As Good As Gone

by Larry Watson

  “Then how come you got your hands in the air like a scared sonofabitch?”

  That remark brought a giggle from the younger brother. For some reason, his good humor was especially frightening. The older brother’s surly attitude seemed more in keeping with the situation; the younger one’s laughter was the behavior of someone whose next action could not be predicted.

  Still lying flat in the cottonwood’s shade, Bill asked, “Either of you fellows work with the Slash Nine?”

  “What the hell’s it to you?” the older brother asked.

  “I know this is Slash Nine country,” Bill answered, in a voice far too cheerful to belong to a man with a gun pointed at him, “and I thought you boys might be with their outfit.”

  “We don’t work for nobody,” the younger man said hesitantly.

  “Just thought I’d ask,” Bill said. “My old man rides with the Slash Nine. You know him? Cal Sidey?”

  “Never heard of him,” the older man said, but it didn’t matter. Bill’s willingness to name himself had made him impossible to kill.

  The brothers spat out a few more threats—“Don’t ever wet a line along this stretch of the river or you’ll find yourself facedown in the water”; “Any fish you caught you leave ’em on the stringer; they’re ours now”—but their venom had lost its potency, and they soon sent Bill and his friends on their way.

  Later, back in Gladstone, after Bill, Chuck, and Sleepy told others about their run-­in, they learned about the Hanlon brothers, owners of a small ranch that shared some fence line with the Slash Nine. The Hanlons had a reputation not only for being maniacally territorial but also for black-­hearted meanness. Rumor had it they had once cut the balls off an Indian and left him in a ditch, possibly to bleed to death. Chuck swore that he would return to that span of the river and have his revenge on the brothers. Maybe on his first furlough he’d load up a truck with Gladstone’s toughest men, and they’d give the Hanlons the beatings they deserved. Chuck McMahon was not inclined to bluster or boast; that he never followed through on his vow had nothing to do with a lack of courage or resolve and everything to do with the fact that he left most of his right leg on an island in the South Pacific.

  Bill never knew for certain if the mention of his father’s name had anything to do with extricating him and his friends from their difficult situation. The Slash Nine was a huge outfit, and Bill’s father was just one more hired hand, exactly what he had been since the day he left Bill and his sister when they were children. But Bill had invoked the Sidey name, and because he did, he has often wondered, did he save himself, or was it the father who saved the son? For that matter, back at his father’s trailer, was the son asking the father for help, or was the son trying to help the father?

  THE SUN HAS SET, and darkness is leaping forth from inside the grove of cottonwoods and the thickets of sagebrush, snowberry, and chokecherry. Nighthawks are swooping invisibly overhead, their presence revealed only by their peenk, peenk calls. The river itself still shines, its surface somehow able to find light that has all but vanished from the sky. Bill reels in his line again, this time for good. He hooks his lure through a rod guide and begins the long walk back to his car.

  Why doesn’t his father make his home in a spot like this? Near fresh water, shade, and shelter from the wind. With heavier woods right over there, with a supply of blown-­down and deadfall trees and limbs that would offer winter fuel. This is a site that Bill would choose, and solitude aplenty if that’s what a man wants. But this is just one more useless observation about the difference between him and his father.

  IF HE KEEPS DRIVING, he can pull into his driveway in no more than ten minutes. Nevertheless, Bill decides to pull off the road on top of one of the bluffs that overhang the city of Gladstone. He climbs out of the car and walks closer to the edge of the butte, accidentally kicking an empty beer can. He’s sure there are more in the vicinity.

  He lights a cigarette. From this height Bill can see the confluences—the Elk River, Willow Creek, the Northern Pacific railroad line, and mile after mile of rolling grassland—that led to the formation of a community down there in the first place, and in the middle of the panorama is the city itself with its glowing, winking lights. He has a perfect view of the lights that, this year, spangle the night sky over Gladstone for the second time inside of three weeks. The exploding rockets, star bursts, and fountains leave a much different impression when a man looks down rather than up at them. You’d think they’d look puny with the vastness of the night sky as backdrop, but the opposite is true. It’s all the land surrounding this exhibition that makes it seem small and a little sad. Perhaps this is why no other spectators are parked up here tonight.

  The display won’t last long. Gladstone celebrated its seventy-­fifth anniversary on June 16, and last winter the Rotary Club voted in favor of an unequal division of the annual budget for fireworks: seventy percent for the town’s birthday and thirty percent for today, July 4, 1963.

  There—that probably represents the grand finale. The cottony booms that reach him after those flashes are the loudest so far, and nothing else has reached as high, glowed as brightly, or lingered as long as those red, white, and blue sparks. His wife and son and daughter are down there someplace, perhaps close enough to smell the black powder and trace the pattern of smoke in the aftermath of each explosion, and though Bill knows he belongs with them, he still cannot make himself move. The car’s cooling engine ticks impatiently, the stars recapture the night sky, but Bill remains on the top of the hill. As soon as he returns home, he’ll have to tell his family that Calvin is coming for a visit.

  THREE

  In order to see to the back of the refrigerator, Bill pushes aside the wedge of watermelon, the bowl of creamed cucumbers, the tinfoil-­covered tub of potato salad, and the half-­eaten ham—all items he returned to the racks only moments before. “I could have sworn I had another beer in here,” he says.

  “One isn’t enough?” Marjorie asks. She knows her husband’s habits well; Bill drinks infrequently and seldom more than a single beer.

  “I spent part of the day in Calvin Sidey’s company,” Bill says, “in his oven of a home. So no, one’s not enough.” He means the remark as a joke, but it elicits no laughter. He gives up on the idea of a second beer and returns to his place at the kitchen table.

  Marjorie stands across the room from him, her arms crossed as if she feels a chill. That, of course, is impossible. Nightfall has not brought any relief from the day’s heat. “I just don’t understand.” She speaks so slowly even the last word comes out as two. “I thought when we talked about this before, we decided it wasn’t a good idea.”

  Only now does it register on Bill that his wife has dressed herself for the holiday. She’s wearing a sleeveless red bandanna blouse knotted at her midriff, blue pedal pushers, and white sneakers that might have been Ann’s. Her dark freshly curled hair has been combed out to frame her small, pretty heart-­shaped face. Yes, her pretty face, even when it’s darkened by a frown, as it is now.

  “I’ve reconsidered,” says Bill. “I think this will work. And to everyone’s benefit.”

  Marjorie crosses the room, pulls out a chair, and sits down wearily across from him. She takes off her glasses, and she rubs her eyes. When Bill told her of the arrangements he made for his father’s visit, she said nothing. But now she’s had time to worry over all the implications of her father-­in-­law’s visit.

  “You think it will work? You want to trust the care of our children to a man they barely know, who barely knows them, a man who abandoned his own children . . .”

  Bill lights a cigarette, even though each one he’s smoked in the last few hours has left a bitter, dusty taste in his mouth. “Why is it, Marjorie, that I’ve been able to forgive my father and you haven’t? I was the one he left.”

  “Maybe because there are some things people shouldn’t be forgiven for.”

  “Is that,” Bill asks, “for us to decide?”

>   For the moment, Bill holds the advantage. Marjorie’s religion teaches that it falls only to God to judge, and it’s a lesson she tries to obey. In consternation, she rubs her hand across the tabletop as though there are wrinkles in the Formica that could be smoothed out like a tablecloth.

  “Besides, it’s not just for the kids,” Bill says. “I think we’d both feel more comfortable knowing a man is in the house. But he knows the business too and probably better than Don or Tom. After all, Dad used to be in real estate.”

  “But he’s not in the business anymore,” Marjorie quickly points out. “He’s a cowboy, an old cowboy who’s never shown the slightest interest in his grandchildren. Why would we leave Ann and Will in the care of a man who might walk off?”

  “That happened once and under special circumstances, Marjorie. He deserves a second chance.”

  “A chance—do you hear what you’re saying? You want to take a chance with Ann and Will? And he’s had plenty of chances, hasn’t he? He didn’t have to leave, but he didn’t have to stay away either. He could have come back to you and Jeanette at any time.”

  “You know as well as I do,” Bill says sternly, “what kept him away.”

  “Even grief has its limits.”

  “And I’m not talking about grief alone.”

  “You’re so quick to make excuses for him.”

  “Look, he’s out there in the middle of the prairie in that little trailer. I’m concerned about him. It’s no use telling me I shouldn’t be, that I owe him nothing. I can’t help it. If something happened to him, he could lie there for days, for weeks, and never be discovered. I’d like to see if I can’t get him to come back to town.”

  That remark instantly erases the weariness from Marjorie’s face, and just as quickly Bill realizes he’s made a mistake.

  “To live here?” she says.

  “No, no—”

  “Because if that’s what you mean—”

  “That’s not what I have in mind. Not at all. Just . . . someplace a little closer, so I wouldn’t have to drive for hours just to check up on him.”

  “Is that what he wants?”

  “Well, he said yes to coming here so maybe he’s changing his mind about some things.”

  Marjorie shakes her head. “This sounds like some kind of plan for redemption.”

  Bill smiles. “I can’t think of anything that would matter less to Calvin Sidey. Redemption isn’t in his vocabulary.”

  “I didn’t say he wanted it. But I certainly believe it’s something you want for him.”

  My God, her aim could be unerring at times! Bill has no choice but to skate around her remark.

  “Besides,” Bill says, “once he spends some time with the kids . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “You don’t think our kids are lovable enough to melt any heart?” Bill says and laughs. He adds, “You could still have the operation here.”

  “You know I want that doctor Carole had. And I want to be free of this.”

  Bill thinks but doesn’t say, Yes, but Carole only had to drive across town for her operation while you have to travel close to four hundred miles for yours.

  As if she can hear his thoughts, Marjorie says, “Carole tried everything, and if she wouldn’t have found him she’d still be in misery.”

  Like I am. She doesn’t have to say the words. The insinuation is clear, and no matter how skeptical Bill might be about the necessity for Marjorie’s operation, much less having it in Missoula, he does not want to be the kind of husband who stands in the way of his wife’s hope for good health.

  “I’m already on the surgery schedule,” says Marjorie, her voice trembling and her eyes brimming with tears.

  Bill reaches across the table to lay his hand on top of his wife’s. Her flesh is surprisingly cool. “We’ll stay with the original plan.”

  And just as quickly the advantage is back to Marjorie. “Your father wasn’t part of the original plan.”

  “You know I was never real comfortable with the idea of leaving the kids alone. I know Ann’s not the sort to be throwing wild parties, but putting her in charge would mean giving her a lot of responsibility. Think of what you were like at that age.”

  He immediately wishes he could take his words back. Marjorie hates being reminded how at sixteen, her father and mother sent her to live for the summer with an elderly aunt in Billings. The old woman had been ill, and Marjorie was supposed to help with the cooking and cleaning. Anyway, that was the reason Mr. and Mrs. Randolph gave to family and friends for sending their daughter away, although the truth was they were desperate to break up Marjorie’s relationship with that twenty-­year-­old cowboy. They had tried forbidding their daughter to see him—he was too old for her, too wild, the two of them were too serious—but Marjorie and Tully could not be kept apart. The Randolphs hoped that miles would accomplish what all their prohibitions, all their punishments, and all their pleas could not. But Tully had followed Marjorie to Billings, and by the time he moved on—or was chased off by Marjorie’s aunt—he and Marjorie had decided that they would never return to Gladstone. At the end of August, once Tully could collect a good portion of his summer wages, he would come for Marjorie and together they would leave Billings for a destination where they could make their own new life. Young people always make such promises and plans, but maybe that one would have worked out had Tully not gone back to a job that required him to fix a stretch of fence during a thunderstorm. You would have thought that a nearby stand of lodgepole pines presented an easier target for that lightning bolt.

  When Marjorie returned to high school that fall, like everyone else, Bill noticed the change in her. She was no longer that bright-­eyed, laughing, lovely girl who used to dash out of the building in winter months with her coat unbuttoned because she couldn’t wait to meet her boyfriend. Instead, she trudged listlessly through the halls and through her classes as if she had been awakened from a drugged sleep.

  Rumors about the altered Marjorie Randolph raced around Gladstone. One version had her running off to Billings the previous summer to have Tully Heckaman’s baby, which she then gave up for adoption. Another whispered story said that she tried to poison herself after Tully’s death. Then about the time of graduation Bill saw another change come over her. Suddenly it seemed as though Marjorie was trying to make Tully’s untamed spirit her own. She drank, she smoked, she went out with men and boys who were willing to tell their friends what Marjorie Randolph would let them get away with. When Bill finally stirred up the courage to ask Marjorie to go out with him and later to marry him, he believed she said yes not only because he offered her security but also because he understood a thing or two about loss and abandonment.

  But if Bill’s remark takes Marjorie back to her own past, she doesn’t acknowledge it. Coolly she says, “Beverly is right next door. It’s not exactly like the kids would be without adult supervision.”

  “And she’ll still be here,” Bill replies. “I’ll tell her about Dad staying at the house and ask her if she’ll keep an eye on him and the kids.”

  Marjorie puts her glasses back on and looks squarely at her husband. “Suppose he starts drinking again.”

  “It’s not going to happen, honey. Not after all this time. He hasn’t had a drink in over ten years.”

  “That you know of.”

  Rather than concede that point, as he must, Bill says nothing.

  Up and down the block, firecrackers still snap, singly or serially, and bottle rockets still hiss, but more and more time passes between these small explosions. Soon Gladstone will finish its celebrating, and once again it will be heat and not noise that stands between the townspeople and their easy sleep. Marjorie looks off expectantly, as though she’s counting off the minutes between detonations.

  “They could come with us,” Bill suggests cautiously. “And I could tell Dad he isn’t needed.”

  Marjorie shakes her head. “It would be too hard for them. They couldn’t come to the hospita
l.”

  “Ann’s old enough.”

  “But they’d never let her take off work for God knows how many days. She’d come back and find she’s out of a job, and Penney’s is just too good an opportunity. This is something she can keep working at right through the school year—”

  Bill holds his hands up in surrender. “You’re right. I know. We talked about that.”

  Marjorie sniffs as if the odor of black powder has drifted into her kitchen. “He’ll be here Saturday?”

  “Right. Saturday afternoon or evening.”

  “Maybe I’ll fix fried chicken. That’s something we can have cold if he doesn’t get here until late.”

  “Fried chicken sounds good.”

  “Maybe,” says Marjorie, “a ham for Sunday.”

  “Which they could have for leftovers on Monday.”

  Marjorie nods, as if settling on those menu items has resolved every difference between them. “Well, I’m going up,” she says. “When you come, leave the stove light on for Ann.” Then Marjorie stands up, walks around to Bill, and kisses him lightly on the lips. But she doesn’t leave the room. “I guess I still don’t understand,” she says, “why he agreed to come . . .”

  “Give him some credit, Marjorie. He’s an old man. He might want to make amends.”

  Not that Bill believes this for a moment.

  FOUR

  Ann Sidey does not look back when she turns the corner and starts to walk up Fourth Street. She doesn’t have to. She hears the car make the same turn, lugging along in second gear, its headlights off. She knows it’s following her, yet so far not trying to overtake her. The car radio is playing—Lesley Gore singing “It’s My Party”—so Ann decides to concentrate on the song. She’ll walk faster only if the radio gets louder, and she won’t break into a run unless the car pulls to the curb alongside her. Then she’ll take off across the lawns. The Halls live halfway up the block, and if she can make it to their house, she’ll bang on their door until they let her in.