Don't Skip Out on Me

by Willy Vlautin

  WILLY VLAUTIN

  Don’t Skip Out on Me

  For my brother John

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  Acknowledgements

  Notes by the author:

  The Story Behind the Soundtrack to the Novel

  Don’t Skip Out on Me

  About the Author

  Also by the Author

  Copyright

  1

  Horace Hopper opened his eyes and looked at the clock: 5 a.m. The first thought that came to him that morning was his mother, whom he hadn’t seen in nearly three years. He then thought how, in a little more than a week’s time, he’d be alone on a bus heading to Tucson. Awake less than a minute and already there was a pit in his stomach.

  He got up and dressed in jeans and a plaid long-sleeved western shirt. He put on his boots and then tried to wake himself. He drank a glass of water and stared at the boxers’ photographs he’d taped to the wall of the camping trailer.

  The cut-outs were from issues of Ring magazine and the fighters were Mexican. The largest image was from the fight between Israel Vázquez and Rafael Márquez. It was the third round of their fourth fight, and Vázquez was hitting Márquez with a brutal left hook. To the right of that photo was Rafael Márquez’s brother, the great Juan Manuel Márquez, and to the left of it the legend Julio César Chávez, wearing a sombrero. Below them was a picture of Horace’s favourite boxer, Érik Morales. To the left of Morales was Juan Díaz, and on that one Horace had written with a black marker: ‘The Scholar’. Beside ‘The Scholar’ was Antonio Margarito. A black marker had crossed out his face. ‘The Cheater’.

  He grabbed a worn and frayed notebook from a shelf next to the bed and opened it. The first page read Log of Bad Dreams, handwritten with a blue pen. He flipped through a half-dozen filled pages until he came to Getting Left in Tonopah. Underneath it were thirty-two marks. He added another, making it thirty-three. He then thumbed to the back pages of the notebook, and near the bottom of a nearly full page he put down the date and wrote same thing he had written the day before and the day before that: ‘I will be somebody.’

  He set a kettle on the propane stove, made instant coffee, scrambled four eggs, and then took them outside to eat at a picnic table in the deep blue of dawn. The 1983 white-and-orange Prowler trailer was set on a hill overlooking the two-thousand-acre Little Reese Ranch, a hundred yards behind the main buildings. A tin-roofed awning hung out in front of the trailer. Under it was a bicycle, the picnic table, a barbecue and a lawn chair. Parked beside it was a broken-down four-door Saturn with a flat tire. He’d moved there from the main house when he graduated high school, Mr Reese thinking maybe Horace wanted his own space, where he could stay up as late as he wanted, play his music as loud as he wanted, and bring over whoever he wanted. A bachelor pad.

  Below him, at the bottom of the hill, Horace could see no lights on in the main house, and past it no lights in the lambing shed, and only a faint sign of light coming from the main barn. He finished his breakfast, washed the dishes, made two meals of bologna and cheese slices stacked on top of each other and filled two water bottles. He put his lunch and an extra shirt and pair of socks, along with his CD player, Pantera’s The Great Southern Trendkill, Crowbar’s Sever the Wicked Hand and Slayer’s Show No Mercy, in his backpack. He took his coat and sleeping bag and headed down the hill.

  Horace was twenty-one years old, stood five feet seven inches tall and weighed a hundred and twenty-five pounds. He was half-white and half-Paiute, with long black hair that came down past his shoulders. His eyes were dark brown, he had a long thin nose, and even at his age he seldom had to shave. Under his shirt, on his left bicep, was a tattoo. In red ink it read ‘Slayer’ and below that, in black ink, ‘Hell Awaits’, then a black horned skull with two red eyes.

  As he walked in the dawn light he looked beyond the ranch and hay fields toward the barren desert floor of Ralston Valley: sagebrush, small patches of prairie grass, the occasional bird or rabbit and a scattering of lonely pinyon pines. The Little Reese Ranch was ten miles from its nearest neighbour, thirty miles from a paved road and sixty miles from the closest town, Tonopah.

  Inside the barn Horace saw the old man leaned against the workbench, writing on a yellow pad. Beside him was a metal cane and curled in a ball at his feet was a retired black-and-white Border collie, Little Lana.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Reese,’ Horace said as he came in.

  ‘Morning,’ the old man replied, his eyes staying on the yellow pad. ‘The supplies are waiting on the porch and I got you a cup of coffee. It’s sitting on the drill press.’

  Horace walked over to it.

  ‘You about ready?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Horace.

  ‘Who did you decide to take?’

  ‘Boss and Honey.’

  Mr Reese quit writing and looked over at Horace. ‘You know, I’ve been thinking about Boss. You’ve done a lot of good work on him. I never thought he would make it.’

  ‘He always wanted to be a good horse,’ Horace said. ‘He just wasn’t sure how.’

  ‘I didn’t see it.’

  ‘You would have – I was just the one working with him.’

  Mr Reese nodded and went back to writing. He was seventy-two years old, slender, nearly six feet tall, with short, thin, grey hair. He wore faded jeans, a light-blue western work shirt and weathered cowboy boots. He picked up an English-to-Spanish dictionary and skimmed through the pages until he found the word he wanted and wrote it down on the yellow pad.

  Horace drank his coffee and then got two rope halters from the tack room and went to the corral. He haltered Boss first and then Honey, led them both out and tied them to a rail in front of the barn. He brushed them and saddled Boss, put panniers on Honey, and then carried down the supplies from the house and put them in the truck. After that he waited as Mr Reese continued working on his letter.

  When he’d finished, the old man took the letter, a phone card and three photocopied sections of map, folded them and sealed them inside a white envelope. He addressed it ‘Pedro’ and handed it to Horace. ‘I know I’ve already gone over this, but do you mind if we do it one more time?’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ said Horace.

  The old man cleared his throat. ‘So we both know Pedro understands English. He acts like he doesn’t when it suits him, but he does. This letter is in Spanish ’cause I want everything to be clear. I don’t want any confusion. The main things are to see how Pedro is holding up and to see how Víctor is working out. You were gone working for Harrington when Víctor came here and you’ve only done the one drop since then. The truth is we both don’t know much about him. And remember his Spanish is rudimentary and he doesn’t know any English. The only language he knows for certain is Peruvian. It’s called Quechua. It makes no sense to me when he speaks it. I ordered a Quechua dictionary but it hasn’t come yet. So get Pedro to translate. He knows the language. Ask Víctor how he likes it out here, how he likes being a herder. Ask him if he’d be comfortable with his own flock, and then separately ask Pedro if he thinks Víctor’s coming along good enough to do it. I’m supposed to talk to Conklin again next week. Knowing how Víctor
is doing will help me decide if I want to expand. If I do the deal and buy Conklin’s twelve hundred, I’ll need another full-time herder.’

  ‘Alright,’ said Horace.

  ‘Inside the envelope is a prepaid calling card with fifty dollars on it. Make sure Pedro’s still charging the cell phone. Last time I saw him he said he was having trouble with the solar charger, but it worked fine for me when I tried it. He’s been out four months now. It was this time last year when he began having problems. It should be better ’cause Víctor is his relative and has been with him. But even so, check if he’s shaving, how the camp looks and how the dogs are.’

  ‘It was pretty rough to see him like that last time,’ said Horace.

  The old man nodded. ‘I’ve been worrying about him every day, but he said he was ready to go back to work. He said he got help, so we’ll see.’

  Horace nodded. ‘Is your back any better this morning?’

  The old man shrugged. ‘Don’t worry about me. Just make sure everything’s alright up there and be careful. The report says it’s gonna hit near a hundred so remember to stay hydrated and stop at the creek for the horses.’

  ‘I know,’ Horace said, and smiled.

  Mr Reese gave off a short laugh. ‘I’m sorry. I guess the older I get, the more I have to say everything twice.’

  *

  Boss and Honey swayed in the stock trailer along the gravel road and the sun began its rise over the Monitor Range. For as far as Horace could see, there was nothing around him but sagebrush and hills and sky. He put in a pinch of Copenhagen, searched for radio stations, and drove thirty miles before turning east on an unmarked dirt road toward the foothills. The road worsened and he stopped, locked in the hubs and put the old truck into four-wheel drive. He eased over washouts and around rocks until he reached the derelict mine site, where he parked at the foot of a narrow canyon. Across the road were a series of single-jack mines and a tipped-over camping trailer. Farther up was the main mine site, where the rubble of old buildings sat next to a hole filled with rusted-out mine equipment and a tire-less horse trailer.

  In the truck’s glove box, he took a laminated sign – This truck belongs to the Reese ranch. Please don’t vandalize! We’re a mom and pop outfit – and put it under the windshield wiper. He locked the truck, put on a wide-brimmed cowboy hat, opened the dusty stock trailer and unloaded the horses.

  He tightened both cinches, loaded the supplies on Honey, got on Boss and started off. The mining road narrowed to a trail and the canyon’s rise began. Pinyon pine and birch trees appeared with more regularity and the small trickle from the creek that ran along the trail grew to a constant flow. He kept the reins and the pony lead in his left hand, and with his right held a hand exerciser. He squeezed it a hundred times and then switched it to his left hand. He went back and forth and back and forth as he rode. He tried not to think that this would be the last time he’d make the trip, but he couldn’t help it, and his heart sank.

  ‘I won’t forget you guys,’ he said to the horses. ‘I’ll miss you every day, but I’ll be back. I’ll be different when I’m back but I’ll be here and I’ll make sure you’re taken care of. Don’t worry too much, okay?’

  *

  By midday he had climbed to seventy-five hundred feet. Boss made his way slowly and sure-footedly along the rocky trail and Honey followed along sluggishly until they left the canyon and came to a plateau where a large bowl-shaped meadow appeared. The mountains around them rose past twelve thousand feet. In the distance Horace could make out the flock, the eleven hundred sheep, and could hear the faint sounds of bleats and the barking of dogs. He took the horses to the creek, let them drink, and continued on.

  He saw first Tiny, a brown-and-white Border collie. He whistled for her and got down from Boss. The nub of Tiny’s tail wagged excitedly as she came to him. He checked her paws for cuts. With a pocketknife he took two mats of hair off her rump, and then he ran his hands through her fur feeling for ticks but found none. He put a new flea collar on her and together they walked the horses toward a blue tarp in a grove of aspens at the edge of the meadow.

  Mr Reese’s donkey, Myrtle, stood on meadow grass, high-lined in between two trees, and the herder, Pedro, lay on his back, asleep on his pad near a spent fire. The grass around him was beat down and above him the aspens quaked in the breeze. Next to his bed were a plastic gallon jug of water and a pair of leather boots. The cooking pans were clean and sitting on a green Coleman stove and a rifle leaned against a tree. Two shirts and three pairs of socks hung on a makeshift clothes line and farther back, nearly out of sight, was the carcass of a lamb in a dressing bag hanging from a sturdy branch.

  ‘Get him up, Tiny,’ Horace said gently to the dog. ‘Go get Pedro.’ The dog walked to the sleeping man and licked his face. Pedro yelled and sat up, startled.

  ‘Hola, Pedro,’ said Horace, and laughed. Tiny ran back to him and hid behind his legs.

  Pedro was clean-shaven and smiled a mouth of silver and missing teeth. He was a short, dark-skinned man with a pot belly and thinning brown hair. His pants fell as he stood. He wore no underwear. He pulled his trousers up, buttoned them and cinched his belt. He put on his socks and boots.

  ‘Mr Reese’s back is still out so you got me again. How have things been?’

  Pedro shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Where’s Víctor?’

  ‘Víctor es gone,’ he sighed, and shook his head.

  ‘Gone?’ asked Horace.

  ‘Sí.’

  ‘Gone where?’

  Pedro again shrugged and pointed to the mountains.

  ‘Is he gone just right now or is he gone for good?’

  ‘Loco,’ Pedro said.

  ‘Loco? What do you mean?’

  Pedro shrugged his shoulders. ‘Víctor take rifle and point at me. Say he kill me if I don’t get him out of las montañas.’ He looked at the ground and kicked at the dirt with his boot.

  ‘What happened after that?’

  ‘I got the rifle away,’ Pedro said, and smiled. ‘The next mañana, Víctor no aquí.’

  ‘How long ago?’

  He put up his hand and showed two fingers.

  ‘Dos días?’ said Horace.

  Pedro nodded.

  Wally, an eight-year-old black-and-white Border collie, came into camp. Horace called for him and checked his paws and looked him over for ticks. He cut four mats of hair off him and put on a new flea collar.

  ‘Where’s Little Roy?’

  Pedro shook his head. ‘Con Víctor.’

  ‘Little Roy’s with Víctor?’

  Pedro nodded.

  ‘Dónde es Víctor?’

  Pedro again pointed to the mountains behind them. ‘I tell him no city here, but he go to find city. He no like las ovejas. Víctor es deprimido.’

  ‘How are Jip and Whitey?’

  ‘Bueno … Con las ovejas.’

  Horace looked out into the meadow until he saw the two Anatolians hidden in the middle of the flock. He looked back at Pedro and then past him to the carcass behind camp. ‘What about the lamb?’

  Pedro looked at it and then looked at Horace. ‘Víctor kill it two days ago. We fight. I say no.’

  ‘Víctor killed it?’

  ‘Sí,’ Pedro said.

  Horace took the envelope from his backpack and handed it to Pedro. ‘These are the instructions from Mr Reese and a new phone card. Let’s unload Honey and then you read the letter, okay?’

  Pedro nodded and they took the supplies off the mare. Horace unsaddled Boss and led the two horses to the meadow to eat. He held their halter leads, ate his own lunch and watched the flock as they huddled together eating the high meadow grass. He then high-lined Honey, resaddled Boss and went to Pedro, who sat on his sleeping bag looking over the letter.

  ‘Where did you last see Víctor?’

  Pedro set the letter down and stood up. They walked out of the trees to the meadow. He pointed toward the edge of the high valley.

&nb
sp; Horace looked up along it. The valley split into two smaller valleys a half-mile up and those each ran a mile more before disappearing into the side of a mountain. ‘Which side?’

  ‘No sé.’

  ‘You don’t know which side of the valley he’s on?’

  Pedro shook his head.

  *

  It was late afternoon when Horace rode out. The valley in front of him was covered in sage and bitterbrush, mountain mahogany and buckwheat. He looked for signs of Víctor but saw none. Where the valley split into two, he paused. The right side was rocky and barren with only patches of meadow grass and sage. To the left was the creek, a meadow, three separate groves of aspen and an easier slope. He took it and rode up another mile before it ended. From there he found a small switchback trail up the side of the mountain. He rode for two more hours and the trail was rocky and narrow. As dusk fell, he summited the ridge. He was at over eleven thousand feet and had a view of the entire valley.

  He tied Boss to a pinyon pine, unsaddled and hobbled him. He carried his backpack and sleeping bag to the open ridge, cleared a space of rocks and lay out a small tarp on the dirt. He put his sleeping bag on top of it, took off his boots and sat down. From his backpack he took out his food, his CD player and his binoculars. He ate the last of the bologna and cheese, played Pantera’s The Great Southern Trendkill, grabbed the binoculars and looked out.

  He saw Pedro’s fire first and then searched up and down the main valley and then the two smaller valleys for another fire, but saw none. He took off his jeans, got in his sleeping bag and again started the CD. He laid on his back and looked at the stars and the passing satellites above him. When the CD finished he again looked out with his binoculars. This time he found a second fire on the far side of the main valley, just before the split. He took note of the location, put the binoculars down and went to sleep.

  2

  Mr Reese watched until Horace’s truck and trailer disappeared from sight, and then he went to work on getting the Ford 600 truck started. He limped and leaned on his cane as he went back and forth from the shop to the truck, and tinkered on it until black smoke billowed from the exhaust pipes and even Mrs Reese came from the house and watched as he got it, finally, to idle. He hooked a flatbed trailer to it, got his sack lunch, coffee and a canteen of water, and left.