13
IT WAS AN HOUR AND MORE BEFORE RAYMOND ROUSED himself. Then he pulled himself up and limped across the gravel drive to the house and made the call. When the ambulance from Holt drove up in front of the house he told them to go down and collect his brother. The two men in their shiny jackets drove to the corral and gathered Harold up and carried him to the ambulance on a transfer board with a blanket spread over him, and then they drove both McPheron brothers into town to the emergency ward at the hospital. The doctor pronounced Harold dead on arrival.
Raymond lay on the narrow emergency-room bed behind green privacy curtains as the doctor examined him. The nurses had already removed his chore coat and flannel shirt and jeans so he lay now in a thin white cotton gown. The doctor felt his chest, listened to his heart and his lungs and felt tentatively along his leg. Afterward he ordered complete X rays that revealed cracked ribs on the right side of his chest and a broken bone in his lower left leg. They wanted to move him into surgery at once.
Wait now, Raymond told the nurse. Before you run me in there I want to call somebody. I ain’t going to be no good later.
Who do you want to call?
Tom Guthrie and Victoria Roubideaux.
Tom Guthrie, the high school teacher?
Yes.
But I don’t believe school’s let out yet for the day.
For God’s sake, Raymond said.
All right, she said. Never mind. We’ll call and see if we can get him on the phone.
Also I want you to call Fort Collins, Raymond said. Get Victoria Roubideaux for me.
Now who’s she, Mr. McPheron?
A young girl away at college, with her baby. Her name will be amongst the new listings.
But who is she to you? Is she your daughter?
No.
But usually we only make these kind of long-distance calls to relatives.
Just call her on the phone, Raymond said. Can’t you do that?
If she were a relative, a niece, or something like a daughter.
She is like a daughter to me. More than like a daughter. She’s what I’ve got to think of right now.
Well. The nurse looked at him. He was watching her intently, his face washed clean now, the scratches on his cheeks and forehead showing vivid and inflamed. All right, she said. But it’s not the usual procedure. How do you spell it?
Raymond turned away. Good Christ, he said.
Very well, she said. I’ll figure it out. Which one do you want to talk to first?
The girl. She’ll have to know about this.
But you’re sure you feel like talking right now. You must be in a lot of pain.
Just get me the phone once you get connected to her, he said. She’s going to hate this. I’m pretty sure she loved my brother. I sure God know he loved her.
The nurse went out and he lay in the bed with the green curtains drawn around him. They had started an IV already and had strapped a blood pressure cuff to his arm and propped up his leg with a pillow. He lay looking at the white tiled ceiling, then he shut his eyes and despite his best intentions to the otherwise he was weeping again. He reached up out of the bedsheet and wiped his face and waited for the nurse to bring him the phone. He was trying to think how he was ever going to tell Victoria Roubideaux about what had happened.
Then the nurse came in with the phone and he said: Is that her?
Yes. I finally located her. Here, take it.
He held the phone to his ear. Victoria?
What’s wrong? she said. Her voice sounded small and thin. Is something wrong? Has something happened?
Honey, I got something I got to tell you.
Oh no, she said. Oh no. No.
I’m just afraid I do, he said. And then he told her.
14
IN THE LATE AFTERNOON TOM GUTHRIE STOOD IN THE hospital room beside Raymond, who lay in the white bed under the sheet in his hospital gown. They had wheeled him into the room after the surgery and they had started to put him into the bed next to the door but he’d told them he wanted the bed near the window.
Along with Guthrie in the room was Maggie Jones, another teacher from the high school. They’d been together since Guthrie’s wife had moved to Denver, though Maggie still lived in her own house on South Ash Street. Now she was sitting in a chair drawn up close to Raymond’s bed. The doctor had set the bone in his leg and put a cast over the leg below the knee, and there were elastic bandages wrapped around his chest to hold his ribs securely and to ease his breathing. His broken leg was raised onto pillows. He breathed shallowly, with little sharp exhalations, and his face showed what he had suffered. His face was drawn and pale, sallow under the red weathering. He looked old. He looked old and worn-out and sad.
I couldn’t stop him, Raymond said. They’re too big. Too strong. I tried but I couldn’t. I couldn’t save my brother.
Nobody could have saved him, Guthrie said. You did what you could.
Maggie put her hand on the old man’s arm and patted him softly. You did everything you could, she said. We know that.
It wasn’t enough, Raymond said.
It was quiet in the room, the light coming in aslant through the window. Outside the hospital along the street the bare trees looked orange in the late afternoon sun. Down the hall they could hear people talking and then there was some laughter. Someone came walking past in the hallway and they looked up when he went by. It was one of the preachers in town, come to call on the sick and the lame.
Tom, can you look after things for a couple days? Raymond said. I can’t think who else to ask.
Of course, Guthrie said. Don’t even think about it.
You’ll need to let the bulls out and check they got water. And then if you’d check the cows and calves to the south.
Of course.
I still got the calves in there with the cows, and every cow and heifer is suppose to be carrying a new calf. They ain’t due till February but you can’t ever tell what they’ll do. He looked at Guthrie. Well, you know all that.
I’ll go out there right away, Guthrie said. As soon as I leave here. What else do you need me to do?
I don’t know. Well, there’s the horses too. If you don’t mind.
I’ll check them.
And can I check on things in the house? Maggie Jones said.
Oh, Raymond said. He turned to look at her. No. I don’t want you to bother. It’ll be a mess in there.
I’ve seen plenty of messes before, she said.
Well. I don’t know what to say.
Just try to rest. That’s all you have to do.
I can’t, Raymond said. I shut my eyes and every time I see Harold out there in the corral. Laying out there in the dirt and the bull hitting him again.
He was looking at Maggie’s face as he talked, looking up at her as though he were pleading some case that was already lost but one that he couldn’t let go of. There were tears in his eyes.
Yes, Maggie said. I know. You’ll be able to rest pretty soon. She touched his shoulder and smoothed back the stiff iron-gray hair on his round head. He felt ashamed to have her touch him in this manner but he allowed it for a moment. Then he moved his head from under her hand and turned away. Maggie was crying now too. Beside her Guthrie stood watching the old man. He wanted to think of words that would make some difference but there were none in any language he knew that were sufficient to the moment or that would change a single thing. They stayed quiet for some time.