Third World (8 page)

He wanted it all, and sometimes you
just couldn’t have it.

Polly, at least, was worth a
try.

The thought of her and him having
babies together and all that sort of thing always grabbed him in
the chest, just under the cleft where the diaphragm attached to the
ribcage.

Chapter Seven

Smarter Than the Average
Bear

“
You always were smarter
than the average bear.”

Red’s final words still rang
uncomfortably in Hank’s ears as he settled into a seat at a table
unexpectedly set for two. What in the danged hell did old Red mean
by that?

Polly bustled to and from the kitchen
into the dining room but Mrs. Morgensen, (and that was the way he
always thought of her) was nowhere in evidence.

“
Ma’s feeling a mite under
the weather. I’m sorry, it’s just the two of us as she’s lying down
with the doctor.”

So she was that bad then, and it would
be costing money too.

“
Well, I am sorry to hear
that.” Hank was disturbed by the amount of food on the table, and
she kept bringing in more. “I hope she gets better
soon.”

The rule of thumb was to have a bit of
everything, even if you didn’t like it, but this was a clear
challenge.

He would have to work doubly hard, he
was tongue-tied already and Polly looked so young and fresh in the
afternoon light coming in the tall side windows on the drive side
of the house.

Polly filled glasses with milk from a
jug covered with a bit of cheesecloth and took her seat.

“
Would you say grace
please?”

What?

Dang.

He thought furiously and then recalled
the words.

“
Thank you, Lord, for thy
bounty, and have mercy on what we are about to eat.”

Her tinkling laugh rang out and she
appeared delighted with his discomfort when he realized that wasn’t
quite right but it was all he had.

“
Hah! I like that.” She
reached for his plate and with a long two-tined fork, with no lack
of utensils and accoutrements in their kitchen, judging by the
looks of all the copper pans and pots hanging in the room behind,
she began loading his plate up with all sorts of good
things.

Hank watched gravely in approval as he
wondered just where to start and what they were going to talk
about.

Her beautiful eyes danced and she
seemed to be in a hell of a good mood.

***

After the best meal Hank had seen in
some years, certainly since he stopped going to the parish’s big
Christmas dinners, he helped clean up the table while Polly loaded
up the stainless-steel washbasin that seemed to be the center-point
of the kitchen. She poured in a couple of large pots of hot water
from pots on top of the stove and then put in some from a bucket of
cold water she had right there.

“
I’ll just go check on
Mother.” She went out and turned the corner to the
right.

Hank heard her moving around to the
back of the house and then her mother’s low voice, soft and
indistinct. He fought the desire to have a nap, although he would
as soon as he got home.

He moved into the front room and stood
looking out at the quiet street, shaded and cool in the brilliance.
The sun had come out. Maybe the wet spring was just a fluke and
better weather might lie ahead. A man rode by on a fine bay horse,
still wearing his shiny black Sunday suit. It was Bill Carruthers.
Hank didn’t know he lived along here. They’d been on the ship
together as boys. He hadn’t seen Bill in years, and it was a small
town. Bill didn’t seem to recognize him, not through the dusty
window, although he returned a polite nod. The man went up the
street but looked to turn in about four houses up on the same
side.

Shadows danced on the dusty
thoroughfare, and children’s voices rang out nearby. People filled
him with curiosity sometimes.

Her footsteps sounded on the
floorboards behind him and he turned. The sunlight lay across the
floor and bathed everything in a warm golden light and she was a
vision of loveliness.

His heart genuinely ached to see her,
with a hint of sadness on her face.

“
I’ll make up a plate for
her later.” She wrung her hands and looked at Hank.

“
Maybe I could help with the
washing up?”

She brightened a little at the thought
of company and talk. Although Hank was the quiet type, he was also
very intelligent and he knew everybody out his way.

“
That would be welcome.” It
sounded so formal, but she turned and he followed her into the
kitchen.

***

Hank was surprised when she asked him
to take her riding. He’d thought it was just brunch, maybe followed
by a half hour, or more likely at least an hour of small
talk.

He’d been sort of dreading it all
through the meal, although it hadn’t been quite as awkward as he
had been expecting.

Hank hadn’t heard that she was teaching
school, and so that took up a while, and then they talked about her
mother Andrea, with him a bit diffident as she was laying right
there in the next room.

“
You want to go for a ride?”
He could hardly refuse, although the surprise was considerable. “Do
you have a mount?”

She shook her head.

“
No, but the neighbours, the
Baldoons, will let me take Blossom.”

Hank knew them of course. Elmer Baldoon
ran a private postal system, the only kind there were on Third
World. It ran between here and the capital. The route took in the
towns along the road, and no others, no matter how small a
side-trip it would be. They said he’d turned down Long Ridge, a
village only five hundred metres from the turnpike—a trail of
markers across the plains, with a thick scattering of taiga
conifers along that stretch if he remembered right. He hadn’t seen
it in years.

“
Ah, well, ah…all right.” On
some inspiration, he didn’t say anything about asking her mother.
“It’s a beautiful day for a change.”

Her smile stabbed him right in the
solar plexus. It was like he was looking for a catch or
something.

This wasn’t a child. This was a young
lady, the most beautiful one in the area in his humble opinion, and
all of that was the reason for being here. He looked down at his
clothes, his Sunday best. It was bad enough riding into town in
them, and even sitting in church with them on. He just wasn’t used
to it.

“
Don’t worry. We don’t have
to go far, and we can stay on the path.” She reached with both
hands and took Hank’s in her own. “As you can imagine, I don’t get
out much these days, maybe the odd dance and to the store and such.
But seriously, I think it might do the both of us a world of
good.”

After the heavy meal, far more than
Hank would have prepared on his own for any occasion, he had to
agree.

“
Well, all
right.”

“
Let me change into riding
clothes. I’ll just be a minute, I promise.”

She was almost as good as her word, and
by the sounds of it she had made a stop in her mother’s
room.

He caught the words.

“
I’ve made up a plate for
you mother, and I’m going riding with Hank.”

Andrea’s response was muffled but the
tones were approving or reassuring or at least not a protest. Polly
went into the kitchen. After a time, she went into what was
presumably her bedroom. Finally, she came around the corner wearing
boots, leggings, and a short skin skirt and jacket.

In her wide-brimmed hat with a low
crown, in Hank’s opinion she looked plumb adorable. Considering the
way his heart hammered, fun might not the right word for
it.

If only he could forget his age and
just relax.

***

Elmer was in the barn when they rode
up, with Polly, warm against him and smelling divine, on the back
of Hank’s mount.

“
Hey!” Elmer stabbed his
pitchfork into the ground and looked at his hands as if checking
for dirt or blisters, one or the other. “Hank! How in the hell have
you been?”

“
I was wondering if I could
borrow Blossom for a while, Mister Baldoon?” Polly slid down before
Hank could even think of what came next and how to accomplish
it.

Elmer looked puzzled and then his eyes
cleared. He looked at Hank with new eyes it seemed, straightening
up a bit and taking in the clothes.

“
Why, sure, that’d be
fine.”

“
I’m fine.” Hank nodded at
Elmer. “The bracken is coming up thick and lush this
year.”

“
Ah.” Elmer helped Polly
dismount and then Hank got down.

Polly went into the barn and the two
men hovered there.

Elmer stood inspecting him with a funny
look on his face. After a while Hank spoke.

“
We’re going for a
ride.”

“
Ah.” Elmer thought about
that. “It’s nice up by the gorge.”

Hank nodded. He hadn’t thought of that,
and it wasn’t too far to go.

Polly and another girl came out of the
barn. A red-haired lass, very much her father’s daughter, with her
pug nose and broad face, she was in her mid-twenties. Her name was
Alison as he recalled, and when she gave him a bored look he tugged
the brim of his hat. Alison was all bellied up, which sort of took
Hank by surprise.

Blossom was saddled and the girls
exchanged a few pleasantries. Hank had heard Alison was bespoken of
the Harwell boy, whom he actually thought to be a couple of years
her junior.

That’s the way it was around here—not
enough men or women to go around, no matter how you looked at
it.

The Harwell boy had regular work
northeast of town on a small homesteader’s ranch up there and that
probably accounted for his not being here, pitching in with the
chores and all. They would need a house and some land of their own
soon enough. She looked to be about four or five months pregnant,
although Hank didn’t know much about such things.

***

It was only natural as they were riding
along, to talk about this and that and the other thing.

Soon enough, they were telling each
other more intimate details.

“
I don’t know.” Hank stared
off at the horizon, where the rolling green hills faded off into
half-tones and pastels and a kind of faint grey smudge. “Just the
thought that a man could get up one morning and just start walking,
and go all the way around the Earth—”

It was funny how he still thought in
those terms, force of habit he supposed.

“
But to walk all the way
clear around the other side, and never hit nothing—not a gol-durned
thing, pardon my French.”

She giggled as Blossom sidestepped an
animal burrow, although the creature put its head down for a quick
sniff. The animals were more or less following their original
heading, with all the training Hank had put into his
mount.

His animals went where he pointed them
and Blossom was amenable to suggestion.

“
It fired my imagination.
Not that I ever really did anything about it.”

“
Do you miss it?”

“
What?”

“
Earth, dummy.” That was the
second time she’d called him that, not that he minded
it.

It implied something, but she was
riding with him and it couldn’t be all bad.

“
Well…” Hank gathered his
thoughts.

People thought he was intelligent, but
he had a habit of thinking for a while before he spoke. That’s
really all it was. He simply couldn’t help it. He tried to tell her
about Earth.

She’d never seen it, only heard about
it and maybe seen pictures.

The trouble was he didn’t do that sort
of thing very well. But maybe she wanted more than the truth. That
other world was fascinating to someone who never had and never
would see it.

“
There are things I miss.”
There were a million things he missed, coffee for one. “A real
forest would be nice—I once swam in the ocean, it was real warm. My
folks took us to a tropical island, with palm trees and a coral
reef. A place called Jamaica. We were there for a week.”

The tears were very close to the
surface. Thoughts of his mother and father always brought up such
sadness. He felt such guilt, for surely he had railed against
going, leaving school, and his friends, to get on a ship and go off
into space.

They were doing what they thought was
right.

He realized that now.

And yet some of those friends had
clearly envied Hank, saying he was so lucky to have the
opportunity. How little they knew. All they had to go on was the
slick recruiting ads that were all over the media back
then.