THERE WAS A COMMOTION OUT IN THE HALL AND THEN Victoria Roubideaux came into the room carrying Katie in her arms. She came directly to the bed and looked down at Raymond. He looked up at her and shook his head. Honey, he said.
Yes, she said. I’m here now. She tried to smile.
Let me have Katie, Maggie said. She stood and took the little girl and Victoria sat down in the chair beside the bed and leaned over and kissed Raymond on the forehead. I came as fast as I could.
I hope you didn’t take any risk driving.
No. It was fine.
Thank you for coming. I didn’t know what I was going to do without you.
I’m here now, she said again.
He lifted his hand out of the sheet and she took it. I just couldn’t stop it from happening, he said.
I know you would’ve done everything you could.
He looked into her face. He wanted to tell her one thing more but for a moment he couldn’t speak. He had told her most of what he had to say on the phone. Honey, he said, you know Harold he was talking about you at the end. You and Katie. The last thing he had on his mind was you and that little girl. I think he would of wanted you to know that.
Thank you for telling me, she whispered. The tears ran down her cheeks, and she ducked her head and her dark hair fell about her face. She held his hand and sobbed quietly.
Guthrie said softly: Raymond. Why don’t Maggie and I go on now. We’ll come back later tonight.
I’ll still be here, Raymond said. I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere else for a while.
Maggie returned the little girl to her mother and she and Guthrie went out of the room into the hall.
Victoria settled the child on her lap. Raymond looked at the little black-haired girl in her red coat and long stockings and he reached up and took hold of her foot. She was frightened by him and drew back.
Oh, honey, Victoria said. He won’t hurt you. You know who Raymond is. But the little girl turned and faced away, hiding her head in her mother’s neck. Raymond put his hand back under the sheet.
It’s just that she’s scared to see you this way, Victoria said. She’s never seen anyone in a hospital bed before. We’re all frightened to see you this way.
I don’t imagine I look like much, Raymond said. Nothing you’d care to study.
GUTHRIE AND MAGGIE LEFT THE HOSPITAL AND DROVE first to Guthrie’s house across the tracks on the north side of Holt on Railroad Street. Inside the house he left a note on the kitchen table for his two boys, Ike and Bobby, telling them to do their chores at the barn and then to heat up some soup on the stove, that he’d be home later in the evening. He explained that Raymond McPheron was in the hospital and needed his help but that he’d call them later from the ranch or the hospital lobby. Then he and Maggie drove in Guthrie’s old red pickup back through town and out south on the two-lane blacktop to the McPheron place. The sun was setting now and all the flat country around them was cast in gold, with long shadows fallen out from behind the ordered fence posts above the bar ditch.
They turned off the blacktop onto the gravel road and then south again down the lane going back to the house and stopped at the wire gate. Maggie got out and went up to the house and Guthrie drove on and parked by the barn and got out into the cold evening air. The six bulls stood waiting in the corral, their backs to the wind, and he walked around to the gate to the pasture, climbed over the fence, and shoved the gate open. The bulls looked at him, and first one and then the others began to move heavily out of the corral. He stood back and watched as they trotted through the gate. There was the one that came limping and even in the darkening light he could see the patch of dried blood caked on its hip. Moving into the pasture, the bulls slowed once more to their own heavy unhurried pace, and he shut the gate behind them and checked the water level in the stock tank, then went back to the barn and drove the pickup over to the south and threw open the barbed-wire gate and passed through, rattling and jarring out into the pasture as he looked at all the cows and calves and heifers. The cattle faced him in the headlights, their eyes shining like bright rubies. When he approached they shied away from the pickup, the calves galloping off with their tails up, and he saw nothing of concern. Two old blackbaldy cows followed him but soon they stopped and stood still, staring after the pickup as he came bouncing back across the rough ground, the headlights picking up the clumps of sagebrush and soapweed ahead, and he came through the gate and shut it behind him, and then walked the saddle horses into the barn and forked hay to them from the loft, and once more got into the pickup and drove up to the house.
The lights were all on inside the house now. Maggie Jones had already washed the dishes and had set them to dry on the counter, and she had scrubbed the enameled top of the old stove, tidied the kitchen table and set chairs in place around it and had swept the floor. She was in the downstairs bedroom when Guthrie came in and found her.
You about ready to go? he said.
I thought Raymond had better stay down here, she said. He won’t want to climb the stairs with that cast on his leg.
I hadn’t thought of that, Guthrie said. He watched her draw the sheet tight and tuck it in and spread a quilt over the bed. What about Victoria and Katie? I thought this was their room.
I’m going to move the crib out into the parlor. And make up a bed on the couch for Victoria.
You think she’s going to stay a while.
She’ll want to.
What about her classes?
I don’t know. She’ll want to be here to take care of him. I know that.
He isn’t going to like it, Guthrie said. Raymond won’t want her staying home and missing school on his account.
No. He won’t. But I think he’ll have to accept it. Will you help me take this crib apart so we can get it through the door?
I’ll get my tools.
Guthrie went out to the pickup and found pliers and a couple of screwdrivers and a wrench in the toolbox behind the cab and came back inside. After taking the crib apart and wheeling it into the parlor, they put it back together and stood it against the wall, then made up a bed on the old couch with clean sheets and a pair of green wool blankets and a much-yellowed pillow that Maggie found in the closet. They stood back and looked at this new arrangement. The walls of the room were papered over with an ancient flower pattern that was a good deal faded and showed water stains at the ceiling, and the two plaid recliner chairs were set across from the old console television.
I think we can go now, Maggie said.
They shut the lights off and went out to the pickup. From the outside the paintless clapboard house appeared all the more desolate in the blue glow of the yardlight at the corner of the garage. So insubstantial and paltry that the wind might blow through and find no resistance at all.
WHEN THEY HAD COME OFF THE GRAVELED COUNTY ROAD and had turned north on the blacktop toward Holt, Maggie said: I can’t help but worry about him. What do you think he’s going to do now?
What can he do? Guthrie said. He’ll do what he has to.
You’ll help him, won’t you.
Of course I will. I’ll be out there tomorrow morning before school. And I’ll come out again after school lets out. I’ll bring Ike and Bobby with me. But he’s still going to be alone.
She’ll want to stay with him.
Victoria, you mean.
Yes. And Katie.
But that can’t last forever. You know that.
I know, Maggie said. It wouldn’t be good if it did. Not for him or them either. But I’m still worried about him.
They drove on along the blacktop. The narrow highway looked empty and forlorn ahead in the lights of the pickup. The wind blew across the flat open sandy ground, across the wheat fields and corn stubble and across the native pastures where dark herds of cattle grazed in the night. On either side of the highway farmhouses were set off by faint blue yardlights, the houses all scattered and isolated in the dark country, and far ahead down the highway the streetlights of Holt were a mere shimmer on the low horizon.