“Humor your lawyer. Dodge knows what he’s talking about.”
“Your lawyer.”
“Chloe, he’s yours, too.”
“Hank?”
“What?”
“Is this going to be like Judge Wapner or what?”
He laughed. “Trust me. A courtroom looks like any other room in a city building. Quiet and boring, decorated by a Republican plagued by hemorrhoids.”
He waited for her to negotiate the corner. The floors were slick amber marble. As they turned, he saw the assembled group waiting for her outside the courtroom—the veterinarian she’d slept with, the cadre of stablehands, Wesley McNelly dressed in a threadbare suit topped with a cream-colored cowboy hat, Rich Wedler of the café, his daughter, Kit. There were several other faces he didn’t recognize, and the lone gentleman with the leathery face who towered over them could be none other than Hugh Nichols, the reason for Chloe’s displacement and broken leg. She was mad at him—wouldn’t take his phone calls, wouldn’t accept his apology for the mess. There was a handful of reporters, too, cameras and light meters held high as they angled their best shots. None of that surprised him, though it seemed to move Chloe greatly. She had to stop and gather herself, and asked Hank to pass her a Kleenex. Don’t let her cry, he begged silently to whichever sullen gods were half listening, help her keep it together for a few hours longer.
Asa Carver was there, too. He stood off to the side of the crowd, his lace smirking. As soon as he spotted Hank, he shouldered his way out from behind a group of well-wishers and demanded an introduction.
“Asa, what a surprise.”
“I don’t know why. You’re completely close-mouthed about this whole affair. I suppose I could wait for the papers, but I didn’t have classes this morning.”
“I see. Chloe? This is Professor Carver, English literature and composition. Don’t let him kiss you.”
“Why? Is he rabid?” Chloe shook his hand and let Kit Wedler dominate her attention. “You guys,” she said. “You all should be at work.”
Kit handed her a dark braided bracelet. Chloe asked Hank to fasten it onto her wrist.
“It’s very clever, Kit,” he said. “Did you make it yourself?”
“Yeah. I did.”
“What is it? Elephant hair for good luck?”
“No. It’s a braid from Absalom’s tail. I only cut a little bit off. God, I hope you’re not mad. Don’t be mad, Chloe. It didn’t hurt him or anything. Honest. I thought you would like it.”
Chloe’s face threatened to crumple for an instant. “It’s better luck than any gold charm,” she said, and gave the girl a hug.
The massive oak doors were shut, so the group waited outside them. Sunlight was deflected from these hallways by ceiling-high tinted windows designed to impart a feeling of spaciousness, but all the glass panels accomplished was to make the building feel like an expensively decorated, airless hamster cage.
Jack Dodge emerged from behind the courtroom doors, his face nearly broken in two by that fisherman’s grin. “Who wants to go to an early lunch?” he asked. “After a last-minute conference behind the judge’s doors, the sheriff’s department has dropped all charges and agreed to pay all Ms. Morgan’s medical expenses, plus a small sum for her trouble.” He kissed Chloe’s cheek. “Cheer up, girl. We got what we wished for. As of half an hour ago, you’re cleared of all charges.”
“So what was the last half hour about?” Hank asked.
He threw his hands up. “Planning a little expedition down to Cabo in June. His honor and I share a deep love for marlin.”
Chloe said, “That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“I don’t have to get up there and swear? No probation officer?”
“None of that.”
“They can’t change their minds?”
“Trust me.”
“I could go back to Hughville if I wanted to?”
“Absolutely.”
“God, I never expected this. Thank you.”
She let out a hoot of joy. Hank took the crutches from her and watched as the crowd spread the good news. Photographers snapped. Anyone was fair game, but they were after the good stuff. When they caught her in an embrace with Hugh Nichols, the silver bolo tie at his neck throwing reflected light into a star-shaped blur, Hank knew he was witnessing the turn of all these months. From this moment forward, nothing would ever be like it had been. She was free to go, and go she would. Reporters pressed questions on everyone. How do you know the defendant? Do you support the slow-growth initiative? What role do you think Stroud Ranch played in this arrest? Were any drugs actually found on the compound? How do you feel about the proposed highway extension?
Rich Wedler clamped a hand over Kit’s mouth before she could answer. “Hey, you guys want a statement for your six o’clock broadcast? Here’s one. Take your cameras and tape recorders and insert them up past the transverse colon. That just about covers it for all of us, comprende?”
Asa grinned. “Fun crowd, Oliver. You going to buy yourself a pair of cowboy boots with silver toe clips?”
“I might if the soles are by Reebok.”
“You’re the main topic of conversation in the department, you know Gilded rumor, sprouting wings.”
“No doubt.”
“Have you heard from the powers that be?”
“You mean regarding my contract?”
“Phil Green did. He gets two classes for fall. Karate’s one of them. Says he’s going to try the high school.”
Hank sighed. “Nothing firm yet. But I’ve been thinking I might take an unpaid leave.”
Asa pressed his arm. “Jesus, why do that now? You want to make it easy for them?”
Hank shrugged. He hadn’t known for certain that he would until that moment, and couldn’t have explained why if a gun were put to his temple. He just knew, as he heard Dodge assure Chloe she was cleared, that he was leaving the college, even if it meant he had to pump gas to make his house payments. Asa could go back and spit that out into the rumor mill.
“I’ll let you know when I figure it out,” he promised. “Don’t worry. Maybe they’ll give some young female my half of the office space.”
“Hank, don’t be crazy.”
“What’s crazy about leaving everything secure in your life?”
Phillip Green had Chloe now. The tall cowboy lifted her up into his arms, and she gave the reporters the thumbs-up sign. Evening paper, Hank thought. I’ve no doubt that one will make the front page.
Over a table for seventeen at Olamendi’s, they made a raffish group, drinking too many pitchers of margaritas, eating off each other’s plates, and listening to Hugh Nichols, frustrated by missing an opportunity to testify in the courtroom, orate one of his trademark speeches against the powers responsible for the nightmarish last few weeks.
He tapped his glass with his spoon and rose up to his full height, just a few minutes over six feet, but to Hank he looked much taller. McNelly groaned. “Keep it brief, Nichols. I don’t want my digestion of these fine chilies disturbed by your gas.”
“Button it, McNelly. I have something important to say.”
“God knows it won’t keep till we finish our coffee.”
Nichols shook his head. “No, it won’t. And I can’t think of any place on earth where it’s getting harder to believe in the American way than it is right here in this county. Goddamn—what do we got that needs fixing? Winters that can’t be beat, there’s jobs aplenty—granted, not that many of them too promising—but jobs all the same, just for the asking. Well, I’ll tell you. Aside from that we got a handful of fine people, quite a few of which are sitting right here at this table. I wish they’d breed like savages and repopulate this county with more of their kind, that’s one of my dreams. Flush out the yuppies, the builders, and take the hippie environmentalists along with them. Add in a few decent head of horseflesh and roping cows, what more could a man ask? I challenge each and every one of you to tell me.
“I’ve seen a world of changes come over this county in the last twenty years, and I can count on one finger how many of those changes I stand behind. It’s not much of a world to bring babies into when a thing like this can happen on your own land.”
Land stolen from the Mexicans, Hank thought, swirling his margarita slush, but it wouldn’t do to point that out now.
“Well, you all know my feelings on that. Let me read you what Charlie Russell said about the land.” He undid a pearly snap and pulled a folded sheet of paper from his breast pocket. After he found his reading glasses, he cleared his throat and read.
“‘In my book a pioneer is a man who turned all the grass upside down, strung bob-wire over the dust that was left, poisoned the water and cut down the trees, killed the Indian who owned the land and called it progress. If I had my way the land here would be like God made it, and none of you sons of bitches would be here at all.’” He folded the paper and put it back into his pocket. There was a chorus of laughter.
“But it’s true,” Nichols said. “Once we were cowboys, but by God, now we’re the Indians! Chloe Morgan is the finest kind of human being I know. I’d trust her with my life, my bank account, and my dog, and those of you who know me know those words don’t come easy out of this old body. She’s pure-dee grade A, and that comes from knowing her, not just the time she spent keeping my old friend, Fats Valentine, alive way past what he deserved. We all owe her for that, but I owe her more for standing up and fighting back when this last little fiasco got dumped on my land. She’s not afraid to smack a bad guy, boys.” He lifted his glass. “To Chloe.”
There were cheers. They all lifted their glasses, from Edith Nichols in her nurse’s uniform drinking iced tea down to Kit Wedler, whose glass sported Diet Coke with a pastel pink umbrella. Francisco started in singing “Cattle Call,” and most of the men joined in. The high-pitched notes sung a cappella struck a primal chord. Chloe, visibly shaky, pressed her hand over her mouth. Hank touched the small of her back, then whispered, “Are you all right?”
She scooted her chair back. “Fine. Bless you all. I have got to be alone for just a minute.” She left the table, headed for the ladies room, Kit Wedler following. The men finished the song.
The waiter brought their check, and Jack Dodge took it—Hank protested. “Jack, look at all these people. It’s got to be a heck of a bill. Let’s pass the hat.”
He wouldn’t allow it. “Hank, let me do this.”
One by one they trickled away. Asa waved from the end of the table, pointing at his watch. Phillip Green was deep into a conversation with Wes McNelly; they had ballpoint pens out and were bent over the tablecloth, sketching away. Rich Wedler and Gabe Hubbard stood up and Hank walked over to them.
“Thank you for coming today,” he said.
The men gave him half smiles.
“All of you showing up meant a great deal to her.”
Rich Wedler cleared his throat. “This part’s turned out fine. I’m just a little curious what you plan on doing now.”
“Excuse me?”
“Now that Chloe’s free to go.”
“She’s always been free to go, Rich.”
Gabe looked across the room. “Rich, let it alone.”
“Let what alone?” Hank tried hard to make sense of this. “Frankly, it pisses me off, you barking in my face like her Dutch uncle. She can do what she wants.”
Rich said, “Listen, pal, twenty-five people turn out for her court hearing, take off work. I closed my fucking restaurant. That’s merely a fraction of the representation behind her. You hurt her, you answer to the whole enchilada, get it?”
“For Christ’s sake, where were you when she needed bail money and a lawyer?”
Martin Luther King be damned, the truth was no gateway to freedom, but it did earn Hank a black eye. He felt the small rush of wind behind Rich’s fist and the initial impact of his knuckles as he instinctively ducked, allowing the punch to graze his jaw, slide upward, and introduce itself to the occipital bone of his brow. Then he was witness to those universally shared secrets—a cartoon array of stars and circling planets, needle-bright slivers of silver and sagging painful violets—until Gabe Hubbard laid him down on the floor, feeling his head for damages.
“He may not look like much now,” Gabe said, shaking ice from his drink into a napkin for Hank to use as a compress, “but Wedler was a bantam featherweight awhile back. You’re lucky he only got a little Western on you. If he’d wanted to, he could have used your ass to mop the john.”
“Remind me to send him a thank-you note,” Hank said, squinting into the icy napkin. “I’ll have it delivered by tank.”
Gabe patted him back down to a sitting position. “Just hold on there, professor. Hey, somebody want to get this guy a shot of Turkey?” He whispered to Hank, “Finest painkiller on earth.”
Kit reappeared, kicked her father in the shin. “Asshole!” she said. “Why do you always have to go and hit people? Just once, couldn’t you count to ten first?”
Rich looked sorry. He glanced Hank’s way and shrugged.
Hank stared back, surprised by Kit’s defense.
“By the way,” Kit continued. “Dr. Hubbard, did you bring your doctor bag? I think Chloe could use a Valium.”
Hank picked up his mail; the notice was there in a small, plain envelope bearing the college’s logo, a puny-rayed small orange sun. It didn’t bother to disguise itself or try to fool anyone into thinking it was a health insurance premium increase. Karleen turned sharply away from Hank and kept her hack turned. No offers of home movies and the basket of protectionary goodies this time. News traveled fast. He called out to her.
“Karleen.”
She flashed him a big phony smile. “Not too many more papers left to grade, eh, Professor?”
It was a low shot he ignored. “We’re still friends.”
“Are we?”
“I thought so.”
“It all depends of your definition of the word.”
“I’m to be punished because I met someone, is that it?”
“This someone—would she be a blond, horsey someone, recently let out of the pokey?”
He laughed. “The pokey?”
She flushed. Her face was tired. No amount of makeup would cover her weariness: She lowered her voice. “Why, Hank? Why someone like her when you could have someone decent?”
Her hand was perfectly soft. Probably she slept with unguents applied to her skin, plastic gloves. “She’s more than decent, Karleen.”
“Are you in love with her?”
Hank was quiet a minute.
Karleen reached up and touched his brow. “Did she give you the black eye?”
“No.”
“Thank God. Are you or aren’t you?”
“I am.”
She folded her arms across her chest. Hank had seen his mother do that, his grandmother, too. Chloe spent the drive home from the jail with her arms locked across her breasts. Whenever a woman adopted that pose he knew it meant trouble. I am holding it right inside here, buster, and you’d better not say anything to make me let it go or you’ll be sorry. Karleen. Who could spend a lifetime with a woman who indulged in baby talk during foreplay? How would that play when she was into her seventies?
She blinked furiously to keep the tears dammed up behind her thick lashes.
“Why does it matter to you what I do now?”
“Because you’re one of the good guys, Hank. I guess I had hope for you.”
Karleen in her china cat-face earrings. She tried so hard to make the labels work for her—Liz Claiborne sweater sets, Italian shoes—she never looked comfortable in any of it. She looked as tired as he felt, and it occurred to him there was a reason for her fatigue—late-night phone calls just to throw a few darts. A pink slip, a social slip, more than likely they were related. He leaned across the counter that separated them and told her what had started in the bottom of his heart and worked its way up all day “Karleen, mind
your own goddamn business.”
William Strauss showed up for office hours. Gone was the parade of steel studs and skulls in his earlobes, also noticeably absent was the shock of spiked hair. He sported what Hank’s father used to call a “regular boy’s haircut,” dreadful words to hear from a barber. Like a marine recruit, he looked scared and resigned to wherever this new look might take him. He handed Hank a yellow drop card. All his other classes were signed off except Mythology II.
Hank accepted the slip, gestured to an empty chair, and waited for William to sit down. “What’s going on, William? You were pulling a solid A in my class, I’ll wager in your other classes as well.”
The boy shrugged. “It’s not my idea, believe me. Hey, who hammered your eye?”
“Just like Wotan, I made an exchange for a shot of wisdom.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Like God hit me with his hammer. Whose idea, then, if it wasn’t yours?”
The boy leaned back, balancing the chair on two legs. “My dad. He’s completely wigged out. Bought some chunk of fucking wilderness in the middle of nowhere, Wyoming, and I’m supposed to pick up and move out there with him so we can buck hay together. You know, the whole father-son number.”
“Excuse me?”
“He went into ‘guy therapy’ after his latest divorce and thinks he’s personally discovered male bonding.”
Hank smiled. “That will probably pass. But what about college?”
“There’s a JC about seventy miles away. Maybe after a few months of pitching steer manure around he’ll be ready to quit the gentleman farmer routine and start traveling again. He’ll fall in rabid lust with some bimbo and leave me to clean up what’s left. That’s his pattern, anyway.”
“What about your mom?”
The boy threw his hands up. “Which one? Hallmark adores me on Mother’s Day.”
“Would you like me to talk to your father?”
William looked shocked. “You? What would you say?”
“That you’re bright and capable and deserve the chance to finish school where you are now.”
“Rumor is you’re not even going to be back in the fall.”
Hank & Chloe Page 24