In Open Spaces

by Russell Rowland

  I was completely thrown, humiliated that my secret had been revealed so publicly. My face was hot with shame, crimson, and my hand began to tremble. I was so embarrassed that I couldn’t even address what was obvious—that Helen had rifled through my things and found the letter. I felt the eyes of my entire family, and although it probably wasn’t true, what I thought those eyes were saying was that I had betrayed them.

  “Oh, I feel just horrible,” Helen continued. “Blake talked to me for the longest time one night about a letter he got from the government saying that Jack was never in France. Oh, Blake, I’m so sorry. I just assumed you’d told the others.” She put a hand to her cheek, and her tone was sugar sweet.

  I was paralyzed. Helen took another bite and chewed, looking directly at me.

  “What on earth are you talking about?” Rita asked Helen, incredulous. “France?”

  “Oh dear,” Helen said.

  I knew there and then that we were dealing with someone whose skills in the area of manipulation were far and above anything I’d ever imagined. The only mystery now would be what Helen wanted from us, and how far she would go.

  8

  winter 1933

  It didn’t take Helen long to establish a certain hold on the ranch. Ironically, Rita’s decision not to move into the big house, in defiance of Helen’s wishes, ended up working in Helen’s favor. Because when I moved in with Rita and the boys, although we spent most evenings at the big house, a natural separation had formed.

  But Helen was smart enough to realize that she had gained an advantage, and that treating Rita or me badly would only arouse suspicions of her motives. So she employed her considerable charm toward planning birthday parties for “the exiles,” as we called ourselves. Because Rita usually worked out in the fields, Helen suggested that we should just plan on coming to the big house for dinner each night, which Helen helped Mom prepare after she finished her day teaching.

  It became impossible not to wonder sometimes, despite the fact that Helen had so clearly invaded my territory to find the letter about Jack, whether I was wrong about her. Rita and I talked about it often.

  “Do you think that whole thing with the letter was just a bad decision?” I asked Rita during one of these discussions. “Maybe her family is more ruthless than ours. Maybe she felt like she had to do something dramatic to make a statement or something.”

  Rita sighed, looking up from her game of solitaire and shaking her head. “You are a trusting soul, Blake. You really want to believe the best about people, don’t you?”

  I raised my brow. “I guess so. I never really thought about it.”

  “Just look at it this way, Blake. If you were new to this family, and you wanted to gain an edge, who would you cuddle up to?”

  I thought. “Dad,” I said emphatically.

  Rita looked surprised. “Really?”

  “Sure. Of course. It’s his ranch.”

  Rita nodded. “Okay. Yes. That’s true. But…well, Blake, I don’t mean to be callous, but look at it this way…think about your folks. First of all, who looks like they’re going to be around the longest?”

  That was easy. Because of Dad’s smaller frame, the decades of work had taken a toll on him. He was stooped, thinner, his face taking on much the same haunted, ravaged, distant look that we saw in many of the disconnected men who drifted through our region looking for a bed for the night. “Mom,” I answered.

  “Exactly,” Rita answered. “She’s like the old water pump out there. When the rest of us are dead, and all the buildings have rotted away, somebody’s going to come along and find that water pump still spitting gushes of that stinky alkali water into a bucket, and your mom out gathering the eggs.”

  I smiled, nodding in agreement.

  “Your mom is the heartbeat of this place.”

  Again I nodded.

  “And what’s the quickest way to get through to your mom?” Rita then asked. “What is her biggest priority?”

  “The ranch,” I said matter-of-factly.

  Rita looked at me with a slight grin, and tipped her head toward me, saying with a look, “Try again.”

  “No? God, I’m not doing very well on this test, am I?”

  “Well, you’re almost right,” Rita said, laughing. “Your family, Blake. The family. Your mom would chop her arms off for her family.”

  “Well, maybe one of them,” I replied. “She wouldn’t be able to play cards without at least one.”

  Rita smiled. “Oh, if anyone could figure out a way…”

  We laughed.

  “But am I right?” Rita asked.

  I nodded. “Yeah. You’re right. The family.”

  Rita went back to her game. I picked up a newspaper, but my thoughts were still on the topic. “I guess the thing I don’t understand is why she works so damn hard at it? With her charm, and her intelligence, she could have made an impression without turning it into some kind of competition.” I shrugged.

  Rita nodded, looking up at me sadly. “That’s just it, Blake. That’s where you’re right, I think. Maybe her family is more ruthless…more…less trusting. If she doesn’t keep trying, maybe she feels like she’s falling behind. Some families are like that.”

  Rita’s head dropped back to her cards. Her hair was up, as it usually was, the thick straight brown bands pulled tightly into a ponytail. There were a few gray streaks now, glinting subtly in the lantern’s glow. Rita had never really talked about her family much, and it always made me wonder. Because she had become such a vital, positive influence on our family, it seemed odd to me that she didn’t have more of a connection to them.

  “Was yours like that?”

  Rita lifted her head one last time, and studied me with an expression I hadn’t seen from her before, a look that was even a bit frightening. I felt like a child who wasn’t quite grasping a math problem.

  “They were worse,” she said, and her tone made me regret asking. She dropped her head, and the discussion ended there, abruptly. I never mentioned her family again.

  “Frank, you see that?” Art Walters squinted into the sun, pointing just shy of the Finger Buttes. Art, in his increased sense of confusion, had been calling me Frank for several months. I tried correcting him a couple of times, but I soon saw it was pointless.

  I shielded my eyes and looked in that direction. “What, Art? I don’t see a thing.”

  “See that little bunch of pine trees there?” He pointed again.

  I nudged my horse closer to his, then followed his arm. “Okay, yeah. I see those.”

  “Left of there.” He waved his finger. “Just to the left and further along.”

  “Art, you’re crazy. There’s nothing out there but snow, and maybe part of South Dakota.”

  Art laughed and steam rushed from his mouth.

  “No, by god, Frank, I swear there’s a herd of antelopes out there. If you look a little harder, you can see a kind of shadow.”

  I buried my heels into my horse’s flanks and yelled over my shoulder. “All right, buddy. If you’re sure, let’s give it a look.”

  It was warmer than normal for December, and the sun sparkled in shades of pink, blue, and yellow off the snow, which lay quiet and still. No wind. And although our breath showed, I could feel the sweat on my chest. The butt of my rifle, which rocked in its scabbard, bumped against my knee. My saddle creaked as we galloped through a shallow draw toward the buttes. Art caught up with me.

  “Frank, if you’re thinkin’ about gettin’ out ahead of me so you can get the first shot off, you got a surprise comin’.”

  “Sounds like a challenge, Art.”

  “You got that right.”

  I had suggested this hunting expedition to Art at a dance the previous weekend. It was common knowledge that Art was in trouble up there in his ramshackle, tucked-away ranch. His brother Bert, the former bootlegger, was dead four years now, one of many who couldn’t wait the Depression out. He blew his head off, probably using the same rifle Art car
ried with him now. And Art’s older brother Sam, the hardest worker of the three, had caught his arm in a thresher two summers ago. The machine had ripped the arm from its socket, and Sam would have bled to death if Art hadn’t found him that afternoon.

  With Sam’s effectiveness diminished, most of the responsibility for keeping the place going lay with Art. And from what we could see, he’d made a hell of an effort. The fight to survive will bring the best out in a guy, I guess. But his efforts weren’t enough, and Steve told me that on his last visit to Art’s place, there was hardly anything to eat.

  Art didn’t realize I knew this, of course. In his mind this was nothing more than a couple of friends doing some hunting.

  “You see ’em now, Frank?” Art pointed again, in the same direction.

  I peered toward the buttes. “Art, I’m sorry, but for the life of me I cannot see what the hell you’re pointing at. Either you’ve got an eagle eye or you’ve been dipping into the moonshine a little early today.”

  Art shot me a bit of a hurt look.

  “All right, all right, I believe you, but I still don’t see anything.”

  Art, who was nearly sixty, showed the strain. His clothes were torn and threadbare. Even the brim of his felt hat was torn, so that one side hung down close to his ear.

  And the wind and worry had worked away at his face, cracking and drying it, pinching the skin around his eyes and mouth. He’d lost half his teeth, and his cheeks hugged his jaw so tightly it looked as though you could break the surface with your fingernail. It was a face common to many during the Depression, and although Dad still had his teeth, he shared many of the same features.

  We came up out of the draw and still had several hundred yards to go before we neared the grove Art had pointed out. The heat of the sun’s reflection oozed up from the snow, and I pulled my kerchief up over my nose to avoid getting burned. I kept my eyes glued to the spot where Art claimed to see the antelope, and after a while began to wonder whether he was hallucinating. We were close enough that a big herd would be easily spotted. Then we were close enough that a small herd would be easily spotted. And I expected if we did see any game, it would be a smaller herd, as the drought had also beaten down the wildlife in the region.

  “Frank!” Art pointed again, thrusting his finger toward the buttes, a frantic gesture.

  I squinted again, shielding my eyes. Finally—still a ways off, behind the trees—I saw, just barely, two antelope facing each other, their noses to the ground, where they fed on a small patch of green.

  “Art, how the hell did you see those things from way back there?”

  He laughed—a frantic, almost giddy cackle. “I ain’t lost all my senses yet, Frank.”

  We decided to circle through the trees, hoping they would shield us. We took it easy, slowing the horses to a walk, and we unholstered our rifles. From the trees, we were just a little out of range, so we’d have to sneak out from our shelter and get closer before we could get a shot off.

  Art whispered my name and signaled with his hands, waving and pointing to indicate that he’d wait there while I went ahead, so we could come at them from different angles. I waved and moved on, nudging my horse, wincing whenever she snorted or pawed at the ground. But the antelope weren’t so easily spooked, and when I was as far as I could get from Art without losing ground to the antelope, I raised my arm, and we crept into the meadow.

  They saw us immediately and took off, bounding in that four-legged, graceful way that makes most animals look stationary. Just as I started after them, a shot sounded, and I looked over to see Art getting set to fire again.

  “Art!” I yelled as loudly as I could. But he shot once more, and I turned my horse toward him, pummeling her flanks. “Art, stop! Jesus, what are you doing?”

  The antelope were not only out of range, but nearly out of sight. Art lowered his rifle, laying it across his thighs, then pushed his hat onto the back of his head. I caught up to him, and was about to tear into him, but there was something about his expression that stopped me. Something pathetic. He looked defeated.

  “Well, that wa’n’t too smart, was it?” he said quietly.

  “It’s all right, Art. Let’s go after ’em.”

  He looked up and shrugged, holding his mouth to one side. “Not much use now, Frank.” He threw a hand into the air.

  “Come on,” I said. I kicked my horse, and started in the direction the antelope had headed. I didn’t look to see whether Art followed, because I was sure he would.

  We followed the tracks until they led to a fence that the antelope had crawled through. We had to take a detour of about a hundred yards to get to a gate.

  “Frank, we ain’t never gonna catch up to these bastards,” Art said.

  “Art, you got something better to do this morning? We might as well give it a shot.”

  “Yeah, well, I guess. But I’m thinkin’ it’s too late.”

  “Art, shut up.” I swung a leg off my horse to open the gate. “Just shut up and follow me. We have all day. And if we don’t catch these two, maybe we’ll find a few others.”

  Art set his jaw, his lower lip pinched up against the upper, sticking out a little. He nudged his horse through the gate, spitting into the snow once he was on the other side. I closed the gate and mounted my horse.

  “You know, Frank…” Art looked thoughtful. He paused for quite a while. “You only talked to me like that one other time that I remember.” He fixed an eye on me as we started back toward the tracks. “It was the day I helped you pull your cow out of the bog.”

  “Art, you pulled a gun on me!”

  “Well, now, if I’m remembering right, there was some trespassing goin’ on that day….”

  I groaned and waved him off.

  “You thought I wasn’t goin’ to remember that part,” he said.

  “Oh, I remember. There was some trespassing going on, all right. And not only were you the one who was trespassing,” I said, half mad and half amused, “but that was your goddam cow.”

  “Oh, no, you’re just not rememberin’ things too clear today, are you?”

  I held my breath and decided not to continue the discussion, figuring that by the time we were through arguing, I’d be ready to leave Art out there to starve.

  “Art, the last thing I want to do is challenge your fine memory. Of course you’re right.”

  “Damn right.”

  After a silent half hour, we came up over a rise, and I spotted the antelope three-quarters of a mile away. I pulled up and put my arm out to stop Art, who was riding behind me. There was nothing but white, empty space between us and them, so we had to come up with a strategy.

  A line of brush ran along the east side of the meadow. We agreed I would sneak along behind the brush while Art approached from the other direction. We figured he’d scare them toward me if they didn’t see him too soon.

  The sun shone nearly straight overhead, and the warm sweat felt good inside my clothes. Tromping through the brush, my horse’s hooves unleashed the aroma of scrubwood and wild plum. I breathed deep. I kept a close eye on Art, trying to stay ahead of him in case the antelope jumped too quickly. I cradled my gun in my right elbow, the weight of its oily barrel heavy on my forearm. About halfway down, still well out of range, I heard a shot.

  “Damn,” I muttered. I was behind a thick bush and had to move forward before I saw Art, at full gallop, aiming at the bounding figures, again yards out of his range. He shot, then pulled his horse up. Art’s head jerked forward and back, and I could imagine what he was saying. Or maybe I couldn’t.

  I resisted the urge to ask “What the hell has gotten into you today?” until I heard Art’s explanation. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. He’d been hunting since he could lift a gun, long before I was born, and was actually known as one of the better hunters in our parts.

  “Those sons of bitches saw me and took off ’fore I knew what…” His eyes, desperate and wide, darted around me, over and under me, a
nywhere but at me, and it was then I realized how much Art’s rabid desire to get one of the animals might be affecting his judgment. He looked frantic, hungry for something deeper, more crucial to life than food. He had the look of a man who had to get one of these antelope to prove something, to make things right somehow, to give him a reason to keep on. It scared the living daylights out of me.

  “All right, Art. Let’s just take it easy. I think we’re okay. They’re headed up toward that grove of cottonwoods near Hay Creek. If they go in there, it will give us a good chance of sneaking up on them and flushing them out.” I slipped my rifle back into its scabbard. “Let’s rest for a second or two.”

  Art nodded, his head bobbing unevenly. “Sons a bitches took off ’fore I even woulda figured they could see me,” he said.

  It was possible the antelope really did see him and take off, but the more he talked, the more I was convinced that he’d shot at them first. I decided if we caught up to them again, I’d better make damn sure I shot before Art did. He was in no condition to hit anything.

  The tracks led exactly where I thought they would, into a grove of cottonwoods, an ideal spot. The cluster of trees was small and narrow, and it ended forty yards past where the tracks led into it, leaving us plenty of space to move around to the other side.

  “All right, Art. I’m going to circle around the end there. Give me about ten minutes to get to the other side and go on in. Try and flush them from the north, so they’re running past me, not away from me.”

  “I know, I know, Frank. I been flushin’ since before you knew your name.”

  “Okay, Art. Just wanted to make sure.”

  Art had his hand on the stock of his rifle, although it was still in its scabbard. He held that thing like he was afraid it would run out on him, and I had a bad feeling I wouldn’t get a shot off all day.