Black Angus

by Newton Thornburg

“Might as well.”

  The sheriff nodded reflectively, grinning still. “Incidentally,” he said, “you know he’s wanted, dontcha?”

  “For what—child support?”

  The sheriff laughed. “Oh, a little more than that, I’m afraid. Felonious assault, assault and battery, flight to avoid arrest—you name it. According to the want slip, before he cut out he banged up his wife pretty good and put his brother-in-law in the hospital and his son too, a ten-year-old boy. Bet he didn’t tell you that, did he?”

  “No, he didn’t tell me that.”

  “No, I wouldn’t think so. Well, I’d better let you get back to work. But if this Shea turns up again, you let me know, okay? We can’t have dangerous characters like that runnin’ around loose now, can we?”

  Blanchard thought of the Sweet Creek clientele, Jiggs and his friends. “No,” he said, “we wouldn’t want that.”

  As the sheriff turned and started for his car, it occurred to Blanchard that there was one important question the sheriff had not answered, one Blanchard had not asked. Now he did.

  “How’d you know about this man? Who told you he was here?”

  The sheriff was already getting into his car. “His wife called me,” he said. “I guess somebody tipped her.”

  Blanchard nodded, as if he appreciated having the information, when in fact it sickened him. As the sheriff drove away, he remained there on the porch for a time, wondering which of them—himself or Shea—Susan had wanted to hurt.

  Tommy came out of the house and sidled close to him, afraid of the police car even though it was already on the blacktop, almost out of sight.

  “That was a police car,” Tommy said.

  “Just the sheriff, Tommy. He’s a nice man.”

  “Does he shoot people?”

  “No. He just locks up bad guys, that’s all he does.” At his brother’s look of relief, Blanchard gave him a pat. “You stay here a minute, okay? I’ll be right out.”

  He had heard Shea come back down the stairs. Going inside, he found him sitting on the bottom step, cradling his head in his hands.

  “I take it you heard that?” Blanchard said.

  “Yeah. And it sounds worse than it was.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Well, it does.”

  “That how your boy feels too, you think?”

  Shea made a gesture of futility. “I was drunk,” he said.

  “Somehow I figured that.”

  “I was drunk and I was just trying to get out of the goddamn house. Evelyn knew I’d withdrawn most of our savings and for some reason she called her fairy brother up to come over and stop me. Well, the guy weighs about a hundred forty. I just pushed him aside, and then she came at me with a goddamn golf club and I swung out, trying to protect myself. Then little Joey came flying at me—”

  “And you pushed him aside too.”

  “That’s right.”

  “You push hard, Shea.”

  “Well, that’s all it was—I pushed them, that’s all. I shoved them away. I don’t know what the hell the cop meant—hospital. They weren’t that hurt. I was just trying to get out of there.”

  Blanchard nodded, more in indifference than in acceptance or understanding. He was tired of Shea and all his problems, especially now that he could not even deal with his own.

  “Well, in any case it’s over,” he said. “It’s over and done. It’s now I’m worried about. When will you be able to travel?”

  “You mean, get out of here?”

  “Leave here, yes.”

  “Right now, if you want.”

  “No, not now. Not in the shape you’re in. But in a day or two, maybe then, all right?”

  “Whatever you say.”

  Blanchard did not miss the shade of contempt in the big man’s bruised eyes. “You didn’t tell me you were wanted on a felony charge,” he said. “If you get arrested here, then I do too—for harboring a fugitive.”

  Shea grinned crookedly. “Thoughtless of me, wasn’t it?”

  “You could say that.”

  “The story of my life.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  Shea looked up at him with a frown, pretending to be serious, confounded. “I wonder why,” he said. “I really do.”

  “Sure, you do.” Blanchard turned away from him. He went out onto the porch, and Tommy followed him to the pickup. It was still early afternoon. There was still a lot of hay to make.

  All through the afternoon and most of the evening they worked. After Blanchard finished raking he joined Russell’s crew in loading the bales onto the wagon and then unloading them in the hay barn, load after load. Twice during the late afternoon the baler broke down, but each time Clarence and Blanchard got it going again. By seven o’clock all the hay was baled and Blanchard took Tommy back to the house and then got out his own wagon, smaller than Russell’s, and pressed it into service too, with himself and one of the teenagers bucking the hay while Clarence drove the tractor. And finally, by dark, the field was clean and one of the hay barns was full, jammed to the rafters with close to two thousand bales of fescue and red clover hay smelling of both verdancy and death, an odor that always worked on Blanchard as powerfully as that of wood smoke, stirring in him dim primeval feelings, memories he could not quite make out.

  Blanchard paid Russell, who in turn paid the teenagers. Then they all left, with Clarence following them at dusk. Blanchard sleepwalked through his chores and finally made it to the house, where he planned to spend the next hour in a tub of hot water, hopefully while Shea made supper for the three of them. But when he reached the living room only Tommy was there, sitting on the floor playing with his toys. Blanchard looked in the sunroom and out on the porch, but the big man was not there either. He asked Tommy where Shea was, and Tommy thought about it, frowning. Then his face lit up.

  “He went huntin’,” he said.

  Blanchard felt a sudden weakness. “Hunting?”

  “Yeah. He took one of the guns, out of the rack. And he went huntin’.”

  “Where?”

  Tommy frowned again, brightened again. “Upstairs. He said there was a mouse in his room, and he was—”

  “Did he shoot the gun?”

  “I ain’t heard it.”

  Tired as he was, Blanchard ran up the stairs to the second floor and on up the attic flight and burst into the tiny room. Shea, naked except for a pair of jockey shorts, was sitting at the head of the bed, crosslegged, looking like a great hairy Buddha. The gun, Blanchard’s twelve-gauge pump shotgun, lay across his lap.

  “Give it to me,” Blanchard said.

  “But I haven’t used it yet.”

  “And you won’t either. Give it to me.”

  “Why not?” Shea held the gun out to him with both hands, as if he were surrendering a ceremonial sword. “But why all the sweat, old buddy? What’d you think, I brought it up here to use on myself?”

  “You tell me.” With the gun safe in his hands, the crisis apparently over, Blanchard’s exhaustion fell on him like one last bale of hay and he sagged into the room’s only chair.

  “I keep hearing a mouse in the room,” Shea said. “I was gonna use it on him, that’s all.”

  “Sure you were.”

  “Honest injun.”

  “And blow a hole in the floor or wall? That’d make a lot of sense, wouldn’t it?”

  “I guess I wasn’t thinking.”

  “I guess not.”

  Blanchard sat there for a time looking at Shea, at his limp smile and the pain behind it, the guilt. “Why?” he said finally. “Can you tell me that?”

  “Why wasn’t I thinking?”

  “Stop it, will you. Stop acting like a jerk.”

  “It’s no act.”

  “I want an answer,” Blanchard persisted.

  And the big man continued for a time to meet his gaze, smiling his tired, rueful smile. Then he looked down and shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “I really don’t. But honest, this isn
’t what it seems.”

  “What isn’t?”

  “The gun. I brought the thing along just in case, you know? In case I metamorphosed up here—in case I suddenly changed from a cockroach into a man, with cojones and everything. Then I’d have had it handy, you see? I could’ve put it in the old mouth just like Papa did and blow these exquisite brains all over your exquisite wallpaper.”

  “How long you been here?”

  “Sitting here? I don’t know. A couple hours, I guess. I don’t seem to have any real fix on time lately. I just wander lonely as a cloud.”

  “No shit.”

  “None at all.”

  For some reason Blanchard thought it important to pin Shea down, make him face what he almost had done, and why. “It was what the sheriff said, right? About putting your boy in the hospital?”

  “I doubt it. I doubt it was any one thing. Just me, old buddy. What I am.”

  “And what is that?”

  “An unbeliever.”

  “In what?”

  Shea laughed wearily, shaking his head. “You name it, kid, and I won’t believe in it. The whole schmeer.”

  “And that’s hard to take, huh?”

  “It seems to be, yeah.”

  “And the rest of us, we’re all such great believers, is that how it is?”

  “Seems to be.”

  “Not to me, it doesn’t.”

  “Then how come you just spent sixteen hours working like some fanatic coolie? Because you don’t believe in this thing of yours, this land and your fucking cows?”

  Blanchard had no answer for that.

  “Now me. The ad biz didn’t count of course, because you’re not supposed to believe in it. But home and family and Old Glory, Jimmy and Jesus and people and cows and trees—none of it cuts any ice with the Old Unbeliever. All I want to do is get ahold of some booze and get it down fast enough so I can turn it off finally, the censor up here, O him of little faith.” He tapped his bandaged head.

  Blanchard lit a cigarette. “So you’re a cynic. Big deal.”

  “A cynic—did I say I was a cynic?”

  “I thought you did.”

  “Sure. And Jiggs is an irritable person.” He lisped the words.

  “Maybe you’re just an alcoholic. You ever thought of that?”

  Shea made a face, the unbeliever again. “I doubt it. I can go days without the stuff, with no real sweat. But I get bored, you know? I hate to just sit here in my fat despising everything and everybody, including me, and so I break open a can or two, and the first thing you know, I don’t hate everything quite so much. I just find it ridiculous and amusing. I get a reprieve of sorts.”

  “That’s something.”

  “Oh, you bet. It’s my life, that’s what it is—a series of reprieves.”

  “Well, now you’ve got another one.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “You gonna come down and have supper with us?”

  Shea wagged his head admiringly. “Ah, a neat bit of psychological footwork, that, Bobby. The old homey touch. Suicide threat’s over, so let’s go eat, huh?”

  “What do you want me to do, sit here and play shrink?”

  “How about some primal therapy? We could let down our hair and scream.”

  “That’s why it’s hard to take you seriously, you know that?”

  “My banter, you mean?”

  “Your whole attitude. If you really hurt so much, then how come all the laughs?”

  Blanchard could see him begin again to answer with raillery, another laugh. But in the end he gave it up. And suddenly he looked almost small sitting there in the bed.

  “You know the answer to that,” he said. “It’s just a habit. A stupid, defensive habit.”

  “What can I do?” Blanchard asked.

  Shea held out his hands, gesturing irony and futility. “You’ve already done it, old buddy. You took me in, you know.”

  Blanchard got to his feet. He was trying very hard to think of the right words to say, some sort of lifeline to leave with his friend. But nothing came.

  “I’m gonna fry up some steaks,” he said. “You come on down, all right?”

  Shea shook his head. “I don’t think so. Not tonight anyway.”

  At the doorway Blanchard tried again. “Listen, don’t give up, you hear? I haven’t. And who knows? Maybe between the two of us we might be able to come up with something, maybe even find some light at the end of this goddamn tunnel we’re in. It’s worth a try, isn’t it?”

  Shea smiled, whether at the idea or simply at him, Blanchard was not sure.

  “I guess so,” the big man said.

  “You know so. Anyway, we’ll see you later. I’ll fry up an extra steak.” Still holding the shotgun, Blanchard left the room.

  Later, after a bath and supper, he put Tommy to bed and then went into his room and phoned Susan in Saint Louis, which was considerably closer than her voice made it sound, rather as if it were some distant planet, some asylum utterly beyond his reach and ken. Oh, things were going very well, she said. She and her father and the Doctor Butlers had just returned from a late dinner at Busch’s Grove and it had been very nice. In fact, he would be surprised at how nice things were “back in the world.” Whit had spent almost the whole day swimming in the pool and was already in bed. If Blanchard had really wanted to talk with the boy, he could have called earlier. She asked if the cattle had Bang’s and he said he didn’t know yet, and she asked if the bank had extended his loan and he lied about that too; Gideon hadn’t decided yet, he said. Then he told her about the sheriff coming to the ranch and she readily admitted calling Evelyn Shea and telling her where her husband was. After all, he was a wanted man, she said. He was a criminal. She was only doing her duty as a citizen—certainly he could see that, couldn’t he? And on that chilling note the conversation ended, Blanchard mumbling something about haymaking and how tired he was. Only after he had hung up did it occur to him that neither of them had said a word about missing the other; neither of them had said a word about love.

  But Blanchard told himself it was not important. He told himself he did not care, that he was too tired, that he was fit only for sleep. And he collapsed almost greedily into the bed, hungry for oblivion. But it would not come. For over an hour he lay there tossing and turning and smoking cigarettes and staring into the darkness. Then finally he got up and dressed and drove the twelve miles to Ronda’s trailer.

  She came to the door in her frightful blue robe, her hair tumbling over heavy eyes and her face sleep-streaked.

  “It’s after one o’clock,” she said, closing the door behind him.

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  She smiled indulgently. “I kind of figured that.”

  “Don’t ask me why,” he said. “God knows I’m tired enough.”

  “Maybe too tired.”

  “Maybe so.”

  “It’s probably the bed. You’re not used to it empty.”

  “Could be.”

  “You miss her.”

  “I came here. I came to you.”

  “I’m closer.”

  “Whatever.”

  “You want coffee?” she asked. “You want to talk?”

  He shook his head. “I’m too bushed. Really. I just want to collapse.”

  She took him by the hand. “Come on. I’ll give you a massage. A real one.”

  Back in her room she helped him off with his clothes, as if he were a drunk or a child. Taking off her robe, she told him to lie on his stomach. Then she climbed on top of him, straddling him, and he accepted it that within a few seconds he would have to roll over, ready for her. But then her hands touched his shoulders, strong, short-nailed fingers that seemed to reach down into his flesh and take hold of his tension and exhaustion and lift it from him. So he stayed as he was a few moments longer, giving his body to her. And then it was too late and he could feel himself begin to fall, like a stone into deep water.

  7

  Late the next mor
ning, a Sunday, Blanchard and Tommy drove out to the various pastures to check the cattle, all except the Angus group bred by the Emulous bull, which were still being kept separate, in the front pasture near the house. It was a task Tommy enjoyed almost as much as he did filling the salt feeders, probably because it kept him almost as busy, jumping out of the pickup at every gate and opening it so Blanchard could drive on through, then closing it and hurrying to get back inside, and finally joining him in the bed of the truck as they counted the cattle. Blanchard would usually call out the final number and ask Tommy if that was the number he had gotten too, which it invariably was.

  “Yep, fifty-six,” Tommy would say. “That’s what I get too.”

  Then Blanchard would jump down and move among the cattle, looking for any signs of trouble—pinkeye, bloat, scours, pneumonia—all but the first rare at this time of year.

  On this morning, however, he only went through the motions of a head count and health check, for his real objective was the old corral in the far corner of the north pasture—and not simply to use it to feed grain to the yearlings, which he did again—but to check it out board by board and post by post in the hope that it was not as rickety and useless as it appeared. And he took special care checking out the crowding pen and the loading chute, which looked equally ancient and unserviceable, with weeds and grass coming up through the floorboards of the chute. But the closer he examined it all, the more convinced he became that the decrepitude was only cosmetic, a veneer of age. And once again he found himself standing in silent awe of the now-dead men who had worked the land before him, without benefit of the gasoline engine or electric power. Whatever they had built, they built to last. In this case, the ax-hewn posts were white oak, as were the planks, and all of them properly cured and carefully joined, for there was no rot in those joints, no place where Blanchard could take hold of the weathered old boards and pull them loose by hand, which unfortunately was already the case with many of the things he himself had built on the ranch in the past few years. And, incredibly, even the posts were sturdy, not yet rotted out underground, which he had difficulty believing, because they were not cemented in but only sunk in the ground, tamped in, with what now-lost technique he could only marvel at and be grateful for.