by Leif Enger
He quit laughing and looked me over. “Not far away. I’d like to show you where, but I better not. Hey, it’s all right.”
I wasn’t getting teary, but it surely wasn’t all right.
He said, “It’s better if you don’t know, Rube.”
Which sounded, I thought harshly, like he didn’t trust me. “I’m no ratfink,” I told him, with some warmth.
“’Course not,” he agreed.
We sat on the dead pine while Fry pawed the snow for browse. It might surprise you, after my longing for details, that I got few from Davy. Always one to withhold the personal, he seemed more than usually constrained, as though we were observed, or waiting for some third person to join us. He took off his fur hat and hung it from a branch to sway like an islander’s removed head. For some reason I recalled old Mr. Finch, freezing in the wind outside the post office. I felt awful about Mr. Finch and wanted to believe Davy might have too. But I couldn’t bring it up without seeming soft, maybe even disloyal; so we talked small awhile, which was satisfactory in its way, since we were at least sitting together as in more thoughtless times.
“Say,” Davy wondered. “What is it with Dad and that lady?”
So I told how we’d met Roxanna—a little about her goats, and her dad’s theater, and her great-uncle who had consorted with famous robbers. But I didn’t do her justice; for example, I didn’t tell how ruinous it had seemed only last night, when we’d been on the brink of departure.
“Is she liking Dad a lot?” Davy asked.
“I don’t know. You saw them,” I said cautiously, “what did you think?”
“She likes him. Boy, he looks skinny, though.”
“He had pneumonia. He’s okay.”
“How about you? How’re the lungs?”
When I thought about it, they were on the poor side. “Why don’t you come down to Roxanna’s? I’ll go down first and make sure Andreeson’s not there or anything. Swede’ll go crazy!”
Davy smiled at his feet. “I guess not, Rube.”
“She’s making cinnamon rolls,” I said, in the tone you employ trapping toddlers.
“Listen, I really want to. You don’t know how much. I wouldn’t mind meeting Dad’s lady friend, either. But it sounds like this putrid fed isn’t such a dope.”
“He’s kind of a dope,” I said, loyally.
“Well, he thinks I’m here, and sure enough I am. How’d he figure that?”
It seemed to me like Davy ought’ve known. “What he said was, somebody saw you. He said you took a pig out of somebody’s barn. A couple of pigs.”
“Oh,” Davy said. “Oh.” Like a gentleman, he never suggested that Andreeson had simply followed us out here; that had we not set out from Roofing, he’d have had no call to suspect the Badlands. Word of two stolen pigs might’ve reached the local sheriff, but hardly farther.
We sat a minute and he said, “I can’t come down, that’s all. The truth is, Rube, I’m trying real hard to miss the penitentiary.”
I couldn’t blame him. I still don’t. But it put me in a hard spot. “What am I supposed to say, then—when I get back?”
“Nothing.” He looked at me so alarmed I recognized my idiocy. “Don’t tell Dad—and especially don’t tell Swede. Goodness’ sakes, Reuben!”
“Okay.” But I couldn’t imagine going back and not telling Swede at least. I wasn’t even sure it was possible.
“Rube,” Davy said, “honestly, I can’t talk to Dad right now.”
“How come?”
Fry was champing about something and Davy stood to soothe him; at this moment a clutch of crows that had gathered overhead all decided to move on and did so, tutting and cawing. My guts went eerie. In movies this is where you’d look around for the creeping posse.
Davy said, “You know what? I didn’t steal Fry.”
It seemed an odd jump. I wouldn’t have cared if he had.
“He belongs to a friend of mine. A fellow who’s helped me out.”
This sounded like good news—somebody on our side. “A rancher? Is it Lonnie Ford?”
“Nope, no rancher.” He wished to laugh here, I could see, but was held to a smile. “This man’s in some trouble. Real trouble, Reuben. He’s been all right to me, though.” Davy stroked the nervous Fry, who continued to blow and push at his shoulder. The horse’s fretfulness was transmissive and my brother seemed to go up on edge. He quit talking to peek here and there. He listened, not as you might listen for the bloodhound, I now suspect, but as for a distant summons—as we’d listened sometimes, roaming in the timber, expecting to be whistled down for supper. I knew our visit was about over and in panic yanked open every drawer in my brain for a way to prolong it.
Davy said, “It’s a long walk back for you—here, I’ll take you partway.” He was in the saddle before I could reply, seizing my hand, hoisting me up. Fry moved out of the trees without urging and headed back up the hill.
I said, “What’s your friend’s name?”
Nothing right away; then, “Waltzer.”
“Walter what?”
“No, Waltzer. Last name’s Waltzer. First is Jape—Jape Waltzer.”
“Jape? Funny name.”
He didn’t reply. The horse angled up the hill, his front heaving and rearing so I had to grip Davy even tighter than previously. The whole valley was sunstruck. The day had only grown lovelier, yet I could feel brightness leeching away from me; doubt crouched in the snow all round. A horrid picture arose, in obscure colors, of Davy lying dead in a dark place, never to be discovered. It shot through me that I would not see him again—that the horse with every upward plunge bore us nearer a ruthless parting I was bound to keep secret. My breathing turned thick; a featherpillow ruptured inside. Dad came to mind, and miracles, and I shut my eyes and prayed that when we came round the hillside he would by divine leading be standing there waiting for us, his face primed with wisdom and responsibility. I believed in this picture as hard as possible, given the short time and Fry’s jerky gait. Oh, if it could happen in this way, I’d run home atop the softest snow, so quick would be my feet; I’d shout the whole way there, so regenerate my lungs.
We reached the place where Davy’d picked me up and went farther round until Roxanna’s place came into view. Davy said, “Whoa, Fry. Rube, you better walk the rest.”
But I didn’t let loose of him. How could I, burdened as I was?
“Rube.”
“I have to tell somebody about you,” I said. Boy, it sounded like whining.
He pried my arms away and turned in the saddle. “You can’t do it, Reuben. Not yet. You understand?”
But I wouldn’t nod, wouldn’t acknowledge this injunction. In fact I wouldn’t look him in the eyes. I’d never defied Davy before and it shamed me to be doing so now. It violated the larger order—in panic I recognized that without prompt staving, I would weep.
“Then show me where you live,” I said.
“Rube, I told you—it’s better you don’t know.”
Under my knees Fry shifted, and I had to grab the cantle to stay aboard. I said, “Show me or I’ll tell Dad.”
So I was a ratfink, after all; no doubt this was a finklike threat. Yet who was I to bear sole knowledge of my brother’s whereabouts? Did I ever claim to be Mr. Atlas, or anybody close?
I hung to the cantle and watched Davy consider what I’d said, all the while with the miserable sensation of having wrecked something, but then he nodded. “All right, Rube. Okay. Okay.”
So stunned was I to have prevailed in this that I let go my grip, and Fry took a step, and I tumbled right down in the snow.
“We have to get you some practice,” Davy muttered, as I whacked myself clean.
“Help me up,” I said. Already I was picturing Davy and this Waltzer living in some kind of wigwam or tepee, smoke coming out the top. I couldn’t wait to see.
“Not now.”
“But you said!”
“Tonight.” He leaned toward me. “I’m not taking
you down there cold. I have to tell Jape you’re coming.”
Something in the timber of his voice convinced me this was the proper thing.
He said, “Can you get out of the house without rousting everybody?”
Well, of course I could. I’d read as much Twain as the next boy.
Davy studied Roxanna’s place. “Come out back of the barn. Walk straight this way. At least a couple hundred yards. I’ll be close.” He turned Fry, who frisked the first few steps as though glad to be rid of me.
“Wait—what time? When should I come out?”
“When you can,” he called, without looking back. “I’ll be there. I got no other plans.”
Something was missing when I got back to Roxanna’s. Coming in the back I hung my coat, unbuckled my overshoes, and tossed them in a corner to gape. “Hello!” I yelled.
The house was quiet.
Was there ever a place you loved to go—your grandma’s house, where you were a favorite child—and you arrived there once as she lay in sickness? Remember how the light seemed wrong, and the adults off-key, and the ambient and persistent joy you’d grown to expect in that place was gone, slipped off as the ghost slips the body?
Yet the feeling eased as I entered the kitchen, for the cinnamon rolls had just come out, with their beguiling aroma, and Swede was busy whisking up frosting.
“Well, where’d you go?” she asked.
“Just a walk. Sorry I missed breakfast.”
“You could of told somebody.”
“Boy, Swede!” I really was sorry; my dread returned; hungry as I was, the rolls didn’t appeal.
“I looked in the barn and all over.”
“I just hiked around a little.” Never was I more determined to keep a secret. Should it slip, tonight was sure to fail.
She said, “Were you looking for Dad?”
“No—isn’t he here?”
“Of course not,” Swede reported. “He went out driving with Mr. Andreeson.”
The last thing you expected, right? Me too.
“Well, it’s true. He got up before daylight and left.” She tested the frosting, picked the coffeepot off the stove, poured a splash in the bowl and began to flail.
I sat down. The truth is, my lungs felt congealed. I was so tired my hands seemed disconnected, propped on my knees way down there. I said, “Where’s Roxanna?”
“She’s got a customer.”
“How come he went?”
Swede punished the frosting. No doubt she’d have been happier had an answer been available.
“How come he wants to help that guy? He wants them to catch Davy now?”
Of course I was hoping for some refutation here—for Swede to defend Dad’s strange decision to accompany the putrid fed. That was my careful verb: accompany. As opposed to join, assist, side with.
Then I thought of something else. “What about the spookism?” This actually shook me up the worst. “He said it was spookism. He wouldn’t go along with that, Swede!”
She still didn’t reply. Out front we heard Roxanna enter the house with her customer, some happy gasbag slapping money on the counter. We heard the slide of the cash drawer, a goat bleat, the bell ding above the door, then Roxanna swept into the kitchen, her eyes bright from wind. “Reuben!” she exclaimed. “Where’d you go?” And she came and kissed my cheek, first time she ever did so.
“Exploring.”
“That’s good. Find anything?”
She was off hanging up her coat. Swede was preparing to frost the rolls, having beaten the stuff to paste. At this moment I wanted enormously to tell them about Davy—that would change the color around here. Knowing I couldn’t made me sore.
I yelled out, “Roxanna, how come Dad went?”
She came out of the mudroom and took the chair next to me. I remember she was wearing a deep green sweater with a high cowl neck, and I remember how she put her elbows on her knees to look in my eyes. “He felt he had to go, Reuben. He didn’t want you to be angry about it.”
“But how come?”
She measured me for a beat or two. “He was led to go.”
Led? This was supposed to mean the Lord was in charge and paving your way, such as letting you get fired so you’ll be free to leave town, or sending you an Airstream so you can go in comfort. Dad knew something about being led, I realized, yet this I could not buy.
“Led by who? That barf Mr. Andreeson?”
Roxanna turned briskly aside, as if deflecting my vulgarity. For a moment she seemed unable to look at me; when she did her eyes were so merry I was stumped indeed. She said, “I don’t think Mr. Andreeson could influence your father to clear his throat.”
“But he went with him!”
“Reuben, he stayed up all night. I woke and heard him. Do you know what he was doing?”
“I suppose praying,” I answered miserably.
“Yes—not like I ever heard anybody pray.” Roxanna stopped there, still not knowing what to say about it. I noted here a deep and elegant blush accompanying her search for words. “I got up,” she added, “and we talked awhile—Swede, don’t you think that frosting’s a little thick?”
It sure was; stuck to the spoon in a fist-sized gob. Roxanna showed her to thin it with coffee and a little warm butter. How we hate waiting for things to make sense! For I can tell you now what Roxanna held back at the time: how she woke to the sound of Dad’s voice raised to the pitch of argument. How she thought at first that Andreeson himself had come in the night and the two of them were having it out. Creeping from her room, she heard Dad articulating grievance against the putrid fed. She discerned adjectives, arrogant and foolish among others. Yet there was no reply. She listened to Dad pacing in his agitation. Sometimes he spoke; at intervals Roxanna heard him savagely racing through King James, as if to back up some contention. He doesn’t know You and doesn’t want to, Dad said, gasping then as though taking a blow. At this Roxanna covered her mouth, for it occurred to her with Whom he wrestled. Having long ago accepted the fact of God, Roxanna had not conceived of going toe to toe with Him over any particular concern. Make me willing if you can, Dad cried, a challenge it still shakes me to think of. What Roxanna heard next was a tumble like a man thrown. She’d have rushed in then, but her muscles went weak and she sat down in the hall at her bedroom door. She remembers yet the strange warmth that comforted her there; in fact, she fell asleep with her back against the wall, even as chairs tipped and Dad strove in the other room. Waking sometime later she rose without stiffness and found him at the kitchen table. He was at peace, his Bible closed, though his underwear shirt was torn across the chest. He smiled at her; he asked for coffee. When he stood he held to the back of a chair.
But Roxanna didn’t tell us all this at the time. All she said was, Dad was praying in the night in great distress over the Andreeson problem, and she got up to keep him company, and their talk ranged far and wide.
“He told me how you took down that corncrib,” Roxanna said. “He’s pleased how strong you’re getting.”
I figured she was trying to win my pardon for Dad. “That wasn’t so hard.”
“And then buying groceries with the money,” she added.
“I wanted a canoe.”
“He really did,” Swede affirmed.
“Well, maybe you’d reach down three plates,” said Roxanna, “and get out the milk.” As I did she said, “Buying those groceries, instead of the canoe? It broke your heart, I bet.”
“At first,” I admitted.
“Would you say,” she wondered, “that you were led to do that?”
I saw what she was getting at, but it only needled me, as the honest point so often does. “Well, sure—led by Swede,” I groused. “That’s her job, isn’t it?”
Which drew Roxanna’s low, beautiful laugh. “Come on, Reuben,” she said. “Come tell me if these rolls are as good as Mr. Cassidy thought they were.”
* * *
He actually didn’t die in Bolivia like everyone be
lieved—Butch Cassidy. He died, Roxanna claimed, near the windblown hamlet of Reece, Kansas, in 1936. She knew because the outlaw had reappeared in her great-uncle’s doorway in Casper around the beginning of the First World War. Howard Cawley had received an officer’s commission, his skills as both gunsmith and doctor making him alluring to the U.S. Army; he was packed and sitting at the kitchen table, rolling cigarettes, when Cassidy banged on the door. Though sporting a limp and cane he retained the vitality that had so won Howard over—nope, he hadn’t been shot in the famed cantina; he got the limp when an embittered horse rubbed him off on a cottonwood tree. The poor fellows in the cantina? Friends of his, God rest their souls, two boys Mark and Pugger who’d ridden down from California to be vaqueros. It had been advantageous to a Bolivian lieutenant named Jarave to believe and report he had killed the notorious American badmen when in fact the dead were mere apprentices. Butch and Harry Longabaugh weren’t even in Bolivia at the time; they were riding south through Argentina to meet with an American genius, expatriate like themselves, who claimed to have constructed a balloon in which a man could circle the world. Longabaugh had some idea of investing in the genius’s proposed expedition, to what likely profit Butch never divined. Butch only went along, thinking he might get a balloon ride.
