In Open Spaces (2 page)

So when the teacher asked me if I was okay, I nodded without hesitation, and it was true at that particular moment.

“All right,” she said. “You go on ahead then.”

So I walked to the boarders’ house, told them the news, packed my bag, and caught the mail truck home. But after several hours in the truck, the reality started to penetrate. I remembered a day the previous winter—an early morning when we were out feeding the stock. It was colder than hell that morning, and George, Jack, Dad, and I were doing whatever we could think of to keep warm, pounding our gloved hands together, running in place, working our jaws to keep the skin on our faces from freezing. George was talking, as he often did. He was talking about cattle, and sheep.

“People talk about how stupid animals are,” George said, stomping his boots against the ground. “But just look at this. Every morning, we get up and come out here to feed these bastards, who aren’t at all cold. We come out here and risk our lives to wait on these animals, and they’re the stupid ones? I think we’re the stupid ones. Not only that, but we paid money for these sons of bitches. We paid money for the privilege of waiting on these goddam animals.”

He kept along in the same vein, a half grin on his face the whole time, and the rest of us were laughing so hard, we felt warmer than we
had all morning. Even Jack, who usually had little tolerance for George’s monologues, was laughing. It was one of those simple moments where the presence of one person made life better for all of us for a time.

“So many youngsters dying,” Annie Ketchal said. “What was he, nineteen?”

“Yes, ma’am, nineteen in July,” I said, taking a deep breath. Besides wishing that Annie Ketchal would let me sleep, I was annoyed that she was breaking the custom of our people, which was not to pursue a potentially unpleasant line of questioning. She knew better, but as I noticed in my previous rides with her, Annie didn’t think much about what she said. I suppose that with such a lonely job, having an audience was more important to her than etiquette.

“So many,” she repeated. “I lost a nephew last year, and another three years ago.” She shook her head. “Smallpox, the first one was, and the other just had a bad cold. That was all it took.” She snapped her fingers, indicating how quickly it happened. “This country is rough on the children,” she said. “The women and the children.” She continued shaking her head. “’Course the men don’t fare much better, but you’d expect to lose a few of them, as hard as they work just to break through this ground.”

I nodded, not knowing what to say—actually, knowing that it didn’t matter what I said, or whether I spoke at all.

“What was he like?” Annie asked. “I started driving after he quit school. So I never really knew him.”

Besides being offended by the indelicacy of the question, by having to explore something I didn’t want to think about, I was also fourteen and answered accordingly, shrugging. “I dunno. He liked baseball.”

But the question echoed in me. I thought of it often over the years, when others died. In terms of George as well as the rest. And it seemed that the answers changed as I grew older. If I were to answer the question now, I would say that George was solid—even-tempered, unusually
even-tempered for such a young man. That despite taking his work seriously, he was also extremely capable of enjoying life. He never seemed to be overwhelmed by the more overwhelming aspects of our existence.

I guess my manner told Annie that I didn’t want to pursue this line of questioning, as she did not press for more details.

“You’re not planning to stay and work, are you, Blake?” she asked.

I swallowed hard, thinking to myself that this was none of her business, but not wanting to be rude. “Don’t know. They’re probably going to need me.”

“Oh, Jesus,” she muttered. “I’m sorry, Blake, but I just think that’s a shame, you being as bright as you are and all. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t say that.”

That would be the most accurate statement you’ve made all night, I thought to myself.

In the best of conditions, the fifty-mile drive along the winding gravel road from Belle Fourche to our ranch took about three hours. But Annie had to drop a mail sack at each box along the way, an average of every couple of miles. So we traveled all night. And Annie didn’t miss a beat, sawing away hour after hour with her stories, most of which I’d already heard, about the people on each ranch we passed. There was Tex Edwards, whose first wife, the heir to one of the bigger local ranches, mysteriously drowned in a puddle four inches deep. And Lonnie Roberts and his wife Ruth, both of whom Annie claimed to be consistently unfaithful. And finally, there was Art Walters, whose wife Rose had been one of the many locals who fell victim to the “loneliness.” Someone found her wandering along the road one day with her baby son in her arms. Rose, who moved out from Ohio to teach school, had been muttering to herself about bathtubs when they found her. Bathtubs and maple trees. They sent Rose back to Ohio, and no one had heard a word since.

I pointed my eyes straight ahead, at the road, answering questions
when asked, but mostly letting my mind drift. I thought about George, and about how my parents would take the loss. Dad would take it more personally, like a punishment from God. He would work even harder, trying to gain favor, trying to get more land to prepare for the inevitability of more tragedy. And he would spout invectives, throwing blame in blind directions—at the government, and the weather, and the “goddam banks.” Mom would turn it more inward, saying things like. “We should have…” or “Maybe if we’d…”

While Dad worried about what we should do, Mom would plan what we would do. And we would follow her plan. It was a system that worked well for them, as Dad worked harder than any man I knew, and Mom was a skilled organizer.

I thought about the fact that I was the second oldest now, behind Jack. How they would need to rely on me. I knew that none of them would be moping around, thinking about George, and that they would have no tolerance for anyone else doing that either. Because it would affect a person’s usefulness.

“You tired, Blake?” Annie asked just a couple of miles from our ranch.

Well, my head was rolling around like a BB in a washtub, so the answer seemed pretty obvious. But I nodded and leaned against my satchel, which sat on the seat between us. It was late fall, a cool night, and lightning had just begun flashing orange off the bottom of a dark cloud cover. The clouds were so thick that my beloved prairie was hidden by darkness, as if a black curtain had been pulled down over my window. But when the lightning flashed, the landscape lit up as if it was late afternoon, if only for a brief moment.

Annie pulled off the road to a solitary mailbox perched on a twisted fence post. We were at Glassers’, our closest neighbors to the south. Cold air blew through the cab as Annie hopped out and plucked Glassers’ canvas mail sack from the truck bed. A clap of thunder rumbled across the horizon. I looked up at the sky, hoping to see lightning. But the flash had already come and gone.

I woke up, my head pounding the window one last time, when Annie wrenched the wheel and turned into our drive, passing under the suspended chunk of driftwood that announced the “Arbuckle Ranch,” followed by our brand, R
(an R and a buckle).

“Here we are,” Annie declared.

I bent stiffly at the waist, retrieving my felt cowboy hat from the floor, where it had fallen on one of the collisions between head and window. I tugged my hat onto my head.

“You tell your folks I’m real sorry about George,” Annie said.

I don’t remember being so happy to put some distance between myself and another person, but I minded my manners, remembering that her intentions were good. “I sure will. Thanks, Mrs. Ketchal.” I pulled my satchel from the cab. “Thanks a bunch for the ride.”

I lugged my bag toward the house. The truck sputtered and clattered behind me, and the cold air bit my face.

“Hey, Blake!” The truck had stopped, and Annie’s head poked from the window. I groaned, wondering what else she could possibly have to tell me. But her hand popped out, a gray bag dangling from her fingers. I dropped my satchel, trotted back to the truck, and grabbed our mail sack. And I thanked her again.

Our sheepdog Nate, a pesky black-and-white Border collie with skewed ears, hopped in front of and between and beside my legs, nearly tripping me as I dragged my satchel toward the house. It wasn’t until I stepped up onto the stoop that it occurred to me that the house was going to feel different. I stopped, standing in front of the door, preparing myself for the fact that George would not be in the tiny bedroom we shared with our other two brothers. I wondered where his body was, and decided it was likely laid out in the barn, that they probably had a coffin built by now.

I swallowed, took a deep breath, pushed Nate to one side with my boot, and wobbled on rubber legs through the squeaky door. I set the
mail on the table, and crept through the sleeping household, past my parents’ door, which was open a crack. I saw the outline of their prone figures, and heard their whispered breath.

I smelled the memory of kerosene and the wood stove as I continued past the girls’ room, then to my own, where Jack and our youngest brother Bob were asleep. I squinted toward Jack, who was sixteen. He lay on his back, mouth wide open. Bob was curled up like a baby. I set my satchel on the floor.

Two beds stood empty, and I stopped in front of George’s. I thought of never seeing his spry figure sprawled across the narrow mattress. I sank onto his bed, where I felt a lump under my leg. Under the mattress, I found George’s baseball wedged in a hollow there. I also found some papers, but I stuffed them back where they were, feeling as if I had crossed onto sacred ground. But I kept the ball, cradling it in my palm, and I crossed the room and fell onto my own bed, still fully clothed, and finally, thankfully, slept.

“Blake, wake up. Wake up, son.”

I lifted my head, with difficulty, and saw that the bedroom window was still pitch-black. “What?”

My mother Catherine leaned over me, and I could barely see her face, round and dull white as a full moon behind a cloud. Her light red hair sparkled like stars around her face. She was dressed.

“What?” I asked. “It’s not morning yet, is it?”

“There’s a fire in the buttes over at Glassers’.” Mom spoke as she always did in such situations, with a gentle urgency that made it clear you needed to hurry but didn’t inspire a sense of panic.

I lay staring blankly, my brain stunned by lack of sleep. I felt as if I had just drifted off seconds ago. George’s baseball slept on the blanket next to me.

“Are you all right?” Mom asked, touching my arm.

I nodded. “I think so” was what entered my mind, but I never got around to voicing it.

“Come on, son.” Mom left the room, and I heard her walk outside.

I lifted myself to a sitting position, shook my head, and reached for my hat, which lay open-faced on the floor. Jack’s and Bob’s beds were empty. I stood, groggy, and staggered outside. Mom and Bob sat in the wagon. My dad, George Sr., was hooking the team up to the yoke. The cold air reached in and held my lungs motionless for a moment, and I had to force a deep breath before I could even move. Although it was still dark, the sky had that just-before-dawn glow.

I stumbled over to the well, where Jack waited with two fifty-gallon barrels. Dad pulled the wagon over, and after loading the barrels into the back, we dumped bucket after bucket into them, filling them until they spilled over. Then Jack and I crawled into the bed, laying out between the barrels. He yawned, rubbing his small, dark eyes. His nose hooked down over his tight mouth. I studied my older brother for a sign of how he might be taking George’s death. Although Jack and George had personalities that couldn’t be more different, they were probably closer than any of the rest of the brothers.

Dad flipped the reins, and the team surged forward.

“Are the girls home?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Mom answered.

I worried about the two little ones, who were only four and eight, being home alone. But I didn’t figure it would make much difference if I said anything.