The Big Bang (12 page)

This was an older section of the fence, put up not long after the ranch house had been completed back in the early twenties. There was nothing obviously wrong with the post, besides being so sun bleached it was gray. Alec notice it swayed a little in the breeze. But it swayed from the bottom. “The base is rotted, huh?”

Hanner nodded, pointed to a small gully that ran at right angles to the fence, out from Alec's ranch to the National Forest beyond. “Runoff has either undercut it, or just rotted it.” Both men climbed off their horses to take a closer look. The gray wood was flaking and crumbling just below the surface of the dirt.

There was a small stand of scrub trees, a couple of hundred yards from the fence. Hanner led their horses to a small area of shade, tied the reins loosely to one of the trees. Alec checked inside the saddlebags, found a small hand axe. From the other saddlebag, Hanner extracted a hammer, over-sized pliers, and an old Army entrenching tool. “I'll get the post dug out,” he said.

The replacement post was up to Alec. He wandered among the stand of trees with a critical eye. Twisted by the winter winds and summer droughts, most of the trees were closer to pretzels in shape than pencils, but he found a likely candidate toward the center of the stand. It was a Jack Pine, about eight feet tall. Real pretty tree. It probably had been protected by the gnarled guards on the outer edges. Alec almost hated to cut it down, but if the fence went down, no telling what would wander onto the ranch. There were bison over in the deeps of the National Forest. A barbed wire fence wouldn't stop a determined buffalo, but it might annoy them enough to make them go somewhere else.

It took Alec the rest of the morning to hack through the four-inch trunk of the tree, whittle the base to a point, and strip off the limbs and small branches. Hanner walked back once carrying a canteen, which he hung from a nearby tree. He glanced at Baldwin's work in progress and mentioned, “You'll want to cut her off to about seven feet.”

It was nearing noon when Alec walked out of the stand of trees, the canteen dangling from one shoulder, the trimmed tree trunk balanced on the other. Hanner had unsaddled the horses and was brushing them down. He grunted in approval when he saw Baldwin. “Almost lunch time,” he commented. “Let's eat before we set the post.”

Alec leaned the post against a tree, wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Only if you've got a salad in the bags there.”

Hanner gave a kind of grin. “Nope. Got some trail mix, couple of bananas.”

“That'll do.”

Alec brushed the ground clear of burrs and pebbles and sat down beside his saddle, leaning back against it. He peeled a banana, dipped it in the Ziploc bag of trail mix (chocolate chips, he was livin' large!), and took a bite. It tasted damned good after his morning of work. He knew his forearms would be burning tomorrow. He welcomed the thought.

Hanner took a bite of a roast beef sandwich, washed it down with a slug from his own canteen. “Those bastards in Iraq…they just blew up a Pet Market.”

“You're kidding.”

“Heard it on the radio coming in.” Hanner shook his head. “It's not enough to blow up innocent folks just out doing their errands…but to blow up kids and helpless critters in cages. Takes a special kind of evil to do that.”

Baldwin shook his head in disgust. What kind of twisted s.o.b. would think it was a good move to slaughter children who were in a market, looking at the hopeful puppies, kittens, and canaries? That transcended politics and religion.

Around a mouthful of his lunch, Alec said, “That insurgency. They've got to be really angry to do that.”

Hanner spat in the dirt. “Insurgency, hell. Most of those bastards come from outside the country. They aren't even Iraqis.”

“Really?” Alec asked mildly. So, here it was, pretty much as he'd guessed. Conservative, for sure, Republican, probably.

Hanner looked abashed, like he'd revealed more of himself than he'd planned. Alec wasn't sure if it was the revelation of his politics, or the revelation of his feelings. “Yeah,” Hanner said after a moment. “They are.”

Baldwin let it pass. It was too pretty a day to argue politics, and besides, what difference would it make out here? The man had been thoughtful enough to bring lunch for the Hollywood vegetarian. Why spoil a beautiful day over a difference of opinion?
I'm not an asshole
, Alec reminded himself,
I just play one in the movies
. He took another drink of the warm, flat water in the canteen. “Better get that post set.”

Hanner wiped his hands together and climbed to his feet. “Better.”

The older man had already dug out the rotted base of the old post and pried the staples loose from the barbed wire. Alec walked up to the fence with the stripped log on his shoulder. He paused a moment, checking the lay of the fence. Each post was offset from the other…every other one was on the inside of the wire. This post would need to be set on the outside of the fence. When Alec turned, he thought he caught a trace of approval in Hanner's eyes, but it was gone so fast he couldn't be sure it was ever there.

He dropped the post over the wires and into the hole. Hanner took the post in both hands. Alec was taller, the obvious choice to take the entrenching tool and pound the post into the ground, which he did.

Hanner kicked some rocks into the hole, scuffed some dirt over the rocks, and then unzipped his fly. As he urinated into the post hole he said, “The scent makes the wolves more cautious, for a while.” When he finished, he scuffed more dirt over the mud and stomped it down.

Alec braced the post with his hip while Hanner affixed the barbed wire with the metal staples and a hammer. Their heads were close together. “You still planning on leaving the country?” Hanner asked him.

“That was just a rumor,” Alec replied acidly. He'd never said that. Kim had said he'd said it. Well, maybe he did mention it in passing when he was unholy pissed about the direction of the country. He'd
thought
about it. He'd been disillusioned. He'd even, in an angry moment, moved a lot of assets to Switzerland. He hated the idea of paying taxes to support this administration and their wars. He'd liked knowing he had some “Go to Hell” money stashed somewhere.

Hanner nodded, pounded another staple home. “Just checkin'. I don't like to wonder when I'm gonna come out to the ranch and find a letter tellin' me you've sold the place.”

“I thought about it,” Alec admitted. “I've been so mad about the war and about the court fight and everything, I could just spit. Times like that, I just wanted to get out. Leave it all behind.” He pushed down on the dirt around the post with his boot. “But I'm staying put. This is my country. Leaving won't make it any better. Besides, I wouldn't take Addie away from Kim. A kid needs her mom. And Addie loves this place.”

Hanner nodded, not in agreement, just letting him know he'd been heard. Alec looked away for a moment. What the hell was he doing confessing to this old right-wing cowboy? It took him most of the ride back to the ranch house that day to tease the answer out of himself. It was trust. One of the few people outside of his blood kin, including his brothers (even though one of them was certifiably batshit crazy), that he could trust was his ranch foreman.

Hanner stepped back, held the strands of barbed wire so Alec could crawl through. Alec looked dubiously at the metal wire. It was rusty. “Think we should replace the wire?”

“Fix what you can, plan for the rest,” Hanner said, turning his head to trace the line of the fence running off in the distance. Later, after everything had changed, Baldwin would remember the older man's words. He'd cling to them; make them the foundation of his shattered life and the sword he'd use to avenge the death of his dreams.

Baldwin had only a small travel bag on the front porch when Hanner arrived about noon two days later. Filling his mug in the kitchen, the foreman raised his eyebrows at the dearth of luggage. “Traveling light this time?”

“Don't need much.” Alec grinned, as excited as a kid the day before Christmas. “I'm bringing Addie back.”

“Good.”

Alec washed his own cup, hung it on a peg. He'd decided last night, just before he fell asleep. He felt better after the three days of working the ranch. They'd ridden most of the fence line, done some repair on the barn, mucked out the stables, and dug a French drain around the back of the guest house. Every night, Alec had slept dreamlessly. He was sore, but it was a pleasant soreness, and he already sensed a new tautness in his gut. It was a feeling he liked.

There was nothing in L.A. he had to do. His next movie was lined up, and he calculated that trying to go somewhere with Addie where they wouldn't be harassed by the public (or the suck-ups) would require as many hours in traffic as it would take to dash back to the ranch. He'd already made the reservations. Yeah, he'd be the one spending twenty or so hours in airports and on airplanes over the next day and a half, but it was worth it to be with his daughter. He'd take the hit on time and comfort. That was what the father did: take the hit for the kids. If you didn't take the hit, you weren't worthy of the name “Dad.”

It was Monday. He'd be in L.A. late, but would pick up Addie first thing in the morning at Kim's house, and they'd be off. It'd be a hell of a surprise for his daughter, and probably he'd receive another expensive beatdown from his wife's lawyer for showing up like that, but so be it. “I'll leave the Jeep at the airfield,” Alec told Hanner.

“I'll drive you over,” Hanner offered. “'Bout due for an oil change and tune-up, anyway.”

Baldwin checked his watch. Hanner caught the glance, emptied and rinsed his mug. “Burnin' daylight,” he said.

“The Duke,” Alec replied with a grin. One of the only references Hanner ever made to Hollywood was testing Baldwin's knowledge of movie trivia, especially old movie trivia. Alec had learned a few interesting tidbits about actors and directors he'd either dismissed or taken for granted. Like Eddie Albert, the old guy who'd been in the television show
Green Acres
. From Hanner, Baldwin had learned the man was a successful actor before the Second World War, who'd volunteered for service. He was a decorated combat veteran, a Marine officer who'd refused orders to evacuate a Japanese-held island in the Pacific, and had repeatedly waded ashore to carry his wounded men to safety. Alec used information like that to remind himself that you could never judge people simply by what they were doing or what you knew they'd done, but that everyone had another life, one that had been lived out of your sight and beyond your knowledge.

As he walked over to the garage, the beauty of the day struck Alec. The air was clear and cool, a scud of dark thunderclouds far off to the east. There might be a storm coming, but he imagined it would blow over by the time he returned from California. Hanner helped Alec fold back the soft-top on the Jeep. They removed the doors and put them in the back of the garage. Alec climbed into the driver's seat; he liked driving out here. In L.A., he'd pay someone else to deal with the jams and the stop and go.

The drive to the airfield took almost forty-five minutes. The damn thing was too small to really call an “airport,” although it took that name. First they took a fire road from the ranch to the state highway. As they bounced over the rutted road, Hanner said, “I'll have Jamal grade the road before this storm comes in.” Alec nodded. They paused at the edge of the pavement, gave cursory glances left and right. Nobody coming for at least fifteen miles in either direction.

Once on the highway, a paved single-lane road through the National Forest, the ride was smoother. This far out, they only saw a few truckers, hauling beef from the working ranches farther out toward the stockyards in Bruneau. Hawks circled on the thermals rising from empty river beds and a few jackrabbits sat by the side of the road, pondering what to do with the rest of their day, perhaps hoping it wouldn't include a closer encounter with one of the circling hawks.

Alec dropped his speed to sixty as he passed the Chevron station. The package store came up on his right. He eased the pressure off the accelerator, slowing to a careful twenty-five when he approached the elementary school. Parents, mostly mothers, were walking their kids to class. The sight of the children made Baldwin ache for Addie. It was a feeling he'd never had when he was single, before he was a father. He didn't hate kids back then, it was just that he could take them or leave them. Now, seeing families inevitably brought his mind around to his family. His family: he and Addie. Maybe there would be another wife in his future, but no matter what, Addie was the core of him now.
You could find another wife
, he thought,
but you could never replace your daughter
.

The airfield was on the other side of town, a taxing five minutes away. You could see the weather tower first, air sock fluttering. Then the chain link fence, put up mostly to capture drifting tumbleweeds, Baldwin was convinced. Then the small terminal building that was only staffed about six hours a day, four days a week. Beyond that was the expanse of runways where the puddle jumpers sat, the kind of plane where the pilots walked up between the rows of seats to get to the cockpit.

He'd spend an hour flying on one of those eight-seater planes, and then grab a commercial flight from Seattle to L.A. He purposely hadn't shaved in a week. With a ball-cap, his reading glasses, and his graying stubbly beard, he didn't look much like Alec Baldwin, movie star morphing into character actor. He looked more like, well, a construction worker. He could live with that. Usually in an airport people were racing too quickly from place to place to recognize him, unless they were the most psychotic of fans.

Baldwin pulled the Jeep up in front of the terminal, left it running. He hopped out, did a quick pat down. His keys and wallet were in place, his cell phone in his jacket pocket. Hanner climbed out as well, went to the back of the Jeep and hauled out the travel bag. “Call me with your arrival time.”