Somebody came up behind me in a car, going fast, and as it swung out to pass the wagon I saw it was Lee. The top was down and as it went by he looked up and recognized me in the wagon. He slid to a stop a hundred yards or more down the road and backed up until we were side by side, taking up the full width of the road. I stopped the team.
He rested his arms on the wheel and looked up at me. I could see he was sober, but his eyes were like holes burned in a blanket and there was something somber in his face.
“I was just going out to your place,” he said quietly.
“You’ve got a short memory,” I said. He was silent and I went on, “Hoping to find me at home, no doubt?”
“Yes. I was.”
“Well, it’s nice you found me here. It’ll save you the trip.”
I could see the hurt in his face for a second.
“I wanted to see both of you.”
“Never mind both of us.”
He looked moodily down the road. “When a guy gets on your list, he gets on for good, doesn’t he?”
“When he works hard enough at it,” I said.
“Well, I don’t blame you, I guess.”
I lit a cigarette and looked at him. “You wanted to see me. I’m all ears. Let’s have it.”
“I just wanted to say good-by.”
“You did. Last night. Remember?”
“I’m going away.”
“That right? You be gone long?” I asked.
“For good, I think. I turned the house over to Mary this morning and the lawyers can straighten out the rest of the settlement. I won’t be back.”
“Why?”
“After last night? It’d just happen again, with all three of us here. And somebody’d get hurt eventually.”
“Well, you know how to prevent it.”
He looked at me a long time before he answered and I could see he didn’t want to say it. I had never seen him so hopeless or so bitter. “It isn’t that simple. Don’t you think I know enough by this time to leave her alone if I could? But I can’t. I just can’t. Just knowing she’s here . . .”
“You don’t have to pull out,” I said. “We are.”
He shook his head. “No. It’s the only thing for me to do. I’ve just about worn it out around here, some of the things I’ve done. That business last night just put the finishing touches on it. I didn’t sleep any, thinking about it. There’s nothing to keep me here any more.”
I didn’t say anything. He looked up at me and then down at his hands on the wheel, and then took out a cigarette and lit it.
“Well, so long, Bob,” he said.
“So long.”
“I’m sorry about everything.”
“It was just one of those things.”
“I’m going to stop by and apologize to her and say good-by.”
“No,” I said.
“Why not?”
“I don’t care. But she won’t want to see you.”
“I know. But I’ll try, anyway. I’ll feel better about it.”
“Suit yourself.”
He shifted into gear, hesitating a little, and looked up at me.
“Well, I won’t see you again, Bob,” he said, still waiting.
I didn’t move except to pick up the lines. “So long.”
He let out the clutch and moved slowly ahead and turned once before he shifted into high and got rolling fast. I watched him until he was out of sight around the bend at the top of a long grade ahead and tried not to think about how it had been between us long ago.
Twenty-four
We plodded slowly on up the long grade and down on the other side and crossed the upper reaches of Black Creek on the concrete highway bridge. The sun was down now and the air was chill in the bottom.
I thought about our not having to leave here now that Lee was gone and I was glad about it, but there was sadness in it too. I wondered where he was going and what he would do and knew that I’d probably never know because he didn't write letters. He would be in touch with the bank and the lawyers over the divorce and property settlement, but he’d never write to me.
Away from here and in a new place where he wasn’t known he might change. Away from here ... I was just kidding myself and knew it, but there was some kind of happiness in at least trying to believe it.
Next summer maybe we could get away for a week in Galveston. I remembered again that last night we were there and thought of the bonfire on the beach and the roaring of the surf and of the way she had been when I had kissed her, holding her in my arms there on the robe by the dying fire.
I was within a mile of the road junction where our country road turned off the highway and up the hill to go past the farm when I saw a Ford coming toward me along the bottom with a roll of red dust boiling up behind it. When it was closer I recognized it as mine. I stopped and Jake climbed over the door and got out. Helen was with him, dressed for town.
Jake looked from Helen up to me uncertainly. “Me and the Old Lady thought we’d go to the show.”
“Fine,” I said. I wondered why he was so hesitant about it. He didn’t have to ask me where he could go, and he was always welcome to use the car.
“If'n you’d rather, I could take the team on in an’ you could drive the car on home.” He didn’t look up.
“No,” I said. “You’d be late for the show by the time you got the mules home.”
“I jest thought mebbe you might be in a hurry to git home for supper.”
“It’ll wait,” I said. He continued to look down at his Sunday shoes, which were getting dusty in the powdery red surface of the road. “Did you see Lee?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. He turned and glanced toward Helen. I couldn’t see her face under the top of the car.
“He’s leaving,” I said. What the hell does Jake care what he does? I thought. But I had to say something because the silence was becoming awkward.
“I know.” He nodded. “I seen him a minute or two jest before we drove off.” He stopped.
I waited. He wanted to say something else but gave it up and turned back toward the car.
As he started to climb in over the door he paused once more and this time he looked squarely up at me.
“You sure you wouldn’t like for me to take the team in, Bob? I’d be glad to do it.”
I got the look in his eyes then and they were worried. I swung a leg over the side of the cotton frames and climbed down. There was no use asking him about it. He wouldn’t talk, but he wanted me to go home.
Helen got out of the car. “I think I’ll ride along with Jake, if you don’t mind, Bob,” she said. “It’s a pretty night for a hay ride with your best beau.” She tried to laugh at the joke but it didn’t quite come off.
“When you get in with the team I’ll unharness,” I said. “You can still make the second show.” Nobody said anything. We weren’t thinking about the show any more.
I backed the car up fast and swung it around and started up the road. The dusk was thickening now and I switched on the lights. When I made the turn off the road and started up the hill I had to go into low and the lights brightened up with the engine speed. Whatever it was that was scaring Jake hadn’t happened yet because he would have told me. It was just something that might happen. At the top of the hill I let the Ford back into high again and pulled the gas lever all the way down.
When I swung around the last turn I breathed again. There was a light in the kitchen, and somehow there isn’t anything more peaceful and reassuring than light streaming from the window of a farmhouse kitchen. It was dark now and as I made the turn off the road my lights flicked across Lee’s roadster parked in front of the house and for some reason I could not fathom I reached down and cut both lights and motor and let the Ford roll to a stop.