Afternoons, Joe walked. One day he walked downriver and found a few Bar Slash Heart cattle that had been missed the day Frances sold them. The Hellwater had already exhausted the spring runoff and was now so low they had forded across onto Gustafsen’s land. The cattle eyed him stupidly, then bolted as though he had appeared out of nowhere. Joe squatted down on a dry boulder mid-river. The brackish flow of water barely covered the gravel; it was now more a moss-choked ditch than a river.
It was unavoidable. Irrigate this land? With what? To have water, the river had to be regulated. If you dammed it at the only logical site, Bitterroot Gap, what land would you have left to irrigate? The hell with it, his daily conclusion. Let them have their way. And let them be damned.
The fourth day, heading back, he saw a figure silhouetted against the sun-baked ridge: Wade halter-breaking his horse.
THE FIRST TIME Wade brought Sorry to the fence and tried to slip onto her back, the jumpy filly sidestepped out of reach. “Whyn’t you acquaint her with a saddle first?” Frances advised, watching from the branding shed. It took all his might to lift the heavy saddle on her back, and when he had, Frances spoke again. “She ain’t goin to take much to all those burrs diggin in her side,” she said. Wade muscled the saddle down again, picked the burrs off, and hefted it back up. When the sorrel realized the clunky leather was actually fastened to her, she kicked, bucked, thrashed and chewed, and rubbed against the barn, but nothing got it off. After two days, she had resigned herself to it, and Wade brought her to the fence again. This time, when he sprang onto her, she stood still, momentarily puzzled. Wade sat up straight and turned to Frances, proud of himself, when suddenly the horse shot off in a dead run. Caught by surprise, Wade instinctively flung longer arms than he thought he had around her neck. “Use your damn knees!” Frances hollered, “Grab her mane!” Joe ran to help, but he was too late. Sorry drove toward the pasture in a full out flat-backed gallop, then abruptly stopped short, catapulting Wade forward. With his arms locked around her neck, he felt his legs then hips then torso fly forward of his head, and with exquisite precision he lit squarely on his feet in front of her, landing like a stunt rider. Joe broke out in a laugh and started whistling between his teeth. Frances waved her old black hat. Wade spun in a circle. He was the most exhilarated he had ever been in his life.
THE HIGHEST POINT of the ranch was at the far end of the upper Hellwater valley where Meeks land ended and the long boulder and rock ridge of Sweetgrass Moraine began. From that point, a person had a full view of the entire valley below … even a glimpse now and then of the survey crew down below the falls of the river. And the longer he sat there, the more Joe began to wonder. Would a dam site located somewhere besides Bitterroot Gap, would that maybe allow Meeks land the water to irrigate without being inundated, without being 40 thousand acre-feet underwater?
WADE SAT WITH Frances at the table. She was drinking her wine and had nodded off. When she came to, she began to paw his head with her bad hand. His hair was growing out, and he liked her touching it.
“What happened to your hand, Frances? Your missing fingers hand.”
“Them? Damnest thing. I lost them when I socked a guy years ago. I was on duty that night, and some vagrant had wandered into town and was on a nasty drunk in the Timber Bar. I had to go on in and inform him he better either call it a night or get himself locked up. He started to put up a fuss, goin on about how no woman could make him quiet down no matter if she was a sheriff. I knew better’n to start something inside, so I just told him again what I’d told him before, and that I was done talkin; if he wanted to continue I’d be waitin outside. I hoped that’d be it, but sure enough, the son of a gun followed me out, and the one thing sure was, I didn’t have no chance if he tried anything, so while he was least expectin it I walloped him with my right fist. Got him square in his jaw, too.”
“Really? You knocked him out?”
“No, but I got it done. Lucky for me he was so snockered he buckled down into a heap; I sure couldn’t of used that hand to hit him again. That point, there was two of his broken teeth lodged here in my knuckles. Well I pulled em out and didn’t think no more about it, but a few weeks later my fingers turned all black. Son of a bitch bastard had give me the gangrene. So they had to cut off the black ones. Said I was lucky not to lose the whole arm. But fact is, I never seemed to miss em all that much. Them fingers.”
“I never met a real sheriff before.”
“Na, I wasn’t a real sheriff. I was pickin up night work durin the war. It was some hard years up here back then.”
Frances left and came back with some old newsprint. She handed it to Wade. “There’s a picture, if you’re still int’rested.”
It was a faded, one page issue of the Meagher Chronicle, a blurry photograph of a stiff, black hatted figure on the front—Frances. The headline read “Man Killed Robbing Goosey Drug.”
“You killed somebody?”
“Can’t you read?”
“Well yeah, but did you really?”
“Wasn’t much to it. I was just out on my walk like always. That particular night I had a funny feelin passing Goosey’s. There was a set of stairs around back going down to the basement, and I stopped there to listen. I didn’t see or hear anything, but still, I stepped to the side and waved my hat out in front of me, callin down into the dark that I knew they was down there and to come on up or else. The whole time I was hopin no one was around to see what a fool I was, talkin to myself, when all of a sudden the stairwell roared with a gunshot and my hat blazed right out of my hand. That about startled me to death, and I got so riled I drew my revolver and reached it around, took blind aim down the stairway, and waited. Once I heard the stairs creakin, I fired off my shot. That’s how it happened. It’s all in the paper there, ain’t it?”
“Not like what you just said.”
“Well that’s how it happened. I heard a body thump down the bottom stairs, then a little while passed and up comes this whisper goin, “Don’t shoot no more, I’m comin up now.” When he got up I stepped right behind him and put the barrel to the back of his neck. I was still shakin from bein spooked like that, so I took it pretty slow, explainin how it was right there where the spine enters the skull that was the best spot to shoot a animal for slaughter, and asked him was he aware what it was makin that cold feeling on his neck. He said he sure was. I asked him was his friend dead, and he said dead as a doornail. He was shakin like a leaf, so I eased off a bit and told him to turn around. I asked him what he thought he was doin, which he said was nothin, he and his pal heard they could make easy money in a little town with a woman police officer. I told him he was clearly mistaken, but that I was sorry about his pal, and he said he was grateful and thanks for not killin him too.”
“The paper says there was only one robber.”
“Yeah I know. That’s ‘cause I let this other one go.”
“How come?”
“He didn’t seem a half bad guy, just needed a scare throwed into him. Besides, I had another problem. Meagher never had its own judge back then; just one who come up only as needed. He was an old timer and cross as hell too; his own father had been a vigilante back when they just hanged up a robber right then and there, no questions asked. This judge hated like the dickens havin to come up to Meagher, and he’d of probly fired me for wastin his time when I could of shot this bastard in the first place like I did his partner. I figured my best bet was let this guy go. I explained the situation to this robber I’d apprehended, addin in a few things for effect, holstered my revolver and made a big show of peerin right at him, my face right up against his. I told him I was burnin his pitiful face into my mind so when he come around the next time, which criminals’ll do, I’d then deal with him my own particular way. What was that, he wanted to know. I said I’d take him up into Independence, tie him naked to a tree and coat him with honey, that way, what the coyotes and grizzlies didn’t get of him the Hellwater winter would. He said I wasn’t a natural woman,
and I told him he was damn right.”
“And he never ever came back, did he?”
“Yeah, he did as a matter a fact. After the war ended, he showed up wantin to know was I married. He said he’d thought it over and wanted to marry me if I wasn’t already.” She fell silent a while, thinking about it. “But I seen he was a bit confused, like was he wantin me for bein a woman or for keepin him outa jail, but by then Meagher’d hired a real deputy, so it wouldn’t of worked out either way. I said no, thanks all the same, and sent him on his way.” She looked at Wade. “That might of been as close as I ever got to marryin.”
SWEETGRASS MORAINE. BEAUTIFULLY still. All sound muted by the thick timber. Broken only occasionally by shouts of surveying crew. Even the cataracts, where in spring the torrent of meltwater raged and tore and gouged deeper into the glacial ridge, were quiet with the river level so low.
Down valley, the hard metamorphic ridge of Bitterroot Gap, blue black from this distance. The valley this side of it so dry already that the harsh angle sun reflected from it like from a dammed up reservoir already. No getting around it; Bitterroot Gap had to be the ideal dam site. How it laterally bisected the valley, like nature itself erected it to host a dam. Just pour cement into the mold of the Gap. A beautiful, satisfying project. Joe took pride just imagining it.
Evan, and the HRC, and everyone else, they were right. Which implied Evan was also right about Joe. That every job he had ever had inevitably had got to the same point. Sooner or later, he found fault. They were doing it wrong. Their plans were off. He knew better. Even literally found fault, like that Missouri bridge and the mayhem he got into about earthquakes. Each time, every time. At bottom, the pattern of loony unkempt imagination. That he kept repeating, even though, where had it ever gotten him? Except out of a job? And now what? Let all that money, and all the good it would do, drain through his hands? Rather than do what anyone in their right mind would do, do pronto and be done with it.
Nearby, a red tail hawk that had been completely hidden in its perch in a fully leafed cottonwood, burst into flight and soared away, it’s cry hanging in the calm of the tree rimmed pocket.
Anne.
Walking up the ridge, picking her way around boulders and pine, sunlight sparkling intermittently on her face.
Joe stood up. “What’re you doin up here?”
“Gee thanks. Nice to see you too.”
“No, I mean, why aren’t you at work?”
“It’s 6:30; we have what they call ‘quittin time’. Never hear of it?”
She sat on a low bough of pine.
“Noticed you up here all afternoon. What’re you up to?”
“Just thinking.”
“And keepin an eye out for me?”
She smiled at him; he didn’t.
A pool of spring water bubbled in the flat of pine needles between them; Anne knelt down to dab some on her sweaty face. Her neck. Down her front. She pulled out the tails of her work shirt.
“That’s more like it.”
She dusted herself off and sat again, this time alongside Joe.
“Evan’s due back soon, I guess. Know what you’re goin to do yet?”
Joe cleared his throat.
“You came up to ask me that?”
“No. I got somethin else I meant to ask, though.”
She took a photograph from her shirt pocket and handed it to him. Recognizing nothing, about to hand it back, Joe looked again. Two young people, embracing, hair swirling, mouths laughing. This time, though he’d never seen it before, he knew now. Like it had happened yesterday.
He turned it face down and handed it back.
Anne turned it face up. “All I just want’a know is, what happened with you and mom?”
His knee began to bounce. His lips moved, but no words passed.
“Come on, how come you can’t just tell me about it?”
“Anne, it was one summer; not even. It was years ago.”
“So? I never seen mom look that happy, never in my whole life. I never seen anybody ever look that happy. Not in Meagher, anyway. I just want to know about it.”
“What do I know. Can’t you just ask her?”
“You think I never have?” She sat down, chewing on a strand of her hair. “Since before I can remember I was askin her, who’s this, who’s this, who’s this? What happened to him? What were you so happy about? But would she ever tell me one word about it? No, except to lick me for naggin her. I know you were in love, that’s plain as day. So what happened that stopped it?”
A breeze flickered the higher tree tops. Shadows lengthened.
“There’s things people do you just can’t undo. You live your life and try not to get too strangled by what’s past.”
“I don’t care whatever I feel lookin back later on, if at least just once I’d feel that happy about something.”
She stood up and walked off, her boot steps puffing up dry pine needle dust; she walked back, shaking her hair out of her face. She took the photograph back.
“God I’ve wanted to meet a boy made me feel like that. I thought if only. . .” Her voice cracked, sucking in a cry that came back out a big laugh. “So here I finally meet up with him, and wouldn’t you know, he only turns out to be only you.”
Anne so sorry-sweet looking, Joe reflexively reached for her hand, then thought better of it. It was, all of it, just too much and he didn’t want to remember. He didn’t want to explain; he felt like he could more easily take flight like that red tail hawk than explain it. Any of it.
For a long time neither said anything else. The sun setting, the hollow darkening. The sound of a truck.
“Hear that?”
“That’s probly Norman, still workin.”
“I don’t get what it is he’s surveyin this high up for.”
“For the new dam,” Anne sighed, grooving her boot into the dirt.
“How could that be? All the surveying would have to get done before any site’d be approved.”
“Then ask him if you don’t believe me. I just map out terrain, I don’t make it.”
Joe considered this. “Maybe I will. Tomorrow. You can bring. . .”
“Not tomorrow I won’t. It’s Graduation Week. I’ll bring you the day after. Norman’s been wantin to meet you anyway; you should hear me go on and on about you.” She threw her arms around his waist, pullin him to her. “I think I love you, Joe. You know that?”
“Aw c’mon, Anne, don’t.”
He leaned back from her, startled by her irresistibility. “Come on, let’s go get Wade.”
“Asshole.”
She pushed him off and took his hand, not letting him let go, until she stopped and pointed. “Hey look.”
Far below, Joe saw Wade was riding his horse Sorry in the corral.
“He looks like he belongs there, don’t he?” she said.
HIS DAILY SCHEDULE of facilitating contracts and expediting agreements made Evan Gallantine a familiar face in Meagher: at the Timber Bar, at Treasure State Bank, at Goosey’s Drug and Maloney’s Dairy-Gold creamery. At Hell Gate Printing.
Hell Gate was run by Jack and Ruth Loomis, and was housed, like its owners, in Meagher’s one-time railroad depot, a Romanesque Revival clay-brick building built at the turn of the century to be the terminus of a railroad spur linking the booming Independence mines with the smelters and refineries and markets of the mid-west. No sooner was it built than the mineral bearing veins gave out, whereupon, one by one and as though overnight, those mines went bankrupt. Whereupon the railroad terminus went belly up. Hoppers of ore were abandoned in place and left for dead, their cast iron wheels welding in conjugal rust with the steel rails on which they expired, dead weighting the underlying oil soaked ties into embankments swallowed up by invasive milkweed and spurge that overran the gravel ballast and hastened its dispersion into high entropy disorder. And so, for the decades ensuing, the widowed depot sat off by itself, left at the altar, weathering and withering, gown gone to weeds, window
s boarded, mortar eroded, wrought iron rusted. A living dying monument to bygone prosperity and to the daily inevitability of ruin and decay, testifying to the natural order of rise and fall, to the collapse of all things, of Meagher and, in some ways, of humankind itself.
Evan first made overtures to the Loomises in their capacity as progenitors and dead-earnest publishers of The Meagher Chronicle, their periodical which now was a clarion broadside of saturnine reportage and embittered op-eds, a monthly organ of gloom that like a low-pressure cyclone, stirred up regularly recurring pestilences of woe in the tiny but heedlessly suggestible community of Meagherites.
In contrast to all other local establishments, it was slow tending for Evan, cultivating a relationship with the Loomises, who had by this point given up on life’s rare joys and intermittent pleasures, which they once enjoyed, even in the dark years of America after the war when they were both, Jack and Ruth, due to their being idealistic and left-leaning journalists, driven to this far end of the interior seeking refuge from the many red-baiting and black-listing pilers-on who were then in vogue throughout the country. And continued to enjoy, well after those first days in Meagher and the birth of their one child. They purchased the abandoned depot, mounted their Air-Stream out back, and staked their future and that of their son to the admittedly insignificant but happy enough life they envisioned spreading out ahead of them. Their hopes were simple then, to expand their newspaper and raise their son, and so they did, happily enough, as his 18 years passed and time stood still. They did so, that is, more or less, until one drunken night, carousing with cohorts, that very son and his boyhood friends in one spontaneous burst of pride mass enlisted in the army, for honor to their people and service to their country. And an all-expenses paid passage to Vietnam. With great fanfare these young men signed on and shipped out, and with no fanfare at all, one of them, that particular son, came back, in a small black box, wrapped with a polyester flag, and a photostat letter bearing the signature of the, by then, lame duck President Johnson.