“No, and don’t intend to. I came to get this business done with, not to look up everyone in town. Stay wherever you like; I’m not staying there.”
“It’s the only place in Meagher, Joe. Period. Unless you want to drive up and spend the night with Frances.”
Joe snorted. He rubbed a hole in his icy window. “You told Marly I was coming?”
“No. I didn’t know if you were.”
“Well then, don’t.”
“We need to let Frances know, though. Since we need to go up first thing. And speaking of that. . .”
He reached for the carphone that came with the pickup. As he slowed to a crawl, he dialed a number, then handed it to Joe. “Given her low opinion of me, it would go better if you spoke to her. Sooner rather than later.”
Joe shook his head but took the handset. The rings crackled one after the other.
“Not home.”
He was about to hand it back when he heard a click and a hiss of static filled his ear. Then a cough on the line.
“Anyone there?”
No reply.
“Frances? Can you hear me? This is Joe.”
“Joe who?” a raspy voice cracked.
“So, uh, how are you?”
“Not too goddamn well. What d’you care?”
Joe looked at the phone.
“Uh, so, guess I’ll be comin up tomorrow. To. . .um. . .visit.”
“Goin to join up with the rest of the carrion, are you?”
Then for a time neither spoke. Then,
“Leonard died a while back,” Frances finally said. “That’d be your dad, you know.”
“I heard.”
“Can’t think of nothin else to say then.”
The line went dead. Joe passed the phone back to Evan. Wade asked who Frances was.
“Joe’s grandmother.”
“I can’t wait to see her.”
“You maybe can’t. I can.”
Joe rubbed at his window some, still nothing but endless greening hay and a tundra of snow.
Evan slowed to a stop. “This snow is too much for the wipers. Joe, you mind clearing the windshield for me?”
Wade bounded out after him. He saw along the fence a band of sleek deer, their big mule ears on alert. When Joe slammed the door, the herd bounded the fence and bolted up the ridge. All but one, a little one, which went under the fence and got wedged into the barbed wire.
“Hey look,” Wade cried, as the fawn struggled desperately to get free, only to lodge itself even tighter.
“Goddamn thing.”
Joe went over to separate the wires but the frightened animal kicked too hard for him to get near enough to free it.
“What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know, Wade.”
Evan called from the truck, “Joe, just forget it; it’s going to be dark soon.”
Joe stood, looked back at the pickup, then the sky, then knelt again. He started bending the strands of wire back and forth. He told Wade pull to give him more slack. As he did so, he could feel the heat of the wire in his bare cold palms.
The deer continued to kick, but was weakening. Its walnut eyes rolled in their sockets. Its tongue hung out, clenched between his teeth. Wade looked away, to the fields, then to the sky. Strips of blue opening to the north.
Heard a faint ‘pop’, felt the wire pull through his hand, cutting him. He quickly let go; the broken wire flew apart. For several seconds, nothing moved. Then the fawn sprang to its bony legs. Joe flailed his arms, and the deer ran off to where the others had run and were standing, waiting, at a safe distance.
“Man alive, Joe! We did it!”
Wade licked his cut hand, cold but elated, watching the deer vanish.
“Was it a baby?”
“Yearling.”
“How can you tell?”
Back at the pickup, Joe opened the door for him.
“From how it didn’t stick close to its mother.”
“How come?”
“How come? Well, sooner or later all things got to go out on their own, Wade.”
A flake of snow had landed on his eyelash, and as it melted his eyes seemed to sparkle. Wade laughed.
“What’re you laughing at?”
“This is going to be a good place, Joe. Right?”
Joe wiped the snow from his eye.
“No; this’s going to be hell, Wade.”
THEY ARRIVED IN Meagher well after dark, when there wasn’t much to see but the pulse of a lone traffic light on the few dark buildings. In those yellow intervals, Wade saw a statue, a mounted cavalryman dripping with melting snow. Then dark. Then yellow again, swirling a broken saber over his head, charging full bronze gallop, his sculpted hat rolling off his shoulder. Then dark again, then Wade read the engraved stone: MJR. THOMAS F. MEAGHER. And dark again.
Evan stopped outside a stone block building, with a large sign “Grand Hotel”. Next door, a sign in the window lit with blinking neon letters: “Mint Bar”.
“How’s dinner sound, Wade? If she’s still open.”
“Good to me.” Wade jumped out. “Come on, Joe, you hungry too?”
“I’ll be there. You go on.”
Joe lingered until Evan and Wade went into the hotel, then walked off. He wandered down to Second Street where it crossed First Street. The town’s only real intersection. In all directions, there was nothing else. No one else.
Meagher. How in just two days could a person be in the one place he’d tried not to think about for twenty years?
A car passed, slowly, full of dark shapes, and stopped in the alley behind the Grand. A lanky kid in oily jeans emerged, shoved out by exhortations from those inside the car. He reluctantly walked to a window and rattled the screen.
“Hey Anne. C’mon drinkin, why don’t you? Anne?”
He stood nervously wriggling his hands in his pockets. Joe walked a little closer. The kid stepped back to the car.
“She says she won’t c’mon.”
“Why, what’s wrong with her?” a voice in the car said.
“Nothing’s wrong with me,” the window barked. “I have work tomorrow.”
“So do we.”
“Real work.”
“Don’t mean you can’t c’mon drinkin like usual.”
“We all thought you were a big girl now.”
The car chorused with chortling and a rattle of beer bottles.
“Maybe she’s savin herself for Squash now that she went to Denver with him?”
“He must of wooed her pants off.”
A louder burst of chortling.
“You assholes.”
A screen door slapped open and shut, and the thick-haired girl from the plane came out. All four doors opened, three more bottle-drinking kids emerged and one put his teenage arms around her. She shook them off.
“Just let me in and get me a drink fast before I change my mind.”
She tilted back her head and took a long drink from the nearest bottle. The wolfish boys piled in after her, and the car quietly drove away. Joe watched it turn west on First Street then south on Second, headed out of town on the Upper Hellwater road.
Joe caught himself walking south himself, following instinctively. He stopped. What are you doing?
BACK AT THE Grand, Joe looked inside. As though stepping back in time he saw: The ring-up cash register on the cracked glass counter mended with the dried tape and under it the ragged cardboard boxes of copper-tipped bullets next to the seedy fishing flies and hard candies covered with dust that had been there since he saw them last.
There was one drunk at the bar. A couple people eating in the booths in the rear. Recognizing no one, no one who was going to know him, he went in, looking for Evan and Wade.
Lining the walls, stark black and white photographs: sheepherders in woolly chaps, shadowy young cowboys in dusty corrals, black-whiskered miners at Independence. Someone’s old wagon and team. A photograph of the Grand itself. Another of the view south, the moun
tains of the upper Hellwater. One, a prominent view of the northern flank of Mount Contact. It was unbroken, solid, eternal. Joe stepped in closer. The date scrawled across the corner: “1940”.
It had yet to strike.
“Joe, look.”
He had been so engrossed in the photograph he hadn’t noticed Wade in the booth next to him, cradling a hot cup of coffee. Evan was not with him.
Joe sat down. “What are you doing with that?”
Wade sipped importantly.
“She brought it.”
He meant a woman with thick red hair tied in a kitchen towel just coming out the swinging doors, slinging off her apron. As she came, the drunk at the bar swiveled on his stool and threw his arm around her.
“Buzzy, damn you, I’m in a hurry here.”
She pushed him away but the rebuffed drunk affectionately ran a hand down her blouse.
“How bout we dance a little and you advance me a couple beers, Marly; what d’you say?”
She pulled him out of her blouse. “If Tyler made your payday today instead of tomorrow, you’re part on; otherwise you have to make do with imagination, you randy bastard.”
She laughed and continued to Wade and Joe, buttoning herself.
“So you’re Evan’s latest prospect?”
She tilted her head, to get a better look, Joe keeping his face down.
“Aim to stay long?”
“Couple days only.”
Joe fingering a set of initials carved in the tabletop.
“That’s longer than most; hell, we’ll be old friends by then. I’m Marly Croft, owner and chief bottle washer. Expect you had a nasty drive up, so I won’t bother checkin you in till tomorrow. Take any room upstairs where you find a key in the door, none are any better than any other. Whatever else I can do, go on and ask.”
She pressed her hip into the table.
“Feel free to come by the bar later; we’ll get you even better acquainted with this town. What d’you say?”
Joe, stymied for how to answer, turned dark, while she turned to Wade.
“Our menu, such as it is, is posted there behind the bar. We’re out of a few things but I can’t remember what the hell they are right now. Go ahead and take your time; I’ll come right back.”
She left back for whatever was behind through the swinging doors.
“Man o man, she’s sure friendly, right, Joe?”
Joe looked up, and around. “Where’s Evan, anyway?”
“With those guys, over there.”
The booth in the back corner was dark; it took Joe a minute to recognize Evan. He was sitting with two men, Asian looking, obviously trying to look western, Stetson hats and new Levi’s tucked in embossed calf leather boots. The three leaned over the table intently.
Joe reached to have a slurp of Wade’s coffee, then wiped his lips.
“I wonder about him.”
“Wonder what?”
“Just wonder, that’s all.”
He started to get up when Marly Croft reappeared, this time with three steaming plates on a large tray. The drunk at the bar rattled his glass at her.
“Jesus, give me a minute; I ain’t got but one of me.”
She handed the plates to the men with Evan then returned to Wade and Joe.
“So what’ll it be, you two?”
She stood expectantly. Neither answered.
“Lotta folks go for the antelope plate.”
She lifted her arms to retuck some wisps of her red hair; her breasts swelled.
“Or you might give the rainbows a try. They’re fresh as rain. Guy from the survey crew caught a slew of em just yesterday.”
“Just coffee’s fine,” Joe muttered.
“All right.” She turned to Wade. “You look like you need a bit more nourishin; right, sugarbeet? You the big eater in the family, I bet?”
Wade wiped his mouth of some saliva. “What are rainbows?”
“Rainbows; you know; trout. It’s a fish, honey. If you never had rainbow, well, hoo boy are you in for a treat. I got a nice three pounder; how about I give you that? You could use it more than these local rascals anyway. Just watch the bones is all.”
Wade looked across the table. “Okay, Joe?”
Joe rubbed his face in his hands, nodding.
“Rainbow it is. And you eat it all, sweetheart; your dad had his chance, right?”
She winked at Wade. “What happened to your eye?”
“Oh. . .I just fell, I guess.”
“Uh huh.” As she leaned over to wipe off the crumbs and dried glass rings, she got her first close look at Joe Meeks. She stood up, swinging the hair out of her eyes.
“You sure do look awful familiar, fella. You ever been through before, maybe on a pack trip, somethin like that? I’d swear either I know you or you remind me of somebody, I just can’t think who it. . .”
She stopped mid-sentence, backing away, wavering. She backed up, rubbing her hands on her thighs, then quickly walked off toward the kitchen.
Wade watched her leave, then leaned toward Joe, sipping carefully at his coffee.
“She likes us, Joe.”
“Don’t slurp like that. Sound like a sewer.”
“It’s so hot though.”
“Then get used to it.”
Wade sipped again, this time noiselessly although it still burned. Evan and the two men with him walked by, smiles bright as their big silver belt buckles. Evan saw them to the lobby, then returned. He clapped his hands, sat next to Wade, and lit a cigarette.
“Gentlemen, how’s everything?”
“Who’re they?” Joe asked.
“Potential investors.” Evan waved away his cigarette smoke. “What are you two having?”
“Rainbows.”
“Good choice, Wade.”
Evan held up Wade’s coffee cup. “Marly, when you get a chance?”
Marly, now cleaning the booth in back, nodded back blankly. Evan folded his arms, watching Joe a while before he spoke.
“Joe, I have a problem with tomorrow. I have to drive back down to Billings to meet with those two and their big boss. Which means I can’t go with you up to see Frances. I still want to make sure. . .”
He looked up. Marly hovering over them with a tin pot, from which she filled Wade’s cup, then Evan’s. Then making it clear she wasn’t leaving.
Evan stood. “Joe, let me introduce. . .or re-introduce, maybe I should say, Marly Croft? Marly, you remember Joe, I imagine?”
She nodded, the sparkle gone from her eyes. Joe nodded, but said nothing.
“Been a few years, Joe. You back for a while, or just long enough to run off a second time?”
She reached out her hand.
“Nice of you to drop by and visit us anyway.”
Joe reached out his hand, which she shook once and dropped.
“You don’t look too worse for wear. Your boy looks good at least. He looks a lot like you used to, now that I think about it.”
She smoothed her blouse.
“Why don’t you sit down and join us,” Evan said. “I was just about to ask if you could maybe help us out tomorrow.”
“Help you out, huh.” Marly sat, guardedly, next to Wade. “With what?”
“Joe needs to get up to see old Frances Meeks, and something’s come up, so I can’t drive him like I’d planned. We only have the one vehicle, so. . .”
“Well I can’t, but he can ride up with Annie. She’s workin with the survey team just above there.”
Joe about to ask, “Who’s Annie?” but Wade beat him to it.
“Annie’s my big baby girl.” She took Evan’s cigarette and smoked from it. “Surprised you didn’t run across her; she’d of been on the same flight from Denver.” She exhaled grandly and stood up.
“She leaves early, so anyone wanting to go along with her, get down here even earlier.”
She left. The table was silent a while.
“I feel half poisoned,” Joe finally murmured.
&n
bsp; “How? You didn’t anything.”
“By this time tomorrow, it’ll be all over, Joe.” Evan got up. “Come on, let’s us two go find a room and let the boy eat in peace.”
EVAN HAD ALREADY booked two rooms upstairs, one for himself, another for Joe and Wade. It was small. It had only one bed. Joe, exhausted, lay down on it, but only a few minutes. Restless, agitated, he had to get outside again.
The night sky had cleared; there was weak moonlight while he walked. Both thinking and trying not to, he was surprised to realize he was over a mile outside town, on narrow Hellwater road. Where, in the dark river bottom, choked with fallen cottonwoods, he could make out a sod cabin. Sheepeater Croft’s cabin. Marly’s father. Still there, where it had been as long as Meagher had been a town, if not longer.
As he stood thinking, a car pulled up. The car with the teenagers he’d seen earlier. Someone got out, laughing coarsely. A female voice. Anne, Marly’s daughter. She stumbled over a lodgepole pen disturbing its two goats who began bleating loudly. She cursed them, then threw a rock at the cabin door so hard it rattled.
“Hey you old geezer in there!”
“Shut up, Anne!” A nervous boy’s voice from the car. “That old sheepfucker is liable to blast you.”
She laughed them off. “Hey you! Old sheepfucker man! Come on out and tell us some stories. Tell bout how my mom. . .”
A fiery explosion burst from the cabin; a shower of pellets whooshed over Joe’s head. The car was peeling out even before the rock salt landed. Anne staggered drunkenly backwards and fell into the sheepshit and straw of the pen. The two goats banged into each other and fell on top of her. She batted them off and stood.
“Come on out, you old shithead,” she yelled again. Laughing again. “Your goddamn granddaughter wants a goddamn word!”
Silence.
She resumed her way toward the cabin, brushing her pants, when suddenly the night erupted with another blast.
“You cocksucker anyway!” she yelled, this time stumbling back into the trees.
All was quiet again. But the air was redolent of cottonwood and gunpowder.
Joe shivered. It was cold. What moon there had been was now gone. He lingered a while, in total dark, but that was it. Nothing else happened. Anne had either somehow left, or passed out.
So Joe left too. On the way back, he wondered about what the girl had expected. The old man was loony, everyone knew that. He’d been gassed, in France, serving in the Canadian Army. Then somehow ended up in Meagher, with nothing but a sheep wagon. Thereafter he spent his life drunk, herding sheep, menacing town kids, and harassing everyone and anyone without end. Including his daughter. A wild, feral, loony herself.