Thomas Mcguane: Nobody's Angel

“I don’t know.”

“It’s nothing you can do anything with. It makes you go around proving you’re not rotten or spoiled by sin— Look at him.”

“I thought love was all that mattered.”

“Well, it’s very nice. Taxes awful high in that neighborhood. You know what I set out to do? In my little quiet way? I set out to have been around.”

“Get it done?”

“Well, I’ve been around.”

“You learn anything that could help us? See, I’m real in love with you and I’m sort of stuck.”

Claire never seemed morbid, cynical or flippant. Patrick could not see how she had been made into this. Her rakish femininity had first drawn him to her; but now her absolute female power, which men fear will finally be turned upon them, was at hand. He was sure she hadn’t wished this or wanted to be competed for. But the two of them had made a major purchase on a long-term plan. She at least acknowledged the cost, while Patrick compressed it to a dead husband. She wasn’t being cold; she intended to pay.

“I think you should go in with me.”

“Why?”

“For a couple of reasons.”

“What are they?”

“One is it will never happen again. We have to give him that.”

“And the other?”

“You’ll have a real good time.”

Patrick went. She made it seem easy.

Had the love been real? Patrick thought so. He never specifically changed his opinion. Too, he gave Leafy to Claire. He must have meant something by that. In life, he later thought, shoot anything that moves. Otherwise, discouragement sets in. Tio at least had gotten the latest weather.

Patrick’s grandfather shot the best elk of his life. Patrick packed it out for him and arranged for it to be mounted and hung in the Hawk Bar, the place the old man could see from the window of his apartment.

Patrick and Claire corresponded for some time after he went back into the Army and she returned to her childhood place at Talalah. Once she sent a picture of herself, but he didn’t like keeping it around. After that, the correspondence trailed off.

Anyway, his share of the lease money from the ranch allowed him to buy an old second-story flat in Madrid. He spent all his leave time there. Deke Patwell had it from someone who knew someone who knew someone that he had a woman in Madrid, an American named Marion Easterly; and that when she was with him, he was a bit of a blackout drinker. There were some people in Deadrock who had liked Patrick; and a few of them thought, At least he’s not alone.

In any case, he never came home again.

Thomas McGuane is the author of several highly acclaimed novels, including The Sporting Club; The Bushwhacked Piano , which won the Hinda Rosenthal Award of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters; Ninety-Two in the Shade , which was nominated for the National Book Award; Panama; Nobody’s Angel; Something to Be Desired; Keep the Change; Nothing But Blue Skies, To Skin a Cat , a collection of short stories; and An Outside Chance , a collection of essays on sport. His books have been published in ten languages. He was born in Michigan and educated at Michigan State University, earned a Master of Fine Arts degree at the Yale School of Drama and was a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford. An ardent conservationist, he is a director of American Rivers and of the Craighead Wildlife-Wildlands Institute. He lives with his family in McLeod, Montana.