Winter paused like he was trying to establish something. ‘So she divorced you while you’re dodging bullets from Towelie?’
Gallen put down the phone, looked at Winter. ‘Got one for me?’ Taking a smoke, he lit it.
‘Didn’t mean to pry,’ said the Canadian. ‘Just that a woman can break a man like no Talibani ever could.’
‘Marcia didn’t break me.’ Gallen cracked his window as ‘Louisiana Saturday Night’ started on the radio.
They drove after that without talking, Gallen thinking back to that morning at the US forward base in Marjah. Spring was taking forever, the rare patches of warmth suddenly whipped away by the vicious alpine winds that swooped down from the Kush, making grown men stand still in shock.
In special forces, the enlisted men and officers messed together, and as Gallen had passed into the chow tent for breakfast he’d seen Marcia on the Wall of Shame, a public noticeboard where dishonourable wives and girlfriends were displayed. He’d taken down the photo, embarrassed, as he prepared himself for the morning briefing.
The picture was on the board again by lunch and Gallen had let it be known that he didn’t want his disintegrating personal life played out on a wall of shame in Afghanistan. He was too private for that.
By the second day of the Marcia episode, he’d shared a coffee with the commanding officer of the forward base, Major Andrew Dumfries — a veteran of Desert Shield/Storm. Dumfries was a no-bullshit Texan who came straight to it, telling Gallen that the Wall of Shame wasn’t about a single individual.
‘You put my ex-wife up there,’ said Gallen, ‘and that’s about an individual.’
‘No.’ Dumfries pointed at his chest. ‘It’s about all of us. We’re a corps, a single body. Your men want to put shame on your wife, it’s their way of taking the pain for you. So let ‘em!’
Gallen had let it go, just as he’d let Marcia go off with her dentist boyfriend.
‘It’s okay to be beaten by a lady,’ said Winter as they hammered along in the overtaking lane, the V8 purring. ‘You can go AWOL for a while, shake her out of the system.’
Gallen picked up on what Winter was talking about. He’d drifted around the country after discharge before arriving back at the farm, but it wasn’t something he wanted to go into.
‘I shook her out,’ said Gallen. ‘She’s gone.’
The lawyer’s office advertised McRae Doon Partners — Attorneys at Law on the wall behind the receptionist, but Messrs Doon and McRae hadn’t been around for fifty years. The only practising lawyers in the office were Rob Stansfield and Wes Carty, the dead-eyed lawyer who emerged in front of Gallen.
‘We’re inside,’ said Carty, thumb over his shoulder.
Carty’s room was large and sun-filled, an 1890s tribute to what the founding fathers once thought Clearmont could be.
‘Well, lookie here,’ said the red-faced man in the armchair, sneering as Gallen sat down.
‘Dad,’ said Gallen. ‘How you doin’?’
‘You little fucker,’ said Roy Gallen, standing.
Carty threw himself between the armchairs. ‘Roy! We spoke about this.’
Gallen eased into the armchair that faced Carty’s desk. There wasn’t much Roy Gallen could do to him these days, ‘less he was carrying a gun, but Gallen flinched all the same, felt the ice in his stomach as his father eyeballed him. Too many hockey games, too many broncs broken, too many winter mornings being thrown out the door to do barn chores. They had left their mark. Gallen was no longer scared of his old man, but he wasn’t immune to his anger.
‘Gallen Family Farms Sweet Clover Trust,’ said Carty, sitting behind the desk and reading straight from the filing tag of the manila folder on the desk. ‘We’re all present: trustees Roy Gallen and Gerard Gallen, and the designated trustee, Wesley Carty. Agreed?’
Gallen swapped a look with Roy and the lawyer continued.
‘There is a dispute around the finances of the Sweet Clover Trust and given that we are all here, does anyone object to the motion that the designated trustee be the arbiter of the dispute?’
Roy sighed, Scope mouthwash coming off him in waves. ‘Depends where you come down, Wes.’
‘I come down in the best interests of the trust, Roy,’ said Carty, a scratch golfer whose daughter was a champion barrel racer thanks to the horses he kept buying her.
‘I accept your decision, Wes.’ Gallen raised his hand like he was at an intel briefing. ‘Let’s get it done.’
Carty scribbled a note in his minutes. ‘Roy?’
Roy sighed, like someone had pulled the plug on an airbed. ‘Shit.’
‘That a yes, Roy?’
‘Sounds like I need my own lawyer.’
Carty noted it in the minutes but Gallen wasn’t going to ignore it. ‘Dad, Wes is the trust lawyer. This is his job.’
Roy Gallen waved his hand like he was swatting a fly at the sale yards. ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like the colt said. Let’s get it done.’
Gallen found him at the diner’s window table, Roy wearing his uniform of Carhartt canvas jacket, white western shirt and an old pair of Wranglers. Hair pulled back in a Brylcreemed wave that hadn’t changed since Gallen was a boy.
‘Can I join you?’ said Gallen, pausing before he touched the chair.
Roy looked out the window. ‘No law against it.’
Gallen removed his cap and signalled the waitress for one coffee. ‘We’ll clear the debts and then let’s start again, okay?’
‘Didn’t know it was that bad,’ said Roy. ‘Been drinking too hard, I guess.’
‘The creditors just want an arrangement, Dad,’ said Gallen, not wanting to talk down to his father or lecture him about the booze. ‘Wes will control the creditors and the cheque book for the next month and then we review it, okay? It’s not forever.’
Roy nodded. ‘We still need cash. Those steers don’t ship for another ten weeks at least.’
‘I’m putting in two thousand a week,’ said Gallen, treading carefully. ‘Wes takes care of the creditors and pays you a wage.’
‘I ain’t being paid by that sissy little Protestant sonofabitch,’ spat the old man, sitting up straight. ‘No Gallen was ever on no Carty payroll.’
‘He’s the trust lawyer,’ said Gallen. ‘And besides, the money comes from me.’
Roy shook his head slowly.
‘Look, Dad, the power will go on today. That’s something.’
‘Yeah,’ said Roy. ‘That’s something. So where’s this money of yours coming from? Marines ain’t givin’ it away.’
‘Got a gig,’ said Gallen. ‘Corporate security.’
‘Who for?’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Gallen. ‘Kenny’s signed on too.’
‘Take my farm labourer?’ Roy tapped a big forefinger on the tabletop. ‘Know we got some jumpers to work up? For real cash?’
‘We start in ten days. Kenny can start ‘em, and you can finish.’
Roy sipped at the coffee. He was as good a horse trainer as you could find in Sheridan County but he didn’t like jumpers and he’d obviously been planning to hide behind Kenny’s expertise.
‘Ain’t been over a rail for ten, twelve years,’ said Roy. ‘Might have to stop the drinkin’ for a whiles.’
‘If Kenny gets them horses to the point, then we can have Yvonne over to do the rail work.’
‘Yvonne?’ said Roy, confused. ‘McKenzie? She’s down Shell.’
‘She just bought a place on the forty-second,’ said Gallen, feeling his voice squeak. ‘She divorced.’
Roy’s face flashed concern and then his eyes were warmly focused on his son. ‘Yvonne and you.’
‘No, Dad. Not—‘
‘Yeah, son. I remember,’ said Roy, his face blossoming into the charmer of old. ‘Patricia told me, when you was in high school.’