August

by Callan Wink

  He loosened the lug nuts with some difficulty; they were rusted tight, and each one took several jolting stomps on the tire iron to get unstuck. When they were finger-loose he started cranking the jack. The ground was soft and as he rotated the handle, the weight of the full baler sunk the jack stand down into the dirt. August shifted position and kept turning the handle. Finally the baler started to rise, almost imperceptibly, with each turning of the screw. When there was an inch of daylight between the flat rubber tire and the ground, August backed the lug nuts the rest of the way off. He took off his hat and placed the nuts in it so they wouldn’t roll off into the grass.

  When he tried to pull the wheel off the hub, it didn’t want to come, everything rusted and coated with layers of hardened axle grease. In an awkward half crouch, August gave another hard tug, and with it he fell back slightly. The baler rocked under the wind and the force of his pull, the jack stand rolled, and the baler was down. August knew he must be in shock, because he didn’t feel much of anything. He was still on his knees and half of his left hand was under the flat tire, and when he tried, stupidly, to pull it out, it wouldn’t come. The full weight of the baler rested on his hand with nothing but a layer of demolished rubber between fingers and metal rim, and already the light gray of his glove was turning a muddy red with the pooling blood.

  Seeing the blood immediately brought his stomach to his throat, but there still wasn’t any pain, just an immense pressure and a thumping in his ears. He dug at the ground with his right hand, trying to make some space, tearing at grass roots and stones, but it seemed that the baler had some sort of evil intelligence, settling itself more firmly into the ground with his every frantic scrabble, his hand coming no closer to being freed.

  From where he sat he was able to reach the tipped jack. He tried to get it back into place with one hand, but since the baler had slumped, it was set at too high a level and he couldn’t put it back into position until he lowered the head. His right hand was shaking badly as he turned the handle, an impossibly big patch of blood on the grass under the tire, and then August did heave his stomach. He could smell apple butter gone sour and the blood and the cut grass, too, and he finally got the jack in place.

  When he made the crank that freed his fingers, that’s when the pain came like a dam had burst. Black pinpricks swirling across his eyes, he held his injured hand to his chest without looking at it. He stumbled through the windrows of unbaled hay to his truck, leaned on the bumper, and pulled his shirt over his head. He put the injured hand through an arm hole with his eyes averted and then wrapped the fabric around as best he could. The shirt was white cotton, and with the red bloom upon it growing, he headed for town, trying to take deep breaths of air.

  At the clinic he stumbled from his truck and crossed the flat parking lot like he was wading over the snot-slick rocks of the Musselshell. He hit the double doors with his shoulder, and bright splatters of blood marked his path across the tiles of the waiting-room floor. He slumped into the first chair he came to. Seeing him, the receptionist dropped her clipboard and reached for her intercom.

  August was laid up in bed at his mother’s house when Tim stopped by. August had just had a second surgery on his ring finger. The specialist in Billings had thought that maybe it would heal up, but after a few weeks came to the conclusion that the damage was too great and that it, like the pinkie, would have to be amputated at the second joint. His hand was swaddled in white gauze, and he wore a sling to keep it immobile.

  His mother had been hovering but finally, at his insistence, she’d gone back to staying with Art. The two of them had decided to push the wedding back to early November, and they were all going to have a little dinner just as soon as August started feeling better. Art had a son, and he was coming out from California for the wedding. He was about August’s age, and maybe the two of them could go fishing or something. At the very least there was going to be a little dinner. All of them together. These events were on the horizon, but hazy. August watched TV and slept, getting up only to take a piss or drink a glass of water. The painkillers made everything seem far away, events unconnected. For instance, Tim was just there, straddling the high-backed chair across the room from August’s bed, and they were talking. August had no recollection of the doorbell ringing or letting him in. Tim had a small Igloo cooler and there was a twelve-pack of cans on ice and he acted like he was going to toss one to August but then laughed, popped the tab, reached over, and handed it to him.

  “They probably got you pretty doped up,” he said. “Beer usually helps a little to clear your mind in these situations.”

  Tim opened himself a beer and raised it in August’s direction. “When are you going to stop feeling sorry for yourself and come on back up to work?” he said.

  August sipped his beer. His tongue felt thick, but the beer was cold and it tasted good. “Just got out of surgery yesterday,” he said. “They had to go back and take off another part of my ring finger because it was too fucked up.”

  Tim regarded August with his eyebrows raised. He shook his head. “At least you’re not a lefty. Is that cheap asshole Ancient paying your bills?”

  August shrugged. “I’m still on my mom’s insurance. She gets good insurance. I guess that part’s not a problem.”

  “How about for your missed work? Is he giving you wages?”

  “I don’t know. He stopped by the other day, but I was passed out. He left me some of my stuff from the bunkhouse.”

  “Well, if you want me to go over there and shake him down, you just say it. He’s the kind of snake that will try to weasel out on giving a man his wages. He had you up there all spring and summer doing the work of two men and then you get hurt because of his janky equipment and he tries to gyp you.”

  “It was just an accident. Anyway, I don’t think I’m going to go back up and work for him.”

  “No? What are you going to do?”

  “You know, I don’t know. You know?”

  “I’d say the drugs are making you funnier, that’s for sure. I guess your hand-modeling days are over. But really, if you have to lose a couple fingers, those are probably the best ones to have gone. Could have been your right thumb or something. That’d be way worse. Can you still feel where your fingers should be? Like, what do they call it, phantom pain?”

  “Nah. I’ve got enough real pain at this point I don’t think the phantom kind would even register yet. Maybe it’s something I can look forward to.”

  “You got more to look forward to than that. Hold on, I have something for you. I didn’t bring it in right away because I didn’t know what kind of shape you were going to be in, but it’s clear to me now that you’re mostly fine and just milking it for sympathy. Hang on. Be right back.”

  When Tim returned from his truck, he had a squirming ball of mottled fur under each arm. He set them down on the bed, where they immediately beset August, licking his face, one wagging its tail so hard it fell off the side of the mattress.

  “They’re miniature Aussie/border collie mixes,” he said. “Got them from the shelter down in Billings. The lady there told me they came in from Fort Smith, on the Crow rez. A rez dog is always the best kind of dog, in my opinion, because they can sense the sort of life you’ve saved them from and they’ll do anything for you—they’re grateful. Some of those old boys down there on the rez still eat dogs. No shit. They’re both females, of course, because you don’t want to deal with any animal that’s got balls if you’ve got balls yourself. I’m sort of partial to that one there with the mismatched eyes, but I’m giving you first pick, pal.”

  “Jesus, Tim. You can’t just get people dogs without asking first.”

  “I figured you’d say that, and that’s why I didn’t ask. I’ve come to realize you’re a person that needs to be talked into everything at first. How about dancing? Remember that? Turned out to not be so bad, eh? Bottom line—you need a do
g, I need a dog, and these are going to be great ones. See how that one is looking at you? When they tilt their head like that it’s a sign of intelligence. She’s trying to figure out what kind of person you are.”

  “Oh yeah?” August pinned the wriggling puppy to his side and rubbed her ears. She gave a small squeaky growl and nipped at his thumb. “Her and me both,” he said.

  Tim scooped up the puppy with the mismatched eyes and held it up to his face. She stuck her tongue out and licked his nose. “I think I’m going to have to call dibs on this one. I’m sorry, but we’ve already bonded.” He had the puppy on its back on his lap, rubbing its stomach. “I’m thinking Chica, for a name. What do you think?”

  “Chica,” August said. “Yeah, that’s pretty good.”

  Tim put his pup back on the bed, and the dogs immediately began wrestling, mouths agape, chewing on each other’s feet and ears and tails. “Look at those little shits get after it,” he said. He opened another beer and sucked the foam off the top of the can. “That was some scene at the house the other night,” he said. “Ol’ Avery—quite the show stealer, eh?”

  “He’s something, all right.”

  “He’s probably going to be a millionaire someday and live in California, or France, or someplace like that. Wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest. And I’ll just be here, and that’s okay, because I’m suited to it fine. Being suited to where you’re born is a lucky thing because, as far as I can tell, it saves you a lot of heartache. Anyway, you know that letter Ancient was whining about to my dad? The one about Kim being a pervert and all that?”

  August nodded.

  “About five years ago, a while before the thing with Wes, my old man set us down and said that he knew that after he passed, chances are we wouldn’t want to just keep on ranching forever, because he could see the writing on the wall as well as anyone. He said he didn’t like the thought of us fighting over things when he was gone, so he wanted to get it straightened away while he was still of sound mind and body. He let us pick that day, divided the place up by even sections, and gave Weston first choice because he was oldest, then me, then Avery.

  “Wes took the piece that the house is on. Good well and outbuildings and all that, so it was probably the smart move, but I was happy because I didn’t want that anyway. I wanted the section down by the Musselshell. There is a little rise there where eventually I was going to build a house. The grass is good on the river bottom and it has the best view on the ranch, in my opinion. That was mine. And knowing it was mine made my day’s work different somehow, because that piece was there, waiting for me to do with it what I pleased. It’s one thing to own something within a family, but it’s another to own something as an individual. It was going to be mine free and clear. I already had my house site all picked out, and then, after Weston, my dad had to sell it. It’s been a couple years now, driving by it every day, knowing it once belonged to me but not anymore. That put a bad taste in my mouth. No two ways about it.”

  “So you wrote that note to Kim.”

  “I suppose. Although it wasn’t really to Kim. It was to Ancient through Kim.”

  “I don’t think they’re going to end up getting married. Doesn’t seem like things are going too well.”

  “He’ll probably want to blame me, but any marriage that can be broke up by a little thing like that wasn’t meant to be in the first place. Probably at some point he’ll thank me for helping him dodge a bullet.”

  “Maybe he could say the same thing about you.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “He bought that section of your family place, and now you won’t have it hanging over your head. Your old man passes, and you and Avery can just sell the rest off and all of a sudden you’re free. Go down to Austin. Go wherever. Maybe Ancient lifted a burden from you.”

  Tim laughed. Scratched a puppy behind the tail. “I don’t know about all that. That’s a theory I’ll need some time to get caught up to. Austin.” He shook his head. “Goddamn. They got this whole part of town that’s full of taco trucks. Food of all kinds, really, but all of it served out of trucks. In one afternoon I think I had six different kind of tacos and saw three girls holding hands wearing cutoff jean shorts and shirts made out of bandanas.”

  “Bandanas?”

  “Yeah, like handkerchiefs. They had them tied up in some way. Barely covered the items. There was a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead. Like Charlie’s Angels or something. Real good tacos, too. Way better than anything you get around here.”

  “Well, there you go.”

  “Yeah. There I go,” Tim said. “Me and Chica roaming free in the Lone Star State.” He lifted the puppy and rubbed his nose against hers. “Just hitting the open road.” He put the dog down and finished his beer, stretching and belching. “Well, I guess I ought to be getting on. You look about half-asleep as it is.”

  “Nah, I’m fine. Hand me another beer. And I was meaning to give you something I found a while back. Open up that book on the desk there. I was using it as a page marker.”

  Tim hefted The Hutterites: A People’s History and raised his eyebrows. He flipped the book open and held the Polaroid out at arm’s length. He brought it in close and then reached it back out to arm’s length again. He swallowed and rested his chin on his fist. “I’ll be damned,” he said.

  “I found it down on the Musselshell, in a little bundle of stuff. Some cigarettes and things, nothing too interesting except for that. A graven image. Her name was, is, Sarah Jane,” August said.

  “She goes by SJ mostly,” Tim said.

  “You knew her?”

  Tim nodded, sipped his beer. “Weston had her over to the house once for dinner. I have no idea how she worked that out with the elders. She came to the funeral, too. Walked right up and hugged my dad in front of a whole church-load of people. Crying her eyes out. She came up to me after the service. Telling me stuff about how Weston had asked her to leave the colony, for him. He’d come back for spring break and told her that if she left the colony he wouldn’t go back to school; they’d figure it out some way. He didn’t want to be there without her. He was half flunked out anyway. But she just couldn’t. That life is all she ever knew. She’d be trading everything she had for him, and in the end she just couldn’t.

  “So he goes back to school and we know how that ends. She’s crying out all this on my shoulder in the fellowship hall of the church. Saying maybe it’s her fault. Saying he told her he’d rather die than be without her. That didn’t sound like Wes to me, but when it comes down to it, it’s impossible to understand how another man is with his woman, even if he’s your brother. It has no bearing on how he is in real life. But don’t they look happy right here, though?” Tim held the picture up one more time, blinking.

  “There’s some interesting stuff in that book,” August said. “Did you know that the Hutterites don’t have a problem with people taking pictures, as long as it’s candid? It’s the posing that they don’t like. Graven images. Up in Canada they’re in a lawsuit to make it so they don’t have to get their pictures taken for driver’s licenses.”

  “And then you see them in the Feed-n-Need talking on cellphones and eating Doritos. I don’t really get it. They’ve got all the fanciest shit, too. GPS in their tractors. My dad says they don’t have to pay taxes. That’s how they do it. Got it set up so they’re a religious group, like a church. Big scam, if you ask me.”

  “In that book it talks about something called Eigennutz.”

  “Say what?”

  “Eigennutz. I’m not sure I’m pronouncing it right. I guess it’s German, but it’s a word with no direct translation into English. It basically means acting in your own best interests, like, being selfish and not putting the community first.”

  “How does that work? If a community always wants you to put it first, then isn’t the community itself being eggnuts, or whatever?�
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  “But it’s a community. So how can a community be selfish if it’s made up of a bunch of people?”

  “Every community has a guy in charge. The Hoots have elders, and amongst the elders there’s got to be one that’s the boss boss. Even if it’s unofficial. I don’t think there’s any such thing as a real communal sort of community. Hippies tried that and failed.” He tapped the Polaroid’s edge on the desk and shook his head. “My bro and his uncommon Hoot girlfriend. They could be anyone, looking at them like this. Just two good-looking people. Weston, you stupid bastard. The whole world under your thumb. Most eggnuts person that ever lived. If you weren’t my brother I’d probably hate you.”

  There was no scaffold of poles this year. Just a regular-sized bonfire, a small pile of pine logs burning by the river. August was standing there talking to a few of the guys when someone came up behind him, got him in a headlock, and jabbed him in the ribs before letting him go, laughing. It was Veldtkamp. He had a Jack Daniel’s bottle by the neck, and his teeth and eyes were wet white in the firelight.

  “Goddamn,” he said. “Look who it is. I thought you’d dropped off the face of the earth. Someone told me you got your hand cut off in some kind of accident. You got a hook on the end of that thing or what?”