Bull Head

by John Vigna

  He stares into his cup and lets out a long sigh. “Fuck it. She did it.” His face burns with humiliation.

  “Your wife?”

  He looks down, nods with resignation.

  “I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry to hear that. Is she okay?”

  He raises his head, narrows his eyes. His jaw tightens. “I’ve never raised a hand against her.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “What did you mean?”

  She touches his wrist. “I just meant, why? How? Was she provoked?”

  He squeezes his jaw with his hand. “If I knew the answer to that, I wouldn’t be here, would I?”

  She stares at him and shakes her head. “That’s a helluva introduction. Seriously. I appreciate you telling me, but what’s next? What’s going to top this? ’Cause sure as sunshine, when guys tell you something right off the bat, there’s always something bigger looming.”

  “Not one for sympathy, are you?”

  “Honey, I can handle a lot in a man, but not one who’s angry or pissed off at the world. I can’t compete with that. You write a helluva letter, though, I’ll give you that.” She stands and offers Lonnie her hand. “Nothing personal, all right?”

  They shake hands and she walks out, past the snickering girls. He waits until she drives away before he gets up, climbs into his truck, changes into his work clothes, and drives home.

  Dani has left a note on the kitchen counter next to an empty wine bottle and glass. Northerner. Sally and Grant. To celebrate. Remember?

  Lonnie glances at the clock above the fridge. A little past ten. He turns the note over and writes: Sorry. Long day. Got home late. Steak at the Old Elevator tomorrow? After he re-reads it, he crumples it up and tosses it in the garbage.

  He flicks off the lights, climbs the stairs, takes a hot shower, and lies down on the guest room bed. He sets the alarm for four a.m. and stares at the ceiling, plays the conversation over, the way Karen’s smile mocked him, the girls giggling behind the counter, the shock on her face when he told her about Dani. What the hell does she know? He wonders what Shelby does after work, what her life is like, where she lives in town. He’s surprised that he feels fortunate to have Dani rather than have to be out there, meeting the Karens of the world. Safer, more secure, despite the baggage that comes with it. He replays each movement of Shelby’s body when she slipped off her clothes, tugs himself halfheartedly before turning on his stomach and falling asleep.

  Lonnie wakes to a blunt, solid pain that slams the wind out of him. He gasps and coughs, surprised by another blow to the stomach. He’s disoriented, blind in the dark, the taste in his mouth metallic like aluminum. A fist cuffs the side of his head, rings in his ears; sounds are muffled, vague, and dull. He reaches for the nightlight, but he’s kicked in the side by the hard point of a shoe and cries out.

  “You fat bastard. Why do you always fuck up and embarrass me in front of our friends?”

  Lonnie turns to see if Dani’s holding something, but can’t tell in the dark.

  “Don’t you dare move.” She kicks him again, hits a rib, the pain slices sharp. Bile rushes into his mouth.

  “Stop.” His voice bubbles out of him like a strange animal moaning. He curls up, tucks his head into his chest.

  The heel of her hand smacks his ear. Her knees dig into his back and choke the breath from him. “Where were you tonight? Where were you?”

  “Working.”

  “Bullshit.” She drives a fist into his ribs. “Where were you?”

  His eyes sting and he tries to catch his breath, gulps air in half-panicked wheezes. “Settle down. You’re wasted. I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.”

  “Then fight back.” She slaps him again on the skull. “Hello, anyone home? Nope, nothing going on in there. Even if you managed to pay some stripper to fuck you, you still couldn’t please her.”

  He waits, tense, his back turned to her, feels around beneath the bed for the bat. His fingers close tightly around the wood. He sits up, the bat clenched in his right hand.

  She holds the crumpled letter from the dashboard of his truck. “Personal ads? Seriously? You couldn’t remember to at least get rid of them? You’re pathetic.” She begins to cry. “You’ve wasted my best years. Greatest mistake of my life, marrying you. I hate myself for what you’ve turned me into.”

  She sobs on the edge of the bed, her shoulders shaking. He lets go of the bat and rolls it beneath the bed. He considers touching her, laying his palm on her back to help comfort her, but he knows this might provoke her further. She lies down away from him, curled into herself like an infant, and soon begins to breathe deeply.

  He watches her sleep. She looks the same as when he first met her, sweet and youthful, in the bloom of her life. He gets out of bed. Pain knifes through his body as he dresses. He goes outside, smells cigarette smoke, and sees a red ember in the yard at the Johnson’s. The dog barks and he hears Johnson say, “Sshhh.” Lonnie climbs into his truck, locks the door, and leans against it. He balls up his jacket, rests his head against the window, and waits for morning to come.

  IX

  After he hauls his last load the next day, Lonnie parks behind the bar. He fixes his hair in the rearview to hide the bruise on his forehead, changes his clothes in the front seat, and enters through the back door.

  He sits down where he can watch the NO ENTRYdoor and waits for the next show, flashes a hundred-dollar bill to the waitress. “Bring me a high-test every ten minutes until I run out of money.” He peels off a twenty, hands it to her. “Your tip.” She raises her eyebrows, stuffs both bills into her cleavage.

  A dancer hangs plastic beer jugs off her breasts, jiggles them against each other; the next dancer contorts herself in strange configurations on the pole. A third dancer tears tiny holes in her tip money and pulls the bills over her nipples. Lonnie drinks his beer fast and asks the waitress when Shelby Sweet is scheduled. The waitress leaves him another beer, shrugs her shoulders. He hands her the empty bottle.

  The NO ENTRY door opens, Shelby steps out, and Ricky follows, a stunned look plastered on his face. She holds his hand and they pause at the DJ booth. Ricky lights her cigarette, then his own. He leans toward her ear; she smiles. Ricky glances over at Lonnie, points a finger at him, and shoots, laughs. Lonnie guzzles his beer and stumbles out the back door.

  At the edge of the parking lot a small doe feeds quietly on the brush. Lonnie lurches toward his truck, climbs up inside, and sits, slamming his head against the steering wheel. “You dumb-ass, stupid fat fuck.”

  He digs for his keys in his jeans, pushes the right one into the ignition, waits for the red lamp to glow. He strikes his head again, touches the wound on his forehead, sees blood on his fingertips. The doe lifts her head to look around and leans down to continue feeding. Lonnie watches her for a while, feels for the rifle behind the seat, slides out of the cab.

  He staggers, uses door handles of pickups and sedans for balance, stops at a Chevy where he leans his elbows on the front hood, squints down the barrel at the doe’s brown neck. His heart hammers and he can’t breathe. He waits and takes a deep breath, exhales slow and easy, and pulls the trigger. The blast booms out and echoes across the parking lot; the kickback smashes into his shoulder like a punch and sobers him. The doe’s head whips down as if yanked from below, and then it staggers to its knees, confused, before keeling over on its side.

  A faint, sugary taste of cordite hangs in the air. Lonnie walks toward where the doe thrashes, her head snatching back and forth. Pine needles and dirt collect in dark wet clumps on her neck. Her eyes roll with panic. From the bar, the DJ’s muffled voice announces Shelby Sweet. The shouts of men, the slam of a door. Lonnie sucks in a mouthful of cold air, exhales, and spits. The deer convulses, braces herself. He touches her forehead. She twitches furiously against his hand. He tries to comfort her, stroking her head as she flails.

  Lonnie stands, reloads, and sights in. The hairs on the doe’s neck are
white-tipped, the bullet hole floods red against the soft white and brown of her hide. His finger rests on the trigger, his breath calm and measured.

  “Go on now,” he whispers. “Go on home.”

  FENCES

  MAURICE LAY IN his tattered sleeping bag, peered around the one-room cabin in the pre-dawn glow. A yellowed calendar, thirty-five years old, hung on a steel spike next to faded pink stubs from raffle tickets bought for the valley’s Rodeo Queen contest. A stack of his wrinkled and warped hunting magazines sat beneath a rack that held two well-polished rifles; a washcloth, dishtowel, flannel shirt, and navy work pants drooped from a clothesline hanging near the woodstove. A worn Bible jammed with various bookmarks—an obituary of their father clipped from the newspaper, blades of grass, and turned-over page corners—rested on a small table next to him.

  He glanced to where his brother Harold was snoring, burrowed deeper into his bag, and drew it over his head to cover his ears. The snores rattled through the room, caught deep in Harold’s throat before they whistled out. Maurice slipped out of bed, pulled on his overalls, the binder twine in loops over the bulk of his flannel shirt and wool sweater. The floorboards creaked beneath his boots. He examined the door. Still too drafty. Needed more deer hair and moss to chink the cracks. He pushed open the door and closed it quietly behind him, stopped the shrivelled beaver’s tail from swinging back and forth, scratching the wood like a coarse pendulum.

  The magpies were edgy, but it was too dark for them to move from the cottonwoods. Here and there, a nervous peep. An iron-grey sky in the east where the stars were dulling. A coyote loped in the distance, glanced over its shoulder, cut south across the summer pasture. About an hour ’til sun-up. Chilled air crawled down from Bull Head Mountain, chased Coal Creek, rose out of the coulee, and flowed over the stubbled bunch grass. Starlight and sagebrush on his tongue. He could taste winter coming on.

  His horse cropped grass; mist streamed from her nose as she tossed her tail. She was sooty black with a silver mane. A good find some years ago, an auction horse, his favourite, strong working stock that never quit or let him down. A magpie sat on her back; the muscles on her withers stuttered under its feet like tightly coiled ropes.

  Lately, she didn’t move right. The bump on her foreleg, just below the knee, had grown larger. She shifted her weight from left to right. He knew she would rest a while longer, wait for the stars to fade as the sun rose. She blinked at him, eyes like gems. A narrow white stripe on her nose. Not a smart horse, nor a great horse. Just a horse that got the job done. She needed a rest and a good fattening before the winter.

  He walked past her, past the Delco generator, toward the pickup truck.

  Fred ran a tavern in town and had personally delivered the used truck and generator a few days ago. Maurice and Harold had gone to high school with Fred’s father, Orin, but dropped out to work the ranch after their own father died. The brothers knew their ideas didn’t cotton with town. That was over sixty-five years ago. Now that Maurice and Harold were on the downward slope tumbling toward eighty, Fred kept a promise to his father to update them on their business transactions, but really, Maurice knew he welcomed any excuse to check up on them.

  “She’s a beauty.” Fred kicked his truck door shut. “And she’s all yours.”

  Fred handed Maurice a bank draft for $67,500.47 and a bag of Oreo cookies to celebrate their latest run at the cattle auction.

  Maurice turned away, took a deep breath, and examined the cheque carefully. He held it up in the sunlight, squinting before he stuffed it in his overalls and gave his brother the cookies. Harold tore open the package, split one in half, and scraped the cream off each piece with his front teeth. Maurice shuddered at the sound and eyed the truck. Neither of them had driven a vehicle other than their tractor. Their ranch was blessed with streams and wooded groves and some of the valley’s best grass for livestock; horses got them everywhere they needed to go.

  “Best if you take her back with you.” Harold’s teeth were blackened with bits of cookie. “If it’s got tits or wheels, she’ll give us trouble. No use for her here.”

  Maurice booted the ground, stole peeks at himself in the reflection from the truck’s window. White wisps of hair poked out from beneath his baseball cap, faded brown with stitching across the front that read Never Trust a Man Who Doesn’t Drink, an ironic gift from Fred since Maurice never touched the stuff. Now that they had a generator, costs would shoot up. No telling how high if they used the truck. It didn’t feel right. Little leaks sink great ships—that was Harold’s philosophy.

  “What do you say, Maurice?” Fred said. “Give that horse of yours a rest. Test it for a few weeks, see how it works for you.”

  Maurice took a deep breath of the cool air coming down off the mountain. He felt Harold’s eyes survey him and nodded to Fred. Harold shook his head.

  “Did you want me to deposit that cheque, or are you aiming to hold onto it for a rainy day?” Fred laughed.

  Maurice pulled the money from his overalls and handed it to Fred. He stood silently with Harold as they watched Fred’s truck recede on the dirt road in the distance, a trail of dust behind him.

  Maurice glanced toward the cabin. Harold wouldn’t be awake for another hour, when Maurice got the stove fired up. His heart pounded in his chest, echoed in his ears. He slid his finger-tip along the weathered paint on the truck’s hood. Shivers shot through his arms. He grew bolder and ran his palm along the cold metal, traced the words with his calloused fingers: H-A-R-V-E-S-T-E-R, in large letters; International, like handwriting. He steered his hand along the curve of the wheel well that was gently sloped toward the headlights, grazed the silver circles that surrounded them clockwise and then counterclockwise, and stroked the metal grill quickly across the slats, strumming a steel song before he climbed inside and closed the door. Fred had left the keys in the ignition, but Maurice didn’t touch them. He checked the rearview. Dissolved starlight. Beaver tail still. Pewter bowl sky. He took off his ball cap, licked his fingers, slicked back his hair, tucked a few strands behind his ears before he put his hat back on. A bit late to worry about appearances.

  Maurice held the steering wheel and leaned back. Beyond the dashboard, Bull Head Mountain soared. He squirmed himself comfortable and turned the radio dial, dropped his right hand to his thigh. That didn’t feel right, so he gripped the steering wheel with both hands and then dropped his left hand to his thigh. That didn’t feel right either. He turned the window lever, lowered the window, and propped his left arm up. A breeze blew in, filled the truck with a brisk flush of damp air. His horse snorted; the cabin door opened. Maurice rolled up the window, slipped out of the truck, snapped the door closed, and hurried to his horse.

  Harold stood in front of the cabin. “You’re awake awful early.”

  “Couldn’t sleep.” Maurice stroked his horse’s leg.

  “You forgot to make a fire. Again.”

  Maurice looked up. Harold had a stare that could drop a grizzly.

  Harold nodded toward the truck. “She’s a goddamn eyesore.”

  “I guess so.”

  “You guess so, do you?”

  Maurice felt Harold’s gaze burn into him. He looked down at his own boots and was confused to see that he was wearing one gumboot and one work boot.

  “Fifty-percent chance of rain today, eh... boss?”

  Maurice flinched at the way Harold paused before he called him boss, the tone he used when he tried to get Maurice to talk.

  “Don’t you be getting crazy on me, old man.”

  “I’m sane as they come. We both know that.”

  “Do we?” Harold chuckled. “You’re so wound up, couldn’t pull a pin out of your ass with that tractor.”

  “Maybe you should talk less and get that generator fired up. I’m needing some coffee.”

  “Damn thing makes a racket. Costs too much to run. Maybe you should just fix us a fire so I can brew the coffee.”

  “I’ll get right on that,
boss.” Maurice tipped his hat to his brother.

  The brothers saddled their horses and crossed the trampled grass where their stock had fed during the summer. They climbed a rocky hummock and descended to the tall grass of the winter range. There were several sections of fence to run, and time was tight before the wind would carry snow down the mountain and blanket the landscape. They dug out the ground with sharp picks and used the blunt backs of axes to pound fence posts into the chunky, unforgiving ground. Both brothers tested each post with a firm shake and piled up rocks and dirt at the base before they moved on to the next. Harold slathered roofing tar on top of the exposed end of the post, a trick he learned from their father, to waterproof the ends. Once the fence posts were set, they strung barbed wire from post to post and stretched the wire with an old clamp they had used for years, hooked the end to a come-along, and pushed open the jaws. Maurice laid the wire in the open groove, and Harold pulled on the hook to close the mouth of it, ratcheting the come-along until the wire was tight. Occasionally he let out a low chuckle, as though in conversation. Maurice looked up to see what he laughed at, but Harold’s eyes never strayed from the wire.

  By late morning, their wrists were sore and the sun was high and cold, so they broke for coffee. They held the cups close to their faces; the dry tufts of grass whispered all about them. Harold squatted and picked up a sun-bleached horse skull in the sagebrush. He held it in front of his face and whinnied at Maurice. “Help, I’m dying.”

  “You keep horsing around like that and we won’t get any work done.” Maurice pulled the skull away from Harold.

  “Where’s your sense of humour gone to, boss? ’Member that hired hand we had last year? You put a dead mouse between two slices of bread. Had a sense of humour then.”

  Maurice contemplated the skull, turned it in his hands. Frail and brittle. Rows of tombstone teeth, loose and rattling in their plots. Dirt trickled out of the empty eyes. He loved in horses what he loved in the land, muscular and flawed, graceful yet brutal. The grass thrashed softly. The hired hand didn’t trust the brothers after the mouse sandwich. Maurice and Harold had warned him about the electrified fence meant to ward off bears, but he threw himself at it to see if it worked. Maurice found the man on his knees beside the fence grabbing his head with both hands, complaining of a headache.