Philipp Meyer - The Son

“Do you own all our land,” she said, “or was it split with the Reynoldses and Midkiffs?”

“Just us. And some farmers from the North.” Which was true, but also a lie, and I was sorry I’d said it.

“For taxes, I guess.”

“They said your father was in arrears.”

“He was not. Obviously.”

I looked out the window.

“There is so much anger in me,” she said, “that I sometimes cannot understand how I still breathe.”

JULY 1, 1917

María Garcia has been here ten days. According to Consuela, when I am gone she wanders the house or sits on the gallery staring out over the land that used to be her family’s or plays the piano that used to be my mother’s. When I come back from the pastures she is usually playing the piano — she seems to know it is a kind of present for me.

After supper I find her in the library. We both like the same places in the house — the library, the parlor, the west side of the gallery. The small protected places where you can see a long way, or hear if someone is coming.

When I ask about her plans she says she would like to continue to eat, and when she is done eating she will make other plans. She is already looking better, gaining weight, the years dropping off.

“When it becomes inconvenient,” she tells me, “I’ll be on my way.”

I don’t tell her it is already inconvenient, that my father has already demanded that she leave. “Where would you go?”

She shrugs.

Then I say, “How’s old Mexico these days?” as if I don’t know the answer.

“They pick you up on the street, or when you are coming out of the movies, or from a cantina, and say here is a gun, you are now a Zapatista or a Carrancista or a Villista, depending on who catches you. If you protest, or if they find out you were on another side, they kill you.”

“You must have friends from university?”

“That was fifteen years ago. And most of them left when things got bad.”

“Michigan?” I regret saying it immediately.

“Those are not my people.” But she shrugs and I can see she forgives me.

I look at the light coming in on her hair, which shines, and the line of her neck, where there is the faintest hint of sweat. It occurs to me that she has very nice skin. She leans back into the stream of air from the fan, kicks her foot up and down, looking at the slipper on it, which she must have gotten somewhere in the house.

“I’ll be fine,” she says. “It’s nothing for you to worry about.”

JULY 2, 1917

Went to see my father to discuss the matter further. The drillers have run out of coal for their boiler and the silence is a relief. Forgot what silence sounded like.

The Colonel was sitting in the shade on the gallery of his house, which is more like a jacal. It does not have nearly the view of the main house, but it is in a copse of oaks, with a live stream running past it, and is ten degrees cooler than any other place on the ranch. He still sleeps in a brush arbor at night (though he has run an electric wire and keeps his Crocker fan blowing) and refuses to use an indoor toilet, preferring to squat in the bushes. Walking around his house is a bit like walking through a minefield.

“This heat,” he said. “We should have bought on the Llano.”

It was 110 at the big house, 100 at his jacal.

“We’d have to shovel snow,” I said.

“That is the problem with having a family. Take a man like Goodnight, does whatever the hell he wants, moved himself right up to Palo Duro when the Comanches left.”

“Charles Goodnight has a family. A wife, anyway.”

He looked at me.

“Molly.”

“Well, he never talks about them.” Then he changed the subject: “There is a man coming here in the next few weeks, name of Snowball. He’s a Negro I knew from the old days. He may be here awhile.”

I cleared my throat and said: “There is also the matter of this Garcia girl.”

“She is not as good-looking as her mother. I will say that for her.”

“She is pretty enough.”

“I want her making dust as soon as possible.”

“She’s sick.”

“It’s not in the best interest, Pete.”

“The best interest.”

“There are three events regarding this woman. The first is her brother-in-law shot your son. The second is that, with a half-dozen law enforcement officers present, we went to capture the guilty parties. Unfortunately things did not go as hoped.”

“That is an inaccuracy, at best.”

He waved his hand furiously, as if my words were a stale odor. “The final thing is her father’s land was put up in a tax sale by the State of Texas, which would have happened sooner or later, whether they were living on the property or not, as they had not been paying their taxes.”

I snorted.

“It is in the records.”

“Which makes it all the more likely to be a lie.”

“Pete, there are many things I have wanted to save: the Indians, the buffalo, a prairie where you could look twenty miles and not see a fence post. But time has passed those things by.”

How about your wife, I thought, but I remained silent.

“Give her some money and get rid of her. By the weekend.”

“She will leave over my dead body.”

He opened his mouth but nothing came out. By his color, he must have been very hot.

“Now don’t go getting up on your ear,” I heard him start, but I was already walking away, my hands hidden in my pockets as they were shaking. They did not stop shaking until after I got back to the house.

CALLED SALLY, HOPING she might be a voice of reason. We had not spoken in a month — she does her communicating through Consuela — and she was surprised to hear from me. Says she has no interest in returning to McCullough Springs. Greatest mistake of her life. We discussed Charlie and Glenn, who are still in training. We both agreed it was unlikely they would ever make it to the war. I suspected Charlie would be disappointed by this, but I did not say it.

After a time she mentioned that she spent two weeks in the Berkshire Mountains in Massachusetts with a “friend.” She wondered if I had heard anything of it, if perhaps that was the reason I had called. Ridiculousness of asking her opinion about María Garcia suddenly apparent; I became annoyed at myself for calling her, annoyed at my own desperation. But she thought I was annoyed at her tryst and immediately became conciliatory.

“I’m sad you’re not here,” she said. “It would be more fun if you were.”

“I’m just working.”

Silence.

“Are we separated?”

“I don’t know.”

“But we are taking some time away from each other.”

“I don’t care what you do,” I told her.

“I’m just asking. I’m trying to figure out our status.”

“You can do whatever you want.”

“I know you don’t care, Peter. You don’t care about anyone but yourself and your sadness. That is what you care about the most, making sure you are as unhappy as possible.”

“The things you do haven’t bothered me before,” I said. “I don’t know why they would now.”

“I am trying to figure out how it’s possible that I still love you, but I do. I want you to know that. You can still save this whenever you want.”

“That’s nice,” I told her.

Silence.

“Say,” she finally said. “How is that drilling going?”

WENT DOWN TO see about dinner.

“Your father says I am not to cook for her,” said Consuela.

I shrugged.

“I’ll make extra for you,” she said.

Of course there is no one to talk to, even Consuela; I know what her answer will be. What anyone’s answer will be. The right thing is to get rid of her. Perhaps for her own good.