Nothing but Blue Skies

by Thomas McGuane

  “Dad?”

  “Holly? Hol, is that you?”

  Frank went into the front office, once occupied by the hugely appreciated Eileen. Holly was standing there with her old high school girl grin. She was wearing a snap-button shirt and jeans with a scarf through the belt loops. The effect of the costume was a bit more “western” than Frank was accustomed to. He gave her a hug. Then she followed him into his office and allowed him to pull up a chair for her.

  Holly had moved back into town. She was taking a semester off to be with Lane Lawlor. This was better for Lane’s contacts in the range livestock industry, and Lane felt he had timber products well covered. He was working as a lobbyist for “some people.” Frank tried to ask mildly, “Which people?” but it came out a little strong. They settled for “people.” Frank was seething.

  “Have you seen Mama?”

  “I have seen Mama,” said Frank.

  “And?”

  “We were, well, we had an unsuccessful luncheon.”

  “An argument?”

  “No, we just couldn’t get waited on. Then I got annoyed, and you know how she is about me being annoyed.”

  “But that touches me.”

  “What does, Hol?”

  “You blowing your stack, Mama annoyed.”

  “Oh, yeah. Well, in that sense it was like old times.”

  Frank tried to make a couple of stacks of paper on his desk.

  “Do you miss those times, Dad?”

  “Every day,” Frank said.

  “You do?”

  “I do. I miss a lot of things. I miss you. My life is not in very good order.”

  “I know.”

  “Well, see, that embarrasses me too.”

  “Don’t let it.”

  “Some things get out of reach.” He was thinking that her proclivity for Lane Lawlor didn’t help.

  “We read in the paper about your putting chickens in the Kid Royale Hotel.”

  “Desperate strokes for desperate folks.”

  “But Dad, where did that idea come from?”

  “I didn’t originate it. They’ve done it in the East for years with old hotels. They’re really perfect chicken coops on an industrial scale. We think we can make money. It was a partnership I needed. I can’t really afford to restore the place.” Frank was conscious of talking too much. He could scarcely depict his pleasure in covering romance, from honeymoons to the Old West, with a thin layer of leveling chickenshit. He didn’t want to burrow around in all this anyway. He wanted to go fishing with Holly. He thought that if he couldn’t, he would suddenly die.

  They stopped by the house to gather their tackle. Holly’s was still there. Lane didn’t fish; he was an elk hunter and in fact had made a bit of a name for himself through his marksmanship, picking off infected buffaloes on the border of Yellowstone Park. Frank, seeing Lane’s picture in the paper, thought that, in his knee-high lace-up boots, his broad Stetson and his red plaid coat, he had rather anticipated the photographer. Cuddling his rifle, he had made several articulate statements about the Constitution and its bearing on gun ownership. Lane knew his stuff, that was for sure.

  It was a cool, pretty day and it seemed but a jaunt to get through the subdivisions, the more spacious acreages north of town with horses and, here and there, llamas in the yards. They passed low gumbo hills and wandered along the east branch of the Bridger River, then turned up the road to the creek where Holly had had such a triumph. Frank thought how much better it was to have done something together than to have spent all their energy in discussions. Today he hadn’t wanted to discuss his life, his marriage, his record as a parent. He had wanted to do something with Holly. Anything would have done — throwing a Frisbee, making chili, fishing.

  They pulled into the brush so as not to make their poaching more conspicuous than necessary. Frank drew the old bamboo shafts of his Paul Young rod from the rod tube and smelled the varnish in the rod sack. He had owned the rod for thirty years and it had become too valuable to fish with, probably, but he fished with it anyway. Frank felt good standing next to Holly and rigging up. She doubled her fly line and ran it through the guides faster than he strung his rod, running the point of his leader through the guides. He opened the battered aluminum fly box that had been a gift from Gracie twenty years before and they looked into the compartments.

  “We could wait and see if anything is hatching,” said Holly.

  “I think it’s best to be prepared to cast upon arrival.”

  “Give me a size sixteen blue-winged olive.”

  “Hackled?”

  “Please.”

  He handed her a fly and said, “I know you’ve got your own, but I’ll spot you one.”

  Frank tied on a 1930s Blackfoot River favorite called a Charlie’s special, which a friend in Missoula had tied for him. A note had come with the flies: “Excuse the sloppy job on these flies. The hackle was horrific. Every piece had a spiral stem. Must’ve come from some poor Indian chicken mutated by Bhopal.”

  By the size of her trout on their last trip, Holly was entitled to lead the way. They pushed through the woods, Frank gingerly carrying his bamboo rod butt-first. There wasn’t the number of wildflowers there had been previously, but a splendid stand of bear grass revealed itself on an open hillside. They were almost head deep in the streamside grass before they broke through and found that the creek was gone.

  In its place was a fetid mud channel beginning to crack in the sun. Where they stood in the middle of the channel, the banks rose high over their heads.

  “Are we lost?” Frank asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  They walked a short distance in the direction of what had been upstream, and Frank stopped. He said, “Right here is where you caught that fish.” He could see the deeply undercut bank, a cavernous space that had been an ideal chamber for a big fish to live in secretly. The ferns were dying on the banks, and here and there were the remains of fish, picked over by birds and raccoons. From the mud came an intense smell, undoubtedly from the millions of watery invertebrates that had lived there.

  They walked on and reached a fence that now crossed above their heads. Passing under it, they came to the heart of a farm. They could make out the upper parts of barns and granaries and electrical poles. They climbed out onto the bank. From here, Frank could see what had happened. The Caterpillars with which the farmer had built up a broad dyke to impound the stream were parked nearby. The ruptured earth on the face of the berm still bore the blade marks; and the impoundment behind it continued to fill, so that the serviceberry bushes and aspens that were now half submerged were still alive. Bright new aluminum pipes for an advanced irrigation system were pyramided on low wagons. Frank had a brief impulse to put a good face on this. “Looks like we’ll have to find someplace else to fish.” Holly nodded. “Is this fella a friend of Lane’s?”

  “Dad, I don’t think you can lay this one on Lane. And if the water was leaving the state, I’m for this.”

  “He’s the sort of fascist windbag that produces this kind of activity.”

  “I’m going home.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sure. And yes, this might be one of our followers. We believe in-stream storage is the basis of our future.” She was talking in a curiously rhetorical way, a recitation. The tone was, Take it or leave it.

  Frank drove Holly to her apartment. They talked very little on the way back. Frank thought that it was pretty unlucky to go fishing and find the stream had been stolen, particularly when you needed the stream for more than just fishing.

  43

  The phone rang in the dark. He had a feeling it might be Gracie, who got up about two hours before dawn. She was always worried about missing something. Frank was able to reach over to the bedside table and get it without turning on his light. It was Gracie.

  “Shall we try again?”

  “I’m willing to try again, if you are,” he said.

  “I’m talking about lun
ch.”

  “That’s what I mean,” he lied, “lunch. What did you think I meant?”

  “Lunch, I guess.”

  “No, let’s not have lunch. It’s too structured. Let’s go to the library.”

  “When?”

  “When does it open?” Frank asked.

  “I think nine.”

  “I’ll meet you in front,” he said.

  “Okeydoke.”

  “Well, good night.”

  “Goodbye.”

  Frank got up at daylight. From his bedroom he could see a blush on the houses along the street. A car went by and he looked down at its empty ski rack. A leisurely dog appeared and lifted his leg against the base of a stop sign, then circled it slowly, scratching with stiff legs. A magpie flew down onto a laurel branch and shifted its head back and forth for balance while the oscillations of the branch slowly came to a stop.

  In the shower, Frank thought about how he had always believed the ridiculous adage about how if a nail were lost, the shoe would be lost, the horse lost, the battle lost and so on to an avalanche of failure. He accepted these things as an aborigine accepts the airplane, as the poor accept Republicans. He knew that this was a useful thought process that would cease when he ran out of hot water. Since the house had only a thirty-gallon tank, his capacity for fruitful contemplation was limited.

  As the water cooled, and as he realized he had to save a little for shaving, he homed right in on this new loneliness which came not simply from solitude but from ambiguity about his everyday activities, activities that had long been a source of comfort. It was clear that beyond meeting living requirements, the only joy in business lay in humiliating the neighbors. Frank didn’t even know who they were! He probably ought to observe them again soon. In his present state, the bristling quest for humiliation by people in their big new cars and sprawling houses seemed healthy, a formula for happiness, a spiritual elixir, a sovereign to the hot-blooded in their pointy shoes.

  The sun was just up and hardening its light for the day when Frank got downstairs, where he found Phil Page making himself a pot of coffee. “You eat breakfast?” Frank asked. He always took the tone of immediately continuing some previous conversation.

  “I had some doughnuts.”

  “I’m going to make something. You want something?”

  “Sure, I’ll eat it.”

  Frank beat some eggs in a bowl and got out a loaf of bread. “Can you eat French toast made with raisin bread?”

  “Sounds great.”

  “So what’s going on?”

  “A lot.”

  “Really. Well, let me get this on first. You want to grab the OJ out of the fridge? Just put the carton on the table.”

  “Man,” said Phil from the refrigerator, “you need to clean this baby out. This shit is growing some blue fur. Fucking penicillin nightmare.”

  Frank put their breakfast on the table and sat down. When Phil sat, after dramatically washing his hands, Frank said, “Okay, go ahead.” He was checking out Phil’s long beard. It made him look like an old Appalachian miner. Phil had to pull it to one side while he ate, and it looked like a lot of trouble. Frank couldn’t imagine it helped his love life, unless women liked something like that waving around on their tits. It seemed unlikely. One hardly knew what they wanted. He remembered the sense of terror he had had when a woman psychiatrist he met at the Big Sky Ski Resort told him, democratically illustrating how she was human too, that there was nothing she enjoyed more than a cold bottle of Kristal champagne and a good spanking.

  “It was on the radio last night,” Phil said. “Some rancher said he wanted to shoot a wolf. He said he wanted to get caught so he could say his piece in court.”

  “That’s too bad but it’s no surprise. I heard the only one left was a male, but that was from my secretary and I don’t think she cares.”

  “There’s only one left. A big silver female.”

  “How do you know there’s even one left?” Frank asked.

  “She’s got a radio collar on her. That’s the one the Fish and Wildlife is tracking. They’re hoping she doesn’t get killed. She’s the last one. But that rancher said there’s lots more like him and they’re gonna get that wolf one way or the other.”

  “Is this going to be enough French toast for you?”

  “Yeah, it’s real good.”

  “It’s easy to make.”

  “Just dip the bread in there, right? And fry it?”

  “That’s it. So, we’re talking about Smokie, right?”

  “Right,” Phil said. “I’m thinking she must be trying to follow that wolf around, trying to keep it from getting shot.” Frank offered him the last of his French toast. “No thanks, you eat that. I’ve had plenty. Take a look at this.” Phil picked up what looked like a portable radio with a wide antenna on its top.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a radio direction finder. I stole it from the Fish and Wildlife truck.”

  “Oh, Phil. What are you going to do with it?”

  “I’m going to find where the wolf is hanging out, and that way I’ll find Smokie,” said Phil. “Maybe it’ll keep something from happening to her.”

  “Huh. Good luck. Hey, you know what? I think I’m drinking too much.”

  “Is that right. Do you think it’s got you?”

  “I was reading in the National Geographic about the Bay of Fundy, where they have these thirty-foot tides. You can walk out for miles on the bottom of the bay at low tide and pick up fish and clams and lobster. But you better know when the tide is coming back in. If you wait till it reaches your ankles, you’ll never reach the shore alive. I think maybe that’s the way booze works. I’m thinking I better watch it.”

  “I let it get to my ankles,” Phil said. “I know that.” He got up and walked over to the window, drew the curtain back and looked into the next yard. “I already know that. But anyway, look, here’s what I’m thinking. Maybe we better find her. Who knows what some of them cowboys are liable to do if she gets between them and the wolf, which is what she’s trying to do.”

  “Where’s this last wolf supposed to be?”

  “Over in the Tobacco Root Mountains.”

  “That’s not the easiest place in the world to get around.”

  “I want you to go in there and help me find her,” said Phil. “I can’t do it alone.”

  “Can you give me till tonight to figure out when I can go?” Frank knew that this high-minded notion would soon blow over. “Because you know what I’m doing today?” He was standing now. He straightened an imaginary bow tie, as though he were headed for the moment that would turn his life to dream.

  “What are you doing today?”

  “I’m going to see Gracie.”

  “Gracie,” Phil said as his face helplessly darkened. “What’s she doing back in town?”

  “How the hell should I know? What’s Smokie doing in Montana? What’s June doing on a Buick lot?”

  “What’s my wife doing fucking the doctor?”

  “And so on. Exactly.”

  44

  The library had a room that housed the papers of several early Montana governors. It had a long table meant for research, and beside it a tall south-facing window that framed the shape of a terrific maple that stood within a low-walled court. The maple fractured the intense southern light and filled the room with a blue, green and silver glow. Frank loved to imagine the contemplative people whose horizons were undiminished by a thirty-gallon hot water tank and who would let this fine and eternal light accompany the life of the mind.

  “How’s this?”

  “This is fine,” said Gracie. She set her bag on the table and took the back of her chair in her hands. Frank knew what would be in that bag: a Walkman and tapes, an apple, a plastic rain parka, an address book, a wallet, a paperback and at least one complete anomaly: once it was a New Orleans phone book, once a field guide to spiders.

  “So, let’s sit down,” he said. They sat on either s
ide of the table, as though they were at a meeting. Well, this was a meeting. Frank felt a sweeping comfort. Something near his center was entering repose. His head retired. He knew it was only a matter of time before the center boiled over and the head was back in charge.

  “Just so I can understand, Grace, Edward realizes that we are meeting?”

  “He does.” Gracie had her hair tied up with a piece of yellow silk. A few strands fell across her forehead and temples.

  “I just don’t understand why that is acceptable to him. I know there’re plenty of weird new males out there. But are some of them completely unpossessive?”

  “You would hope so, wouldn’t you? I think in Edward’s case it’s important for him to know that my … amorous past is erased. If I can freely meet with you, I think that would satisfy that requirement.”

  “ ‘Requirement.’ ”

  “Yes.”

  “It would seem that Edward is a completely healthy new man, then.”

  “He doesn’t think so. He believes that he has an addictive personality.”

  “Addicted to what?”

  “Money.”

  “You can be addicted to money?”

  “Edward thinks so. He thinks that it is every bit as addictive as cocaine or alcohol. His wife is very rich and he worries he will go back to her because of his addiction.”

  “He’s already spoken to my accountant about my financial health. Maybe he’s having a little slip.”

  “Haven’t you reached the point where you’ve lost interest in scoring off other people?”

  “My testosterone levels are about where they’ve been. Anything with warm blood makes my trigger finger itch.”

  Gracie dug around in her purse until she found her Carmex. She opened the lid and swirled the surface inside with her forefinger, then applied some to her lips. “Look Frank, I’m going to be honest with you. Edward feels his relationship with me began in deception and typified the behaviors he associates with his addiction. He says that if you don’t actually make something, the acquisition of money has to be based in deception. For example, in sales, the money you make is the difference between what the thing you sold is worth and what you have deceived someone into believing it is worth. On the other hand, everything Edward does turns to gold.”