They’re all right, aren’t they? Bobby said.
Yeah, they’re all right, Guthrie said. They’re going to have to be. It happens every year like this. I thought you knew that.
I never paid it any attention before, Bobby said. I never was a part of it before.
Those cows and heifers are already pregnant with their next year’s calves, Guthrie said. They’d have to wean these calves themselves if we didn’t do it for them. They’ve got to build up their strength for next year’s crop.
They make an awful lot of noise, Ike said. They don’t seem to like it much.
No, Guthrie said.
He looked at his sons riding beside him in the pickup, headed down the gravel road on this bright winter afternoon, the flat open country all around them gray and brown and very dry.
They never do like it, he said. I can’t imagine anything or anybody that would like it. But every living thing in this world gets weaned eventually.
24
THE RAILROAD PENSION CHECK HAD COME AND THE OLD man wanted to go out despite the bitter cold. The temperature had begun to drop every night into the teens and below. You don’t have to come, he said. I can manage without you.
You can’t go by yourself, DJ said. I’m coming with you.
He went back to his bedroom and got into heavier clothes and returned to the front room and took down his mackinaw and mittens from the plank closet in the corner and put them on and then stood at the door holding his stocking cap in his hand. You better dress warm, Grandpa. You remember last winter when you got frostbite.
Don’t you worry about that. I been out in more freezing weather than you ever heard of. Goddamn it, boy, I worked out in this cold all my life.
He put on his old heavy black coat and pulled a corduroy cap down over his white head, the flaps hanging loose beside his big ears. Then he slipped on leather mittens and looked around the room. Turn that light off.
I will, as soon as you go out. I’m waiting on you, DJ said. Have you got your check?
Course I got my check. It’s right here in my wallet. He patted the chest pocket of his overalls under the heavy coat. Let’s go, he said.
They stepped out and immediately the south wind blowing down on them was enough to take their breath away. Above the lights of town the sky was hard and clear. They walked along the street toward downtown. There was no traffic. The lights were on in Mary Wells’s house but all the blinds were pulled down tight. Patches of snow lay scattered in the yards and ruts of ice were hardened in the road.
At Main Street they turned south into the wind and walked along on the sidewalk. A car drove by, its exhaust as white and ragged as wood smoke, before the wind snatched it away. They crossed the railroad tracks and the red signal light shone at the west. The grain elevators loomed over them.
In Holt’s small business district their paired images walked beside them in the plateglass storefronts. The old man went limping bent over in his heavy coat, his head down, and the boy was a good deal shorter in the windows.
At the corner of Third Street they crossed Main and stepped into the tavern, entering the long hot smoky room with its clamor of loud talk and country music and pool games going on in the back and the television playing from the bracketed shelf above the bar. His grandfather peered about while he stood beside him, waiting. Old men were sitting against the wall at a round wooden table, and they went over there.
Who’s that you got with you? one of them said. Is that DJ? Cold enough for you, boy?
Yes sir. Just about. He took a chair from the next table and sat behind his grandfather.
Just about, he says. Hah.
Don’t tell me you walked over here, another old man said. Walt, you must of about froze your tail off coming down here.
I’ve seen colder, he said.
Everybody’s seen colder. I’m just saying it’s cold.
It’s December, ain’t it, the old man said. Now where’s that waitress? I need something to drink here. I want something to heat up my insides.
She’ll be here. Give her a minute.
Watch her when she comes over, said a red-faced man across the table.
Who is she?
Her name’s Tammy. She’s new.
Who is she?
Reuben DeBaca’s ex-wife from over by Norka. Look her over. Here she comes.
The barmaid came over to the table. She was blonde and good-looking, with wide hips and long legs. She had on tight faded jeans, a deliberate hole in the front of one thigh showing tanned skin underneath, and she wore a white low-cut blouse. When she bent forward to remove two empty glasses from the table, all the old men sitting there watched her closely. Didn’t you just come in? she said to the old man.
Just now, he said.
Why don’t you take your coat off and make yourself at home? You’re going to get too hot, then you’ll catch cold when you go back out. What can I bring you?
Bring me, the old man said. He looked toward the bar. Bring me some kind of drinking whiskey.
What kind? We have Jack Daniel’s and Old Grand-Dad and Bushmills and Jameson’s.
Which is your bar whiskey?
That’s Old Crow.
It’s cheaper, ain’t it.
Is that what you want?
That’s it.
And what about you? she said to DJ.
He glanced at her. A cup of coffee, please.
You drink coffee?
Yes ma’am.
He does, his grandfather said. I can’t stop him. He’s been drinking it ever since he was little.
All right then. Anything else?
Bring the boy some corn chips, one of the men said.
Coffee, corn chips, whiskey. Is that it?
Could you wipe this off over here? the red-faced man said. There’s a spot over here.
She looked at him and bent over and wiped the table with a wet rag, and they all looked down the front of her blouse. Will that do? she said.
It sure helps, he said.
You old bastard, she said. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Acting that way in front of this boy. She went off to get their drinks.
I believe she’s warming up to me, the red-faced man said.
She’d warm up to your bank account a lot faster, one of the others said.
Maybe she would. But a woman like her, you wouldn’t mind spending a little money on her. You got to.
What about her ex-husband?
That’s what I’m talking about. She’s older now. She’s not going to just fold her hands up and sit at home. She wants something better out of life. She knows there’s something more coming her way than a dryland farm out south of Norka.
And you could give it to her.
Why not.
Well, I kind of remember you complaining just last week about how you couldn’t get something in your undershorts to cooperate no more. After that operation you had, where the doctor cut on you.
Well, yeah, he said. There is that. The men at the table all laughed. But a woman like her, he said, she might put some new life in you. She might even manage to raise the dead.
The man next to him slapped him on the back. You just keep thinking that way.
DJ looked toward the bar where the woman was setting out glasses on a tray. Under the blue lights she appeared tall and pretty.
She brought the coffee and corn chips and the whiskey to the table, and his grandfather reached inside the chest pocket of his overalls and drew out his old soft leather wallet and removed his pension check.
What’s this? she said.
My check. From the railroad.
She turned it over and looked at the other side. You want me to cash this?
That’s the usual custom.
You’ll need to sign it, she said.