English Creek - Ivan Doig

by Ivan Doig

  Dode shook his head as if he had water in his ears. "That wife of mine isn’t exactly looking for me." So. It was one of the Withrow family jangles that Dode and Midge built up to about once a year. During them was the only time Dode seriously drank. Tomorrow there was going to be a lot of frost in the air between Midge and Dode, then the situation would thaw back to normal. It seemed to me a funny way to run a marriage; I always wondered what the three Withrow daughters, Bea and Marcella and Valerie, did with themselves during the annual temper contest between their parents. But this summer was showing that I had everything to learn about the ways of man and woman.

  “Charlie, give me a couple Kesslers," Dode was directing across the beer counter. “Jick, you want one ?"

  "Uh, no thanks," dumbly holding up my grape soda the Way a toddler would show off a lollipop.

  "That stuff’ll rot your teeth," advised Dode. “Give you goiter. St. Vitus’ dance."

  “Did you say two, Dode?" Charlie Hooper called from one of the beer tubs.

  "I got two hands, don’t I?"

  While Dode paid and took a swig from one bottle while holding the other in reserve, I tried to calculate how far along he was toward being really drunk. Always tricky arithmetic. About all that could be said for sure was that of all the rodeo-goers who were going to get a skinful today, at this rate Dode was going to be among the earliest. Dode tipped the Kessler down from his mouth and looked straight at me. Into me, it almost seemed. And offered: "Trade you."

  I at first thought he meant his bottle of beer for my grape pop, and that befuddled me, for plainly Dode was in no mood for pop. But no, he had something other in mind, he still was gazing straight into my eyes. What he came out with next clarified his message, but did not ease my bafflement. “My years for yours, Jick. I’ll go back where you are in life, you come up where I am. Trade, straight across. No, wait, I’ll toss in Midge to boot." He laughed, but with no actual humor in it. Then shook his head again in that way as if he’d just come out from swimming. “That’s in no way fair. Midge is okay. It’s me—" he broke that off with a quick swig of Kessler. What seemed needed was a change of topic, and I asked: “Where you watching the rodeo from, Dode? Ray and I are going to grab a fence place up there by the booth. Whyn’t you sit with us?"

  "Many thanks, Jick." He made it sound as if I had offered him knighthood. "But I’m going to hang around the pens awhile. Want to watch the broncs. All I’m good for any more. Watching." And off he swayed, beer bottle in each hand as if they were levers he was steering himself by. I hated to see Dode in such a mood, but at least he always mended quick. Tomorrow he would be himself, and probably more so, again.

  Still no Ray on the fence. The Heaneys were taking their sweet time at the family shindig. When Ray ever showed up I would have to compare menus in detail with him, to see how the Heaneys could possibly out eat what we had gone through at the creek picnic.

  By now my pop had been transferred from its bottle into me, and with time still to kill and figuring that as long as I had Mouse I might as well be making use of him, I got back up in the saddle.

  I sometimes wonder: is the corner of the eye the keenest portion of the body? A sort of special sense, operating beyond the basic ones? For the corner of my right eye now registered, across the arena and above the filing crowd and top pole of the fence, a chokecherry-colored shirt; and atop that, a head and set of shoulders so erect they could not be mistaken.

  I nudged Mouse into motion and rode around to Alec’s side of the rodeo grounds.

  When I got there Alec was off the horse, a big alert deep-chested blood bay, and was fussing with the loop of his lariat in that picky way that calf ropers do. All this was taking place out away from the arena fence and the parked cars, in some open space which Alec and the bay and the lariat seemed to claim as their own.

  I dismounted too. And started things off with: "I overheard some calves talking, there in the pens. They were saying how much they admired anybody who’d rope them in a shirt like that."

  "Jicker!" he greeted me back. “What do you know for sure?"

  A1ec’s words were about what they ever would have been, yet there hung that tone of absent-mindedness behind them again. I wanted to write it off to the fact that this brother of mine had calf roping on his mind just then. But I couldn’t quite convince myself that was all there was to the matter.

  It did occur to me to check whether Alec was wearing a bandanna this year, and he wasn’t. Evidently my father at least had teased that off him permanently.

  “Think you got a chance to win ?" I asked, just to further the conversation.

  "Strictly no problem," Alec assured me. All the fuss he was giving that rope said something else, however.

  “How about Bruno Martin ?" He was the young rancher from Augusta who had won the calf-roping the previous year.

  "I can catch a cold faster than Bruno Martin can a calf."

  "Vern Crosby, then?" Another quick-as-a-cat roper, who I had noticed warming up behind the chute pens.

  "What, you taking a census or something?" Alec swooshed his lariat overhead, that expectant whir in the air, and cast a little practice throw.

  I explored for some topic more congenial to him. “Where’d you get the highpowered horse ?"

  "Cal Petrie lent him to me." Cal Petrie was foreman of the Double W. Evidently Alec’s ropeslinging had attracted some attention. I lightly laid fingertips to the bay’s foreshoulder. The feel of a horse is one of the best touches I know. "You missed the creek picnic. Mom spoke a speech."

  Alec frowned at his rope. “Yeah. I had to put the sides on Cal’s pickup and haul this horse in here. A speech? What about? How to sleep with a college book under your pillow and let it run uphill into your ear ?"

  "No. About Ben English."

  "Ancient history, huh? Dad must have converted her." Alec looked like he intended to say more, but didn’t.

  There wasn’t any logical reason why this should have been on my mind just then, but I asked: "Did you know he had a horse with the same name as himself?"

  “Who? Had a what ?"

  "Ben English. Our granddad would say ‘T’ank Godt vun of t’em vears a—’ "

  "Look, Jicker, I got to walk this horse loose. How about you doing me a big hairy favor ?"

  Something told me to be a little leery. "Ray’s going to be waiting for me over on the—"

  "Only take a couple minutes of your valuable time. All it is, I want you to go visit Leona for me while I get this horse ready."

  "Leona? Where is she?"

  "Down toward the end of the arena there, by her folks’ car."

  As indeed she was, when I turned to see. About a hundred feet from us, spectating this brotherly tableau. Leona in a clover-green blouse, that gold hair above like daybreak over a lush meadow.

  "Yeah, well, what do you mean by visit?"

  "Just go on over there and entertain her for me, huh ?"

  “Entert——?"

  "Dance a jig, tell a joke." Alec swung into the saddle atop the bay. "Easy, hoss." I stepped back a bit and Mouse looked admiring as the bay did a little prance to try Alec out. Alec reined him under control and leaned toward me. "I mean it, about you keeping Leona company for me. Come get me if Earl Zane shows up. I don’t want that jug-head hanging around her."

  Uh huh. Revelation, all twenty-two chapters of it.

  “Aw, the hell, Alec. I—" was about to declare that I had other things in life to do than fetch him whenever one of Leona’s ex-boy-friends came sniffing around. But that declaration melted somewhere before I could get it out, for here my way came one of those Leona smiles that would burn down a barn. Simultaneously she patted the car fender beside her.

  While I still was molten in the middle of all that, Alec touched the bay roping horse into a fast walk toward some open country beyond the calf pens. So I figured there was nothing for it but go on over and face fate.

  " ’Lo, Leona."

  "Hello, John Angus." Which
tangled me right at the start. I mean, think about it. The only possible way in this world she could know about my high-toned name was from Alec. Which meant that I had been a topic of conversation between them. Which implied—I didn’t know what. Damn it all to hell anyway. First Toussaint, now this. I merely was trying to have a standard summer, not provide word fodder for the entire damn Two country.

  “Yeah, well. Great day for the race," I cracked to recoup.

  Leona smiled yet another of her dazzlers. And said nothing. Didn’t even inquire “What race ?" so I could impart "The human race" and thereby break the ice and—

  "You all by your lonesome ?" I substituted. As shrewd as it was desperate, this. Not only did it fill the air space for a moment, I could truthfully tell Alec I had been vigilant about checking on whether or not Earl Zane was hanging around.

  She shook her head. Try it sometime, while attempting to keep a full smile in place on your face. Leona could do it and come out with more smile than she started with. When she had accomplished this facial miracle she leaned my way a little and nodded her head conspiratorially toward the other side of the car.

  Holy Jesus. Was Earl Zane over there? Earl Zane was Alec’s size and built as if he’d been put together out of railroad ties. Alec hadn’t defined to me this possibility, of Earl Zane already being on hand. What was I supposed to do, tip my hat to him and merrily say "Hi there, Earl, just stand where you are, I’ll go get my brother so he can come beat the living daylights out of you"? Or better from the standpoint of my own health, climb back on Mouse and retreat to my original side of the arena?

  For information’s sake, I leaned around Leona and peered over the hood of the car. And was met by startled stares from Ted and Thelma Tracy—Leona’s parents—and another couple with whom they were seated on a blanket and carrying on a conversation. "Your folks are looking real good," I mumbled as I pulled my head back to normal. “Nice to see them so."

  Leona, though, had shifted attention from me to the specimen of horseflesh at the other end of the reins I was holding. "Riding in style, aren’t you ?" she admired.

  "His name is Mouse," I confided. "Though if he was mine, I’d call him, uh, Chief Joseph."

  Leona slowly revolved her look from the horse to me, the way the beam of a lighthouse makes its sweep. Then asked: “Why not Crazy Horse?"

  From Leona that was tiptop humor, and I yukked about six times as much as I ordinarily would have. And in the meantime was readying myself. After all, that brother of mine had written the prescription he wanted from me: entertain her.

  “Boy, I’ll have to remember that. And you know, that reminds me of one. Did you ever hear the joke about the Chinaman and the Scotchman in a rowboat on the Sea of Galilee?"

  Leona shook her head. Luck was with me. This was my father’s favorite joke, one I had heard him tell to other Forest Service guys twenty times ; the heaviest artillery I could bring to bear.

  "Well, see, there was a Chinaman and a Scotchman together in a rowboat on the Sea of Galilee. Fishing away, there. And after a while the Chinaman puts down his fishing pole and he leans over and nudges the Scotchman and says, ‘Jock, tell me. Is it true what they say about Occidental women ?’ And the Scotchman says, ‘Occidental, hell. I’m cerrrtain as anything that they behave the way they do on purrr-pose!’ "

  I absolutely believed I had done a royal job of telling, even burring the R’s just right. But a little crimp of puzzlement now punctuated Leona’s smiling face, right between her eyes. She asked: “The Sea of Galilee?"

  I cast a wide look around for Alec. Or even Earl Zane, whom I would rather fight with one hand in my pocket than try to explain a joke to somebody who didn’t get it. “Yeah. But you see, that isn’t—"

  Just then, Mouse got into the act. Why he could not have waited another two minutes until I had found a way to dispatch myself from Leona; why it didn’t come into his horse brain any other time of the day up until that very moment; why—but no why about it, he was proceeding, directly in front of where Leona and I were sharing the fender, to take his leak.

  The hose on a horse is no small sight anyway during this process. But with Leona there six feet away spectating, Mouse’s seemed to poke down, down, down.

  I cleared my throat and examined the poles of the arena fence and then the posts that supported the poles and then the sky over the posts and then crossed and uncrossed my arms a few times, and still the downpour continued. A wild impulse raised in me: Mouse’s everlasting whiz reminded me of Dode Withrow spraddled atop that boulder the second day of this unprecedented summer, and I clamped my jaw to keep from blurting to Leona that scene and the handhold joke. That would be about like you, John Angus McCaskill. Celebrate disaster with a dose of social suicide. Do it up right.

  Meanwhile Leona continued to serenely view the spectacle as if it was the fountains of Rome.

  "I’ll take over now, Jicker." Alec’s voice came from behind us; he had circled outside of the arena on the bay horse. Peals of angel song could not have come more welcome. “How’d he do as company, Leona ?"

  Leona shined around at Alec, then turned back to bestow me a final glint. And answered: “He’s a wonder."

  * * *

  I mounted up and cleared out of there; Alec and Leona all too soon would be mooning over each other like I didn’t exist anyway; and as promptly as I was out of eyeshot behind the catch pen at the far end of the arena I gave Mouse a jab in the ribs that made him woof in surprise. Chief Joseph, my rosy hind end.

  But I suppose my actual target was life. This situation of being old enough to be on the edge of everything and too young to get to the middle of any of it.

  * * *

  "Hi," Ray Heaney greeted as I climbed onto the arena fence beside him. The grin-cuts were deep into his face and the big front teeth were out on parade. Ray could make you feel that your arrival was the central event in his recent life. "What’ve you been up to?"

  “Oh"—summary seemed so far out of the question, I chose neutrality—“about the usual. You ?"

  "Pilot again." So saying, Ray held up his hands to show his calluses. One hard oblong bump across the base of each finger, like sets of knuckles on his palms. I nodded in commendation. My shovel calluses were mosquito bites in comparison. This made the second summer Ray was stacking lumber in his father’s lumber yard—the “pile it here, pile it there" nature of that job was what produced the "pilot" joke—and his hands and forearms were gaining real heft.

  Now Ray thrust his right mitt across to within reach of mine.

  “Shake the hand that shook the hand?" he challenged. It was a term we had picked up from his father—Ray could even rumble it just like Ed Heaney’s bass-drum voice—who remembered it from his own boyhood in Butte when guys still went around saying "Shake the hand that shook the hand of John L. Sullivan," the heavyweight boxing champ of then.

  I took Ray up on the hand duel, even though I pretty well knew how this contest of ours was going to turn out from now on. We made a careful fit of the handshake grip; then Ray chanted the start, "One, two, three."

  After about a minute of mutual grunted squeezing, I admitted: "Okay. I’m out-squoze."

  “You’ll get me next time," Ray said. “Didn’t I see Alec riding around acting like a calf roper?"

  Some years before, Ed Heaney had driven out from Gros Ventre to the ranger station one summer Saturday to talk forest business with my father. And with him, to my surprise and no little consternation, came his son my age, Ray. I could see perfectly damn well what was intended here, and that’s the way it did happen. Off up the South Fork our fathers rode to eyeball a stand of timber which interested Ed for buckrake teeth he could sell at his lumber yard, and Ray and I were left to entertain one another.

  Living out there at English Creek I always was stumped about what of my existence would interest any other boy in the world. There was the knoll with the view all the way to the Sweetgrass Hills, but somehow I felt that might not hold the fascination for
others that it did for me. Ordinarily horses would have been on hand to ride, the best solution to the situation, but the day before, Isidor Pronovost and some CCC guys had taken all the spare ones in a big packstring to set up a spike camp for a tree-planting crew. Alec was nowhere in the picture as a possible ally; this was haying time and he was driving the scatter rake for Pete Reese. The ranger station itself was no refuge; the sun was out and my mother would never let us get away with lolling around inside, even if I could think up a reasonable loll. Matters were not at all improved by the fact that, since I still was going to the South Fork grade school and Ray went in Gros Ventre, we only knew each other by sight.

  He was a haunting kid to look at. His eyes were within long deep-set arcs, as if always squinched the way you do to thread a needle. And curved over with eyebrows which wouldn’t need to have been much thicker to make a couple of respectable blond mustaches. And then a flattish nose which, wide as it was, barely accommodated all the freckles assigned to it. When Ray really grinned—I didn’t see that this first day, although I was to see it thousands of times in the years ahead—deep slice-lines cut his cheeks, out opposite the corners of his mouth. Like a big set of parentheses around the grin. His lower lip was so full that it too had a slice-line under it. This kid looked more as if he’d been carved out of a pumpkin than born. Also, even more so than a lot of us at that age, his front teeth were far ahead of the rest of him in size. In any schoolyard there always were a lot of traded jibes of "Beaver tooth!" but Ray’s frontals really did seem as if they’d been made for toppling willows.

  As I say, haunting. I have seen grown men, guys who ordinarily wouldn’t so much as spend a glance at a boy on the street, stop and study that face of Ray’s. And here he was, thank you a whole hell of a lot, my guest for this day at English Creek.

  So we were afoot with one another and not knowing what to do about it, and ended up wandering the creek bank north of the ranger station, with boredom building up pretty fast in both of us. Finally, I got the idea of showing him the pool a little ways downstream in English Creek where brook trout always could be seen, hanging there dark in the clear water. In fact, I asked Ray if he felt like fishing, but for some reason he looked at me a little suspiciously and mumbled, "Huh uh."