The New Valley Page 4

  Now, what had been a smooth field of good grass was mostly scrub: junipers, cedars, broom sedge, briars that were getting worse all the time. The trees along the fence used to be trimmed in a clean line five feet above the ground, as high as the cattle could reach. Now, their branches drooped low across the fences and over the hay bales.

  Osby remembered the day his father had cut that field. He had seen him from the road: the tractor moving slowly across the top of the hill, looking small, the man riding it even smaller, the sickle bar mower invisible behind it, but the swath of cut grass showing clear enough. He remembered baling the hay a couple days later, after it had dried. Those bales had been shiny, tightly wrapped swirls, all lined up straight and neat against the fence when he was done, looking as good as if satisfaction itself had been rolled up in them.

  Remnants of light lingered on the horizon, buried behind the hill at Osby’s back. The bare tops of the trees jutted above the fence line, as hard and cold as metal rods—almost as black, too—against the darkening sky. He pressed his arms tighter to his body. There was no wind at all, but the chill bit through his sweatshirt even without it. His ears were cold. It seemed sad to him that those hay bales were just rotten lumps now—more than sad. A feeling pressed at his chest like a giant hand pushing with a spread palm. A cow, somewhere, lowed a couple times, and then was quiet. It was a little while before Osby realized he was crying. He unpocketed a hand and wiped the wetness from under his eyes, the callused tip of his finger rough on the soft skin there. Some men would have told themselves it was because of the cold. Osby just knew that it wasn’t because his father was dead. It wasn’t because he missed him. Standing there watching those hay bales that had once been full of what it took to feed a whole herd of cows and had been left to rot, he knew that it wasn’t just loneliness, either. It was something bigger, something worse, and it scared him.

  A few cows had rounded the hill. They stood perfectly still, looking at him. When he walked back around the truck, the rustling of his boots in the grass was silenced by the loud, seemingly endless splattering of a cow pissing in the dark. He climbed in, started the motor, and sat in the cab smoking the last two cigarettes left in the pack, watching night fall around him. By the time he’d finished, the heat blowing out of the vents was so hot he was sweating. He opened the window, sucked in the clean air, and started back toward the road.

  The whole ride home, he couldn’t stop thinking about those hay bales. He remembered everything about the day he’d baled them, remembered turning in the tractor’s seat to watch the baler behind him, remembered the afternoon steadily packing the sky with clouds, the wind coming out of nowhere, the first drops spotting his dusty hands, the rush he got racing to get the hay up before it stormed. And then he had forgotten, completely, for years; his father had forgotten. By the time he turned into his driveway, he was almost angry about it, angry at his father, angry that the old man had grown that hay—good hay, good seed, alfalfa in it—and then sold that land. And left that hay there. And let it rot. And never given it another thought.

  He banged out of the truck and stalked to the porch, suddenly wanting to know how much the government had paid his father, how much it had offered for an easement first, an easement that would have meant the Caudills could still graze the land, still cut hay, an easement his father had refused to give. He’d go through his father’s desk, find the paperwork. He burst through the living room into the kitchen, and stopped.

  The two doors that led from the kitchen to the rest of the house were shut. He hadn’t been through them since his father died. He usually used the upstairs bathroom, but he’d been using the one off the living room instead. He’d slept on the couch by the space heater. He hadn’t gone upstairs at all.

  Outside, a truck rumbled by on 247. Through the kitchen window, Osby watched its headlights sweep the Old House in the distance—a flicker of glinting glass. Then it was gone and there was just darkness out there across the creek bed.

  Once, when he was fourteen, his father had entertained a woman guest and sent Osby to his grandmother’s for the night. Walking across the field in the dark, it had struck Osby as odd that only the bottom left corner of the Old House was lit up. The rest was as black as if it were abandoned. When he entered, he noticed that the door to the left of the hallway was shut and blocked with boxes, that the stairway in front of him was mounded with trunks, old clothes, a menagerie of dustcollecting things. From the kitchen, he could see the flicker of the black-and-white TV washing the wall in his grandmother’s bedroom.

  “Grandma?” he’d called.

  “Hello?” she called back.

  “It’s Osby. You in your bedroom?”

  After a moment, she appeared in the doorway. “Well, where else would I be?” she said.

  Even then, of the eleven rooms in the Old House, all but three had been shut off from use.

  Now, standing in his own kitchen of his own house, staring at the two shut doors, Osby saw the way it would be: just like his grandmother, shut up in a dark home, gradually moving in a smaller and smaller space, until, one day, it would be too much effort to go into the kitchen and he’d bring the groceries right into the living room, eat the soup from the cans, wash the dishes in the bathroom sink, until, finally, he would find himself unable to move from the couch, withering in front of the TV, forgotten.

  Osby crossed the kitchen and flung open both the doors. Maybe Carl was right. Maybe he needed a housemate. At the very least, he decided, he was getting the hell out of the house that night, away from the TV, and going into town.

  Forty-five minutes later, he pulled into the parking lot outside Ten Points, a pickup turning in behind him, the taillights of another flaring as it backed out. It was pretty busy. Osby tried to remember whether it was Thursday or Friday night. He parked. The music from the bar filled in where the engine noise had been. Rockabilly blues. The drumbeat tapped at Osby’s windshield, and he listened to it, hoping to get some of the bar into him before leaving the truck. He hoped he could just slip in, unnoticed, already moving to the same rhythm as everyone else. He had taken a shower, clipped his toenails, put on a clean shirt and fairly clean jeans. The sneakers he found by the stairwell were old, but at least didn’t smell like manure. Now, looking in the rearview mirror, he ran a comb through both of his sideburns, took off his camouflage hat, worked the knots out of his hair. He felt like he had heartburn.

  A burst of laughter blew out of the bar, carrying two women with it. Through the open door, Osby could see dark figures milling under unnatural colors. The band was winding up its set. Still holding the door open, the two women stood there, shouting at the people inside. More laughter.

  Osby put the comb back in the glove compartment and slipped his hands into his sweatshirt pocket. If he went in, the laughter would die out like someone had shut off a valve. People would nod to him uncomfortably, trying to convey sympathy with forced smiles and a few hesitant slaps on the back, a few quick handshakes. He wished the band could have played one more song, just long enough for him to get in there and hunker down. He switched on the radio again. Bruce Springsteen sang, low and slow, telling the night how he was on fire. Osby lit a cigarette, sucked smoke, and backed the truck up.

  The bar seemed to have snagged all the cars off the road. The only vehicle behind Osby was a semi, a clump of small lights surrounding the blast of headlights like fireflies around a porch lamp. As he passed the Buttercup, his stomach dipped. He hadn’t eaten since the blueberry pie that afternoon. The clock radio in the Sierra’s dash had it at 9:15. Fridays and Saturdays the Buttercup was open until 9:30. He turned into the restaurant’s parking lot, his tires rumbling over the gravel, and passed by at a crawl. Half the overhead fluorescents had been shut off. Hazel, sweeping the floor, looked up and shook her hand and head at the same time, as if one appendage was saying “Nope, closed” and the other “Sorry.” He waved back, but she was already looking at the floor again. The semi blew by on the road. It must
have been Thursday.

  Up ahead, a white sign marked the turnoff for 33. He tried to think of something to keep him from having to go home. The Pine Top Restaurant over toward Ripplemead on 42 would be closed. The Mic-or-Mac would be closed. He could drive back the other direction, pass right by 247, take 56 into Coalsburg, and eat at the Mexican restaurant that was open late for the college kids. He looked at the clock again: 9:17. It would be 10:30 by the time he got to Coalsburg, midnight by the time he got home. On the radio, Johnny Cash was singing, “Burns, burns, burns.”

  C & O Quickmart lit up a chunk of night. He could fill the truck, at least. He pulled in under the Chevron sign, shut off Johnny Cash, and got out under the bright greenish glow by the pumps, tossing the last of his cigarette.

  The cold bit at him. He felt a little more alive, a little angry. What was so great about Ten Points, anyway? Everyone getting drunk. Everyone laughing. Probably wasn’t even funny, whatever it was, probably something stupid.

  The gas made a thumping noise as it pulsed through the hose.

  I can go in there, he thought, looking toward C & O, get a six-pack, get drunk as easy as anyone.

  “If I want,” he said out loud.

  He glanced up from the nozzle, shocked out of his thoughts by his voice, surprised, and a little scared, by the vehemence in it.

  Inside the Quickmart, the heat was turned up. The door jangled as he entered and a woman’s voice said, “Whew!”

  “Hey, Deb.”

  “I can feel that cold from here,” she said.

  “Yeah. I’d say it’s twenty-two, twenty-three out there.”

  She laughed, smiling at him over her book. He wasn’t sure what she was laughing and smiling about. Osby moved down the aisles toward the refrigerators in back, opened one of the doors, and stood there for a second, trying to decide between Coors and Moosehead.

  “It’s gonna get down to thirteen tonight,” Deb said.

  Osby nodded, thinking, In the morning I’d better check and see if the water’s frozen. He pulled out a six-pack of Moose-head and looked for something to eat in the snack food aisle. Once, when he glanced up, Deb smiled at him, and he looked down quick, thought, I guess she doesn’t like that book too much.

  He was wrong; she liked the book fine. She just knew she had another hour and a half of reading time behind the counter and at least an hour after that in her bed, sitting up late reading under the lamplight. The book was Devil’s Embrace, but Osby, when he came to the counter, didn’t notice that. Nor was there any way for him to know that Catherine Coulter was her favorite author (unless, sometime over the past five years, he had thought to ask her about anything more than how her husband was). She was wearing a teal sweatshirt with two pink teddy bears on it and she had matched the colors to her eyeliner and lipstick. She’d been dyeing her hair for sixteen years, and that night it was showing a little purplish. Her eyes were small for her round, pudgy face, but they were bright, so that men often took a second look at her, thinking maybe she was better looking than they had thought. Once, long ago, she had wanted to be a doctor, or at least a nurse. She liked carrots better than almost anything else and had baked herself the best carrot cake in Eads County for her birthday. She had excellent night vision. In high school, her volleyball teammates had called the look she got in her eyes Death by Debbie. Even her husband would have admitted she had a beautiful smile. She was four days older than fifty.

  Osby set a box of a dozen assorted doughnuts on the counter next to the Moosehead. He noticed that Deb smiled at him a lot and that she was leaning back on her stool in a way that made him anxious.

  “Which is your favorite?” Deb said, as she rang him up.

  “Doughnuts?”

  “Yeah. I like the chocolate. But then, I like anything chocolate. Who doesn’t, right? Which one are you gonna go for first?” She smiled and laughed a little. Osby thought her laugh wasn’t quite as nice as her smile, though until then he hadn’t realized how nice her smile was. “The cinnamon?” she said. “You probably just pour the whole box into your mouth.” She laughed again.

  “Well, it’s dinner, you know,” Osby said, by which he meant he was so hungry that the flavor really didn’t matter.

  Deb paused just before punching the final buttons. “That’s dinner?”

  Osby tucked his hands in the pocket of his sweatshirt. “Well …”

  “You better eat somethin’ better’n that. We got sandwiches back there. They ain’t the most freshest, but Janice makes ‘em herself in the mornin’.” Deb got up off her stool and came around the counter. “We got ham and cheese. Chicken salad. Though that one might be soggy by now. Hot dogs you can just pop in the microwave.”

  Osby followed her back along an aisle. She seemed awfully energized by something. When she opened the fridge door for him, he chose the first sandwich he put his hand on.

  “You just put that in the microwave,” she said, “it’ll be good and hot.”

  “It’s all right like this.”

  “It’s cold.”

  He looked at the sandwich, as if its temperature were something to be discovered by close inspection.

  “You can’t eat cold meatballs,” she said.

  “It’s all right.”

  This time, Osby thought, her laugh was even more nervous.

  “Gimme that,” she said.

  He handed it to her, feeling his whole face heat up.

  They stood together by the microwave while the machine hummed, watching the numbers tick down from ninety seconds.

  “I’m sorry ’bout your dad,” she said. “I heard the funeral was real nice.”

  He nodded. The numbers said seventy-three.

  At fifty-two, Osby said, “How’s Greg?”

  “I don’t see him much, anymore.”

  He remembered hearing something about them splitting up, and felt the heat rushing to his face again. “Sorry ’bout the divorce,” he said.

  “Oh, we ain’t divorced.”

  He sighed, wishing there was some way other than talking to say things. It was like he wasn’t even meant to be a person. He would have been better off an animal, communicate by raising the hairs on his head or putting off some kind of smell.

  “Not yet,” she said. “But we’re separated, though. We’re through.”

  “Sorry ’bout that.” he said.

  “Don’t be.”

  When the microwave dinged, they went back to the counter and she rang him up again.

  “It must get lonely out there without your dad now.”

  It was quiet after the noise of the register. Osby held his hands around the warm sandwich. “Carl thinks I oughta get a renter.”

  “That’s a good idea,” she said. “It’s good livin’ with someone. I’m in my sister’s place right now, but she’s gone with Mike to Germany, you know. He’s posted there.”

  Germany, Osby thought. Just the word seemed like a crazy idea.

  “You could put up a sign out on the bulletin board,” Deb said. “That’s twenty-eight-thirty, with the gas.”

  He dug his hand in his pocket, pulled out his wallet. “Germany, huh?” he said.

  “Yeah. I’ve got the run of the place for nine more months.” She took the cash from him. “Hey, hold on.” She ducked behind the counter and came up again with a sheet of pale green paper and a black magic marker. “You write out a sign right there, stick it up on the board outside.”

  He looked at the paper much as his father had studied the contract the government man had offered him for an easement on the land.

  “My writing’s just chicken scratches, anyhow,” he said, smiling at her, hoping she’d let him off the hook.

  Instead, she picked up the pen. “What do you want it to say?” She looked at him expectantly.

  He thought about the kitchen with those two shut doors. Where else would I be?

  “I guess, Room for rent. Route 247. The Caudills.” An image of the half-toppled mailbox came to him. “No,” he said.
“Uh, just say, call Osby Caudill, 544–7293.” He watched her finish writing in her round, careful hand. “And,” he said, because it seemed the right thing to add, “put down there it’s a good price.”

  “What is it?”

  He shrugged. “You can just say it’s cheap.”

  When she was finished, she handed him the sign, telling him there were tacks already out there. While she was counting out his change, she said, “I wouldn’t take him back for anything.”

  Osby nodded and took the plastic bag from her.

  “I’m a free woman, now,” she said. Her laugh was a small sound accompanied by a shrug.

  “Well,” Osby said. “Thanks for the sign.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You have a good night.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said. “You, too.”

  He heard her settle back on her stool as he walked to the door. He was sure she was staring at him. When he was outside and the door had shut behind him, he glanced back over his shoulder. She was hunched over the counter, reading her book.

  Outside C & O, he walked over to the bulletin board and, looking around to see if anyone was watching, slipped the flier behind a piece of paper advertising a 1988 Toyota Tercel for sale. All you could see of his sign was 544–7293 Very Reasonably Priced, in Deb’s neat writing. He zipped up his coat and started to turn toward the truck when something at the bottom of the board caught his eyes. A little Asian girl’s face looked out at him with huge, sad eyes, printed on the front of a pamphlet stuck in a paper holder stapled to the board. He slid the pamphlet out, as if it were almost too brittle to touch. In the cab, he put the key in the ignition, but didn’t turn it. Instead he sat there for a second, holding the pamphlet in his cold fingers, looking at the little girl’s face in the greenish light from over the pumps. Save the Children, it said. He mouthed the words, once, silently, then laid the pamphlet on the seat next to him and pulled out on the road.