The Legend of Colton H Bryant

by Alexandra Fuller

  Merinda said. “I know.”

  “How’d you know?”

  “I just knew.”

  Colton nodded.

  “That’s great news,” said Merinda.

  Colton’s hands clenched over his gun, “Yeah. I wanted you to be the first to know.”

  “Thanks.”

  “It’s all kinda quick,” said Colton.

  “No kiddin’.”

  Colton leaned his head on the steering wheel. “I’ve never been happier,” he said. “It’s just…You think the kid’s gonna be okay?”

  “Of course it’s gonna be okay.”

  And then suddenly Colton burst into tears. “What if he’s like me? What if he gets teased and he has to struggle like I did?”

  “Colton, what are you talking about?”

  “What if he’s a slow learner? Merinda? What about that?”

  Merinda smiled. “What if he’s a she?”

  “What?”

  “Colt,” said Merinda, “you’re the kindest, most forgiving human being I know. You’re the best uncle on the planet to Preston and Tabby’s kids. You love your nieces and nephews. You’re gonna have a beautiful baby. You’re gonna love it.”

  Colton sniffed and wiped his nose on the back of his jacket.

  “Unless you teach it to wipe its nose on its sleeve.”

  Colton laughed. Then he said, “It’s all the Mountain Dew, I guess.”

  “What’s all the Mountain Dew?”

  “Babies is.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Keeps me awake all night.”

  “Oh brother,” said Merinda.

  “He-he-he,” said Colton.

  Then neither of them said anything for a long time until Merinda said, “You’re gonna be great with a baby.”

  Colton pressed his knuckles into his eyes. “It’s all I ever wanted.” He looked at his sister. “Messin’ around days is over, Merinda. It’s gonna get more serious from here on out.”

  Merinda nodded.

  “Another kid. My own baby? Holy cow.” Colton took a deep breath, then he reached down and started the pickup truck. “You think I hunted all the bunnies there are out here to hunt?”

  Merinda said, “Pretty much.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  Colton eased the truck back into a clearing where he could turn around and get back onto the highway. “Just so you know,” he said, “if something happens to me and M’issa, we want you to have the kids, okay?”

  “Okay,” said Merinda, “but nothing’s gonna happen, Colt. It’s gonna be just fine.”

  “Sure,” said Colton, “It’s gonna be just fine.”

  35

  MARRIAGE AND ROUGHNECKING

  Evanston, Wyoming

  Roughnecks live in half-month or weekly increments, hoping personal time pans out around their one or two weeks away from the oil patch. There’s no such thing as sick leave, paid leave, paternity leave, compassion leave. Either you’re there for your hitch or you’re not, no one’s going to keep your place warm for you while you coach your wife through labor or your kid through a baseball game. There is a mechanical dispassion to the process of being hired and fired. The rigs are the only constant. They have to keep drilling hour after hour—storm, heat, sleet, ice, sun—no matter what. They’ll slap another beating heart on the rig to take your place if you’re so much as five minutes late.

  So when Jake and Tonya were married the summer after their car crash, Colton stayed up thirty-six hours straight to make it as best man to the wedding and still work the two twelve-hour shifts on the drilling rig on either side of the wedding. He left Big Piney as soon as the crew got back into the man camp at seven and he was in Evanston by ten, cutting it fine, because for one thing, it took him the better part of the rest of the morning and an hour of the afternoon to get scrubbed up out of his greasers and into a tuxedo rented from the Bridal Center in Salt Lake City—black bow tie, black waistcoat, black coat, and a blue corsage. And then the church by three, and the reception after that, with all the speeches and cake-cutting.

  The music went on until midnight, Colton slow-dancing with Melissa, who was three months shy of delivering Dakota. When the bridal couple left the reception for their honeymoon, Colton hugged Jake, both of them awkward and a bit rigid in those silly outfits, and he kissed Tonya stiffly on the cheek. After that, he drove Melissa home and she took a bath while Colton checked on Nate. Then he rubbed Melissa’s back, and once she was asleep, he got on the road north and hurried back to be at the man camp by four-thirty to catch the shuttle to the rig at five with the rest of his crew.

  A week after the wedding, Jake gave Colton an official portrait of the two of them, framed. It shows a background of trailing white cloth over fake Ionic pillars and the two men in the foreground, groom and best man, smiling a little uncertainly at all the unaccustomed pomp—the stiff monkey suits, the flower arrangement poking out of a hole in their suits, the slicked-down hair—but proud too, as if they had achieved some kind of countable milestone. And underneath this portrait, on the white border left by the photographer, Jake has written in an uneven, blocky hand, “best friends forever.”

  36

  THE DEATH OF LEROY FRIED

  Upper Green River Valley

  On Monday, August 2, 2004—a sunny summer afternoon, not too hot and the wind becalmed to a gentle breeze for once—a forty-nine-year-old roughneck was killed by a falling support beam in the Upper Green River Valley not far from where Colton was drilling. Leroy Fried was working on Cyclone Drilling rig number 19 on a well owned by Ultra Petroleum. The screws on a support beam probably sheared through, loosing the beam that fell onto the rig floor before bouncing up and striking Leroy on the right arm and right leg (breaking both) and in the chest and stomach. It took the ambulance crew fifteen minutes to race from Pinedale to the well site, during which time Leroy’s crew mates tried to keep him calm and control the bleeding.

  “Just lie here nice and still.”

  “You’re gonna be okay.”

  “We called the ambulance.”

  “Hang in there, you’re okay.”

  And Leroy crying out for all of heaven and earth to help him.

  “We’re doing all we can. You’re gonna be fine, man. You’re gonna be fine.”

  The next few nights the talk in the bars around town and in the man camps all around the high plains circled around all the usual subjects: women (or the lack thereof), money, guns, pickup trucks—and the death of Leroy Fried.

  “Poor bastard was still talking when they got to him,” said one roughneck, “knew he wasn’t gonna make it.”

  “He only worked for the company for sixteen days,” said someone else.

  “Poor fool.”

  Colton stared at his plate of meatloaf and wished it had been made by Melissa.

  “Assholes don’t give a shit what kind of rig they put you on,” said another roughneck.

  “Bolts were overstressed.”

  “Poor guy.”

  “They say he asked for his mom at the end.”

  “They say all guys ask for their mom before they die. Like if you get shot or what have you.”

  “That’s just in movies.”

  “No man, it’s for real.”

  “How’d you know?”

  “I just know, man. It’s one of the things you know if you’re half-a-freakin’-wake, man.”

  “I’d ask for Pamela Anderson.”

  “Retard! It’s not like you get who you ask for. It’s not a request for a final meal or anything.”

  Colton pushed his tray away. “This meatloaf is horrible.” He got up. “See you guys.”

  Someone pointed a fork at Colton’s back. “S’up with Colt? Prickly as a porcupine.”

  “His wife’s due any day.”

  “Oh.”

  Colton made his way down the sterile corridor of the trailer. Everything was temporary, cheap. There was a plant in the corner, a plant next to
the door, a plant next to the bathroom door—all plastic. Kaylee always said never eat the meatloaf in a restaurant with plastic foliage or plastic knives and forks and Colton thinks, “Good freakin’ advice, Mom.” Next to the kitchen, there was a grey-carpeted room with a massive television screen. The boys were watching something blow up, fireballs, cars doing slow pirouettes in the air, metal gymnasts spinning around and around themselves. “You’d think they have enough of that all day,” Colton thought. He went out into the mountain-cool summer night and made his way to the dormitory trailers where the beds were lined up in empty white cubicles. Colton took his greasers off at the door, sat on the edge of a bed made up like an army cot, and found his cell phone.

  “Hello?”

  “M’issa? It’s me.”

  “Colt.”

  “How you doing?”

  “I feel like a whale.”

  Colton smiled, “I bet you’re beautiful.”

  “I can’t tie my shoelaces.”

  “So? Wear slip-ons.”

  “It’s any day now, Colt. You coming home?”

  “Soon baby. Five more days.”

  Melissa sighed.

  “How’s Nate?”

  “Missing you.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah.”

  Colton scratched the back of his neck. “Baby?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Nothin’.”

  “What?”

  “Nothin’.”

  “Is everything okay there?”

  Colton said, “Great. It’s great. Couldn’t be better. Getting kinda chilly at nights already.”

  There was a silence then Melissa asked, “Can’t you get a job down here? It gets kinda chilly nights here too.”

  “Not that again, M’issa.”

  Melissa started crying.

  “M’issa, hey M’issa. I’ll be home soon.”

  “I miss you something fierce. Colton, please.”

  “It’s good money.”

  “It ain’t worth it.”

  “I’ll buy me a F350. Tell me that ain’t worth it.”

  “It ain’t worth it.”

  “Aw, c’mon baby.”

  “Please come home.”

  “Five more sleeps.”

  Melissa sighed again and blew her nose.

  “Cowboy up, cupcake,” said Colton.

  Silence.

  “I love you, M’issa.”

  More silence.

  “C’mon baby. I’m oil-field trash. It’s what I do.”

  Melissa took a deep breath, “I love you too, Colton.”

  “That’s my girl. You take care of our baby and Nate and I’ll be home soon.”

  “Okay.”

  Colton ran his fingers under his eyes and held his face in his hands, the cell phone propped up in a couple of fingers to his ear. “I sure miss your meatloaf,” he said. “Freakin’ camp cook here makes the sonofabitchest meatloaf you ever ate.”

  “Promise me you’ll be here for me,” said Melissa.

  “Yeah,” said Colton. “Sure. Sure I’ll be there. Of course I’ll be there.”

  “Okay,” said Melissa.

  “Okay,” said Colton.

  Then the two of them sat on the receiving end of each other’s breathing until Colton said, “I’m gonna hang up now and get some sleep. I gotta be back out on the patch in eight hours.”

  “Okay. I love you.”

  “Yeah, I love you too, baby.”

  Colton hung up and lay on top of the blankets with his hands behind his head staring at the white ceiling of the trailer. The place was starting to fill up with the sound of men breathing in an exhausted, industrial way. The air was rank with old sweat and testosterone overlaid with the sting of disinfectant. “Sonofa!” said Colton, turning on his side and shutting his eyes.

  37

  DAKOTA JUSTUS BRYANT

  September 15, 2004, Colton made it back to Evanston to see Dakota Justus Bryant being born, but he was halfway down the corridor on his way back to the Upper Green River Valley almost before the child had been rubbed dry.

  “Where’s he going?” Kaylee asked.

  “Back to the rigs,” said Melissa.

  “What?” said Tabby.

  Melissa started to cry.

  “Hold on here, girl,” Kaylee told Melissa. “He’ll be right back.”

  “Me too,” said Tabby.

  Tabby and Kaylee ran out of the hospital room, down the corridor, and stopped Colton before he got to the sliding doors.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” said Kaylee.

  “I’ve got a shift coming up.”

  Tabby poked Colton in the chest. “You go back into that room and sit by your wife’s side. How can you be so ignorant?”

  “I’ve got a shift coming up,” shouted Colton.

  “I don’t care. She needs you,” Tabby shouted back.

  “What do you know?”

  “I’ve had a baby. That’s what I know!”

  “Would you two stop yellin’?” said Kaylee. “We’re in a hospital. There’s people tryin’ to be sick in here.”

  “Then tell him not to be so ignorant.”

  “Son,” said Kaylee, “unless you’d like me to knock you flat on your ass, you’re going to go back into that room with your wife and son. They need you.”

  “They need me to make money,” said Colton.

  “They need you here.” Kaylee put her hands on Colton’s shoulders. “And I’m tellin’ you to go to them.”

  “Sonofabitch!” said Colton. He shrugged Kaylee’s hands off.

  “Watch your language, son.”

  Colton pressed his knuckles into his eyes. “Holy cow,” he said. “If they fire me, then what?”

  “Any company that doesn’t understand that you need to be here for your wife and your children right now doesn’t deserve your time,” said Kaylee.

  “Tony was there for me when Tanner was born,” said Tabby.

  “Yeah,” said Colton.

  “Your father was there when you were born,” said Kaylee.

  Tabby poked Colton in the ribs. “Yeah, Pant-leg Pete,” she said. “Right there in the car with you.”

  Colton held up his hands. “Okay, Mom, I’ll call camp and see if I can get someone to cover me for a few shifts.”

  “That’s better,” said Kaylee.

  Tabby shook her head. “Sheesh, Colt. You can be so ignorant sometimes.”

  “Come here,” said Colton, opening his arms.

  Tabby put her head against Colton’s chest.

  “Sorry I yelled at you,” said Colton.

  “I’m sorry I called you ignorant.”

  “Okay,” said Colton.

  Tabby took Colton’s hand. “C’mon, baby brother,” she said.

  Kaylee watched the two of them walk down the corridor back to Melissa’s room, hand in hand, Tabby all bunched sideways so that her blonde ponytail touched the bottom of Colton’s neck. Then Kaylee phoned Bill at the oil patch down in Utah. “Well,” she told him, “I think your son’s just had his first real taste of fatherhood.”

  “How’s he taking it?”

  “He’s scared half to death.”

  “He’ll get over it.”

  “I think he just did.”

  “Is the baby okay.”

  “Looks exactly like Colton.”

  “That a fact?”

  “Peas in a pod.”

  “I thought we broke the mold.”

  “Me too.”

  “How’s M’issa doing?”

  “She’s gonna be okay.”

  “I’ll call you later.”

  “Tomorrow. I’ve got a late shift coming up.”

  “Bill?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Oh nothin’.”

  But she hung on for a moment and shut her eyes.

  “Okay, girl,” said Bill.

  “Yeah, okay,” said Kaylee and hung up.

  38

  COLTON QUITS

&n
bsp; Usually Colton drives half the night on his week off from old habit and also to keep from switching the graveyard clock on himself; a sixty-ounce bottle of Mountain Dew on the seat next to him, a tin of Copenhagen on the dash, a .22 across his lap. Then he’d phone Tony or Jake from somewhere down near Bitter Creek or Poison Basin and say, “Guess where I am?” or “I’m on a dirt track somewhere your side of Antelope Hills and I can’t see the sonofabitch way to get me back to Evanston.” And it would be three o’clock in the morning. “The only road sign I can see says, ‘No.’”

  “No what?”

  “I dunno. The rest of the words are shot all to holy crap.”

  But recently he’d been staying close to home on his week off, spending time with Nathanial and Dakota mostly, and trying to get it figured out with Melissa. They’d been having some hard times these last months—his weeks on the drilling rigs in the Upper Green River Valley making lonelier and lonelier gaps in their time together and Melissa wanting him to quit the rigs worse than ever and Colton, never having been good at expressing himself, getting quieter and quieter before blowing up. “What else do you want me to do?” But what he really meant was, “What other choices do I have?”

  Melissa tried to tell Colton that he could feel like free fall if you were on the receiving end of him. “You’re always all or nothing, Colton. Why can’t you do in between for a change?”

  Colton let the question sink in for a moment, considered it seriously, then he bit his nails apologetically. “I never did find that gear,” he said, which was a fact. So Melissa kept trying to press Colton into one place, the best way she knew how, taking him off to the photo studio every month or two for a family portrait and he, sullen in the resulting pictures, refusing to take off his ball cap, looking at the photographer like, “Just take the freakin’ picture, would you?”

  And then there were arguments. “Could you just smile at the man?”

  And Colton replying that he didn’t see the point to all these portraits, and he was never doing another one as long as he lived, so help him. And whatever else he did, he wasn’t ever going hunting with this photographer. Did he not know where the trigger was on his damn camera? “I ain’t gonna get any prettier, so just shoot it already.”