But none of this bothered him in the least as he made his way to the bar and sidled onto a wooden stool there. The owner, Reagan, gave him a glass and a quart of tonic to go with the vodka he had brought in from the truck.
“How’s it goin’?” Reagan asked him.
“Can’t complain.”
“You’re the only one then.” Reagan took his money, twice what the tonic would have cost at retail. Then he told Blanchard what he wanted to know. “She’s in the back. Be out in a minute.”
Blanchard said nothing and Reagan, a short and stocky bald man, moved on down the bar, to the five other men sitting there, ranchers and truckers and cattle dealers like almost everyone else in the place—except for Shea, who with another large man was the center of attention across the room. Facing each other over a small table strewn with five- and ten-dollar bills, they were preparing to arm-wrestle, going through a nervous little dance of hand and elbow movements, jockeying for an advantage. One of the men standing over them, a garage mechanic in Rockton, was gingerly massaging his bare right arm, which looked red and sore, snared in a net of swollen veins. And his face was not much different, so full of blood and anger that Blanchard judged he had lost more than money to Shea, as the new opponent probably would too, a man Blanchard recognized now as one of the Fowler brothers, who owned and worked a large spread just over the state line, in Arkansas. He was almost as tall as Shea, and he was younger and undoubtedly in far better shape, but he lacked the great ursine shoulders that Shea had, the arms like logs. Nevertheless most of the rednecks appeared to be betting on him, betting their hearts instead of their eyes. The one exception—the one man with the look of a winner—was standing closest to Shea, and though Blanchard had never seen him before he did not have to wonder who he was, not with the familiar curly auburn hair, the squarish face and pug nose and large green eyes. And though he was indeed little, he was a good deal larger than the four feet, one hundred pounds Shea had accorded him that morning, was in fact closer to Ronda’s size, five feet three or better and probably thirty pounds heavier than her one hundred ten. So he could have been her twin, only male—and only different. Those same green eyes looked out from an alien, frightening place, a place Ronda had never been.
Suddenly one of the men standing with Little called go and the battle at the table was joined, Fowler quickly driving Shea’s arm halfway to the tabletop. But there it stopped, and would go no further, Blanchard saw, in the playful wink Shea cast his way. His friend made a great show of it, however, grimacing and gritting his teeth and straining so hard his short neck bulged as he slowly brought his arm back up to the vertical and then started down, while the men around the table kept shouting encouragement to Fowler, whose face and head looked like a red balloon about to explode. Still he held on, giving ground almost imperceptibly until finally at about six inchs from the tabletop his strength broke and Shea banged his hand down hard, into the money lying there, most of which was scooped up by Little. The other men swore and grumbled and one even kicked over a chair in his disappointment.
“You’re some real stout fella, aintcha?” he said to Shea.
“You bet your balls.” Shea was standing now, picking up the last of the bills on the table.
“No, I didn’t—I bet my money,” the man groused. “I bet my hard-earned foldin’ money.”
“Well, that’s just tough, baby. That’s the way she goes.”
“You’re a stranger here. You don’t even belong here.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
Shea said it casually, as if he were telling the man what the weather was like outside. But the manner of it made no difference. The words were still there, still the same, and the man reacted as if he had been slapped. His eyes blazed up and he staggered around, pretending that if his friends had not been holding him back he would have torn into Shea, whom Little was trying to push away at the same time, toward a distant table. Watching them, Blanchard was reminded of Clarence and the bull that morning, the smaller creature prevailing in each instance, though only out of indifference on the part of the larger. Shea seemed not even to notice the other man or his theatrical rage, was simply more interested in finishing the last of a bottle or beer. But finally he went along with Little and slipped into a booth across the room, almost under the point where the pulpit once would have been.
Blanchard planned to join them but he wanted to see Ronda alone first and exchange a few quiet words with her, a feat not often possible when Shea was near. Opening the bottle of tonic and his own pint of vodka, he made his first drink of the evening, about half-and-half, and then he saw Ronda coming out of the restroom in the back, drying her hands on her uniform, on the light green nylon slacks that so fired Shea’s imagination. Seeing him, she started to smile and then took it back, reclaiming her normal look of drowsy cynicism.
“I thought maybe you weren’t gonna show,” she said, coming up to him.
“Tommy’s alone. I stayed with him awhile.”
“Your wife got a date?”
“That’s not like you.”
“What?”
“To talk about her.”
She shrugged. “Maybe I don’t feel like me tonight.”
“You look like you.”
“Yeah, good old faithful Ronda.”
“Bad as all that?”
“Why not? You ever waited on tables?”
“I’ve cleaned a few barns.”
“Same thing,” she said, looking past him.
Blanchard followed her gaze to the table of Shea and Little, who were signaling for another round.
“That’s your brother, isn’t it?” he said.
“Yeah—my brother, the criminal.”
“He looks harmless enough.”
“He looks like a creep.”
“No love lost, huh?”
“You could say that.”
“Shea seems to like him.”
“Yeah, I noticed. But then Shea likes it here, doesn’t he? Shea likes to slum.”
“Aren’t many other places around,” Blanchard said.
“All I know is he’s got Reagan antsy. Some of these good old boys don’t exactly dig him, if you know what I mean.” She picked up her tray. “Well, I’d better get busy.”
“You get off at ten?”
“Same as always.”
“I guess I can wait that long.”
“It’s up to you,” she said.
Gathering up his two bottles and his drink, Blanchard went over to Shea’s table and slid in next to the big man, who predictably offered a commentary on the event.
“Now, didn’t I tell you, Little? Didn’t I say the great man would deign to darken our table? Yessir, Robert Kendall Blanchard esquire, that’s who this is. Cattleman, landowner, Squire of the Ozarks, and great good friend to your sweet-assed little sister.”
Little just sat there looking at Blanchard and running his right hand up and down his left arm, which was small and muscular and ornamented with a tattoo, an art nouveau floral design bound with a flowing ribbon on which the word peace appeared in gothic script.
“And this, Robert,” Shea went on, indicating Little, “this sinister-looking fellow here is Little Smith, who’s just been sent down the river from Jeff City. He’s keeping my nose clean.”
“And winnin’ money on him too,” Little said. “Did you see him over there? Sheeit, he could take down a gorilla if he wanted and them shitkickers oughta known it just by lookin’ at him. Guess they just wanted to give me some money.”
“That way they keep you from stealing it,” Shea said.
“Me steal? Why I wouldn’t ever do a thing like that.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot.” Shea turned to Blanchard. “Little’s been rehabilitated. No recidivism for him, no sir. From now on he’s going in strictly for white collar crime. Gonna get himself a white collar and stick up a gas station.”
Little went along, laughing a small, crimped, cold-eyed laugh which suggested to Blanchard that th
e little man did not really know what to make of Shea, how to take him, but was hanging with him anyway, possibly because he was unable to resist any kind of attention, even when it openly ridiculed him.
“Well, I want to improve myself,” he said.
“Don’t we all.” Shea refilled his glass. “Though of course there are some people in this world who are so fine, so upstanding and hardworking, that improvement is simply out of the question.”
“Never knew one of those,” Little said.
“Well, you do now. Verily, you and me is drinking with one.”
Little raised his glass to Blanchard. “I’m honored,” he said. “I am purely honored.”
Blanchard did not respond. Even sitting there with the man, facing him across the table, he found that he could not bring himself to make small talk or for that matter even be civil. Perhaps he had tagged too many cattle himself over the years, forcing the brutal bladed tool through the skin and blood and gristle of their ears too many times to accept the same act inflicted on another man, even as some sick and wild reach of teenage hijinks. The only problem was he did not know that Little had done such a thing; he did not know that Little had killed. There was only the rumor, the rep. But for now, for Blanchard, it was enough. He turned to Shea.
“I take it you scored with Pipkin.”
Shea grinned. “The man’s got it made, Robert. You would not believe. At Darling he could hardly draw a straight line, right? Had all the flair and imagination of a slug—and still he makes it! They got this posh little shop, with about twenty employees, probably bill four or five million. And he’s a partner, how about that? So, yeah, I hit on him. For five big ones, wasn’t that sweet of him? He even took me to lunch.”
“Congratulations. Now you can retire.”
“Hardly. No, about all it does is give me time to think, old buddy. Time to sit here and figure out a few things, make plans, why maybe even set up an enterprise, you know? Say, a money-making venture of such size and scope and audacity as to rescue the two of us from the clutches of poverty and the law and mendacious spouses.”
Little was shaking his head in wonderment, as though Shea had been speaking in tongues. But Blanchard thought he had detected something in the verbiage, most likely the beginnings of a put-on. He drained his glass and filled it again.
“Whatever you come up with,” he said, “count me out. I’ve already got an enterprise.”
“Yeah—raising forty-cent beef at a cost of fifty cents. That’s not my idea of an enterprise.”
“It’s what I’ve got.”
“Exactly. And that’s why I want to sit here and ponder the problem. Now let’s see—how can a man, a rancher, along with his old friend, his tried-and-true buddy through thick and thin—how can they make money out of cattle?”
Shea had barely begun to work on the problem when Ronda came over to their table, with a pitcher of beer and a bowl of popcorn. Immediately he went on to other matters.
“Ronda honey, it’s time you made your choice. Here we are, sitting side by side. Do you want this poor, skinny, aging has-been next to me, this miserable poker of cows and shoveler of dung, this family man, this irredeemable pissant? Or—” And here he inhaled so mightily Blanchard almost wound up on the floor. “Or do you want a man of size and substance, a man who would gladly kiss you any place on your body, anytime, anywhere?”
Ronda was taking their money and making change, for Reagan did not believe in letting his customers run a tab.
“Well, neither one of you are exactly Robert Redford,” she said.
Shea looked shocked. “Surely you jest.”
Ronda had taken Blanchard’s drink and was sipping at it, standing next to him, leaning lightly against his shoulder.
“Why don’t you sit down?” he said. “Place doesn’t look so busy.”
She looked at the empty seat next to her brother and shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. Just another hour to go.”
“There’s always my lap,” Shea suggested. “Or my face if you prefer.”
Ronda forced a laugh. “Don’t you ever quit?”
“Some things, he does,” Blanchard said.
“That is a fact,” Shea admitted.
Ronda took one more sip of the vodka. Setting it down, she told Blanchard she would see him later.
When she was gone, Shea wagged his head admiringly. “That’s some sister you got there, Little. Must’ve been fun when you were kids, taking baths together and all that.”
Little forced a grin. And Blanchard had not missed it that the whole time Ronda was at the table her brother had looked at her only once, and then uneasily, as if he could not meet something in her gaze. Whatever it was, Blanchard was glad it was there. He would not have liked it if she had accepted her brother the way Shea seemed to, as if the man were only a local eccentric, home from some amusing and exotic adventure rather than a stretch in the state pen.
Blanchard was finishing his second drink when Little suddenly developed an interest in his ranch. It was the old Ralston place he’d bought, wasn’t it? Well, that was sure one beautiful spread. Yessir, Little had bucked hay there more than one summer, and he never would forget the view up there, that old white house sitting on the hill and that wide front porch you could see ten miles from if you could see an inch. And it had good grass too, as Little recalled, real good grass. Yessir, he’d have thought a body could make money on a spread like that if it could be done anywhere. But then that was just the problem these days, wasn’t it? There just wasn’t no way to make money on cattle anymore, or at least that was the way Little kept hearing it from everybody this past week, ever since he got back.
Blanchard would not even give him that. “Oh, I don’t know. Prices have been heading up this year. We’ll make out.”
“You doing okay, then.”
“I’m not complaining.”
Little smiled contentedly, as if the information pleased him. “Well, good, I’m glad to hear it. Glad someone’s making out anyway.”
Shea laughed with amiable scorn. “Only way he’s making out is with your sister.”
Before Blanchard could respond, Shea gestured for him to slide out of the booth.
“C’mon, let’s go wee-wee,” he said. “My tooth is floating.”
Blanchard obediently led the way back to the men’s room, which for a change did not reek of vomit. Nevertheless there was considerable urine on the floor, not to mention in the washbasin, which most of the good old boys considered a third toilet to be pressed into service whenever the other two were occupied. Shea as usual preferred to stand at the stool, evidently enjoying the great splash he made there.
“How come you’re so cool toward Little?” he asked. “He’s just a poor little ex-con.”
“My heart bleeds.”
“Oh I know how he comes on, I mean that horrible pretty-boy face of his, like you took Ronda and chained her to a tree and whipped her for a year and fed her bushels of testosterone, then dressed her up in drag.”
Blanchard could not help laughing. “Is he that bad?”
“That’s my point. He ain’t. He’s just kind of creepy is all. And he’s not himself with you.”
Finished, Blanchard lit a cigarette. “Well, that sure is tough.”
“For him it just might be. Ronda’s probably got you all built up for him, like some kind of big shot, you know? Ad exec turned shitkicker—”
“Oh come on, knock it off. You think I don’t know what you two were waltzing around about out there—him with his big quiz about my ranch, and you carrying on about some grand enterprise? You told me what he did time for, remember? So spare me the stroking.”
Shea came out of the stool stall looking wide-eyed and innocent, like an enormous Spanky. “Just what are you accusing me of now? What nefarious suspicions are festering—”
“Fuck off.”
“But you accuse me.”
“Yeah, and you know you got it coming. Your poor litile con out there, he
probably thinks you’re serious. And why not? That’s what he is, a thief and a criminal. It’s what he does. So how do you explain it to him finally, that you’re just playing games? Like that arm-wrestling bit out there. For everyone else it’s life and death, and you sit there winking at me.”
Shea still looked dumbfounded. “What can I say, except I don’t have the foggiest what you’re talking about?”
“Fine. Let’s keep it that way.”
“How could I do otherwise?”
“Shea the Innocent.”
“That’s me.”
“Then tell me, how come you’re suddenly so tight with an ex-con—who might even be a murderer, did you know that?”
“No.”
“It’s possible. It’s rumored anyway.”
“Even more reason, then.”
“What?”
“To have a few beers with the man. See what makes him tick.”
“Ah yes, the great search. The grand quest. I keep forgetting.”
Shaking his head sadly, Shea came over and placed his hands on Blanchard’s shoulders, dropped them actually, like a pair of shovels. And Blanchard felt some small part of that iron grip which had taken down the other men earlier. At the same time he noticed the heaviness in his friend’s eyes, the mists of alcohol he was trying to peer through.
“Bobby, you know you’re my buddy, don’t you? One of the few old Darling hands worth a shit. Which of course is why I’m here, right—abusing your hospitality and getting in Susan’s hair. But buddies or not, old fellow, I must say this, in all candor—you are dumb, Roberto. You are one dumb cluck.”
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