A Good Man (24 page)

At the end of the day, Case trots up to the ranch house in an amber mist of dust. Joe is preparing supper. McMullen’s domestic streak, his housewifely pride in his own cooking, came as a surprise to Case. There’s a fire going in the yard, a cast-iron pot banked with embers and a skillet baking sourdough bread.

Case stables Sally, shakes out a ration of oats in her manger, and goes to the house for a good scrub-down and a change of clothes. When he comes outside McMullen hauls a bucket filled with bottles of beer from the well where they have been left to chill since morning.

Without a word, they tip the bottles and take the first long swallow. Joe swipes away a dab of foam from his chin with the back of his hand and says, “I allow I’ll finish mowing tomorrow. Then commence with the raking. How you coming along?”

“Making progress. Slowly but surely.”

Joe squints to the west where the setting sun is a blood blister. “If it stays fair a bit longer, we catch no rain, we should be all right.”

“What’s Delmonico’s got on the menu tonight?” Case inquires.

Joe raises the lid off the pot with a stick. Chunks of fatty beef, parsnips, carrots, potatoes, onions bubble in thick brown gravy. It smells of wild sage. “Sourdough’s done,” he says, jerking the skillet from the fire. He takes out moujackknife and cuts the bread like pie, spears a slice and holds it out to Case. It’s piping hot; Case washes each yeasty mouthful of it down with a swig of yeasty beer.

“It ain’t a bad life if you don’t weaken,” says Joe, belching softly, “but if I had your money, I’d sit on it. Live high on the interest. Live easy.”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t I? What’d I do, then?”

“Spend it on horses. Then you’d sit on your ass and admire them all day.”

“You might have that about right. It’s a weakness.” He scuffs the ground with his boot heel. “You know,” McMullen says, “that damn Walsh told me to my face you was crazy for taking me on. But I ain’t completely dead lazy. Nor all tomfoolery and lightheartedness, am I?”

“No, you aren’t, Joe. I don’t know where I’d be without you.”

“Don’t put everything on me,” says Joe sternly. “I’m in your corner, but it’s your fight. You got to do whatsoever you need to do to come out on top. I popped a man’s eyeball out of his head with my thumb one time. It was that kind of man, that kind of fight. You got to make up your mind to do the necessary.”

Case almost lets that pass unchallenged, then, abruptly, he says, “You make it sound easy – knowing what’s necessary.”

“I reckon it is.”

“No, it isn’t,” says Case with a heat that surprises him. “I thought I saw what was necessary once. It wasn’t. A man’s dead because of my bad decision.”

“It’s none of my business to ask questions,” says Joe carefully. “But what you just said sounds accidental, not purposeful. There’s a difference.”

“The longer I’ve thought about it, the less sure I am which it was.”

“Well, if you can’t answer that maybe you’re thinking too hard. Turning round and round in circles like a dog chasing its own tail. Maybe it’s time you stopped. Picked yourself a direction to go.” Joe moves to the pot. “Enough said. Let’s eat.”

The fatty meat is succulent, tender; peppercorns erupt heat in the mouth; the aroma of sage fills Case’s nostrils every time he lifts a spoonful. The second beer tastes even better than the first. Evening gathers round them; a pale moon hangs itself in the sky; the prairie turns blue. McMullen gets to his feet and announces he is turning in. Despite his bone-tiredness, Case can’t bring himself to retire. An owl keeps him company on the ridge of the small barn. The yellow lamps of its eyes shift about like the beams of a tiny, compact lighthouse.

He nods off, wakes with a jolt so violent it almost tumbles him off the step where he sits. He sees the last embers of McMullen’s cook fire throbbing in the darkness, gets up and draws a bucket of water from the well. He stands staring down at the hot coals, and wonders if everything he has seen, tasted, felt today mightn’t have been pointing him in the direction of happiness.

Then he tips the bucket and puts the fire out.

By the last week of September haying is almost completed. Case and McMullen have finished five tall haystacks and are building the last. It is a fine, mild autumn day, shirtsleeve weather. Case is pitching hay to McMullen from the load on the rack. Every forkful he hoists to the top of the stack sprinkles a prickly shower of dust, chaff, seeds, and stems down on him. They lodge in his hair, spill down his collar, and glue themselves to his sweaty skin. He is covered in a fiery rash; his eyes are red and swollen and he streams snot. He blows his nose with his fingers, wipes them on his pants. When he glances back up to Joe, he sees him looking off intently into the distance, eyes shielded with a hand.

“What is it, Joe?”

“Somebody’s coming.”

“Who? You recognize him?”

“Ain’t a he. It’s a visitor in a skirt.”

Ada Tarr had risen early to bake cakes while it was still cool. She thinks best when her hands are busy. Randolph’s behaviour has been of increasing concern to her. Ever since he saw the nonchalance with which Mr. Case had bought himself a ranch, her husband has been quizzing her about anything Peregrine Hathaway may have divulged about his friend’s financial circumstances. She tells him she knows nothing about Mr. Case’s pecuniary position, his prosperity or lack of it.

Lately, her husband’s usual energy seldom shows itself. When it does, there’s something desperate and feverish about it. He’s like a gambler on a losing streak, seeking salvation in the turn of a card. Perhaps this explains his interest in Mr. Case; he speaks vaguely of enticing him to invest in some commercial enterprise that would make them both a fortune. Randolph says he is tired of the law.

Ada believes he is just plain tired. Last night he fell asleep over his supper like an old man, his mouth hanging open. She wonders if it isn’t the worry and strain brought on by this Gobbler Johnson business that has aged him so. Even his habits have changed; once a prim, picky eater, now he devours everything in sight. When once he was abstemious, now every evening he drinks beer as if it were water. Randolph claims his kidneys need flushing, but she is sure it is his anxieties that he is trying to rinse from his mind.

Looking out the kitchen window at the beautiful autumn day, Ada wonders if this might not be as good a time as any to muster her courage, approach Mr. Case, and ask him to do her that favour she has been pondering for some time. Besides, she feels she will go mad if she doesn’t slip the bonds of this tiresome seclusion that Randolph’s troubles have imposed on her. She wants to feel the sun and breeze on her face, to stretch her legs, to fill her lungs with fresh air.

Her mind made up,d. Lag light and happy, she hurries up the stairs. Celeste is in the sewing room working on yet another dress meant to bewitch the pompous Lieutenant Blanchard, so absorbed in her stitches she doesn’t notice her stepmother pass by.

She dresses quickly in her prettiest blouse waist – the one with the long, scalloped, flowing sleeves – a straw bonnet with a spray of yellow cloth roses, and a pair of fine grey kid gloves that perfectly match the colour of her walking skirt. She glides past Celeste’s door unnoticed and swiftly descends the stairs to the kitchen, where she wraps a freshly baked pound cake in cheesecloth and stows it in a wicker basket.

The only one left to evade is her warder, Mr. Dunne. She must steal out the back as quietly as possible. With her hand on the doorknob, she suddenly remembers the pepperbox derringer. It has become second nature always to have it near to hand. Mr. Dunne insists on it. He even asks to see it before they walk into town to do the shopping. She puts no trust in it as a weapon. Ada is certain she could never use it against another human being. But she has come to feel it is a charm against danger, against evil. Just as her grandmother was convinced an iron knife buried under the doorsill kept witches from entering the house, Ada has begun to believe the little pistol is what has kept Gobbler Johnson at bay. It may be superstitious nonsense, she feels a little abashed by it, but what’s the harm? She darts into the parlour, takes the derringer from her reticule, and puts it in the wicker basket with the cake. One quick glance at Dunne through the window to make sure that he is where he should be and she is out the back door and gone.

Ada Tarr covers the half mile to the ranch at top speed, constantly looking over her shoulder, half expecting to see Dunne. Only when the squat and homely Worthington house comes into view does she stop to catch her breath. The day is far warmer than she had thought; her face is hot and flushed, her hands are perspiring in the kid gloves, which she impatiently tugs off. Giving a triumphant slap to the side of her leg with them, she resumes walking. Her successful escape, eluding Mr. Dunne, has left her giddily exhilarated.

Case and another man walk into the ranch yard and stand watching her approach. She hails them with a wave. “Mr. Case! Beautiful day, is it not?”

He returns her salute, arm lifting slowly like a drowning man going down for the last time, but offers no other greeting, no word of welcome.

Seeing Mrs. Tarr draw nearer, Case suddenly realizes what a sorry picture he must make. He starts to rake his fingers through his hair, searching for errant straws, thinks of the swollen, bloodhound eyes that stared back at him out of the mirror this morning, of his ridiculously red nose. With Ada Tarr ten steps away, he glances down and is mortified to discover a slug track of snot streaking the sleeve he’s been using all morning to wipe his nose. Case hides that arm behind his back. There she is, face to face with him, smiling and squinting into the sun. “Forgive the intrusion, Mr. Case. But my family has delayed too long in welcoming you to the neighbourhood. I thought it high time that oversight was corrected.” She holds up the wicker basket and says, “I have brought you a little something – a pound cake I baked this morning. Hardly a proper housewarming gift, but –”

McMullen jumps in enthusiastically. “Pound cake! Why, ma’am, if you’d have handed us a pound of gold we couldn’t have been happier! Would we now, Wesley!”

“Certainly not,” says Case. “Much appreciated, Mrs. Tarr. Very kind.” He sees Ada inquisitively studying Joe, face tilted under the brim of her straw bonnet. “Excuse me, I have lost my manners. Mr. Joseph McMullen, allow me to present to you Mrs. Randolph Tarr. Mrs. Tarr, Mr. McMullen.”

Joe doffs his hat and says, “Mrs. Tarr, I’m very glad to know you.” Then he astounds Case by winking at her. “I guess a genteel lady like you expects to get her hand kissed on occasions like this. But I ain’t going to try. My performance would just disappoint you.”

Even more astounding than Joe’s wink, his barefaced flirting, is Ada Tarr’s response, a full-throated laugh of delight. “Why, Mr. McMullen,” she says, “a plain, democratic American handshake will be every bit as good – if not better.”

Joe takes hold of the proffered hand with two fingers and a thumb and gives it a delicate waggle. “Miz Tarr, if you would give me the pleasure of escorting you and your pound cake to the house, we’ll have us a slice.” He lowers his voice to a stage whisper. “But I got to warn you of the lamentable state of our quarters on account of Mr. Case going uncivilized out here in the wilds. The man has turned our little home into a bear’s den. No matter how I harp at him, he just won’t tidy up after himself.”

Joe chicken-wings his arm to Ada; she takes it and the two sail off laughing, leaving Case to follow along behind. Inside the house, Joe insists on dusting Mrs. Tarr’s chair before she sits, gives it a conspicuous flogging with his handkerchief before he’s satisfied it’s fit to receive their guest. “Now you make yourself comfortable, Mrs. Tarr,” he says, “and I’ll brew us some strong coffee.”

“Mr. McMullen, do not bother –”

But Joe is off to the stove. Watching Joe’s performance, seeing how much Mrs. Tarr enjoys this monkey business, Case experiences a twinge of annoyance. Disgruntled, he plops down on a chair at the table.