by Larry Watson
On this plateau, near a tall knob of rock and clay that looks like an upside-down bowling pin, George and Margaret have parked and look down on their destination.
About the size of Dickinson? Margaret asks.
Hell no. Maybe a third as big.
Do you know anybody from here?
Del Wick.
Del at the hardware store?
George nods, a gesture lost to Margaret since she’s staring intently across the miles of riven sandstone and sagebrush. He’s down there, she says. Jimmy.
You’re sure of that, are you? They could be in California by now. Or anyplace between here and there.
Margaret shakes her head. That’s what I thought before. But Donnie will stay close to his people. Especially knowing we’re trailing him.
And how the hell would he know that?
You think the boy in the saddle shop wouldn’t tell his folks we were in the store asking about Donnie? And they didn’t phone down here and say we’re on the way?
Maybe you’re putting your feelings about family on others.
And what—you can imagine Donnie striking out on his own? Making his fortune for himself and his bride?
People change.
Do they.
I thought we needed to believe so.
Margaret walks to the edge of the bluff. Hardly a cliff’s drop-off but still steep enough to snap an ankle with a misstep. She kicks a stone and its clattering fall startles something into motion, a jackrabbit, probably, and it makes a scratchy echo through the brush.
There, by those cottonwoods, Margaret says, pointing down and to her right. That flatland. Where the creek or the backwater is. We could set up camp there.
If it’s dry.
Well, you can see it is.
Is there even a road going down there?
Off to the right, says Margaret. Don’t you see it? She points to a steep, rocky trail that widens, narrows, then widens again for no discernible reason.
Those rocks, George says. Good way to knock a hole in the oil pan. You sure you don’t want to check in to a hotel for the night?
We have the tent. Might as well use it.
And save a buck in the bargain.
I can’t believe you’d object to that.
George relents. I guess the ground can’t be any harder than that jail cot.
He heads back toward the car, but when Margaret doesn’t come with him he returns to the edge of the bluff. She’s still looking westward at the town and the prairie beyond and he takes his place beside her. There they stand like the statues of pioneers who never face each other but always the new land.
After long moments of silence, Margaret steps close enough to press herself against his bony chest. Her tremor is a countermeasure to his heart’s slow beat. We’ll build a fire, she says. It’ll be romantic.
Our last chance to be alone?
Something like that.
George puts his arm around her slender waist and pulls her tighter to him, but he’s staring down at the area where she says they’ll set up camp. His eye is searching for something to burn among all that sand and sage, where any log is likely to be petrified.
...
Late in the day the wind rises, spinning around to blow hard and cold from the northwest. It snuffs out any thoughts of building a fire, and George has to weight each corner of the tent floor with the heaviest rocks he can carry.
George and Margaret eat their evening meal in the car, out of the reach of a wind that would put sand and grit into every mouthful. Neither do they want the scent of their food to attract coyotes, cougars, bobcats, pocket mice, or wood rats. In the Hudson’s silence they eat hard cheese, sausage, crackers, and carrots that have begun to go limp. They drink water from a canvas bag filled that morning in Bentrock, water that tastes neither of home nor of the place where they find themselves now.
At least another hour until dark, says George. We could drive in for a cup of coffee.
My, my. I’ve never known you to be in such a hurry to get to town. Usually you’re in a hurry to get out.
Fifty yards ahead, two grouse whir into flight. With his index finger, George tracks their windblown, sideways course in the air. I should have brought a shotgun, he says.
Who quit first—me cleaning them or you killing them?
Not much point in one without the other.
To the end of my days I’ll never forget that smell of dead birds. She wrinkles her nose. If the only meat I could eat was something I’d plucked the feathers from, I’d become a vegetarian.
Nobody cooked grouse better than you. There’s a meal I’d eat every week if I could.
Oh, hell, I just smothered the birds in sour cream. I could have served you chicken and told you it was grouse and you wouldn’t have been any the wiser.
I believe I could taste the difference.
Maybe you could, George. Maybe you could . . .
Margaret stares out the window, her gaze so vacant a bird could burst into flight right in front of the car and she might not even blink. Finally Margaret says, Much as I miss the ranch, George, there’s something I don’t miss.
Which is what?
Dead animals. Not so much the cows and the chickens, though I got so I had trouble lifting the fork to my mouth with a few creatures. Those I’d gotten to know maybe too well. But my God, George. We sure buried a few over the years.
George taps the steering wheel with his index finger as though he’s counting to himself. That we did, he says.
When we had to put Strawberry down, I was afraid my heart couldn’t take it.
You and that red roan had a lot of history.
I never told you this, but just before you put the gun barrel to her head, I put my arm around her and whispered in her ear. Remember? I said to her. Remember how you liked to gallop through the first snow every year . . . Remember when we raced Ernie Dahlberg and his big black mare and we left them choking on our dust . . . Remember when we were coming home on that September evening and the full moon was just coming up over Dollar Butte and you stopped like you cared about the moonrise as much as me . . . Remember when we put the twins on your back and you stood so still like you knew you had to take care of them . . . Silly, isn’t it? That a woman who doesn’t believe there’s any world but this one wanted to send her horse on her way with happy memories . . .
She was the horse that took you to and from school?
She was. When she was just a filly. Bob Hildebrand and I were the only ones who came to school on horseback. You think we didn’t get some teasing about that? We were the country kids for sure. But not too many years before, there were so many of us who rode to school they had a little four-stall barn out back for our horses. Of course there were days Dad would ride in with us and then ride back at the end of the school day.
George listens to his wife talk about the distant past, but his eyes are fixed on distances of space. He gives a little nod, barely perceptible, toward a low hill to the northwest. Look out there. Must be eight, ten antelope. See them?
Margaret turns her head but she’s still distracted by memory. Where?
He leans over and points with a gnarled index finger. See them?
Not really.
Well, they blend in pretty well. You recall seeing that young fellow we drove past on the way out of Ott’s? He’s got an uncle over in Medora who saw a mountain lion in his backyard last week. And he lives right in Medora. Said he stepped out his back door and there the cat was, eyeing him like he might be supper. When I look out at that hillside I think it wouldn’t take much for a cougar to hide out there, since he’s the same damn color as the grass.
But Margaret can’t concentrate on the animals that might or might not be in the brush. She hasn’t finished recalling the animals that crouch in her past.
And Patsy, says Margaret. Wasn’t she something? She couldn’t work cattle but she could sure as hell herd the twins. I’d see one of them wandering too close to the creek and I’d tel
l Patsy, Go get Janie, and quick as you please Patsy would take off. The next thing you know, she’d be turning Janie around and steering her back to the house. She was a good dog, Patsy.
Too bad she couldn’t herd someone else away from the creek.
At that remark, Margaret Blackledge turns in her husband’s direction with such speed you’d think she was jerked on a string. Her eyes flash like the underside of a thundercloud, and she seems about to explode. Then in the next instant the string snaps, and she slumps as if she’d just heard grievous news.
Oh George. Her words come out as a moan. No. Not again. Can’t you leave this be? After all this time?
He remains silent and looks out on the prairie in the same unfocused manner as his wife did a moment ago.
You never said a word to me back then. So why now? It was so long ago, George. Can’t we put this away once and for all?
George rests his left arm on the steering wheel like a sailor willing to let the current carry his boat where it will. All right, he says, we’ll stay put. I guess I can get along without my after-supper coffee for one night. But you tell me—why aren’t you in a hurry to get into town? What if they’re still on the move? You’re not concerned that even one night could cool the trail?
Her arm stretches out along the back of the seat and her hand stops inches from her husband’s hand. The sound of her fingers scratching at the upholstery is the same sound as the wind throwing handfuls of sand against the car.
I wanted to give you another chance, she says, to back out of this deal.
Now who’s the one who doesn’t know the other? I’d follow you anywhere. If you don’t know that, Margaret Mann, then what the hell do you know?
Did it ever occur to you that maybe I’d like you beside me and not behind me?
I’m the one driving this car. George moves the steering wheel a few inches to the right and left.
Margaret brushes cracker crumbs from the seat between them and slides over into the space she’s cleared. She puts her hand on his thigh and those fingernails that earlier scraped at the Hudson’s wool now play at the raised inside seam of his Levi’s.
You could say you want him back.
George keeps staring out the windshield as if at a winding road he must steer their way along. Have you thought this through? Mumps, measles. Trips to the dentist. Report cards. You’re ready to sign on for all that again?
Are you saying you don’t miss him too?
A man can choose his words too carefully, and his hesitation can be worse than anything he might misspeak. Finally George says, Since you brought up Patsy’s name . . . remember when she died? You mourned that hound harder than your own father. Yet you got past it. Yesterday you weren’t interested in hearing my list, but here’s another. Grief. It doesn’t last either.
Doesn’t it.
Not like when it’s fresh. It turns into something closer to sorrow.
Margaret removes her hand from his leg and slides back to her place by the door. He’s a Blackledge, George. He belongs with his own kind.
Listen to you. His own kind.
I’ll tell you what, George. You want a trip to town so goddamn bad you can drive in right now. Drive in and drop me off and then you turn around and go back home. I’ll do what I need to do and then take a bus back to Dalton.
What if they’re not there? You’ll chase them around the country on a bus? What if they go where Greyhound doesn’t?
I’ll walk.
By God, you would too. And when you finally learn that what you want to make happen isn’t going to happen? What then?
I suppose that’s exactly what I’ve never been able to learn, she says in her warbling voice. Isn’t that what you’ve told me over and over, George? That I don’t know when it’s time to call it quits?
Their tent is staked to a square of earth no nearer than a thousand miles to an ocean, in any direction. Margaret has never seen a body of water wider than the Missouri, and so many years have passed since George crossed the Atlantic that the experience could as easily belong to dream as to life. Nevertheless, when wind rocks the Hudson, they both feel as though they are in a boat too small for the sea surrounding them on every side.
11.
THE TENT’S CANVAS POPS AND RIPPLES LIKE A FLAG ON A pole, the tent’s interior is darker than last night’s cell, and the ground is harder than the iron cot. Yet none of these prevent George from falling asleep. But at three o’clock in the morning, when the wind suddenly subsides and the tent’s guy ropes cease to vibrate and hum, George comes awake as surely as if someone had shaken him. Margaret is sleeping soundly, her soft breaths steady and even and with not a sign of the tremor that troubles her waking hours.
George gives up even quicker than he did the previous night, and he carefully peels back the layers of wool covering him—half the blankets they own have been placed under them and half have been pulled over them. Grabbing his boots, George unties the tent flaps and slips outside.
He pulls on his boots and makes his way to the Hudson, the car’s silhouette darker than the night. He eases open the driver’s side door, takes the bottle from under the seat once again, and then, rather than slam the door, pushes it closed as quietly as he can. With nothing but whiskey to ward off the chill, George walks away from the camp.
On the western horizon there is a very pale smudge of light, little more than a softening of the dark, and the cause has to be the lights of Gladstone. So faint . . . yet enough to steer by. A man—or woman—could set out on foot and find the way to town.
He lights a cigarette, and he has taken only his second pull from the bottle when a voice speaks out from the darkness. You need it that bad, Margaret asks, that you have to get up in the middle of the night?
Want it more than need it. Couldn’t sleep anyway.
Margaret comes forward to stand at George’s side. She has a blanket wrapped around herself so she seems bodiless, just a face in the general darkness. Then she reaches out a pale arm. I’ll have just a little swallow. Please.
George hands her the bottle, and Margaret brings it cautiously to her lips. Ugh. She hands the bourbon back to him. How many times have I said it? Mix a little burnt sugar with kerosene and I don’t think it would taste a hell of a lot different.
George drinks again, then caps the bottle.
You don’t have to sneak, you know. I never asked you to take the pledge.
I know.
So what’s this all about, Mr. Blackledge?
I told you. I couldn’t sleep.
Well, has it done the work you needed done? Are you ready to come back to bed? I need your heat in there, so even if you can’t sleep, you can at least lie in there and radiate.
George drops his cigarette and grinds it into the dirt. He says, As long as I can be of some use. If any sarcasm or bitterness accompanies this remark it doesn’t show in George’s voice or Margaret’s reaction.
Margaret turns then and leads them back toward the tent. It’d be a might easier to make this little trek, she says, if you hadn’t brought up the subject of mountain lions earlier.
I’m right behind you.
Some comfort in that, I suppose.
As he follows his wife he looks back over his shoulder, the anxious glance of a man forever checking the night sky for any sign of daylight’s approach.
12.
THEY RISE EARLY, FOLD THEIR BLANKETS, DRESS, AND drink a little water. They each eat an apple, and George smokes a cigarette. George takes down the tent, a much easier process than assembling it in the wind. They drive toward Gladstone under a sky so heavy and low it looks as though a gust of wind would release a shower of lead filings.
Any of these dirt roads, George says, could lead to the Weboy place. How the hell are we supposed to know? Do you have some sort of grandmother intuition that will guide you?
I’ll ignore that wisecrack, Margaret says. We know it’s a ranch, right? Why don’t we ask at a feedstore? They might be able to give us directi
ons.
And if Donnie’s not spooked yet, that should do it.
Fine, George. I’m open to suggestions.
But her husband does nothing but drive until they come to the eastern edge of Gladstone. Nodding toward a Mobil station, he says, I’m going to fill up. And use the washroom to perform my ablutions.
You first, she says, then reaches over the seat for a hand towel.
The restroom smells of grease and brackish water, but its sink and toilet are reasonably clean, and the husband and wife take turns washing up for the day. Without any agreement but that of the long-married, they each follow almost the same procedure in the gas station’s single bathroom, though Margaret locks the door and George does not. They each stopper the rust-stained sink and fill it with water. They strip off their shirts and stand before the cracked, blackened mirror, George in his undershirt and Margaret in her brassiere. With the bar of soap resting on the back of the sink, the same soap that has cleaned the hands of truck drivers, vagrants, runaways, and other hard travelers, George and Margaret lather their hands, faces, necks, and armpits, then splash and rinse themselves with water cold from the faucet. Margaret’s shiver is not so different from her tremor, but before she puts her shirt back on, she combs out her hair.
When Margaret returns to the car, George asks, How long are you going to last without a real bath on this journey?
She’s pinning her hair back up, and before she answers, she takes the last bobby pin from the row she’s had pinched between her lips. I’m good for another day or two. As long as I don’t lather up a sweat or roll around in the dirt.
George holds out a newly purchased map of Montana. He doesn’t unfold it but points to an address and telephone number written in the border. The telephone book has a Weboy, he says. With a town address.