Blue Lonesome

25

“I keep thinking about her,” Dacy said.

“I know. So do I.”

“The things she said to us, the way she looked... I can’t get it out of my mind.”

“She’s in good hands now,” Messenger said. “Just keep telling yourself that.”

“Doesn’t do any good. I’ll never forget that night. If I live to ninety it’ll still be haunting my sleep.”

“You think so now, but it’s only been three days.”

“Time heals, Jim?”

“Doesn’t it?”

“Some things. Others... all you get is a scab that you can pick off without even half trying. Time won’t heal Maria, no matter how many head doctors she has working on her. And it won’t heal Beulah either. Towns are like people. Tear the guts out of one and even if it survives it’ll never be the same again.”

“Everybody blames me. You too, a little?”

“No,” she said. “I blame the Roebucks. And Walter Hoxie. You did what you had to do. What nobody else would do. You gave Anna back her good name and took the hate and bitterness out of Lonnie and me. I’ll always be grateful to you, Jim.”

“I get the feeling there’s a ‘but’ in there somewhere.”

“Not where you’re concerned. The only ‘but’ is that I may not be able to keep on living here. I always figured I’d stick on this ranch until the day I die, but now... I’m not thinking that way anymore.”

“Would it be so bad to go somewhere else, make a fresh start?”

“I don’t know. Maybe not. Tonopah, Beatty, up around Winnemucca — I wouldn’t mind any of those. Main problem is, I couldn’t get much for this place and decent cattle land’s expensive.”

“You could use some or all of the money Anna left. You and Lonnie really do deserve to have it.”

“Maybe. I don’t know about that yet, either.”

“Have you said anything to him about moving?”

“No. He’s got enough to deal with right now.”

“He’ll be all right, no matter what you decide to do. He’s a strong kid. No, a strong man. He’d make a fine veterinarian.”

“I know it. You reckon he’d put all this behind him quicker and easier somewhere else?”

“Yes. And I think you would, too.”

She didn’t reply. Instead she sat listening for a moment to the jazz tape playing softly inside; then she leaned forward to study — or pretend to study — the arrangement of the chess pieces. The westering sun slanted in under the porch overhang, put shimmery gold highlights in her hair. He restrained an impulse to touch the unruly topknot and shifted his gaze to the desert. For the first time in three days the valley road lay empty of official and unofficial cars and media vehicles; it and the sagebrush plain were bathed in a soft, buff-colored radiance. Peaceful, he thought. Finally, for all of us, a little peace.

With a knuckle Dacy moved one of her pawns, then leaned back and looked at him. And they both spoke at once.

He said, “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking—”

She said, “When’re you leaving, Jim?”

“Saturday morning. That’s part of what I was about to say.”

“Been on both our minds, I guess.”

“Dacy, why don’t you come with me? We could go together to make the arrangements for Anna’s burial—”

“No. I can’t leave Lonnie here alone, not now.”

“He could come, too.”

“Abandon the ranch? No way. Besides...”

When she didn’t continue he prompted, “Besides?”

“It’ll be easier for you and me to say good-bye right here.”

“Good-bye. You make it sound final.”

“That’s the way it has to be.”

“No it doesn’t.”

“Jim, we aren’t going to carry on a long-distance relationship. I go out to Frisco for a few days, you come visit next year on your vacation... it just wouldn’t work. It’s not what either of us wants or needs.”

“I agree, but—”

“We had our time together, and the good parts... I won’t forget them either. But it’s over. We’re different people, we live in different worlds...”

“What if we lived in the same world?”

“Oh God, Jim, I’m not Anna. No way I could live in an apartment in a big city. I’d shrivel up and die inside a year.”

“Dacy, listen—”

“Same goes for Lonnie. We’re desert rats, plain and simple. Our roots go too deep in this piss-poor soil to ever yank ’em up completely.”

“Dammit, listen to me. When I get back what I want to do, what I’m aching to do, is give my boss three weeks’ notice, work out a settlement with my landlord to break my lease, pack up what I own that’s worth keeping, and then drive straight back here. In plenty of time to help you and Lonnie with the roundup. If you do decide to move, you won’t be able to manage it before then and I work cheaper and harder than any regular cowhand.”

Dead silence. Then, slowly, “I don’t believe what I just heard.”

“Believe it. Believe this, too: I love you, Dacy.”

“Oh, now...”

“And I think that if you don’t love me, just a little, you at least care for me. Am I right?”

She was shaking her head, but it was a gesture of exasperation rather than negation. “I swear, I never knew a man like you. Just when I figure I’ve got you pegged, you go unpredictable on me.”

“Good. That’s good. I used to be as predictable as a morning sunrise. Now I’m mule stubborn, batshit crazy, improvisational, unpredictable, and never more sincere or sure of my own mind.”

“You’d give up everything you have in Frisco and move out to some hardscrabble ranch in the middle of nowhere?”

“Everything I have? Dacy, what I’ve got back there is a dead-end job I’ve never much liked, a handful of acquaintances who won’t miss me two weeks after I’m gone, and a lifestyle that has been slowly suffocating me most of my adult life. I don’t have anything in San Francisco. I can shuck it all in three weeks, no regrets, no looking back. But I can’t do it, I won’t do it, unless I’ve got something worthwhile to exchange it for.”

“Me.”

“You, Lonnie, a hardscrabble ranch in the middle of this or some other nowhere — a fresh start for me, too. Absolute commitment on my part, but it doesn’t have to be on yours. You set the terms and I’ll abide by them. Trial period, if you like: three months, six months, a year. Hired man, part-time or full-time lover... whatever you want me to be. But I’ve got to know I’m welcome first, before I leave on Saturday.”

Nothing from her. Her eyes were squint-hidden; he couldn’t see them well enough to read them. In the background now, Mildred Bailey was singing “I Can’t Get Started With You.” Oh Lord, he thought, don’t let that be prophetic.

“Think about it,” he said, “will you do that? Think about it and give me your answer Saturday morning.”

“Well, maybe I should think about it. Talk to Lonnie too, see what he says. But I guess I won’t need to do either.”

“Say it, then. Don’t dance with me, Dacy. Yes or no?”

She said, “Yes.”