The Son

Chapter Twenty-nine. Jeannie McCullough, 1945

The man Phineas introduced her to looked like a sharecropper — a deep tan, high cheekbones, and a raw, underfed look — except for a widow’s peak he might have been a half-breed Indian. He was leaning against the file cabinets in Phineas’s office, trying to act older than he was, and when she came in, he nodded as if he had not seen anything interesting and turned back to her great-uncle. There was something in his manner that made her wonder if this young man had some private relationship with Phineas, if maybe he was part of the reason she was never allowed to stay at her great-uncle’s house. She decided she didn’t like him.

“Hank is a driller,” said Phineas. “And Hank is looking for work.”

Hank nodded to her again but didn’t offer to shake her hand. He and Phineas continued a conversation they were having about rocks and well logging or something equally boring. She half listened and walked around the room, but they continued to talk and she began to wonder why she had been invited, she looked at pictures of Phineas with her family, Phineas with various famous people. The driller wore a white shirt and dark trousers, which were clean but had seen better days; leather work boots, because, she guessed, he had no proper shoes. Still, she found that she wanted him to notice her; he was not properly handsome but there was something. You have been living by yourself too long, she thought.

On the other hand, there were few men whom Phineas treated as equals; for some reason this driller was one of them, though she could not understand exactly why. As for the driller (Hank, she thought), he continued to take no notice of her at all. A secretary walked in, a beauty like all the girls who worked for Phineas, dark hair and creamy skin and all her assets on display in a tight green dress; she went out of her way to touch Hank’s hand as she filled his coffee, but Hank acted as if she didn’t exist, and Jeannie forgave the girl her good looks and became sure that there was something between this young man and her uncle. Finally they finished talking and Phineas swiveled his chair.

“We’re hiring Hank,” he said. “He’ll be heading down to the land with you today.”

THEY DROVE BACK to McCullough Springs in Hank’s old truck. It was hot and noisy; she hoped he wouldn’t notice how much she was sweating. He is just a driller, she reminded herself. And not all that good-looking, either; she was far out of his league. He had a flat nose that might have come from being punched, or might always have been that way. A bit of the cur dog in him, her grandmother would have said, and yet he had a sort of physical confidence that could not be faked, she had seen it in the best vaqueros, there was a swagger about him as if, despite his size, whatever you or anyone else could do, he could do it better. He reminded her of Clint: the sort of man to whom things came easily, who was good at everything he tried.

Hank was twenty-four and had spent the war (and all the years before it, back to early childhood) looking for oil with his father, who was now dead. They had been worth several million at one point, but their last few gambles had not paid off, and then his father was killed in a blowout, leaving Hank in a tight spot. He owned his own Cummins power rig and six-wheel-drive International, knew of dozens of good roughnecks looking for work, but at the moment he barely had money for gas.

“I could rent my rig out,” he said, “but then what would be the point?”

He wasn’t looking for a reply.

“You got brothers or sisters?”

“Three brothers,” she said, “but two died in the war.”

“I’ve got two sisters.”

Something must have occurred to her because he said: “In case you’re wondering, I tried to enlist in ’42, but they turned me down for color blindness.”

She nodded and looked out the window, watched the brush and baked earth pass outside. Everyone who hadn’t served felt compelled to give you their tale of woe.

“Meanwhile I never knew I was color-blind, I see the same as anyone else. A few months later I went to the station in Houston, but I still couldn’t make out the numbers in the test, so they flunked me again, only this time I went back and borrowed the book when they weren’t looking.” He looked at her. “I figured it didn’t cost much.”

“Probably not,” she said.

“Anyway I memorized the numbers and had to drive to New Mexico so they wouldn’t remember they’d already seen me. This time I passed the test, but I must have done it too quick, because they started showing me the pages in a different order and I didn’t get a single goddamn one of them. They knew what I’d done and told me if I ever tried again they were going to have me arrested for interfering with the war effort.”

“That is some story.”

“Interfering with the war effort, you believe that?”

“I believe it was a blessing.”

“Try going four years where everyone thinks you’re a communist or some other type of shirker. I was about to go to Canada and join up there. I probably should have but Daddy talked me out of it.”

“A lot of men in oil and gas were exempted,” she said. “We couldn’t have won the war otherwise.”

“Well, I didn’t intend to be one of them.”

She started to say something else, but he rolled down the window so all the wind came in.

By then they were south of San Antonio, into the great flat plain. She squinted against the glare; the noise made it hard to think. Hank kept the needle at eighty and she wondered what would happen if they lost a tire. She watched the way he drove, the muscles in his arms going tight and then loose again, his jaw working; it was plain he was a man whose mind was always running. She thought about her father, who thought he was a good driver, but was not. Hank kept the truck on a very straight line; he was going too fast but they were not jerking around the road. She wondered about her brothers, what they might say if they could speak, if their opinions might have changed on the war. She supposed it would not be any different. Once men got an idea, they did not seem to care if it killed them or not.

“Well, I am glad you are here,” she said, once he rolled up the window. He nodded; perhaps he no longer remembered what they had been talking about. Or perhaps he did not agree. Long before they reached McCullough Springs she was wondering what it might be like to live in the big house with him. Her suspicions of his relationship with Phineas did not seem to be correct; he seemed entirely masculine. But otherwise nothing special. She was not sure why she felt so drawn to him. You do not meet enough men, she decided again.

Still, she pretended to sleep so that she could watch him without his knowing it. She could not help the feeling that she had been waiting for him, not someone like him, but him exactly, that she had been waiting without even knowing that he existed. And then, a minute later, she would resolve to get an apartment in Dallas or San Antonio so she would not be so alone. She supposed this man reminded her of her father and brothers; he had that sort of confidence, though he did not have their vanity — he’d worn work boots into the office of the most powerful man in Texas. He is like the Colonel, she told herself. The Colonel had not come from anything, either.

When they reached the ranch, they sat at the gate until she realized that he expected her, as the passenger, to get out and open it, even though she was a woman. Then they were climbing the hill. The enormous white house appeared; she wondered if he would find it too much. He didn’t seem to notice. He might as well have been pulling up to an old shack. They parked in the shade and went inside, though she saw him check his boots at the threshold.

“I’ll have someone get your bag and show you to your room. Then we can have supper.”

“I’d like to study the maps your uncle gave me,” he said. “While that drive is still fixed in my mind.”

“There are lots of tables in there,” she said, pointing to the great room.

She went upstairs and read in the sun with the noise and cool of the air conditioner blowing. Her father had been against them. She had a pleasant feeling and then she thought she was kissing one of the vaqueros; when she opened her eyes she could still hear the peculiar sound their lips had made. Then she was awake. She went downstairs and found Hank eating alone in the kitchen; Flores had fixed him a steak.

“You might have called me,” she said.

“I figured you wanted to eat alone.”

“We consider it normal to eat with company.”

“I didn’t know if I counted as company.”

“Well, you do,” she said.

“All right. In that case I am sorry I missed dining with you, Missus McCullough.”

She turned her back on him and got a glass of milk from the icebox.

“I will make it up to you.”

“You will indeed,” she said.

She didn’t want to look at him but she could tell he was grinning. “I will show you to your room now,” she said.

She took him upstairs, past the enormous dark paintings of the Colonel and his children, past the Roman busts and drawings of Pompeii and silver knickknacks on all the marble, finally to the guest rooms on the opposite side of the house. Something told her he was used to sleeping in his truck and she said, “I hope you find the accommodations adequate.”

He shrugged and she got annoyed again.

“Well, good night,” he said. “You are not as bad as I first thought.” He smiled and she found she didn’t like it; it was too direct. She hurried away down the hall.

THE NEXT MORNING he laid out the maps in the dining room. “From what your uncle said, the most obvious faults are over here on the eastern part of the property. That is where we’ll want to start.”

“Then the easiest way will be to ride. Otherwise we will be walking through a lot of brush.”

He did not react to this.

“I’ll find you some proper boots,” she added. “I doubt yours will fit in the stirrups.”

“I will be honest,” he said. “Horses don’t like me much. And I guess I have never cared for them, either.”

“That is very strange.”

“I suppose it is for you. But I prefer my truck. It doesn’t make my eyes itch and I know it won’t kick me.”

“Where are you from again?”

“The moon.”

“I am going to teach you to like horses.”

“You can try,” he said. “But if I am kicked, it might decrease my affections for you.”

He looked away and cleared his throat noisily.

She looked away as well. She had never met anyone so direct. She felt a prickly sensation. She worried that Flores had heard, then she decided she didn’t care. “You will not be kicked,” she whispered. “Nor will your affections decrease.” Her neck got even hotter.

“You are probably right,” he said.

“About which?”

“I guess we will find out.”

But once they were driving, he seemed to lose all interest. He looked straight ahead and off to his left and off to his right but never at her; he was looking at things outside. She thought about what she had said: it had been too much. She had been too direct. A despair came over her, yes, she had been too forward, she had not known what to say. Now he thought she was a different kind of girl than she really was.

“I have never been with a man,” she said. “In case you were getting the wrong idea.”

He began to laugh, then stopped himself.

“I didn’t want you getting the wrong idea,” she insisted.

“You aren’t used to talking to people, are you?”

She looked out the window. For a moment, idiotically, she thought she might cry.

“It’s all right,” he said. He reached over and squeezed her hand, then took his own hand back just as quickly. “I’m the same way.”

THEY SPENT THE entire day driving the ranch’s dirt roads. He would skid the truck to a stop, then climb out and stand on the roof.

“What are you looking for?”

“The escarpment,” he said. “But there is so much goddamn brush.”

“There’s brush everywhere.”

“That’s what I just said.”

“It’s not just on our land.”

He continued to look. “I forgot my binoculars,” he said. Then he added: “For someone who owns this much country, you are one sensitive individual.”

She didn’t answer.

“But at least you have good roads. Half the time I drill in Texas I have to bushwhack through three miles of mesquite.”

“We ought to just drill near the Humble fields.”

“That is a good idea,” he said, “except they have been tapping them for twenty-five years. And if we find something they will just have incentive to get those wells reworked, and take even more oil, and your uncle will be mad at me.”

“So we’re just going to start drilling in the middle of nowhere?”

“You know how you are with horses?”

“Yes.”

“I am that way with oil.”

“So you have convinced my uncle.”

He grinned. “We’ll get a shot truck in here and narrow things down.”

“I suppose that will be expensive.”

“It will be a lot less than a dry hole.”

SHE SLEPT IN her bedroom and he slept in his. She did not want him to get the wrong idea, though on the other hand she did. She left her door open, just a crack, just in case he came. Which of course was ridiculous. He didn’t even know where her room was and he was not going to come find it in the dark. “You are a slut,” she said out loud. Though of course it had been two years since any man had touched her. And compared to her mother, who was already having children by now…

She was awake most of the night. She saw herself marrying him, she saw him using her and throwing her away. She decided she didn’t care as long as he wasn’t rough. Then she was thinking about the glorious life of men — to go off and have whatever experiences you wanted, whenever you wanted to have them — meanwhile here she was, nearly twenty and still a virgin, her only prospect asleep on the other side of the house. He acted as if he liked her but then suppose he didn’t. It was too awful to contemplate. She looked out the window and waited for the sun to rise.