Nobody's Angel

29

AT ONE END OF THE GRANARY WAS AN OPEN SHED WITH BIG tools hanging on its walls, truck-sized lug wrenches, a scythe for the beggar’s-lice that grew tall around the buildings and got into the horses’ manes. There were also old irons for brands that the ranch owned, ones they quit using when they finally got a single-iron brand. There was a stout railroad vise, and Patrick’s grandfather had been at it all morning, making a skinning knife out of a broken rasp.

“I’m going to kill me one more bugling bull, skin him with this and move to town.”

“That’s your plan, huh?” Patrick was kneeling on the ground, crimping copper rivets that had gone loose in the rigging of his pack saddles. That morning there had been a stinging fall breeze, and gear needed going through if he would make it to the hills before winter. “Got a spot picked out in town?”

“Those apartments across from the library.”

“Sounds awful nice,” said Patrick. “This has sure gotten to be a can of worms.” Patrick wondered what he meant by that. The place wasn’t at fault, but maybe something about it had begun to smell.

“That’s what any ranch is, and this is a good one. It’s got two hundred fifty miner’s inches of first-right deeded water, plus a big flood right and the adjudication — y’know, if a guy cared to irrigate.”

“I’ll wait for some farmer to chase that water. My horses would rather be on prairie grass any day than wallowing around in alfalfa.” They were starting in again.

“Well, I’ll kill the one bull. Then look out town, here I come. After that, you can irrigate, not irrigate or piss up a rope.”

“And you can be a star at the lending library.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Patrick worked away on the pack rigging, oiled the straps, coiled his lash ropes and canvas manties. It seemed crazy on a cool day, the two men polishing away on things they needed in order to get out, to go into the hills, to disappear. And yet Patrick didn’t really want to disappear. All recent losses drove him to thinking of Claire. And he had no sense she did the same. Living on the ranch, which from his tank had seemed a series of bright ceremonies, was now more like entrapment in a motel on the interstate. Nor was he filled with a sense he could do something about it. It had stopped meaning anything.