Lamb

They met ten times in the next week, before school and after. He fed her a little something every time: sliced her an apple with his pocketknife, drove her all the way into the city for a street dog and a pretzel. He brought her little things from the boxes of precious junk from his father’s house: a silver can opener for soda bottles, a little book of hand-drawn North American birds. He brought her a white paper bag of cut licorice to put under her pillow to sneak after midnight and a heavy pocket-sized pencil sharpener made of solid silver—something she could reach into her pocket and hold on to when Sid or Jenny or anyone else was nearby or whispering across the room. She made it early to the bus stop every morning and he picked her up and brought her to a pancake house and still delivered her on time to first period, her belly full of blueberries and sausage.

Eventually, when it seemed time, he took her for a whole day. “We don’t want any trouble, we don’t want any worry. So we have to plan carefully,” he’d said. “Right?”

And so they had. He drove her in his Ford past the Fox River and into the prairie reserves and green and muddy ponds beyond. It was a day suddenly hot and clear. The weather like summer again—a lie of lies when the first of autumn’s cool rainy mornings had already begun. The day itself drowsy in the honeyed light, as if space itself were drained of the energy it took to sustain such falsehood.

“Do you want me to tell you about it? How it will be on the other side of Nebraska?” He handed her a cold orange-and-silver can of soda and she leaned her head against the inside of the rear window frame, skinny bare legs stretched out along the tailgate behind him. His blue shirtsleeves were rolled to the elbows and he stood leaning against the truck, his new boots crossed in the dirt. It was hot. Nothing moved. Where he’d parked, the narrow road was split with a high stripe of needlegrass and thistles. I-80 hummed behind them. He took off his father’s baseball cap and wiped his forehead on his forearm.

The girl snorted and opened her soda, a fine spray of mist.

“I can take you home if you’re just going to snort at me, miss piggy.”

“No no. I’m listening.”

“Are you going to interrupt?”

“No.”

He reached over and, without touching her, ran his palm close before her face. “You have to close your eyes. Are you ready?”

“Ready.”

“Keep your eyes closed.”

“I am.”

He sat opposite her on the tailgate, his legs stretched out alongside hers, his boots at her hip. He cracked open his own soda; it hissed. “This is out in a high, wide valley,” he said. “Okay? Really high. Thousands of feet.”

“Okay.”

“Can you see it?” He paused, drinking. “Acres of pale grass. Almost gray. Big knots of silver brush. We call that sage.”

“I know that.”

“Good. Picture that. And one house. A little one, whitewashed. A slash of dark green half a mile off where the cottonwoods and tamarack grow by the river. Can you see all of that?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know why it’s half a mile off?”

“Why?”

“In case it floods.”

“Oh.”

“There’s only this one road, the Old El Rancho Road, and it’s still unpaved. It’s locked behind a cattle gate you have to open with a little black key.”

“I like that.”

“I know you do. Beside the little triangle house there’s a shop, with a woodstove, and an old AM radio, and all my father’s old tools, and his old arc welder, and the table saw. A freezer full of hot dogs and a cooler full of Mexican beer. On the workbench is a giant glass pickle jar filled with old nails. Beside that, a little tin box where I’ll keep half a pack of cigarettes. But you’re not allowed to have any.”

The girl smiled, eyes closed, the cold can sweating between her bare thighs. He looked at her short blue cotton shorts. Doll clothes. He measured her up with his eyes as he talked, her arms and shoulders and wrist bones. God, she was small.

“Just off the back of the shop, there’ll be a smaller room, with a bright rug of braided rags on the concrete floor. You know the kind? Kind of a country rug, right?”

“Yes.”

“This room stays real cool in the summertime. Inside there’s a set of bunk beds. Soft old sleeping bags open on them. A metal nightstand beside the lower bunk with a couple of books on it, right? Your bird book. And a water glass. In the spring, when it’s warm enough, we’ll move out to this little room. And I’ll sleep on the bottom bunk, and you’ll sleep on the top, next to the small sliding window that looks out over the water tank for the old ragged brown horse we keep. And Tommie, let me tell you something: this is a horse you really love. Beyond that, just road and high grass and more high grass, and shadows of low clouds racing over the ground, and far out there will be the range, purple and blue, a long jagged bruise across the palest stripe of sky. And sometimes, if from the bottom bunk I call up to you, will you lean over the edge of the bed with your round shoulders, and let your hair hang down, and say oh hello, you.”

“Sure.”

“I know you will. You’ll be so good to me. I’ll be all old and gray and all the sturdy young men on the plain will be in love with you. They’ll come by on their motorcycles or in their fast cars and they’ll have dark shining hair and straight white teeth and they’ll be tall and beautiful. You have to promise me you’ll go with them.”

The girl snorted.

“And I’ll fry you eggs early in the morning, and butter you a thick piece of cold bread, and I’ll slice the bacon myself, and bring you hot chocolate, and you’ll sit on the wood rail fence in your nightgown, and I’ll put my jacket over your shoulders, and we’ll balance our plates on our knees and watch the sun come up while we eat. And when I have to leave the house to go to work you’ll wait for me, won’t you? You’ll sit on the fence and watch the dirt road till you see me coming back home to you.”

“Will you be on the old horse?”

“Oh, you sweet girl. I’ll be that horse. Look at me. I am that sad old horse. I’ll come stumbling up the edge of the road. So tired. But if you put your face very close, here, to my breath—here, closer, like that—and if you listen carefully, you’ll hear me whisper. Come up. Let’s go get the world while there’s still some of it worth getting.”

They sat very still.

“You want to?”

She opened her eyes. “Yes.”

“Okay?”

“You mean really?”

“I mean really. Ready or not. How long do you need to pack?”

She grinned. “Oh please,” she said. “About one minute.”

He tipped back his soda and went aaaaahhhhh and grinned at her. “Wouldn’t it be fun if we could?”

“Can’t we?”

“Of course not, stupid.”