieved to be doing something useful, Cal scrambled down the aisle and introduced himself as a friend of Dutch Roy’s, offering his hand.
“Pleased to meet you, Master Sergeant Vance.”
Master Sergeant Vance’s chapped lips spread in a crinkly grin, enjoying the recognition of his rank, which didn’t happen often except by another airman.
“You’re air force?” he asked Cal.
“I served with the Eighty-Second.”
“Where were you stationed?”
“North Africa. I was a second lieutenant transport pilot.”
“What’d you fly?”
“The old reliable C-53.”
Master Sergeant Vance agreed. “Could not have won the war without those birds.”
His complexion was fair, with the kind of unlucky facial skin that peels off in patches. Although he stood erect with military posture, there was a good-sized belly beneath the wool serge uniform; he had pudgy fingers and the bureaucratic savvy of someone with no talent whose livelihood depended on the laziness of others. As long as he kept the commanding officers distracted from looking too deeply, nobody would notice Hayley Vance. His career could slide through the system like the smooth pour from a can of motor oil. No clunking, and nothing would stick. Case in point: the sweet deal he had going between the air force and the Crazy Eights Ranch, which paid dividends to Hayley Vance in the form of cash bonuses from the owner, Dutch Roy.
“Hang on!” he now exclaimed. “You’re Scotty’s buddy!” and his cheeks flushed at the realization. “You were in the Invasion of Sicily!”
“Along with a lot of other guys,” Cal said modestly. “What about you?” he added, to keep the master sergeant occupied while Dutch was making his bid. “I understand you’re local.”
“I’m an East River boy, but they let me come around.”
“What’s an East River boy?”
“Other side of the Missouri. You’d think it was Soviet Russia,” he added with a grin. “We sure don’t need any more of those. But it looks like Senator McCarthy’s going to finally flush ’em out into the open.”
Even here, in an arena filled with ranchers and the smells of cows and sawdust, people believed the Red Threat was imminent. For the second time that day, Cal was made aware of the deeply held belief that enemy forces were secretly invading the United States.
“Where are you from?” Vance asked with no real interest.
“New York City.”
“I imagine that’s a rat’s nest, but we have them out here, too. Don’t you worry, steps have been taken. The base is secure. You’d be amazed how well they blend in. That’s how they work to undermine Christian society,” Master Sergeant Vance said assuredly. “From the inside. Like termites.”
“Well, it sounds like you fellows are keeping us safe.”
“My job is easy,” Master Sergeant Vance said. “All I do is buy hamburger. Nothing like what you and Scotty had to face overseas. Did that operation get all bitched up or what?” he continued. “Did you ever think you weren’t going to make it? Shot down by our own troops. What a way to go, huh?”
“It wasn’t pretty.”
“Around here everyone is proud of that boy for what he did. Think of it, landing there, after parachuting down under fire, right in the middle of it, the beachhead where our troops are so screwed up they’re shooting at our own aircraft, and navy ships are launching bombshells at the American flag, and there’s Scotty Roy from Rapid City, South Dakota, he races right up to a U.S. tank and takes his helmet off—never mind that he could get his brains blown out—no, he wasn’t thinking of himself—he bangs on the side of the tank, yelling for them to stop killing our own guys…And you, sir,” he continued emotionally, “you flew on, into the night, and did what you had to do. I only wish I’d been there with you, to give it straight to the Krauts and those bastard Wops who sold us out…they sold out democracy and everything we stand for…”
Passion overtook him and Master Sergeant Vance’s eyes filled with tears.
“Jesus,” Cal murmured. “Take it easy…”
“All I can say is thank you, Lieutenant.”
Master Sergeant Vance saluted with a trembling hand, forcing Cal to return the salute, feeling awkward as hell in the middle of all those cowboys with their secret messages sitting on red velvet chairs, as Dutch, victorious and smiling broadly, appeared out of the crowd.
He’d bought the Lee Brothers’ Red Angus bulls at a good price, but Master Sergeant Vance wasn’t interested in their birth weight or when they had been weaned; he was so wound up, all he wanted to do was retell the story of Scotty Roy’s bravery in the presence of his fellow airman, Second Lieutenant Cal Kusek, who’d lived through it. Dutch wasn’t sorry to listen to the legendary exploits of his son, but Cal could hardly restrain himself from boiling over at the way everyone believed Scotty’s pack of lies.
The rain was holding off when they left the barn, but the ground had become a churning sea of muck as buyers lined up trailers to load up their bulls, and others headed for the exit. They found that Whiskey, instead of lying down and waiting quietly, was snarling and pawing at the glass, frantic to get out of the cab. As soon as Dutch opened the door she leaped out, crouched down, and continued to bark furiously.
“What is it?” Dutch asked the dog.
Cal saw it first. “Did we hit a tree when I wasn’t looking?”
The side mirror had been sheared halfway off and was hanging by a twisted metal prong.
“Shit on a shingle!” exclaimed Dutch. His finger traced deep gouges in the paint. “This ain’t from no tree,” he said.
Dutch told Whiskey to stay and strode through the mud to a knot of cowmen standing in the middle of the parking area, scratching their heads and gesturing angrily as they compared the damage to their vehicles, while Cal examined his shattered reflection in the remaining shards of the mir
ror frame.
“Dutch is right,” Cal told the dog, who hadn’t taken her eyes from her master. “Someone smashed the hell out of this on purpose.”
“We’re not the only ones,” Dutch reported after a brief conference with the other victims. “Looks like they went right down the line with a hammer, knockin’ off everybody’s mirror.”
“Why?” asked Cal. “Just for fun?”
“A broken mirror,” Dutch was saying ominously. “It says in the Farmer’s Almanac that means seven years of bad luck. I just paid good money for those bulls,” he added grimly. “This ain’t what you would call a promising sign.”
—
That night Tyler “Honeybee” Jones didn’t make it home for supper, but it hardly mattered, because in the small white bungalow with the metal awnings on Saint Patrick Street in Rapid City, supper was rarely served. Mostly he had to fend for himself. The can opener was his best friend. If his mother, Louise, had been at all interested in what her fourteen-year-old was up to, she could have easily found him where all the boys hung out, at a pool hall and bowling alley called the Hole in the basement of the Buell Building in downtown Rapid City.
The Hole sold only pop, and cussing wasn’t allowed, so Honeybee stood outside and smoked with the older guys, watching the girls come out of Donaldson’s Department Store across the street. Even in the bitter cold, and long after the girls had been picked up by their glowering fathers, he’d wait until dark so he could be sure that by the time he walked home Louise would be passed out on the sofa from drinking in front of the TV. You had to hand it to her, she still held down her job as secretary to the products manager in the local concrete factory. Her husband, Eddie, had worked there, too. He dropped dead of a heart attack, on the field, while playing catch with Tyler, who witnessed the whole thing. His dad had given him the nickname “Honeybee” at the age of six, for throwing a fastball so hard it stung your glove.
Louise was not a sloppy drunk, but if his timing was off and she was still awake, Honeybee would fall victim to her “speeches”—hours-long tirades while chain-smoking cigarettes, hand on her hip and chin in the air, complaining about aches and pains and incompetent doctors, vicious neighbors, uppity salesgirls, the electric company, either his father’s weakness for having left them or his exalted heroism for having served as a mechanic in the war, and back to her usual theme, delivered with smoke streaming from both nostrils like a dragon, that she was “legally obligated to provide food, clothing, and shelter” only until the child turned eighteen, and then he could “do as he damn well pleased.” Honeybee had always known his mother’s unhappiness was his fault, but since she’d never provided instructions on how he might make things better, he concluded that would be impossible and rejected her as fully as she had rejected him.