Thomas Mcguane - Keep the Change

“Yes, sir! You can, sir!”

The judge gazed down at Smitty with a melancholy smile. “Smitty, Smitty, Smitty,” he said. “You’re kind of dumb like a fox, aren’t you?”

“Possibly so, yes, sir.”

“Thank your lucky stars, Smitty, that you live in a small town where we know you for what you are. Adjourned.”

Driving along to his meeting at the bank, Joe remembered his happiest period as a painter. One summer, he had gone on the road to do portraits of Little Leaguers. He set up a table at ballgames all over Montana and saw the rise and ripening of the great mountain summer from a hundred smalltown diamonds. Instead of pumping gas or choking on dust behind a bale wagon, Joe turned out bright portraits of children in baseball uniforms. It was an opulent spell that Joe remembered now with a kind of agony.

Darryl Burke, Joe’s banker, leaned back and laced his fingers behind his head. He wore a great blousy pin-striped blue and white shirt. “How’s life on the haunted ranch?”

“Great for me. I’m a ghost myself.”

“Bankers don’t believe in ghosts. Bankers believe in the enforceability of contracts.”

Joe didn’t think this was the time to depict his dream of letting it all go back to the Indians by way of atoning for a century of abuses; nor to unleash his misogyny on family matters.

Darryl, his chair tilted back on two legs, pitched forward on four. “Do you know why Lureen lost her lease with Overstreet?”

“Not really. I figured everybody had all the grass they wanted.”

“They lost their lease because Overstreet heard you were coming back.”

“I’m not following this. What’s that have to do with it?”

“Well, old Smitty had a double deal going there with old man Overstreet. When he couldn’t get that ranch off your dad, he tried to get it off Lureen. Smitty wanted to make a deal but all he could control was the lease. As long as you weren’t around. A lease for Smitty and a lease for Lureen. His was bigger.”

Joe thought for a long moment before saying, “That’s awful. I mean, I know it’s awful. But if you and I were to go dig into it, we’d find out that Lureen was just looking the other way, happy that Smitty was staying busy. Still, you don’t like to hear a thing like that.”

“Of course you don’t. And we’re talking property here, man. When are you going to ship the cattle?”

“Pretty soon. But I’m hesitant.”

“Hesitant? Now is the hour! This is the best the market is ever going to be.”

“I think they’re going to run off with the money.”

“Who?”

“Smitty and Lureen.”

“No, Joe, you don’t think that. You just think you think that. That’s crook time.”

“They already have Hawaiian costumes. I’ve seen them.”

“Come on. You mean that’s where you think they’re headed?”

Joe had his hands close to his chest and he pantomimed the playing of a ukulele. “Surf’s up,” he said grimly. Darryl stood and pulled down part of the venetian blinds so he could look out toward the drive-up tellers.

“Smitty will never run out of ideas,” he said. “He’s a fart in a skillet. But this is way past him. I don’t see him making such a big move.”

“He is concerned about falling on the ice. He wants to be warm.”

“But,” said Darryl, “when you get right down to it, if that’s what they want to do, they can do it. They can. It might be the end of the ranch. But they can do it. If that’s what they want. We covered our bet when we loaned money for the cattle. If Lureen wants to exchange those yearlings, and the money she borrowed for Smitty’s shrimp deal, for the ranch itself, she can do it. Don’t look at me, look at your father. I just keep score.”

Suddenly, it came to Joe. “It’s not fair!” he said. He decided he wouldn’t mention that the deed, together with all its liens and encumbrances and appurtenances thereto, was in his pocket, thick as a week’s worth of junk mail. In some opaque recess within Joe, a worm was turning. Property!

“I better get going,” he said. “Thanks for visiting with me about this.”

“Glad to, Joe. It’s pretty clear, anyway.”

“Try to come out and see us before it snows.”

“What happened to summer? It’s really hard to believe it could snow already.”

“Do you actually notice such things from in here?” Joe asked. Darryl stared.

“I get out once in a while,” he said.

In the dream it was summer and when he awakened he remembered the lazy sound of a small airplane and the sight of a little girl too far away to see clearly, picking chokecherries on the side of a ravine. The prairie spread into the distance and its great emptiness was not cheerful. It woke him up with sharp and undefined sadness. He tipped his watch, lying on the table beside the bed, so he could see its dial against the vague light coming in the window. It wasn’t quite five yet. He lay back and felt the warmth of Astrid beside him. He knew he had to see Clara. He couldn’t wait. He had thought his situation with Ellen would sort itself out and an appropriate introduction would ensue. But it seemed now that might never happen. He couldn’t wait any longer.

He would go to the end of the Keltons’ road and watch Clara get on the school bus. He arose slowly and began to dress. His stealth awakened Astrid. “What is it, honey?”

“I’ve got to get receipts for those cattle. I’m meeting the brand inspector at the scale house.”

“When will you be back?”

“Before lunch.” He felt something sharp from the deceit.

Joe left the truck almost two miles away from the Keltons’ road just as the sun began to come up. He hurried along the oiled county road straight toward the lime and orange glow that in a matter of minutes would be the new day. When the sun finally did emerge, Joe was safely concealed in the scrub trees opposite Ellen and Billy’s mailbox. He had a feeling he couldn’t uncover. Waiting for his little girl to catch the school bus, he was as close to whole as he had felt in memory. It was several blissful moments before the absurdity of his situation, his concealment, his uncertain expectations, dissolved his well-being. The chill of morning crept in. Finally, the yellow school bus rose upon the crown of the hill and went right on through without stopping, as though it never stopped here. Did Ellen invent Clara? Joe thought of that first.

He crossed the county road and started up the ranch driveway, walking as quietly as he could so that he could hear if anyone approached. As he went along, presumably getting closer, his nervousness increased and he began to picture alert dogs bounding at him, a family bursting from the front door to confront a stranger.

By the time the house was visible, a modest white frame house, neatly tended, a few yards from its barns and outbuildings, Joe could see in a small grove of wild apple trees the perfect place to hide. A rooster crowed. And when he got inside the trees, his concealment was so perfect that he arranged his sweater against a tree trunk as a pillow and prepared to spend however long it took to watch every single human being who lived in that house, who used its front door, who walked in its yard, who did its chores.

The rooster crowed again and in the near distance a bull bellowed rhythmically. Past the house was a small corral. A solitary paint horse rolled and made a dust cloud, then stood and shook. In the sky above the house, just now ignited by sunrise, were clouds which must have hung there in the windless air all night long. Joe felt himself drift into this serenity as though, not merely hidden, he was incorporeal and free as a spirit.

The door opened and a little girl ran out, pursued by Billy. He overtook her, turned her, and rebuttoned her cloth coat. He pulled her straw hat down close on her head and she tipped it back again. He pulled it down and she tipped it back. He swept her up. He held her at arm’s length where she hung like a rag doll with a grin on her face. She acted almost like a baby with Billy though she was far too old for that. Above all, she clearly resembled her father, Billy Kelton. Joe scarcely had time to track his astonishment. It was enough that Billy’s olive skin was there and the distinctive, inset brown eyes. But the minute Clara spoke, asking Billy to let out some chickens, Joe knew from her crooning voice that Clara was feebleminded. Billy planted her where she stood and went into a low shed. There was an immediate squawking from within and then four or five hens ran into the yard. Clara ran after them. Billy came out and deftly swept up a small speckled hen. Clara took it in her arms. Billy removed her hat, kissed the crown of her head, and replaced the hat. He went back into the shed while Clara stood bundling the hen and rubbing her cheek against it. The little chicken sank her head between the shoulders of her wings. Billy emerged with some eggs held against his stomach with his hand.