The Cadence of Grass (26 page)

Geraldine Cardwell declined to respond at all. After the hearing, she returned to her office, gathered up the pictures of her parents, sisters, brother, nephews and nieces and, braving smirks in the outer office, returned to her house, where in a state-issued vehicle she closed her garage and asphyxiated herself. The brief note she left on the seat beside her read simply,

“To Whom—”

The next morning’s paper was filled with vituperative letters to the editor from citizens who, ignorant of her death, stated that Geraldine Cardwell was a perfect example of why we needed to get government out of our lives; the Constitution was frequently invoked. On learning of the suicide and Geraldine’s note, Paul said only that she was “no writer.”

Donald Aadfield called Evelyn on the day all this appeared.

“Evelyn, I had no idea you were living such a complicated life!”

“It’s news to me too.” She felt almost too subdued to speak.

“This man Paul! Is he still your husband?”

“That’s unclear to me, Donald.”

“But the paper says he’s trying to save the
relationship
.”

“There’s some truth to that. But how are
you,
Donald?”

“Never mind how I am. I can’t believe what I’m reading. I’ve seen Crusoe in the paper
before
. And my neighbors! Two work the night shift at the bottle plant. I mean, I hope I’m not offending you, but according to them, people at the plant actually talk about pushing him into a
vat
.”

“That’s all behind us now. The company’s been sold.”

After Donald demanded an immediate visit, Evelyn directed him to the ranch and by afternoon he arrived in his truck, a steel flatbed with a headache rack in the rear and so encumbered with tires, jacks, fence stretchers, spools of barbed wire and fuel drums that it looked like a junkyard on wheels.

Donald jumped out, hugged Evelyn and asked immediately how many acres she had. When she told him, he said, “Ooh Evelyn! And how many cows do you run?” At that, he rubbed his hands in glee and asked to see the calves. She agreeably led him to what had arrived thus far. Bill was in the corral and helped conduct the tour, clearly liking Donald on sight as being a real rancher worthy of Evelyn’s company. He particularly admired Donald’s crap-laden truck. “I got a tough customer down here to the barn,” he said. “Don’t want to have this calf, and I think we may be gettin’ kind of a crossways presentation.”

Donald said, “If they can get in trouble, they will, won’t they, Bill? I had an old cow last week started chasing her afterbirth in a circle and ground her calf to mush. I tried to get in the middle of it and got knocked on my butt.”

Bill put the cow in the head catch, where she bawled at the calf she couldn’t see with just its head out but no legs yet visible.

Donald plunged his hand into his beard in thought, then picked up a piece of binder twine from the barn floor and tied her tail to one side. He took his coat off, rolled up his right sleeve and slid his arm up alongside the calf into the cow. “Once they get junior in the birth canal, they’re not too good at kicking. Anyway, here’s our problem. . . .” By now he was crouched against the cow, cheek mashed against her dilated genitals, and struggling as though arm wrestling a giant. “I don’t like to use the snare here, for fear we’d push something through the uterus, but what we’ve got is junior’s turned one front leg backward, and, wouldn’t you know, there’s so much musculature to this cow’s hymen or else we’ve got some damn incomplete dilation. But we’ll get him sorted out here.” He straightened to withdraw his arm, and the small black hooves popped into view behind his hand.

He stood back, and the three of them watched for a long moment until, after mighty straining by the cow, the calf made a little dolphin-dive for his mother’s heels and was born. Donald carried him around so that the cow could see him. As the amnion sac emptied its amber contents into the straw, he said, “Turn Mama loose.”

Bill was smiling. Later as they discussed calving out the heifers, Donald cried, “No, no, Bill, You mustn’t do this to yourself. Next year AI them and calve the whole batch in a matter of days. I’ll help you. After doing it for
years
I’ve got it down. We’ll freeze-brand them first, synchronize them and buy straws of semen that
fit
your cattle. Then the nice man comes out from town with his nitrogen tank and you kiss the guesswork of first-calf heifers good-bye!”

Bill even liked the prissy wave at the end wherein Donald said good-bye to all problems associated with heifers.

“These days, Bill, you have to measure everything there is to measure on a cow, test them for efficiency on feed and index them for performance. But I can see you’re like my old man: you’re not buying any of it.”

“Your dad and me are too old.”

Over coffee and a sheet of overbaked cinnamon rolls, Evelyn learned that the Aadfields were in an identical rut to the one she’d seen them in last. Donald tried to explain it but even the explanation seemed part of the problem.

“They could sell the place, but they can’t picture what they’d do with the money. They never had any, so it doesn’t interest them. Realtors come out and it’s like talking to a stone. The trouble is, they can’t hold that ranch together without me, and there are things about me that they don’t need to know. So the small part of me that lives on the ranch and does all the work makes the rest of me too tired to have any other life, and besides,
secret
lives are incredibly tiring and sort of
unreal
in the long run, and I just have this feeling I’m going to end up some lonely old bachelor rancher leaning on a number-two Ames irrigating shovel, and
not one
tourist driving past admiring me as a traditional part of the landscape on the northern route to Yellowstone will ever realize that once upon a time I was an honest-to-God California faggot!”

Afterward Bill said, “Anything ever happens to me, that’d be the feller for you.” She liked being drawn out by Donald, by the vigilance and stillness when he listened to her, his hands folded atop his gloves or reaching for his coffee cup but never moving his eyes away. Consequently, she told him a surprising amount about her life. Such as: “The ranch belongs to Bill and me. God knows where
that
might lead, so I guess I’m sort of in transition. It hasn’t been that long since my father died, and my mother needs me. I wish I could have my life here, just live it out, y’know? But these little ranches don’t work anymore.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I sell a few horses, but then I don’t know where they’ve gone and it just makes me sad. I don’t like pushing calves into a truck the day they’re weaned either. I don’t like the cows bawling for them for days afterward and looking around where the truck used to be. Sure, we talk about the best way to breed those heifers, but they’re too young to have babies in the first place. It scares them and sometimes kills them. You know what it’s like to take those old cows to be slaughtered, ones you’ve known for ten years or more or you raised from the time they were calves themselves. They get broken mouthed, or you can’t read the shield, and that year they don’t go on the drive to summer pasture. It’s starting to get me down.” She was silent for a long moment, then added with searing conviction, “I may be the wrong person for my own life.”

Donald seemed to have been caught up in her mood. “We had an old longhorn, Luther, we used for a lead steer,” he said. “Luther got old but he never got mean. He just went where he wanted, through fences, whatever. Started going in and out of my mom’s garden and ruining everything. So we loaded him up—weighed over a ton—and drove around half of Montana to find someone to kill him. Finally located somebody at Martinsdale. Dad wanted the head, but Luther was so big his horns broke when they hung him up.” Donald looked desolate. “Just getting in the garden, was all.”

“So you headed for California.”

“Not for that. I went for basic gender issues, which turned out not to be enough for a whole life. Big surprise, that.”

A car drove up in front of the house, and Evelyn, suddenly anxious, went to the window and, separating the blinds with her hand, said, “Paul’s here.”

She hardly had time to get away from the window before Paul bounded inside and nearly slid to a stop with a comic back-pedaling of his arms upon spotting Donald, whom he studied sharply as Evelyn introduced them.

“Have we met before?” asked Paul.

“Not that I know of,” Donald boomed.

Standing closer to Paul, Evelyn noticed how imposing Donald was. His present western vigor was completely unforeseen.

“You live around here, Don?”

“I ranch at Daisy Dean. Got a hundred-head forest permit. Leased up some spring pasture right there where Mission Creek comes into the river. Where do you run your cattle?” He knew perfectly well that Paul didn’t have any.

“I don’t have any cattle,” said Paul, already crestfallen at this perceived disadvantage. “I don’t think I want any. They look like a nonperforming asset to me.”

“Don’t want any cattle? What do you do to pass the time?”

“I find other ways to amuse myself.” Paul was now sufficiently emboldened to let a twinge of acid enter his tone. “Where did you two meet?”

“I got stuck in the snow,” said Evelyn, determined not to be interrogated.

“Dad and I dug her out!”

“And now we’re all friends,” said Paul.

“I hope so!” said Donald, clamping a great paw upon Paul’s shoulder, demanding, “How about you, Paul, you got any friends?”

“Enough.”

With a hearty laugh, Donald pounded him on the back, “I gotta go, buddy!” He turned to Evelyn and, without a word, gave her a tiny wave at eye level. In the context of the roaring ranch act it was incomprehensible, but Paul seemed not to have noticed.

“Who
was
that overbearing bastard?”

“He’s a new friend.”

“A ‘new friend’? I’d hate to think what
that
means.”

“Then don’t think about it.”

“Oh, I see.”

“No, you don’t see. He’s exactly what I told you he is. He’s my friend.”

“What’s this whole new sacred thing about friends? People used to just
have
friends. Now there’s this pixie dust over the entire subject.”

“Is that so? I must’ve missed that.”

“I didn’t come out here to argue.”

“Then you’ve made a poor start. I don’t know what you think the other night means, but it doesn’t include the resumption of monitoring my activities.”

“Sounds like you’ve really thought that through.”

“As indeed I have.”

Paul liked to mimic happy astonishment at various of Evelyn’s words. “Monitoring” and “indeed” got such treatment now. It was beyond irritating. It was, Evelyn decided, all part of his routine. “Once they’ve decided you’re the devil,” Paul had said long ago, “the gals beat a path to your door.”

“Evelyn,” he began in an entirely different tone, “I came out to tell you some good news: I have a new job.”

“Already?” Evelyn couldn’t help feeling pleased. It would all be so much better if Paul would just be happy.

“Mr. Majub must’ve approved of my work at the plant: he has hired me as a liaison officer for this region.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what that is, liaison officer.”

Paul had moved to her side. Evelyn sat in an armchair, and his hand was now in her hair.

“It’s a fancy word for a scout. I think it involves hoopla. I’ve always been keenly interested in hoopla. Majub feels that Montana has some undervalued businesses that are ripe for the plucking.” She could feel her breathing acquire weight and the heat of Paul’s hand was between her shoulders. Though aware of what was happening, she didn’t feel inclined to do anything about it. Her mind acted to quickly minimize all reservations as soon as they arose.

“I’ll have a company car,” he murmured. “I’m just going to follow the old routes, maybe start along the High Line. That feels good, doesn’t it?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Then work my way down toward Wyoming, and you like Wyoming, don’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Just let go, let go, let go.”

Her breath kept coming out of her, and some of her clothes had accumulated next to the armchair.

“You get out there around Glendive, Forsyth, Miles City, it’s quiet, real, real quiet.”

Evelyn could see none of the light in the room. She heard Paul say, “How about now,” but waited until her breathing and her thoughts were going at the same speed.