by Larry Watson
And not just your feet, I take it?
In response Margaret stares out the windshield, giving her husband nothing but her profile to contemplate. Into her sixth decade she still has only one chin, a matter of pride to her, no matter that it trembles. Her neck is long, though its tendons often look as taut as the ropes that held their tent stakes. Yes, a regal profile. Yes, a woman willing to plunge into any water, no matter how icy or swift, if she has a reason to get to the other side.
...
It’s a rare Montana day. The wind that died last night has not resurrected, not yet, and George can follow the tire tracks that the Hudson pressed into the dirt earlier. He drives down the hill with caution, though the first trip has shown him that the car has sufficient clearance to make it without damage.
Here we are, George says, turning off the ignition. Home again. He pulls on the hand brake, though they’re parked on level ground.
The car faces west, where the clouds have thinned enough to allow brief patches of pale blue to blink through. If this sky clears, George says, this will be a damn cold night.
He rubs his shoulder as if that’s where the memory of last night’s stony, sullen sleep resides.
Margaret ignores this. She’s up on her knees and turned around to rummage through a box in the backseat. How about an apple? she asks. Or some of these carrots?
You’re just trying to keep me regular, says George. The apples are mealy, and there wasn’t much to those carrots when they were fresh. As far as I’m concerned you can throw them both out for the coyotes and the mule deer. But if there’s any coffee left in the thermos . . .
You know there is, Margaret replies. It’s right there on the seat next to you. Help yourself.
George picks up the thermos, shakes it gently to confirm that, yes, there’s coffee, but he makes no effort to pour any. He says, I’m thinking what I should have done is find a phone booth and give Jack Nevelsen a call. See what he might know about Bill Weboy.
Margaret turns back around, munching on a carrot. What makes you think there’s anything to know?
Just a feeling.
Well, he had you pegged. Public official indeed.
I’m sure Donnie’s told him about us.
Poisoned the well, is more like it, says Margaret. And how would Sheriff Nevelsen have any information on Mr. Weboy?
George shrugs. A sheriff hears things.
And files them away.
Not something you can help doing.
So there they are. There they stay.
Memory cleans itself out sooner or later, says George.
Margaret rolls down her window and tosses out the stub of carrot. Mr. Weboy has said he’ll help us. That’s good enough for me.
And I trust him about as far as I can throw him.
Of course we know you’re a suspicious man.
George touches his finger to his hat brim. Guilty as charged, ma’am.
Margaret squirms in place like an impatient child. I can’t sit here all day twiddling my thumbs. Let’s go for a stroll. Breathe a little fresh air.
You’re the boss, George says, opening his car door.
...
With the rocky foothills and striated bluffs behind them, they walk west, across a sandy landscape whose only undulation is a long, subtle slope toward a silty creek. The tall cottonwoods near the water rustle even without the wind, and the lint from those trees snags in the sagebrush and gathers in the pebbly seams where, in another season, water runs.
George’s long strides keep moving him ahead, and his wife has to scurry to keep up. Slow down, Stretch, says Margaret. I said a stroll, not a race.
He waits and she comes alongside him and hooks her arm in his. Did you lock the car? she asks.
You saw me do it not three minutes ago.
I thought so. But then I wasn’t sure whether I remembered the act or the thought.
Yes, I’m all too familiar with that feeling.
I tell you, Mr. Blackledge, this growing old tosses up a new surprise every day.
To that he says nothing. It’s an observation he’s made himself too many times already. What’s the use?
Gesturing vaguely toward Gladstone, Margaret says, My God. What would make anyone settle in such dismal, godforsaken country?
Exactly what some would say about Dalton. And more people live here.
But Dalton makes sense, she says. You stop short of the Badlands. But here? You just get across and then stop?
Assuming folks are moving east to west.
Well, certainly.
As I recall that was the argument your father made. About how Dalton was settled, that is.
He was right about a few things.
You won’t get any argument from me.
Now, my mother, she didn’t know how to pour piss out of a boot—
—with the instructions printed on the heel. So it’s the day to quote Warren Mann, is it?
He never said it within her hearing, she says quickly.
You don’t have to defend the man to me, Margaret. I thought the world of your father.
They walk silently for another hundred yards. The clouds have once again thickened and filled in the blue patches with gray and the hillside grass has lost its gold and turned tawny.
At dinner tonight, Margaret says, they might offer some sort of liquor.
They might.
If they do, I’d appreciate if you’d pass on the offer.
George Blackledge glances quickly down at his wife. The limitless, lowering sky, the long stretches of motionless empty prairie, the silence, complete right down to the absence of birdsong—who knows what decides a man to leave most of his words unspoken?
Margaret says, It’s not that I think you can’t hold your liquor. It’s just that—damnit, I don’t know. I’d like to create a certain impression, I guess.
Sort of like the preacher coming for supper?
Yes, she says. Exactly. I know you’re poking fun at me but that’s exactly what I want. After this evening’s over I’ll pour you a drink myself. Hell, I’ll have one too.
Sounds like another bribe. Earlier you wanted to buy me breakfast and now it’s a drink.
I’m not above bribing a public official, to use Mr. Weboy’s term.
Former.
Former. Margaret turns her face to the sky. Is anything ever going to break loose from those clouds? It sure smells like rain. She pinches herself tighter to his side. Can I try one more time? Once more to see if I can make you understand why I’m doing this?
Make me understand?
She hammers his arm lightly with the side of her fist. Make you. Bribe you. If I could crawl inside your skull and fiddle with your thoughts . . .
You’ve already done that.
She strikes him again, this time with even less force. I’m afraid, she begins, two words that are as strange to George’s ear as to her tongue. I’m afraid I’ll just float away. She spirals her finger in the air. Like that cottonwood fluff. That everything the Manns have been, all the work my father did, and the Blackledges too, that it will all have come to nothing. Poof. Vanished. Gone. Nobody left on the land with the name that made the place what it was. What it is.
You’re pinning a hell of a lot on a boy not long out of his diapers.
He’s a generation, George. Don’t tell me you don’t understand that?
Nobody, says George emphatically, who ever met Margaret Mann—or Margaret Blackledge—could ever forget her. Or her name. Nobody.
She stares up at this somber man who is incapable of voicing something he does not believe. I’m not sure that’s a compliment, Mr. Blackledge, but I’ll take it as such.
Ahead, their flat path of sand and sagebrush runs up against the ascent of a hill, low but long, its crest lost to them.
Now let’s head back, Margaret says. I want to dig out a dress and change before we return to Mr. Weboy’s.
16.
ON THIS WINDLESS DAY THERE’S NOTHING TO MOVE th
em faster coming back than going out, nothing, that is, until they come within sight of the car and see a figure standing alongside the Hudson, looking in its windows.
Margaret is slower than her husband to break into a run, but she’s the first to call out. Hey! You! Get away from there! And she soon catches up to her husband’s stiff-legged lope.
The man at the car sees the couple running toward him, drops his fishing pole, raises his hands, and steps back from the Hudson.
Okay! Okay! All right! I’m not . . .
As George and Margaret come closer they see he’s a young Indian man in bottle-green coveralls.
Halt! George issues the same command and with the same voice he has used all his life to make animals obey. Right there.
I didn’t take nothing. I was just . . .
Even in his terror the young man wears a bashful smile. His dark caramel skin is smooth and untroubled. His thick, unruly hair is the blackest thing next to a crow’s plumage in this landscape. He must be wearing warm layers under the greasy coveralls because the protruding wrists and ankles are stick thin, but his body looks bulky. His feet are shod in sneakers out of which water bubbles and oozes with each backward step he takes.
What? Margaret asks. You were just what?
Fishing? The young man stoops, picks up his fishing pole, and holds it out with two hands like an offering.
George walks over to the young man’s tackle box and nudges it with the toe of his boot. Catch anything?
Hardly ever. He extends the rod farther. But I keep fishing. Every day.
Margaret tries the front passenger door of the Hudson. It’s still locked.
I live over there, the young man says, pointing vaguely toward the northeast and the other side of the bluff. Got my own place. His smile widens but with worry. My own money too. I don’t need none of your goods.
Margaret glances over at her husband, who is able, through some unseen force, to hold the young man in place.
Put down your goddamn pole, says George, and the young man obeys. And tell us why you were nosing around our car.
I didn’t mean nothing. I seen your car here last night. So I’m wondering who’s coming around here. Setting up camp and all.
You say you live near here?
Yes, ma’am. I walked down the same road you drove down. Without the pole in his hand, his fingers begin to rotate as they would if he were making a snowball.
What’s your name? George asks.
Alton Dragswolf. Junior.
Margaret steps forward, and though Alton Dragswolf flinches, he stands his ground and shakes the hand she holds out to him.
George? Meet Mr. Alton Dragswolf. Junior.
Although he is still wary, George shakes the young man’s hand too.
Margaret Blackledge, and this is my husband, George.
Alton Dragswolf nods as if he suspected as much.
Mr. Dragswolf, Margaret says sweetly, should we have sought your permission before setting up camp here?
Oh no, ma’am. This ain’t my land. I guess I’m a little surprised none of the McWhirters came calling though. They can be real touchy about someone on their land.
And this is McWhirter land.
Yes, ma’am. They don’t mind me because they know I ain’t going to do nothing but take a few fish. But I don’t advise camping here without their okay. And they won’t give it. They won’t let no one else’s stock water here even. His smile is unceasing but Alton Dragswolf’s eyelids droop as though he seldom gets enough sleep.
You certainly seem to know the area well, observes Margaret. Are you a lifelong resident, Mr. Dragswolf?
Lifelong? No, ma’am. Just all the life as I’ve lived so far.
Margaret smiles. So you might provide us with a little history—Gladstone history.
Alton Dragswolf keeps looking George’s way, as if he worries Margaret’s questions are intended to distract him from her husband’s imminent attack. History? Yes, ma’am. I’m the one for history around here. I can tell you where the folks are buried who ain’t buried in the cemeteries.
George speaks the name. Weboys?
Alton Dragswolf’s grin doesn’t diminish but he brings forth a scowl to accompany it. His face is dotted with moles so dark and evenly spaced they look as though they must form a constellation. There’s a whole slew of Weboys, he says. And they been here as long as there’s been a here.
You had any dealings with them?
The Indian shakes his head, and once it begins to move, its motion threatens to be as constant as that of his fingers. Only with another movement—Alton Dragswolf steps back again—can he stop his head. No, sir, he says. And that’s just the way I like it. I go careful through life so I don’t have any dealings with the Weboys.
And you’d advise us to do the same?
That’s the other thing I’m careful of. Giving out advice. Alton Dragswolf takes a few more backward steps and says, I better get going.
Wait, Margaret says, picking up his fishing pole and tackle box. Don’t forget these.
Thank you, ma’am. He takes them both and shakes his tackle box as if he needs to hear it rattle to be sure of its contents. You folks camping here tonight?
Not after what you told us about the McWhirters.
You’re welcome at my place. If you turn right up there instead of coming down the hill you’ll find me. It ain’t much but it’s mine. I can invite who I like or do whatever.
Margaret gives a little curtsy. Thank you, Mr. Dragswolf. You’re very hospitable.
Sure, sure. And I didn’t mean nothing with your car. Just wanted to make sure everything’s okay.
One last thing, Mr. Dragswolf, Margaret says. Do you ever stop smiling?
He shakes his head again, this time an action that seems as though it should be accompanied by a whinny. He continues to back up, and only when he’s thirty yards away does he turn and jog off, picking a path between the rocks and scrub and up the bluff’s cut slope.
Halfway up the hill, Alton Dragswolf stops and puts down his tackle box. While George and Margaret watch, the young man opens the box and extracts a long-barreled revolver. George starts to pull Margaret away but the way Alton Dragswolf raises the gun and waves it over his head shows he has no intention of firing it.
I had my protection! Alton Dragswolf calls out. I had my protection with me all the time!
In spite of the weapon in the young man’s hand, Margaret waves to him. And then Alton Dragswolf laughs, picks up his tackle box, and continues to clamber up the hill.
Mr. Alton Dragswolf, Margaret says. Junior. A handsome young man.
George has his keys in his hand. Leave your car unlocked, he says, and see how you like your handsome boy then.
Oh hush, you old grouch. He seems like a well-meaning young man. Now open the trunk and let me dig out a dress.
I’m not changing my shirt for this affair.
I never thought it for a moment.
...
While his wife changes her clothes in the front seat of the car, George paces a watchful circuit around the Hudson’s perimeter. Obedient to his wife’s command, he keeps his back turned yet he can’t help but catch a glimpse of pale shoulder and a flash of paler thigh.
George walks farther away, then he takes out a cigarette, tamps it on a thumbnail, lights it, and draws deep. He’s neither the first man nor the last to learn that desire can’t be quelled with a lungful of tobacco smoke. Distance isn’t the answer either, and he returns to his earlier post.
The car door opens, then slams shut, and Margaret calls out in that tremolo that he knows better than his own steady breath. All right! You can open your eyes!
Margaret has traded her Western shirt and Levi’s for a dark blue floral-print dress that she bought before the war. In place of boots she wears black high heels that bite into the hardpan. She bends down to look in the Hudson’s side mirror and with the tip of her little finger she corrects a smudge of freshly applied lipstick, its red a shad
e that only newly spilled blood could match.
At the sound of George’s approach, she turns and says, Can you believe it? I forgot to bring a slip! Then she lifts her dress until its hem rises to her knees and, laughing, swishes the fabric back and forth like a cancan dancer.
You’re in good spirits.
I’m going to see my grandson tonight, George. That’s what I came here for. And it wouldn’t kill you to crack a smile for the occasion.
17.
BILL WEBOY IS RAKING HIS GUTTER AGAIN, BUT WHEN George drives up to the curb, Weboy abandons the chore, heedlessly heaving the rake into his yard. He walks over to the Hudson and the window that Margaret is rolling down.
About time, Weboy says but smiles as he says it. One of you should ride with me and the other follow. I can tell you where we’re going and why and that way maybe you can find your way back on your own. He takes his keys from his pocket and, turning his back on them, walks toward the sky-blue Ford parked in the driveway.
Go ahead, George says to his wife. He doesn’t want me in the passenger seat.
Are you sure?
About what? Hell yes. Go.
Then she’s out the door, trailing Bill Weboy across his scrubby yard and hurrying as much as those high heels will allow. Margaret’s mackinaw lies on the car seat, and in fingering its wool George discovers that her purse is there too, a lump under the coat. Slip, coat, purse, a faint aroma of perfume—only the last what a sensible woman is apt to forget she has left behind.
...
They’ve not traveled any farther than a shift into third gear when Bill Weboy asks, So tell me, pretty bird—how long you been with that truculent old bastard?
Margaret turns in her seat and casts a quick, nervous look in the direction of the Hudson, barely a car length behind.
I don’t guess I should answer, Margaret says, until I look up that word in the dictionary. But it can’t mean anything good.
You’d know better than me, but he don’t look like anything but hard bark.
Not that you seem truly interested in the answer to your question, Margaret says, but George and I have been together almost forty years. And Mr. Weboy? If you intend to use this occasion to do nothing but slight my husband, you can pull over right now.
