High Plains Tango

by Robert James Waller

  He laughed, then reached over and slapped Carlisle gently on the face. “Carly, old boy, you’re a born straight man. We could put Abbott and Costello to shame.” Buddy Reems would’ve had lawyer Birney for breakfast, after first driving him insane, of course.

  Birney the attorney spoke again. “I’ll have the papers ready by Wednesday next, if that’s all right. Meanwhile you can look over the abstract. I can assure you, however, everything’s in order, and the title’s clean as . . . as a baby’s neck. I’ll have to remember that phrase, it’s a good one.”

  “You can have it. I think I stole it from E. B. White.”

  “Who?”

  “A writer.”

  “Oh.”

  Carlisle walked down the street toward where his truck was parked, feeling especially tough and smart. Cutting good deals was the modern equivalent of early man going out on a hunt and bringing home the goods. He’d heard that some men actually could get an erection just thinking about making deals, though he guessed they were generally sorry-ass specimens when it came to anything else.

  Back to the motel room for a few hours with the abstract. It looked all right. Williston’s claim to the land flowed straight down the family tree from his grandfather, who had squatted down there under the 1860 Homestead Act and received clear title. Fifteen years ago, 130 of the original 160 acres had been sold. That sale was clean, as was everything else, and the attached survey seemed dead-on accurate.

  He opened the door to Danny’s at ten minutes before eight after glancing up to see if the old man was at his post above Lester’s. He was, windowed like a Vermeer portrait in a brown and blemished frame. Carlisle waved to him, startling the old man, but after a moment he waved back, stiff but friendly.

  Danny’s was empty. Gally was mopping, looking tired.

  “Don’t panic, I’m not here for anything requiring chefs and waiters in tuxedos,” Carlisle announced as he came in.

  “I’m not panicked,” Gally Deveraux replied. “I have no intention of doing any more cooking today. Wayfarers requesting food, including Mick Jagger and Jimmy Carter if they happen by, are being directed to Leroy’s and the pleasures of his menu. If you want coffee, I just unplugged the machine, but it’s still hot. You can have a free cup, since it doesn’t seem right to charge for something out of a piece of equipment that’s been shut down.”

  “Fair enough.”

  He sat at the counter while she poured two cups and leaned against the soft-drink cooler as she’d done the previous night. “Well, how’d it go? Are you a future resident and taxpayer of Yerkes County, or is California looking better and better all the time?”

  “In answer to your first question, yes, I think so. I’m having the abstract brought up-to-date, and Clarence Darrow over in Livermore will have the papers ready in a couple of days. The answer to your second question is a firm No.”

  She smiled then, holding out her hand. “In that case, my name is Gally Deveraux.”

  He took her hand, a worker’s hand but a nice hand. “I’m Carlisle McMillan. The reason I’m here is to offer you a beer for your mapmaking and real estate brokering, unless you’re tied up or whatever.”

  As soon as he said it, he was sorry. He hadn’t noticed her wedding ring before, wasn’t used to looking for wedding rings. Clumsy, putting both her and him in an awkward situation.

  He tried to backtrack. “If . . . that’s if it’s okay. I really didn’t think about you being married . . . not that you shouldn’t be . . . and just now noticed your ring. I mean . . . I don’t mean anything, not trying to start anything . . . Aw, crap.”

  Gally Deveraux laughed and put her hand over her mouth, trying to conceal her amusement, but she couldn’t. She hadn’t done that for a long time, laughed out loud.

  “Well, that’s really decent of you. Drink your coffee while I finish mopping, and we’ll brave the wilds of Leroy’s in about ten minutes. Be forewarned, though, I’ll be on my guard all the way across Main Street.”

  She laughed again, not at Carlisle, who was obviously squirming inside and entirely uncomfortable, but at the situation. He picked up on that and appreciated it, but he still felt the blood come to his face.

  Beating on himself for his clumsiness, Carlisle glanced through remnants of the High Plains Inquirer lying on the counter. The logo said it was the newspaper he could count on, so he counted on it. It told him that somebody’s hitting streak ended at thirty, that a new movie premiered in London, and that wearing corrective teeth braces had actually become a fad in Richmond, Virginia. With those items in mind, he turned to the Opinion section and looked at the lead editorial.

  Time to Get Going

  Getting the state moving economically has proven to be a bigger challenge than Governor Jerry Gravatt anticipated. His diagnosis that we have been too dependent on agriculture and its related industries is right on target, but his solutions and those proposed by various business or legislative groups have so far not borne fruit. The chasing of smokestack industries puts us in competition with states that have paid more careful attention over the years to infrastructure requirements for industrial purposes, such as highways. Residents of this state have consistently voted against even slight increases in the state gasoline tax, which would have added greatly to road construction and improvement. And rumors of federal funding for a major new highway through the state have so far proven to be just that, rumors. Moreover, the aging of our population due to the exodus of our young people is steadily eroding the skilled labor force necessary as one component for convincing industry to locate here. Meanwhile, the state’s tax base continues to decline as incomes drop and even longtime state industries move elsewhere in search of cheaper labor, better transportation, and relief from the increases in various state taxes being levied to offset the decline in the tax base. It’s time for the governor, the legislature, and business groups to stop criticizing one another and start working together. The governor’s proposed high-tech corridor from Falls City to the capital is a good beginning. All citizens of the state should get behind this visionary proposal in spite of the high initial costs for the laser and biotechnology centers. It’s time to stop complaining, roll up our sleeves, and get going.

  While Carlisle read the newspaper, Gally Deveraux mopped the chinked linoleum of a place called Danny’s and thought about her life. She had torn her existence down like an old car engine parted out and scattered on a greasy floor. At least once a week she did that, then tried to reassemble it in a way that made more sense. But it always came together in the same sputtering, rackety form: thirty-nine, lonely, running down, no options, a woman steadily becoming invisible to the eyes of men. Even a married woman didn’t like being invisible that way, especially to her husband.

  She pulled on a denim jacket and began turning out the caf lights. “Any time you’re ready.”

  Carlisle held the door for her as she switched off the neon sign on their way out.

  “Thanks. I’m used to opening my own doors.” She smiled again, and they walked across the street toward Leroy’s.

  The pool table was dark. So was Leroy’s face. Except for old Frank, the town greeter with his head flat on the bar, no one else was in Leroy’s tavern at eight-fifteen on a Tuesday night. Sales were not good and getting worse.

  Leroy squinted at the longhair that had come in with Jack Deveraux’s wife, figuring maybe not say anything to Jack. Jack had a real bad temper, particularly when he’d been drinking, a state in which he existed more or less permanently.

  A few months later, when he got to know Carlisle, Leroy would say, “Carlisle, I’ve developed the typical small-town retailer’s mentality, that being ‘Please, God, don’t do anything bad until I retire, then do whatever You want to the poor bastards who’re left.’ God’s not listening to me, however, for about a thousand reasons I can think of.”

  Carlisle ordered two Buds, guessing that Leroy had not yet restocked Miller’s. He collected the beers and took them over to where Gally was
sitting in a booth, the LEROY’S window sign doodling red marks on her face when it flashed. She sensed that and shifted over in the booth.

  He raised his bottle a little. “Here’s to squatter’s rights, or whatever it’s called out here.”

  She tapped her bottle against his, easylike. “To squatter’s rights, and let’s hope they can get to their feet after being in that position for so long.” She leaned back in the corner of the booth, tugging on her beer, looking out over the bar.

  Leroy fed the jukebox. The first two songs were standard issue—trucks and adultery, eighteen wheels and crawlin’ home late at night with lipstick on your collar. The next tune featured some guy with a pretty decent tenor and solid steel guitar work behind him: “Hangin’ on the door frame, repeatin’ my own name, as if I might forget who I am.”

  Things picked up a little when the duck-man came in. Carlisle had no idea who the duck-man was, but he would see him occasionally in the years ahead and was mildly fascinated by his behavior. The duck-man sat at the bar, ordered a beer, and drank it quietly, keeping to himself. Nothing unusual there. What was strange was this: Inside the big overcoat he wore winter and summer was a live mallard. Every so often he would peel back his coat lapel and the duck would stick out its green head. The duck-man would tip up the bottle, and the duck would take a hit of Grain Belt, then disappear back inside the coat.

  Carlisle looked at the duck-man, then over at Gally. She shrugged and grinned, taking a hit of her own beer.

  He wanted to ask her about the woman with the auburn hair, but he didn’t. He’d learned a long time ago that asking a woman about another woman, with any hint of interest attached, not only came off as a little tacky, but generally elicited bad information.

  Instead he said, “Tell me more about the ghosts out at Wolf Butte.”

  Gally looked at the ceiling for a moment, then at Carlisle, noticing how warm his eyes seemed. A little sad, maybe, but warm and good. Maybe the kind of man who wouldn’t see women as trophies.

  “Well, I think I mentioned the college professor who fell off a cliff right near there. That was some time ago. There was a lot of hoopla in those days about the Indian mounds out in that direction, and all kinds of scientific types were rolling in and out of Salamander for a few months. Men and women both, all nice folks. Dressed in hardworking clothes, real polite when they came into Danny’s to eat. Cleaned their boots on the curb before they came in, which Thelma appreciated, still mentions it occasionally when she’s chewing out some cowboy tracking ungodly stuff into the caf. Quite a crowd, they were, laughed a lot and seemed to have a good time.

  “Rumor had it that the Indians were getting pretty upset about what was happening out there on what they consider sacred land that should be theirs under the old treaties. Wasn’t long after that the professor got killed, and the project was abandoned. Nobody seemed to know why.

  “A year or two before the professor died, a survey crew was camped at the foot of Wolf Butte. Four of them all staying in a big tent. In the middle of the night, a chunk of rock peeled off the butte and fell smack right onto their tent. Squashed the lot of them, though one guy lived for about a week before dying. It’s a mercy he died, shape he was in. Everybody said they should have known better than to set up camp that close to the rock face. Another crew came in and finished the job, that’s what people said. Never heard anything about what they were surveying for.”

  Carlisle said nothing and waited for her to continue.

  “It gets stranger and stranger. Some of the old-timers claim there was a series of such incidents out there when this area was first settled. All sorts of peculiar goings-on back then, according to what I’ve heard—fires on top of Wolf Butte at night, sound of drums, a huge bird circling the butte, a hairy creature called Big Man stalking around the countryside, all kinds of stuff. Some people say the stories go back much further. The Indians themselves say the stories are ancient. Something about a priestess called Syawla. The old-timers believe there’s always someone or something out there watching for intruders. Legend has it that he is called the Keeper and is the son of Syawla. Keeper of what, I’m not sure. Keeps watch over the sacred ground, I guess. That’s about all I know. Kind of gives me the shivers when I drive by that area on my way into town.”

  Carlisle sat quietly, thinking for a moment. “That is pretty strange. Makes me even more interested in the Williston place. Who owns the land around Wolf Butte?”

  “I’m not sure, exactly. Axel Looker’s ground is right north of there. On the west side, I think some of it’s government land leased to ranchers for grazing, some of it’s owned by a corporation, so people say. The company has one of those nondescript names that’s hard to remember. Aura Corporation, something like that.”

  “Aur . . . what? How do you spell it?”

  “Like it sounds: A-u-r-a. I have no idea what it stands for. I asked Jack, my husband, once, and he didn’t know.”

  Carlisle fingered his beer bottle, rocking it slowly from side to side. “You can see Wolf Butte rising in the distance from the Williston place. Maybe I’ll get some binoculars and see what I can see out there. Want to plunder the moment and have another beer?”

  “Sure, let’s plunder.” Gally smiled, finished her beer, and handed the bottle to Carlisle.

  Carlisle slid out of the booth with the empties in his hand. As Leroy dug out two more beers, the duck-man watched Carlisle sideways, tugged his blue stocking cap lower, and pulled his coat lapels together until they overlapped.

  When Gally and Carlisle came out of Leroy’s, the streets of Salamander were quiet, and Carlisle noted the old man was gone from his window above Lester’s. He said good night to Gally and opened the door of his truck while she walked toward her Bronco across the street, humming an old tune, the name of which Carlisle couldn’t quite remember. But a few of the words came back to him, something to do with dance pavilions in the rain.

  Chapter Seven

  “NEED ANOTHER ONE?”

  “Nope, I’m okay for now.” The old man sat with his back against the wall of a Livermore tavern, his better leg stretched out on the seat of a booth, bad leg underneath the table. He grinned and looked at the ceiling, rapping his cane quietly on the edge of the seat.

  “When Carlisle McMillan bought the old Williston place northwest of Salamander, the locals thought he was around the bend. After buying it, he embarked on one of the great scrounging expeditions of all time. No place in the county was safe. He rummaged old barns and ransacked the dark corners of the discount lumberyard in Falls City. Axel Looker brought in daily reports on the increasing amount of material Carlisle had lying around, and in three weeks, people were driving by just to see the stuff. Some took along binoculars since the house sat back a bit from the road. The more emboldened of the locals shifted into four-wheel drive, went right up the lane, got out of their vehicles, and asked, ‘How’s she coming?’

  “Carlisle was always polite to the visitors, even though he was frantically trying to get the place closed up tight before winter. Given the late start he’d gotten, that was a real horse race. He’d keep right on working, trying to answer their questions while he sawed and hammered and tongued and grooved and mitered and shingled.

  “Talk on the street, over at Danny’s, in Leroy’s, and down at the elevator was all about Carlisle and his project. It started out pretty uncomplimentary, the talk, that is. ‘Not enough acres to graze cattle or grow winter wheat.’ Or: ‘That house never was nothing more than a glorified line shack and a bad one at that.’ Or: ‘Seen the little house on the prairie lately? Darn, I hate to stand around witnessing stupidity in motion.’

  “After a while, though, the tone kind of altered. Folks had taken Carlisle for some sort of hippie deviant right at first, but those who’d been out to the Williston place said he seemed to know what he was doing. Said he used a Skil circular saw, which involves guiding by hand a blade turning faster than eight zillion times per quarter second, better than most p
eople could cut with a table saw. Said he could drive a roofing nail with two shots of his hammer and never miss. Said he wore a leather tool belt that looked like it’d seen considerable wear before he came to Salamander. Some of the women said they understood he looked real good with his shirt off and hair tied back with a leather shoestring into a ponytail. That’s what Alma Hickman passed on after talking to her customers at the Swirl’n Curl.

  “Some nights he’d drag into town just before Danny’s closed and eat whatever Gally had available, two or three helpings of it. Most of the time, however, he camped out, cooking for himself on a little butane stove he’d bought at the Falls City Wal-Mart.

  “People also noticed Carlisle’s appearance changed some once he got to working on his house. In spite of it being early autumn when he started, he acquired a real deep suntan, though his skin was kind of dark to start with anyway. He also straightened up some, and his jeans seemed to fit him somewhat looser around the middle. Even his walk took on a different character, the way that happens when a man finds purpose in life and something to live for. Carlisle apparently was getting himself in shape, physically and mentally.”

  AS THE old man said, when Carlisle McMillan bought the Williston place northwest of Salamander, the locals thought he was around the bend. But then they didn’t have his outlook on life, which is not surprising, since even he wasn’t quite sure of what his outlook was at that time. And, more important, they had never studied under Cody Marx, an artist of his own kind in a town full of artists and literati.

  In Mendocino, the place of Carlisle’s growing, Wynn McMillan offered cello lessons and worked part-time in an art gallery. Gradually, their little rented house turned into Mendocino’s version of a salon, a modest copy of the one Gertrude Stein had engineered in Paris thirty years earlier when she provided a place for Hemingway and Pound and their cronies to hang out after they finished working for the day. So Carlisle grew up around people who used big words and analyzed what they were doing to the point that what they were doing ceased to exist as anything intelligible to an ordinary observer. At least that’s how it seemed to him.