Nina shook her head.
Ace explained. “Herd of buffalo so big it took two days to pass. And so close-packed my ancestors couldn’t open the door to get to the well.”
“And that’s your dream?”
“Sort of. I dreamed I was up on the border running a dozer, knocking down some bankrupt farmer’s house, and that herd of buffalo came through again. Me trapped on the bulldozer and the buffalo coming forever.”
“Is Ace your real name?”
“Nickname. Name’s Asa. That was my grandfather’s name. Grandfather helped organize the Nonpartisan League after World War One. You ever hear of that?”
Nina cautiously shook her head.
Ace smiled. “Grandpa used to say if you took a railroad man from St. Paul, a mill owner from Minneapolis, and a banker from New York and you stuffed them all in a pickle barrel and rolled the barrel down the hill, there’d always be a son of a bitch on top.”
“Sounds like your grandpa wasn’t a Republican.”
“You got that right. When he had a few beers in him he used to say there’s nothing more dangerous than a bunch of angry farmers with rifles. Was how America started, he’d say.”
Nina sat up a little straighter, attentive. “Sounds like militia talk.”
“Ah, I met some of those guys-just weekend beer bellies, like to dress up in camo. Not real serious folks for the most part.”
Definitely more attentive. “What’s serious?”
“Changing something. Fixing something.” Ace shrugged. “Hey, I’m not much for politics. But I do know that if one guy shoots the banker it’s murder. If twenty guys lynch him it’s a mob; but if the whole county takes him out and strings him up it’s a change of administration. That’s kinda what they did here in the teens and twenties, took over the state, wrote new laws, created the state mill and the state bank. Back then they called them Socialists.”
Ace shook his head and laughed. “Then we become the launch site for all the missiles aimed at Communist Russia. Which made us into a big target. Kinda like payback for what the Nonpartisan League did to the fat cats, maybe.”
Nina eyed him carefully. “You have this habit of surprising people, you know?”
Ace smiled wryly, and Nina thought he could probably do that for a few more years, but once the tiny wrinkles around his mouth came up sharper it’d be sad all the way. He said, “I used to play ball. That’s a game where you stand around a lot. But then if something happens, you got to be on top of it. Got to be ready for surprises, I guess.” His eyes lingered on her when he said that, searching.
She held his gaze. “So what is it you’re going to show me?”
“Just a place where something happened.”
Nina looked away and watched the wind stream through a long row of trees. “What kind of trees are those?”
“Poplars. Immigrants used to plant them. Put ’em in cemeteries when somebody died. Instead of headstones. More windrows to cut down on the wind. Notice how they all kind of bow to the east. That’s the wind.” He grinned and gave her a sidelong glance. “You know why the wind blows in North Dakota?”
She knew that one. “Yeah, yeah. Because Minnesota sucks.”
They laughed and Nina got comfortable, curling her legs under her in the bucket seat, something she hadn’t done in a car with a man since high school.
More dead straight road, fields of wheat and oats and occasional pools of flax that seemed to float against the green like wisps of mirage.
Then a tall gray grain elevator loomed up on the left side of the highway. Ace slowed and turned left. The red sign by the road said STARKWEATHER.
“Quaint name for a town,” Nina said.
“Got an echo to it, that’s for sure,” Ace said. They drove past an abandoned grocery, a shack with a gas pump, and a post office that maybe was still functioning. Ace parked across from a run-down tavern with a big Pabst Blue Ribbon sign hanging over the door. He zipped down the window, fingered a Camel out of his chest pocket, lit it, exhaled, and said, “How many chances you think people get?”
“Not sure. Sometimes I think some people never had a chance.”
“Well, I did. Nineteen eighty-three I graduated high school. Had a good year in Legion ball, batted eight hundred and change. Coach compiled my stats, pulled a few strings, and I got letters from the Twins and the Reds. So I went down to the Twin’s tryout.” He leaned back, smiled. “Knocked two home runs out of the old Met Stadium. Got it on film. That was before video was big. Made the cut the first day.
“Then come the second morning and I’m there warming up and…” He paused and his eyes got stuck remembering. He raised his right knee, moved it in a slow circle. “You could hear the pop clear across the field in the stands.”
“ACL tendon?”
“Big time. They told me where to go to get the best treatment and I went and they give me all this physical therapy. Said it would be six months to heal up. Maybe an operation.
“And I started the program, but I came back here…” His eyes drifted out he window. “Started driving the big stuff for Irv Fuller’s dad. Then, what the hell, I thought I’d try farming. Took over my dad’s place. He’d moved into town by then. Had the Deere dealership and the bar.
“I got in trouble with the bank and tried to cut costs and didn’t pay for crop insurance, and between the hail and the rain and the bugs, that ended my farming career.”
He pointed across the street at the run-down bar.
“Was right in there on a Friday night. I had a little too much to drink and this fool named Bobby Pease, who was just a big bag of wind and a bully and a real mean drunk-well, Bobby decided he was going to throw me out of the bar, and he came at me with a beer bottle and I was not in the best mood, having just lost the farm…” He held up his right hand, studied it. “So I hit him. Just once.”
Ace sighed. “Well, some who were there said it was the fall that broke his neck but I heard it crack when I hit him. He must have been way off balance.” He sucked his teeth and his voice turned wistful. “And I always did hit pretty good. There was more than a few bankrupt farmers on the jury and I’d been working for Fuller, plowing under farmhouses to make more room for the big twelve-bottom plows.” Ace shook his head. “They gave me manslaughter. Reckless endangerment. Cost me a year at Jamestown, the state farm.”
Nina didn’t know what to say.
“But you know what they say about silver linings.” Ace grinned, starting up the Tahoe. “That’s where I got started reading.”
Chapter Seventeen
His cameo role completed, Broker limped back to town in the Explorer. Walking funny, nursing his swollen eye, he came back into the Motor Inn, ignored the scrutiny of the elderly lady behind the desk, went up the stairs, and rapped on Jane’s door.
The door opened. The sound of the Road Runner was muted in the motel room. Now Kit was up on the bed, doing the chicken dance opposite Holly.
I don’t wanna be a chicken
I don’t wanna be a duck
So I’ll shake my butt…
Broker stared at the hoary Delta full bird shaking his bony ass. Barrel of laughs, these guys.
“So? I ain’t all snake eater,” Holly protested as he stepped off the bed and studied Broker’s face. “I got grandkids.”
“You don’t look so hot,” Jane said.
“You got a black eye, Daddy,” Kit said.
“I got too involved, I overacted. Took a swing at Shuster. With my bad hand,” Broker said. “His helper stepped in and pasted me.” He pointed to his left eye.
“Hey, great touch,” Holly said. “I’ll go get some ice.” He grabbed the ice container off the dresser and disappeared into the hall.
“Bravo,” Jane said, “let’s have a look.” She went to her equipment bag, took out a first-aid bag, and motioned Broker to the sink. Holly returned, wrapped some ice cubes in a washcloth, and handed it to Broker, who held it against his cheek.