It was like a play, and this was my cue to look puzzled. Then to chuckle, because chuckling came next in the stage directions. “That just proves it.”
“Proves what?”
“When I was a boy in Fordyce, we had a neighbor—a nasty old rip name of Bradlee. Everyone called him Pop Bradlee.”
“Mr. James—”
“My father had to do business with him from time to time, and sometimes he took me with him. Back in the buckboard days, this was. Seed corn was what their trading was mostly about, at least in the spring, but sometimes they also swapped tools. There was no mail-order back then, and a good tool might circle the whole county before it got back home.”
“Mr. James, I hardly see the rel—”
“And every time we went to see that old fellow, my mama told me to plug my ears, because every other word that came out of Pop Bradlee’s mouth was a cuss or something filthy.” In a sour sort of way, I was starting to enjoy this. “So naturally I listened all the harder. I remember that one of Pop’s favorite sayings was ‘Never mount a mare without a bridle, because you can never tell which way a bitch will run.’”
“Am I supposed to understand that?”
“Which way do you suppose my bitch ran, Mr. Lester?”
“Are you telling me your wife has…?”
“Absconded, Mr. Lester. Decamped. Took French leave. Did a midnight flit. As an avid reader and student of American slang, such terms occur naturally to me. Lars, however—and most other town folks—will just say ‘She run off and left him’ when the word gets around. Or him and the boy, in this case. I naturally thought she would have gone to her hog-fancying friends at the Farrington Company, and the next I heard from her would have been a notice that she was selling her father’s acreage.”
“As she means to do.”
“Has she signed it over yet? Because I guess I’d have to go to law, if she has.”
“As a matter of fact, she hasn’t. But when she does, I would advise you against the expense of a legal action you would surely lose.”
I stood up. One of my overall straps had fallen off my shoulder, and I hooked it back into place with a thumb. “Well, since she’s not here, it’s what the legal profession calls ‘a moot question,’ wouldn’t you say? I’d look in Omaha, if I were you.” I smiled. “Or Saint Louis. She was always talking about Sain’-Loo. It sounds to me as if she got as tired of you fellows as she did of me and the son she gave birth to. Said good riddance to bad rubbish. A plague on both your houses. That’s Shakespeare, by the way. Romeo and Juliet. A play about love.”
“You’ll pardon me for saying, but all this seems very strange to me, Mr. James.” He had produced a silk handkerchief from a pocket inside his suit—I bet traveling lawyers like him have lots of pockets—and began to mop his face with it. His cheeks were now not just flushed but bright red. It wasn’t the heat of the day that had turned his face that color. “Very strange indeed, considering the amount of money my client is willing to pay for that piece of property, which is contiguous with Hemingford Stream and close to the Great Western rail line.”
“It’s going to take some getting used to on my part as well, but I have the advantage of you.”
“Yes?”
“I know her. I’m sure you and your clients thought you had a deal all made, but Arlette James… let’s just say that nailing her down to something is like trying to nail jelly to the floor. We need to remember what Pop Bradlee said, Mr. Lester. Why, the man was a countrified genius.”
“Could I look in the house?”
I laughed again, and this time it wasn’t forced. The man had gall, I’ll give him that, and not wanting to go back empty-handed was understandable. He’d ridden twenty miles in a dusty truck with no doors, he had twenty more to bounce across before he got back to Hemingford City (and a train ride after that, no doubt), he had a sore ass, and the people who’d sent him out here weren’t going to be happy with his report when he finally got to the end of all that hard traveling. Poor feller!
“I’ll ask you one back: could you drop your pants so I could look at your goolie-bits?”
“I find that offensive.”
“I don’t blame you. Think of it as a… not a simile, that’s not right, but a kind of parable.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“Well, you’ve got an hour back to the city to think it over-two, if Lars’s Red Baby throws a tire. And I can assure you, Mr. Lester, that if I did let you poke around through my house—my private place, my castle, my goolie-bits—you wouldn’t find my wife’s body in the closet or…” There was a terrible moment when I almost said or down the well. I felt sweat spring out on my forehead. “Or under the bed.”
“I never said—”
“Henry!” I called. “Come over here a minute!”
Henry came with his head down and his feet dragging in the dust. He looked worried, maybe even guilty, but that was all right. “Yes, sir?”
“Tell this man where’s your mama.”
“I don’t know. When you called me to breakfast Friday morning, she was gone. Packed and gone.”
Lester was looking at him keenly. “Son, is that the truth?”
“Yes, sir.”
“The whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”
“Poppa, can I go back in the house? I’ve got schoolwork to make up from being sick.”
“Go on, then,” I said, “but don’t be slow. Remember, it’s your turn to milk.”
“Yes, sir.”
He trudged up the steps and inside. Lester watched him go, then turned back to me. “There’s more here than meets the eye.”
“I see you wear no wedding ring, Mr. Lester. If there comes a time when you’ve worn one as long as I have, you’ll know that in families, there always is. And you’ll know something else as well: you can never tell which way a bitch will run.”
He got up. “This isn’t finished.”
“It is,” I said. Knowing it wasn’t. But if things went all right, we were closer to the end than we had been. If.
He started across the dooryard, then turned back. He used his silk handkerchief to mop off his face again, then said, “If you think those 100 acres are yours just because you’ve scared your wife away… sent her packing to her aunt in Des Moines or a sister in Minnesota—”
“Check Omaha,” I said, smiling. “Or Sain’-Loo. She had no use for her relations, but she was crazy about the idea of living in Sain’-Loo. God knows why.”
“If you think you’ll plant and harvest out there, you’d better think again. That land’s not yours. If you so much as drop a seed there, you will be seeing me in court.”
I said, “I’m sure you’ll hear from her as soon as she gets a bad case of broke-itis.”
What I wanted to say was, No, it’s not mine… but it’s not yours, either. It’s just going to sit there. And that’s all right, because it will be mine in seven years, when I go to court to have her declared legally dead. I can wait. Seven years without smelling pigshit when the wind’s out of the west? Seven years without hearing the screams of dying hogs (so much like the screams of a dying woman) or seeing their intestines float down a creek that’s red with blood? That sounds like an excellent seven years to me.
“Have yourself a fine day, Mr. Lester, and mind the sun going back. It gets pretty fierce in the late afternoon, and it’ll be right in your face.”
He got into the truck without replying. Lars waved to me and Lester snapped at him. Lars gave him a look that might have meant Snap and yap all you want, it’s still twenty miles back to Hemingford City.
When they were gone except for the rooster-tail of dust Henry came back out on the porch. “Did I do it right, Poppa?”
I took his wrist, gave it a squeeze, and pretended not to feel the flesh tighten momentarily under my hand, as if he had to override an impulse to pull away. “Just right. Perfect.”
“Are we going to fill in the well tomorrow?”
I thought about this carefully, because our lives might depend on what I decided. Sheriff Jones was getting on in years and up in pounds. He wasn’t lazy, but it was hard to get him moving without a good reason. Lester would eventually convince Jones to come out here, but probably not until Lester got one of Cole Farrington’s two hell-for-leather sons to call and remind the sheriff what company was the biggest taxpayer in Hemingford County (not to mention the neighboring counties of Clay, Fillmore, York, and Seward). Still, I thought we had at least two days.