“Killed herself.”
I had a headache.
“Know what she died of?”
“A sudden?”
He frowned off my joke. “She took pills. She was an alcoholic and a diabetic and a Catholic. All three, any one of which is fatal alone.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
He drank more. “They said she was manic, too.” He looked out the window at the sky which was growing overcast. “Charles is a good boy.”
“He’s quiet.”
“That’s my fault, I guess.”
“That’s not a problem.”
“He’s small, you know.”
I just looked at him.
“I don’t have a lot of patience. I don’t have a lot of friends either. I guess the two go together.”
“I reckon.”
“Tell me something, Cooper. What do you think of a man who can’t talk to his kid?”
I swirled my whiskey in the glass and held his eyes.
“I’ve got a temper. A bad one.”
I nodded.
“You want to hear what happened at Charlie’s school last year?”
“To tell the truth, no, I don’t.”
Davis pulled a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and fumbled his way through lighting one, blew out a cloud of blue smoke and coughed. He stood and went to the window, watched as his son split wood. “Look at him. He could do that all day. He’s small, though.”
I polished off my drink.
“You think I’m crazy.”
I shook my head. “No, I don’t.”
“Well, I ain’t crazy. He ain’t right.” He was hot and I was beginning to think he was touched. “Don’t tell me how to run things!”
“Sure thing.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about.
He snatched up his bottle and walked out.
I fell on my bunk and looked at the ceiling. I wanted to pack up and leave, but I needed the job and I wasn’t the sort to leave a man in a lurch. He had a mare ready to drop and a couple of horses with thrush real bad. I didn’t like what I had seen in Davis’s eyes. He was slow-boiling and soon there wouldn’t be anything left to scorch but the pot.
I fixed some grits and scrambled eggs and sausages and sat down to dinner by myself. An evening rain came and went and I could see the fuzzy glow of the moon behind the clouds. I felt bad for little Charlie. Funny, I hadn’t thought of him as small before, but he was. I felt sorry for him and I didn’t know why. I wasn’t about to get involved, though. My mother had a number of hobbies, but raising fools wasn’t one of them.
A couple of days later, four fellows rented horses and went into the hills for elk. I knew when they rode out that all they were going to get up there was drunk. They didn’t deserve the weather that day. It was almost hot when they came back. I was trimming hooves. Charlie was in the stable with the pregnant mare.
“Woowee,” said one man, “what a day.”
“That was fun,” said another, groaning and trying to work a kink out of his back as he climbed down. “That was more fun than huntin’ coons.”
They all dismounted and I took the horses. They’d ridden the animals hard right up to the end and they were sweating like crazy.
I called Charlie over. “Take these horses out and walk ’em around, get ’em cool.” As he stepped away, I yelled for him to loosen the girths. His dad had let up a little and he was freer to hang about and help.
The men lined up along the fence and watched Charlie in the corral.
“Ain’t he pretty?” I heard one of the men say. I thought he was talking about a horse, but another spoke up.
“Hey, I heard about that locker-room business,” he said.
“Oh, this was the boy?”
“Yeah.”
I stepped out and saw that Charlie was ignoring them pretty good. They said a few more things and I got fed up, started toward them.
“Looks like we got the nigger riled,” one said.
I stopped at the crack of a rifle shot. Davis was out of his house and just yards from the corral.
“You boys paid?” Davis asked.
The leader, more or less, put his hands up and laughed a little. “Yeah, we paid.”
“Then get along.”
“Okay, Davis. We’ll get along. Nice boy you got there.” The man chuckled again. They got into their car and left.
Davis watched them roll away. “Charles,” he said. “Go on inside.”
I caught Davis by the arm. “Hey, just let him forget about it.”
He pulled away, didn’t even look at me.
I watched him disappear into the house. Things were becoming a little more clear. More reason to ignore it. My motto: Avoid shit.
It was raining real good when I came back from the grocery store. As I swept around the yard I saw Charlie standing by the tree behind the house. I parked at the trailer, got out of my truck, and went inside for lunch. I finished my coffee and shivered against the chill in the air. Outside, I found it warmer than in the trailer. I started to go check the horses when I noticed that Charlie was still standing by that tree. I went to him. At twenty yards l could see that he was tied to it.
“What’s the story?” I asked, looking around.
The boy just cried and I was pretty damn close to it myself. Rain dripped from his hair and ran down his face.
“Your father do this?” I was looking at the house, but I knew Charlie was nodding. “Why? Did he say why?” I was hesitant about untying him. I thought Davis had flipped and might be waiting at a window to blow my head off. I shouted as I reached for the rope. “Davis! I’m untying the boy! Okay!” I undid the knots and led the kid back to the house.
Davis was sitting in a chair in front of the fireplace. He looked really spaced out. “Hey, Davis, you all right?”
He said nothing.
“I brought Charlie inside here.”
“I heard you.” He leaned forward and poked at the burning logs. “He wouldn’t tell me who they were.”
“He’s a strong boy?’ I said.
“You could call it that.” He sat back again. “Earl Pryor has a mare ready, wants to breed her with Nib. Be over tomorrow.”
“I’ll have him ready. What time?”
“Said eight-thirty. Maybe I should have Charlie watch.”
“For the love of God, Davis, stop and think. Listen to yourself. Charlie’s a good kid who got beat up — think of it like that. It’s none of my business, but—”
Davis cut me off. He stood and faced me. “You’re right. It’s none of your business and you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“Charlie didn’t do anything.”
“Pack up, drifter.”
I looked at him for a second, but I’d heard him right. “Okay. Fine. But listen up, you’re gonna drive that boy away and for no good reason.”
But he wasn’t listening. He was at his desk. “I’m paying you for this month and next. Fair enough?”
I looked across the room at Charlie. He had settled on the sofa and was looking out the window. Davis waved the check in front of me. I wanted to tell him what he could do with his goddamn money, but I didn’t. I didn’t look at his face. I just took the check, went to the trailer, and started packing.
I kept waiting for a knock on the door; Charlie coming to say goodbye or Davis coming to tell me to have that stallion ready in the morning. But there was no knock. I climbed into my pickup and drove away.
Last Fair Deal
There were once two brothers. They shared a modest house where the older had lived with a wife. Bill did not miss his wife. She had planted a garden in the backyard. Dan, the younger brother, took over the garden when he moved in.
A mole lived in the garden, digging and disturbing. Dan hated what the mole did. He became obsessed with catching the pest.
Dan built many traps. He could not catch him. Dan thought to shove a hose into the dirt and flush him out, but that would only have damaged the plants. Finally, he put up a sign offering a reward to anyone killing the mole. He put the sign on the telephone pole in the corner.