Crow Fair: Stories

The Casserole

We waited under the cottonwoods for the ferry to come back across the Missouri River. But the heat still throbbed from the metal of our car, and it turned out to be better to stand close to the water. The river seemed so big, its incongruous whisper belying its steady speed. Clouds of swallows chased insects over the water, and doves rested in the shadows. My wife kept touching her forehead with a Kleenex and staring across at the ferry, as if to hurry its return. We could see the ferryman chatting with his passengers, which only increased her agitation. We were heading from our home in Livingston to Ellie’s family ranch to celebrate our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Twenty-five years and no children: her parents had stopped interrogating us about that. They assumed that it was a physical problem that some clinic could solve, but we didn’t want children. We lacked the courage to tell them that. We both liked children; we just didn’t want any ourselves. There were children everywhere, and we saw no reason to start our own brand. Young couples plunge into parenthood, and about half the time they end up with some ghastly problem on their hands. We thought we’d leave that to others. But my in-laws were elderly, and they had the usual views of hereditary landowners: they longed for an heir. They had acquired their land from my wife’s grandfather and, with it, a belief in family values that did not stand up to scrutiny, since most ranches these days were the scene of bitter inheritance battles. But even if my wife had had siblings, she would not have been part of this sort of trouble, as she had never — at least, not since adolescence — wanted to pursue ranch life, rural life, agricultural life. She would have said to a sibling, Take it! It’s all yours. I’m out of here. There would have been an element of posturing in this, because she was very attached to the land; she just didn’t want to own it or do anything with it. Neither did I.

The thing was that we were quite poor. We were both grade-school teachers, and owning a house had been the extent of our indulgences. We loved our house and our work and were suitably grateful for both, though Ellie felt that if I hadn’t been so hell-bent on retiring the mortgage we might have done a few more things for fun. My in-laws couldn’t believe that we had no interest in owning a ranch that was worth millions. But they wouldn’t have allowed us to sell it. We’d be stuck with it if we went along with them, which we weren’t about to do, and so now they were stuck with it: cows, farming equipment, fences — the whole enchilada. And they were getting old.

The ranch was going to eat them alive, and they knew it. The fences would fall down; the cows would get out; the neighbors, old friends, would start to think of them as a problem. Once across this river, we’d be heading for a very sad story.

Well, not that sad. They’d had their day, and it was almost over. That’s how it is for everybody. They liked to be seen as heroic strivers, alone on the unforgiving prairie, but they could have handed the ranch over, no strings attached, and headed for Arizona; after the sale, there would have been plenty for everybody. I had an extensive collection of West Coast jazz records, including the usual suspects, Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, Stan Getz, and so on — not everybody has Wardell Gray and Buddy Collette, but I did — and if I’d had a bit more dough I could have added a room on to our house specifically to house this collection, with an appropriate sound system. But when I complained about things like this to Ellie, she just said, “Cue the violins.”

It looked as though our appallingly high-mileage compact car was going to be the only one going on the ferry. My wife and I sat in the front, while the backseat was filled with her belongings, as was the trunk. I had no idea why she’d felt called upon to bring this exalted volume of luggage, unless it was to store things on the ranch that were cluttering up our little house. I could have asked, but I just didn’t feel like it.

“I think he’s turning around,” Ellie said, and I came out of my trance. The cable groaned next to us, and, across the river, I could see the ferry finally moving our way. Ellie was looking forward to this visit. I certainly was not. The ranch was where she had grown up, a nature lover. Despite all its deficiencies, it was her place on earth.

We watched the ferry tack across the Missouri, tugging at an angle to the cable, then landing with a broad thump on the ramp. The ferryman, who was far too young for the wide red suspenders he affected, motioned us forward, and I drove our piece-of-shit car onto the dock.

While we crossed, my wife stood on the ferry deck, looking out at the river, smiling and sighing at the swallows circling the current. I told her that they were just after the bugs. She said she understood that, but they looked beautiful whatever they were doing, all right? I’ve long had trouble with people picking out some detail of the landscape and pretending it’s the whole story, as though, in this case, the blue light around those speeding birds could do anything to mask the desolation of the country north of the river, a land I traverse holding my nose.

“Aren’t you going to get out of the car?” she asked.

“Who’s supposed to drive it off the ferry?”

I looked away from my wife and turned on the radio: no signal. I thought about her peculiar cheer today. I supposed it was the prospect of seeing her mother and father, of revisiting the scenes of her childhood, which she had done often enough to prove the utter heroism of my patience. Though, in recent times, we had talked less and less, which begged the question: What was there to talk about? We worked and we saved. We saved quite a bit more than Ellie would have, had she been in charge of things. What was becoming a comfortable nest egg would have disappeared in jaunts to Belize or some other place, where Ellie could show more of the body she was so proud of to anyone and everyone. She once had the nerve to point out that all this saving up for old age was remarkable for someone who had so much contempt for the elderly. I said, “Ha-ha-ha.” She was going to have to settle for wiggling her butt in the school corridors until the inevitable day when the damn thing sagged.

At last we landed, and I drove off. Ellie was having a lively chat with the ferryman, and she took her time getting back in the car. I stared straight through the windshield until she got around to it. When she climbed in, with a sort of bounce, she exclaimed, “He grew up on the neighbor’s place, the Showalters’. He’s a Showalter. Graduated from Winnett, where I went.”

“Ah, so.”

The ranch was no more than half an hour from the ferry. Ellie’s excitement grew along the route. Here is a sampler of her exclamations:

· “Look at all the antelope! There must be a hundred of them!”

· “Oh, I can smell the sage now!”

· “This road looks like a silver ribbon!”

· “Those are all red-tailed hawks, just riding that thermal!”

· “Larkspur!”

· “What a grass year! Can you imagine what Dad’s calves will look like?”

To this last, I said, “No.” I honestly thought she was getting manic as we approached the ranch. Ellie is an enthusiast, but this went well beyond her usual behavior. I don’t know if she detected my concern, but she seemed to catch herself and clam up; she was talking less, but I could still feel her glee from my position at the wheel. I wondered if the situation called for a pill.

I drove under the ranch gate, with its iron brand hanging overhead — two inverted Vs, known in the graceful local vernacular as the squaw tits. Dad, as I had long felt obliged to call him, and his wife, Mom, stood at the edge of the yard, framed from behind by their bitter little clapboard house. Dad was in full regalia: Stetson hat, leather vest, cowboy boots, and — this was new — a six-gun. Mom was dressed more conventionally, except for the lace-up boots with her wash dress and the lunch pail she was holding. Believe me, it was Methuselah and his bride at the Grand Ole Opry.

There was something about their expressions that I didn’t like. It was my turn to keep busy as I tried to elicit signs of life from this tableau, which now included my somber wife. Dad helped me unload Ellie’s considerable luggage, and, once it was all out on the ground, Mom handed me the lunch pail. “What’s this?” I asked.

“Something to eat on the way home. A casserole.”

I turned to Ellie. Tears filled her eyes. I felt that this could have been handled in another way — without Dad’s hand on the gun and so forth. I think, at times like this, your first concern is to hang on to a shred of dignity. If I had a leg to stand on, it was that Ellie was upset and I was not. What kind of idiot puts a casserole in a lunch pail?

After I got back on the ferry, the thought that I was headed … home — well, I was not entirely comfortable with this thought, and I didn’t enjoy the ferryman staring at me, either, or asking if someone had shot my dog. I just stared out at the river, hardly a ripple in it, and miles to go before the next bend.