“Oh. All right. I’ll get you one.” I stood and fetched one, and held it over the cotton curtain, where it was snatched from my grasp. But the towel got hung up on my thumb somehow, and when Rita pulled a little harder on it, and I simultaneously tried to jerk my thumb loose, we ended up pulling the curtain down. And there stood Rita, naked and wet.
She immediately covered herself with the towel, but for a brief moment, our eyes locked. I had never seen a naked woman before, not even in photographs. Despite the tauntings of my friends, I had passed on the occasional trips to a discreet house in Deadwood. Actually, I had gone once. But when we got there I got so damn nervous, I had to leave. I ended up waiting in a bar down the street, where I was greeted with a razzing that was unmerciful.
Now I stood before Rita, and although she had covered herself, I still pictured her as she had been seconds before. She was solid, her breasts large but still firm, the nipples dark and stimulated by the moisture and the cool air. I was struck by the curves—the way the lines slanted in from her breasts to her waist, then eased out again to form the lovely shape of her hips. It was a vision I would not soon forget, and its impact on me was powerful.
I felt a physical sensation that I had never experienced before. My erection was painful, as if every drop of blood, especially from my head, had rushed to my groin. I was dizzy. I felt as if I was falling toward Rita, and that I had no way of stopping myself. It was overwhelming, and almost entirely physical, as if the lower part of my body had a will of its own, separate from the rest of me. My head, my mind, was irrelevant, completely uninvolved in the process.
“Blake, maybe you ought to put that curtain back up before you faint.” Rita held the towel tightly around herself.
“Yes.” I suddenly jumped into action. “Yeah. Of course.” I fumbled with the curtain while Rita patiently waited, still covered. I didn’t look her way and eventually after much fumbling, I got the curtain hung. But when I went to sit down, the feeling stayed with me. And it got stronger. The image of her moist skin lifted a lump to my throat. It affected my breathing. I felt as if the weight of Montana was pressing down on my chest. And despite all my better judgment, and what I believed, and how much I respected Rita, and everything about my life that spoke against it, I found myself speaking to her.
“Rita?” I said, and I didn’t even know what I was going to say next. I had no idea.
But something about my voice must have revealed all that I was thinking, or all that I was subconsciously thinking, because I wasn’t thinking. There must have been nothing hidden in the way I spoke her name, because Rita didn’t respond. She simply dried herself and disappeared into her room, never coming out from behind that curtain, never acknowledging that I’d spoken to her.
When I lowered myself into the tub after dumping one more bucket of hot water into it, I thought about the fact that this same water had brushed against Rita just moments before. The realization made me hard again, and dizzy. I began scrubbing, rubbing the grime and slime from my skin. I washed quickly, then relaxed for a moment, taking advantage of what heat was left in the water. I flexed my arm, the one that the cow had squeezed earlier, and thought about the fact that the only females I’d ever felt inside were animals. And this thought brought on a chilly loneliness that had become a familiar companion in the time that I’d been living with Rita.
I would sometimes lie in bed, feeling as if Jack was still there, as if no matter how long we lived together, Jack would always interfere, even if we never saw him again. It seemed I would never escape the power he had over some of the things in my life.
I ducked my head under the water one last time, and enjoyed the confined silence for as long as I could hold my breath. And then I came up, brushing the water from my face. My efforts to stifle the vision had failed, and after I finished drying, I ducked into my room and pleasured myself to relieve the pressure. Still, I was awake for another hour.
Two days later, I came back to the house late one night, just past sundown, after a long day tilling. My throat was sore, filled with dust, and my arms were heavy from working the reins all day. When I walked in, Rita was bent over the washtub, scrubbing dishes. George and Teddy hunched over open schoolbooks at the table, scratching math figures onto yellowed paper.
On the floor next to the table, I noticed my worn leather satchel. I didn’t think much about it, as my mind was on the cup of cool water I’d just drawn from the well. But after drinking, as I filled a plate from a panful of roast beef and potatoes, I saw my suit hanging on my bedroom door. I looked at the satchel again and realized it was stuffed with clothes—my clothes.
I turned to Rita, who was watching me, waiting for me to notice. I heard a sniffle, and saw that Teddy was crying. I looked back at Rita.
“It doesn’t have anything to do with the other night,” Rita said. “Or you. It just doesn’t seem right anymore, Blake.”
Teddy cried openly, and George slumped off to his room
“You’re probably going to have a family of your own before too long….” Rita took a deep breath and turned away from the washtub, wiping her hands on her apron. Then she held them to her eyes, pressing firmly against the lids with her fingers, so her palms covered her mouth. She held this position for a full minute, then lowered her hands and took another breath. “And the boys and I might as well get used to living alone.”
I stood looking at her for a while, and I felt the corners of my mouth falling. Part of me wanted to argue, to put up a fight. Part of me was thinking about one night when Rita told me she still missed Jack, and realizing that, as impossible as it seemed, this was still true. And I resented the fact that even though I’d been there every night, and listened to her complaints about Helen, and shared some of my own concerns, could it be possible that she still felt more for Jack than for me? I thought about telling her how I felt. But just about that time, she looked up at me with an expression of slight pleading, and I could tell just from this look that she knew, and that she didn’t want me to tell her.
And I knew that I had just been a guest in this house. That this was Rita’s house, and my stay had ended. It seemed I should say good-bye, but that didn’t make sense, considering where I was going. So I picked up my satchel, draped my suit over one arm, put a hand on Teddy’s heaving shoulder, and left.
The big house looked a long ways off that night. It was dark, with the smell of meadows muted by dust, and quiet except for the clicking of locusts. Just before I took that long walk, I decided to pay a visit to some old friends. I headed for the barn, where I dropped my satchel by the door.
The old whitewashed stick figures had faded with age and weather and from animals rubbing up against them. I dug one of my baseballs out of the bin where we kept the oat buckets and spare bridle parts. And I started throwing pitches against the wall. I threw and threw, and the more I threw, and the more my body warmed up and the blood coursed through me, the angrier I got at my brother Jack. I thought about all the anguish he had caused his wife, and my parents, and all the extra work he’d heaped on us all, even when he was home, and I thought about how callously, even after all that, he could just up and run off again.
I started throwing my curveball, but it had been a while since I’d used those muscles, and I began to feel it in my elbow. So I went back to burning fastball after fastball against that wall, belt-high to the stick hitters. And I pictured Jack’s head on the batter, and I gritted my teeth and whipped a fastball, and I don’t know whether it was intentional or not, but that ball went right for that poor stick bastard’s head, and it broke clean through the wall.
As fate would have it, Helen—the reason I’d moved out in the first place—just happened to be walking back to the old homestead house as I headed satchel in hand toward the big house. She looked at the satchel, and I swear her eyes lit up like a goddam forest fire.
“Hello, Blake.” It was the best reception she’d ever given me.
“Helen, do me a favor, will you?” I said. “Mind your own
damn business for a change.”
To my dismay, the command had very little effect on her. She just smiled, looked down at the satchel again, and said, “Okay, Blake. Whatever you say.”
12
summer 1939
In the absolute middle of a clear blue sky, the sun sat with great satisfaction, spreading its heat and light and a slight, undulating buzz through every square mile of open space in Carter County. The ground lay tired, beaten, surrendering its skin to the feet, hooves, and wheels that trundled over its increasingly bare surface. The topsoil had long drifted away, and what remained was hard, gray clay that, in those rare instances of rain, formed deep, unforgiving ruts. Footprints stayed molded into the earth for months, reminders of a mid-shower trip to the outhouse, or to the pickup for a snort from the bottle under the seat. If you hit a footprint or a rut just right, you could break an ankle. The creek beds curled up like dried leather, and the grass turned yellow, smelling as if cooked.
We, the residents, were also beaten, and tired, and our skin was weary of the sun soaking into it, baking it deep brown and pulling the moisture from us until we could sleep twelve hours a night, with a nap during the day—along the riverbank, or under one of the few trees still bearing leaves, or under a wagon. We only wanted water. That was all. Everything we needed depended on water.
During the thirties, the banks of the Little Missouri River had lost touch with the flow of water. A thin band of current trickled through the middle of the waterway, leaving a gap of ten feet on either side between the wagon-wide ribbon of brown water and the riverbank. The lowest I ever saw it was the summer of ’37, when the river was below my knee. If it was a foot deep, then it was twelve inches exactly. When we took a herd of cattle or a flock of sheep to the river to water them, you could almost see the level of water drop as they drank. I remember crossing the river once, and wishing it would become the threat it had been when it sucked George beneath its surface. The thought shook me for a moment, although it made perfect sense when I considered it.
As it turned out, the spring of’38 brought some rain, and although we were hopeful, we didn’t get too excited. But ’39 was also wet—still far below average, but better than we’d seen for almost two decades. There was indeed hope.
I drove our tractor around and around, circling the big meadow, pulling a heavy rake with teeth as tall as a child, gathering hay into mounds. The dust followed, also gathering, a cloud that grew as the morning passed. I wore a kerchief over my face to keep the dust from filling my nose and mouth, but nothing could keep it from my eyes, and I had to squint. I could barely see where I was going.
My thighs ached from working the pedals, and I could feel the hot metal through my boots, as though there were no soles. The engine roared between my knees, its heat drifting up through my legs, through my clothes, boiling my skin until I felt almost feverish. I carried a jug of water, wrapped in damp burlap, which I stopped to drink from and pour over a kerchief, rubbing the damp cotton across my face and inside my shirt. But the water was warm as tea by noon.
Dust and short stalks of hay settled inside my clothes, causing an itch here and there. These I learned to put out of my mind. Otherwise I would spend half my day reaching inside my clothes to scratch or dig out a piece of hay. I needed my hands—the right to steer and the left to pull the lever that lifted the rake when its belly was filled with hay.
Behind me, Dad and George followed with the team and wagon, pitching mounds of hay into the wagon bed. Their figures fluttered in the waves of heat—bending, jabbing, tossing, bending, jabbing, and tossing. I would trade jobs with Dad later, in the afternoon.
George was a teenager now, fourteen, and whether it was the age or the nature of his temperament I don’t know, but he was still sullen, with a dash of dry humor. He had developed a sudden desire to spend time with Grandpa, his namesake. The two of them were an interesting pair, playing silent hours of gin or cribbage or trudging off wordlessly to drop a fishing line in the river. They had less to say than any two friends I’d ever seen, which was probably what they valued most about each other.
Teddy, at eleven, was his ever-enthusiastic, curious self. Most of his time was spent alone with a sheepdog named simply Pup, whom he trained to do tricks that left us gaping. At one point, Teddy decided to teach Pup to walk along the top plank of the fence around our yard. We smiled, watching him lift the shivering dog up onto the inch-wide plank time after time. She would stand whimpering and shaking, four feet from the ground, take a few tentative steps, and then tumble into Teddy’s waiting arms. But Teddy was persistent, and after only a week, he had Pup hopping onto the fence herself, stepping carefully along the plank, then smiling and barking when she was back on the ground.
As for Helen, the conflict that had occurred between her and Mom had never been resolved. Helen had taken it badly. She would sit, quiet and tight-lipped, an injured look permanently carved into her face. Bob found himself in the unfamiliar, uncomfortable position of having to speak for both of them. If anyone directed a question to either of them, Helen would turn to him. She only spoke—in clipped, terse tones—to correct him when his facts were confused.
I found her behavior more infuriating than when she had been completely artificial, but the whole situation provided endless delight for Rita, who would direct all of her questions pointedly toward Helen, still looking at her while Bob fumbled through an explanation. Although I understood Rita’s pleasure in this, and I found it amusing at first, I thought it was unnecessary to keep it going for as long as she did. I was worried about consequences for Rita.
Meanwhile, Bob and Helen had decided that the tiny old homestead house wasn’t big enough, especially with her obsession with making a few babies. Bob started building a new house near the river. He didn’t ask for help, although I considered offering. But a few weeks after he began work on it, Steve Glasser became a regular fixture there on the weekends. Unfortunately, by the time Bob finished the house, Steve and Jenny had become cool to the rest of the family. Obviously, Helen had gotten to them somehow, probably placing the blame for the blowup on Mom.
After several hours of driving, around and around, turning forward to check the direction, turning back to watch the rake, the engine roaring until the sound consumed everything around me, it seemed as if the tractor and I were the only things that existed. My mind wandered. I had been daydreaming a lot, ever since the trip to Belle Fourche with Bob. I often found myself thinking about other places, other lives, wondering whether the twenty-odd years I’d dedicated to the precious land around me would ever amount to anything besides more work. I sat in front of the radio at night, listening to news from places I had heard about but never been to, and I tried to imagine them—what life would be like as an autoworker in Detroit, a teacher in Boston, even a congressman in our nation’s capital. I read letters from Muriel and Stan, and sometimes considered pulling up stakes and moving to Butte, where Stan said he could always get me a job working in the mine.
On this day, I thought of Omaha, a trip that was still fresh with images, smells, and texture after fifteen years. I remembered the delicate, white-faced couples with tailored clothes and rosy cheeks, chattering and walking casually, their gleaming shoes clicking against the sidewalks. And again I wondered what those people did for work, what job would allow someone to spend any night of the week out dining, dancing and drinking instead of resting your weary body. I thought about Satchel Paige and the other players, and how exciting it must be to play baseball for a living. Although I had often reflected back to my tryout, I had made a concerted effort not to do so with regrets. Lately it had been harder.
All these thoughts filled my mind, shifting and jumbling among themselves as the tractor shuddered beneath me, my body functioning unconsciously, steering and lifting the rake, lowering the rake, lifting the rake, lowering the rake, until I suddenly felt a presence very close to me. I nearly fell off my seat when I turned to find George standing on the running board not thre
e feet away. I cut the engine.
“My god, you scared the hell out of me, George.”
“Sorry, I been running alongside of you for five minutes. I guess you didn’t see me.”
“My mind was drifting a little, I guess. Is something wrong?”
He shook his head. “Lunch time. Hungry?” George’s voice cracked. It was beginning to change, and he talked carefully, trying to hold it in the lower register. But whenever it jumped up to the boy voice, he grimaced, as though he’d made a mistake, letting it get away from him.
“Sure. Have you ever known your Uncle Blake to work through lunch?”
He shrugged and didn’t smile, indicating without words that he didn’t care one way or the other. He was just the messenger, and he’d already failed at that by letting his voice break. I stepped down from the machine as he dropped off the opposite side, and we walked toward the wagon, where Dad pulled food from a saddlebag, spreading it out in the wagon bed.
“Looks like we might finish this meadow today,” I said.
“Yeah.” George nodded, looking behind him.
“How’s your back holding out?”
Shrug. “All right.” He answered softly, as though that would help keep his voice in check. “For an old man,” he added.
I chuckled, but decided not to subject him to any more of the torture of conversation. We walked silently, kicking up dust with every step.
“Dad, you ready to take over for me after lunch?”
He nodded. “How’s the tractor running?”
“Fine. No problems at all.”
“Looks like we’ll finish this meadow today,” Dad said.
I smiled at George, who almost grinned.
We polished off the bread and leftover fried chicken in a few jaw-grinding minutes, gulping warm water from a jug to push the food through our dust-dried throats. Then Dad and I rolled cigarettes and smoked, sitting in the wagon bed, swinging our legs and gazing out at the prairie.
In Open Spaces Page 25
