Black Angus

by Newton Thornburg

  Later, when he joined her in bed, he found her cold and silent. She was lying on her back, and when he tried to kiss her she turned her face away from him. He was afraid he knew why.

  “What you heard on the stairs,” he said. “It didn’t mean anything.”

  “What did I hear?”

  “About me staying here and starting over. That was just for Tommy’s peace of mind. Like I told you before, I don’t know what’s ahead. I don’t know what will happen.”

  “You know what you want to happen, though.”

  “I don’t even know that,” he said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes—why?”

  “Because I didn’t just hear you—I saw you.”

  He was silent for a time, thinking. “Tommy gets to me,” he said finally. “He’s so helpless, so vulnerable. And when—”

  “You don’t have to explain,” she cut in.

  “But I want to.”

  “The part about your wife coming back, too?”

  “That was the same as the rest—for Tommy’s benefit, so he wouldn’t think it’s always going to be like this, just the two of us. She won’t be coming back, though—I know that. For over a year she told me she was going to leave. And now she has. And I don’t expect her back except to get more of her things.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Ronda said. “I don’t expect anything. I told you I’d look out for myself.”

  “Okay, but I just want to make sure you understand—what you heard downstairs, that isn’t the way it is. That was just for Tommy. Oh, I’ll admit there are times when I think about staying on and starting over. But thinking isn’t enough. The mortgage is too stiff. With the money I’ll get now, I could meet it for a couple of years. Or I could buy cattle. But I couldn’t do both. It simply isn’t possible.”

  But Ronda was not interested. She lay as before, very still, barely breathing. He leaned over her and kissed her on the forehead and then tried to kiss her on the mouth, but again she turned away.

  “Not even a goodnight kiss?” he asked.

  She did not answer. And he settled back on his own side of the bed and lit a cigarette. He lay there in the darkness smoking and thinking, and after a time he felt her roll away from him and then later he heard her breathing change as she fell asleep. He lit another cigarette and smoked it down, and still the thoughts kept coming, the worries, like a train of rickety freight cars clattering endlessly out of some black tunnel of the mind. He smoked another cigarette, and then another before he too finally fell asleep.

  In the middle of the night he woke and found himself alone in bed. Through the bedroom’s open door he saw that a light was burning somewhere downstairs. Getting out of bed, he put on his pants and went down to the living room and into the kitchen, where the light was coming from. On the table there was a used coffee cup and an ashtray with the butts of two cigarettes, Ronda’s brand. He went back through the living room and out onto the front porch then, where he found her huddled in her robe, sitting in one of the wicker chairs.

  “Can’t sleep?” he said.

  “I guess not.”

  “Why, you worried?”

  She shook her head.

  “What, then?”

  “Nothing. I just get like this sometimes.”

  “Like what?”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “I don’t know. But it does.”

  “I wouldn’t know how to tell you anyway.”

  “It’s up to you.”

  “It’s just a feeling I get. A stupid feeling. I fall into this kind of hole. A deep black hole. And I can’t crawl out.”

  Blanchard sat back against the porch railing, facing her. He was wishing he had brought his cigarettes with him. “We all get depressed,” he said.

  “Is that what this is?”

  “I don’t know. You tell me.”

  She laughed forlornly, drawing up her legs and hugging them, as if she were very cold. “I wouldn’t know how,” she said. “Even if I wanted to.”

  He asked her if she wanted him to leave her alone, and again she shook her head.

  “It’s natural to be scared,” he said. “What you’ll be doing. If you want out, just say so. I’ll call it off.”

  “I’m not even thinking about that.”

  “What then?”

  For a time she did not answer. She sat there hugging her legs and shivering. “When I was a kid my grandma used to take us to Harrison to visit her sister every summer,” she said finally, her voice oddly flat and distant. “And I remember once when I was five or six, there was this dog, this little mutt, part terrier, I guess. Just a dog in the neighborhood. And then one day all of a sudden it wasn’t just a dog anymore—it was a female, with a pack of males after her. She whined and yelped and snapped at them, but they kept coming, screwing her and chasing her and fighting each other and finally trapping her under this porch with sides on it, so low most of them couldn’t squirm under and get at her again. So they started digging under the edge of the porch, digging like their lives depended on it, on getting at her again.”

  In the light from the kitchen Blanchard could not see her eyes, just the set of her mouth, the twist of repugnance.

  “That’s when my grandma pulled me away,” she went on. “I wasn’t supposed to watch such things, she told me. Good little girls looked the other way. But I didn’t. All the way back to the house, I kept looking back. And one by one, the males got under the edge of the porch. They got in there and they took her. They fucked her. They killed her, for all I know.”

  She dropped her head onto her knees, finished. And in the growing silence Blanchard did not know what to say, whether to ignore the story or pick it up, acknowledge that he knew what she was getting at. Finally her silence proved too much for him.

  “That was about the time Little started on you,” he said.

  She nodded.

  “And has it been that bad ever since, with everybody?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess if you’re a dancer and barmaid, you bring it on. You ask for it. Or else you become those things because of it. Because of how they keep after you. Like you’re meat.”

  Blanchard did not want to go on from that point, to make the final connection for her. But somehow he had no choice.

  “And me?” he said. “What am I, just the last in line?”

  She raised her head and looked at him, her eyes hidden still. But he did not have to wonder at their expression.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I guess that’s why I’m down here.”

  “In your hole.”

  “Yes.”

  Blanchard held out his hand to her. “Come on. Let’s go upstairs. Let’s go back to bed.”

  But for a while longer she sat there looking at him, and at his hand. Then finally she took it and he pulled her up. He led her back upstairs to bed.

  9

  Before ten o’clock the next morning Blanchard phoned Yellow Pages information in Kansas City and got the names and numbers of three different cattle brokers at the stockyards. He drove to Rockton then and withdrew twenty-five hundred dollars in cash from his operating expenses account at the bank, almost all the money he had in the world. On the way out of town he stopped at an outdoor phone booth near the cement-block True Faith Church and put in a call to the second broker on his list, Ansell Bros., Inc. A secretary answered and passed the call on to one of the brothers. Blanchard told him that he was Charles Whitehead calling from a phone booth in Sarcoxie, Missouri—his own phone at the ranch was out, he explained. He was going to ship two hundred and five head of cattle that evening for auction at the stockyards the next day, he said, and he wanted Ansell to act as his agent. The numbers would be about evenly divided between cows, yearlings, and winter calves, with two Polled Hereford bulls. The gross weight of the cattle would be about one hundred and thirty thousand pounds.

  He explained to the broker that he himself would not be able to go along wi
th the shipment but that his wife would, and she would have all his instructions regarding the age of the cattle, their breeding status, and so forth. He told the broker that the truckers would be paid in advance and that he wanted the check for the cattle made out to his wife, Mrs. Charles Whitehead, because he wanted her to bank it in Kansas City before returning home. The broker said he understood. He thanked Blanchard for his business and said he would get him “top dollar.”

  When Blanchard got back to the ranch, Ronda had lunch ready and the three of them sat down in the kitchen to eat—silently, as it turned out, for Ronda still seemed tense and withdrawn and Blanchard could not think of anything except what lay ahead, all of which left Tommy sitting between the two of them like a tennis spectator, swiveling from one to the other, wondering what was wrong. Finally he asked.

  “You okay, Bob?”

  “Sure. Just a little sleepy, I guess.”

  “Didn’t you sleep last night?”

  “Not enough.”

  Tommy thought about that, nodding as if he had been let in on an important secret. Then he turned to Ronda. “Didn’t you sleep last night?”

  “I slept fine,” she said. “How about you?”

  Tommy beamed, pleased by her interest. “Oh, I slept fine, too.”

  “Good.”

  That apparently was all the reassurance he needed, for he hurried through the rest of his soup and ham sandwich so he could get back to his tote-bag toys, which he had spread out on the picnic table in the backyard.

  When he was gone, Blanchard told Ronda about his call to the broker. The man expected her. The check would be made out to her. Everything was arranged.

  “You’re still going through with it, then,” she said.

  “Aren’t you?”

  She looked at him, her eyes cool and unreadable. What he saw could have been resignation, regret, fear. He repeated himself.

  “Well, are you?”

  “If you’re still set on it.”

  “It’s already in motion. Maybe Shea won’t come, but Little and the others will. They’ll be here at seven.”

  “You could still back out.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t care. It’s for you to decide.”

  “I already have. That’s why I called the broker.”

  “Okay, then.”

  “I don’t like it,” he explained. “But I like the alternative even less.”

  She had started to clear the table. “That’s usually the way. We all wind up doing what we don’t want to do.” She said it more to herself than to him.

  Blanchard, dropping the subject, went into his small office and got a sheet of writing paper. Coming back to the table, he sat down and wrote out the list of instructions she was to give the broker. At the top he put the broker’s name, stockyards address, and phone number. Then he went on:

  76 cows—B/W face and Hereford, some dairy-beef crosses. All 3 to 9 yrs.

  All rebred, though can’t guarantee preg.

  (Sell alone or in like groups)

  2 purebred Polled Hereford bulls, unregistered.

  4 yrs. & 5 yrs. (Sell separate)

  70 yearling steers and heifers (open)

  500-700 lbs.

  (Separate & sell in groups)

  68 winter calves (2 mos. to 5 mos.)

  (Separate and sell in groups)

  NOTE: Trucker is prepaid—don’t deduct his fee from check.

  Make check payable to Mrs. Charles Whitehead.

  Then he signed it: Charles Whitehead, Sarcoxie, Mo. Finished, he pushed the sheet across the table to her.

  She picked it up and read it. “I give this to the broker?”

  “Right. And when you get his check, just take it to the nearest bank and cash it. And come on home.”

  “And keep my eye on Little.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about him, not if Shea’s along.”

  “And who watches Shea?”

  “You do.”

  She smiled wryly. “I see. And we bring back the money and you plow it into cattle again, and go broke again. And what happens after that, do we steal your cattle once more?”

  Blanchard laughed, not very heartily. “Christ, you’re cynical today.”

  She did not contradict him. Folding the paper, she put it in the pocket of her jeans and went back to the sink to resume washing the dishes.

  Early in the afternoon Blanchard loaded the pickup with eighteen fifty-pound sacks of feed, the portable feedbunks, and a half-dozen steel-rod corral panels. And because his destination—the north pasture corral—was so far from the house, he took along everything else he thought he might possibly need for the operation that evening, including his Yamaha trail bike, a supply of boards, his tool kit, a sledgehammer, ax, shovels, chainsaw, steel fence posts, and barbed wire. Tommy, helping him load it all, asked what they were going to do and Blanchard said it was nothing very important, just a little work in the north end, but that he was going to have to do it alone. He told Tommy that he wanted him to stay at the house and look after Ronda because she was afraid to be alone. Tommy looked crestfallen.

  “It’s important,” Blanchard said. “You can help me more here.”

  “What’s she afraid of? There ain’t nothin’ be afraid of, is there?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Then I come with, okay?”

  “No, you stay and look after things. It’s important.”

  Reluctantly, Tommy gave in. “Okay, Bob.”

  “And one other thing—if the police come here looking for Shea, you let Ronda do the talking, all right? If they ask you anything, like where I am, you just tell them you don’t know.”

  “Okay.”

  “But only if they ask. Don’t say anything otherwise.”

  “Did Shea do something bad?” Tommy asked.

  “In a way. The guys who beat him up—he hurt them pretty bad.”

  “That’s just gettin’ even, ain’t it?”

  “That’s right. So don’t help the police if they come here. Don’t say anything, unless they ask you. And then say you don’t know. Okay?”

  Tommy nodded gravely.

  “I’ll see you later.”

  When he reached the far corner of the pasture, Blanchard unloaded the steel panels and wired them tight against those points in the corral where the pressure of the cattle would be greatest, especially along the outside perimeter of the crowding pen and the point where it narrowed into the alley and finally the loading chute itself. The biggest danger, he knew, would come from the smaller yearlings. The cows and bulls were too large to turn in the alley, and the calves were small enough to turn around without breaking anything. But the yearlings—those heifers and younger steers weighing about five hundred pounds—were just the right size to wedge themselves against both sides of the alley as they tried to turn back, which would put such enormous pressure on the corral boards that anything less than two-inch oak usually would break. And then the animal would plunge on through the opening, with those behind it surging after, like water bursting through a dam.

  So Blanchard reinforced the vulnerable areas with the webbed, steel-rod panels, wiring them tight against the boards and posts. And when he was finished he unloaded four of his steel feedbunks into the open part of the corral, adding them to the two wooden bunks already there. Then he filled them with feed from the truck, being careful to pick up the empty sacks and throw them back into the truck for burning later. By then some of the cattle were already beginning to congregate around the corral, especially the yearlings, which were used to daily feedings of grain. But Blanchard waited until almost five o’clock before he blew his whistle, knowing that by then most of the cattle would have gone to the creek or the ponds for water before they started grazing again. And as on the day before, the cattle responded predictably, with those that heard the whistle immediately running toward it, and the others, more distant, setting out in pursuit of the runners, obeying the irresi
stible herd instinct. Standing in the bed of the truck, Blanchard saw them coming from the farthest part of the pasture and from the woods bordering the creek, like metal filings flowing dutifully toward the magnet of the whistle’s piercing sound.

  He wanted only enough cattle in the corral to fill the first truck, so he did not wait for all of them to arrive. He threw open the corner gate and stepped back as they lumbered in, the cows’ udders flapping as they ran. When he judged that he had at least fifty animals inside, he let out a shout and swung the gate against the flow, forcing the animals back. He chained the gate closed then and climbed up onto the corral, where he sat and watched this first group as they ate the grain. He did not doubt that some mothers and their calves had been separated in the rush, which in time would make for a prolonged and angry bellering. But for now there was only appetite, with the boss cows getting the best of it as always.

  He sat there until after the feed was gone and the cows on the inside were dimly beginning to realize what had happened to them, that somehow they had lost their freedom. There was a spate of butting then, yearlings getting in the way of the boss cows, but it did not appear serious, not the kind of melee that could have battered down the sides of the corral, as would have been the case if a couple of bulls had gone at it, within that narrow confine. So he got into his truck and started back, satisfied that the herd would remain pretty much as it was, at least for now, with those inside the corral wanting out and those on the outside wanting in. The bovine was not a crafty animal.

  When he reached the house, he was surprised to see Ronda coming up the drive in his car. Getting out, she explained.

  “Some things I forgot at my place. Female things.”

  “You’re not sick?” he asked.

  “I’ll get by.”

  “If you’re sick, just tell me. You don’t have to go through with it.”