In Open Spaces

by Russell Rowland

  “Did you know about George trying out, too? Did you know he tried out with the same scout?”

  Jack’s smile disappeared. His head dropped. He went immediately into deep thought, and I suspected he wouldn’t even answer the question. But he did. “George?” he asked. “You mean Junior?”

  “Yeah.”

  Jack’s narrow eyes opened, then fell, but for the brief moment that they were open, they revealed an emotion I had rarely seen in Jack. It was fear. “No. He did?”

  I nodded. “You didn’t know?”

  Jack shook his head.

  His silence had an impenetrable air, and again, I almost backed down. But I was pleased about going as far as I had, and I went with the momentum. I knew Jack was lying, and suspected there was little hope of getting an admission from him. But I wanted to try. I felt as if I had to try. “So you never knew, huh? He never talked to you about it?”

  Jack’s whole body tensed up, and I could almost see his mind working away, old wheels whirling, picking up speed. He started cutting the potatoes into quarters. “He may have mentioned it. I don’t remember.”

  The pained look on Jack’s face was hard to read. There were so many things that it could mean. He could be bothered by the mere mention of George, and the reminder of the painful day that he found him. Or he could be bothered that I was treading on an unpleasant secret. Whatever the case, I could see that nothing was going to push this conversation any further along. This suspicion was confirmed when Jack cleared his throat and made an abrupt shift in the conversation.

  “Listen, Blake.” Jack dropped his head, locking his fingers together, studying them intensely. “Maybe this is a good time to talk to you about something. I don’t know. Maybe not.”

  Jack stared at his hands, thinking, for quite a while. And I sat there wondering whether I wanted him to continue. If this was going to be some kind of confession, I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear it. Although part of me wanted to know what happened the day George drowned, I had my doubts about what purpose this revelation would serve now, nearly twenty-five years later. Would an admission of guilt just drive a bigger wedge between Jack and me? And what would my responsibility be if he told me? Would I be obliged to share this information with anyone? The law? My family? All of these thoughts blew through my mind in a matter of seconds.

  “I just wonder, Blake…well, it doesn’t seem like you think much about the future…about how things could play out.” Jack turned toward me, sideways, eyeing me from that angle. “You know what I mean?”

  “Well, I think so. Yeah. Actually, I do think about it.”

  “You do,” he said—a statement. “Okay. Then tell me something.”

  I nodded.

  “Let’s say you never get married. Let’s just set up a little scenario here.” Jack held his hands out like he was cradling a baby. “You never get hitched, and Bob knocks up Helen a few times, and Rita stays here, and I stay here.” He looked up at me, still holding his hands in the same position. “Who’s going to take over the ranch in that situation?”

  I thought about it. “I don’t know.”

  “Exactly.” Jack nodded enthusiastically. “That’s my point.”

  The unknown quantity of all this, of course, was him, Jack. What did he want?

  Jack threw his hands in the air and let them come to rest in his lap. He shook his head. “As far as I can see, Blake, it’s up to you. I’m not in any position to take charge. But if Bob could get some babies pumped out, he might have an argument there. Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about that.”

  I couldn’t say I hadn’t, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell Jack this. I sighed. “Well, it’s not that easy to just go out and find a wife, you know.”

  Jack snorted, and shook his head. “Goddamit, Blake, you annoy the hell out of me sometimes. You got a prospect all lined up…she’s even got kids. You manage to hook Sophie and you’re set. A wife and four kids? There’s no way Bob can get a hard-on four times in his life.” Jack laughed, and I couldn’t help but smile myself. “Just give it some thought, buddy.”

  “I will,” I agreed. “Believe me.”

  A week later, I received an invitation to have dinner at Sophie’s home the following Sunday. My throat closed up. I would go, of course. I didn’t think otherwise for a moment, and I was amused by how quickly I discounted all the reasons I had carefully laid out, like Sunday clothes, for never going back.

  The appointed day was another rainy one. This time the sky was blue-black, covered with clouds, although the rain didn’t fall as hard—more of a persistent mist, a drizzle, unusual for our region. We were used to two or three hours of driving, roof-pounding drops that left spots the size of quarters in the dust. But this mist started in the early morning, and was still drifting when I left at two o’clock in the afternoon.

  Jack gave me a sly smile as I left the house in my suit and oiled hair. “Not worth it, huh,” he said. I blushed and smiled.

  Halfway to Belle Fourche, the quiet whisper of rain against the roof was interrupted by a loud tick, followed by another, and another, then several.

  “Damn!” I muttered as a gust of wind brought a patter of hail against the windshield. The pellets built up quickly, and a sudden blast poured down onto the pickup, as though a wagonload of corn had been tipped from about ten feet above the roof. I pulled off to the side, waiting for the storm to pass. I rolled a cigarette and tugged at the string of the tobacco pouch with my teeth. I smoked and stared at the little frozen stones beating against the glass. A burning smell filled my nose, and I looked down to see an ember resting in the middle of my tie. “God damn.” I brushed the tiny pellet of orange onto the floor and examined the kernel-sized hole, rimmed with brown, right in the middle of a white stripe.

  The storm lasted twenty minutes, blasting the steel roof with unfailing persistence, like a prairie wind. I would be late.

  The sky cleared almost immediately, as if the clouds had given everything they had. I drove as quickly as I dared, slowing to forty miles an hour after I slid toward the ditch a couple of times. I was late anyway. I buttoned my coat, trying to cover the hole in my tie.

  Sophie came to the door, her lips wet and red with rouge. She wore a navy-blue dress with tiny flowers of different colors, and white lace all around the edges. My chest filled with air, and I felt as if no amount of exhaling would empty my lungs. She smiled, opened the door, and gripped my upper arm. Her touch brought a blush to my cheek and a skittering shiver up my arms.

  “Sorry I’m late,” I said, my voice pinched.

  “I figured you would be. I half expected you to turn around with that storm!”

  Not a chance, I thought. She led me to the kitchen and I was happy to see no sign of Albert. Laurie sat at the table, pouting and snapping green beans in half, tossing them angrily into a bowl.

  “Have a seat,” Sophie said. “Say hello to Blake, Laurie. You remember Blake?”

  Laurie pushed her lower lip out and said nothing, giving me a brief, unpleasant look.

  “The children take turns helping me with dinner. Today is Laurie’s day,” Sophie said, winking by way of explanation.

  I smiled. “That’s nice of you to help your mother out, Laurie.”

  She continued to ignore me.

  “Laurie, you’re being very rude,” Sophie said.

  “No I’m not.”

  Sophie shrugged and sighed, and I smiled at her.

  “So are the others outside?” I asked.

  “Yes, they couldn’t wait to get out there the minute the storm was over. No doubt they’ll come back all covered with mud.”

  I smiled. I was impressed with Sophie’s amused ambivalence about the prospect of her children coming in muddy with a guest in the home. I had a sense that she wasn’t just acting as if it didn’t matter for my sake. A pan of meat sizzled on the stove, crackling and spitting its juices, and Sophie filled another pan with water, dumping the green beans into it, and placing it on another burner,
where the flame burned the moisture from the pan.

  “Laurie, go call the others,” Sophie said.

  The prospect of putting an end to her brothers’ and sister’s fun brought Laurie out of her snit, and she rushed out the back door, yelling before the screen slapped shut.

  “Blake, I’m very happy you accepted my invitation,” Sophie said. “I wasn’t sure you’d want to come back after that last visit.”

  I had been standing ever since I walked into the house, and I suddenly felt foolish. I sat down. “Oh, no. It wasn’t that bad,” I lied.

  She smiled knowingly. “Albert is a very good friend, but he thinks because he is rich and good-looking, he can say anything and everyone will think he’s charming. Let’s just hope it goes better this time.”

  I breathed out, a rush of air that came from way down, below my lungs.

  It did go considerably better, of course. The food was delicious and Sophie proved to be a gracious hostess. The children were as well behaved as one could expect. I could tell they didn’t like having a strange man at the table. Only the younger boy Andrew, showed any interest in me. However, he also told me that it was time to go home after dinner. I didn’t take it personally. I teased them a little, but they acted bored, or tried to hide their smiles when they couldn’t help but laugh.

  “What grade are you in, Millie?”

  The older girl, who was tall and shy, also blond, looked at me with indifference, her cheeks reddening. “Seventh,” she said.

  “Do you like school?”

  She shrugged. I thought of George.

  “What about you?” I asked Wade.

  He looked serious, thoughtful, as he carefully cut a corner off his steak. I could see the same deliberate, meticulous manner his father had. “I’m in fourth grade. I think I’ll like school better next year,” he said, “when I’m a fifth-grader.”

  “I’m in second grade,” Andrew volunteered. “I hate school!”

  The other kids giggled, and Sophie gave Andrew a stern look. But she raised her brow and turned up one side of her mouth, looking at me. “He does,” she said. “But I think he’ll get over it.”

  “I’m going to school next year,” Laurie said.

  “When you’re six?” I asked.

  She looked surprised, then mad. “How do you know?”

  I smiled and tilted my head. “Just do,” I said.

  The rest of the evening was fairly easy, and I felt the muscles in my neck and shoulders loosen as time passed. The kids ran off to play after dessert, and Sophie and I sat in the living room, drinking coffee and talking until dark. It was mostly small talk, about common acquaintances and such. But I couldn’t stop looking at her. I was surprised to find that she was a little bit unsure of herself. She mentioned being twice widowed several times, and it occurred to me that this would probably be a much bigger deal than I imagined. There would be men who wouldn’t come near someone like that, thinking they were jinxed or something. Or worse, there would be those cruel enough to consider her some kind of harlot. I’d heard that kind of ridiculous talk before about other widows. I thought it was strange that none of this had entered my mind before, but I realized later that in my own private view of the world, I probably saw Sophie as the same person I had met nearly twenty years before. It was hard for me to separate that brash, forward young woman from the one who sat before me now, saying things like. “It’s hard to imagine who would want someone like me.”

  “Blake, do you think you’d like to come back next Sunday?”

  I said yes without hesitation.

  “Good,” she said, reaching out and resting her hand on mine. “I’d like that.”

  Driving home that night, I understood for the first time in my life why people get married within weeks of meeting. I felt like going home, packing my things, and driving right back. I had to laugh at myself. Was it possible to change your mind about something so quickly, I wondered, or would this feeling pass in a couple of days?

  It didn’t, and before long, I was doing just what I’d always found so strange in others—driving to Belle a couple of times a week, sleeping on Sophie’s couch and rising before the sun to drive home in time to get to work.

  Sophie was hesitant, cautious. I suspected losing two husbands would give a woman cause to hesitate about talking freely. But she made the effort, fighting the reservations, which I admired. She was very thoughtful about what she said, but it was clear that once she made up her mind, she had strong opinions. She wasn’t saying what she thought I wanted to hear.

  I loved her house. It was small, but filled with delicate, decorative things. Nothing fancy, but she’d managed to brighten her home without extravagance. It was quite a contrast to the practical, efficient home my mother had laid out for us. No frills there. I found the difference appealing.

  One Sunday afternoon, after we had fixed a fence that a bull had torn up, I sat at the dinner table with the rest of the family and ate as quickly as I could, thinking that I still needed to clean up before the hour-and-a-half drive to Belle Fourche. The clock showed two o’clock. It was an unusual day in that everyone was at the table—even Jack, Helen, and Bob. About the time I planned my getaway, Jack took a look over at me, sensing my intention, and cleared his throat.

  “Hey, Blake, before you take off…” Everyone laughed, and I reddened while Jack paused to allow the laughter to fade. “I’ve got something I want to put out here…something I need to tell everyone. Or maybe I should say…well, it doesn’t matter how I say it, actually.”

  Everyone stopped eating, although there was little sense of urgency or drama about it. For all we knew, he could be announcing that he was going to buy a new pair of boots. But it was unusual for Jack, or any of us, to request this kind of attention. So our forks hit the table, and we were a captive audience.

  Jack cleared his throat again, looked down at his plate, and took a deep breath.

  “I been trying to think of a way to ease my way into a little matter that’s been on my mind, but I think it would be best if I just come out with it. I know I’m not the most popular member of this family, and I don’t have any hard feelings about that—I understand the reasons—but I also know this place could use some help. I know that there is a lot of work that hasn’t gotten done just because money’s been a little short—things like painting the house.” Jack seemed to run out of breath about this time. So he took a big gulp of iced tea while we all sat in rapt attention, wondering what he could possibly be leading up to. He cleared his throat one more time. “Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that I put quite a lot of money away while I was out there fooling around, and what I’d like to do is…to buy the ranch. I want to buy it.”

  “Are you out of your mind?” The words jumped from my mouth, for once, before I had a chance to even think. “No. Absolutely not. No.” The next thing I knew, I was standing up, my sense of betrayal throwing me into an emotional response that caught me completely off guard. But it was suddenly so clear to me that when Jack talked to me in the barn that day about finding a wife, he wasn’t thinking about me. He didn’t have my interests at heart. He just wanted to make sure he had me on his side. He didn’t want to have to contend with Bob and Helen. He wanted an ally.

  “You can’t be serious,” Mom said to Jack.

  “I am. I am serious.” Jack’s mouth was slightly open, conveying his shock at our response.

  “Do you honestly believe that after all we’ve put into this place, and all the work we’ve done while you were out there doing whatever the hell you were doing, that we would be willing to hand this place over to you just because you’ve got some money tucked away?” I had never been so angry. I couldn’t stop myself. The thought of stopping myself didn’t even enter my mind.

  Jack held his hands out, palms up. “But I can help. I can help this place.”

  “No.” This final, firm word came from Dad. “No, Jack. You’re out of line here.”

  “That’s right,” Mom seconded
.

  “What makes you think—” I said, but Dad held up a hand.

  “Let me finish,” he said, and I nodded, clamping my teeth together, and pressing my tongue against them. It felt as if my tongue might cramp up.

  Dad bowed his head for a moment, and closed his eyes. His lips squeezed together. Finally, he looked up, and there was a look in his eye I hadn’t seen in years—a fire, a conviction. “I’m so goddam sick and tired of the games that go on around this house. I’m so goddam sick and tired of it.” Dad’s voice was shaking, he was so angry. His head quivered. “I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t give a damn if none of you get this ranch. I’ve got a good mind to sell it to somebody else…somebody outside of the family because I’m just so goddam sick and tired…I’m sick of it.” He pounded his fist on the table at this last phrase, and we all jumped. Dad stormed out of the house. He slammed the back door with such force that the building quivered.

  My family sat in a stunned silence. Nobody’s eyes met. I sank slowly into my chair. I hadn’t seen my father act with such violent force since the day he hit me, and I can only guess that if anyone else was feeling like I was, they were thinking hard about what he said, or maybe more about the way he said it. It was the first indication any of us had ever seen that Dad even noticed what was going on in our family. And it was certainly the first indication we had of how strongly he felt about it.

  I left the house as soon as I could get cleaned up and get the hell out of there. Sophie noticed right away that I was distracted, that something was bothering me. And the result of her concern was a very pleasant surprise. She fed the kids, hustled them off to bed early, and came out of the girls’ bedroom pulling the pins from her hair, letting it fall to her shoulders. She came and sat down next to me on the couch, and put her head against my shoulder. Then she touched my chest with one hand, pressing her palm against my heart.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, her mouth close to my ear.