When I thought about it, they were on the poor side. “Why don’t you come down to Roxanna’s? I’ll go down first and make sure Andreeson’s not there or anything. Swede’ll go crazy!”
Davy smiled at his feet. “I guess not, Rube.”
“She’s making cinnamon rolls,” I said, in the tone you employ trapping toddlers.
“Listen, I really want to. You don’t know how much. I wouldn’t mind meeting Dad’s lady friend, either. But it sounds like this putrid fed isn’t such a dope.”
“He’s kind of a dope,” I said, loyally.
“Well, he thinks I’m here, and sure enough I am. How’d he figure that?”
It seemed to me like Davy ought’ve known. “What he said was, somebody saw you. He said you took a pig out of somebody’s barn. A couple of pigs.”
“Oh,” Davy said. “Oh.” Like a gentleman, he never suggested that Andreeson had simply followed us out here; that had we not set out from Roofing, he’d have had no call to suspect the Badlands. Word of two stolen pigs might’ve reached the local sheriff, but hardly farther.
We sat a minute and he said, “I can’t come down, that’s all. The truth is, Rube, I’m trying real hard to miss the penitentiary.”
I couldn’t blame him. I still don’t. But it put me in a hard spot. “What am I supposed to say, then—when I get back?”
“Nothing.” He looked at me so alarmed I recognized my idiocy. “Don’t tell Dad—and especially don’t tell Swede. Goodness’ sakes, Reuben!”
“Okay.” But I couldn’t imagine going back and not telling Swede at least. I wasn’t even sure it was possible.
“Rube,” Davy said, “honestly, I can’t talk to Dad right now.”
“How come?”
Fry was champing about something and Davy stood to soothe him; at this moment a clutch of crows that had gathered overhead all decided to move on and did so, tutting and cawing. My guts went eerie. In movies this is where you’d look around for the creeping posse.
Davy said, “You know what? I didn’t steal Fry.”
It seemed an odd jump. I wouldn’t have cared if he had.
“He belongs to a friend of mine. A fellow who’s helped me out.”
This sounded like good news—somebody on our side. “A rancher? Is it Lonnie Ford?”
“Nope, no rancher.” He wished to laugh here, I could see, but was held to a smile. “This man’s in some trouble. Real trouble, Reuben. He’s been all right to me, though.” Davy stroked the nervous Fry, who continued to blow and push at his shoulder. The horse’s fretfulness was transmissive and my brother seemed to go up on edge. He quit talking to peek here and there. He listened, not as you might listen for the bloodhound, I now suspect, but as for a distant summons—as we’d listened sometimes, roaming in the timber, expecting to be whistled down for supper. I knew our visit was about over and in panic yanked open every drawer in my brain for a way to prolong it.
Davy said, “It’s a long walk back for you—here, I’ll take you partway.” He was in the saddle before I could reply, seizing my hand, hoisting me up. Fry moved out of the trees without urging and headed back up the hill.
I said, “What’s your friend’s name?”
Nothing right away; then, “Waltzer.”
“Walter what?”
“No, Waltzer. Last name’s Waltzer. First is Jape—Jape Waltzer.”
“Jape? Funny name.”
He didn’t reply. The horse angled up the hill, his front heaving and rearing so I had to grip Davy even tighter than previously. The whole valley was sunstruck. The day had only grown lovelier, yet I could feel brightness leeching away from me; doubt crouched in the snow all round. A horrid picture arose, in obscure colors, of Davy lying dead in a dark place, never to be discovered. It shot through me that I would not see him again—that the horse with every upward plunge bore us nearer a ruthless parting I was bound to keep secret. My breathing turned thick; a featherpillow ruptured inside. Dad came to mind, and miracles, and I shut my eyes and prayed that when we came round the hillside he would by divine leading be standing there waiting for us, his face primed with wisdom and responsibility. I believed in this picture as hard as possible, given the short time and Fry’s jerky gait. Oh, if it could happen in this way, I’d run home atop the softest snow, so quick would be my feet; I’d shout the whole way there, so regenerate my lungs.
We reached the place where Davy’d picked me up and went farther round until Roxanna’s place came into view. Davy said, “Whoa, Fry. Rube, you better walk the rest.”
But I didn’t let loose of him. How could I, burdened as I was?
“Rube.”
“I have to tell somebody about you,” I said. Boy, it sounded like whining.
He pried my arms away and turned in the saddle. “You can’t do it, Reuben. Not yet. You understand?”
But I wouldn’t nod, wouldn’t acknowledge this injunction. In fact I wouldn’t look him in the eyes. I’d never defied Davy before and it shamed me to be doing so now. It violated the larger order—in panic I recognized that without prompt staving, I would weep.
“Then show me where you live,” I said.
“Rube, I told you—it’s better you don’t know.”
Under my knees Fry shifted, and I had to grab the cantle to stay aboard. I said, “Show me or I’ll tell Dad.”
So I was a ratfink, after all; no doubt this was a finklike threat. Yet who was I to bear sole knowledge of my brother’s whereabouts? Did I ever claim to be Mr. Atlas, or anybody close?
I hung to the cantle and watched Davy consider what I’d said, all the while with the miserable sensation of having wrecked something, but then he nodded. “All right, Rube. Okay. Okay.”
So stunned was I to have prevailed in this that I let go my grip, and Fry took a step, and I tumbled right down in the snow.
“We have to get you some practice,” Davy muttered, as I whacked myself clean.
“Help me up,” I said. Already I was picturing Davy and this Waltzer living in some kind of wigwam or tepee, smoke coming out the top. I couldn’t wait to see.
“Not now.”
“But you said!”
“Tonight.” He leaned toward me. “I’m not taking you down there cold. I have to tell Jape you’re coming.”
Something in the timber of his voice convinced me this was the proper thing.
He said, “Can you get out of the house without rousting everybody?”
Well, of course I could. I’d read as much Twain as the next boy.
Davy studied Roxanna’s place. “Come out back of the barn. Walk straight this way. At least a couple hundred yards. I’ll be close.” He turned Fry, who frisked the first few steps as though glad to be rid of me.
“Wait—what time? When should I come out?”
“When you can,” he called, without looking back. “I’ll be there. I got no other plans.”
Something was missing when I got back to Roxanna’s. Coming in the back I hung my coat, unbuckled my overshoes, and tossed them in a corner to gape. “Hello!” I yelled.
The house was quiet.
Was there ever a place you loved to go—your grandma’s house, where you were a favorite child—and you arrived there once as she lay in sickness? Remember how the light seemed wrong, and the adults off-key, and the ambient and persistent joy you’d grown to expect in that place was gone, slipped off as the ghost slips the body?
Yet the feeling eased as I entered the kitchen, for the cinnamon rolls had just come out, with their beguiling aroma, and Swede was busy whisking up frosting.
“Well, where’d you go?” she asked.
“Just a walk. Sorry I missed breakfast.”
“You could of told somebody.”
“Boy, Swede!” I really was sorry; my dread returned; hungry as I was, the rolls didn’t appeal.
“I looked in the barn and all over.”
“I just hiked around a little.” Never was I more determined to keep a secret. Should it slip, tonight was sure to fail.
She said, “Were you looking for Dad?”
“No—isn’t he here?”
“Of course not,” Swede reported. “He went out driving with Mr. Andreeson.”
The last thing you expected, right? Me too.
“Well, it’s true. He got up before daylight and left.” She tested the frosting, picked the coffeepot off the stove, poured a splash in the bowl and began to flail.
I sat down. The truth is, my lungs felt congealed. I was so tired my hands seemed disconnected, propped on my knees way down there. I said, “Where’s Roxanna?”
“She’s got a customer.”
“How come he went?”
Swede punished the frosting. No doubt she’d have been happier had an answer been available.
“How come he wants to help that guy? He wants them to catch Davy now?”
Of course I was hoping for some refutation here—for Swede to defend Dad’s strange decision to accompany the putrid fed. That was my careful verb: accompany. As opposed to join, assist, side with.
Then I thought of something else. “What about the spookism?” This actually shook me up the worst. “He said it was spookism. He wouldn’t go along with that, Swede!”