Who was that, Daddy?
I can’t think of his name. But I know him. I’ll think of it, he said. His voice sounded odd and then suddenly he began to weep.
Daddy, what is it?
He covered his face with his hands, his shoulders shaking. Mary leaned forward and put her arms around him.
Dear, it’s all right. What’s wrong? What are you thinking? What happened?
He shook his head. He went on weeping as they sat in the car in front of the hardware store on the hot Saturday morning, with people going by on the sidewalk. Lorraine watched her father and looked forward toward the storefront and Mary kept her arms around him and rested her head against the side of his head. After a while he stopped and wiped his face.
Oh, Lord, he said. Well, we can go on now, if you want. I’m sorry.
Are you all right, honey?
Yeah. I’m going to be.
Where to now, Daddy? Should we go home?
No. Out in the country. Out south. I want to show you something. I was thinking about it last night.
They backed out into Main Street and went around the block and back to the highway, past the Chute Bar and Grill and the grocery store, and turned south on the blacktop. There was wheat stubble shining in the sun and waist-high rows of corn, very green, and then pastures with black cattle scattered out in the native grass and sagebrush and soapweed, and presently Dad said, Slow down. Turn here, please.
Lorraine steered them onto the unpaved road. They could hear the gravel kicking up under the car. There were barrow ditches on both sides and above them the long run of telephone poles and the four-strand barbed-wire fences.
Careful, Dad said. You don’t want to go too fast.
She slowed down and they came to an old place set back off the road behind a front pasture. The road leading back to the house was closed off by a padlocked gate. Below were outbuildings and a horse barn and loafing shed and some stunted cedar trees. Everything looked to be in good repair but it didn’t seem as if anyone were living in the house.
Stop here a minute, Dad said.
Lorraine shut off the engine and they looked out across the hot pasture at the old paintless house.
This here is where those old brothers lived, Dad said. The ones that had that high school girl come out and live with them. She was pregnant, then she had the baby and went off to college, and after that the one old brother got killed by a Angus bull in the corral back there with his brother right there seeing it all and not being able to do a goddamn thing to stop it. They’re both dead now.
I didn’t know this was their place, Mary said.
I knew them a little. They traded at the store. After the one brother got killed the other one went out with a woman in town and he and her stayed together till he died. I believe she’s still in Holt. A nice woman, I understand.
I’ve known all that, Lorraine said. But I never heard what became of the girl and the baby she had.
They’re up in the mountains someplace. The baby’s grown up by now, of course. The neighbors look after the ranch.
Nobody lives here?
No. And she won’t sell it or let anybody else operate it.
But what are we doing here, Daddy?
I just wanted to look at this place one last time. For sentimental reasons, I suppose. We can go on now. I’ll show you where to.
They went farther east on the county road and then he said, Turn in here, if you would.
Right here?
Yeah.
It’s not even a road.
It was no more than two tire trails in the sandy ground going out through pasture grass. After half a mile or so, the track began to rise and twist up onto a sandhill.
Daddy, I don’t know if we should try this.
We’ll make it. Just don’t stop in this sand, you’ll get us stuck. Somebody’ll have to walk out of here and get help.
They drove on, the car bucking and rocking, the grass sweeping underneath, making a whispering noise. Once they got up on top where it was flat, Dad said, All right, we can stop now. This is it.
He opened the door and climbed out with his cane and Mary and Lorraine got out, holding on to him, and the three of them walked away from the car and stood on the windy hill. There were more hills to the east and south, the town far distant to the north, with the grain elevators white above the green of the mass of trees, and elsewhere all the flat open space.
I wanted to tell you what I decided, Dad said. What I was thinking about. I’m going to ask you to bury something up here.
Bury what, honey?
It doesn’t matter what it is. My cap or something. An old pair of my shoes. These eyeglasses here in my pocket if you want.
Why this place here? We’ve never come up here before.
I have. You can see this whole country from this place. I brought you both up here today to look with me.
All right, honey, we can bring something up here. I don’t have any idea what it’ll be.
They stood taking it all in, the wind blowing steadily, but it was still hot at noon.
It was only a simple little goddamn thing, Dad said. That’s all it was.
What was, honey?
Me crying in town back there at the store. That’s what set me off. It was my life I was watching there. That little bit of commerce between me and another fellow on a summer morning at the front counter. Exchanging a few words. Just that. And it wasn’t nothing at all.
No, that’s not right, it wasn’t either nothing, Mary said. It was everything.
Well. It made me cry anyway, seeing it this morning. I cried like a baby.
Daddy, it’s all right, Lorraine said.
I don’t know, he said. I couldn’t seem to help it.
She and Mary took his arms, standing in the wind, looking at the country. Then they returned to the car.
They were halfway back to town when Dad said, Darwin Purdy.
What’s that, dear?
That fellow we saw coming out of the store. If I had a name like that I’d change it to Bill Jones or Bud Smith. He’s a pretty decent fellow, though.
What about changing it to Dad Lewis? Lorraine said.
He smiled. No ma’am, he said. I wouldn’t go so far as that.
Why not?
Look what become of him. Old man crying on Main Street, driving around out in the country making a nuisance of himself.
20
OH, I’VE BEEN TALKING TO Richard at night sometimes, Mom, after you and Daddy are in bed.
I didn’t know you still had any feelings for him. I thought you weren’t that sure of him.
I’m not. But there’s nobody else right now.
All right. I just don’t want you to be hurt anymore.
Haven’t you been hurt yourself, Mom?
Of course, but almost all of my life here with Dad has been good.
You’re lucky. Not many have had what you’ve had. Or we don’t recognize it. Most of us just settle for some imitation of it so we don’t have to live alone.
But I won’t have him tire out your father.
I know.
He can come but he can’t stay long.
He just wants to come in and say a few words.
Why does he?
He wants to see Daddy before he’s gone.
They never cared for each other before.
It’s how people are when somebody’s dying. They want to forget the past. Forgive things.