Now Meagherites and visitors alike thronged to the sanctuary, kneeling and drinking, gossiping in the pews and returning for refills while Father Sterling preached. Wade, to get away from all the deafening festive chatter, moved near the pulpit. Above him, Father Sterling’s baritone voice rose and fell, sermonizing this day on the topic of free will, citing a parable by a man Wade had never heard of, about two travelers, how every day each would ride from one town to another, both riding a horse that unerringly knew the route and infallibly carried each man to his destination. The first traveler always slept, utterly content to let the horse take the lead, while the second traveler persisted in guiding the horse himself, each and every time no matter how often he went. The point being, Father Sterling said sonorously, that it was the second man, he and only he, that had free will. It was difficult to hear, much less understand, but Wade loved the ring of the phrase, ‘free will’. It seemed important, essential, and worth listening to.
Then he caught sight of the new acolyte, standing complacently in the sanctuary, and recognizing the bare feet, the marbled brown eyes, Wade was first startled then pleased when he realized who he was. After the service, Wade back in the Mint, Father Sterling burst in the door, wearing sunglasses and church garb, followed dutifully by the new acolyte wearing his church garb, a white frock and ragged levis. They took a booth, and Wade joined them.
“God Almighty, the sprout has sprouted; I hardly recognized ye,” Father Sterling said grandiloquently, motioning Wade to sit. “Please feed at our trough, Wade. You look like you not only could eat a horse, you look like you did. I trust you devoured my sermon too?”
Wade nodded. “I tried. But I don’t really get free will, though.”
“Ah, then you do. To understand nothing, that’s free will. John, this is Wade. Wade, meet John, my new aide de camp.”
Wade nodded hello, though he could see the acolyte did not remember him at all. Clean-shaven, not so hungry looking, the former possible felon seemed more at ease, and Wade was glad for that. Though his desire to find and join Harlo at Independence had been thwarted, he had at least found himself a home some place other than jail.
“Ho, the fair Opheliac,” Father Sterling said, hailing Anne. “Give us this day our daily doubles.”
Anne was already bringing two Bloody Mary’s; every Sunday afternoon was the same. Father Sterling tucked his napkin under his stained collar. “One lamb medium rare, and no fancy stuff this time.”
“Same,” the former possible felon chimed.
Anne plopped down a menu for Wade and went to shout an order through the doors to the kitchen. Wade caught a glimpse of Squash, happily tossing his pots and pans. He hardly recognized the new menu. Squash, lost more than ever after his total failure with Anne, had thrown himself into his cooking. Taking cues from Marly’s magazines, he brazenly expanded his repertoire by substituting native foods where he could not identify the foreign. Reading avidly to forget his heartache, he improvised one homemade creation after another, sprucing them up with his own elegant names. Dried Indian Paintbrush petals he named Northern Saffron. Grouse he named Yellowstone Plover. Cut-throat trout eggs became Caviar Sangle. Curdled milk from the vats at Malarkey’s DairyGold became Buerre Anglais. Mule deer became Venison de la Compagne; white tail, Venison de la Neige.
He served rice fried with chopped pine needles substituting for rosemary. He braised young rattlesnake and served it in a warm salad of dandelion greens and minced root. He prepared soufflés made with sage hen eggs called Oeufs du Prairie. He invented Whitefish Bisque with Alfalfa. Blue Sucker Langosta del Pobre. Cattail Tempura. Ringneck Pheasant Terrine. Shanks of Lamb in Wild Timothy. Sagebrush Ragout. Meadowlark Egg Drop Soup. Loin of Wapiti Roti. Pronghorn Cutlets with Glacier Lilies. Crab Apple Tarte Piquante. Rhubarb Mousse. And the more he found the art in his work, the more Squash began to forget about Anne.
Wade closed the menu; exotic cuisine maybe, but not for him. As he was about to get up, the bar suddenly emptied, everyone thronging out the door onto the hot summery street. He joined Anne at the door to see what was going on: The highway department had arrived to prep First Street, the first street ever to be paved in town.
“Where’s Joe?” Anne asked.
“He didn’t come in.”
“Then how’d you get in?”
“Drove.”
“Drove? Drove what?”
Wade pointed down Second Street where he had parked.
“That tractor?”
Anne laughed; Wade shrugged.
Around them, the crowd, applauding a large tanker truck passing by with twin spigot lines spraying the gravel street with hot oil, parted as Evan and the men Wade had seen walked by into the Mint. Evan did not notice, or acknowledge, Anne or Wade.
“What’s he doin with that guy?” Anne wondered after they went inside.
“What guy?”
“That short guy in those ugly glasses. He runs the survey team who replaced us.”
“Evan’s been with him all morning. I passed them at Burchard’s place on the way to town.”
“What were they doin there? On a Sunday?”
“They missed a good sermon.”
Hot fumes roiled the street, the oiler completing its last pass. After the hurrahs, people swarmed back into the Mint, proudly blackening the floor with the tracks of progress. Wade stood to the side, smiling; Anne looked off in thought, then abruptly spun and followed in after them. As soon as she spotted Norman’s replacement, who had taken a booth by himself, she sidled over with the best brightest smile she could muster.
“Hoo boy, some heat; only good thing on a day like this is hang out in here.”
The man looked up. “That’s for sure.”
“Everyone’s got pretty much the same idea.” She made an exaggerated survey of the tables. “Mind if I share your booth?”
“No, I sure don’t. My pleasure.”
Now recognizing her, the man’s sunburned cheeks reddened the thick lenses of his glasses. “You’re the girl from that survey team up the Hellwater.”
Anne nodded. “Ah I was just a go-fer for them. How’re you doin?”
“Oh, much better, now my lunch hour took such a nice turn for the better.”
Anne smiled, lifted the back of her hair, “Phew, it’s so hot though. Why d’you have to be out workin today?”
“Oh honey, you wouldn’t believe the heat we’re under and I don’t mean sun. Overtime is about killing me, especially now those InterPacific big shots are here breathing down my neck.”
“InterPacific?”
“Yeah, the company that hired us.” He put forward his hand. “Dick Janney, Janney Engineering. Out of Seattle.”
“I thought you were workin for HRC.”
“In a way. InterPacific, HRC, Arapahoe, it’s all connected. And you are. . .?”
Anne leaned forward, puzzled. “But you’re up surveyin HRC’s land, aren’t you?”
Janney removed his glasses to clean them, and his wall-eyed pupils narrowed as he leaned forward himself.
“And they’re all sensitive as hell about publicity, so I can’t really go into it. . .though now we’re done, I don’t get the reason for it.”
“Done with what? Who’s done?”
“InterPacific, I mean. They’ve got a big land deal working here, and need to ease in quiet, being that they’re, you know, foreigners. There’s problems whenever Japanese get seen taking things over. No need to give anyone a chance to make trouble, especially so close to all the approvals.”
“Oh well sure, I see,” Anne said, not seeing at all. “So there is a second site at Sweetgrass Moraine, I guess.”
Janney smiled, picking up the menu. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to bore you about work. Let me buy you lunch why don’t you?”
“Aw, na” Anne smiled, “I couldn’t let you do that.”
“Sure you could. Just so there’s no hard feelings. Believe me, I had nothing to do with you getting laid off.”
&nb
sp; “Oh forget that; I hated surveyin work anyway. But you’re awful nice to offer.”
“I am? I think it’s more you. You’re the nicest thing about this town.”
“Well thanks.” She touched his hand. “Maybe I will join you, if you mean it. You seem like an interesting guy to me.”
She knew he didn’t know how interesting.
HOT LIKE THE sun itself had set down on the field. Smoke so thick it couldn’t be seen if it had. The burning pyre, carcass of the mother cow and corpse of the long dead bull, thundered flame and ash high overhead high up the bench land where Joe had hauled them, drenched them with gasoline, and set them afire. With the roar of the inferno and the thick black particulates of their blazing bodies blotting the sky, Anne’s pickup appeared out of the air. He quickly grabbed his shirt and pulled it over his naked blackened shoulders. Sooty tears trickled down his face.
“Joe, you okay?”
He nodded, waving away the heat. “Fumes are makin my eyes water.”
Anne covered her mouth with her shirttail.
“Can we get out of this bon fire? I have to talk to you.”
He pointed to a flat boulder nearby where they could sit out of the heat and smoke.
“What’s goin on?”
“You know anything about a company called InterPacific?”
“InterPacific? No. Why?”
“It’s this huge Japanese company out here looking for a big cattle ranch to raise beef. That’s who Norman was hired by, and who hired this new outfit to replace him, Janney Engineering. I was just talking with him, Joe; you ain’t goin to believe it.”
“Believe what?”
“You were right. There’s no dam goin in at Bitterroot gap now; it’s Sweetgrass Moraine they’re surveying for. That’s where the dam’s goin.”
“What? Of course there is.”
“No, think about it. InterPacific is, and Evan’s getting ready to sell it to em. The whole upper Hellwater now. If that ain’t one goddamn big cattle ranch, I don’t know what is.”
Joe let out a long slow whistle, it fully dawning on him now that a dam at Sweetgrass Moraine, not at Bitterroot Gap, all that ranch acreage and the water to irrigate it. . .quicker and cheaper to build, something for everyone, once it dawns on someone, like Evan Gallantine, HRC down river, Arapahoe for the water intensive technology, InterPacific for their high end beef. . .it wouldn’t take more than an idea to have so much capital it’d be financed before ground was broken, and by then, who would give a damn if they changed the site to Sweetgrass Moraine?
“That makes a shit load of money behind that dam. And Evan figured it out all along.”
And realized it had to be kept quiet until all the land was secured. If Frances or the others had known, they’d have no reason to sell their land, and wouldn’t have.
“That’s why they sacked us, right, Joe?”
“Norman saw what I didn’t, went asking questions, about what it was he was really surveying for.”
He shook his head, how Evan was pressuring him to ink the deal, knowing he wouldn’t have if he had known, Evan’s face that day in the Mint. The one eyed jack.
“Plain as my the back of my hand. . .and I never saw it.”
He turned over his hands and started laughing.
“What’re you laughin for?”
Joe lay back in the dirt, laughing harder.
He was on his back, smelling sweetgrass, staring up into the blue bowl of sky. A few sprinkles hit his face, though there were no clouds above him. A sunshine shower.
He sat up. His vision so vivid, a photograph of a dream you had all your life: The upper Hellwater valley, a long fertile crescent laced with irrigation canals and steel headgates feeding quarter sections waist deep in hay, automatic sprinkler units walking the fields, the river flow regulated like clockwork, stackyards brimming, third even fourth cuttings, livestock grazing everywhere, all new wide lane roadway all the way over Independence Basin into the park, black asphalt lined with red gravel shoulders, new split-level ranch houses, scarlet barns, brand new pickups and gleaming farm equipment.
“Too bad it all couldn’t be ours.”
“It is. You can get it back. They cheated you.”
“Even if I could, I’d never be able to turn it into anything they could. It’d almost be a shame if they didn’t. Jesus, the more we get to wantin it—me, my dad, Harlo, Frances—the more we end up wantin to just finally be done with it.”
Another drop touched his cheek. The clear blue sky was still lightly raining.
“You know, Anne? Evan? You think what all he had goin in his head. . .I mean, you got to hand it to him. You really do.”
They sat.
“Well at least you got one thing you wanted, Joe.”
“What? The ranch?”
“No, not that.” Anne looked off. “Remember how you said you’d just once know what it’d be like bein right about something?”
He smiled.
“Looks like you were really goddamn right this time.”
It was cloudless but still lightly raining. He could see the drops catching the fire of the sun as they fell.
EVAN, LEANING OVER the ink-blotted counter at the Chronicle, talking to—trying to talk to—Jack Loomis, almost unable to hear even himself, hating having to repeat and repeat things drowned out by the loud clanking offset presses, knew nevertheless, without hearing a sound, who had just come in the front.
Joe. Nodding hello, indicating, in his Joe-like way, that he ‘wanted a word’. Evan, knowing he knew, nodded back, to wait one sec, he’d join him outside, then motioned to the right, meaning to make sure: Did Joe mind if Harlo came along?
Till that moment Joe hadn’t noticed him, Harlo, standing to the side, preferring to be an afterthought.
And so it was moments later, the three of them out walking the imprecisely parallel tracks of the old rail spur, heading left, which was south, in the direction of the simmering snow-peaked Independence Basin. Walking not quite together, Joe’s pace subdued but ahead of Harlo’s amble, his swaying limp leg keeping him behind, Evan’s self-satisfied easygoing stride a little forward, jingling the loose change in his khakis, calm, whistling, purposely elongating the time before they ‘talked’, not about to let Joe, however much he might want to, rip loose with his haranguing about whatever he knew or thought he knew.
Then, at the right time, enjoying the splash of sunlight on his face, Evan turned, swept his long light colored hair behind his ears, and began reflecting, now that his work was almost done, on life in general and his own in particular.
You wouldn’t think it, he mused—to Joe, and Harlo, and to anyone who he imagined would be interested—but actually, in truth, he’d never been one for common pleasures: travel, society, high living, marriage and family. No. Rather, what he lived for, what gave him most pleasure in life, most often, was success: the satisfaction that came of completing a good deal. Really, it was; it was the greatest joy, to find and uncover the common denominators that made for bringing all sides to the table for the good of them all. Mating up those with something of value to sell and a need to sell it, with those in need of something of value to buy, and a desire to buy it, ferreting out the good faith of all parties. To Evan—yes, he knew it was eccentric—this was not work, not a job or a career, but an art, and that’s what, in his own way, he was, and what he strived to be—an artist, the best he could be. He clasped his hands, describing it, how he felt now, at this moment in time, which was this: That this deal he’d orchestrated here in Meagher, over the course of the past many months, was, in his humble opinion, his masterpiece. Because—whether he did say so himself or not, nevertheless, no matter what, it was. A success, more than any other he’d ever put together. And that, to him, was the reward. The payoff. Not money—he hadn’t made much; some, of course, but not a lot. Not what he could have made, it certainly hadn’t been the best next project, not for him, not when he undertook it; there were several more lucrative deals in the
pipeline back in Southern California. But this was different for him. Far different. There were family interests at stake, it was personal, at heart. That alone, reason enough. But in addition, to be able to get a return on the value of property that had no value, get it not for himself, and not only for his own immediate family, his mother, but for them all, all the hard-working lifelong impoverished Meeks: Frances, Leonard, Harlo, even Joe, and now Wade, and not just family but others, the natives, the Burchards and Gustafsens, the HRC ranchers, and Marly, and for Anne. And furthermore, it wasn’t easy, not whatsoever, though it might look that way, to some, to some it might look as though it all just came together all on its own. He understood how his business acumen might make it seem otherwise, still, success didn’t happen invisibly. Not at all; on the contrary, it was hard, it took constant dedication, it took effort, it took battling back each day’s turns for the worse, facilitating the ever new, ever increasing complexities, pursuing multiple dead ends, forging novel solutions that had to be hammered out and worked through. It took compromising. It took pouring himself into it, focusing exclusively on it, it was not at all predestined to be successful. Few if any really knew the extent of it, pressuring high placed legislators, hard knuckled back and forth negotiating with powerful interests, Arapahoe, HRC, InterPacific, courting the state legislature and pressuring the governor’s mansion, all of it went far beyond just a putting up a new dam, it was about a new economy, it was about tapping the wealth of modern technologies and tourism and advanced market economics. And of course, it took overcoming the big sticklers, like persuading Frances Meeks, as he correctly anticipated, and then Joe Meeks, which he hadn’t.