KISS, Chapter 3
Sorry for the delay - blame it on the festive season! And technical incompetence has caught up with me again today, and I can't get the lj-cut to work.
As ever, my deepest respect and thanks to Annie Proulx.
KISS, Chapter 3
Spring 1965
Ellis Waters walked through the Albany County Fair like a man under a giant bell jar. The sounds of the midway reached him from a great distance, and whatever strange force it was that brought the other revellers to smiles and laughter and shrieks of pleasure, it failed to touch him. One or two young women let their eyes linger on his lanky frame but their glances never connected with his own. He was a wildcat, on the prowl, hunting for god knows what, driven by a churning, desperate wrath deep inside him that had become part of his every waking moment. For an hour or so he'd been down at the rodeo arena where men pitted themselves against beasts, where fear and weakness were the real enemies. As each animal burst from the chute he'd leaned forward, eyes bright, lips parted, only to slump back a few seconds later. Between rides, he'd scanned the crowd, couldn't help but notice how much they admired any man who could overcome the primeval force beneath him. When the barrel-racing event was announced, he'd left the stands and returned to the midway, to pace and prowl and wait. At length, his restless progress brought him to an open space. Under the deepening rose of the wide sky a temporary dance floor had been laid out onto the bare earth, and around three of its edges people stood in eager obedience. On the fourth side, raised on a small dais, was the band - fiddle, drums, guitar and double bass - and an old man in a fringed and scarlet shirt, who stepped up to the microphone, tapped it, and spoke, his voice ringing clear above the chatter of the crowd.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we've reached the last set of the afternoon, so it's time to take your partners for the Virginia Reel!”
Ellis didn't know a do-si-do from an allemand, but something kept him rooted to the spot as couples young and old stepped out onto the plywood stage, lined up in a rough order, and awaited the opening chord. As one, the musicians struck that chord then launched into Little Brown Jug. “Honor your partner!” sang out the caller, “honor again, right hand swing, left hand swing, do-si-do, sashay down the floor, sashay again ...” Skirts twirled, petticoats flew, the audience clapped out the rhythm. Ellis stood transfixed as dance followed dance, as couples came together and moved apart again and again, there under the open sky and the full gaze of the respectable folk of Albany County. Finally the caller announced the last dance of the day, a progressive waltz. Two circles were formed, male and female, and away they went, the newly-formed pairs smiling at each other, some dancing with daylight between them, others falling comfortably into their partner's arms. Strong male hands held female waists, strong male bodies twirled the women with confidence and command. He followed the way the muscular thighs flexed and stretched against denim jeans, the shifts in weight which set buttocks bunching and relaxing, again and again, until he couldn't bear to watch any longer, had to push roughly through the crowd and find fresh air.
Down by the rushing creek, where the fairground petered out and the trees began, was the area where mothers warned their daughters not to go, where fathers winked, or sighed, or threatened a whipping when their redfaced sons emerged, where a few women walked with a determined step, followed by the sniffing pack. Ellis watched one such woman, noted the way she tilted her head, turned just a little towards him as if catching a glimpse out of the corner of her eye. She had a thin, acne-scarred face, framed by hair bleached a brittle white, almost fluorescent in the gloom. He even took a step towards her, yet something else, something stronger, was drawing him further up the creek to a point he'd heard about. Up there, the tangled brush kept its secrets close and safe.
The sky was slowly giving up its color, the fairground sounds formed just the thinnest layer upon the deepening silence of the riverbank. Laughs, cries, and other more animal sounds drifted from the bushes. Ellis stood, waiting, watchful, half-hidden by a scrubby tree. He pulled out a smoke, turned away to light it, kept the light concealed in his cupped hand. He smoked another, and another, and still he waited; for what, he didn't know. After a while, a man, a ranch hand like himself, stepped warily from the creekside bushes and disappeared towards the fairground lights. A minute or so passed, then another man, young, slight, nervous, also emerged, passed the unseen Ellis. Ellis snorted back, and as the startled youth turned towards the sound, the great gob of phlegm hit him by his left ear.
“Faggot!” Ellis snarled, but the kid was running before he had time to advance his argument.
Back downstream, he paid a skinny whore to suck his stiffened dick, the same woman he'd encountered earlier although he failed to recognise her: he didn't look at her once, before, during or after he shot his wad, and when he closed his eyes the wrong faces and the wrong bodies tormented him. Then he drove into Laramie, drank in a bar, and drank some more afterwards in his truck until he passed out. At dawn, through the miracle of youth, he managed to get the truck and himself back to the ranch where he was employed, and worked with a sullen, concentrated ferocity until the poison had passed through his system.
~~~~~
Out of the corner of his eye, Jesse caught the ball's soaring trajectory over the fence, tumbling red-and-white down the slope. In a few seconds one of the Beveridge kids would be despatched out of the gate to chase it down. He returned his attention to his computer screen, the Houston Livestock Show's webpage. Biggest livestock show in the world, it claimed, and only six weeks away. They'd be sending their best boy, Dozey, down to show and hopefully to return laden with ribbons. Despite whatever high-faluting names the sleek and glorious beasts were known by in public life, around the ranch each one patiently wore the name of one of the Seven Dwarfs plus a couple of other names which Walt Disney would never have dared use. Jesse loved his big boys; they reminded him of the wild days of his youth. The passing parade of comfortable years had cast all his bad memories into shadow, leaving the rest bathed in a nostalgic glow. He could now afford to look back with affection, remember the thrill of his winning rides, the cameraderie of the circuit, the feeling of having a huge, enraged bull clamped tightly between his sweating thighs. It had been a long time .....
With a rueful grin he tucked those memories away for a more suitable moment, and reluctantly dragged himself back to the present. He typed up a few reminders for Ian and sent them through to his manager's computer, then looked out of the window again. Leaning over the fence, the ball tucked under his arm, was Ellis. The kids' heads bobbed over the other side, obviously talking to their helpful new friend. It sickened him to acknowledge the fact, but a cold sweat was breaking out on the back of Jesse's neck. He'd known enough about Ellis's past even before he'd flown up to Wyoming and made his offer, had known the very worst there was to know, knew that the Beveridge kids were perfectly safe. And yet the buck stopped with him - the owner, the employer of this man - should anything go wrong. Reluctantly, he took his powerful binoculars from their hook and gave the charming scene a closer look. By now, Ellis was solemnly handing the ball back to the waiting children. They waved their innocent hands as he turned back down the slope and, as he glanced around at them, Ellis's face creased into something that might have even been the beginnings of a smile. A fine layer of dirty guilt settled on Jesse's soul.
Later, he walked down to the calving area to ensure that everything was ready for the arrival of the first calf. On the Turner ranch, record-keeping was the second most important aspect of the process. Every calf was weighed and measured, its gestation time calculated, the progress of its mother's labor noted, and these carefully recorded details, along with the calf's genealogy, would provide Jesse with endless hours of work in the months ahead. He needed to have the information at his fingertips. Clients demanded to know that while Sleepy's calves could be guaranteed to grow into sturdy units of prime beef on legs, their arrival just a few days ahead of the average would ensure a slightly lower birthweight and a consequently easier time for cow and calf. Or the clients wanted surefire potency; Doc's semen produced a pregnancy first time every time, with no need to reinseminate any cows later. Ultimately, it was all down to facts and figures, and what Jesse could make of them.
Behind the calving shed, the first of the heifers had already been brought down to await their time. Jesse leaned over the fence, beside his foreman, and the two spent some minutes in quiet enjoyment of the sight. After a while Jesse cleared his throat.
“All ready to go, Ramon?”
“Sure, boss.”
“Nothing on the radar I should know about?”
“Nothing. Smooth as cream.”
A couple of ranch hands were moving through the heifers; Ellis was one of them.
“The new guy?”
“He's fine, boss. Good, solid worker. Keeps to himself, gets the job done. Can't ask for more, hey?”
Jesse slipped the next query in as lightly as he could. “Much ....?” And he mimed raising a glass.
“Can't say what he does when he's by himself, but not that I've noticed. He nurses the occasional beer some evenings. I see him outside with a bottle and a smoke.” The foreman gave his boss an encouraging smile. “Don't worry about Ellis. He's pretty good for an old ... er ...”
“Careful, son,” Jesse laughed. “Hey, I was thinkin he might care to come down to Houston next month, him never bein outta Wyomin before.”
“Already asked, boss,” said Ramon, “since you and him go back a ways. He'd prefer to be here, helping with the calving. He said,” - and the foreman adopted a mock scowl - “that shows are a waste of time, don't need ribbons to know a beast's worth. Now, if you'll excuse me ...”
In early March, Dozey dutifully performed at the Houston show, then he and his handlers and his ribbons returned to Staple while Jesse stayed on a few more days, talking business and making deals. On his last night in the city, suffering from an itch which badly needed to be scratched, he drove over to the Montrose district, found a gay bar which wasn't too loud and modern for his tastes, ordered a whiskey, and settled in to see what the evening would bring. Halfway through his third drink, he was approached by a personable young man, and soon enough they were back at Jesse's hotel. He woke up late and alone the next morning, feeling every one of his sixty-three years. When he checked out and headed for home, his wallet was a little lighter, his physical itch well and truly scratched, but his mind was still tormented by that other desire, the one which had been circulating in his blood, growing in strength these past few weeks.
Just before Austin, he deviated off the highway, hand-drawn map in hand, GPS attempting to send him up a closed road. Eventually, he found his destination, the spacious spread of a new contact who'd invited him over for another business lunch. The company was pleasant enough and the food was excellent, but while his mouth was talking beef his thoughts were only half there. After lunch, his host insisted they saddle up a couple of horses and take a turn around the ranch. As the afternoon wore on, Jesse's acres in Staple became more and more inviting. It was nearly sundown before he finally turned up his rose-lined driveway but there was still a heap of work to be done before he could turn in. He opened a bottle of wine, one of the better local cabernet sauvignons, and while picking at the supper Linda Beveridge had left for him, began downloading and organising several days' worth of information. Amongst his expenses were a few which wouldn't be coming out of the ranch accounts, although he felt no guilt about those pleasures of the flesh in Houston. They'd been just a tiny sliver of well-earned relaxation at the end of a solid week's work.
After his long day following on a night of little sleep, he should have been ready for his bed but midnight found him still awake, pacing and keyed up. Out on the verandah he listened a while to the night sounds, thought about that night in front of the TV several months ago, when his solid, dependable life had taken a sideways step into-- well, he wasn't really sure where it had shifted to, only that something had changed on some indefinable level. A light was burning down in the calving shed and, half hoping, half-fearing what he might find there, he strolled the few hundred yards, just a beef man keeping an eye on his assets, after all. Inside the shed, a couple of heifers shifted restlessly in their stalls, and a lone figure sat hunched over a small table. Ellis. He glanced up at Jesse's approach, rose awkwardly, half-resumed his seat, settled at last on standing, defiant, wary. Jesse waved him back down again.
“Couldn't wind down,” Jesse said, “so I thought I'd take a walk, see how the girl're doin.” He gave the cows a cursory glance then casually took in what had been absorbing Ellis. On the small table, half-shielded by his body, was a chess set, cheap plastic pieces on a fold-up board. “Chess, hey? Didn't know you played.”
“Plenty you don't know,” remarked Ellis, scooping the pieces and the board into a leather pouch. “Cows are doin okay. Coupla new calves already this night.”
“You need any help?” The offer was made with little hope of it being taken up, but the predictable refusal didn't come flying back at Jesse as he'd expected.
“Well, I ... Sure, okay, I guess so. Maybe stick around, see what happens.” Ellis looked around, frowning, then continued, “You can grab me some extra straw for when these girls are done.” As he carried out his employee's orders, Jesse found himself grinning just a bit.
One of the heifers began lowing softly and doing a restless, swaying dance in her stall. Ellis scrubbed up, slipped his arm in, and grunted, “She won't be long now.” Half an hour later there was a new addition - a bull - to the Turner herd, and for the first time in a long time the careful entries in the logbook were being made by Jesse's hand while Ellis attended to the immediate needs of cow and calf. It had been a straightforward delivery, leaving Jesse free to marvel at the calm efficiency of Ellis's actions. There was a thrilling quality in the way he handled the animals, a no-nonsense gentleness that absorbed his whole person, and for the first time Jesse began to catch a glimpse of the boy he'd carried in memory for so many years. When there was nothing left to do but wait for the next arrival, Jesse took a few fortifying lungfuls of cigarette smoke and asked, “So, you play much chess?”
“Passes the time when there ain't nothin else needs doin.” They smoked on in an increasingly comfortable silence until Ellis added, “The guy that taught me use ta say it kept his thoughts where he wanted them to be. Good enough reason to play.” Where don't you want your thoughts to be? wondered Jesse to himself, but before he could put voice to the question, Ellis shifted the talk elsewhere. “Good time in Houston, was it?”
“Er, yeah. Dozey did good. Should get more business outta the trip.” Jesse's body was suddenly flushing hot with the memory of what he'd been doing just twenty-four hours earlier; two showers had cleansed his flesh of all trace but hadn't erased the scent memory in his nostrils. He kept his voice steady. “You shoulda come, seen the big city. Next time, maybe.”
“Waste a time. Ain't never been to a show I enjoyed. Hey, reckon we outta check them heifers outside.” Ellis stood up and strode quickly out to the holding pen where a dozen or so cows stood sleeping on their feet. He and Jesse culled a few who looked likely candidates for an overnight delivery, and settled them in the stalls inside the shed. The clock on the wall was reading 1:20 and suddenly Jesse's long day caught up with him all at once. After being reassured by a slightly amused Ellis that his help really wasn't required, he stumbled back to the ranch house, feeling more of an inner glow than he'd known in a long time.
