I was immediately aroused. “Yeah. Actually, I’ll be fine. This thing with Jack just came out of the blue, you know. It makes me nervous. We never know what to expect.”
Sophie nodded, and the next thing I knew, her lips were brushing against my neck. The muscles in my shoulders collapsed, and my head tilted back involuntarily. I felt the goosebumps spread from my neck, down my arms. My body surrendered to a brief shiver. I let out a soft moan.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked.
“You don’t like that?”
“Oh, I didn’t say that. I didn’t say that at all.” I laughed, an airy exhale of air and sound.
Sophie tugged at my earlobe with her teeth, and her lips lightly touched my cheek.
And then she moved to my mouth, and my insides melted. Of course, this was not the first time we had kissed in this new incarnation of our relationship, but it was the first time we kissed like that, with our mouths grafting together in a meeting of skin and feeling that sank into my chest, flooding me like a blast of sunshine when you come out from under a shade tree. It was also the first time we retired to Sophie’s room, and it was about to be the first time that we made love, except that by the time we had our clothes off and crawled under the covers, I was such a nervous wreck that I could barely stay in the bed. The energy nearly bounced me out of the room.
“Are you okay?” Sophie finally asked after I sighed deeply for the third time.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m really not okay.” My hands were trembling, and I suddenly felt a clammy sweat cover my body.
Sophie lifted herself up on one elbow and looked up at me, her expression one of confusion. “Am I doing something? Is there something I can do differently?”
I cleared my throat. “I don’t know, actually, if there’s anything you can do. Maybe I just need to relax a little here. Let me just lie here for a second.” I closed my eyes, taking deep breaths.
Sophie pulled her head back from my chest, studying my face. “Blake, don’t tell me you’ve never done this before.”
I turned my face away.
“Really?” she asked. She reached around and pulled my face toward her so she could look at me. “Seriously?”
I smiled shyly. “It’s true. I’m a goddam rookie.”
She measured me, her eyes narrowing to tiny slits. “Really?”
I nodded my head.
“My goodness. I’ve never heard of such a thing. How old are you, Blake?”
Now I was more than embarrassed, and my cheeks flushed. “Well, now, you don’t have to make such a big thing about it,” I said.
“No. I’m not. I’m sorry. I don’t think it’s strange in a…in a…strange way or anything. It’s just so unusual for a man, you know.”
I nodded. “Yes…I know.”
“Oh, I should just shut my mouth. I’m sorry. I’m just making it worse. Here…” She leaned up against me, and the warmth and soft velvet of her skin soothed me, calming my stomach. “We’ll just lie here,” she said, and we did. We held each other into a quiet, calm sleep. And then, in the middle of the night, I woke up to a soft touch, a rhythmic caress, and then the slow descent of a snug, moist embrace lowering down onto me as I lay on my back. Sophie sat still for a moment, sighing when I was as far inside her as I could go. And she leaned forward, resting a breast against my mouth. I licked, then sucked. Her skin looked even whiter in the still darkness, and her eyes seemed to shine as she looked down at me. A smile curled her lips, and then her eyes drifted slowly and peacefully closed.
She moaned, and began moving. The undulation was gentle, perfect, like a dance without music. A perfect dance. The sensation was excruciating in its perfection, and I exploded quickly, of course, although I didn’t know that until later, after more experience. Sophie didn’t seem to mind. She pressed her face into my neck, and sighed happily, opening her mouth and biting gently just below my jaw. “Mm,” was all she said. It was all either of us said.
I learned a few things about myself as time passed and my visits became more comfortable. I learned that I was good with kids—firm but patient. My time with Rita and the boys had no doubt contributed to that. Sophie’s children finally took a liking to me after a few weeks. They were pretty easy kids to like, and Sophie had raised them well, with manners that were admirable, but also a playful sense of fun that was contagious. When I walked in the house, Laurie would run into the room and jump into my lap, squealing my name, and it made my heart swell every damn time.
But most important, I learned I had been lonely. I was amazed I had managed to keep this secret from myself, and it made me wonder what other things I didn’t know about myself. It seemed that my obsession with the ranch had closed off some part of my mind, or my heart. At the same time, I wondered whether I would have been able to enjoy somebody’s company any sooner in my life, whether I would have been too preoccupied with work to appreciate a wife and kids. It was hard to say, of course. I would never know.
All I did know is that six months after my first dinner with Sophie, I drove to Belle Fourche, my mood cheerful but nervous, my heart flooded with clean, pure blood. Because nearly twenty years after first catching Sophie Roberts’s, now Sophie Andrews’s eye, I had decided to pop the question. I knew I was ready, and I felt certain that she would say yes. In fact, I was thinking more about the logistics than I was about asking the big question. I was more consumed with the details of when we should get married, and where we should live, and whether we should have a big wedding. I was thinking about what Jack had said, and how this marriage, and the kids that came with it, would leave no doubt at all about who had the upper hand in taking over the ranch. With my mind so focused on these details, it isn’t surprising that I was too preoccupied to notice that Sophie was also distracted. I was talkative when I arrived, although the topics I brought up were far from what was on my mind. It wasn’t until halfway through dinner that I began to notice a distance in Sophie. In the past, this mood usually indicated that she was having some trouble with one of the kids, so I assumed the same was true this time. But when I mentioned that I was worried about whether the recent hailstorm had ruined our wheat crop for the year, and she answered, “Really? That’s great, Blake,” I knew that she had something on her mind.
So I put all thoughts of a proposal to the side, and I was just about to ask her if something was wrong when she looked up at me with a wide-eyed, fearful expression—so fearful that I stood up, starting toward her.
“Blake…” She dropped her eyes immediately.
“What? What is it?”
A half hour later, on the road out of Belle Fourche, the scene was again blurred by the rainwater flowing down my windshield. I pummeled my steering wheel, slamming one fist then the other against my inflexible, unfeeling victim, yelling as loudly as I could, filling the cab with sound. I finally realized that I was dangerously close to injuring my hands, so I stopped pounding. But I yelled once more, trying to extract the pain of hearing from the woman I thought I loved that she was going to marry Albert Carroll. And as I reviewed her reasons, hearing them as if I was still sitting there in front of her (“I’m too tired, and too old, to live on a ranch again. And I have to think of my kids.”), I cursed the fact that I had allowed myself to stray from what I had always known. I reminded myself yet again that the land had claimed me all those years before, when George got sucked into the current of the Little Missouri River. And I derided myself for getting seduced by the belief that I was able to devote time to anything else.
I suppose I was too angry to admit that I was really mad at Sophie. Or maybe it was just easier to take it out on myself. After all, I was the only one there. But for whatever reason, I didn’t think about this development coming out of the sky, with no sign of Albert, not even a mention of him, in the six months I’d been busting my butt to see Sophie twice a week. All of that finally did hit me after a few days. But what didn’t hit me until weeks later was something about my own motives—s
omething that wasn’t easy to admit. It started when I noticed that my feelings for Sophie actually faded pretty quickly. This confused me. I thought I’d been in love with her. I was certain of it. But when I thought back to that day I planned to propose, recalling my thoughts about positioning myself at the ranch, I realized that even though I liked Sophie well enough, I had probably never been in love with her. I realized to my horror that when Dad made his speech, I had been righteous enough to believe that it didn’t apply to me—that he was talking just about Jack and Helen and Bob. But here I had been plotting to marry a woman I didn’t love. He was also talking about me.
14
spring 1942
The sleek, varnished coffin, dark as a strong cup of coffee, sat closed and pristine in the living room. Light glanced off the silver handles, and three roses lay on top with their stems crossing and looping between and around each other.
Callused, awkward ranchers’ fingers held cups, tipping them to chapped lips, then lowering them to their saucers, with a slight tremor, afraid of doing something that would draw attention, such as dropping the cups or spilling coffee on their owners. The men stood in suits that didn’t quite fit and hair that wouldn’t quite stay down, even with oil. The light shone off only the tops of their foreheads, where the skin, starting in a straight line halfway up, was bleached from hiding under a hat.
The women did wear hats, colorful ones that matched their dresses, with netting draped from the brims, covering half their faces. They held white lace handkerchiefs to their eyes, dabbing along the bottom lid. Many wore cloth gloves, hiding their own swollen, red hands.
And the smaller children ran among the stiff legs, immune to grief and confused about why this gathering was different from any other except for the beautiful wooden box in the front room.
Lonnie Roberts approached, holding not a cup but a glass with amber liquid and ice.
“Blake, I always thought your mom was someone who would live to be a hundred. She never looked any older or worse for wear, any time I ever saw her.” We shook, then he laid a hand on my shoulder. The alcoholic aroma washed over me.
“I’ve thought that myself, Lonnie.” I sipped from my coffee, staring at the coffin.
“How do you think your dad’s taking it?”
“Hard to say.” I recalled Dad’s face when I returned from the barn two days before. I’d found Mom slumped against the milk cow, the tips of her fingers dipped in the bucket of milk. Dad hadn’t reacted, as if he already knew. His eyes had just gotten narrower, and his head bobbed once.
“Yeah, it takes some time before you can tell with something like this,” Lonnie said. He paused, taking a long look at the coffin. “It should be a little easier for him with you and Rita living here. Those fellas that live alone after their wife passes on, you can sometimes watch them die right before your eyes.”
I could think of plenty of examples, and I nodded, suddenly glad we were living with Dad. I thought about asking Lonnie about Sophie, about how she was, but I decided I didn’t really want to know right then.
Lonnie drained his glass, then looked inside it, to make sure. “Well, can’t let this thing stay empty too long,” he said. “Never know when they’ll run out.” He smiled and patted my shoulder again. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“Yes, good,” I said.
I watched Lonnie waltz through the crowd in his dignified manner, pressing hands and bending to the women. He had lost Ruth two years before when she stormed out of the house during one of their legendary arguments. She froze to death trying to make it to a nearby farmhouse, walking in a dress and heels. But Lonnie was definitely not dying before anyone’s eyes. His response had been just what everyone expected. He buried in the bottle whatever guilt or sorrow might have been lurking, causing some hand-wringing nights for husbands waiting for their wives to come home, or wondering why they had been outside the dance hall for so long. I was amazed every time I saw Lonnie at how he maintained the charm, the appearance. He didn’t look to be tormented. It might be the death of him, I thought, but there’s something admirable about his tenacity, his determination to wring the life out of whatever time he had left.
The noon hour approached, and the service was to start at two or two-thirty depending on whether Muriel and Stan had arrived yet. They were driving from Butte. Already, we had a houseful of people. Several of the neighbor women had taken charge of serving drinks and sandwiches, shooing anyone from our family out of the kitchen when we tried to help.
Jack stood in a corner, removed from the crowd, cradling a cup and watching everyone. When someone approached to talk or offer their condolences, he shook their hand and bowed politely, lowering his eyes. But he didn’t encourage further conversation, and nobody stood next to him for long before getting uncomfortable.
Dad sat in the dining room, his hands resting lifeless on the table. He talked to anyone who approached, his eyes shifting uneasily, as though he was having a hard time paying attention.
Rita moved easily among the guests, sad but gracious, and I couldn’t help but think that if anyone in the family would take this well, without long months of anguish, it would be Rita, who had made peace with Mom in their last years together in this house. Nearly every night before bed, the two of them sat in the kitchen and talked quietly, each flipping cards in their own game of solitaire. They had become friends, best friends, and I imagined Rita’s sense of loss must run deeper in some ways than any of ours. But she had the satisfaction of reaching a part of Mom that most of us never had.
“Where’s Bob? And Helen?” a neighbor asked me in passing. “I haven’t seen them.”
“Oh, they’re at their place. They’ll be at the service,” I said.
He eyed me, puzzled, and I couldn’t think what else I could say. “They’ll be at the service,” I repeated.
He nodded, walking away with the same puzzled look.
I was a little surprised that anyone wasn’t aware of the rift in our family. For as much regard as I have for the people of our county, I do know that news doesn’t travel slowly here.
The conflict had come to a head due to an unlikely source—the death of Art Walters. It had taken the authorities several months to track down Art’s ex-wife, and when they did find out where she was, it turned out that she had also died. So they had to find his son, and that took several more months, as he turned out to be quite a rover himself.
When he was informed of his inheritance, his decision was apparently a quick one, and the place was put up for sale. Because it bordered our place and Glassers’, we were the logical prospects, and the only ones seriously interested. So Dad and Gary settled on a fairly even split, and the deal was struck.
I went to Belle Fourche with Dad to pick up some feed and to draw the check. It was a Tuesday, so the town was quiet, as was the bank.
Dad told the teller that we needed a check for thirty-five hundred dollars—1,750 acres at two dollars an acre.
“All right, Mr. Arbuckle. Let me just check on your balance then, and make sure you have enough money.” The teller, whom we knew well, winked.
Dad smiled, nodding, but it was clear when she approached us again that something was wrong.
“I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Mr. Arbuckle, but it turns out that you don’t have enough in your account. Your balance is about seventeen hundred dollars.”
Dad smiled at her. “Gloria, now, don’t fool around with me. That’s just downright cruel.”
But Gloria shook her head. “I wish I was fooling, Mr. Arbuckle. But it’s true.”
Dad just stared at her.
“Can we see the books?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Dad echoed. “Give us a look here. There’s got to be a mistake. That can’t be right.”
“Certainly.” Gloria retrieved the balance book, spinning the cloth-bound ledger around on the counter. And there, plain as day, were three withdrawals, totaling over twenty-five hundred dollars, from Bob Arbuckle.
I don’t know whether I’ve been more afraid of dying than I was on the drive home that afternoon. Dad was pushing his old pickup to its limit, swerving on the curves. When we nearly fishtailed off the road a few times, I finally yelled at him to slow down. It was uncharacteristic behavior for both of us.
He pulled right up to Bob and Helen’s stoop, and we raced for the door, bursting in. Helen was alone, and she looked shocked at first. But Dad and I both started yelling at the same time, and once she realized what we were there for, her face took on a completely impassive expression, as if she didn’t hear a word we said.
“You are never welcome in our house again,” Dad was yelling. “Don’t even think about coming in that door.”
At the same time, I shouted, “You could have had a nice piece of this place if you’d just shown a little common sense.”
We both ranted for a few minutes, and the whole time Helen acted as if we weren’t even in the room. And it was as if we both realized at the same instant that we were wasting our breath. We stopped yelling, and just glared at her for a moment. She still didn’t bother to acknowledge us, and looking at her expression made me tremble with anger. I couldn’t stop shaking. Dad turned and left.
“Don’t think for a minute that you got away with something here,” I said, looking around at the nice furniture and decorations that were the fruits of their extortion.
Finally, she looked up, and a slight smile came to her face. She shook her head. “That’s okay, Blake.”
I gritted my teeth, feeling as if I could strangle her on the spot. I had to leave to keep from acting on my rage.
Bob was no more apologetic than Helen, although the first time I saw him after that, his face did a horrible job of hiding his guilt. But none of us had been to their house since that day. Nor had they been to the big house.
“Blake?” I looked up to see Rita standing before me, her forehead twisted with concern.
“Yes?”
In Open Spaces Page 30