Briggs had always been quite uncomfortable with Carol, and he had been greatly relieved when it was no longer necessary for them to speak. His own wife, Irena, was a beauty, a big-eyed russet-haired trilingual girl from Ljubljana whom he’d met at a trade conference in Milan, where she was translating and he was negotiating for a Yugoslav American businessman whose family’s property had been nationalized by the Communists. John and Irena were married for only a few years, long enough for her to know and loathe the Fauchers. Briggs wasn’t sure what else went wrong, except that Irena hadn’t much liked America and had been continually exasperated by Americans’ assumption that Briggs had rescued her. With John flying all over the world, she was stuck with the Fauchers. In the end, aroused by the independence of Slovenia, she grew homesick and left, remarking that Carol was a pig and Erik was a goat.
All of this lent Erik’s wife-swapping lament its own particular comedy.
Faucher was surveying the hills to the east. “Don’t worry about me overstaying my welcome,” he said. “I’m quite considerate that way.”
“Farthest thing from my mind,” Briggs said.
“Do you have an answering machine?”
“Yes, and I’ve turned it on.”
“A walk would be good,” Faucher said. “We’ll teach those fools to wait for the beep.”
“I want you to see the homestead cemetery. It’s been fenced for eighty years and still has all the old prairie flowers that are gone everywhere else. I have some forebears there.”
They followed a seasonal creek toward the low hills in the west where the late-morning sun illuminated towering white clouds whose tops tipped off in identical angles. The air was so clear that their shadows appeared like birthmarks on the grass hillsides. Faucher seemed happier.
“I was glad to get out of Boston,” he said. “It was unbelievably muggy. There was a four-day teachers’ demonstration across from my apartment, you know, where they go Hey, hey, ho, ho, we don’t want to—whatever. Four days, sweating and listening to those turds chant.”
Briggs could see the grove of ash and alders at the cemetery just emerging from the horizon as they hiked. About twice a summer, very old people with California or Washington plates came, mowed the grass, and otherwise tended to the few graves: most homesteaders had starved out before they’d had time to die. These were the witnesses.
As they came over a slight rise, a sheet of standing rainwater was revealed in an old buffalo wallow; a coyote lit out across the water with unbelievable speed, leaving fifteen yards of pluming rooster tails behind him. Erik gazed for a moment, and said, “That was no dog. You could run a hundred of them by me and I’d never say it was a dog. Not me.”
At the little graveyard, John said, “All screwed by the government.” He was standing in front of his family graves, just like all the others: names, dates, nothing else. No amount of nostalgia would land him in this sad spot. “Cattle haven’t been able to get in here since the thirties. The plants are here, the old heritage flowers and grasses. Surely you think that’s interesting.”
“I’m going to have to take your word for it.”
“Erik, look at what’s in front of you,” Briggs said, more sharply than he intended, but Faucher just stared off, not seeming to hear him.
Needle and thread, buffalo, and orchard grass spread like a billowing counterpane around the small headstones, but shining through in the grass were shooting stars, pasqueflowers, prairie smoke, arrowleaf balsam, wild roses, streaks of violet, white, pink, and egg yolk, small clouds of bees, and darting blue butterflies. A huge cottonwood sheltered it all. Off to one side was a vigorous bull thistle that had passed unnoticed by the people in battered sedans; hard old people who didn’t talk, taking turns with the scythe. They looked into cellar holes and said, “We grew up here.” No sense conveying this to Erik, who mooned into the middle distance by the old fence.
“I could stand a nap,” he said.
“Then that’s what you shall have. But in the meanwhile, please try to get something out of these beautiful surroundings. It’s tiresome just towing you around.”
“I was imagining laying my weary bones among these dead. In the words of Chief Joseph, ‘From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.’ Who was in the house last night? I hope they weren’t looking for me.”
“That was my neighbor and his wife. They stopped by for a beer.”
“Well, you know your own society. This would seem very strange in Boston.”
From the alcove off his bedroom, which served as his office and which contained a small safe, a desk, a telephone, and a portable computer, he could look through the old glass windows with their bubbles and imperfections and see Erik sitting on the lawn, arms propped behind him, face angled into the sun like a girl in a Coppertone ad. Briggs was negotiating for a tiny community in Delaware that was being blackmailed by a flag manufacturer for tax abatement against purported operating costs, absent which they threatened to close and strand 251 minimum-wage workers. A North Carolina village that had lost its pulp mill wanted the company, and if Briggs worked as hard as he should, one town would die.
He explained this to Faucher as they drove to town for dinner. Faucher made a bye-bye movement with his hand and said Hasta la vista to whichever town it was that had to disappear. But it was otherwise a nice ride down the valley, mountains emerging below fair-weather altocumulus clouds, small ranches on either side at the heads of sparkling creeks. A self-propelled swather followed by ravens moved down a field, pivoting nimbly at the end of each row, while in the next meadow, already gleaned, its stubble shining just above the ground, a wheel line sprinkler emitted a low fog on the regrowth. A boy in a straw hat stood at a concrete head gate and, turning a wheel, let a flood of irrigation water race down a dusty ditch.
Town was three churches, a row of bars, a hotel, and a filling station. Each church had a glassed frame standing in front, the Catholic with Mass schedules, the Lutheran with a passage from the Bible, and the Evangelical a warning. The bars, likewise, had bright signs inviting ranchers, families, sportsmen, and motorcyclists respectively. Different kinds of vehicles were parked in front of each; old sedans in front of the ranchers’ bar and pickup trucks in front of the local videogaming youth; and in front of the hotel some foreign models from Bozeman and Livingston. The clouds were moving fast now because of high-altitude winds, and when Briggs parked and got out of the car, the hotel towering over him looked like the prow of a ship crossing a pale blue ocean.
Faucher scanned his menu vigorously. “My God, this all looks good and will look even better after a nice cocktail.” He was a vampire coming to life at sundown; with each drink pale flames arose beneath his skin.
They ordered from a ruddy-faced girl who seemed excited by every choice they made, especially the Spanish fish soup with which they both commenced. She had a Fritz the Kat tattoo on her upper arm, which Faucher peered at over the top of his menu. John asked for a bottle of Bandol, and when the candles had been lit he thought the way lay clear for Erik to make himself plain. Erik looked down at the table for a long moment, absentmindedly rearranging his silverware. He heaved a great sigh and raised his eyes in self-abnegation. “I feel right at home here,” said Erik. “Talk about your fresh start!” Briggs remained quiet and didn’t take the bait.