by Annie Proulx
‘Wanna park your truck downwind so we can have a little peace and quiet in here?’ The bartender was polite, but his voice bored in. The trapper went out and shifted the truck to the other side of the building. But he was irritable when he came back in and Loyal thought there would be trouble later on. He finished his whiskey and left.
At the door he glanced back and caught the runty rider’s eyes just sliding away. Before he fell asleep he tried to pin down the stink on the trapper. Pine marten? Lion?
It wasn’t lion.
A week later he sat at the table reading a three-day-old paper. The bar was empty. The bartender messed with a jar of pickled eggs, taking them out with stainless steel tongs, fussily arranging them in a bowl. The wind sang around and around. He rattled the pages. The bartender opened his mouth only to yawn.
‘Here comes your friend,’ he said after an hour, hearing something Loyal didn’t. He didn’t catch the blatting exhaust note until the swimming pool pickup was in sight.
‘He’s unknown to me. Last Sat’day the only time I ever set eyes on him. I get about as much fun out of his company as I do out of a wet dog’s.’
‘Well, he’s been in and out of here since September. Claims he come over from Maine or on the Mayflower or something like that.’ The truck peeled in. The door dammed.
‘Well son of a gun, look who’s here. Run off on me last time and missed all the fun, didn’t he? Gimmee the usual, Robert.’
‘There you go. Want a pickled egg?’
‘I wouldn’t eat one of them stinking things if you fed it to me dipped in cunt honey and rolled in sugar.’
‘Some like them. In fact I remember seeing you eat damn near the whole bowl the night we threw you out. So I thought you were partial to them. Maybe if you don’t eat any you’d stay nice and we won’t have to work the magic trick on you any more.’
‘Hey, what’s over is over, right? I never carry a chip around.’ He looked at Loyal as if at a brother. He made Loyal uneasy. He put up his paper and rattled it a little, even though he had read everything except the FOR RENT classifieds. The trapper stayed at the bar and from there he didn’t whiff so bad. Loyal thought he must have cleaned up.
In an hour the place was swarming with the same big-hatted rats, the runty rider on the stool at the end, getting his backward view of the world from the mirror. Another man, looked like the outlaw’s partner, called him ‘Sylvester’ and clapped him on the back. Smaller and dirtier, a soupstrainer mustache, wore an Orion sweater under a pair of overalls that gave him a hippie freak look. Something about the sloping head and screwed-up features that was like old Roseboy in the antique chill of his grandfather’s apple room. The smell of cold, fresh apples ticked up, faded. The partner wore a woodsman’s tuque that didn’t go well with the rolled Stetsons and high-heel boots around him. Even Robert behind the bar wore his cowboy hat. A couple of mavericks, like Loyal, had on tractor caps, NOTHING RUNS LIKE A DEERE, CATerpillar. No tuques. The partner had a southern accent. The poker tabletop leaned against the back wall. A few kids were shooting pool. Loyal ordered a steak with pickles and fried potatoes.
He was startled when the trapper sat down across the table from him, jarring it so the steak juice slopped over the rim of the plate. The son of a bitch didn’t know when to be scarce.
‘Hey, old-timer, I got something important I wanna talk to you about.’
‘Important comes in two sizes – yours and mine,’ said Loyal through a mouthful of tough meat.
‘No, seriously, how you doing with the coyotes? Caught any yet?’
‘Umhm,’ said Loyal.
‘Yeah? How many? Three or four?’ The partner came over, carrying a wooden chair. He sat down. The chair jutted into the room.
‘Twelve. Any of your business.’
‘Well, it might be. We thought you might like to make some real money. We thought you might want to make a real killing instead of farting around with coyotes. We could use some semi-experienced help. Trapping help. The money’s out of sight.’ He laughed, and Loyal realized he had been whispering.
‘What are you taking?’ said Loyal.
‘Ah-ah-ah! That would be telling. You tell him, Sam.’
‘This is going to sound a little weird, man, but there is a market in Japan and Korea and China for certain substances. Aphrodisiacs.’
‘What the hell is that?’ They were all whispering.
‘Stuff that the Japanese guys think will double the size of their prick and give ’em a three-day hard-on. Sex stuff. You heard of it. Like Spanish fly, only they don’t want Spanish fly. They want rhinoceros horn. They want powdered elk teeth. They want saber-toothed tiger fossil paste. They want the gallbladders of black bears.’ Bear. That was the smell. The partner talked while Sylvester the bear trapper nodded.
‘They will pay big big big bucks for this stuff. Plus we got a market for the hides. We are making money like you wouldn’t believe. Been working Maine and Florida, up in Canada. It’s real hard with only two. We had another guy, but he pulled out and retired to Hawaii. Could use somebody to work with us. Three’s better. Cloves says you’re a good trapper.’ Loyal wanted to look up at the mirror and see if the runt rider was taking in this huddle.
‘Damn, boys, it sounds lucrative, but I’ve got a bad ticker. Can’t do any heavy work. Bears sounds like heavy work to me.’
‘You wouldn’t have to do the heavy stuff, just set out the traps. We’d deal with the bear, man. It’s not that heavy a work, just cut them open and take out the gallbladder, cut out the claws. Hell, most of the time we don’t even bother with the hides. We don’t have the time. The hides, the skinning. That would be your share.’
‘I lifted a bear trap or two in my time. They weigh damn near fifty pound each and that is a lot of weight. Besides, I don’t care for this country. Pulling out next week.’ He hadn’t known until then that he was heading back to the Sagine ranch. He’d have to go that night. These weren’t the kind you turned down after they dumped their dirty secrets on you. He saw himself pulling up at the fur auction with twenty ratty, clawless bearskins. That would start a little talk.
‘Obliged for you asking me. I’ll just say good-by.’ He handed the steak plate to the bartender.
‘Wonder if you’d wrap that up in a plastic bag for me. Us toothless old dogs have to chew careful.’ As he took the bag he looked in the mirror at the runty rider. But didn’t want any part of him, either.
41
The Tropical Garden
DUB, FAT IN WHITE LINEN in the peacock chair, having breakfast beside the pool before sunrise. The chilled mimosa, the opal-fleshed melon with a twist of green-tangerine juice, then the country ham and the quail eggs flown in from Japan, blackhearted coffee that wired you for the day. He’d drink twenty cups of it until his hands shook.
His hands were steady when Mernelle called, her northern voice asking what he thought about burying Ma’s wedding ring next to Da. Because that’s all they had. It would ease their minds. She’d come across the ring a few weeks ago tidying boxes and drawers. She thought Ma had taken it off when Da had —
‘Sure, why not?’ he said.
She read him the inscription. ‘“JSB Forever Thine MMB June, 1915.” At least it’s something that was hers, something that ties them together,’ she said.
‘That’s right,’ he said.
He loved the rotten tropical smell, the heat, kept the air conditioners at lukewarm. ‘Turn that thing down, reminds me of ‘Winter on the Farm,’ famous painting by Frosty the Snowman. What the hell you think I live in Florida for?’ But laughing.
A good-looking man despite the bulked chest and jowled face and the glowing bald head. Clients fell into his smiling eyes. In the mirror he saw he still had the fine mouth and, of course, he had the money. Manicured nails (on the good hand) and custom-made suits don’t come without it. He had Pala, or she had him. The pirate, a little heavier, wore beige and ecru linen suits, gold chains knotted with medallions and charms hung aro
und her neck. Smarter than anyone he knew. Secretive. He thought there might have been an abortion but could not ask. The properties were her children now.
It was all real estate knowledge, prime properties, not the crude hawking of condos and old-age death parlors to the ancients from the north, but scholarly appraisals, landmark status research, a shrewd eye for next year’s extraordinary properties. They knew the importance of discreet arrangements and offerings. They could talk to sheiks, seekers of political asylum, men who had business dealings to the south. Aesthetics. Look what Pala had done with Opal Key Reef. Every major magazine in the country had run photos of the antiqued shell-stone houses and the gardens designed by Burle Marx, fantasies of curious plants.
The first needle of sun came through a hole in the canvas awning and drilled onto Dub’s linen knee. Many of the properties Eden handled never came on the market when the owner wanted to sell; the sales were privately arranged by Eden, Inc. No one came close to Eden. He and Pala had an instinct for the protected properties, islands joined to the mainland by a single causeway or bridge. Peninsulas with a single approach road. They understood the clients who needed certain properties. He wished the tax people would understand him.
He tilted the coffeepot, the black fluid arced into his cup. On the other side of the pool the garden yawned with caves of shadow, early heat ricocheted off leaves, ferns arched, petals unfurled. Pala might sleep until ten. He never shook the early rising habit. He got up and walked toward the garden, carrying the white cup in his artificial hand with its perfect plastic nails.
Here was Eden. They didn’t go to the Green Swamp now. The garden’s odor, heavy and perfumed as a split fruit, filled his mouth and throat. The moist air pressed against him, the moss cushioned his footsteps. The banyan tree was the center of the garden. He had bought the place for this ancient tree with its humped root knees, its branched arms and rooting thumbs, the twists of vine and florid blossom, the molded, shreddy bark and falling, falling fragments. There was something he loved in the smell of decay.
42
What I See
Up into the pointed hills, gumbo roads slippery as snot when wet, his landscape of crooked rocks. The antelope sentinel’s snoring warning to the herd in the draw, the herd bounding through a strew of flowers close to the earth like rainbow grass. The antelope step over fossil tree trunks, broken stone stumps with the rings still visible, the stone bark encrusted with orange lichens.
The worn sandstone layers hollowed and rippled by ancient water in this waterless land, this lake bottom heaved into yellow cones still booms with the hoofbeats of the horses of Red Horse, Red Cloud and Low Dog, the great and mysterious Crazy Horse, Crow King and Rain in the Face, kicking up fragments of fossil teeth. They come tearing out of ravines, rise up with killing smiles in the astounded faces of Fetterman, Crook, Custer, Benteen, Reno. He hears the slipping twinned voices canted at each other in fifths, the Stamping Dance of the Oglala, the voices whirling away and dropping, together, apart, locked in each other’s trembling throats. The fast war dance, hypnotic and maddening, has irradiated the sandstone. He has only to hold a mass of stone in each hand and bring them together again and again, faster and faster, twice the speed of the beating heart.
Maddening. On the counter of a general store in Streaky Bacon, Montana, a box of discarded patient cards from an asylum in Fargo. He looks through them. Everyone looks through them. The corners are broken and greasy. Photographs: a description of the subject’s mania, revivalism, melancholia, masturbation, dementia. The Indian’s face balanced between his fingers. The smooth combed hair, but the jacket askew and stained. The still face, the black eyes, and the tapering fingers locked around an accountant’s ledger. Although it seems to be the Indian, laconic script says ‘Walter Hairy Chin.’ Nothing of blue skies nor hundred-dollar bills.
43
The Skeleton with Its Dress Pulled Up
YEAR AFTER YEAR Witkin had worked on the camp, sketching plans for a sleeping porch, a double garage, adding another bathroom. There were more rooms now. He planned a stone fireplace the size of a steel mill hearth. He cut and stacked his own firewood. Built the woodshed. He thought about a sauna and a swimming pool, planned to enlarge the stone patio to a sweep of fieldstone paving. He was shrewd, called around for lumber prices. The pickup truck was new each spring, fitted with a varnished oak rack, the word Woodcroft in old English letters on the doors.
His hands and arms developed a strength they’d never had when he was young. Muscles under his old skin. Yellow callouses thickened his palms, his fingers were rough. He could have been a carpenter or worked in construction.
He told Larry it was in the back of his mind to make the camp into a retirement place, maybe a place for two if he remarried.
‘You get married again? You weren’t the type to get married in the first place. You’re married to work, Frank. If you knew how to relax, maybe I’d take you seriously. Who you got in mind, Mintora?’ Larry brought women up sometimes, Frieda, a sculptress with thick hair the color of bison wool; Dawn, the documentary filmmaker getting ready for a trip to Antarctica; and Mintora, a breasty woman Witkin’s age whose work was woodcuts, her subject, gorillas in hot-air balloons. Yes, it might have been Mintora of whom he was thinking, the unshaven slender legs, the jutting hair under her arms, the comments on his woodworking.
‘Wouldn’t you like to have some rice pudding?’ she said once and opened a hamper packed with pots from a city deli. She brought him a brass doorknob with a beaded rim, a copper advertising plate showing, in reverse, a woman washing a corset in a sink.
The roof of the abandoned farmhouse below had fallen in. No one could guess there had been a farm there. The trailer park spread wide, dusty lanes jerked along the hillside. When the wind was from the south Witkin could hear engines and shouting. Yet on his high hundred acres the wild woods came ever closer, the trees multiplied.
Larry, grown heavy and slow, said it was harder to get around in the woods. He puffed and coughed, walked up grades in long gradual ascents that added miles to the day. They walked out with the guns but rarely fired at anything.
‘Frank, I can’t do this any more. I never thought I’d hear myself say that, but I can’t do these climbs. Too much easy living. You don’t get exercise selling pictures.’ They were no longer close. Yet both pretended.
Alone at the camp the oak trees scintillated at Witkin, the shrubs and young trees in color seemed to leap off the tawny ground. The sky vibrated, the taut drumhead struck. He shuffled through grass the color of bread crust, leaves of burnt sugar, charred letters, the sifting of needles, his head scratched by roots dangling in air where the soil bank had slid down, his boots slipping on the log over the water, following the miles of stone wall drifting away into the woods. He needed Larry still to guide the way. He could not sort out the trees, could not understand the wind direction or the scramble of branches. The confusion of trees pressed in on the camp. Raspberry thorn twisted under the step.
He began to put the chaos of nature in order. The sinuous woods music, once so beguiling, had taken on a discordance like a malfunctioning speaker, the same endless hum as the high-tension wires when he had stood beneath them waiting for Larry to drive the deer across, confusing him so that he had not heard the deer come, had only seen tawny motion. He had never wanted to hunt; that was only to please Larry, the unknown brother.
On Jack Kazin’s boat Frieda was surprised when Larry arched his fat back in the canvas deck chair, threw his head back as if readying himself to sing an aria, then hurled over the chair arm. Full coronary block.
The week after Larry’s funeral Witkin hired Alvin Vinyl and his cousin to cut and drag away the shrieking maples around the camp. Time rushed at him. He urged them on with promises of money. They cleared a great open square. Leaves shriveled in the glare, the secret moss withered. A stump puller tore roots from their two-hundred-year grip of the soil in fuming black fountains. The grader tamed the rumpled soil and Wi
tkin sowed grass seed for his lawn in the wilderness. Other projects swarmed in his mind; he had to hurry.
The equipment for the new lawn – riding mower, aerator and de-thatcher, rollers and scythes – were jumbled into the garage. He planned a toolshed, then the fireplace chimney, and the addition, two rooms and a studio. Kevin, his son, said he’d come for the summer. In his second year at university, he had no summer job. Witkin offered a season’s pay for a season’s work, knowing as he spoke the stiff sentences about getting to know each other better that neither of them would be suited. Kevin’s mallowy hands seemed useless for anything beyond scratching and fluffing.
The first day Kevin worked with his shirt off, pretending not to hear Witkin’s warnings of sunburn and cancer. He slept through the fine morning of the second day, crawling out of his sleeping bag only when the din of the chugging generator, power saw and hammer reached a devil’s pitch. Slouched and spoke in monosyllables. Witkin hated him again. He did not recognize Kevin as his mortal flesh. And the other one, the twin sister, what of that timid, humorless girl in her pink blouse who unerringly made the wrong decisions, who was now in Zambia with the Peace Corps? The instinctive, binding love that loops through generations failed.
They roofed the toolhouse roof with sheets of galvanized metal. The scalding height shimmered. Kevin drank gallons of beer, hammered irregularly, pissed from high off the roof instead of corning down the ladder. Heat dared against their arms and chests. Sweat streamed. Kevin, sensing Witkin’s need for martyrdom, quit on the fourth day.
