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THE OUTLAND
Genre: AU
Rating: NC-17
Feedback: Any and all is welcome
Disclaimer: These are Annie Proulx's brilliant original characters and her story, and I have treated it and them (and her) with as much respect as I can muster.
This story is for Canstandit.
THE OUTLAND, CHAPTER 6
In 1916, Henry Charles Twist, five feet four and twenty years old, drygoods store assistant full of patriotic fervor, left his fiancee and his home in Sundance, Wyoming, and enlisted in the War To End All Wars. Seven years later, when his son, John Charles, was three years old and his daughter a mere four weeks away from seeing the light of day, he limped on his wooden stump into the middle of his barren fields, placed his old service revolver in his mouth and blew out the back of his head. Unlike the King Stag, his blood did not bring fecundity to the land, just a dry, bitter season which killed the prospects of his wife and children just as surely as the bullet had killed him. Mrs Henry Twist eventually became Mrs Jacob Burdon, and the one good thing this violent new husband did for his stepson was to leave him, by default more than anything, the small acreage in the settlement of Lightning Flat, which he had acquired cheaply by the simple method of wooing the grieving and financially straitened widow.
On the morning the undertakers took the old man away, John Twist carefully painted out the name "Burdon" on the mailbox and replaced it with "John C. Twist". By that time, John had two reputations, as a pretty decent bull-rider on the small local rodeo circuit of his day, and as a bit of a ladies' man. Both activities went west the evening in April 1943 when he seduced quiet, churchgoing Sybil Venn and begat on her their only child, John Charles Twist Jr. Once married and trapped in a life he hadn't asked for, John Sr cursed the fate which had brought him to this stultifying existence, cursed the mother - long since drowned in a flash flood one spring - and the stepfather who had combined to make his childhood a misery, but mostly he cursed the weak father who hadn't had the balls to make a go of it. He, John Twist, would never be that weak.
The son, called Jack to distinguish him from his father, grew up small and wiful, with the curly hair and bright eyes of his grandfather, memorialised in a faded enlistment portrait. He had the eagerness of a young puppy, a seemingly endless bounce and optimism, yet, with just a few words or an all-too-frequent backhand, his old man could cause him to scuttle away with his tail between his legs. In 1964, leaving two dirty shirts behind but taking a broken heart with him, he lit out for Texas where he too begat a son on a girl at the rodeo, although this seduction was not quite as traditional as that of his parents.
The scion of this chain of disasters, Robert Lawrence Twist, did not set foot on his ancestral lands until the afternoon of December 27th, 1983.
~~~
I'm carrying an extra suitcase. It feels as though Mom is getting rid of Dad a bag at a time. She said it was filled with his warm winter clothes and it probably is, but all the same the balance is slowly shifting north. It's going to be strange to see him again. Last time, he was pale and still, like a puppet whose strings had all been severed. Mom told me to say goodbye before he was shipped up to Wyoming, but what she really meant was for me to say Goodbye. And then she packed a couple of trunks with his clothes and shipped them off too. Okay, so she was being realistic but it was too much like sealing the coffin before the corpse was properly dead.
But can I blame her? I don't know. The life she and Dad have been acting out these past few years is a long way from the TV sitcoms. There have been times when I just wanted to bang their heads together and tell them to grow up, to stop bitching at each other like kids. I don't recall huge, knock-em-down, drag-em-out fights, just endless needling and sarcasm. There's an old photo at home, a black and white shot of the two of them, must have been about when they met, and they look happy and relaxed. If I hadn't seen that photo I'd never have thought they could ever be like that. I have vague memories of Mom before she started getting brittle and sharp, but Dad? I know he used to be fun to play with but I just can't remember it for real. There are little snapshots of memory and nothing else. I see the pictures but I can't recall the feelings.
So coming in to Gillette I'm feeling pretty uncomfortable about everything. Part of me wants to hug him and make sure he's really alive and part of me wants to punch him for turning into the polyester man he's become, all fancy suits and big hats, shiny teeth grimacing out from under his porn star mustache. Fancied himself as some sort of riverboat gambler; more like the sleazy owner of a cheap whorehouse in one of those awful old Westerns he'd sit and watch in his den, knocking back whiskey until he'd emerge late in the evening and start burbling the same maudlin shit at Mom.
So I'm thinking these thoughts as the little gnat that's bringing me the last leg, Cheyenne to Bumfuck, Wyoming, dips below the cloud layer, skims over a couple of roads and comes in to land, bouncing along the runway and shuddering in the wind. Least I hope it's the wind and not the plane breaking up. There's a cluster of buildings, and the flag on top of the biggest is sticking straight out sideways to match the direction of the snow flurries that are plowing into my face. I'm hanging onto my cap and thanking Mom for making me take this Eskimo jacket with me, as I race the half-dozen or so passengers across the tarmac.
And then I see him. He's standing there, just inside the gate, leaning on a stick and surrounded by his own little oasis of calm and warmth, and suddenly I'm a little kid again, and me and my daddy are up in a big tractor and we're laughing and he's saying it's all yours, Bobby, it's all yours. Punch him or hug him, it's no contest. I grab him and feel the prickles starting under my eyelids. Bobby, he says into my hair, Bobby, he says again, and the passengers go by, heading for the shelter of the terminal, and we just stand there together in the wind.
I pull back to get a good look at him, and he stumbles a bit, and there's a quick flash of movement from someone standing a way behind, but I'm too busy taking in his appearance to pay any attention. He's thinner and paler and there might even be more grey in his hair, and the awful mustache has gone! And he's kind of hunched and frail-looking, but there's something else I can't put my finger on, something else that's different.
Come on, he says, let's git before we freeze our asses off, and he sways as we turn, and this time that other person moves fast to get to Dad's side, four or five long strides and his hand is under Dad's elbow, and I'm guessing that this is the famous Ennis del Mar.
It's funny how you form pictures of people in your mind. Dad didn't ever say too much about his old friend, just a few words here and there, but the bedtime stories he told were almost always about cowboys, about golden heroes on fine proud horses, riding the prairie, and that's how Ennis ended up looking for me, a real life Marlboro Man, narrowing his eyes against a blazing sunset.
Bobby, says Dad, this is my friend, Ennis, Ennis, this is my son, Bobby, and we shake hands, how do you do, sir, pleased to meet you, son, heard a lot about you. He's rangy and scruffy, and his expression is a bit quizzical as if he's not sure what to make of me. There's a lump on his right eyelid that makes it droop, and it feels like he's sharing some private joke with me, giving me an eternal wink. I don't like to look at it because I'm looking at it and not at his tobacco eyes. But the thing that really grabs me is - he towers over Dad. I've already got a few inches on Dad. I know he's short but I always pictured this Ennis as being just about average, my Marlboro Man in a neat package, but no, he could fit Dad under his chin nearly.
We collect my baggage. I'll fetch the truck, Ennis says in his low voice, but Dad's having none of that so he hauls the case full of Dad's things and I shoulder my bag and between us we get Dad out across the parking lot. By the time we get to the truck Dad's sweating and shaking in this icy wind and I start to realise that he's doing this all for me. I'm so busy worrying about him that I barely notice the truck until we get there. It's an old Ford, rusty and dented and painted this really gay pale turquoise, and I'm thankful the guys back home aren't going to see me riding in it. Dad says since I'm the visitor I can have the window seat which suits me fine as I don't want to be too close to Ennis. He's got a smell about him, not dirty, just earthy and animally, makes me wonder if he's wearing his work clothes. He throws the bags in the back, Dad squeezes in between us - I guess he's used to Ennis's smell - and we take off.
Dad usually drives like a bat out of hell, Ennis drives like he's scared his engine will fall out on the road. He swings left out of the airfield and we head north, into the wind and snow. Evening is already coming on but the twilight just keeps going as we turn onto a washboard road and judder the miles to Lightning Flat. Dad points out a few things as we go along but mostly it's a pretty silent ride. As we turn at the mailbox with "JOHN C. TWIST" in faded lettering, Dad announces, this is it, but his voice is small and odd, and as I look at the old farmhouse with its peeling paint and its ramshackled outbuildings a sick feeling hits me: he's embarrassed.
The old people are waiting, Granny with a nervously expectant look, Grandpa with an expression I can't quite read. It feels very strange to call them Granny and Grandpa to their faces. I don't know their faces. I only know them through awkward phone calls. If there's a cord joining us together, I don't feel it. I wonder how Dad can be related to them, let alone me. But we muddle along, talking in that unnatural, bright way that people have when they can't think of a thing to say. I've heard Dad and Mom talking that way often enough when we've been out in public. Granny says she' s fixed up Dad's old room for me. The thought doesn't thrill me.
After supper Dad and I crunch down the path to his trailer, with Ennis bringing up the rear. I've heard all about it from Mom, all about the insurance deal that's paying for it at any rate. We talk for a while. Dad asks me about how things are going. Sometimes he asks about stuff I've already told him. There are things he knows which he shouldn't and thinks he doesn't know which he should. It leaves me feeling a bit adrift. It doesn't seem long before everyone's yawning but I don't want to go back to the house. Dad, can I stay here with you? Sleep on the couch maybe? Dad looks doubtful. Boy can have my room, murmurs Ennis but Dad wants none of that, you shouldn't have to be turned out of your room. Don't matter, he answers, boy should be with his dad after all that's happened, I'll sleep up at the house. And he goes into the small bedroom and bumps around for a while then comes out with some things in a bag. It's all yours, Bobby, he says, nods at Dad and heads back up the path.
Dad shrugs, think I'll turn in too. We say goodnight kind of awkwardly, not used to being together like this. I'm expecting Ennis's room to carry some of that smell of his but oddly enough it doesn't, except just faintly in the closet where a few of his clothes still are. I'm so tired it could have stunk like a pigpen and I wouldn't have cared. I'm asleep in minutes. Halfway through the night I hear the outside door rattle a bit and then open. Can't be burglars all the way out here, I figure, then Ennis quietly clears his throat so I get up to see what the hell he's doing back here.
Morning, Junior, he says, breakfast, as he holds up a basket of goodies like Little Red Riding Hood. Breakfast? Oh, you are kidding me, man, but he's not. There's cereal and stuff, and he starts making coffee before banging on Dad's door. Get your a--, get up, there's animals need feeding, and after a minute or so's muffled swearing, Dad emerges, scratching and farting. It seems a bang on the head doesn't change some things. Ennis fishes out a jar from the basket. You want peaches? he asks in a weird voice and Dad mouths something back at him that has the word "fuck" in it.
Soon we're fed and dressed and ready to start the day, and there's barely the faintest trace of light in the sky. You got better gloves than them, asks Ennis, and I say no, so he hands me the new-looking pair sticking out of his pocket then goes into his room and finds an old pair. Dad glares at him then says to me, as Ennis heads out of the trailer, you look after them, they were a present from his girls a month back. His girls? His daughters, Junior - that's Alma - and Francie, for his fortieth, fuck, Ennis is forty, and by now we're outside and Dad and Ennis start trading insults about how old and decrepit the other one is.
And it hits me, the thing that's so different about Dad. He's happy. Not tipsy and amiable happy, not sweet-talking the customers happy, not excruciatingly painful father-and-son happy. Just warm-from-within happy. I gaze around this rundown little ranch and wonder if, when I'm old like him, thoughts of poky old Childress will make me happy too.
There's another awful truck awaiting. This one is a big old flatbed GMC, probably half of the breeding pair off the ark. I get the window seat again, except there's no window, just a sheet of plywood that does a lousy job of keeping out the wind. We bounce up a track a few hundred yards to a hayshed where Ennis gets the truck up neat as a pin against a loading bay. He gets out and starts hooking bales down, not the huge rolls I see at home but the blocks that they always use at square dances, and slinging them over to where Dad and I can drag them onto the flatbed. Stack em neat, says Dad, where you going to stand, hey? Stand? I'm not planning on standing here for long.
To my surprise Dad takes the wheel as we head further out to the fields. The truck lurches and he crunches the gears a bit but he's not too bad. When we reach a gate I'm told off to open it, so I unlatch it and swing across, riding it all the way back. Get your ass off a that gate, bawls Dad from the truck, what do you think I spend my time fixin them for, so you can wreck em? damn kid. I shut the gate and get back in the truck, feeling just a bit pissed and Ennis gives me a wink. He doesn't smell so funny this morning or maybe my nose has died with all the cold air.
Once in the middle of the field Dad sets the truck in a tight circle while Ennis and I get up on the back, break open bales and throw the hay out to all the cows that come running. Flake it thin, he says, not too much, more over there, okay, that's enough, hang on, and he stamps his heel a couple of times and Dad takes off for the next field, with me doing gate duty very carefully this time. Field after field, the delivery system seems a bit haphazard but by the time we feed the three bulls, the last of the herd, there's just enough and no more. We drive back and I'm about ready to head back to bed, blood like ice, but Ennis is running through a list of jobs that need doing. It seems that while he's been chucking hay, with that grumpy look of his, he's spotted a bunch of stuff, leaning fenceposts, broken wire, sulky cows, I don't know what else. A quick cup of coffee and he's off again, this time with Grandpa who's emerged from his cave.
Later on Dad takes me down to the machine shop that could double as a museum, most of the equipment is so old. I've spent my whole life hanging around Newsome Farm Machinery and I barely recognise any of this crap. Plus it looks like Grandpa must have kept every scrap of metal and every wrecked piece of machinery since the Flood. Some of it's probably useful but you'd never know where to find it when you needed it. There's an ancient Ferguson TO20 - a TO20! - which Dad assures me is the best of a bad bunch of old tractors. How come Grandpa drives such crappy equipment, I want to know. Because your grandpa's a -- Because he wouldn't take up the offer I made. And he won't say anything more about it.
Dad reckons he's been working through this mess, sorting, fixing, cleaning, ditching, since he could move around more easily. He mostly gets around on crutches - it turns out the stick at the airfield was just for my benefit so I wouldn't be too shocked straight away - but now and then he still needs a wheelchair if he gets too tired. His left hand is coming good, however, and between us we get quite a bit of work done. While we're stripping down a big old chainsaw Grandpa comes by, on the hunt for something or other, and he watches Dad work for a while. What you want to waste time doing that for? he asks, more important work to be done. Like what? replies Dad in a level voice, like standing around watching someone else work? I start to join in the joke then realise neither of them is smiling. Grandpa turns to leave, and I see he hasn't found what he was looking for. When your daddy takes his little afternoon siesta you can come with me, Bobby, do something useful. Dad spits, doesn't say anything, but his hands are shaking.
After lunch I go out with Grandpa and Ennis to knock together some fencing panels, nothing I've done before but they both seem pleased enough with my efforts. Then I hang around the kitchen with Granny and help her - she's quite surprised to find I can actually cook but I've always enjoyed it. Someone had to know at our place. Mom is only good for the big occasions and the less said about Dad's barbequing abilities the better. Granny talks really slow and solemn, asks me about church and school and stuff like that. Sometimes she hums hymns, doesn't smile much, but she's nice enough. Everyone comes in for supper - not much table conversation - and after that it's back to the trailer and in no time my eyes are closing.
And that's the default pattern for most of the two weeks. Work, eat, sleep. Not the sort of holiday I usually enjoy. Sometimes we eat in the trailer - Dad cooks, which is to say he opens some tins and burns a few lumps of beef. On the third night he spends some time unpacking the case Mom sent up. He keeps pulling things out and showing them to Ennis and laughing quite a bit. Ennis pulls some faces and makes plenty of rude comments. I guess Dad didn't used to wear his worst clothes on their fishing trips. When he fishes out some work gloves he gives them to me and makes me return Ennis's new ones. I can tell he's looking for something, digging deep and making sure he's not missed anything. I start feeling guilty.
Next day we finally get to do some horse-riding. Ennis gives me his mare, Angel, and he rides Grandpa's old gelding. Dad's on a bay mare called Thunder. I find out why after I've ridden behind her for a while. Heels down, toes out! yells Ennis at me, don't want to look like a greenhorn! The air is cold but there's blue sky clear to Canada. Want to ride to Montana? asks Dad, and when I say yes he steps Thunder through a gap in a fence. He used to tell me he lived on the state line but I never thought the ranch boundary fence was it. I can almost hear Ennis adding the break to his list of things to do. We take our time. Dad can only go at a walk. His left leg still doesn't have enough strength to grip with. I notice how Ennis stays close, just in case. He's kind of funny that way, like a mother hen fussing over her chicks.
We have lunch right over in the north-east corner near where Little Battle Creek cuts across. Dad can't dismount properly so he just slides off into Ennis's arms. Dad then says, get off me, be giving Bobby the wrong idea, and he laughs a lot. It's a good sound. There aren't any cattle this far out, thank goodness, or the morning feeding would take all day. Dad reckons they've got plans of expanding, leasing land nearby since the adjoining ranches are unused. I've learned to keep my ears shut when he talks his big plans. Mom always says he's a dreamer and I guess she's right. The here and now never seemed to fire him up much. After we've eaten I find out why this spot was chosen - there's a rocky outcrop that Dad uses to mount Thunder again. Quite a business. I hold the horse, Ennis hauls Dad up on the rock then bodily lifts him into the saddle. I guess he's had a bit of practice. It's a long day and by the time we get back home I'm thinking I'll never jerk off again, everything from the waist down hurts so much.
The following day, Saturday, is New Year's Eve. If I have any thoughts of us all heading out to paint the town red they quickly get squashed. Only need a cupful of red paint anyway. No, it's another exciting evening in the trailer but Dad lets me have a couple of beers. I notice he doesn't knock back the whiskey like he used to, and he's given up smoking too, although a faint tobacco smell still clings to him as though it's imprinted in his skin. We hang around until midnight then I head to bed. Happy New Year, Bumfuck, Wyoming. Later on, I hear the trailer door open and close and when I get up to have a pee I hear low voices outside. The moon's just rising and I spot Dad and Ennis over near the orchard, then they walk away into the trees, Dad leaning on Ennis's arm. A wonder they don't freeze their asses off out there.
They do the morning feeding without me, then I go to church with the oldies and on to have lunch down in Gillette with Great Uncle Harold and Great Aunt Milly. Be still, my beating heart. Is it possible to die of acute boredom? When we get back Dad is asleep as usual and Ennis is whistling up a storm in the stables. I haven't seen him this perky since I arrived. I help him muck out the stalls. There's things I want to talk about, and working at the same time makes it less embarassing.
I start with the easy stuff. What made Dad get rid of that godawful mustache? Ennis chuckles and his eyes crinkle up. Didn't have no choice, he says, I done it when he was asleep, always hated it. Yeah, me too, although I can hardly picture him without it. I have to stop talking for a minute because a shiver runs down my spine, and I must look strange because Ennis asks, you okay, Junior? Yeah, I'm okay, hey, don't you call your daughter Junior? because I'd rather not get called that. He looks sheepish, mumbles, sorry, Bobby, didn't mean no offence. My friends call me Rob, I say. He waits. He looks at me. He cocks his head like a bird. Please call me Rob, I say, and he smiles. Guess that makes us friends. He starts whistling again.
Dad sure sleeps a lot, I continue, as a shovelful of horse shit and straw flies onto a barrow. Yep, says Ennis, breaking off his whistling for a second. Is that okay? I mean, is it normal? Yer dad's just tired today, Ju-- Bob-- Rob. Yeah but he sleeps nearly every afternoon. Ennis leans on his rake, says the doctors figure he needs lots more healing before he's right, was a real bad accident he had, lucky it didn't kill him. Probably drunk, I say, and he gives me a really sharp look. Why d'you say that? Well, I say, you know Dad, and Ennis waits, doesn't say anything. I begin to feel uncomfortable. Surely Ennis knows how much Dad used to knock back before the accident? But it seems he doesn't and he frowns a lot when I tell him. I just figured he'd had a few while he was out on the truck. The last few weeks he'd been getting really bad, I mean, Dad always told me never ever to get in front of those split rim wheels when someone was pumping them up. I couldn't figure why he'd been so careless. Too shickered to notice, I suppose.
Ennis has stopped working. He's standing really still and staring off like he's not listening to me. After a while he shakes himself and starts shovelling again. You like yer dad? His voice has gone quiet. Yeah, I guess, when he's not mad at me, I say, think he gets frustrated because I don't do so well at school, keep having to do summer school. School ain't everything, says Ennis, 'though I wanted --- And he breaks off and shrugs. Yer dad said you --- And he stops again. I think he's too embarassed to say what Dad said. Either that or he can't remember the word. Dyslexia, I tell him. He nods, seem all right to me, Rob, always wanted a boy for a kid, and he smiles and ruffles my hair and we go back to shoveling shit.
There's not so much work needs doing this time of year and when the weather's fine we get in a bit of sightseeing. One day Ennis, Dad and I drive out to the Big Horn Mountains, down into canyons full of huge chunks of rock, and up as far as the roads and the truck will carry us, to places where we can look out over the main ridge of the mountains. They point out this peak and that, and I don't remember half the names, and then for a while they don't say anything. At one point I go for a walk, scrambling over hillsides where the snow is just patchy, and the sage bushes send up waves of scent as I crunch them under my boots. It's a clean, fabulous smell, and the air is so sweet and still that I can hear birds calling across the valleys and streams murmuring over rocks, and somewhere a dog is barking, and I feel as though I'm the only person for miles, and I begin to understand why Dad comes back here year after year. When I get back, the two of them are leaning against the truck, heads close, deep in conversation. Dad looks a bit red-eyed, Ennis says for us to get in the truck because the cold is getting to Dad but I reckon he's been crying. I'd been warned about his moods before I came, and I guess this is one of them.
Another day we head south a way to Devils Tower, Close Encounters and all that. It's pretty impressive if you get off on big lumps of rock sticking straight up out of the ground. Dad took me and Mom to see the film when it came out. I recall he said something about how it's a pity the aliens didn't land further north and do some abductions there, and Mom shushed him. I didn't get what he meant at the time. Dad plays tour guide while Ennis drives. Dad reckons Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid used to hang around these parts. I always figured they had that Etta girl as the love interest in that film so that no-one got the wrong idea about two pretty cowboys keeping each other company, but I never told Dad that because I didn't want to ruin one of his favorite movies.
My last Friday is Dad's rehab day down in Gillette. I leave them at the hospital and go find some junk food to remind me of home and real life. Ages later when I get back, they're having a coffee with some woman. She's introduced to me as Margie and after the pleasantries are dispensed with, she tells me about how Dad's doing. You know, she says, we are so proud of how your dad has recovered so far, we really didn't expect it, was your grandmother and Ennis here, maintaining him in such good condition that helped him, I reckon, plus Ennis learning all about the physiotherapy. And she squeezes Ennis's wrist and he drops his head and mumbles and his face flushes a bit. Yep, she says, Ennis is a true friend, one of the best, couldn't have done a better job myself. Dad grins and nods agreement. It dawns on me there's a lot about Ennis I don't get.
The day before I'm due to leave, Ennis takes me for one last ride. I get Thunder this time. I've ridden her a few times now, and I'm beginning to feel like I was born in the saddle, as Ennis puts it. Dad's having his usual afternoon doze but I don't mind not being with him. We've had some good time together, better than I had expected, and anyway I'm really enjoying Ennis's company. He doesn't say much but he doesn't snap at me like Dad does (although I have to admit it's nowhere near as much as before) and when he gets me to help him he has good things to say about what I do, even if it takes me forever and the end result isn't perfect. At my age, he's told me, he'd been working three years already. No wonder he looks so old, out in all weathers all these years. We go for a canter down a track. He won't let me ride hard across the fields for fear of gopher holes. No way will he risk his two horses. I never hear him use their names unless he's talking about them. When he talks to them it's always little darling. It's a bit soppy coming from a weatherbeaten old cowboy.
There's something I've been holding back all this time but I finally have to get it off my chest. I catch up with him, clear my throat, take a deep breath and say it. I think Dad was having an affair before the accident. I think that's why Mom got rid of him. Ennis doesn't say anything but I see his hands tighten on the reins. Did he tell you about it, Ennis? Maybe - shit! I'm starting to get teary! - maybe if it's over he could come home again. I glance over. Ennis is biting down on his lips, his face all scrunched up like he's got a real bad headache. I figure he knows something. After a while he speaks very softly, don't think yer Dad's planning on coming home again to stay, Rob, I'm sorry. And he turns his head away from me.
Down along the south boundary there are breaks in the fencing where twisted old trees have toppled in storms. As we measure off wire and work the fence stretcher and splice and staple and make it all good again, Ennis tells me about how these lower fields haven't been used much but him and Dad have those plans. He's talking but sounds like his mind is elsewhere. After a while I realise he's not working any more. Rob, he says, I see my girls maybe a weekend every month or so. Don't mean I don't love em to pieces. I don't know if Dad really loves me, the way he's always at me for getting things wrong, I tell him, and he looks very solemn, don't think that, Rob, I remember when he first told me about you, about you being born, and how when you was eight months old you used to smile a lot. And he smiles off into the distance and I know the memory is a good one.
I wish I could remember Dad before he changed, wish I could put the feelings into those snapshots I've got in my head. We both stand, staring into space, and suddenly it sneaks up on me out of the blue, the day, the very day, and my guts clench and I feel like I'm gonna barf, and I have to hang onto a fencepost to stop falling over. You okay, boy? Ennis is over to me, holding my shoulder, peering into my face, and I can't stop myself, I spill out the memory, the day my daddy started to disappear.
Third Grade, must have been about Third Grade maybe Second, it all gets a bit hazy back then, he took off and Mom was mad as hell for a few days, and he came back late one night and I heard them arguing, and he crashed down the hall to his den and I don't think he even saw me peering out of my bedroom, waiting for him. He smelled bad, his face was awful and splotchy, and he locked the door and didn't come out until next day. And I kept waking up during the night because I was dreaming my dog must be trapped somewhere and howling real low and sorrowful. But it wasn't the dog, it wasn't Tuffy ....
And I'm bawling all this out and choking over the words and Ennis grabs me and somehow gets his coat around me and holds me tight and he's shaking as much as me, so we stay that way until it gets to be embarassing then go back to fixing the fence and don't say anything more about it.
That evening I go into my room to pack, and fish out a couple of items from the bottom of my bag. Here, Dad, I say, feeling slightly sheepish, and I hand him his two rodeo buckles. I kinda souvenired them, sorry. There's an uncomfortable silence then Dad smiles, really smiles, a great wide grin, and hands me back the big one, the one he always used to wear. I point out to him and Ennis how it's bent a bit out of shape, tell them how when I first saw Dad in the hospital, tubes everywhere, so still under the sheet, there'd been a big bruise on his stomach, just half covered up, the same shape as the buckle. Guess I must a hit something, says Dad, you keep it, Bobby, I want you to keep it, I'll keep the old one, and he holds it up to Ennis, remember this? Ennis smiles and nods but he's been very quiet all evening and after a while he pats Dad on the shoulder and bids us goodnight. That night before I drop off to sleep, I spend a long time staring up at the ceiling, trying to work out what the past two weeks have been all about.
Next day, after I get to sleep in one last time, I farewell the oldies - at least the names and voices have faces now - and soon it's time to board my plane back at Gillette. Dad and I hug, a good, long hug that means what it says, then I turn to Ennis. Funny, I didn't expect him to be anything more than Dad's friend when I came but now I realise he's become my friend too. He tells me, you come back in summer, hey? lots of work for you then, we hug each other hard and I breathe in one last lungful of horse sweat and stale tobacco and something that reminds me of Dad, and then I have to go. I reckon all three of us are blinking back tears.
I watch them until the plane turns away and speeds off down the runway. As we leave the ground I look one more time for that turquoise truck but just as I catch a glimpse of it the cloud closes over and it's gone.
tbc
Genre: AU
Rating: NC-17
Feedback: Any and all is welcome
Disclaimer: These are Annie Proulx's brilliant original characters and her story, and I have treated it and them (and her) with as much respect as I can muster.
This story is for Canstandit.
THE OUTLAND, CHAPTER 6
In 1916, Henry Charles Twist, five feet four and twenty years old, drygoods store assistant full of patriotic fervor, left his fiancee and his home in Sundance, Wyoming, and enlisted in the War To End All Wars. Seven years later, when his son, John Charles, was three years old and his daughter a mere four weeks away from seeing the light of day, he limped on his wooden stump into the middle of his barren fields, placed his old service revolver in his mouth and blew out the back of his head. Unlike the King Stag, his blood did not bring fecundity to the land, just a dry, bitter season which killed the prospects of his wife and children just as surely as the bullet had killed him. Mrs Henry Twist eventually became Mrs Jacob Burdon, and the one good thing this violent new husband did for his stepson was to leave him, by default more than anything, the small acreage in the settlement of Lightning Flat, which he had acquired cheaply by the simple method of wooing the grieving and financially straitened widow.
On the morning the undertakers took the old man away, John Twist carefully painted out the name "Burdon" on the mailbox and replaced it with "John C. Twist". By that time, John had two reputations, as a pretty decent bull-rider on the small local rodeo circuit of his day, and as a bit of a ladies' man. Both activities went west the evening in April 1943 when he seduced quiet, churchgoing Sybil Venn and begat on her their only child, John Charles Twist Jr. Once married and trapped in a life he hadn't asked for, John Sr cursed the fate which had brought him to this stultifying existence, cursed the mother - long since drowned in a flash flood one spring - and the stepfather who had combined to make his childhood a misery, but mostly he cursed the weak father who hadn't had the balls to make a go of it. He, John Twist, would never be that weak.
The son, called Jack to distinguish him from his father, grew up small and wiful, with the curly hair and bright eyes of his grandfather, memorialised in a faded enlistment portrait. He had the eagerness of a young puppy, a seemingly endless bounce and optimism, yet, with just a few words or an all-too-frequent backhand, his old man could cause him to scuttle away with his tail between his legs. In 1964, leaving two dirty shirts behind but taking a broken heart with him, he lit out for Texas where he too begat a son on a girl at the rodeo, although this seduction was not quite as traditional as that of his parents.
The scion of this chain of disasters, Robert Lawrence Twist, did not set foot on his ancestral lands until the afternoon of December 27th, 1983.
~~~
I'm carrying an extra suitcase. It feels as though Mom is getting rid of Dad a bag at a time. She said it was filled with his warm winter clothes and it probably is, but all the same the balance is slowly shifting north. It's going to be strange to see him again. Last time, he was pale and still, like a puppet whose strings had all been severed. Mom told me to say goodbye before he was shipped up to Wyoming, but what she really meant was for me to say Goodbye. And then she packed a couple of trunks with his clothes and shipped them off too. Okay, so she was being realistic but it was too much like sealing the coffin before the corpse was properly dead.
But can I blame her? I don't know. The life she and Dad have been acting out these past few years is a long way from the TV sitcoms. There have been times when I just wanted to bang their heads together and tell them to grow up, to stop bitching at each other like kids. I don't recall huge, knock-em-down, drag-em-out fights, just endless needling and sarcasm. There's an old photo at home, a black and white shot of the two of them, must have been about when they met, and they look happy and relaxed. If I hadn't seen that photo I'd never have thought they could ever be like that. I have vague memories of Mom before she started getting brittle and sharp, but Dad? I know he used to be fun to play with but I just can't remember it for real. There are little snapshots of memory and nothing else. I see the pictures but I can't recall the feelings.
So coming in to Gillette I'm feeling pretty uncomfortable about everything. Part of me wants to hug him and make sure he's really alive and part of me wants to punch him for turning into the polyester man he's become, all fancy suits and big hats, shiny teeth grimacing out from under his porn star mustache. Fancied himself as some sort of riverboat gambler; more like the sleazy owner of a cheap whorehouse in one of those awful old Westerns he'd sit and watch in his den, knocking back whiskey until he'd emerge late in the evening and start burbling the same maudlin shit at Mom.
So I'm thinking these thoughts as the little gnat that's bringing me the last leg, Cheyenne to Bumfuck, Wyoming, dips below the cloud layer, skims over a couple of roads and comes in to land, bouncing along the runway and shuddering in the wind. Least I hope it's the wind and not the plane breaking up. There's a cluster of buildings, and the flag on top of the biggest is sticking straight out sideways to match the direction of the snow flurries that are plowing into my face. I'm hanging onto my cap and thanking Mom for making me take this Eskimo jacket with me, as I race the half-dozen or so passengers across the tarmac.
And then I see him. He's standing there, just inside the gate, leaning on a stick and surrounded by his own little oasis of calm and warmth, and suddenly I'm a little kid again, and me and my daddy are up in a big tractor and we're laughing and he's saying it's all yours, Bobby, it's all yours. Punch him or hug him, it's no contest. I grab him and feel the prickles starting under my eyelids. Bobby, he says into my hair, Bobby, he says again, and the passengers go by, heading for the shelter of the terminal, and we just stand there together in the wind.
I pull back to get a good look at him, and he stumbles a bit, and there's a quick flash of movement from someone standing a way behind, but I'm too busy taking in his appearance to pay any attention. He's thinner and paler and there might even be more grey in his hair, and the awful mustache has gone! And he's kind of hunched and frail-looking, but there's something else I can't put my finger on, something else that's different.
Come on, he says, let's git before we freeze our asses off, and he sways as we turn, and this time that other person moves fast to get to Dad's side, four or five long strides and his hand is under Dad's elbow, and I'm guessing that this is the famous Ennis del Mar.
It's funny how you form pictures of people in your mind. Dad didn't ever say too much about his old friend, just a few words here and there, but the bedtime stories he told were almost always about cowboys, about golden heroes on fine proud horses, riding the prairie, and that's how Ennis ended up looking for me, a real life Marlboro Man, narrowing his eyes against a blazing sunset.
Bobby, says Dad, this is my friend, Ennis, Ennis, this is my son, Bobby, and we shake hands, how do you do, sir, pleased to meet you, son, heard a lot about you. He's rangy and scruffy, and his expression is a bit quizzical as if he's not sure what to make of me. There's a lump on his right eyelid that makes it droop, and it feels like he's sharing some private joke with me, giving me an eternal wink. I don't like to look at it because I'm looking at it and not at his tobacco eyes. But the thing that really grabs me is - he towers over Dad. I've already got a few inches on Dad. I know he's short but I always pictured this Ennis as being just about average, my Marlboro Man in a neat package, but no, he could fit Dad under his chin nearly.
We collect my baggage. I'll fetch the truck, Ennis says in his low voice, but Dad's having none of that so he hauls the case full of Dad's things and I shoulder my bag and between us we get Dad out across the parking lot. By the time we get to the truck Dad's sweating and shaking in this icy wind and I start to realise that he's doing this all for me. I'm so busy worrying about him that I barely notice the truck until we get there. It's an old Ford, rusty and dented and painted this really gay pale turquoise, and I'm thankful the guys back home aren't going to see me riding in it. Dad says since I'm the visitor I can have the window seat which suits me fine as I don't want to be too close to Ennis. He's got a smell about him, not dirty, just earthy and animally, makes me wonder if he's wearing his work clothes. He throws the bags in the back, Dad squeezes in between us - I guess he's used to Ennis's smell - and we take off.
Dad usually drives like a bat out of hell, Ennis drives like he's scared his engine will fall out on the road. He swings left out of the airfield and we head north, into the wind and snow. Evening is already coming on but the twilight just keeps going as we turn onto a washboard road and judder the miles to Lightning Flat. Dad points out a few things as we go along but mostly it's a pretty silent ride. As we turn at the mailbox with "JOHN C. TWIST" in faded lettering, Dad announces, this is it, but his voice is small and odd, and as I look at the old farmhouse with its peeling paint and its ramshackled outbuildings a sick feeling hits me: he's embarrassed.
The old people are waiting, Granny with a nervously expectant look, Grandpa with an expression I can't quite read. It feels very strange to call them Granny and Grandpa to their faces. I don't know their faces. I only know them through awkward phone calls. If there's a cord joining us together, I don't feel it. I wonder how Dad can be related to them, let alone me. But we muddle along, talking in that unnatural, bright way that people have when they can't think of a thing to say. I've heard Dad and Mom talking that way often enough when we've been out in public. Granny says she' s fixed up Dad's old room for me. The thought doesn't thrill me.
After supper Dad and I crunch down the path to his trailer, with Ennis bringing up the rear. I've heard all about it from Mom, all about the insurance deal that's paying for it at any rate. We talk for a while. Dad asks me about how things are going. Sometimes he asks about stuff I've already told him. There are things he knows which he shouldn't and thinks he doesn't know which he should. It leaves me feeling a bit adrift. It doesn't seem long before everyone's yawning but I don't want to go back to the house. Dad, can I stay here with you? Sleep on the couch maybe? Dad looks doubtful. Boy can have my room, murmurs Ennis but Dad wants none of that, you shouldn't have to be turned out of your room. Don't matter, he answers, boy should be with his dad after all that's happened, I'll sleep up at the house. And he goes into the small bedroom and bumps around for a while then comes out with some things in a bag. It's all yours, Bobby, he says, nods at Dad and heads back up the path.
Dad shrugs, think I'll turn in too. We say goodnight kind of awkwardly, not used to being together like this. I'm expecting Ennis's room to carry some of that smell of his but oddly enough it doesn't, except just faintly in the closet where a few of his clothes still are. I'm so tired it could have stunk like a pigpen and I wouldn't have cared. I'm asleep in minutes. Halfway through the night I hear the outside door rattle a bit and then open. Can't be burglars all the way out here, I figure, then Ennis quietly clears his throat so I get up to see what the hell he's doing back here.
Morning, Junior, he says, breakfast, as he holds up a basket of goodies like Little Red Riding Hood. Breakfast? Oh, you are kidding me, man, but he's not. There's cereal and stuff, and he starts making coffee before banging on Dad's door. Get your a--, get up, there's animals need feeding, and after a minute or so's muffled swearing, Dad emerges, scratching and farting. It seems a bang on the head doesn't change some things. Ennis fishes out a jar from the basket. You want peaches? he asks in a weird voice and Dad mouths something back at him that has the word "fuck" in it.
Soon we're fed and dressed and ready to start the day, and there's barely the faintest trace of light in the sky. You got better gloves than them, asks Ennis, and I say no, so he hands me the new-looking pair sticking out of his pocket then goes into his room and finds an old pair. Dad glares at him then says to me, as Ennis heads out of the trailer, you look after them, they were a present from his girls a month back. His girls? His daughters, Junior - that's Alma - and Francie, for his fortieth, fuck, Ennis is forty, and by now we're outside and Dad and Ennis start trading insults about how old and decrepit the other one is.
And it hits me, the thing that's so different about Dad. He's happy. Not tipsy and amiable happy, not sweet-talking the customers happy, not excruciatingly painful father-and-son happy. Just warm-from-within happy. I gaze around this rundown little ranch and wonder if, when I'm old like him, thoughts of poky old Childress will make me happy too.
There's another awful truck awaiting. This one is a big old flatbed GMC, probably half of the breeding pair off the ark. I get the window seat again, except there's no window, just a sheet of plywood that does a lousy job of keeping out the wind. We bounce up a track a few hundred yards to a hayshed where Ennis gets the truck up neat as a pin against a loading bay. He gets out and starts hooking bales down, not the huge rolls I see at home but the blocks that they always use at square dances, and slinging them over to where Dad and I can drag them onto the flatbed. Stack em neat, says Dad, where you going to stand, hey? Stand? I'm not planning on standing here for long.
To my surprise Dad takes the wheel as we head further out to the fields. The truck lurches and he crunches the gears a bit but he's not too bad. When we reach a gate I'm told off to open it, so I unlatch it and swing across, riding it all the way back. Get your ass off a that gate, bawls Dad from the truck, what do you think I spend my time fixin them for, so you can wreck em? damn kid. I shut the gate and get back in the truck, feeling just a bit pissed and Ennis gives me a wink. He doesn't smell so funny this morning or maybe my nose has died with all the cold air.
Once in the middle of the field Dad sets the truck in a tight circle while Ennis and I get up on the back, break open bales and throw the hay out to all the cows that come running. Flake it thin, he says, not too much, more over there, okay, that's enough, hang on, and he stamps his heel a couple of times and Dad takes off for the next field, with me doing gate duty very carefully this time. Field after field, the delivery system seems a bit haphazard but by the time we feed the three bulls, the last of the herd, there's just enough and no more. We drive back and I'm about ready to head back to bed, blood like ice, but Ennis is running through a list of jobs that need doing. It seems that while he's been chucking hay, with that grumpy look of his, he's spotted a bunch of stuff, leaning fenceposts, broken wire, sulky cows, I don't know what else. A quick cup of coffee and he's off again, this time with Grandpa who's emerged from his cave.
Later on Dad takes me down to the machine shop that could double as a museum, most of the equipment is so old. I've spent my whole life hanging around Newsome Farm Machinery and I barely recognise any of this crap. Plus it looks like Grandpa must have kept every scrap of metal and every wrecked piece of machinery since the Flood. Some of it's probably useful but you'd never know where to find it when you needed it. There's an ancient Ferguson TO20 - a TO20! - which Dad assures me is the best of a bad bunch of old tractors. How come Grandpa drives such crappy equipment, I want to know. Because your grandpa's a -- Because he wouldn't take up the offer I made. And he won't say anything more about it.
Dad reckons he's been working through this mess, sorting, fixing, cleaning, ditching, since he could move around more easily. He mostly gets around on crutches - it turns out the stick at the airfield was just for my benefit so I wouldn't be too shocked straight away - but now and then he still needs a wheelchair if he gets too tired. His left hand is coming good, however, and between us we get quite a bit of work done. While we're stripping down a big old chainsaw Grandpa comes by, on the hunt for something or other, and he watches Dad work for a while. What you want to waste time doing that for? he asks, more important work to be done. Like what? replies Dad in a level voice, like standing around watching someone else work? I start to join in the joke then realise neither of them is smiling. Grandpa turns to leave, and I see he hasn't found what he was looking for. When your daddy takes his little afternoon siesta you can come with me, Bobby, do something useful. Dad spits, doesn't say anything, but his hands are shaking.
After lunch I go out with Grandpa and Ennis to knock together some fencing panels, nothing I've done before but they both seem pleased enough with my efforts. Then I hang around the kitchen with Granny and help her - she's quite surprised to find I can actually cook but I've always enjoyed it. Someone had to know at our place. Mom is only good for the big occasions and the less said about Dad's barbequing abilities the better. Granny talks really slow and solemn, asks me about church and school and stuff like that. Sometimes she hums hymns, doesn't smile much, but she's nice enough. Everyone comes in for supper - not much table conversation - and after that it's back to the trailer and in no time my eyes are closing.
And that's the default pattern for most of the two weeks. Work, eat, sleep. Not the sort of holiday I usually enjoy. Sometimes we eat in the trailer - Dad cooks, which is to say he opens some tins and burns a few lumps of beef. On the third night he spends some time unpacking the case Mom sent up. He keeps pulling things out and showing them to Ennis and laughing quite a bit. Ennis pulls some faces and makes plenty of rude comments. I guess Dad didn't used to wear his worst clothes on their fishing trips. When he fishes out some work gloves he gives them to me and makes me return Ennis's new ones. I can tell he's looking for something, digging deep and making sure he's not missed anything. I start feeling guilty.
Next day we finally get to do some horse-riding. Ennis gives me his mare, Angel, and he rides Grandpa's old gelding. Dad's on a bay mare called Thunder. I find out why after I've ridden behind her for a while. Heels down, toes out! yells Ennis at me, don't want to look like a greenhorn! The air is cold but there's blue sky clear to Canada. Want to ride to Montana? asks Dad, and when I say yes he steps Thunder through a gap in a fence. He used to tell me he lived on the state line but I never thought the ranch boundary fence was it. I can almost hear Ennis adding the break to his list of things to do. We take our time. Dad can only go at a walk. His left leg still doesn't have enough strength to grip with. I notice how Ennis stays close, just in case. He's kind of funny that way, like a mother hen fussing over her chicks.
We have lunch right over in the north-east corner near where Little Battle Creek cuts across. Dad can't dismount properly so he just slides off into Ennis's arms. Dad then says, get off me, be giving Bobby the wrong idea, and he laughs a lot. It's a good sound. There aren't any cattle this far out, thank goodness, or the morning feeding would take all day. Dad reckons they've got plans of expanding, leasing land nearby since the adjoining ranches are unused. I've learned to keep my ears shut when he talks his big plans. Mom always says he's a dreamer and I guess she's right. The here and now never seemed to fire him up much. After we've eaten I find out why this spot was chosen - there's a rocky outcrop that Dad uses to mount Thunder again. Quite a business. I hold the horse, Ennis hauls Dad up on the rock then bodily lifts him into the saddle. I guess he's had a bit of practice. It's a long day and by the time we get back home I'm thinking I'll never jerk off again, everything from the waist down hurts so much.
The following day, Saturday, is New Year's Eve. If I have any thoughts of us all heading out to paint the town red they quickly get squashed. Only need a cupful of red paint anyway. No, it's another exciting evening in the trailer but Dad lets me have a couple of beers. I notice he doesn't knock back the whiskey like he used to, and he's given up smoking too, although a faint tobacco smell still clings to him as though it's imprinted in his skin. We hang around until midnight then I head to bed. Happy New Year, Bumfuck, Wyoming. Later on, I hear the trailer door open and close and when I get up to have a pee I hear low voices outside. The moon's just rising and I spot Dad and Ennis over near the orchard, then they walk away into the trees, Dad leaning on Ennis's arm. A wonder they don't freeze their asses off out there.
They do the morning feeding without me, then I go to church with the oldies and on to have lunch down in Gillette with Great Uncle Harold and Great Aunt Milly. Be still, my beating heart. Is it possible to die of acute boredom? When we get back Dad is asleep as usual and Ennis is whistling up a storm in the stables. I haven't seen him this perky since I arrived. I help him muck out the stalls. There's things I want to talk about, and working at the same time makes it less embarassing.
I start with the easy stuff. What made Dad get rid of that godawful mustache? Ennis chuckles and his eyes crinkle up. Didn't have no choice, he says, I done it when he was asleep, always hated it. Yeah, me too, although I can hardly picture him without it. I have to stop talking for a minute because a shiver runs down my spine, and I must look strange because Ennis asks, you okay, Junior? Yeah, I'm okay, hey, don't you call your daughter Junior? because I'd rather not get called that. He looks sheepish, mumbles, sorry, Bobby, didn't mean no offence. My friends call me Rob, I say. He waits. He looks at me. He cocks his head like a bird. Please call me Rob, I say, and he smiles. Guess that makes us friends. He starts whistling again.
Dad sure sleeps a lot, I continue, as a shovelful of horse shit and straw flies onto a barrow. Yep, says Ennis, breaking off his whistling for a second. Is that okay? I mean, is it normal? Yer dad's just tired today, Ju-- Bob-- Rob. Yeah but he sleeps nearly every afternoon. Ennis leans on his rake, says the doctors figure he needs lots more healing before he's right, was a real bad accident he had, lucky it didn't kill him. Probably drunk, I say, and he gives me a really sharp look. Why d'you say that? Well, I say, you know Dad, and Ennis waits, doesn't say anything. I begin to feel uncomfortable. Surely Ennis knows how much Dad used to knock back before the accident? But it seems he doesn't and he frowns a lot when I tell him. I just figured he'd had a few while he was out on the truck. The last few weeks he'd been getting really bad, I mean, Dad always told me never ever to get in front of those split rim wheels when someone was pumping them up. I couldn't figure why he'd been so careless. Too shickered to notice, I suppose.
Ennis has stopped working. He's standing really still and staring off like he's not listening to me. After a while he shakes himself and starts shovelling again. You like yer dad? His voice has gone quiet. Yeah, I guess, when he's not mad at me, I say, think he gets frustrated because I don't do so well at school, keep having to do summer school. School ain't everything, says Ennis, 'though I wanted --- And he breaks off and shrugs. Yer dad said you --- And he stops again. I think he's too embarassed to say what Dad said. Either that or he can't remember the word. Dyslexia, I tell him. He nods, seem all right to me, Rob, always wanted a boy for a kid, and he smiles and ruffles my hair and we go back to shoveling shit.
There's not so much work needs doing this time of year and when the weather's fine we get in a bit of sightseeing. One day Ennis, Dad and I drive out to the Big Horn Mountains, down into canyons full of huge chunks of rock, and up as far as the roads and the truck will carry us, to places where we can look out over the main ridge of the mountains. They point out this peak and that, and I don't remember half the names, and then for a while they don't say anything. At one point I go for a walk, scrambling over hillsides where the snow is just patchy, and the sage bushes send up waves of scent as I crunch them under my boots. It's a clean, fabulous smell, and the air is so sweet and still that I can hear birds calling across the valleys and streams murmuring over rocks, and somewhere a dog is barking, and I feel as though I'm the only person for miles, and I begin to understand why Dad comes back here year after year. When I get back, the two of them are leaning against the truck, heads close, deep in conversation. Dad looks a bit red-eyed, Ennis says for us to get in the truck because the cold is getting to Dad but I reckon he's been crying. I'd been warned about his moods before I came, and I guess this is one of them.
Another day we head south a way to Devils Tower, Close Encounters and all that. It's pretty impressive if you get off on big lumps of rock sticking straight up out of the ground. Dad took me and Mom to see the film when it came out. I recall he said something about how it's a pity the aliens didn't land further north and do some abductions there, and Mom shushed him. I didn't get what he meant at the time. Dad plays tour guide while Ennis drives. Dad reckons Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid used to hang around these parts. I always figured they had that Etta girl as the love interest in that film so that no-one got the wrong idea about two pretty cowboys keeping each other company, but I never told Dad that because I didn't want to ruin one of his favorite movies.
My last Friday is Dad's rehab day down in Gillette. I leave them at the hospital and go find some junk food to remind me of home and real life. Ages later when I get back, they're having a coffee with some woman. She's introduced to me as Margie and after the pleasantries are dispensed with, she tells me about how Dad's doing. You know, she says, we are so proud of how your dad has recovered so far, we really didn't expect it, was your grandmother and Ennis here, maintaining him in such good condition that helped him, I reckon, plus Ennis learning all about the physiotherapy. And she squeezes Ennis's wrist and he drops his head and mumbles and his face flushes a bit. Yep, she says, Ennis is a true friend, one of the best, couldn't have done a better job myself. Dad grins and nods agreement. It dawns on me there's a lot about Ennis I don't get.
The day before I'm due to leave, Ennis takes me for one last ride. I get Thunder this time. I've ridden her a few times now, and I'm beginning to feel like I was born in the saddle, as Ennis puts it. Dad's having his usual afternoon doze but I don't mind not being with him. We've had some good time together, better than I had expected, and anyway I'm really enjoying Ennis's company. He doesn't say much but he doesn't snap at me like Dad does (although I have to admit it's nowhere near as much as before) and when he gets me to help him he has good things to say about what I do, even if it takes me forever and the end result isn't perfect. At my age, he's told me, he'd been working three years already. No wonder he looks so old, out in all weathers all these years. We go for a canter down a track. He won't let me ride hard across the fields for fear of gopher holes. No way will he risk his two horses. I never hear him use their names unless he's talking about them. When he talks to them it's always little darling. It's a bit soppy coming from a weatherbeaten old cowboy.
There's something I've been holding back all this time but I finally have to get it off my chest. I catch up with him, clear my throat, take a deep breath and say it. I think Dad was having an affair before the accident. I think that's why Mom got rid of him. Ennis doesn't say anything but I see his hands tighten on the reins. Did he tell you about it, Ennis? Maybe - shit! I'm starting to get teary! - maybe if it's over he could come home again. I glance over. Ennis is biting down on his lips, his face all scrunched up like he's got a real bad headache. I figure he knows something. After a while he speaks very softly, don't think yer Dad's planning on coming home again to stay, Rob, I'm sorry. And he turns his head away from me.
Down along the south boundary there are breaks in the fencing where twisted old trees have toppled in storms. As we measure off wire and work the fence stretcher and splice and staple and make it all good again, Ennis tells me about how these lower fields haven't been used much but him and Dad have those plans. He's talking but sounds like his mind is elsewhere. After a while I realise he's not working any more. Rob, he says, I see my girls maybe a weekend every month or so. Don't mean I don't love em to pieces. I don't know if Dad really loves me, the way he's always at me for getting things wrong, I tell him, and he looks very solemn, don't think that, Rob, I remember when he first told me about you, about you being born, and how when you was eight months old you used to smile a lot. And he smiles off into the distance and I know the memory is a good one.
I wish I could remember Dad before he changed, wish I could put the feelings into those snapshots I've got in my head. We both stand, staring into space, and suddenly it sneaks up on me out of the blue, the day, the very day, and my guts clench and I feel like I'm gonna barf, and I have to hang onto a fencepost to stop falling over. You okay, boy? Ennis is over to me, holding my shoulder, peering into my face, and I can't stop myself, I spill out the memory, the day my daddy started to disappear.
Third Grade, must have been about Third Grade maybe Second, it all gets a bit hazy back then, he took off and Mom was mad as hell for a few days, and he came back late one night and I heard them arguing, and he crashed down the hall to his den and I don't think he even saw me peering out of my bedroom, waiting for him. He smelled bad, his face was awful and splotchy, and he locked the door and didn't come out until next day. And I kept waking up during the night because I was dreaming my dog must be trapped somewhere and howling real low and sorrowful. But it wasn't the dog, it wasn't Tuffy ....
And I'm bawling all this out and choking over the words and Ennis grabs me and somehow gets his coat around me and holds me tight and he's shaking as much as me, so we stay that way until it gets to be embarassing then go back to fixing the fence and don't say anything more about it.
That evening I go into my room to pack, and fish out a couple of items from the bottom of my bag. Here, Dad, I say, feeling slightly sheepish, and I hand him his two rodeo buckles. I kinda souvenired them, sorry. There's an uncomfortable silence then Dad smiles, really smiles, a great wide grin, and hands me back the big one, the one he always used to wear. I point out to him and Ennis how it's bent a bit out of shape, tell them how when I first saw Dad in the hospital, tubes everywhere, so still under the sheet, there'd been a big bruise on his stomach, just half covered up, the same shape as the buckle. Guess I must a hit something, says Dad, you keep it, Bobby, I want you to keep it, I'll keep the old one, and he holds it up to Ennis, remember this? Ennis smiles and nods but he's been very quiet all evening and after a while he pats Dad on the shoulder and bids us goodnight. That night before I drop off to sleep, I spend a long time staring up at the ceiling, trying to work out what the past two weeks have been all about.
Next day, after I get to sleep in one last time, I farewell the oldies - at least the names and voices have faces now - and soon it's time to board my plane back at Gillette. Dad and I hug, a good, long hug that means what it says, then I turn to Ennis. Funny, I didn't expect him to be anything more than Dad's friend when I came but now I realise he's become my friend too. He tells me, you come back in summer, hey? lots of work for you then, we hug each other hard and I breathe in one last lungful of horse sweat and stale tobacco and something that reminds me of Dad, and then I have to go. I reckon all three of us are blinking back tears.
I watch them until the plane turns away and speeds off down the runway. As we leave the ground I look one more time for that turquoise truck but just as I catch a glimpse of it the cloud closes over and it's gone.
tbc