That Old Ace in the Hole

by Annie Proulx

  “Yes,” said Bob. In truth the hog farm effluvia was ferocious, a palpable, heavy ammoniac stink that burned the eyes and throat. “Have you ever thought of selling?”

  “Who on earth would buy this place situated where it is? Mercy!”

  “Ah—I suppose a hog farm would buy it. You know Tater Crouch is thinking of selling.”

  “Oh no! Then we’d be sandwiched in between two hog farms? My husband couldn’t stand it. He’s in the hospital right this minute in respiratory distress.”

  “If you sold you could move somewhere else, somewhere there aren’t any hog farms.”

  “Where might that be? In a city, I suppose. We’re country people and we’ve been on this land for four generations. The city is not for us. We’ve been happy here and my husband has worked his heart out to keep this ranch in order. We can’t even run cows on it anymore. The cows can’t even stand it. Do you think it’s right that some main-hearted corporation can buy up panhandle land and force out the local people? I don’t know what we are goin a do. My husband says if he were a young man he’d set grass fires and burn them out. I do not know what we are goin a do. That state senator in Amarilla is no help at all. He’s on the side a corporate hog outfits. The corporations got the politicians sewed up in Texas, top to bottom. And down in Austin the panhandle is far away and folks think it is a worthless place anyhow—they think it is perfect for hogs. Tonight we will suffer with that stench.”

  “You might talk to your husband and see how he feels about selling the place and moving to a different region. Maybe down around Austin? There’s enough rich folks down there that they won’t let the hog farms in. If you think you want to sell, let me know. I can put you in touch with a buyer.”

  “I’ll mention it to him when I go see him tonight. In fact I’d better get goin now.” And she gathered up the hot casserole, murmuring “chicken pot pie, one a his favorites,” and went out the door.

  In his room Bob pulled off his dank clothes and took a cool shower. It would be a fine evening on LaVon’s bunkhouse porch—which he missed—watching the sunset sky burn up. He turned on the television set but every station was showing something stupid and he turned it off again, looked for Lieutenant Abert’s account of his travels. He could not find it and wondered if it was in the car or if he had brought it to Denver and left it in his old room. He went outside and checked the car. The book was lying on the back floor with a lollipop stick stuck to it at a jaunty angle. The new book, Broken Hand, was still on the front seat. He brought them both inside. He could hear the telephone ringing inside and made a dash for it.

  “Hello?” he said, panting.

  “What ya doin?”

  “Who is this?”

  “Don’t you reckanize my voice? It’s Marisa. Your girlfriend? From Front Range High School?”

  “Marisa. Where are you?” he asked with a depressed little laugh.

  “In Denver. Visitin my folks. I got your number from your uncle. What are you doin in the Texas panhandle? Isn’t it awful down there?”

  “No, it’s got its own style. There are a lot of nice things about it. And I’m in the hog business. What about you, Marisa? I thought you went off to college.”

  “I did. But I graduated. Now I’m in graduate school. My boyfriend is working for his law degree and I figured I might as well go ahead with what I was into.”

  “What is that?”

  “Entity configuration.”

  “What is ‘entity configuration’?”

  “Oh, just about anything. A person’s business profile or a website or a business plan or even financial investment chart. It’s like taking something that is like ectoplasm and shaping it up into something tangible. You know, making something that’s mixed up seem clear and understandable. So have you got a girlfriend now?”

  “Yes. In fact, I’m married. My wife’s name is Evelyn. She has curly black hair and dimples. She’s a professional dancer. Right now she’s in Kansas City, dancing.”

  “Married! You married? Oh my God! Your uncle didn’t say a thing. I called you up because I thought we could get together again sometime and see how we like each other now. Of course I couldn’t come down to the panhandle. But if you came up here we could get together. My parents still go to church on Sunday.”

  “So do I,” said Bob, “with my wife,” and gently replaced the receiver.

  He read Lieutenant Abert’s account until the letters on the page began to swim. It came to him that the black Colorado squirrels with tasseled ears were called Abert squirrels and wondered if there was a connection. So far he had noticed nothing about squirrels. Perhaps he would re-read with squirrels in mind.

  The next morning the stench was worse than ever. He woke with a headache, his ears ringing, his red eyes itching. He felt dizzy and disoriented as though he were coming down with the flu. Only in the shower under the stream of shampoo-scented water could he get away from the smell. It permeated everything. His clothes reeked, his mouth seemed filled with manure and mud. He raced for the door, nearly colliding with Mrs. Shattle.

  “Bob, I talked to my husband and he says sell! We want a sell out too if Tater is goin to. That was the only thing keepin us here. We didn’t want a make things worse for Tater. But if he’s goin a make things worse for us, why then, we’ll sell. We’ll move to Canada or Greenland, somewhere they never heard a hogs.”

  “O.K., good. I’ll talk to you about this when I get back—sometime this afternoon. Can I pick up anything in town for you?”

  “No, Bob. I’m goin a town myself, get away from the stench.”

  He drove to the Old Dog with the windows down, the hot air rushing in and flinging his hair around. Two miles from the hog farm he could breathe again. Never was air so sweet. He put up the windows and combed at his hair with his fingers, damning himself for never carrying a comb, until he remembered the snow brush in the trunk, pulled over to the side of the road and used the awkward object to smooth his hair.

  “Hey, Bubba,” said Cy when he came in. “We got fried catfish and corn bread today, steaks if you don’t like fish, and turkey hash for them don’t like steak neither.”

  “I’m waiting for somebody,” said Bob.

  “Not Jim Skin?”

  “No.”

  “Brother Mesquite?”

  “No. A lady I’ve never met. Mrs. Betty Doak.”

  “Betty Doak? I think I know her. Wasn’t she Betty Cream? Had a daddy worked the oil rigs?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Bob. “She might be. Mrs. Shattle thought so. Maybe you’ll recognize her when she comes in.”

  And half an hour later, when Bob was beginning to think Mrs. Betty Doak had stood him up, a two-tone Grand Cherokee parked out front and a rangy woman with a pompadour of curls, her lank frame a thinly padded skeleton inside the blue rayon pantsuit, took the steps to the Old Dog two at a time and came in.

  She looked at Cy, she looked at Bob. She put her head back and laughed. “Cy Frease, so this is where you ended up. I thought it would be Huntsville.”

  “It almost was, Betty. But I dodged in time. You are lookin good. I thought it might be you. Livin up in Okie land these days?”

  “Yes, I got a little house north a Beaver, part a my mother’s family’s old ranch. Just a few acres. She left it to me. My daddy never had a ranch or a house or nothin he could call his own. Had a good time, though. Made good money and spent it all.”

  “I heard that. I heard you was somewhere up there over the line.”

  “Well, when me and Richard Doak got a divorce we was livin in Wichita Falls and I figured I ought a get back to the panhandle, even if it was the Oklahoma handle. There’s no place like home, you know.”

  “I know. That’s right. It’s been a long time since we was kids in Wink. That was a rough town.”

  “Yes, but didn’t we have some good times? A hard life but a happy childhood.”

  “Maybe we can get you down here a little more often. By the way, this is your lunch dat
e, Bob Dollar. We got fried catfish, steaks, turkey hash. Choose your poison.”

  “Hello, Bob. Good a meet you. Let’s get some of Cy’s grub. Sure smells good. I get tired a cookin for myself so it’s a treat for me to eat out.” She took the catfish and salad.

  Bob helped himself to the same and they sat at the table near the window.

  “I know of Tater Crouch, a course, but I never met him and I never seen his place. I know his brother, Ace, pretty well. I guess I’m surprised they want to sell. The Crouches been here a long time.”

  “The smell. He can’t take it anymore. There’s a hog farm to the west and it gets pretty gamey. Tater’s getting old enough now so he likes the idea of living in town. And there’s a couple even closer to the hog farm over there than Tater is, the Shattle place. Mr. Shattle is pretty sick from the smell and apparently he wants to sell out too. So we might go there and see what kind of offer you can make for that place too.”

  “I think I know her. Wasn’t she Jaelene Defoos?”

  “I don’t know. But she thinks she knows you. Said you were in school together in Wink years ago.”

  “Then it’s her. How about that. Two old schoolmates in one day. Wink to Woolybucket. I ought a come down here more often.”

  “Amen,” said Cy, who was listening.

  “Cy, you must a learned a cook from your mother. Didn’t she cook at the Star Diner in Wink?”

  “Yes, she did. She made more in tips than my daddy made drillin. What used a bother her was the sand and the wind. She said the wind would just blast that sand and wear her nylon stockins full a holes.”

  Buckskin Bill and Sorrel Bill came in, looked at Bob and Betty Doak, helped themselves to the fish, asked what was for dessert.

  “I don’t want any dessert,” whispered Mrs. Betty Doak to Bob, scratching the fish bones to the rim of her plate. “Let’s just get down the road and see if we can clinch the Bar Owl and Coppedge Road.”

  They split the bill and Bob held the door open for her.

  “Thank you, kind sir,” she said.

  “You come on back soon, Betty, y’hear?” Cy fixed her with a look. “Or I’ll have to come up to Beaver and look for you. You in the phone book?”

  “Yes I am. You do that—come visit. See you later.”

  After a polite wrangle over which car to use, Bob agreed to the Grand Cherokee, got in, and Betty Doak drove them toward Coppedge Road.

  In the Old Dog the phone rang and Cy answered it, his laconic “Yeah?” giving way to exclamations. “No! That right? All right, all right. Just left. No, I don’t know. Thanks.”

  He came over to Buckskin and Sorrel, put his hands on the table and leaned in. “Dispatcher at the sheriff’s office. Tazzy Keister escaped from the jail, got her gun back out a the sheriff’s desk drawer and said she was goin a shoot ever hog farm person she could find. Bob is on her list. Near the top. Tazzy got one a them old dispatchers to the cell and choked her half to death, made her unlock the door. The damn sheriff stayed home today. Not feelin good with them arm casts. They say his sister come down a take care a him for a while.”

  “Where was Bob and Betty goin? We could call up and warn them.”

  “I don’t know for sure. I don’t eavesdrop.”

  “Hell you don’t. Well, I guess we’ll hear about it if they get shot.”

  Tater Crouch’s driveway sported a big mud hole abreast of the old bunkhouse. Rain had hammered the panhandle on Saturday. Betty Doak looked at the building and said, “I bet those walls could tell some stories.”

  That reminded Bob that LaVon, in hundreds of hours of talking, had never told him what caused the heavy scars on her grandfather’s back.

  Betty Doak drew the Grand Cherokee up in front of the house and they got out. The hog farm stink was strong and she wrinkled her nose. The housekeeper, who must have been standing near the door, whisked it open. She smiled at Mrs. Doak, ignored Bob, pointed to the crowded living room where Tater Crouch sat in his wheelchair.

  “Tater! Tater, they’re here!”

  “I know it. Didn’t I see them drive up? Go cut that damn pie and bring us some.”

  “Mr. Crouch,” said Bob. “This is Mrs. Betty Doak. She’s the Money Offer Person.”

  Mrs. Doak extended her hand but the old man waved it away.

  “It won’t do me no good now. Ace, he don’t want a sell.”

  “Oh no,” said Bob. “Oh no. What is wrong with him?”

  “There is nothin wrong with him. He is just tryin a save a piece a the panhandle. He don’t think hogs belong here.”

  “But they are here already. Does he have some way to get rid of the ones already here?”

  “You better ask him that.” Tater’s hands shook and his eyes slid around. He glanced at Bob, looked away. “He’s the oldest. He’s got the say-so.”

  Back in Betty Doak’s SUV Bob put his head in his hands. There was no point in going on to the Shattles’. He was not suited for the hog farm game. He thought about hitchhiking across the country, finding himself a new place. He thought about going to Alaska but he no longer cared to find his parents. He had made his way without them. He had grown up. He wondered if it was too late to become a cowboy and felt it was, at least a hundred years too late. He needed a job, but not this one. He needed an apprenticeship to something—gunsmithing, surveying, photography. A feeling of discomfort rose in him as though he had swallowed grapes with carpet tacks at their centers.

  “Hm,” said Betty Doak. “What are you goin a do now?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose a last-ditch effort. Go see Ace Crouch and ask him what the hell he is doing saying no to everything. He seems to be at the bottom of every land deal that’s fallen through. I don’t understand why he’s doing it. It would be good for Tater to get into town. The Shattles need to be rescued too. And Jim Skin is hard up and got this lousy land good for nothing else.”

  “Is that how you see it? You’re rescuin folks?”

  “Well, in a way.”

  “I imagine there’s others see it different. Tell you what. You go talk with Ace Crouch, give me a call if you need me to come back down. You can call me directly, just skip the Denver office. Save time. Here’s my number.”

  They drove in silence back to the Old Dog where Bob said goodbye, got out and went to the Saturn, sat for a few minutes composing his mind. He got out again, went into the Old Dog.

  “Cy,” he said. “You know where Ace Crouch lives? I got to go talk to him.”

  “You got to be careful, is what you got to do,” said Cy. “Tazzy Keister’s on the war path and you’re her target. She’s escaped and she’s got her old hog leg back and she is after your blood. I was you, I’d get out a town. Sheriff’s office says she stole the sheriff’s car and that she’s considered armed and dangerous.”

  Bob did not take this news seriously. He couldn’t believe that any woman, even a Texas woman, would stalk him with a gun and hunt him down. “Yeah, thanks, but where does Ace Crouch live?”

  “Bob, you got guts, I’ll say that. Ace lives in Cowboy Rose, Kokernut Drive, little white house at the end with a ten-foot windmill on the lawn. Sign sayin Ace Windmills. His shop’s out back. You can’t miss it. Watch your step.”

  32

  ACE IN THE HOLE

  Cowboy Rose looked different now to Bob, more worn and shabbier, set in its own narrow-minded ways. Kokernut Drive was a short street of small houses near the railroad spur. Heat waves ran across the road like water. Ace Crouch’s house was fronted by a scabby lawn crowded with broken windmill parts and stacks of sucker rod. The shed at the back was jammed with more metal, aged trucks parked alongside the building. He took a breath and walked to the door, knocked, waited for several minutes and knocked again. He heard hurried footsteps inside.

  The door opened and a faded, elderly woman with a handsome face looked at him.

  “Mrs. Crouch?” He could smell burned food, hear tinny television laughter.

  “Yes.”

&nbs
p; “Is Mr. Crouch home? My name is Bob Dollar and I need to talk to him.”

  “Home? He’s never home. And when he is he’s asleep. He’s out fixin a mill on Head’s place, the old Cow Bones Ranch. You can find him out there. You know how to get there?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Let me think a minute.” She looked up at the ceiling. “Well, you drive west on the Screwbean Draw Road, know where that is? Good. Then you go until you come to the junction with 943, then I’m pretty sure you turn right, that’s north, and go about three or four or five miles until you hit Peeler Flats Road. Let’s see. You turn right on Peeler Flats and go another ten or twelve miles until you see a big ranch gate with five or six cow skulls nailed on it. That’s the main entrance. But you don’t want a go in there. You want the other entrance, the north entrance, so go past the main gate and bear right at Jimmy Rim Springs Road where Powper Lane cuts in. About three miles up Jimmy Rim there’s the back turnoff onto the ranch, big green metal gate, and that’s what you want. Ace is out in what they call the Black Draw pasture. You should be able a see his truck out there and a course you will see the mill. You want me to write that down for you?” she asked at his confused expression.

  “Please, if you don’t mind.”

  She scribbled sentences, crossed one out, wrote again and handed him the paper. “It might be you’ll turn left at Peeler Flats.”

  When he read the directions in the car they did not seem to tally with what she had said.

  An hour later he was lost in a tangle of pale dusty roads punctuated with an occasional yucca, clumps of little walnut and paper mulberry, roads with such names as Big Dry Lake and Tidyout. Mrs. Crouch’s directions and his map were of no use, for nothing matched. The flatland had given way to a series of dips and hollows cut by a twisted stream. Formidable plum thickets guarded the water. At last he pulled over and sat, let the dust settle. In the distance he could hear the irregular beat of pump jacks.