Black River Part 8

"You want to get this horse up or not?"

Dennis worked quickly, and soon there was a halter on Rio's head and a pair of ropes looped under his barrel and behind his haunches. The red horse was still grazing, but the mule provided an audience. "All right, buddy," Dennis said quietly, and Wes wondered why he hadn't thought to speak to the horse during the long stretch of time he'd sat with him. "You ready?" Dennis asked, and Wes nodded.

He coiled the ends of his ropes around his arms, and felt an instant of reflexive panic when the cotton tightened around his wrists. Then Dennis was hauling on his ropes and on Rio's lead, and he was saying, "Let's go, let's go, let's go," and Wes didn't know if he was talking to the horse or to him, but he leaned on his own ropes and clucked again for good measure. And Rio tried for them, he did. First the forelegs stretched out, and then he heaved his body upward, but again he only made it to the dog-sit position, but Dennis didn't quit and so neither did Wes, and he saw Rio's muscles quivering and he heard Dennis groan and he felt the rope bite into his wrists. And then Rio was standing, legs splayed, wavering a bit, but up. Dennis dropped his ropes, and Wes let his fall, too. Rio took a hesitant, unsteady step forward, and Dennis was there to greet him, his hands on either side of the horse's face, and he leaned in until his forehead met his horse's, and he stayed there. The snow had almost quit now, but it dusted Dennis's hair and Rio's mane, and Wes didn't know if he should stay or go.

"Winter's hard on him," Dennis said, his head still touching Rio's. When Wes looked at him again, he saw his eyes were closed. "After last year I swore I wouldn't put him through another." His tone was strange, the usual hard edge gone, and Wes heard a Dennis he'd thought had disappeared years ago. A Dennis he'd long forgotten how to talk to. "I swore," he said again.

Wes hadn't thought he'd be so disappointed. He'd already moved the kitchen chairs, already taken his fiddle down from the mantel and held it waiting on his knee. He didn't turn in his chair, but at four the clock chimed and there was no sound of gravel beneath tires, no hesitant step on the porch. He waited, fingers tightening painfully on the neck of the fiddle, until the clock chimed its solitary notice of the half hour, and then he packed the fiddle into its case and carried it out to his truck. He drove to town and stopped at Jameson's; the first cashier he spoke to gave him directions.

Scott Bannon and his mother lived near the end of a dirt road that dead-ended up against the mountains, in a white trailer with rust stains streaking from beneath the window frames and a tacked-on porch that listed sharply to one side. A trailer like that would've been crowded next to a couple dozen clones in Spokane, but here it was settled on its own three-acre lot. Not much else on this side of town: a couple other trailers, a few run-down houses, a bar that catered to the most hopeless drunks, a lot where the logging trucks deposited their sap-bloodied cargo to wait for the freight trains. It was the side of town away from the river, on the far side of the interstate and the railroad tracks, the side that stayed dark longest when the sun rose, and was battered hardest during storms when the wind whipped through the canyon.

Wes parked his truck in the gravel drive behind a blue sedan with a green driver's side door. Up close, the trailer bore some small evidence of care: a few potted geraniums still hanging on in the autumn chill, a wooden Welcome sign beside the door. He hesitated on the front steps. Maybe he wasn't doing the kid any favors. Seemed like he had enough trouble fitting in; encouraging an interest in music that had peaked in popularity more than a hundred years ago hardly seemed likely to help. But he remembered the eagerness in Scott's eyes that first lesson, the way he'd grinned the first time he'd pulled a clear note with the bow. Wes opened the screen door, knocked on the aluminum behind it.

He knew her. Scott's mother. He recognized the black curls, the telltale cigarette wrinkles above her upper lip. h.e.l.l. The phlebotomist from the blood donation center.

"Mr. Carver," she greeted smoothly. "Good to see you again."

Wes nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

A small smile broke over her face, and she bit her lower lip. "Lord, don't call me that. It's Molly."

Another nod. He could picture that name now, on a plastic nametag pinned over the breast of her violet uniform. The sunflower sticker above it. He tapped his own chest belatedly, said, "Wes."

"Wes, then." She didn't offer her hand, and Wes was impressed; it usually took folks a few failed handshakes with him before they trained themselves out of the habit. She opened the door wider and ushered him inside. He stood on the small woven rug just inside the door. Hated this. It was all right for this woman, this Molly, to have seen what she had there in the hospital-the tears and the scars-but it was d.a.m.n near unbearable to stand here and have to look her in the eye, knowing those things had been seen.

"I didn't realize," he muttered. "That you were Scott's momma, I mean."

"Sixteen years and counting," she said, with a smile that seemed equal parts genuine and put-on.

Wes followed her into the main room of the trailer, taking in the uneasy scents of someone else's home. Here was the turnabout, the chance to see her life, and Scott's. A couch upholstered with an ugly k.n.o.bby fabric. A tube television set with a rabbit-ear antenna perched on top of it, one branch jutting into the center of the room. Two prints on the wall, replicas of vintage French travel posters (he knew nothing of this woman, but somehow the posters surprised him, and he wondered if they'd been here when she'd moved in). Magazines on the coffee table, Rolling Stone and Spin and Good Housekeeping. Claire used to read that, the Good Housekeeping. She liked the advice columns about people's family problems, used to tell him about them over dinner as though gossiping about neighbors, but near as Wes could tell, no one ever wrote in with the kinds of problems people in Black River had, the Carvers or the Bannons: My teenage son nearly shot my husband in the face, and then my husband made me move two states away and leave my child behind. What do I do? Or: My husband is in prison and now I'm trying to raise our son among the people keeping his father locked up. Please help.

"Sorry it's such a mess," Molly said. "I've never been much of a housekeeper. Good intentions and all that, but by the time I get home in the evening . . ."

"It's fine," Wes said, though when Claire had still worked, early in their marriage, she'd kept their home neat, too.

Molly smiled, and Wes smiled back, and though the couch was right there, neither of them sat.

"The reason I'm here is we had a fiddle lesson scheduled," Wes offered. "Scott didn't show up and I was concerned is all."

"He didn't call you," Molly said. It wasn't really a question, so Wes didn't say anything. He looked at the posters on the wall. Camels on one. An old-fashioned airplane on the other.

Scott chose that moment to appear in the doorway to the hall. "Hey."

"You told me you called Mr. Carver to reschedule your lesson," Molly said tightly, smile still in place.

Scott shrugged.

Molly turned back to Wes. "We go see his father on Wednesday afternoons," she said. "You know about his-about my husband?"

Wes nodded once.

"Every Wednesday," she said, and looked back to Scott. "You know that."

"It's not gonna kill him if I skip a week."

"He depends on us, Scott. It's difficult for him right now."

Wes felt his teeth clench, and Scott sneered. "Guess he should've thought of that before he held up a CashExpress, huh?"

"I ought to go," Wes said, and together Molly and Scott said, "No!"

"No," Molly repeated. "You're here. Scott's not dressed for a visit, and I'll be late if I don't leave now." She tried for another smile, but her eyes were weary with the effort. "They make you jump through a lot of hoops at the prison."

Wes tested the words before he loosed them. "I'm familiar with the process."

Something crossed Molly's face then, pieces sliding into place, maybe, memories of his rolled-up sleeves coming up against realities of how a man might come to have a name and six small circles scarred into his skin. Realities that might set him against her, his past against her present. Whatever she understood in that moment, she kept it to herself. "I really can't thank you enough for . . . well, for everything," she said quietly. "I've never seen anything catch Scott's fancy like this fiddle music."

He recognized the words for the peace offering they were. "Glad the fiddle's being played again," he said. "Been too long."

Her eyes went to his hands, a quick and involuntary movement. Wes pretended he hadn't seen, and when enough seconds had pa.s.sed, put his hands in his pockets. "What do I owe you for the lessons?" Molly asked.

"Nothing."

"Nonsense. For your time, at least."

"Scott's a good student," Wes said, careful not to look at the boy. "Got a lot of talent. It ain't-it's no burden to teach him. You don't owe me nothing."

Molly seemed ready to argue, but she glanced at the clock and turned to Scott instead. "Friday," she said. "You better be dressed for visiting and ready to get in the car the second I get home."

"Whatever," Scott said, crossing to open the door for his mother. "Bye."

"I'll give your love to your dad," Molly told him, stepping out onto the porch.

"Bye," Scott repeated.

"You ever use me like that again, we're done," Wes said, when they'd sat on opposite sides of the couch in the trailer's living room. Scott glanced at him once, then reached for the fiddle case on the floor. Wes put his boot on top of the lid. "You hear what I said?"

Scott flopped back against the cushions, crossed his arms over his chest. "I hate going there," he said. "Every week he wants to know how school is going, and every week I tell him it doesn't matter, does it, 'cause he gave my college fund to his bookie. Then my mom starts crying and my dad yells at me for upsetting her, and then a guard"-he spat the word like an epithet-"tells us if we can't follow the rules we'll have privileges revoked. That sound like how you want to spend your afternoons?"

"What I asked you," Wes said deliberately, "was did you hear what I said?"

Scott scratched an eyebrow piercing, his eyes still on Wes's, and after a long few seconds, he said, "I heard you."

Wes took his boot off the case, nudged it toward Scott.

They warmed up with the G major scale, moved on to "Twinkle." d.a.m.ned if the kid hadn't actually practiced that bow hold with a pencil like Wes had shown him. Wes gave him a handful of the ca.s.sette tapes-Scott looked at them like they were artifacts, and Wes had to ask if he had something to play them on-and then he taught him "Old Joe Clark." He'd hoped the kid might know it-a common tune-but he didn't, so Wes sang the notes, glad he'd picked something he remembered the lyrics for. Never had a memory for words like he did notes. He was uncomfortable, had never much liked his own singing voice. He could carry a tune all right, and he supposed his baritone was pleasant enough, but when he was in the band he'd been happy to leave that glory to Lane. Even Farmer occasionally sang lead, maybe one or two songs a set, but Wes lent his voice only to the three-part harmonies so many of the bluegra.s.s songs required, leaning toward the microphone rather than stepping to it, keeping his fiddle and bow at the ready. Eager, always, to return home to his instrument.

"I'll start looking around for a fiddle for you," Wes said after the lesson, his own fiddle and bow back in the case, the bra.s.s clasps fastened. "Till then you can come by Dennis's and play on this one. I'm usually there. Happy to teach you anytime." He stood, but Scott stayed on the couch, and after a few seconds Wes sat back down, too.

"Can I ask you something? Else?"

Wes remembered where this question had led at the first lesson, grimaced inwardly. "Guess so."

Scott picked up the pile of ca.s.settes Wes had given him. Moved the one on the bottom of the stack to the top, back again. Finally put them down on the coffee table. "You know how they used to hang people here?"

"Where's that, now?"

"Here. In Montana. Vigilantes and stuff."

"Oh. Sure." Wes felt like he'd missed the beginning of the conversation. "Lots of that going on back when they first made this place a territory."

"There was a display about it in the prison museum last week." Scott pressed his knuckles against each other in his lap. "And I was thinking it might have been better."

"What's that, exactly?"

"When they just up and killed you if you fu-Messed up."

"Some of those people didn't murder n.o.body or nothing," Wes said. "Some of them were just thieving."

"Still a crime."

"Well, I guess I don't think we got the right to decide when to take someone else's life," Wes said. "I think that's up to G.o.d." This was a respectable answer, he knew. Hadn't yet decided whether it was, in fact, what he believed.

"I don't believe in G.o.d," Scott said. He turned to face the window, and the bruise on his face seemed to disappear into the light.

Wes watched him carefully, trying to decide what it was about the kid today that left him so uneasy. He couldn't help but feel he was missing something important, not hearing it, not seeing it. The harder he looked, the more elusive it became. "You all right, Scott?" he ventured.

The kid didn't look at him. "They're letting my dad out next month," he said. "We're going to go back to Miles City."

"That a good thing?"

"Are you s.h.i.tting me?" A quick sideways glance. "Sorry. But yeah, it's good." He brushed a hand through his hair; Wes could see the red roots. "I can't stay here anymore. I can't. G.o.d. You have no idea."

He fell silent. Wes glanced out the window. The mountains filled the pane, nothing but sharp pine and risen earth. Sometimes he just wanted them gone. Wanted to set his eyes on horizon. I can't stay here anymore.

"That eye healing up okay?"

"It's all right," Scott said. Something in his tone. Wariness, or anger. Too subtle to say which.

"I just wondered," Wes said. "Because it's lasted a good few days and I couldn't help notice you never said nothing about it." He thought to look at Scott's knuckles; they were smooth and unbroken.

The kid leaned over the arm of the couch and twisted the k.n.o.b on a radio; he spoke as soon as the sound filled the room. "You remember that time you gave me a ride from Elk Fork?"

"Yeah."

"It wasn't the starter. That's what I told you, right? The starter?"

"Think so."

"What really happened was these guys at school poured bleach in my oil tank," Scott said. No inflection. "That totally wrecks the engine, you know that?"

Wes licked his lips. "I'd guess it would."

"Yeah," Scott said, still in that dead monotone. "I got about as far as Milltown and then my car started smoking like crazy and I pulled over and it wouldn't start up again. I mean, I thought it just up and died, but I had it towed to Elk Fork and the mechanic figured it out."

"You tell anyone about this?" Wes asked.

"Well, I had to tell my mom," Scott said. "She kind of wanted to know why my car was ruined all of a sudden, you know?" He went silent for a minute. "I didn't tell Dennis, though, because he'd freak."

"I meant the police," Wes said. "You tell the police?"

Scott shook his head.

"That's a crime, what those boys did. Ought to be reported."

The kid smirked a little, let his eyes go unkind for a moment. "I don't get how a guy like you can be so f.u.c.king nave," he said. "It must take a lot of work."

You have no idea.

Wes knew he'd been standing in the IGA aisle too long. Someone would notice soon, if they hadn't already, and he'd have to try to explain, and he doubted he'd be able to get a single word out with his throat this tight. It was dish soap that'd tripped him up. Dennis was almost out, had asked Wes to pick some up next time he went to buy cigarettes. And here Wes stood, four shelves of jewel-bright bottles in front of him, and he couldn't remember which one Claire would buy. Thirty years she'd used the same kind, he knew that. Thirty years it'd sat beside the kitchen sink, thirty years he'd looked at it, and now he couldn't remember the brand. He'd thought it was the purple kind, the kind with Lilac Fresh! emblazoned across the front of the label, but it didn't smell right when he took the cap off. None of them smelled right. Each time something caught his eye-the picture of a lemon in the corner of one label, the tinted orange plastic of a bottle-he felt certain he'd remembered, but when he took the caps off, none smelled like his wife's kitchen.

He knew he'd lose things with time, that this was how a person kept from going mad with grief. Already immediacy had begun to fade from his memories of Claire; already he found that when he tried to focus on certain details, they slipped to one side or blurred into uncertainty. But this, the dish soap, this inconsequential thing, this was the first memory to vanish entirely, beyond the grasp of conscious recall. It didn't matter-Dennis wouldn't care; Claire had probably chosen the brand for frugality's sake, nothing more-but it shattered him.

"Wes? Wes Carver?"

Wes turned to see a man standing beside him in the aisle. He was maybe ten years younger than Wes, carried a basket filled with frozen pizzas and beef jerky. Wes swallowed hard, took a deep breath to clear his lungs of the disappointing fragrances. "I know you?"

"Clancy Johnson," he said. "I worked the overnight with you years back, when you were on Two South."

"Oh." Wes could see that he was a CO now-the way he stood with his feet a little farther apart than most people would, the suspicious glint behind the otherwise friendly gaze-but he couldn't claim he remembered the guy. He'd worked Two South just after the riot, and those days, getting through his shift, even on a quiet night, took about all he had.

"Good to see you again," Johnson said. He tugged on his sleeve. "I heard you're gonna speak at Williams's hearing."

"Looks like."

The other man slammed his palm against the shelf, and a single bottle of dish soap fell to the floor. Wes glanced at it in case it was the one he'd been searching for, but no, Claire hadn't liked strawberry. "Man," Johnson said, "can you believe this born-again bulls.h.i.t?"

"Born-again."

"As if a c.o.c.ksucker like Williams could ever find Jesus. Christ," he added, with no sense of irony.

"Not sure I heard about that," Wes said. He felt the dull tightness of grief in his gut morphing into something sharper, queasier.

"Oh, yeah. Williams's been claiming he's seen the light, turned into a good repentant Christian. Never reads nothing but the Good Book, prays with the chaplain, the whole nine yards. They've even got him leading some Bible study group twice a week."

An odd fact: the COs weren't supposed to know what the inmates had done to get locked up. Or at least they weren't told. Public record, of course-an officer could look it up if he cared to-but it wasn't really necessary. Half of them bragged; the rest an officer could guess, or heard about through gossip. Williams, he'd bragged. Late one night he'd broken into a farmhouse belonging to an elderly couple. Bound husband and wife with duct tape, then spent hours terrorizing them before stealing all the cash and jewelry in the house. The husband came out of it with what the police report Wes later tracked down called "numerous contusions and lacerations." The wife suffered a stroke that the coroner testified might not have killed her had she received immediate medical treatment. ("Had a real good time that night," Williams had whispered in Wes's ear.) "I wouldn't worry about it," Johnson said now. "Only people dumb enough to fall for that reformed-sinner bull are inmates' girlfriends and-"

"Parole boards," Wes finished.