Plainsong

by Kent Haruf

  Ike and Bobby.

  Of an afternoon, a Sunday, when Guthrie was out for a drive riding in the pickup with Maggie Jones along the empty country roads, they wandered about the house, room to room, thinking what they wanted to do. They went into Guthrie’s and their mother’s bedroom upstairs at the front of the house and inspected the things that belonged to their parents, the minute examination of the various items that had been accumulated over the years, most of them bought and collected before the boys’ own time—pictures, clothes, drawers of underwear, a box containing necktie pins and old pocket watches and an obsidian arrowhead and rattles cut from a snake and a track medal—and put the box back and drifted out of the room down the hall to the guest room where some of their mother’s possessions were still located and picked them up and smelled and felt of them and tried on one of her silver bracelets, and lastly they went into their own room at the back of the house and looked out and saw the old man’s house next door and the abandoned place to the west at the end of Railroad Street and all the land open beyond, with the fairgrounds to the north across the pasture behind the barn, the grandstands white-painted and empty, and then they left and went downstairs to the outside and mounted their bikes.

  They went up once more to the apartment above Main Street, passing along the dim corridor and stopping at the last door. She had taken in the Denver News they’d dropped off on the mat early that morning, but when they knocked there was no answer. They used the key she’d given them months ago when they’d gone to the grocery store, when she’d said: I am going to trust you with that. They used the key now and went in. She, the old woman, Iva Stearns, was sitting across the room in the stuffed chair against the wall. Her head was lapsed sideways onto the shoulder of her blue housedress. As usual the room was too hot, as stifling as a sickroom, and as always it was crowded with the stores of her accumulation.

  From the doorway Ike said, Mrs. Stearns.

  She didn’t respond. They approached, moving closer. A cigarette had burned out in the ashtray placed on the wide arm of the chair. It was a long white cold ash.

  Mrs. Stearns. It’s us.

  They stood still in front of her. Ike reached forward to touch her thin arm to wake her and then he drew his hand back as suddenly as if he’d been struck or burnt. Her arm was cold and rigid. It was as though the chill skin of her arm had been drawn over sticks of wood or some manner of iron rods in a winter basement, to make her feel so hard and cold.

  Feel her, Ike said.

  Why?

  Go ahead.

  Bobby reached forward and touched her arm. Immediately he put his hand in his pants pocket.

  The two boys looked at Iva Stearns for a long time, standing before her slumped and silent motionless figure in the quiet overheated room, the smell of smoke and dust still present in the close air, with the faint vague muffled noise of the street coming up to the room as if from a great distance. In the hours since she had stopped breathing, before they found her, the old woman’s face had collapsed and now her nose seemed to have risen, thin and high-ridged, shiny and waxy in the middle of her face, while her eyes seemed to have fallen away altogether behind her glasses. In her lap the old blue-veined freckled hands still clasped each other fiercely in a kind of mute and terrific stasis, as hard and silent as dug-up tree roots.

  I want to touch her again, Ike said.

  He did so. He felt her arm, touching her longer this time. Then Bobby touched her again.

  All right, Ike said. You ready?

  Bobby nodded.

  They went out of her apartment and locked the door, then pedaled home and left their bikes at the house and went on to the barn, where they saddled Easter.

  And so, in the middle of the afternoon in the spring of the year, mounted up like sojourners in the great world, Bobby in the saddle, Ike behind, they rode out.

  By sundown they were eleven miles south of Holt.

  They still had not found the right crossroad. When they left the house they’d skirted the town, and then had followed the two-lane blacktop, riding south along the barrow ditches and fencelines, the horse all the time making steady progress in the dry weeds and the new spring grass, her head up, nervous and antsy with the traffic on the highway. As they rode in the lowering sun the cars raced by, honking at them sometimes and the people inside hollering and waving, and three times big trucks roared down on them, blowing them up against the barbed-wire fences, making the mare want to squat and take off, but they held her back and she only danced sideways, sidling, throwing her head a little, and afterward they went on.

  By dark they knew they’d gone too far, had somehow passed the turnoff. They believed they would recognize the road they were looking for, but the roads all looked so much alike that they hadn’t. At last they stopped at a ranch house next to the highway and Ike got off and went up to the door and asked for directions.

  The man at the door was wearing slippers and dark trousers and a white Sunday shirt, and holding a newspaper. Don’t you want to come in, son? he said.

  We’re suppose to go over there.

  Over to their house?

  Yes sir.

  Well.

  Could you tell us how to find their place? We missed their road.

  You come too far, he said. You got to go back two miles and take that one. Not the first mile road, but the next one. He told Ike what they should look for when they got there. Can you remember that? he said.

  Ike nodded.

  You’re sure you don’t want to come in?

  No. We got to go on.

  All right. But you be careful out there on that highway.

  He went back out to his brother, who still sat the horse in the yard under the new-leafed trees, and Bobby kicked his foot out of the stirrup and he climbed up and they turned back out of the drive. They traveled back northward along the highway with the headlights of the onrushing cars coming at them now out of the increasing darkness, the lights growing bigger and brighter and then blinding them, after which the cars and their lights would rush past like some kind of runaway train racing to hell, while down in the ditch the horse would start to hop and dance and collect herself as if she were going to jump, and it was all they could do to hold her back. Finally they rode her up onto the hard blacktop and clattered down the highway, making time between the approaching cars, galloping, letting her out, and they passed the first county road that way and then turned east off the highway onto the second one. At the gravel road they slowed down and let her breathe.

  He said about seven miles from here, Ike said. Turn off at the track, next to the mailbox. We’ll see a cedar tree and the house sitting back from the road with outbuildings down below. A horse barn and loafing shed and corrals.

  It was completely dark now, and turning cold again since the sun had gone down. They rode on, the land all flat and starlit around them. They could hear cattle over to the south. When they found the mailbox and track leading off the gravel it was about ten-thirty.

  I don’t see any cedar, Bobby said. Didn’t he say a cedar tree?

  Down by the outbuildings he said, by the garage.

  I can’t read the mailbox.

  But that’s the track like he said leading off to that place back there. To that farmlight that’s shining.

  What do you want to do?

  We got to try it. We don’t have any choice. It’s late.

  They put the horse forward again and turned up the old track. She had sweated and dried and sweated again and they let her take her time moving back toward the house where it was all dark except for that single yardlight, shining from a high lightpole. When they rode into the drive the old dog came barking out of the garage, standing on stiff legs in the gravel. They dismounted and tied Easter to one of the hogfencing posts, and as they did this the dog came up and sniffed at them and seemed to recognize them and licked their hands, and then they went in through the wire gate up to the house and climbed the steps to the porch and stood knocking. After a whil
e a light came on in the kitchen. Then somebody was at the door: a girl in her nightgown. They didn’t know who she was. They thought they must in some way have come to the wrong house. The girl looked heavy and misshapen, like there was something wrong with her; she was holding herself under the front, the soft material of her gown pulled tight over her enormous stomach. They realized that they had seen her before in town, but had no idea what her name might be, and they were about to turn and leave without saying anything at all to her, when the McPheron brothers appeared behind her in the door.

  Well, what in the goddamn? Harold said. What’s this?

  What have we got here? Raymond said. Guthrie boys?

  The two old men were wearing their flannel striped pajamas, their short stiff hair standing up like wire brushes. They had already been asleep.

  Yes sir, Ike said.

  Well goddamn, boys, Harold said, come in, come in. What are you doing? Is that your horse out there?

  Yes sir.

  You rode out here?

  Yes sir.

  Who else you got with you? Is your dad with you?

  Nobody. Just us.

  Well damn, boys, that’s a pretty good ride. Are you boys lost?

  No sir.

  You just decided to take yourself a horseback ride of a Sunday evening. Is that it?

  We thought we’d come out here to see you, Bobby said.

  You did? he said. Well. He looked at them, studying their quiet serious faces. But is there something in particular you had in mind you wanted to see us about?

  No.

  Nothing in particular. Is that so? Well then. That’ll have to do, I reckon. I guess you better come on in, what do you think?

  Is our horse going to be all right out there? Ike said.

  Is she tied up pretty good, so she won’t run off?

  Yes sir.

  She’ll be all right then, I expect. We’ll look at her in a little bit.

  She got sweaty coming on the highway and again on the road.

  I see that. We’ll wipe her down after a while. You come on in here now.

  So they entered and immediately the kitchen seemed very warm and brightly lighted after being out in the dark. They stood beside the table, not knowing what to do now that they had arrived.

  Now for the first time the girl said something. Would you like to sit down? she said. Her voice sounded kindly. They looked at her, and in the light they could see that she was a high school girl, not so much older than themselves, but she was so big in front. They knew enough to know that she was carrying a baby, though it made them uncomfortable to look at her. Wordlessly they pulled out two chairs and sat down.

  You must be tired, she said. Have you eaten anything? I bet you’re hungry, aren’t you.

  We had something to eat a while ago, Ike said.

  When was that?

  A while earlier, he said. We had something at lunch.

  Then you must be starving, she said. I’ll get you something to eat.

  She seemed very efficient at what she was doing. They sat at the table and watched her moving about in the kitchen, this black-haired girl with the tremendously swollen stomach, and avoided her eyes so much that whenever she turned toward them they seemed to be looking elsewhere. She moved back and forth familiarly, from the refrigerator to the stove, warming their food. When it was ready she set it out before them on the wood table: meat and potatoes, warmed-up canned corn, with glasses of milk and a plate of bread with butter. Go ahead, she said. Help yourselves.

  Aren’t you going to eat? Ike said.

  We ate hours ago. I’ll sit down with you, if you like. Maybe I’ll have a glass of milk, she said.

  While the boys ate, Harold went out to see to their horse. He walked the mare over to the corral and let her drink at the stock tank, then he led her into the barn, hauled off her saddle and wiped her down with a gunnysack and afterward grained her and left the half-door open so she could move back to the water if she wanted to.

  Meanwhile Raymond went into the other room to the phone and carried it on its long cord into the parlor and made a call. He spoke in a quiet low voice. Tom? he said.

  Yes.

  We got em out here with us.

  Ike and Bobby?

  By God, Tom, they come out here ahorseback. All this way.

  I knew they had the horse. I had the police out looking for them, Guthrie said. I didn’t know where they were. I’ve been worried sick.

  Well. But they’re here now.

  Are they all right?

  It appears like it. I reckon they are. They seem kind of upset, though. Pretty quiet.

  I’ll be right out.

  Tom, the old man said. He looked out into the kitchen where the two boys were seated at the table with the girl. She was talking to them, and both were watching her intently. I just wonder if you don’t want to leave em to stay out here tonight.

  Out there?

  That’s right.

  What for?

  I think it’d be better.

  What do you mean, better?

  Well. Like I say, they seem kind of upset.

  There was quiet on the other end of the line.

  You could come out in the morning and get em, Raymond said. You’ll want to bring along a horse trailer when you come.

  I got to think about this, Guthrie said. Would you hold a minute?

  He could hear Guthrie talking to somebody in the background. After a time he came back.

  I guess it’s all right, Guthrie said. I have Maggie Jones here with me and she thinks you’re right. I’ll come out in the morning.

  Right. We’ll see you then.

  But you tell them you talked to me, Guthrie said, and that I’ll be there the first thing in the morning.

  I’ll tell em. Raymond hung up and went back to the kitchen.

  When the boys were finished eating, the girl made them a bed with blankets in the parlor. The McPheron brothers shoved the old recliner chairs out of the way and she spread the thick blankets down on the wood floor in the middle of the room and found them a pair of old pillows and said, I’ll be right in here.

  You boys going to be all right? Harold said.

  Yes sir.

  Just holler if you need anything.

  Holler loud, Raymond said. We don’t hear too good.

  You need anything else right now? Harold said.

  No, sir.

  That’s it then. I guess we better go to bed. It’s getting pretty late. I’m going to say we had enough excitement for one night.

  The girl went back to her room off the dining room and the McPheron brothers went upstairs. When they were gone the two boys removed their shoes and set them in place on the floor in front of the old television console and removed their pants, and then they lay down in their shirts and underwear in the thick blankets on the floor in the old room at the far end of the house, and lying on the floor they looked up into the room where the yardlight shone in on the wallpaper and the ceiling.

  She looks like she’s going to have two babies, Bobby said.

  Maybe she is.

  Is she married to them?

  Who?

  Them. Those old men.

  No, Ike said.

  What’s she doing out here then?

  I don’t know. What are we doing out here?

  They both looked at the pale light showing in onto the ceiling and studied the faded pattern in the old wallpaper. It went all the way around the room and there were stains on it in places and water spots. After a while they closed their eyes. And then they breathed deeply and were asleep.

  The next day Guthrie was at the McPherons’ place very early in the morning and he had already loaded the horse into the trailer by the time the two boys had finished the big breakfast of ham and eggs the girl had made for them.

  On the way back into town Guthrie said, I missed you. I was worried when I couldn’t find you.

  They didn’t say anything.

  Are you all right this mor
ning?

  They nodded.

  Are you?

  Yes.

  All right. But I don’t want you to do that again. He looked at them seated beside him in the pickup. Their faces were pale and quiet. He changed his tone. I ask you not to do that again, he said. I ask you not to leave like that again.

  Dad, Ike said. Mrs. Stearns died.

  Who?

  The lady over on Main Street. In her apartment.

  How do you know that?

  We saw her yesterday. She was dead then.

  Did you tell anybody?

  No. We’re telling you.

  But somebody better do something about her, Bobby said. Somebody better take care of her.

  I’ll call somebody when we get back to town, Guthrie said.

  They drove on down the road. After a while Ike said, But Dad?

  Yes.

  Isn’t Mother ever going to come back home again?

  No, Guthrie said. He thought for a moment. I don’t think she is.

  But she left her clothes and jewelry here.

  That’s right, Guthrie said. We’ll have to take them to her.

  She’ll want them, Bobby said.

  Victoria Roubideaux.

  They started about noon. That was on a Tuesday. Then she delivered about noon on Wednesday, so it was still a good twelve hours longer than the old doctor had told her it would likely take. But on that Tuesday noon when they started they were not very heavy at first and she wasn’t even sure what they were in the beginning, only that she had had the predictable cramps in her back which moved around to the front, and then in the next few hours they had come on more purposefully and she began to feel more certain then, and then she was both scared and proud, and she was pleased too.

  But she didn’t want to make any fuss. She wanted to do this right. She didn’t want to be cheated by alarm or false emotion. So she didn’t tell them right away, the old McPheron brothers, who were outside all afternoon with the cattle in the work corrals, checking the new cow-calf pairs in the bright warm latespring afternoon. In the last two weeks the brothers had taken to staying in close to the house, ever since they’d driven her to the doctor, locating work for themselves to do in the barn or the corrals, and on those occasions when they both couldn’t be nearby they had begun to take precautions so at least one of them was always close to the house, near enough to hear any call that the girl might make.