“You’d be surprised. Between Leonard and myself, we already have most of their agreements.”
“My dad? He was all for this?”
“As much or more than I am.”
“Huh; I never thought he’d do anything practical in his life.”
“In fact,” Evan said, “there’s only one hold out.”
A wry smile spread across Joe’s face.
Evan sighed. “If Leonard had owned the Meeks ranch, this would all be over and done with. Unfortunately for us, he never did.”
“There you go,” Joe smirked, “that’s the Meeks family for you. If I know Frances, you’ll be as old as she before you ever get her agreement, let alone that ranch.”
“She’s the most intransigent ninety-year old I ever had the pleasure to deal with. If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t even be out here wasting your time.”
Joe looked up. “What do you mean by that?”
“She said she’d never agree to give up that land while there was still someone left to work it. But your father was the only thing close to an able body left on the place, so now that she drove him to his death from sheer frustration, she claims there’s still you.”
“There’s still no one, then,” Joe said. “Me take over where my dad left off? You can set her straight on that right now.”
“The sooner the better. The minute we get you out there and. . .”
“Ho no,” Joe cried, jumping up. “Go out there for what? The only way I’d go out to that Godforsaken place is to bury her in it.”
“It’s the only way. She’s has to see for herself. Joe, it’ll take two or three days. We’ll cover all the expenses. All you have to. . .”
“Nothing doing. No way, no how.”
“Joe, it’s easy money, and think what money could do for Wade. You could afford the best boarding school in the country. Think it over, Joe, you could. . .”
“Evan, it’s nothing to think over. Good luck on your plan, but include me out. I don’t need one red cent of money from that ranch. Never did and never will.”
His eyes flashed. Evan studied the floor a long time, then crushed out his cigarette and buttoned his jacket.
“I don’t go back to Meagher until tomorrow. You have until then. I delivered my news and I’m done. If you choose to be as intractable as Frances, it’s not worth any more of my time to try and help this poor family.”
Joe folded his arms, rocking steadfastly on his feet.
“Then let’s leave it at that,” Evan said. He turned to go, then turned back. “Here Wade, my card with my hotel on the back. In case something should change your father’s mind.”
He patted Wade’s head. “Good luck, chief.” He parted the plastic drop and disappeared.
THE MORNING ADVANCED; a warm breeze quietly ballooned the plastic. Deep in thought, Joe looked up at Wade, sun on one side of his face, the other in shadow.
“How’s your head, Wade?”
“Good. I do like you said, try and not notice it.”
“I said that?”
“Yeah, remember? When I would feel bad about mom, you said growing up is learning not to feel things.”
Joe shook his head. “I got to watch what I say around you; you get me all backwards.”
“It works, though. I don’t feel it now.”
Joe leaned his forearms on the safety netting, gazing over the limitless city, peaceful at this elevation. Wade leaned forward on his forearms too. Joe suddenly laughed, and Wade asked why.
“Frances always said the Gallantines would turn up one day to try and get the place. I don’t think a day went by she didn’t worry about somebody gettin the ranch away from her, and it was almost always Lillian that was going to be the one to do it. In her mind Lillian’s sole purpose was to one day come steal it away from her.”
“Who’s Lillian.”
“Evan’s mother. The youngest sister. See, there were three Meeks sisters in all; Emma, Frances, and Lillian. Lillian’s been in California since she was twenty, but who knows, maybe she did hear about that dam and sent Evan to wrangle out whatever he could. They ought to know better, though. Next to their mother, who homesteaded it, nobody worked that place like Frances. She’ll never let it go; she runs it like it was hers.”
“I thought it was hers.”
“No, that’s the funny thing. Before their mother died, she put the whole place in Emma’s name, with Frances as guardian.”
“What’s funny about that? She was the oldest, wasn’t she?”
“Yeah, but Emma was born simple-minded; never had the sense of a six year old. Still, of the three girls, their mother left it all to her. I don’t know if anybody knows why, but that’s how it was. After that, Lillian took off, but Frances stayed. Maybe she thought she’d eventually get it if Emma died. Looks like Emma never cooperated, though. Now with that dam, Frances never will.”
“Do you really think Evan’s trying to steal it from her?”
“Ah no, but I bet Lillian did send him. Evan Gallantine never set foot even close to Montana before this as far as I know. He doesn’t even seem like a Meeks to me. He seems more like a normal person, or a Californian, at least.”
Below, a bird’s wings blazed white among the shadow and sunlight of the city’s quiet buildings.
“Imagine what it looked like to him. Things he must of seen then.”
“Who? Evan?”
“No, Peter Meeks, the father of the Meeks sisters. My great-grandfather. He came through after he stowed away clear across the ocean by himself.”
“Why’d he do that?”
“To get away from home, I suppose.”
“Like you did.”
“Yeah,” Joe said, looking at Wade like he’d only just realized it himself, “I guess like I did.”
“What happened to him, Joe?”
“He went out west, first the Black Hills, then up the Hellwater to a camp in Independence Basin. He died early, leaving his wife and those three girls to eke it out on the ranch, that’s where the whole problem started, I think. It’s too bad. He must’ve been a hardy man. When he stowed away, he was only twelve or thirteen at the oldest.”
“Man, I wonder if I could ever do that.”
“You’re too young.”
“You guys weren’t.”
Wade looked up, smiling. Joe smiled back.
“You’re a funny guy, Wade.”
They leaned together, watching the city come to life. The sky was cloudless, the horizons far and clear in this air. He breathed deep.
“Don’t you love it up here; no fumes, no dirt, no noise.”
“Yeah, it’s great, Joe.”
“Air and only air.”
Joe turned. Wade was so near, he could smell his fine hair. The soft skin of his cheek. And how there was always the corner of a smile in his mouth, tempting you to smile back. It had never occurred to Joe before, but how such a person could come from nothing, all that youth, the eyes, the hands, the perfect head, all out of nothing? You couldn’t help wanting to run a hand over his head.
“Listen, Wade, you know it’s not that I don’t like you, don’t you?”
Wade nodded quickly. “I know.”
“It’s just that it’d be better. . .”
Joe’s eyes wandered off.
“What?” Wade said.
“I was thinking Evan might be right about that ranch for once doing somebody some good.”
“You mean you’ll take the money?”
“Hell no. I meant maybe it isn’t a half bad idea, that boarding school place he was talking about. I guess they must have places like that, where they take kids off your hands and do the right thing with them. Sounds like just the ticket, doesn’t it?”
“Not really.” Wade brightened. “Don’t you think it’s probably too expensive.”
“How much could it cost? I could just keep hard at work and the money can go to one of these live-away type schools and in a couple three years, you’re out and on your o
wn. Now there’s a plan for you, right?”
He rose and started off to the elevator.
“Come on, let’s get back. Think about it, Wade. The best part is you get your schooling and don’t have to live with the likes of me.”
Joe was all smiles in the elevator, while Wade stared at the floor, the rush of air whispering in his ears. Back on the ground, they stepped out into shadows protecting the last of the morning haze that hugged the ground. Joe skipped briskly toward the trailer, but Wade lingered, liking the misty vapor watering his cheek, soothing the hard throb in his eye.
THE TRAILER DOOR flung open, the bottom hinge snapping like a dry leaf.
“Where’s that fucking goldbricking greaseball?” a heavyset man in a rumpled suit roared, red about to burst from his face. He stormed inside.
The foreman, his square forehead sweaty, his skin vermilion, was right on his heels. “Joe,” he called, “the G.C. wants to. . .”
“Meeks!” the other man bellowed, the trailer rumbling with his weight. As Joe ran out from his room to see what was going on, the man hurled his hardhat at him so hard it bounced off the wall, leaving a hole, and narrowly missing Wade, who was lying on the job box.
The man, seeing Wade jump up, stopped short.
“Who the hell is that?” he cried.
No one answered. The man, one of the general contractors and the foreman’s boss, looked from Wade to Joe and back again. He seemed to lose some of his steam then, and stood there like a panting bull, glaring at Joe with caustic eyes.
He turned to the foreman. “It’s not enough this idiot goombah dances into mid-town with a ten mile string of bullshit on my fucking time and then has the balls to ask for a raise; no, on top of that, he’s raising a family on my construction site? I ought to . . .”
But he couldn’t finish, and speechless with rage, he let fly with profanities so venomous Wade shrank down behind the job box for safety.
“Take it easy, boss,” the foreman said.
“I’ll take it easy, alright,” the man yelled, then walked to the foreman as if to crush him. “Listen to me and listen good. Get Eddy or Spinelli or whoever on the biggest dozer we got and raze this shithole trailer to a pulp before tomorrow morning. I tell you now, if I find this insolent son of a bitch asshole anywhere near my site after today, he’s Joe fucking History. If you give him one red cent of his back pay, Jimmy, you’re fucking history too. Got it? Now get the fuck going.”
He shoved the foreman aside and barreled out, slamming the door so hard it ripped off completely. The foreman watched him go, then picked up the hardhat which had almost hit Wade. He looked flat-faced, his face ashy, except for the ridge of his scar. He turned to Joe, started to say something, then shook his head and left.
It was several minutes before Wade’s ears stopped ringing, and several more before he dared come out from behind the job box.
The whole day, once Evan had left and he seized on the idea of a boarding school, Joe had been bustling around the trailer cleaning up and making plans. Wade had never seen him so chatty and lighthearted. Now he stood silently cutting up the last of the boiled meat.
“Might as well eat it up,” he said, offering it to Wade. Wade shook his head. “What? You’re not hungry for a change?”
“Joe, what are we going to do?”
Joe sat down with his plate on his lap. “Don’t worry about it, Wade. It’s not like I’ve never been through this before.”
Wade wrung his hands in his pockets. “But I never have.”
Joe looked up at him.
“Do we have any money?” Wade asked.
Joe put his plate of meat aside. “No, I guess we don’t.”
“Do you have any ideas?”
“Well, no, not at the moment. I was expecting to. . .” He looked at Wade. “Why, do you?”
Wade pulled out Evan’s card. “I have one.”
“Yeah.” Joe rubbed his ear and took the card. “I figured you might.”
EVAN GALLANTINE WAS paying for his Chinese food in the lobby when he saw them arrive; they passed the front window like two homeless drifters. He retrieved them and shepherded them up to his room, where Wade plopped on the bed in relief, while Joe went to the window. The balcony looked out over 23rd street; below, cars flowed in a river of headlights.
“But nothing’s changed, Evan. I’m going for Wade’s sake, not mine.”
“Fine,” Evan said, spreading out an array of white cartons full of steaming mysterious-looking food on the dresser near Wade.
“And whatever I get out of the ranch goes for Wade’s live away school. All of it. I don’t want anything to do with it.”
“However you want it,” Evan said, unwrapping his chopsticks. “Wade, I’ve got more than I can eat, feel free to help me out.”
Wade, needing no further encouragement, plunged in with his fingers since there were no utensils, just another package of wooden sticks. Evan picked at a few bites, then leaned back and fluffed his pillow.
“And I want something legal,” Joe continued, “in writing.”
“As soon as we have her commitment, I’ll have the contracts all ready to go.”
“I mean before I go. To make sure I’m not wastin my time. Say Frances still turns us down, then what?”
“Impossible.” Evan took a liquor bottle from the bed cabinet. “She’s nearly ninety. She can’t even make the drive down to Meagher anymore. How would she ever keep a ranch going?”
“She might find a way. There’s always Harlo. What about him, anyway?”
“I don’t think he’s a factor. He’s in prison.”
“Prison?” Wade lifted his head out of the food.
Evan removed the plastic covers from three hotel glasses and poured each glass full of the clear liquid from his bottle, then took a lemon and sliced thin wheels into each glass. Beside him, Wade’s eyes fell on two chocolate mints which for some reason were lying on the pillow.
“Joe,” Evan said, “what you need to do is relax. Eat something. Did you leave him any food there, chief?”
Wade looked sheepishly at the empty cartons. He had about decided he’d better offer Joe one of the chocolate mints he wanted when Evan clinked a glass and passed it to Joe.
“There’s a sauna and hot tub in the hotel; why don’t you take your drink and go soak your bones? Take advantage of the place.”
Joe took the glass. He felt oily and filthy, and the thought of immersing his entire body in steaming hot water was more than tempting. While Evan gave him towels and directions, Wade helped himself to the mints and stepped out onto the balcony.
The noise of traffic surged below. As he was finishing the first mint, Evan came out with two glasses and sat down. He pushed Wade a glass, a perfect slice of lemon floating on the surface.
“Sake,” Evan said, “It’s a Japanese drink.”
“Thanks.”
Wade sipped, curious. For a second, there was no taste, then his mouth turned to cotton, then erupted as if in flame. His eyes gushed; he couldn’t breathe. Trying not to gasp, he turned to wipe his lips so Evan couldn’t see, then sucked quickly on his chocolate mint to clear the taste.
Evan was quietly thinking to himself, a pleased expression on his face. He finished his glass and poured them both some more.
“It must be all very strange for you,” he said thoughtfully, “all at once having a family you never met and never knew you had.” He nodded to himself. “It’s too bad it had to have been this particular one.”
“How come Joe doesn’t want to go back?” Wade said, his voice cracking, his mouth feeling acidized by the sake.
“I don’t know. I wonder if he knows himself, anymore.”
“Who’s that guy Harlo?”
“Leonard’s brother, Joe’s uncle.”
“He’s in prison?”
“In and out.”
“How come?”
“He apparently regards writing bad checks, grand larceny, and auto theft as a viable career
path. Typical Meagherite.”
There was one other thing Wade wanted to know.
“Do you know how Scotty died?”
“Scotty?”
“Didn’t Joe have a little brother?”
“That’s right, the slow one. I don’t know much about Scotty, only that he was buried in a landslide set off by an earthquake, and apparently Joe was. . .”
His voice trailed off. Wade looked up. Joe stood behind him, his hair waxy clean, his face shiny and still damp. Wade smiled up at him.
Evan stood. “You look a lot better.”
“I don’t know, Evan. I was thinking about things. What if Frances. . .”
“Joe, forget about Frances. Once you set her straight, she knows there’s only one option.”
Joe sighed and looked down into the whirlpool of traffic below.
“Well then, if I’m doin it, I’d like to do it get it over with.”
“I do as well, before we lose the edge with HRC. I’ve booked you on a flight tomorrow. The one I’m taking was full because it’s the Monday morning business crowd, but I’ll wait in Billings for you. I have things to do there anyway.”
“You already booked us? You sure didn’t waste any time.”
“I expected you might change your mind. Is there a problem?”
Joe shook his head. “It’s just happenin so fast. You only told me about it this morning.”
“And you only just told me you wanted it done and over with.”
Joe looked at Wade, who nodded.
“We’ll probably have it wrapped up in a matter of days,” Evan said, “after that, you and Wade can leave whenever you want.”
“Wade?”
Evan looked at him. “Joe, you can’t very well just leave him.”
Joe looked down. A police car wailed past, and behind it the stream of cars became a torrent.
“Besides,” Evan went on, “look at it this way. It’s a vacation, and you can make the most of it. You two can get better acquainted.”
He downed his sake.
“And who knows,” he mused, “a trip home might bring back some fond memories.”
WADE YAWNED. THEY had been travelling since that afternoon, and it was very late, almost dawn; he had trouble keeping his head from falling on Joe’s shoulder.
The plane from Denver to Billings was tiny, a sixteen seat prop. As the final passengers boarded, the stewardess squeezed up the aisle, her nylon legs swishing with static. Wade drowsily raised his eyes to see if Joe Meeks thought she was pretty, but he was staring out the oval window, looking worried. Even on the big jet from New York to Denver, Joe had seemed very nervous about flying, and Wade felt he should keep him company, but he couldn’t keep his head from drowsily folding deeper onto Joe’s shoulder. When the propellers started and the plane lurched, and Joe instinctively grabbed the armrest which included Wade’s arm, Wade didn’t really mind. He was blissfully close to sleep.
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