“I like the way just that one ear on him is brown and the rest white,” Seth said.
“Yeah,” August said. “I like that about him, too.”
“How long can we keep him out?”
“Well . . . I’ll tell you what. Stay where I can see you, and if I want him back for some reason I’ll let you know.”
“Okay, thanks,” Seth said, barely able to contain his grin.
“One condition, though,” August said.
The boy’s face fell, and he stepped back as if he’d been slapped.
“Nothing bad,” August said. “I just want you to tell me how you caught him.”
“Oh, that,” Seth said, and relaxed. And began to look a bit proud. “I used my brain.”
“So you said. But you really didn’t tell me how.”
“Well. See. I noticed how every time you go for him, he runs. Even if you take a step at him. Even if you just move. But if I held still or looked the other way, he’d come closer. So I got smart and sat on the ground and turned my back on him and pretended I didn’t want nothing to do with him at all. And he just walked right up and climbed in my lap. But don’t worry, ’cause we ran him real good before I thought of it. I don’t want you to worry you didn’t get your five dollars’ worth.”
“I wasn’t worried,” August said. “You three have fun.”
August sat on the top metal step for half an hour or so, his feet on the bottom step, his elbows planted on his thighs, drinking coffee and watching them play. And waiting to feel the pain. But it didn’t come. He felt for it. Poked at it. Questioned where it was hiding. Maybe it was because he knew the boys now, and they were so different from his own son. Maybe it was because he almost wanted the pain back, and it was determined to do exactly the opposite of what he wanted.
The weather was a thing of beauty, lightly cool with no breeze at all. Over a distant mountain the sky still glowed faintly red from the tail end of dawn. He heard a scuffing in the dirt and turned his head to see Wes approach, head slightly tilted down.
“Morning,” August said. “Not too late if you still want that cup of coffee.”
“Oh. Thanks, but I had mine with breakfast. Sorry I stood you up last night.”
“Up to you. You’re the one who wanted to talk.”
“I decided . . .” And then he tailed off and stood still for the longest time, staring off into the distance like the answer was just on the line of the horizon. “It was a stupid idea,” he said, finally. “You would’ve thought I was crazy.”
August considered this for a moment, then decided he had no idea how to respond. He was curious now, but it seemed unwise to force someone’s hand on an idea that was crazy even to the mind that created it.
Neither man spoke for a time.
August stared at Seth, off playing in the field. “There’s something . . . very . . .” Then he got stuck for a second or two, so he pushed the words harder. “Decent. There’s something very decent about that boy.”
“Who, Seth?”
“Yeah. I’m not saying the little one isn’t decent. Just that he hasn’t said a word to me, so I don’t know. But Seth . . .”
“Decent . . . meaning?”
“I don’t know. There’s something upstanding about him.”
Wes snorted laughter. “Yeah, that’s Seth, all right. He’ll drive you crazy with how upstanding he is. And how upstanding he thinks you ought to be. You got any kids?”
“I had a son.”
“Had?”
August did not reply.
“Never mind. None of my business. Sorry.”
Then Wes got his feet unstuck and made his way into the shop. August drained the last of his coffee and followed Wes inside. The mechanic was going through drawers in a freestanding red metal tool chest as tall as his breastbone. He picked and chose, gathered what he seemed to think he would need, then laid those tools out on the workbench before going on to the next drawer. He knew August was there, that much was obvious. But he didn’t speak or even turn his head.
“This . . . thing,” August said. “The one you keep acting like you’re going to say but then you don’t say it. The one I’d think was crazy. Yesterday you made it sound like there was some tie-in between that and whether I could still afford to make it to Yellowstone. Was I right about that?”
“It was a possibility in that direction,” Wes said without pausing in his tool selection or looking up.
“Do me a favor, then. Getting to Yellowstone was very important to me this year. More than you know. More than anybody can probably understand. So if you’ve got an idea, sometime between now and the time I get back on the road again, could you go ahead and spit it out? Let me decide for myself if it’s crazy? I’ll be driving away shortly after, and you’ll never see me again, so I really don’t see what you have to lose.”
“I expect to get ’er done tomorrow. But prob’ly late in the day. Seven, eight in the evening. Maybe later. If that was the case, would you drive out of here tomorrow night, or sleep another night and leave Monday morning?”
“Anything after seven I’d probably stay put for the night.”
“Okay then.”
“Okay what exactly?”
“Okay, sometime between now and Monday morning I’ll let you know what I was thinking so you can laugh in my face and call me a fool and drive away shaking your head.”
August held out his right hand. It took the mechanic a long time to notice. But then, when he finally did, they shook on that deal.
August didn’t go out to the lot to ask for Woody back, because there was no reason why he should. And the boys didn’t bring the dog back until a quarter to noon.
August opened the back door, and Woody jumped in, circled twice, and flopped onto his side on the cool kitchen linoleum, his tongue hanging off onto the floor, his ribs heaving.
“You broke my dog,” August said. But when he saw the panic in Seth’s eyes, he jumped to repair the damage. “That was just a joke. It’s nice to see him so tired. Maybe we give him a little break before we ask him to do tricks.”
“We have to go eat lunch,” Seth said. “My dad takes off work every day around noon. We got to go in and eat with him. Henry and me. Then we’ll come back and see tricks. If you’re sure it’s okay.”
“I’m sure it’s okay,” August said.
When August looked at the clock again, it was after two thirty. And the boys had not come back. He looked out the window to see what he could see.
Seth was outside with an ancient wooden tennis racket, slamming a ball over and over against the side of the shop. As if he had a grudge to burn off, the ball was the cause of it, and the racket was righteous anger. Henry was nowhere to be seen.
August tried to go back to his reading, but he couldn’t make his attention stick on the pages. He let himself out the back door of the rig, Woody following behind at an uncharacteristically sedate pace.
Seth looked over once when he saw August coming. Then he looked away again. And smacked that tennis ball. And smacked it. And smacked it. The mood of the place had changed. Something had changed. There was no explanation in August’s mind, but also no doubt.
“Where’s Henry?” August asked.
“Inside.”
Seth missed the tennis ball in the process of answering. August expected him to run after it, but he didn’t. He just dropped the old racket, turned, and flopped into a sit with his back up against the shop. Woody wiggled up to him, put his paws up on Seth’s shoulder. Sniffed at the boy’s face as though he’d lost something there. Seth wrapped his arms around the dog and drew him in, hugging Woody close to his chest.
August sat down next to them. Leaned back. It was a spot in the full midday sun, and August knew he wouldn’t be able to stay there long. Seth lived out here in the hot valley. He must have been used to it.
They sat in silence for a time. How long a time August found himself unable to judge.
“You never came by for dog tricks,”
he said at last.
Seth said, “Maybe some other time.”
Then more silence. August didn’t want to ask straight out what was wrong, because he didn’t feel it was his place to do so. And because he had rarely, if ever, met a young boy who wanted to talk about his heartaches and disappointments with a near stranger.
Seth startled him by speaking.
“Where’re you going on your trip?”
“All kinds of places. National parks mostly. Zion and Bryce Canyon on the way up. Salt Lake City. The big destination was Yellowstone, but I won’t make it, what with the unexpected cost of breaking down and all. Then on the way back I want to swing east and see Arches and Canyonlands. Maybe Escalante and Capitol Reef. Maybe Canyon de Chelly. Depends on my timing. I like to leave things loose. It’s the only time of year I get to.”
“That’s a great trip.”
“I hope so. Didn’t get off to much of a start. I’m hoping it’ll pick up from here.”
“You got kids?”
August sighed. As quietly as possible. “I used to have a boy.”
For the first time, Seth’s head turned, and he looked right at the side of August’s face. “How do you used to have a boy? Isn’t your boy your boy forever? Or do you just mean he grew up into a whole man?”
“He was killed in an accident,” August said. He waited for the pain to begin its path of travel. Nothing happened.
“Oh,” Seth said. “I’m sorry. Was he my age?”
“No. He was older. He was nineteen.”
“I’m sorry that had to go and happen.”
“Me too.”
A long silence fell. Seth was the one to break it.
“Do you miss having kids along when you go traveling?”
That was when the pain came back. Radiated down, almost more a burn than a slice—an irritating, humming burn. So there you are again, August told it silently. I wondered.
It partially distracted him from the nagging sense that something was wrong in Seth’s question. August had said he’d had one kid. One boy. Not kids plural. More than that, though, was a sense of too much importance riding on what Seth seemed to be trying to camouflage as small talk.
“I miss him no matter what I’m doing,” August said. “It never stops.”
Then neither said anything for a time, and August had just about reached his limit for sitting in the hot sun. He levered to his feet and walked to the open entrance of the shop, looking back over his shoulder once before ducking into the shade. Woody chose to stay with Seth for the time being.
He found Wes working under his hood with much the same energy Seth had used to smack the tennis ball.
“Whatever’s wrong,” August said, “please don’t take it out on my engine.”
The mechanic’s head appeared, and he straightened up to his full height and looked August in the eye, but only briefly. “What’s that mean?” He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and shook one out.
“Just that everything seemed so sunny and bright this morning, figuratively speaking, and now it’s like a big dark storm cloud set its head down on this place while we were all eating lunch.”
Wes didn’t answer for a long time. Instead, he pulled out a bright- blue disposable lighter and torched the end of his cigarette, drawing hard. A cloud of smoke hung around his head. It was hot, and the air didn’t move. Not even a little bit.
“Can’t always tell kids what they want to hear,” Wes said at last. “Sometimes you got to break bad news.”
“That’s true, I suppose.” August took his usual seat on the low stack of tires. “Talk to me about this idea.”
The hand that held Wes’s cigarette came up to his face. But, rather than finding his mouth, it landed over his eyes and stayed there for a long time.
“You’ll think I’m crazy,” Wes said.
“So you mentioned. But go ahead and let me think what I want. I believe it’s time to get this out in the open. Whatever it is.”
Wes sighed. Squatted down onto his heels, which put him somewhere in the neighborhood of August’s level.
“Here’s what I’m thinking,” Wes said. “I can get you to Yellowstone by giving you this repair one hundred percent free of charge. I’d even pick up cost of the parts. I’ll even take the cash out of my pocket you gave me for the tow and hand it back to you. Then you’ll be right back where you were when this trip started. All you’ve lost is three days. And, like you said, you got plenty of time. Then you can go and do what you said was so important to you.”
August waited briefly to see if Wes would continue on his own. He didn’t.
“Yeah. That would get me there all right. But it leaves an obvious question. Why would you do that for me? Wait. Let me phrase it more directly. If you were to do all that for me, what would you want me to do for you in return?”
Wes took another drag of smoke and blew it out in a series of perfect rings that bent and collapsed as they floated over a hydraulic jack. He didn’t seem inclined to answer.
“You’re going to do this sooner or later, Wes. Please let’s just get it over with already.”
“Take my boys with you.”
In the silence that followed, August thought, Yeah. You’re right. I think you’re crazy. But he only said, “All summer?”
“Yeah. You’re coming back through before school starts, right? You can drop ’em back to me then. Meanwhile they get to see the world. Some national parks. Geysers. They can go to Yellowstone and see geysers. You know what those boys’ve seen their whole lives? Nothing. Just what’s within fifty or so miles of here. And let’s face it. That’s nothing.”
August breathed deeply two or three times. “They don’t want to see those places with a stranger. They want to go with you.”
“I’m not going. You are.”
“Even so. They’ll wait for you. They want to be here at home with their dad all summer. They’ll wait for a time when you can travel with them. They want to be with you.”
“Well, here’s the thing about that. For the next ninety days or so, they don’t get to be. This’s the part where you find out I’m not crazy by nature. More like desperate. You know. Fresh out of options. I’m on my way to jail for ninety days.”
“I don’t get it.”
“What’s there not to get? I got sentenced to ninety days.”
“Then how can you be here? I thought when they sentenced you they put handcuffs on you and dragged you right out of court.” Part of him wanted badly to go on to ask, “Sentenced to ninety days for what exactly?” But he didn’t. It was really none of his business, and besides, another part of him didn’t want to know.
“Well. They can if they want. Judge can do pretty much what he wants to do. Thing is, I got these two kids. So I told the judge I needed a few days to get ’em settled in. You know. Make arrangements for somebody to take care of ’em. Kind of stupid, because I don’t have much family, and what I have I knew they were gonna say no. They said no last time. Why this time would be any better I don’t know. I guess I just figured if I had some time maybe I could pull something out of my hat. So he gave me till Monday morning. Monday morning I have to surrender myself at the jail or they’ll come get me and escort me there.”
“Where do the boys go if you can’t pull something out of your hat?”
“County takes ’em.”
“Where did they go last time?”
“County took ’em.”
“Oh. Well. That’s not bad, right? That’s not the end of the world.”
Wes snorted, and smoke puffed through his nose. “Not for you. But I’m sensing it’s not such a great deal for them. Henry hasn’t said a damn word since I got ’em back. I think he talks to his brother. But I can’t prove that. It’s just a suspicion.”
A long pause fell. August put it to good use by mentally rehearsing the kindest ways to say no.
“I’d send you with some extra cash for their food,” Wes said. “They’re good boys. You can see
that with your own eyes. You said so yourself. Henry won’t say a damn word. Seth is a talker, but he’ll stop if you ask him to. He’ll do anything you ask him to. He can look after his brother, too. He’s old enough. It’s not like they’re babies. You wouldn’t have to watch ’em every second.”
“Wes—”
“No. Don’t answer. Please. Don’t answer yet. Just sleep on it. You got two nights to sleep on it. Tonight and tomorrow. Unless I get ahead of schedule. Sleep on it two nights, and don’t answer off the top of your head. They won’t be much bother to you. They’re good boys.”
On the last sentence, August distinctly saw the mechanic’s lower lip quiver.
“Okay. I’ll sleep on it.” And then I’ll say no, August added in his own head.
“ ’Preciate that.”
A long, strained silence fell. August didn’t like it much. So he worked harder to make it go away.
“Do they know you’re on your way to jail?” But before the mechanic could even answer, August knew. “No. Never mind. You don’t even have to tell me. They didn’t know before lunch. Now they do.”
Wes smoked in silence.
“Do they know you were going to ask me to take them?” But again he knew. He remembered Seth asking August where he was planning to go. If he missed having kids along. “Never mind. I think I know the answer to that one, too. How do they feel about that? Going away for three months with a stranger?”
“Thing of it is,” Wes said, “there’s strangers at that other place, too.”
“Right,” August said. And then fell back into the flurry of his own thoughts. “Look,” he said after a time, “I know you’re being the best father to them you know how to be. But you don’t even know me. You don’t even know for a fact that I can be trusted with a child.”
“I don’t know everybody at the county can be trusted with a child, either.”
August didn’t answer. Because he’d run out of arguments. The answer still felt like no. But he was out of logical reasons why it had to be. He wasn’t going to do it, because he didn’t want to do it. Because it felt weird. Because it disturbed the familiar patterns he needed to cling to. Too late to dress it up as anything more noble than that.
Take Me With You Page 2