Let Him Go: A Novel (16 page)

If we have Jimmy and his mother living under our roof, we won’t have much in the way of privacy.

Margaret pulls the nightgown over her breasts and swings her legs off the bed. I wouldn’t worry about that. We’ve always found a way to tuck ourselves away from prying eyes, haven’t we? Maybe we’ll sneak out into the yard under the dark of the moon.

I’m not much for that sort of outdoor foolishness. I guess I never was.

Margaret sighs. I was making a joke, George. A little levity, that’s all. You certainly lost your mood, didn’t you.

She heads for the bathroom and George lies back, staring at the ceiling so hard it can’t be the ceiling he’s looking at. But whatever he sees there, he must eventually tire of scrutinizing it, because when Margaret returns he’s asleep. His arms and legs are splayed out in an attitude a little alarming in a man George’s age.

.
   
.
   
.

Is it the wind, which can never be calm for long in this part of the world and has now found something unlatched or untethered to set free and send banging its way across Montana? Or is it an hours-later echo of the bedpost that George and Margaret had thumping against the wall?

Knocking. Steady and insistent.

By the time they win their struggle against the undertow of the unconscious and sort out their dreaming impressions from more-likely sources of the sound, a voice accompanies the knocking. Mr. Blackledge? Mrs.? We have an emergency here!

The door, someone’s at the door. In the middle of the night.

George sits up, clicks on the lamp at the bedside, and then flinches at the sudden light. He stands and although he’s dressed only in pajama bottoms he walks quickly to the door and opens it without question.

Y
ES, THERE CAN BE NO DOUBT—
G
EORGE OPENED THE
door. He opened it, and isn’t an open door—whether open three inches or three feet—as good as a spoken invitation to enter?

But if George’s assumption was that someone from the motel office would appear in the doorway, he was wrong, and before he can push the door closed—an effort that would have been futile anyway, considering what his pushing strength would have been matched against—four Weboys have shouldered and shoved their way into Cabin Number Eight of the Prairie View Motor Court.

First through the door are Marvin and Elton, the wooly-headed Weboy brothers, followed by their uncle Bill.

What the hell, George says. What the
hell
. He backs up a few paces, which is a mistake, since the Weboys immediately flow into the space he has vacated.

Blanche Weboy then enters, and slowly, as if she wants to be certain the way has been prepared for her. She looks around the cabin as casually as if she’s inspecting it for her own use. Then she closes the door and slips the locking chain into its track, something the Blackledges never bothered with.

Margaret is sitting up in bed now and about to get out,
but when Bill Weboy looks at her and arches his eyebrows, she sits back, pulling the sheet up to cover herself. It has taken her an uncharacteristically long time to speak, but she finally says, You can’t come in here!

Too late for that, Grandma, says Bill. We’re in.

Blanche smiles and points to George. He opened the door to us.

What time is it? asks Margaret, but plainly she doesn’t care what the answer might be.

So many bodies, large, light-absorbing bodies, in this small cabin, and their wavering shadows make it seem as though the room were lit by firelight.

Out, says George. Get the hell out.

Blanche ignores him and instead sits down on the edge of the bed. She doesn’t even look at Margaret. See, you think you can gang up on Lorna, Blanche says, but then when it’s done to you, it’s a different story.

One of the Weboys—Elton? Is he the taller one?—moves to the door but only to stand with his back to it. The other brother remains in place. He’s holding a canvas satchel that bulges as though it might hold a load of tools.

Blanche unties her scarf, takes it off her head, and waves it in the air. Then she sighs and shakes loose her black hair as if it has pained her to have it covered and controlled.

What are you talking about? asks Margaret.

Is that what you’re going to do? says Blanche. Pretend like you don’t know what I’m talking about? Pretend like you didn’t jump Lorna at work? Two against one—

Nigger fun, her son adds.

—and the two of you badgering and bullying her to give up her boy. Shame on you. Trying to pry a baby loose from his mama. Blanche switches her scolding gaze to George. Shame on the both of you. You’re lucky Lorna doesn’t have a little mama bear in her. Come between that kind of mama and her baby, you’re liable to get your hand bit. And worse.

That’s not exactly what happened, says Margaret.

Somebody would have tried to come between me and any of my boys? Would have tried to talk me out of my own child? I tell you, it would have been hell to pay.

That’s not—

So maybe you want to try again. Blanche twists her body around on the bed as if she intends to lie down next to Margaret. Maybe you want to present your argument now, when the odds are a little closer to even.

Fear can visit anyone, but on some people it can never stay. By now Margaret Blackledge has summoned back the nerve that is as much a part of her being as the color of her eyes. Is Lorna here? Margaret asks. Have you got her outside in the car? Because I’m only discussing this subject in her presence.

No, no, no. Blanche waggles her finger. You’ll discuss it with me. And you’ll stay away from that young lady.

Those are not decisions for you to make.

Aren’t they? Blanche swings a leg onto the bed. If Margaret were up and dressed it might be noted that both women wear Western boots, though Blanche’s are lustrous black leather, decorated with white stitching and stamped with floral designs.

Bill Weboy walks about the room, inspecting it casually
as if he needs to confirm an impression. His movement sets his nephews in motion, and they also start circling the room. Gradually Bill makes his way to the side of the bed and stands so close that his legs touch the mattress.

Flanked and hemmed in by Weboys, Margaret jerks the chenille bedspread and says to Blanche, Get your goddamn feet off my bed!

Blanche does not obey. Instead she moves around on the bed until her back, like Margaret’s, is against the iron spindles of the frame. I think, Blanche says, we got off to a bad start, you and me. We should have talked about raising our own kids before we jumped off into being grandparents. Now me, I’ve always believed in letting my children find their own way once they’re grown. Of course, I only had boys and that might have colored things. What did you have—a girl and a boy? So maybe you thought different how it should be done. Maybe you think you always know what’s best. I understand that. But wouldn’t you agree—even when you see them making a mistake you have to butt out?

Bill Weboy leaves the bedside to wander around the cabin again. He peers into the bathroom and into the open closet. He walks to the dresser where George’s suitcase lies open and though he doesn’t disturb the contents he examines them closely, looking up at George from time to time as though he hadn’t truly understood the man until he inspected George’s socks, his underwear, and his carefully folded but frayed and faded shirts and dungarees. For George’s part, he keeps his own gaze fixed on Bill Weboy.

Margaret edges away from Blanche Weboy. I didn’t say it was a mistake for Lorna to marry your son.

Oh-ho! I never said you said!

Bill returns to the bedside. Lorna picked your boy, he says and nods toward Margaret. Then yours, he says to Blanche. You’d think you two could meet on that common ground.

Margaret’s tremor has worsened in the last minute, and when she speaks now her words totter as though she hasn’t found where to put the weight that will balance them. I’m tempted to say I don’t give a damn what Donnie and Lorna do. As far as I’m concerned they’re free to find their way or get themselves lost. It’s Jimmy I’m concerned with. He had a good home when he lived under my roof.

And now he’s under mine.

How strange the enmity between these two women! It couldn’t be any plainer in this cabin if it whirled visibly in the air like dust, yet at this moment they glare at each other across a distance that could be closed with a kiss.

Their stalemate and the silence it engenders—the arguments can barely be cogently thought, much less mouthed—provide Bill Weboy with an opportunity. By God, now I recognize this place. I used to bring a lady here. She was from Miles City, but when she was sneaking around behind her husband’s back she didn’t want his back anywhere near. Even coming here she wouldn’t park her car out front.

When was this? asks Blanche.

Take it easy. This was a few years back.

Maybe we don’t need to hear about your life as a Casanova just now.

Bill shrugs. Can’t say I blamed her though. Her husband was a sonofabitch of the first water. I understood her coming here. I just didn’t understand her going back. He
reaches down and slips his index finger inside the neckline of Margaret’s nightgown, right between her shoulder and her collarbone. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you, Grandma?

If, in his attempt to attack Bill Weboy, George had taken the shortest route—across the bed instead of around it—he might have gotten his hands around the man’s throat, as he perhaps intended. But that path would have had him clambering over both Blanche and Margaret. As it is, going around the bed costs George an extra second or two, and he never makes it to his target.

Margaret is so quick scrambling down the bed that she seems to be reaching toward George at almost the same instant his blood begins to flow.

But of course she’s too late to do anything but pity him.

And of course George was too late—too late, too old, and too slow—to get at the man who had his hand on his wife, before Marvin Weboy—or was it Elton?—struck him hard on the side of the head with a rubber mallet drawn without notice from that canvas bag. So now George sits on the floor at the foot of the bed—where he went down hard on his knees, then pitched forward and hit his head on the frame, opening a gash above his left eye—stunned like a cow before slaughter, bleeding, and not quite able to comprehend the many choices, steps, and missteps that brought him to this position.

Bill Weboy hasn’t moved from the bedside. He takes a moment to contemplate George’s predicament, then smiles and walks to the bathroom. He comes out with a towel and hands it to George. You don’t want to get blood on the floor. That’ll cost you extra for sure.

Margaret reaches through the iron spindles and touches George gently on the top of his head. Recognition comes into his eyes like a sunrise. Margaret. Blood. The floor. The mallet that clubbed him and the wooly-headed young man who wielded it. The older Weboy who stands above him as if George were merely something else that needed to be cleaned out of the gutter. George rises unsteadily.

Blanche Weboy is lying on the sheets that he and Margaret tangled in their lovemaking. You want to try again talking this over like reasonable folk, she says, or would you prefer to get some sleep so you can get an early start back home tomorrow morning?

Bill Weboy has returned to his post beside the bed, and he stands so close you’d think he was Margaret’s protector rather than her tormentor. He reaches down and gives the bed covering a tug, something that Margaret is sure to feel. Or maybe, Bill says in a voice pitched low for Margaret’s ears, you’d like to send him home while you stay on for a spell. I could take you back when you’re ready. Of course, by then you might decide you’d rather stay.

In her own lowered voice, Blanche says to her brother-in-law, Let’s keep to the matter at hand.

Meanwhile, George has staggered back and is leaning against the dresser, and the Weboy with the mallet moves over next to him.

Margaret twists herself around on the bed as if she’s unsure of where she should direct her attention. Should it be toward Blanche, whose languid pose is calculated to conceal her claws and fangs? Or toward Bill, who never stops smiling, even as he’s poking at her with a thick finger? Or George, who’s still bleeding and appears woozy? But she
and Blanche are the ones in the boat, and it’s to Blanche that Margaret finally turns. I want, Margaret says, to take Jimmy back with me.

Blanche laughs. I know what you want! Christ, woman!

Not for a visit. For good. I want Jimmy with me.

Is this how she gets her way? Blanche says to George. She just stays with a thing until everyone else gets tired and walks away? Blanche sits up, bringing herself so close to Margaret that she must feel as well as hear the heat of Blanche’s words. Well, I don’t give up. And I don’t walk away.

And you think I will?

Blanche sighs and shakes her head. Then she looks to Bill and points tiredly to Margaret as if signaling that he can now take a turn at persuading her.

But George has not been as dazed as everyone seems to have thought, and he has not been standing by the dresser only to steady himself. He has groped around inside his suitcase until his hand found the gun’s hard shape.