In Open Spaces

by Russell Rowland

  I think I was only out for a half minute or so, because when I came to, it only took me a few seconds to remember where I was, and what had happened. I was lying facedown, and I rolled over, ready to defend myself, but Art was crouching down over me, a wet kerchief poised above my face.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  My arms were wrapped around Art’s slight torso, gripping the front of his overalls as we rode his horse in search of Ahab. I could feel Art’s ribs, about to push their way through the threadbare cotton. My wet clothes were cool against my skin. There was a knot on my forehead, and a dull ache in my skull.

  I was still angry, or maybe more exasperated, trying to decipher the contradictions of the man in front of me.

  “Art, why in hell’s name were you shooting at me?” I asked. “You trying to murder me?”

  Art didn’t answer right away, but after a deep breath, he turned to talk over his shoulder.

  “I ain’t no murderer, Blake.” He shook his head, and kept shaking it, as if he needed to assure me, and keep right on assuring me. “Don’t be starting rumors like that.” The head continued to shake. “There’s been too much of that going on already.”

  I frowned. “Too much of what?”

  The head shook. “Rumors. Murders and rumors.”

  Again I frowned. “Murders?” I asked. “What the hell are you talking about? I haven’t heard any rumors about any murders.”

  Art shook his head. “I ain’t saying no more.”

  I puzzled over this strange comment, reviewing the recent history of our little community. There hadn’t been anyone killed in our county for many years, and the only death I could think of that was even accidental in a while was George’s. And then it hit me. And a sudden anger rose up in me again.

  “Art, are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

  Art’s head rotated again, back and forth, back and forth. “I ain’t saying,” he repeated.

  “Well, what the hell is it that you ain’t saying?”

  His jaw tightened, as if he was preparing to fight against any attempt to pry the words from his mouth. “I’m not gonna tell you what I ain’t saying.”

  “Goddamit, Art.” I got worked up, wishing there was a way to force him to tell me what the hell he was talking about. But I knew nothing I said would prompt any more information out of him. “So what the hell…goddamit.” I thought about what people might say, and the only conclusion that made any sense was that there might be speculation about Jack. But it was just so absurd to me at that moment that I hardly even thought about it.

  Then, out of the blue, Art decided to address something completely different. “Blake, I’m going to tell you something. Something important.”

  “Oh?” I refrained from saying something sarcastic. “Okay.”

  Art cleared his throat, in a great show of guttural gacking sounds. “Now listen here, Blake. I’m not a smart man. Everyone knows that.”

  He paused. I bit my tongue.

  “But I watch. I pay attention to things. More than people think I do.”

  I said nothing, letting Art set his own rhythm.

  “I never thought for one minute that I could go nowhere else, or do nothing else.” Art cleared his throat and spat. “But some people…some people are too goddam smart. Do you know what I mean, Blake? This place, this land, it beats hell out of people. Have you noticed that, Blake? Beats the holy hell out of folks. Do you know what I mean?”

  I didn’t really know what to say. This was a side of Art Walters that I’d never seen before, and I’d known him all my life. I’d never seen him, even with other adults, show any inclination toward carrying on a serious discussion about life. And I had a feeling that this was a rare occasion, that maybe nobody else had ever seen it before, either. It didn’t exactly explain why he was shooting at me, and yet I think in his mind, it did.

  “I’m sorry,” Art said after a moment of awkward silence. “I’m outta line talking to you about this. That’s your business, and I ought to know better.”

  “No, no. It’s okay, Art. Don’t worry about it. I’ll think about it. Really.”

  “Will you?” he asked, and he sounded genuinely surprised.

  “Yeah, I will. I mean it now.”

  “Okay,” he said, and I could hear in his voice that this pleased him. I was glad I had managed to look past my anger, and figure out what he wanted to say.

  Neither of us spoke again while we rounded up Ahab and went back to finish freeing the cow.

  For the next two hours, Art and I tugged, rested, watered, and tugged, rested and watered some more. Art had plenty of experience pulling cows from the bog, so he was full of good suggestions, like stuffing grass under the cow’s nose to give her some strength but also to firm up the mud a little. We secured ropes around each front leg, with one tied to each horse, once we had the cow’s torso clear of the mud. I don’t know if I would have been able to get the cow out without him. The ache in my head didn’t get any weaker, but it didn’t get any worse either.

  Once she was free, the cow stood unsteadily for a moment, her legs shaking. Then she lumbered across the pasture, giving a weak kick of her heels. We stood watching her, and I felt the warm satisfaction of pulling a life from the brink of death. But then I noticed her brand, which had been covered when she was in the mud. I started laughing.

  “I’ll be damned, Art,” I said, pointing. “That’s your cow.”

  Art squinted, checking the old cow’s flank, and turned, laughing, showing his toothless smile under that thick, drooping mustache.

  By the time I returned home, the bottom of the western sky was smeared bright orange as the rest of the sky darkened to blue-black. The sound of the river brushed my ears as I rode back toward the house, almost putting me to sleep with its soothing flow. The wagon was out in front of the barn, so I knew that Dad and Jack had returned from Belle Fourche.

  After feeding and combing Ahab, I went inside and sat up to the table, where a plate of food waited. I could hear Muriel playing outside, and I figured that Katie must be with her. Bob was wrapped in a blanket, curled up in a chair. Like Katie, he had been battling the flu. But unlike her, he didn’t show any sign of recovery yet.

  Mom had torn the whitewashed flour sacks from the walls to wash them, and she scrubbed one against the washboard. Dad dug at his thumb with a pocketknife. From the moment I entered the kitchen, I felt tension, and I knew my parents had been arguing again. Ever since George’s disappearance, they had fought more than I could ever remember, sometimes raising their voices to the point that the only relief was to go outside.

  “I was just about to come looking for you,” Dad said, his voice tight.

  “Yeah?”

  “How’d it go today?” Mom asked. But her voice was also strained, and I knew I was only being addressed as a diversion. A wisp of red floated from one side of her head.

  “All right. I found an old cow caught up in the bog over at Hay Creek.” I decided not to mention what happened with Art, thinking it would only add fuel to a combustible situation.

  “You got her out?” Dad pulled a splinter from his thumb, then studied both. I bit into a chicken leg.

  I nodded. “It was Art’s. He helped me out. Where’s Jack?”

  “He took Katie fishing,” Mom answered.

  “Good.” I wiped grease from my chin. “What time did you guys get back, Dad?”

  “Around three.” Dad sucked blood from his thumb. “What’s that?” He pointed at my forehead.

  “Oh, nothing. Just banged my head against the hoe.” I touched the knot.

  Mom squeezed murky water from a flour sack and shook it out with brisk, angry strokes. She hung it on the line she’d stretched across the kitchen.

  “Did you stay at the road ranch, Dad?” I asked.

  “Yep. That second Roberts gal, Sophie, I think it is…she ran off to Oregon to marry some older guy.”

  “Really?” Despite her mood, Mom’s ear for gossip was
strong.

  “Is she the tall one?” I asked, knowing perfectly well that she was. Sophie Roberts, the second daughter of the couple that ran the ranch where people could bed down for the night on their way to or from Belle Fourche, had been a striking figure from the time she finished grade school. She had the kind of flour-white complexion contrasting her shiny black hair that, when she entered a dance, everyone lost a step.

  Dad nodded. “God, son, you should see all the honyockers moving in. There must be twenty new homesteads between here and Belle, and those are just the ones I could see from the road.” He shook his head.

  Mom dipped another sack into the tub of water. I was glad that Dad brought up this topic, as it was something my parents were in complete agreement about—empathy toward these newcomers. By this time, the prime land, along the river and bigger streams, had all been claimed. Everyone knew that these latecomers were working against odds they hadn’t anticipated, lured by ads from the railroads claiming five times more production from 320 acres than anyone could expect.

  I noticed a tiny white dress draped over one of the kitchen chairs. “What’s that?”

  Mom glanced up. “That’s for Jenny’s baby.”

  I nodded. Jenny Glasser, Gary’s son Steve’s wife, had lost her baby a few days before. “When’s the funeral?”

  Mom stopped what she was doing, her eyes shifting from side to side.

  I studied her. “Mom?”

  “Wait!” She held up one hand. “Quiet! I heard screaming.”

  Muriel suddenly burst into the house. “Mom, Katie is running up the road. And she’s screaming.”

  We ran outside, where we saw a shadow flying toward the house. I raced ahead to Katie, who collapsed into my arms. Her hair was matted against her head from the sweat. Even her dress felt moist. Mom and Dad arrived just behind me.

  “What is it, honey?” Mom brushed the hair back from Katie’s sweaty forehead. “Is Jack okay? Where’s Jack?”

  “Where’s Jack?” Dad asked, his tone more impatient than Mom’s.

  But Katie was breathing so hard that she couldn’t speak. I carried her to the house and set her down in a chair. Mom knelt in front of her. “Katie, what happened? Where’s Jack?” Now her own tone was more urgent, more desperate.

  “Give her a chance to breathe,” I said. “Give her some room.”

  “What happened?” Dad insisted, ignoring me, moving closer to Katie.

  “It’s George,” Katie finally said, coughing. “Jack found him.” She burst into tears, and the coughing intensified. We all stood, stunned, silent, for several minutes. Dad muttered softly, his head rocking from side to side, eyes to the floor. Mom’s eyelids clenched together.

  My throat closed. I couldn’t have made a sound if I needed to. I found myself trying to imagine what George would look like after six months frozen underwater, but I stopped short of a picture, horrified that I would be thinking such a thing. Bob and Muriel started crying, and tears pushed toward my own eyes, but I blinked them back. I squeezed my eyes closed, wondering what Jack was doing. Was he fishing George from the river? If so, he’d no doubt need some help.

  “Let’s go, Dad.” My voice was deep and thick in my throat, barely recognizable. I started for the back door. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  Dad nodded.

  We found Jack two hundred yards downstream from the crossing, sitting on the bank with his head on his knees, in his hands. One bloated leg, nearly bursting the seams of its overalls, jutted at an angle from the water, bobbing gently with the current. The boot was gone, the foot blue. Upstream, about ten yards, Jack and Katie’s fishing poles were planted in the bank. One of them jerked with the weight of a fish.

  Dad prepared a lasso and inched down the steep bank.

  “Dad, shouldn’t we just go in and get him?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer, swinging the lasso above his head, then tossing it out over the rushing water. He missed the first time, but on his second toss, the loop flopped over the foot. I scooted down the bank behind Dad, sitting, and hooked my hands into his back pockets. He pulled. I pulled. Jack remained folded up on the bank, still hiding his face.

  The body broke free. We strained, dragging my brother’s mutated form onto the bank. Our racing breath was nearly as loud as the rush of water.

  George’s face was bloated beyond human proportion. His arms puffed from beneath his sleeves, bleached from months in ice. His skin looked like a cow’s bag—pale, almost transparent. Dad and I hauled the body further up the bank, struggling with the weight. Dad collapsed once we reached level ground. He rolled onto his back and stared up at the slate-gray sky.

  As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t avert my eyes from my brother’s distorted expression. His eyes and mouth were wide open, his cheeks swollen until they nearly hid his ears. One hand was clenched into a fist, the other lay innocently open, its fingers sausage thick. In a way, his appearance was a relief, because it didn’t look like him. This wasn’t my brother. The river had swallowed up George and regurgitated this strange form in his place.

  Dad and Jack were useless, I realized. Neither of them moved. Although his expression was as stoic and straight as always, tears ran down Dad’s weathered cheeks, something I’d never seen. I tried to keep the air moving through my lungs, recognizing that if anything was going to get done, I had to hold my emotions in check.

  I cleared my throat. “Come on, Dad.” My voice broke. “We’ve got to get back to the house. Mom’s going to be worried.”

  Dad had pulled his hands together against his chest, where they were clenched, as if ready to defend against an attack. His pinched, red-rimmed eyes met mine, and he nodded.

  “Right. Okay, son.” He lifted himself to a sitting position. I helped him stand. “All right. Let’s get him on one of these horses.” He sniffed. “Jack, give us a hand here.”

  Jack had still not moved. But at Dad’s command, after lifting his head and staring blankly for a moment, as if clearing his mind, he stood, his arms dropping to his sides. I got ahold of George’s arms, and Dad grabbed his legs. We hefted him up off the ground, and Jack stepped in, lifting the bulk of George’s torso. George’s skin was cold and soft, slightly sticky, like bread dough, and with his wet clothes and bloat, he was damn heavy. The feel of his skin made me feel cold myself, on the inside.

  Getting George draped over Ahab’s back was difficult, as his torso did not bend. But we balanced him on his stomach, then stretched a rope from his hands to his feet under Ahab’s belly. I noticed that the flesh on George’s leg had torn where Dad roped it. There was almost no blood, and the tissue inside the cut was as white as the surface. We did all this wordlessly, avoiding each other’s eyes.

  I finished tying the knot. Dad and Jack had already mounted their horses. I climbed up behind Dad, and held Ahab’s reins, leading him behind us. Ten minutes later, we approached the house. Mom stood on the stoop, both hands clamped to her mouth. Muriel clutched Mom’s skirt, and Bob stood behind her. Mom dropped her hands and moaned, disappearing inside the house when she saw the body, leaving the two little ones racing after her, clutching for her skirt.

  Despite the long day, and my tired muscles, I had trouble sleeping. Although George’s bed had been empty for more than a half year, I kept waking up and looking over at it. And each time I managed to drift off, my dreams were invaded by wolves, tearing into George’s body, which we had laid out in the barn. Dad was certain that the stench wouldn’t get too bad before morning, but I was worried that it was already strong enough to draw the attention of some predators.

  The wolves in my dreams were screaming, like humans rather than animals. The screams half woke me several times, until they sounded so real that I was fully awake. But in the time it took me to pass from being vaguely aware to waking up, I realized that I really did hear screams. I jumped out of bed, pulled on my overalls, and raced toward the barn. But halfway across the yard, I heard the screams behind me, in the house. Confused, I turned b
ack, and went inside.

  I smelled kerosene, and saw a muted light leaking beneath the closed door of the girls’ room. I opened the door carefully. Dad stood at the foot of Katie’s bed. Mom sat on the bed, bent at the waist so that her face nearly touched Katie’s. She held a wet cloth to my sister’s forehead and spoke gently. “It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s going to pass. Just relax.” Her voice sounded soothing on the surface, but I could hear the fear in it. Mom’s hair drifted out away from her head in a tangle of copper and white flags. I saw the strain on her face. It scared me, as this fear was rare for Mom.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “We don’t know,” Dad answered.

  “Should I go for the doctor?”

  “Jack already left to see if Doc Sorenson is in Capitol.”

  “Where’s Muriel?”

  “She’s in our bed,” Dad answered.

  I approached the scene, half not wanting to, preferring the thought of sinking back in my bed and covering my head with a pillow. Katie arched her back and screamed, her mouth stretching into a frightening rectangle. It looked as if the skin might tear around her teeth. I felt my own teeth clench together. One of Katie’s knees rose and fell time and again, thumping softly against the mattress. Her eyes, when they were open, darted around the room, without focus. It looked as if she could die at any moment, and I couldn’t imagine that life could be so cruel as to take another of us on the very day we’d found our brother’s body.

  “How long has this been going on?” I asked.

  “A couple hours,” Dad said. “We heard her moaning, and we came in to see what was wrong. She started screaming about a half hour ago.” Dad looked completely beaten down.

  Katie screamed again, her head bent so far back that it looked as if it could break off. She panted frantically, her chest as busy as boiling water.

  “Easy, baby,” Mom said softly. “Where does it hurt?”

  But Katie couldn’t hear her, and I realized that her condition was worse than I thought. She repeated a staccato “oh, oh, oh” between breaths.