Stars Go Blue (6 page)

“All this time,” Renny says, “I've been able to picture Ray in a cell, eating food from a metal rectangular plate. And now? Now he is in Greeley, Colorado, doing what? Ordering pie? Applying for jobs? Now that he's out, well, what will he do? Men like that need to exert control. They need familiar surroundings. They'll apologize and then become assholes again. Jess, he was so . . . feckless. So unmindful. I guess I hadn't thought how that would feel . . .”

Jess shrugs, but her peaceful look is gone. She unzips the sleeping bag, stands up, brushes hay off her jeans. “I'm gonna ride home—”

“I doubt he'll directly contact us. He hasn't been in touch with you, has he?” She pauses. “You're not worried, are you?”

“No.” Jess glides her hand along the horse's neck, twines her fingers in the mane. Renny notices Jess's efficiency, just like Carolyn, but one heartbeat calmer and smoother. She watches as Jess folds up the sleeping bag, sets it on a bale of hay, and slides the reigns into her hands. She pulls the horse forward,
nudging gently past Renny so she can get out the door, like a ghost that's going to walk through her. Renny steps to the side and watches them both clomp past her.

“Well, good-bye,” she calls after Jess, who has mounted and started to ride in the direction of her own house.

Jess puts up a hand in a silent wave, and Renny resists the urge to pick up a hunk of icy snow and throw it at her head. And then she does, but the clump falls short, and neither the horse nor the rider acknowledges the soft sound behind them of snow falling into snow.

She walks back into the chicken house, reaches under the chicken, past the fluff, past the pecks on her hand, and brings out another the egg. Now she has two.

As she walks back to the ranch house, it starts to snow. She realizes that Ben might have been the one who knew the water best—his endless days out there with a shovel and plastic dams, his endless musing over the best ways to cover a field with irrigation water. But it was she who understood the facts and figures. Which is why she knows about Apolipoprotein E-e4, which is called simply APOE-e4, but she likes knowing the long version. She likes knowing about the gene variants of CR1, CLU, and PICALM, and a fifth gene variant, BIN1, which is so genetically important. Alzheimer's.

It comes to her then: She knows this ranch like a chart. But Ben knows it like a poem. She hopes he's the wiser one, because it gives her permission to leave it up to him to make the right decision.

BEN

B
en stands in his darkened bedroom and cannot remember why he's there. He is next to his bed, looking down at his suitcase. It's like a cave, this room, dark, with stalagmites of cracks in the plaster, with the old thick original window that is buckled and warped because the glass has turned to water.

On the shelf, there is a photo of his mother and father and sister, all dead. He used to work cattle with them at the old place in Greeley, and he remembers well how they'd run cows in the corral before sending them through the chute. He remembers the onion crop and the sugar beets. He remembers that it is a town founded on the idea of irrigation, that a man, long ago—Horace Greeley, his name was—had thought to build a utopian community on the plains. How another man—James Michener, his name was—wrote a book called
Centennial
. And if he remembers correctly, that author got it about right. About the hardships and the dust and the hopes and the calloused hands of working the desert into fruition.
But in certain ways, he wonders if moving all that water was ruining the earth even as they watered it into being. The balance got upset.

There's a funny thing, he's realizing. Which is that his mind is just like the cows in the vee of a fence. He has cornered his diseased mind and he can separate from it and give it vaccinations. He can observe it and keep records of it, as he would a cow. But someday it will come out of the corner and meet up with the rest of his mind and he won't be able to corner it any longer. Like a heifer gone berserk; no keeping her in.

He told Renny he was taking a nap. But the truth is, the time has come.

Greeley, Colorado
. He writes it down on a notepad, because now he remembers why he's standing by his bed. He knows that things with many steps get hard. Lists are good. For example, the story of the woman in his disease group who used to make biscuits—she loved biscuits!—but then there were too many steps. Now she has to use Bisquick even though she does not like Bisquick. She holds his hands at the meetings and he always wonders if she feels angry at the boxed biscuits.

He has made a good list, and that's important because there are lots of things to think through. The list is in his suitcase. He consults it now and doesn't move on to the next item until he is sure. He has packed clothing, his Colt .45, bullets, the pink juice, syringes, money (which he has stolen from Renny, because she thinks he doesn't know fives from fifties and doesn't let him carry cash anymore). He has written a note with his name in case it gets bad:
My name is Ben Cross. I am trying to get to Greeley, Colorado
. He also has the newspaper clipping that he has carried around since it was printed, the one detailing the sentencing of Ray and the death of Rachel.

It's dusty in here, in this bedroom, in this Sears mail-order house that was built a hundred years ago and which he bought when he was thirty and thus he has lived here for forty or sixty or a longtime years. He picks up a picture of his father and sees how dusty it is, and so he wipes the frame on the front of a shirt. It cleans the glass but leaves a smudge of dirt on the gray wool.

That's what his brain reminds him of: dust. That's how he sees the world. There are sometimes small specks of dust and sometimes whole rooms of dust, and sometimes it blows away and he can see very well and other times it is so dusty that he doesn't even know what lies on the other side of the dust.

The dust just needs some water.

But he cannot get enough water into his brain. He has to hurry. When you reach out to catch a chicken or a calf, you have to move fast, otherwise you end up just chasing. Fast movement is what is called for. No flinching.

He is afraid, yes. He has said his prayers. He has courage.

He hears a commotion coming from the front door of the house and so puts the picture back and puts the suitcase under his bed. He wonders if his parents will be waiting for him on the other side. He doesn't know who is out there, in the kitchen, but a dog is barking. Probably it is that gold-colored dog that doesn't bring back anything, even though it should.

He combs his hair in the bathroom. He says to the mirror, “Body is great, mind isn't what it used to be.” People at the grocery or post office sometimes ask how he's doing. Sometimes he complains about his hip that hurts or his tooth that still aches even though the dentist did that thing that kings wear on their heads. But he cannot really say the big thing because there are no words. This is horrible, that he will die twice. “Stand with it,” he says to the mirror. “You just gotta stand with it.”

When he gets to the kitchen, he sees that it's Del, who is married to Carolyn. And Anton the sheriff. Both used to have Western-style mustaches; Ben remembers that. But now they are clean-shaven. Del with his sandy wavy hair. And Anton that has deep brown eyes and very deep brown hair, and for this reason this sheriff reminds him of Ray, the man who killed his daughter.

Del says, “Morning, Ben. It's me, Del, and Anton come to see you.”

He shakes both men's hands, although Del hugs him anyway. When he's asked, Ben says, “The body's doing fine, but the brain's not so good these days,” to which the men nod and say, “Doesn't that beat all?” and “I know it, and it's no good.”

Ben is worried about the sheriff. Why is he here? Does he know something? But Anton is turned around, helping himself to a cup of coffee from the coffeepot. Next to the sheriff is the kitchen window, outside of which are the aspen trees, and he considers for a moment the white beauty of their trunks, and wonders how long until they will leaf out. Ben says, “Just stopping by for a visit, are you?”

“Yup. Dropping Satchmo off. Appreciate you watching her while we go on vacation. And Anton wanted to walk the place. Look for good fishing holes along the river, for when spring comes. We're thinking of walking out to the back. Want to join us?”

Not once has the sheriff walked out back, although Del has plenty of times. Del belongs to this place almost as much as Ben, coming over to help put up hay and fish and fix fence. He has put hours in on this place, to be sure. He is part of the family. It's fine if they walk the place.

Renny walks in the porch door then, huffing and grumbling, a frozen chicken in her hand. “Fred died,” she says, holding the
chicken out, upside down by the feet. “She didn't get put in last night. She was caught in the wire of the fence and froze.”

Ben can tell she's angry and he's sorry about Fred, whom they have had for a long time. Fred has been a good layer; lots of double-yolkers. There is nothing to say. He thought the chickens were in when he locked their door. It's their job, really, to be in by dusk. He wishes he could hold Renny. Hold her and hold her and apologize and apologize. She throws the dead frozen chicken in the trash, considers it, and then pulls it out and sets it on the kitchen counter. He knows she's fighting tears and also wondering whether it's worth cooking; not really, since the work involved is far more than driving to the store and paying a few dollars for one already set to go.

Ben watches all the men, arms folded and legs spread, rocking back on their heels, as they watch Renny eye the chicken. He watches her too. Watches her scowl at it as she says, “There's some cinnamon rolls in that tinfoil. What's Jess up to?”

“Full,” says one, and “Thanks, but no,” says the other, and then adds, “Sorry about the chicken. It's always something. Jess is riding her horse. From our house here, actually.”

“Isn't she supposed to be doing her homeschool work? Does she actually ever
do
anything? Shouldn't she be doing something useful?”

Del smiles at Renny, calm as ever. “She is. She's riding her horse.”

Ben sits down in the kitchen chair. Renny faces him. “Well, we might as well tell him.” Renny nods from Del to Ben. “Ben, I know this is complicated, and it's hard to understand. But you might remember us talking about it. Del and Carolyn are too cash-poor to buy this ranch, and besides, if they bought it outright, we'd have to pay capital gains taxes and that could kill us. Del and Anton have a new plan. They'll put a conservation
easement on the place, which means Del and Carolyn can buy the land for its agricultural value. Not its commercial value. But one strip of land, over by the county road, we'll sell to Anton, who will buy that for development. He'll buy it from Carolyn and Del, which gives them the money to pay us. And lord knows we'll need the money for these years ahead. Okay?”

Ben feels hot and he looks around for the source. He will not let this ranch be sold to pay for his care. He will not gut this ranch like a fish.

Anton raises his coffee cup halfway to his mouth. “I think that plan honors your work here, Ben. A few houses on the south side, but the rest conserved. Everyone wants to do right by you. And of course, you two keep living here as long as you want to.”

Renny walks up to Ben and so he is forced to stare at her. “If we die, Ben—if we suddenly die—Carolyn and Del will lose this place. Estate taxes. We need to sign the papers now, even if we plan on staying.”

It is too hard, this crush-crush that goes on in his heart. Surely he knew he would not live here one day. Surely he had prepared himself for that? Surely he had known that the orange willow branches and the bald eagle, that all of it would pass to someone else? He doesn't remember. He doesn't remember considering it. There's no remembering in his brain. “Not those branches,” he says.

The three of them regard him silently.

So he tries again. “Not the orange branches.”

Again, they are silent, until Renny says, “Oh, the
willows
?”

“Willows,” he says.

Del and Anton regard each other until Del says, “You're wanting us to leave the willows? They're farther north than Anthon wants to build anyway.”

“I'll leave the willows,” Anton says. “Sure. I'm thinking of putting five houses along the county road. Sell the lots to rich people who want to live out here in the country. But not big ugly houses—nice regular-people ones. That's not even near the willows, is it?”

Ben clears his throat. “I told Renny already, I'd like to be . . . that thing, when you are put into the ground—buried— here. She'll make arrangements with the county. Right Renny? Won't you?”

“That's a long way off, no need to be thinking of that—”

“No, he's right to talk about it.” Renny gazes directly in his eyes. “We'll bury you here, Ben.”

Then he watches Renny's sea-green eyes go soft, blink, sees how she folds for a moment into a sadness. She reaches out to straighten Ben's glasses, brushes her fingers along his temple as she does so. “We're heading into town to visit Rachel's grave. Today was her birthday. Are you ready Ben?”