Improbable Solution

by Judith B. Glad

  "Let's see." She chewed on the end of her pencil. "Clean out the refrigerator. Talk to Buster about taking care of the yard. Pack Pop's stuff..."

  Oh, Pop. I miss you so much.

  No, she wouldn't touch his clothing and treasures, wouldn't even try to decide what to keep and what to dispose of. It was too soon and she was still too fragile. She'd simply make sure the rooms—his bedroom downstairs and the master suite upstairs—were clean, before she shut the doors on their contents.

  The lists grew and multiplied. She'd have to spend a day with Max Guthrie, going over the records. Would he continue to manage everything, or would he finally, as he'd been threatening to do for years, retire and let a younger lawyer see to Carruthers Enterprises? Either way, it wouldn't make any difference to her. There was very little income these days, only what came from the leased cropland.

  Then there was Pop's will. She and Trudy had met with Max about it, but she couldn't, for the life of her, remember what it had said, except that it had provided whatever was needed to bring the swimming pool fund to goal.

  Gus would approve of that.

  She set that list aside and began another. She'd want her drafting table and...

  The pencil caught, tore the paper. It was wet.

  "What in the world?"

  Only then did she realize that tears were streaming down her face. Silent, burning tears. She crumpled the soaked paper in her hand and flung the pencil across the room. It hit the back door and fell to the floor, rolling back toward her with a tiny clicking sound.

  "I won't...I don't want...Oh, God! I don't want to go!"

  Yet not an hour ago she had told Gus she wouldn't stay if she had to live here alone. It had been a bluff, a silly, childish game played in order to get him to say he loved her.

  Well, he had called her bluff, hadn't he?

  Why hadn't she simply come right out and asked him?

  "Gus, I want you to live with me. I'd prefer you'd marry me, but if you won't, well, I'll settle for second best."

  Would that have changed his response? It might have, for he'd been fairly reasonable until she'd brought love into the conversation.

  Since she knew she loved him, since she sincerely believed his feeling for her was so close to love it didn't matter, why in the dickens had she complicated matters? All she had done was give him a reason to run.

  "Run! Oh, my God! What if he does?" Sally was on her feet and out the door in an instant.

  Gus could have gone a long way since they'd parted.

  * * * *

  Gus took the back road out of town this time. He drove by the badlands twice more, unsure of the turns on the unfamiliar, poorly maintained gravel roads. The stark valley full of eroded columns of white chalk-like material, carved by wind and rain into fantastical shapes, were a pocket-sized version of the Badlands in the Dakotas.

  At last he reached Westfall Road, just a few miles from the highway. Already his shoulders felt less burdened, his mind less clouded. Once he was on the highway again, he could forget the momentary insanity that had made him believe he could ever have a normal life again.

  There was the junction, just ahead...

  A few miles farther on, a familiar yellow sign showed a road off to the right.

  "Wait just one damn minute!" Stopping in the middle of the road, he looked around. Yes, he was at the junction of the main road into Whiterock. "If you can't pay any more attention to your driving, you'd better get off the road."

  Let's see now. If I go back to Vale, I can cut south and pick up Ninety-three, head south. I never did make it to California. He turned east. I won't even wave as I go through town.

  He'd felt such hope the past few weeks, since making the decision to buy Bernie out. As if life—his life—could go on, despite the guilt and loneliness he'd carry to his grave.

  As he slowed for the short drive along Main Street, he deliberately kept his eyes front.

  The shabby little town looked pathetically like it had the first day he drove into it.

  So much for all our hard work. Whiterock's dying, and the people here might as well get used to it.

  Gus drove automatically, ignoring the pronghorns grazing beside the road, the jackrabbit that raced him for a hundred yards, the wild keen of a golden eagle hunting in wide circles overhead.

  "Shit!"

  He'd taken another wrong turn. Instead of heading south toward the highway, he'd taken the turn that wound through the hills south of the badlands. Sitting up straight, he leaned forward, peering through the now-dusty windshield.

  Stop screwing around, Loring.

  Eventually, he found himself driving the long loop to the north of Whiterock, without any clear idea of how he'd gotten there.

  Now, there's a community project worth doing. Get some signs on these back roads so people don't get lost.

  "Forget it. You won't be around to get lost, soon as you can find your way out!"

  Angrily he slapped the turn indicator lever down. All he had to do was find his way to the highway, and he'd be history.

  Gus slammed the brakes on so hard the pickup fishtailed all over the road before he could get it under control. How the hell had he gotten back here? I know I went past the turnoff!

  Or had he? He couldn't remember.

  Below him, Whiterock basked in the September sun, unpainted houses and shabby storefronts testifying to a loss of hope, a lack of interest. A dust devil spun paper scraps along the empty street ahead of him. Around the curve leading to Main Street, the guardrail was broken, the break marked by a faded strip of orange flagging. And as he slowly drove down Jasper Street, he couldn't avoid the potholes.

  The last thing he wanted to do was drive along Main Street again. He'd left too much of himself there.

  Sally.

  The Bite-A-Wee Cafe, where he'd first been made to feel a part of Whiterock.

  Cowles Implement. Now I won't need to decide on a new name.

  Once more he turned onto Chalk Mine Road, intending to take the shortcut past the mine as he'd meant to do in the first place.

  * * * *

  Sally leaned out of her car window. "Ernie!"

  "Afternoon, Miz Sally," he replied. "How you doin' today?"

  "Fine. Ernie, have you seen Gus Loring?"

  "Well, now, it must have been more'n an hour ago, he went whizzin' by here on his way out of town. I was—"

  "Which way?"

  "The first time or the second?"

  Clenching her hands on the steering wheel, Sally prayed for patience.

  "The last time you saw him, Ernie. Which way was he going?"

  "He was comin' back into town. You see, I was down the street talking to Miz Holmes when he come by the first time, but I'd made it back here when—"

  "Thanks, Ernie." She gunned the car around the corner, spraying gravel, only to brake abruptly when she saw Rhoda Garcia and Buster Holmes leaning against the boarded-up windows next to Lundquist's Grocery.

  "Have either of you seen Gus Loring?"

  "He went that way." Rhoda pointed east.

  "About an hour ago," Buster added.

  "He was driving his pickup," Rhoda volunteered, "not the shop's truck."

  Sally's next stop was the shop. Pete had his head inside the motor compartment of an old van. When she called his name, he jumped, hitting his head on the hood.

  "Sorry, Pete. I didn't mean to startle you." She really resented the need for good manners when haste was so crucial. "Have you seen Gus in the last couple of hours?"

  He rubbed his head.

  "I sure have, Sally, and it was real strange. He came in here, wrote out a letter to the bank and told me to take care of things." He laid down his wrench. "Let me show you. I can't quite figure it out."

  Sally followed him into the office. The letter Pete handed her was short and to the point. Addressed to the manager of the bank in Vale, it stated that, until further notice, Pedro Gomez had full charge of Cowles Implement, including authority to
issue checks.

  "I don't think he's coming back. I mean, that letter and all. Jeez, Sally, I don't know how to run a business like this."

  "You aren't expected to," she said, hoping she sounded more reassuring than she felt. "He'll be in tomorrow. This was just in case he was gone longer than he planned."

  Pete nodded, but he was obviously not convinced.

  She was wasting time. "Did you see which way Gus went when he left?"

  "Yeah. Toward Harper."

  Sally was turning away when he added, "Then when he came past later, he went south. Toward the mine."

  "Thanks, Pete," she called back as she ran to the door. "And don't worry. He'll be back." If I have to hog tie him and drag him.

  Once in the car, she flipped a mental coin. East, west or south? Was he just driving around, thinking? Oh, please, let that be it.

  She backed out, aimed the car's nose west. Without quite knowing why, she felt certain she was on Gus's trail. Then, somewhere along the road, she lost confidence until, at Harper Junction, she had no idea which way to go. He could be a hundred miles away by now, and she didn't even know in which direction.

  She turned around and headed back toward Whiterock.

  "He'll be back," she said, unconsciously echoing her assurance to Pete. "He has to. I love him."

  She drove slowly, needing the time to come to terms with this new loss. Even if Gus returned to Whiterock, she couldn't count on his returning to her. And if he didn't, she wasn't sure she could bear it.

  Inexplicably, hope grew as Sally retraced her route. By the time she reached the mine turnoff, she again felt she still could catch up with Gus.

  He was not in town. She was as convinced of that as she was of her own love for him.

  Just as she was convinced she would find him.

  INTERVAL

  Disaster!

  Intolerable!

  Compulsion becomes unavoidable.

  TWENTY-TWO

  As he approached the entrance to the Carruthers Mine, Gus slowed. He'd already wasted the entire afternoon going around in circles, and it wasn't as if he had anywhere to go. Might as well take a look. I probably won't get back this way again.

  The log gate in the barbwire fence stood open. He drove down the incline, squinting a little at the bright September light reflected from the white rock faces. A pile of debris—crushed chalk and scrap iron, even what was left of an old wooden barrel—blocked the road where it leveled. He parked the pickup and got out.

  Last fall he had pumped gas for three weeks in Butte, Montana, home of what was billed as the world's largest open pit mine. This was much smaller. He'd expected that. And it wasn't really a pit, not like the vast hole in the ground at Butte.

  Columns large and small had been left, so the floor of this pit was a maze, stark-white and featureless. He imagined that the rock not removed was contaminated with—what was it Sally had said?—vitric tuff. Not worth mining, whatever it was.

  He looked up and saw the sheer cliff that marked the far edge of the pit, perhaps a quarter-mile away. Because of the higher ground on that side, the wall was a good three hundred feet high, a smooth, almost dead-white surface that seemed to absorb all color except its own.

  A hot wind soughed across the tops of the columns, its melancholy lament somehow suited to the barren pit. Gus picked up a piece of chalk and peered at it. Close-grained, soft enough to scratch with a fingernail, the fragment had a dirty gray-green streak running through it.

  As a teenager, Gus had been responsible for the cat's litterbox. Perhaps he had used diatomaceous earth from this very mine.

  He continued deeper into the pit, until he was out of sight of his pickup.

  * * * *

  The padlock was hanging from the hasp, undamaged, so whoever had gone in must have had a key. Sally parked her car in the turnaround, got out and looked at the dusty road into the pit.

  I wonder who opened the gate.

  Those tire tracks looked new. But are they Gus's? She'd be a fool to go down into the pit alone, not knowing who was there.

  She looked around, trying to remember. She and Bill Holmes had come out here once, spread a blanket on a hillside where they could watch the activity in the pit. She had been so young then, and so in love.

  She was no longer young, but she was in love again. And this time it was for real.

  The trail was faint and overgrown. Cheatgrass seeds stuck in her socks as she scrambled through the waist-high sagebrush. She came out onto the flat bench where a single juniper tree cast a long shadow.

  There! That flash of blue at the bottom of the entrance road. She shaded her eyes to get a better view into the pit. Yes! It was Gus's pickup.

  But he was nowhere in sight.

  "Gus! Gus, where are you?"

  Her words were carried away by the warm wind.

  * * * *

  Gus didn't know how long he had wandered about in the bizarre forest of chalk columns. The shadows were longer now, great patches of dimmer light at the bases of the columns, striping the dirty-white ground. He began seeing shapes in the chalk, profiles cut into the sides of columns—grotesque, inhuman figures half-seen from the corners of his eyes. Sometimes, they even seemed to move. More than once he whipped around, determined to catch whomever—whatever—was spying on him.

  A curious emptiness occupied his mind, edging out the residual pain of this morning's revelation. Marilyn was all but forgotten; she might as well never have been part of his life. Emily was a poignant, long-ago memory, a grief faced and endured, but now only a bittersweet memory. Her short life had brought joy to him, given him hope in an existence that had been increasingly drear and bleak as he grew and Marilyn didn't.

  Even the recent weeks with Sally were dim, as if they had occurred long ago and far away.

  He wandered on, circling and meandering. Always he drew closer to the vertical white wall, higher and wider than the outdoor theater screens he remembered from his childhood.

  The heat intensified, even though the sun was about to disappear over the rim of the pit. Yesterday the mercury had reached ninety; today was forecast to be hotter. Down here, heat and light collected, and were reflected again and again. Yet he went on, drawn to...something.

  The hot air pulled moisture from his body, drying the trickles of sweat that coursed down his back and chest. He removed his shirt and dropped it on the ground.

  The towering wall had seemed totally without tone or hue when he first glimpsed it, but as he drew closer, he saw subtle, shifting colors, shadowlike and insubstantial. The columns were broader and closer together as he approached the wall, casting wide shadows that did nothing to relieve the fierce heat. His mouth was dry.

  He had to reach the wall.

  The moving shadows darkened, took on faint color, and patterns developed. His mind filled in blank spaces with detail, until an image of Whiterock's Main Street formed. It looked as it had the first day he'd come to Whiterock—dingy, bleak, as gray in mood as the sky was with rain.

  As it had looked today.

  The shadows shifted suddenly, and their colors brightened. Now storefronts were all fresh paint and clean windows. The sidewalks were swept and busy with pedestrians. A banner extended across the street, between the Bite-A-Wee Cafe and Kemp's Drugs. Sally walked along the sidewalk, pushing a stroller. She held the hand of a boy no older than three or four. About Emily's age when...

  No!

  The heat was giving him hallucinations. He should go back to his pickup, get on the road. He began to turn, and an irregular piece of chalk under his foot rotated, spilling him onto the ground. White dust flew up about him, catching in his throat. He coughed. Coughed again, trying to loosen the dry, clinging dust. By the time his breathing eased, he was again seeing the moving, restless shadows.

  This time he saw Sally's house, its shutters freshly painted black, its clapboards white as the chalk all around him. The roses were in bloom, and the lilac hedge was tall and green behind them.
Children played in the grass beside the rose garden—two girls and a boy, plus a baby kicking on a blanket. Three had impossibly red hair, while the fourth, the larger girl, had hair as gold as a summer sun.

  Gus closed his eyes, rubbing the lids until he saw nothing but red-black flares. When he opened them again, he made sure to avoid looking at the white wall as he struggled to his feet.

  His right ankle protested at his weight. One hand against the scorching side of a column, he managed to take one step, then another. He hobbled away from the wall, a few inches at a time.

  Damn! Could he have broken something? He sank onto a convenient chunk of chalk only fifteen or so feet away from where he had fallen. His ankle throbbed; his back and chest itched and stung. Chalk dust mixed with dried sweat made him feel like he was coated with white paint. Where the hell was his shirt? He probably looked it, too.

  At least he'd found some shade. Leaning back against the column, he closed his eyes and breathed as deeply was he could. Chalk dust irritated the back of his throat and made his chest hurt.

  Wouldn't it be a hoot if he were to be unable to reach his pickup? He could imagine what a surprise he would be to the next hobbyists who came to glean chalk fragments for carving. They would see his mummified carcass and think it was a carving, left behind because it was poorly executed.

  Executed! That was a good one. He'd executed Marilyn and Emily. Now he was executing himself.

  He let his head drop back against the column behind him. How long, he wondered, would it take him to die?

  Much longer than it had taken Emily. That was all right. He deserved to suffer a little. No, he deserved to suffer a lot.

  What strange hallucinations those had been. Whiterock in its rags and its Sunday clothes. It had looked prosperous in the second one, but not as he remembered it. There had been new shops where now were empty storefronts; bright, shiny, sleek automobiles where now most of the vehicles parked on Main Street were dusty pickups. And Sally had looked older. Happier.