by Kent Haruf
She was lying on her side with the sheet over her, watching him. One of her shoulders was exposed, it gleamed and was very pretty in the light. Give me a kiss before you go, she said.
He stepped to the bed and kissed her, then walked noiselessly down the hall and out through the front room into the cool night air. She got up from bed with the sheet around her and followed him, watching him drive away on the vacant street, seeing him pass under the corner streetlamp, then onto Main and out of sight. Shadows from the lamp were like long stick figures thrown out behind the trees and all along the street were the quiet mute fronts of houses. She sat down in the dark room. An hour later she woke shivering and went back to her bed.
AFTER THAT NIGHT A WEEK PASSED WITHOUT HIS CALLING in the evening as he had before. She waited until the middle of the following week and he still hadn’t called, and then she called him twice in one night from her dark bedroom, but he made excuses about why he couldn’t talk, and the second time she called he hung up without waiting for her to say anything more than his name. The next day at mid-morning she went to see him at the bank.
His office was in the back corner, with a glass window that looked out into the lobby. She could see him sitting at his desk talking on the phone when she stepped inside. A woman at the reception desk asked if she could help but Mary Wells said: No, you can’t help me. I came here to see him. Then he was off the phone and she went into his office and sat down as if she had come to see about a loan or a second mortgage.
What are you doing? he said.
I came to see you.
I can’t talk now.
I know that. But you won’t talk to me on the phone. So I had to come here. You’re through with me, aren’t you.
He took up a long silver pen from his desk and held it in his fingers.
You are, aren’t you. You ought to at least be able to say it.
I think we ought to slow down for a while, he said. That’s all.
Slow down, she said. What chickenshit.
He stared at her and leaned back in his chair.
You’re very timid, aren’t you, she said.
No.
Yes. Yes, you are. I understand that now. You want your fun but you don’t want any complications. You’re still a little boy.
I think you’d better go, he said. I’ve got work to do. I’ll call you later.
You’ll call me later?
Yes.
No you won’t. You won’t call me. You think I’m that stupid? That pathetic? She stood up. And you have work to do now, don’t you.
Of course. This is my office. This is where I work.
That’s very interesting, she said. And you’d like me to leave, wouldn’t you. You’d like me to walk out and not make any fuss. Isn’t that right? She looked at him. He didn’t say anything. Okay, she said. Then she bent over his desk and swept all the papers onto the floor.
He rose up and caught her wrist. What in the hell do you think you’re doing?
She wrenched her wrist free and shoved the phone onto the floor. That’s what I think of you and your work. You little chickenshit. You timid little boy.
Are you going to go now?
You know, I think I am. Because you know what? I’m through with you. I’m dumping you. I’m the one this time. And don’t call me. Some night you’re going to get lonely and start remembering what it was like in bed with me and how nice I was to you and then you’re going to want to call, to see if you can come over for a little while, but don’t do it. I’ll be over you by that time, you scared little chickenshit boy. I won’t answer the phone. I don’t ever want to talk to you again.
She walked out of his glassed office into the lobby. The cashiers and the people in line at the counters and the woman at the reception desk were all watching her, and she looked at them and then she stopped. She stood in the middle of the lobby to address them.
He’s not a very good fucker, she said. I don’t know if any of you knew that. He never was much good in bed anyway. I deserve better. Then she went outside to the street and got in her car and drove home.
And at home she went to pieces. She scarcely got up to make the girls breakfast or to see them off to school in the morning, and she was often still lying in bed in the back room, drinking gin and smoking, when the girls came home in the afternoon. They would come to her room and stand in the doorway and look at her. Sometimes they would lie down on the bed beside her and go to sleep in that place that used to be so pleasant and comfortable. More often now the two sisters would fight with each other when they were at home and she would call to them to stop, but other times she would simply get up and shut the door and light a cigarette and lie down again.
Outside, the trees beyond her window along the alley began to bud into leaf in the warm advancing days of early spring. But she lay in bed, smoking and drinking, staring at the ceiling as the light moved across the white flat surface as evening descended, and all the time she was lost in her troubled thoughts. The only thing she felt proud of herself about was that she had not called Bob Jeter again. She took some satisfaction in that. And she hoped very much that he too was suffering in some important way.
35
WHEN VICTORIA ROUBIDEAUX CAME HOME TO RAYMOND at spring break she had a boy with her. He was a tall thin boy, with wire glasses and close-cropped black hair, and he had a little gold earring hooked through one of his ears. They came up to the house in the evening in the blue shadows under the yardlight and she was carrying Katie in her arms. When they entered the kitchen Raymond moved away from the window where he’d been watching them, and Victoria kissed him as she always did and he hugged her and the little girl. I want you to meet Del Gutierrez, she said.
The boy came forward and shook Raymond’s hand. Victoria’s told me a lot about you, he said.
Is that so? Raymond said.
Yes, she has.
Then you got me at a disadvantage. I don’t believe I’ve heard the first thing about you.
I did too tell you about him, Victoria said. The last time we talked on the phone. You’re just trying to be obstinate.
Maybe you did. I can’t recall. Anyway, come in, come in. Welcome to this old house here.
Thank you. It’s good to be here.
Well, it’s pretty quiet. Not like in town. Where you from, son?
Denver.
From the city.
Yes sir. I’ve been there all my life. Until I went to college.
Well, things are a little different out here. Kind of slow. Anyhow, if you’re a friend of Victoria’s you’re welcome.
They went back to the car and brought their bags in and afterward Victoria made a light supper. It was a quiet awkward meal. Victoria did most of the talking. Afterward Raymond took the little girl into the parlor and sat her on his lap in the recliner chair and read the paper and talked to her a little while her mother and the boy did the dishes. Katie had been shy of him at first, but warmed up over supper and now was asleep, curled against his shoulder. Raymond peered out into the kitchen above the top of his newspaper. He couldn’t make out what they were saying but Victoria looked to be happy. Once the boy leaned over and kissed her, then looked up and saw Raymond was watching them.
Victoria made up the bed for Del Gutierrez in Harold’s old room upstairs, and Raymond watched the ten o’clock news and weather on television, then said good night and went up to bed. He lay awake for a time listening for what he might hear, but he couldn’t hear anything from downstairs and after a while he went to sleep, and then he woke when the boy entered the room across the hall and shut the door. He lay there thinking how long it had been since he’d heard anyone moving about in his brother’s room.
The next morning the boy surprised him. He was drinking coffee at the kitchen table when Raymond came downstairs in the slanted light of early morning. I never expected to see you at this hour, Raymond said.
I thought you might let me help you do something, the boy said.
Do somethin
g.
Outside. Whatever you have to do.
Raymond looked around the kitchen. Did you make this coffee?
Yes.
Were you planning on sharing it?
Yes sir. Can I get you a cup?
Oh, I believe I know where we keep the cups. Unless they got moved since last night.
He took down his usual cup and poured some coffee and stood looking out the window with his back to the boy. Then he finished and set the cup in the sink. All right, he said. You can come out with me if that’s what you think you want to do. I’ve got to feed out, then we’ll come back in for breakfast later on.
All right, the boy said.
You have any warm clothes?
I brought a jacket.
You’ll want something warmer than that.
Raymond handed him his brother’s lined canvas chore jacket from the peg by the door. There’s gloves in the side pocket. You got a hat?
I don’t usually wear one.
Here, wear this. He handed the boy Harold’s old red wool cap. I don’t want to think what Victoria would say if I got your ears froze off the first day you got here.
The boy pulled on the old cap. In his wire glasses and with the earflaps hanging loose beside his head, he looked to be some manner of nearsighted immigrant farmhand from an era much earlier.
Well, Raymond said. I guess you’ll do. He put on his coat and cap and gloves and they went outside.
They walked out through the wire gate and crossed to the haylot east of the barn where the ancient red sun-faded Farmall tractor was hooked up to the flatbed hay wagon next to the stack of bales. A cold wind was blowing out of the west, the sky obscured by streams of cloud. Raymond told him to climb onto the stack and throw down the bales while he stacked them on the wagon. We might as well do a good load, since you’re here, he said.
They worked for most of an hour. The boy threw down one bale after another, each one bouncing on the worn plank floor of the wagon, and Raymond set them in place, stacking them in tiers. After a while the boy took his coat off and they went on working. Then Raymond called a halt and climbed down from the wagon and got up into the seat of the tractor. Let’s go to it, he said.
Where should I ride? the boy said.
Stand here on the draw bar. And hang on. You don’t want to get yourself dumped off and mashed under these iron wagon wheels.
The boy put his coat back on and stepped up behind Raymond, holding on to the back of the metal seat, and they went clattering and bouncing out of the haylot into the pasture, rocking across the rough ground on a track through the sagebrush and soapweed, and on out to where the mother cows and calves were milling about and shoving into one another, waiting for their morning feed.
Raymond braked to a stop. You think you can drive this tractor?
I don’t know. I’ve never driven one before.
Climb up here and I’ll show you.
They traded places and Raymond showed him which gear to use so the tractor would creep along, and indicated to him the two foot brakes and the clutch and the hand throttle.
I expect you’ve drove a stick shift before.
I’ve done that much.
There isn’t anything to it. Just keep it in compound and let it crawl. Give it a little gas when you need to, going up any rise.
The boy sat in the metal seat and they started out, the tractor rocking and heaving.
You want to head out this way, Raymond said. Follow that trail of worn ground there where I been feeding.
Along there?
You think you can do that?
Yes.
All right then. Let’s feed these cattle.
Raymond climbed onto the hay wagon and pulled the twine from the first bale, draped the twine over an upright, and broke the bale open and shoved it off the side onto the ground, and they went creeping ahead as he broke and scattered the next bale, and the hungry cattle and calves began to bunch and feed, strung out in a long line behind the lurching wagon, their heads all lowered, a fog of steam and hot breath above them. From the tractor the boy looked back to see how things were going and he saw the old man working steadily, shoving the loose hay out on the ground. Then he looked forward again and noticed a deep dip in the ground ahead of them where the sand was hollowed out. He turned sharply to miss it and the corner of the hay wagon rode up the cleats of the tractor wheel as far as the first stringer, tilting the wagon bed at a sharp dangerous angle and lifting the bed four feet off the ground. Raymond hollered at him. The boy turned to look and slammed on the brakes, then turned back again. Raymond was holding on to the upright.
The boy’s face had turned to ash. Oh shit, he said. What’d I do?
You turned too sharp. You can’t turn that sharp pulling something behind you. Turn it hard the other way now.
Did I hurt the wagon?
Not yet. But turn it hard and go slow.
Maybe you better come up and do it.
No. Go ahead. You’ll do all right. Just take it slow.
I don’t know about this.
Go on now. Try it.
The boy sat forward in the seat and cranked the steering wheel to the left and slowly let out the clutch. The tractor made a sharp turn and the corner of the wagon bumped down the tractor wheel’s big cleats, splintering the wood a little, and then the wheel was free and the hay wagon stood flat on the ground again.
Straighten it out, Raymond hollered. But real slow or you’ll have her up on the wheel again.
The boy drove forward and the wagon swung around behind the tractor, and when he looked back Raymond waved for him to go on. He drove very slowly, staring straight ahead past the exhaust stack as they crossed the cold worn ground. After a while Raymond hollered for him to stop, then stepped down from the wagon and climbed onto the back of the tractor. That’ll do for today. Take us up to the haylot.
I think you better drive.
How come? You’re doing okay. But shift up. We don’t want to stay in grandma all the way home.
What about what I did back there?
That happens. You just don’t have to do it twice. Pay attention next time and it’ll be all right. Let’s go have us some breakfast.
The boy shifted gears and they moved bumping and rocking out of the pasture. Raymond climbed off to shut the gate and the boy parked inside the fence at the haylot and turned the tractor off, and together they walked up to the house under the thin clouds.
I don’t see how you manage to do all this by yourself, the boy said.
You don’t?
No sir. It seems like too much for one person to do.
Raymond looked at him. What else you going to do?
The boy nodded and they went on.
IN THE KITCHEN THE LITTLE GIRL WAS SITTING AT THE table over a coloring book and Victoria was standing at the stove. When she saw Del Gutierrez in Harold’s canvas chore coat and old wool cap, with the earflaps dangling free beside his red cheeks, she said: Now wait. Stand right there till I get my camera.
No you don’t, Raymond said. You leave him alone. Del and me, we been outside working, feeding cattle. We don’t need no pictures.
I got to keep warm, don’t I? the boy said.
You look warm all right, Victoria said. Just look at you. Then she laughed and they stood looking at her, seeing how white and straight her teeth were, how her thick black hair fell across her shoulders, how her black eyes shone, and they both felt at once awkward and speechless in the presence of such beauty, to see her in this way, having themselves come in from the cold and the wind and the blowing dirt, to find her waiting for them, laughing and amused by something they’d done. It made Raymond think suddenly of his brother and he was afraid he might embarrass himself and begin to weep. So he said nothing. He turned away and he and the boy hung up their coats next to the door and washed at the sink.
Victoria had breakfast ready for them. She brought the platters of eggs and bacon and buttered toast and poured out cups of coffee and they all
sat down at the pinewood table in the kitchen. The little girl reached her arms out and said: Poppy, so Raymond took her onto his lap and they began to eat.
You think you could make a rancher of him? Victoria said.
Raymond stopped eating. I don’t know, he said. He looked at her. I guess he might make one. He did pretty good this morning.
Did you have him drive the tractor?
Yes, ma’am. He did pretty good at it too. He turned to look at the boy. Course I can’t say much for that earring he’s wearing. I guess that hole in his ear might grow in after a while, but I haven’t had no experience with that kind of thing.
The boy’s face went red and he touched his ear. He grinned across the table at Victoria.
I think he should just keep it the way it is, she said. I like it.
ON FRIDAY OF THAT WEEK VICTORIA AND DEL GUTIERREZ decided to go to the movie in Holt. They didn’t care what was being shown, they wanted only to get out of the house and to do something on their own, and Raymond encouraged them to have dinner at the Wagon Wheel Café before the show, and he gave the boy forty dollars for helping him with the ranch work. Before they went out, he drew Victoria into her bedroom and pulled the door closed. What’s wrong? she said.
Not a thing, he said. Then he told her in an old man’s loud whisper: He’s a pretty good hard worker, isn’t he.
What are you talking about? she said.
That boy’s been doing pretty good this week. Working pretty hard.
Do you think so?
Yes I do.
He told me about the trouble he had driving the tractor that first time.
He didn’t have to tell you that.
He said you weren’t much upset about it. That you didn’t yell at him or anything.
Well, it didn’t break nothing, and everybody has to do that once. He did all right. Anyway, you just might want to think about keeping him around.
Victoria looked at Raymond. He was watching her closely. Now what is it you’re saying? she said.
I just mean you might want to keep this one. He’s okay with me. I kind of like him.
That sounds like you’re trying to rush me, she said.