“I’M A NERVOUS WRECK,” Sherylynne said as he pulled to a stop in front. He got out and went around and opened her door, and she got out and stood by as he went up to the front entrance.
The screen popped open and his sisters burst out, squealing, “Harley Jay! Harley Jay!” running down off the step in jeans and T-shirts—all knees and elbows, big front teeth in freckled faces. Sherylynne stood by as both girls threw their arms around him. Then, laughing, he stepped back and looked them over.
“Wow! I never seen such good-looking women in all my life!”
“You big tease,” Anna Mae said, both girls coloring with pleasure, slapping him on the shoulder, casting curious glances at Sherylynne.
“Ladies,” Harley said, “this is Sherylynne. Sherylynne, Anna Mae and Annie Leigh.” He grinned. “I still don’t know which is which.”
“You’re just as pretty as Harley said,” Sherylynne said, flushing. She held out her hand and the girls shook it, each in turn, awkward, checking her out.
Then they wanted to know about the car, and Harley told them about the job.
“Well, shoot,” Annie Leigh said, “I wanted you to live in Dallas so we could come live with you in the big city!”
“Y’all come on in,” the Anna Mae said.
“Where’re the folks?” Harley asked.
“Papa, he’s running the road-grader for the county, and Mama’s helping Mrs. Ivy Johnson paint her kitchen,” Annie Leigh said.
Harley looked at his watch. “That’s too bad. We’ve got to get to Midland before night. We thought we might get married first.”
The twins looked at him, at each other. Annie Leigh narrowed a quizzical gaze on Sherylynne, a half-smile fixed on her face. “He’s just teasing? Right?”
Sherylynne blushed again. “It’s true.”
“Shoot. I’d hoped Mom and Dad could join us,” Harley said.
The twins continued to watch them, one to the other, curious half-expectant smiles on bright faces.
“You mean it?” Anna Mae said. “Y’all are really gonna get married? Here? Today?”
“How about you two coming along? You can act as witnesses.”
The girls went into a little fit of squealing, hugging each other, parading around him and Sherylynne in unbridled excitement.
Anna Mae stopped, collecting herself. “What’re Mom and Dad gonna say?”
“They’re prob’ly gonna say they wish they’d been here.”
The twins looked at each other, still not entirely convinced.
“Even it it’s true, we couldn’t go looking like this,” Annie Leigh said, gesturing at their jeans and T-shirts.
“Besides, we can’t all of us fit in that little car, either,” Anna Mae added.
“And just who’s gonna marry you?” Annie Leigh asked.
“How about Brother Evans, up at the Baptist Church?”
“He’s not here. Took the RA boys off to Lueders Encampment for a week.”
“What about Brother Watson?” Annie Leigh said, looking at Anna Mae.
Anna Mae nodded. “He fills in for Brother Evans sometimes. He’s ordained,” she added to Sherylynne.
“What does that mean?” Sherylynne asked.
“Official. He graduated from Hardin Simmons, the seminary, or something.”
She went on to explain that he had given up a church in some little place called Haskell for health reasons. He had pretty much quit the ministry except filling in now and then for Brother Evans.
“Sherylynne, how about you drive. One of you girls can sit on my lap, and the other can sit on the panel behind the seats where the top folds down.
“I’ve gotta go to the bathroom first,” Anna Mae said. “Me too,” Annie Leigh echoed. They hurried inside, and when they came out again, both had changed from T-shirts to white blouses, but still wore jeans and sneakers.
He saw that Sherylynne was excited, driving the Corvette, even with everybody packed in like sardines.
“I feel like we’re riding in one of those little circus cars with all the clowns piling out,” Annie Mae said.
Brother Watson lived in a little rock house between the cotton gin and a maze of roping pens, picket fences constructed of cedar posts laced together with barbed wire.
Sherylynne kept looking around, and he could see the country from her point of view—everything so different here than Dallas or Vinton—the thin air, the treeless land, prickly pears, mesquite.
Brother Watson was repairing a bicycle in a little garage workshop out back when his wife called for him to come inside. She would stand in as official witness, as the girls weren’t old enough.
Brother Watson was a small, sunken-chested man with a cough and a tick in one eye that blinked every few seconds so it looked like he was winking. He wore black work shoes, white socks and khaki pants. He put on a clean white shirt and a plaid sport jacket for the wedding. Sherylynne stood at Harley’s side on the flowered linoleum in Brother Watson’s living room, the twins, one on either side. The surrounding walls were decorated with a collection of ceramic plates, one for every state in the union.
The ceremony was short. Brother Watson pronounced them man and wife. The girls giggled when Harley put the ring on Sherylynne’s finger and kissed the bride. Mrs. Wilson wished them good luck and went back into her kitchen where she was pickling beets. Brother Watson looked pleased when Harley gave him a twenty-dollar bill.
“C’mon back here to the tool-shed for a minute,” he said to Harley. “We’ll have a quick snort of Jim Beam to get you started off right.”
Harley hesitated, glancing reluctantly at Sherylynne. “It’ll have to be quick. We need to get to Midland before night.” He followed Brother Watson out, leaving Sherylynne and the girls, the twins hugging her, taking her hand, letting go, taking her hand again, saying how pleased they were to have another sister. They were good, well adjusted girls.
“A quick one it is.” Watson poured an inch of Old Crow into two small jelly glasses. Watson lifted his in a toast. “Son, A man’s life is determined by the woman he marries and the work he chooses. May God bless you in both.”
“Thanks,” Harley said. They downed the shots, and went back inside where everyone shook hands again. “Tell your mom and dad hi,” Watson said to the twins, and the foursome climbed back in the car.
After they dropped the twins off with what seemed like an excess of emotion—teary-eyed hugs and good-byes all around—and all around again—they backtracked to Hardwater, and once more headed west.
“Sherylynne Buchanan,” Sherylynne said aloud. She frowned. “Do you think that sounds like me?”
“I like the sound of it,” he said.
She leaned across, put one hand behind his neck, and kissed him on the cheek.
They hadn’t gone twenty miles before a reddish-brown wall became visible, low on the northern horizon. “Sandstorm coming,” Harley said.
Sherylynne stared. “Really? That’s not mountains?”
As they neared Big Spring, the wall loomed larger. The sky darkened. The wind picked up. The air tasted like dirt and dried out his nose.
A scattering of oilfield equipment began to appear as they neared Midland. Harley pulled off into a strip mall. He left Sherylynne in the car while he hurried into an IGA supermarket. He grabbed a basket and filled it with make-do essentials that he managed to fit into the footwell alongside Sherylynne’s feet. He unlocked the hatch behind the seats and put the top up on the car.
Presently he drove off the blacktop onto a graveled road. A street sign read CHAPARRAL. The road cut through prickly pear and weeds, past a few trailers and little shoebox houses with small porches in front. He turned into one of the yards, a big mesquite tree beating about along one side of the house, another visible in back. Harley jumped out and ran ahead and unlocked the front door. Wind fluttered his shirt. Briars beat about, rattling against the stucco walls.
He hurried back and opened the trunk. Sherylynne took a box of her things out
while he grabbed the two sacks of food. Sand stung as they ran to the front door. Harley let Sherylynne in, set the sacks down, then ran back to get his own suitcase. He returned to find Sherylynne standing just inside, looking about. He jerked the door shut and stood at her side. A green vinyl-covered sofa sagged against one wall, a coffee table, two stuffed chairs, a floor lamp. There was a small eat-in kitchen, metal cabinets and a rusty sink. A yellowed 1948 calendar on the wall pictured a bank of silos and thousands of cows disappearing over the horizon. The advertisement read: “REINHARDT’S FEEDLOT – SNYDER, TEXAS.”
They stood side by side in silence, looking out the kitchen window. A clothesline and an oblong propane tank were visible. Weeds and briars beat about. Sand flowed over the ground like a raging river. Wind howled in the windowpanes. Big raindrops began to plop on the window, turning to mud.
Darkness was closing in.
Chapter 18
—Permian Basin—
Pumping Oil
HARLEY HAD EXPLAINED that it was a company house, furnished, and rent free. The house had been vacant for over a year. Which was obvious enough. In the cabinets were a few mismatched dishes. While Harley lit the hot-water heater, Sherylynne found a couple of aluminum pots and pans stored in the broiler below the oven door. Everything was covered with dust, including the chenille spreads on the two beds. However, Sherylynne found clean sheets with pillowcases and blankets in plastic bags in two big cardboard boxes in a bedroom closet, and two tic pillows in a plastic bag sealed with a twist tie. A few towels and washcloths were bagged as well.
Harley turned back the chenille spread to the foot of the bed they had chosen to sleep in, gently lifted it off, then helped her remake it with the clean linens. There was a washing machine in the eat-in kitchen and after running for a minute the rusty-red water cleared up. Outside, near the butane tank, stood a boxlike structure which housed the well pump. The laundry line was outside, too, so there would be no laundry this night. Wind whined in the windowpanes and howled under the eves until it seemed the house might lift off its foundation. The air tasted of dry earth and it was hard to breathe.
In the kitchen pantry Sherylynne found a broom, a mop, and a few cleaning supplies. They took the dishes from the cabinet and washed them. The gas stove worked, and, exhausted, they sat across from each other at the Formica table, eating canned chili with saltine crackers.
They did the dishes and went to bed and made love. But while he had dreamed of their sleeping together without the stress of illegitimacy, just the two of them, finally alone, the last few days had been nerve-wracking, and he felt wired just under the skin.
He held Sherylynne, afterward, and talked about them being married now, how they would save money and go to New York. It should have been fun and exciting, but he sensed she was unnerved, too.
“What did Brother Watson have to say?” she asked.
“About what?”
“When he took you around back for a drink.”
Harley laughed. “He said, ‘Son, a man’s life is determined by the work he chooses and the woman he marries.’”
She was quiet. Then: “I guess that might be said for a woman, too, don’t you think?”
THEY WOKE EARLY and made love again, but Harley sensed Sherylynne was eager to be up and about, and it felt hurried and again without passion.
He showered, enclosed in a moldy shower curtain hanging from a metal ring above the tub. Afterward, he dressed and sat at the kitchen table, pulling on his work boots.
“I’m going out to find a phone and give Whitehead a call,” he said. “Come along and let’s get some breakfast and buy some more groceries.”
Sherylynne stood looking out the kitchen window. She wore jeans and a plaid shirt, hair tied back with a bandanna. The wind had died down, but the sky was a reddish brown. “I never seen anything like it,” she said, dragging her finger across the sink, leaving a faint line in the thin dust.
“That’s Oklahoma on your finger there. Blew right on down across the panhandle.”
They drove into town and had breakfast at a truck stop on the highway. He phoned Whitehead.
“Boy, I thought you done took that car and gone to Kalamazoo.”
“Sorry, I didn’t get a chance to call,” Harley said. “We need to pick up a few things here in town, then I’ll be right out.”
“Naw, hell. You take yourself a couple a days to get settled in. That job can wait.”
“Thank you, but I’ll get out there soon as we get back and unload.”
“Boy, Harley Jay, you show up here today, I’m gonna sic the damn dog on you.”
ASIDE FROM FOOD, Sherylynne bought a whole sackful of cleaners: ammonia, Comet, bleach, Joy, Brillo pads. They went into a Sears Roebuck and picked up a new shower curtain. On the way out of town, Harley pulled in at a service station and filled the Corvette in order to return it full.
Sherylynne gestured at a nearby liquor store. “Let’s get a bottle of wine. Then tonight we celebrate.”
They spent the day cleaning the little house, its two bedrooms, flowered wallpaper and worn linoleums. They agreed on the back room for his studio. There was the baby to consider, but they would worry about that when the time came.
He knew he could never entirely forgive Aunt Grace for burning his paintings. Most had only been so-so, but a few had come into being in moments when he was working over his head, beyond his normal ability. Of these few, afterward, he was never able to recall his mental state, or the process of their making. But they had been the concrete evidence of what he might eventually become. Gone now, forever.
THEY MADE LOVE before daylight and he could tell Sherylynne was more relaxed this morning, not in any big hurry to be up and about, as they had the house in good order. She made breakfast, and he liked watching her fuss around the little kitchen. Her slender body moved in harmony with the clink and clank of dishes, the clatter of aluminum pots and pans, the kitchen already homey with good smells.
He ate two eggs with bacon, grits, biscuits, honey, a cup of coffee and a glass of orange juice. Sherylynne had one egg, one biscuit and one coffee.
The sky was just beginning to lighten outside. He kissed her good-bye. “Sunday we’ll stay in bed and play all day.” She snuggled her head into his shoulder. He felt a little guilty, leaving her to entertain herself in the little house while he went off to work.
HE TURNED THE Corvette in over the cattle guard. Half a mile in the distance, Whitehead’s house stood in silhouette against the molten red orb of the sun slipping up behind the horizon, the residue of the storm thinning.
The dog, Paladin, came loping around the house, hair bristling, teeth bared.
“Paladin,” Whitehead yelled from the porch. “Get back here, you son of a bitch!” The dog turned and trotted back, watching Harley over his shoulder.
“That’s some dog,” Harley said.
“He ain’t but a pup. He’ll get to know you.”
“If he doesn’t chew my leg off first.”
“Well, boy, how’s married life, anyhow?”
“I haven’t hardly had time to think about it.”
“Don’t worry; you got all the rest of your life to fret over it.” Whitehead laughed his big laugh.
Harley grinned. “Yeah, I reckon.”
“Must be some gal, get you chasing her all over the country like that. Hell, I thought you done took that car and was leaving Cheyenne.”
“I should’ve called.”
“Just like Mavis said.”
“What?”
“Said you’d be back.”
“I hate being late right off, starting my new job and all.”
“Don’t fret it, that job ain’t going nowhere.”
Harley frowned. “Must not be much of a job, don’t need anybody to do it.”
“It’s a damn good job.” Whitehead nodded over his shoulder. “Wesley Earl and his wife, they live in one of the little houses down back. Wesley Earl, he’s a pumper too. Lupe and Álvar
o, they live in the other house back there. Álvaro, he’s our all-around handy man, keeps the yard up and whatever. He’s been helping Wesley Earl with the wells, but I need him around here. He’ll pump two days a week for you and two for Wesley Earl, your days off.” Whitehead looked at his watch. “Wesley Earl, he’ll be right happy to have you on board. He’s gonna take you out for a few days, show you the ropes, but he ain’t likely to show for a while. Come on in and let’s have some coffee.”
“Thanks.”
He followed Whitehead inside under the high ceilings with the white plaster walls and tiled floors. The textures and colors of the paintings on the walls were rich and sensual. He saw that the rug had been sent out.
“C’mon back in the kitchen,” Whitehead said.
Harley followed him through the dining room with its long table and high-backed chairs. The table was covered with a lace tablecloth and a cut-glass vase of fresh flowers. A huge crystal chandelier hung above. He tried to absorb the drawings and paintings in passing.
The kitchen was large, a mix of wood, plaster and Mexican tiles. It smelled of onions and garlic and coffee. In the center of the room dozens of heavy pots and pans hung from an iron rectangle suspended over a big worktable with a butcher-block top where an older Mexican woman puttered about.
“Lupe, two coffees,” Whitehead ordered.
The woman watched Harley, her eyes shaded with suspicion. She wiped her hands on a cup towel stuffed in the band of her apron, took down mugs and shuffled to the coffeepot.
“Bring it in the barn,” Whitehead said.
Harley gave him a quizzical look.
“My den back here. Mavis calls it the barn.”
Harley followed him out through a small study with oak filing cabinets and a rolltop desk, then into a big room with a long mirrored bar along the back wall. Wild animals seemed to be leaping through the other three walls, the heads of elk and deer and moose. A warthog, an American buffalo. A glass case held fifteen or twenty guns—rifles and shotguns and a couple of old pistols. One wall was ribbed with fishing rods, both fresh and salt water, fly rods and deep-sea rigs, a big largemouth bass and a swordfish.
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