Plainsong (20 page)

Then their father said: It must be getting time to eat. You better let me buy you lunch at the café, Dick.

Sure, Dick Sherman said. I’d like to. But I can’t. I promised my boy I’d take him chub fishing over in Chief Creek.

I didn’t think you were old enough to have a boy to fish with.

I’m not. But he thinks he wants to try it. When I was leaving this morning he said I’d never get back in time. Then Sherman paused, thinking. I am pretty young though, Tom.

Course you are, Guthrie said. We all are.

Then they walked out of the corral and Dick Sherman started his pickup and drove home. The two boys got down from the fence and stood beside their father. He put his hands on their brown heads, dry and hot from the sun, and studied their faces. The boys weren’t so pale now. He brushed the hair back off their foreheads.

I’ve got one more thing to do, he said. Then we’re finished with this. Can you stand it?

What is it? Ike said.

I’ve got to drag him out into the pasture. We can’t leave him here.

I guess so, Ike said.

You can open the gates for me.

All right.

Open that corral gate first. And Bobby.

Yes.

You watch Easter. Don’t let her get out while the gate’s open. Keep her back.

So Guthrie backed his pickup into the corral, and while he was hooking a log chain around Elko’s neck Ike closed the gate and then both boys got up into the back of the pickup and watched over the tailgate. When the pickup moved, Elko swung around and followed headfirst, dragging heavily across the dirt, the dirt pushing up in front of him a little and the dust rising to hang momentarily in the bright air, the horse still coming behind them, his legs loose and bumping, bouncing some when they hit something, and on around the barn toward the pasture, leaving behind them a wide dirt-scraped trail on the ground. For fifty yards or more Easter followed, trotting and interested, then she stopped and dropped her head and bucked and stood still, watching the pickup and Elko disappear. They pulled him across that first small pasture north of the barn. At the gate to the big pasture to the west, Guthrie stopped while Ike jumped down and opened the gate for the pickup to go through.

You can leave it open, Guthrie said. We’re coming right back.

Ike got back into the pickup and they went on. The horse was dirty now, dust-coated. The twine at his stomach had broken in one place and they could see a dirty ropelike piece of him trailing out behind as they moved out across the pasture and sagebrush, and then the piece caught on something and was torn away.

Their father drove the pickup down into the gravel wash at the far side of the pasture and stopped. He got out and unhooked the chain from Elko’s neck. They were finished now.

One of you boys want to drive back? he said.

They shook their heads.

No? You can take turns.

They were still looking at the horse.

Why don’t you get up front with me anyway?

We’ll stay back here, Ike said.

What?

We want to stay back here.

All right. But I’ll let you practice driving if you want to.

They went home then. Guthrie took them out to eat lunch at the Holt Café on Main Street though they weren’t very hungry. In the afternoon they disappeared into the hayloft. After a couple of hours, when they hadn’t returned to the house or made any noise, Guthrie went to the barn to see what they were doing. He climbed the ladder and found them sitting on hay bales, looking out the loft window toward town.

What’s going on? he said.

Nothing.

Are you all right?

What will happen to him now? Ike said.

You mean Elko?

Yes.

Well. After a while he won’t be there. It’ll just be bones that’s left. I think you’ve seen that before, haven’t you? Why don’t you come back to the house now.

I don’t want to, Bobby said. You can.

I don’t want to either, Ike said.

Pretty soon though, Guthrie said. Okay?

In the evening they ate supper at the kitchen table and afterward the boys watched tv while their father read. Then it was nighttime. The boys lay in bed together upstairs in the old sleeping porch, with one of the windows opened slightly to the quiet air, and once in the night while their father slept they were quite certain that out in the big pasture northwest of the house they could hear dogs fighting and howling. They got up and looked out the windows. There wasn’t anything to see though. There were just the familiar high white stars and the dark trees and space.

Maggie Jones.

In the night, while they were dancing slow, she said, Do you want to come over afterward?

Do you think I should?

I think so.

Then maybe I better.

They’d been dancing and drinking for two hours in the Legion on the highway in Holt, and sitting between dances with some of the other teachers from the high school at a table in the side room with a view of the band and the dance floor through the big sliding doors that were pushed back for Saturday night.

Ike and Bobby were in Denver with their mother for the weekend, and Guthrie had come in by himself about ten o’clock. The Legion was already smoky and loud when he’d come down the stairs and paid the cover to the woman sitting on a stool at the doorway and gone past her toward the crowd standing at the bar. The band was on a break, and people were standing close together in front of the bar, talking and ordering more drinks. He bought a beer and moved over to the edge of the dance floor, surveying the tables and booths along the wall. That was when he’d noticed some of the teachers sitting at a table over to the left in the other room, and that Maggie Jones was among them. When she saw him and waved him over, he raised his glass to her and walked across the empty dance floor. Care to join us? she said.

Doesn’t look like you have any chairs left.

There’ll be one in a minute.

He looked around. There must have been a hundred people crowded into the booths and tables and standing around the dance floor and massed in front of the bar, all drinking and talking, telling stories, with every now and then somebody shouting in laughter or hollering, a big loud smoky racket of a place. He looked down toward the teachers’ table. Maggie Jones looked very good. She had on black jeans and a black blouse; the drawstring of her blouse was loosened considerably, affording a good view of her, and she wore hoop earrings fashioned from silver. In the dim light of the Legion her dark eyes were as black as coal. After a while, when nobody left a chair free, she stood up and leaned beside him against the wall. I thought you might just decide to come tonight, she said.

I’m here, he said.

The band came back and stepped onto the riser and took up their instruments. As they made warm-up riffs and runs, Maggie said, You better ask me to dance.

You’d be taking a hell of a risk, Guthrie said.

I know what I’m asking. I’ve seen you dance before.

I can’t imagine where that would’ve been.

Here.

Guthrie shook his head. That would’ve been a long time ago.

It was. I’ve been watching you for a long time. Longer than you have any idea about.

You’re going to scare me now.

I’m not scary, Maggie said. But I’m not a little girl either.

I never thought you were, Guthrie said.

Good. Then keep that in mind. Now ask me to dance.

You’re pretty sure of this?

I’m very sure.

All right, said Guthrie. Would you care to dance, Mrs. Maggie Jones?

That’s not very goddamn gallant, she said. But I guess it’ll have to do.

He took her hand and led her out onto the floor. A fast song, he swung her out and she danced back to him and he twirled her around and she swung out again and came back and he spun her around once more and when she came back up to him she said, Damn you, Tom Guthrie, I’m doing all the work.

But Guthrie could see she was smiling in her eyes.

Then it was late. The lights had come up and the band had played its last song for the night. The crowd wanted more but the band was tired and wanted to go home. More lights came on and suddenly it was very bright all over the hall and more so over the bar, and people began to rise from the booths and tables as if from some manner of sleep or dream and began to stretch themselves and look around and to pull their coats on and move slowly toward the doors.

You know where I live, Maggie Jones said.

Unless you moved lately, Guthrie said.

I’m still in the same place, she said. I’ll see you there. She went out ahead of him and he came up the stairs and stopped in the rest room off the main hall. They were two deep at the urinals and he waited his turn. Over on the right an old man in a blue shirt was talking to the man next to him, both of them holding themselves, finishing up. How long you been married, Larry?

Twelve years.

Goddamn, boy. You got a long way to go.

Larry turned to look at him, then zipped up and went out. Guthrie moved forward into his place.

Once he was outside, the midnight air was cold and frosty. Little pretty glittering flecks of ice were falling under the streetlights. People were calling and yelling across the parking lot. Through the breaking clouds overhead the myriad flickering stars showed fresh and pure. He cranked the old pickup and went out of the gravel drive onto the highway and over a couple of blocks and turned south another block to her house. The porch light was on and a low lamp burned in the front room. He went up to the door and didn’t know whether to knock or not, but decided to go on in. Inside it was quiet. Then she came toward him from the kitchen. She was barefoot when she stopped in front of him. Are you going to kiss me?

Who’s here? he said.

My father. I’ve just checked on him. He’s settled for the night. He’s deeply asleep.

Well, he said. I might try it once.

She leaned toward him and he kissed her. Even without shoes she was still nearly as tall as he was. He stepped forward a little and took her in his arms and they kissed harder.

Why don’t we go back to the bedroom, she said.

When her clothes were off Maggie was soft and creamy, as rich as if she were painted. She had large full breasts and wide hips and long muscular legs. He was sitting on a chair next to the bed looking at her. For the first time since he’d known her, she seemed almost reticent and tentative. I’m just a big old girl, she said. I’m not like what you’re used to. She stood with one hand covering her stomach.

Why, Maggie, you look beautiful, Guthrie said. Don’t you know that? You take the breath out of me.

Do you think so?

God, yes. Don’t you know that? I thought you knew everything.

I know a lot, she said. But that’s very nice to hear. I thank you. She got into bed. Now hurry up, she said. What are you doing?

I’m trying to get my boots to come off my feet. They’ve swelled up so bad I can’t get them off, from all that dancing you made me do. It’s like I been walking in river water or something, they’re soaking wet.

You pitiful thing.

You damn right.

You want me to get out of bed to help you?

Just give me a minute, he said.

Finally he succeeded in hauling both boots off and he stood up and got out of his clothes and stood naked, shivering, looking down at her, and she opened the bed covers to him and he crawled in. Lord, you’re just freezing, Maggie said. Come closer here. In bed she felt unbelievably warm and smooth and she was the most generous woman he’d ever known. He could feel her like satin all along his body.

But listen to me, she said.

What.

You don’t actually think I’m scary, do you?

Yeah, I do.

Tell me the truth. I’m serious now.

That is the truth. At times I can’t say I know what to make of you.

Can’t you?

No.

What do you mean? Why not?

Because you’re different than everybody else, he said. You don’t seem to ever get defeated or scared by life. You stay clear in yourself, no matter what.

She kissed him. Her dark eyes were watching him in the dim light. I get defeated sometimes, she said. I’ve been scared. But I’m just crazy about you. She reached down and touched him. Here’s one part of you that seems to know what to make of me.

You do make a person feel interested, said Guthrie.

.  .  .

Afterward they slept. The stars wheeled west in the night and the wind blew only a little. About four-thirty she woke him and asked if he wanted to go home before daylight.

Does it matter to you?

Not to me, she said.

They went back to sleep and then at gray dawn she got up when they heard the old man moving about in the kitchen. I need to get up and fix his cereal, Maggie said.

Guthrie watched her get out of bed and put a robe on and leave the room. He lay in bed for a while, listening to them talk, then got dressed and went into the bathroom. When he came out into the kitchen, Maggie’s father was sitting at the table with a dish towel tied around his neck and a bowl of oatmeal before him. The old man looked at him. And who do you think you are? he said.

Dad, you know Tom Guthrie. You’ve met him before.

What’s he want? We don’t need another car. Is he trying to sell you a car?

Guthrie told her goodbye and went home and traded his boots for gym shoes and went back out and drove over to the depot where a ragged stack of Sunday
Denver News
lay sprawled out beside the tracks, wrapped in twine. He sat down at the edge of the cobblestone platform with his feet out in the ballast and rolled the papers, and then rose and loaded them into the pickup cab and drove through Holt along early morning streets almost empty yet of traffic or any commotion at all, and hurled the papers from the pickup window in the approximate direction of the front doors and porches. He climbed the stairs over Main Street to the dark apartments above the places of business, and about midmorning he finished the boys’ paper routes and returned home and went out to the barn and fed the one horse and the cats and the dog. At the house he fixed himself some eggs and toast and drank two cups of black coffee, sitting in the kitchen with the sunlight slanted across his plate. He sat smoking for a while. Then he lay down on the davenport to read the paper. Three hours later he woke with the newspaper folded across his chest like a bum’s blanket. He lay still for a while, alone in the silent house, remembering the night before, what that had been like, wondering what might be starting. Thinking did he want it to start, and what if he did. Late in the afternoon he called her. You doing all right? he said.

Yes, aren’t you?

Yes, I am.

Good.

I enjoyed myself, he said. You think you’d like to get together again sometime?

You’re not suggesting an actual date, are you? Maggie said. In broad daylight?

I don’t know what you’d call it, Guthrie said. I’m just saying I’d be willing to take you out for supper at Shattuck’s and invest in a hamburger. To see how that would go down.

When were you thinking of doing that?

Right now. This evening.

Give me fifteen minutes to get ready, she said.

He hung up and went upstairs and put on a clean shirt and entered the bathroom and brushed his teeth and combed his hair. He looked at himself in the mirror. You don’t deserve it, he said aloud. Don’t ever even begin to think that you do.