Thomas McGuane - Crow Fair - Stories

Szabo had no idea why he was dissembling like this, unless it was to buy time.

He suddenly recalled, from David’s childhood, the purple dinosaur toy called Barney that was guaranteed to empower the child, a multimillion-dollar brainstorm for cashing in on stupid parents. “Did he explain what he was doing here? How did he get here?”

“He came in your car.”

“Of course. Well, that was cheaper than flying. What was the purpose of his trip?”

“Are you asking me?”

“David, cut me some slack. I’ve been halfway around the world.”

“Did you sleep in those clothes, Dad?”

Now Szabo was on the defensive, still in the clothes of his Düsseldorf night with Amai, whom, in this moment of bewilderment, he was certain he should have married. Escape was not so easy. If he hadn’t fallen off a tractor and injured himself, this squirrel Barney wouldn’t be in the middle of his life. What would he be doing? Living in Germany with Amai, siring octoroons and trying to keep her out of the bars? “I’m afraid I underpacked, David. I wore this suit at meetings and slept in it on the plane. So, Barney was here … for what?”

“I guess for counseling of some kind, to prepare me for the outside world.”

David winced at these last two words.

“Why would Barney think he was in a position to counsel you?”

“If you don’t know, Dad, I’m sure I don’t, either. At least he has a Ph.D.”

“Is that what he told you?”

“Dad, I’m not following this! I didn’t send him here — you did!”

“I know, I know, and I’m sure it’s all to the good. Was Barney helpful?”

“You tell me. He said I should go home and take over the ranch.”

“It’s hardly a ranch, David. It’s just some property. What made him think you should do that?”

“Nothing you need to hear.”

“What do you mean by that? I want to hear what some jackass with a Ph.D. had to say.”

“You won’t like it.”

“David, I’m a big boy. Tell me.”

“He said that you’re incompetent and that it’s only a matter of time before you break your neck doing something you have no business doing.”

Furious, Szabo took this in with a false thoughtful air. Karen had said almost exactly the same thing. But her words had been motivated by a wish to replace the property with a winter home in San Luis Obispo, a town that had ranked number 1 in a Times survey of residential contentment.

“I trust you told Dr. Barney Q. Shitheel that you were not interested.”

“I didn’t tell him that, Dad.”

“What did you tell him?”

David smiled at his father. “I told him I wasn’t welcome there.”

“You could have come there anytime you wanted.”

“Right.”

“What’s this? Dave, why are you crying?”

David wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and spoke with odd detachment. “I knew I would never understand business, but I worked on a lot of ranches in high school. I was good at that.”

Not all the fight was gone out of Szabo. Nor had he given up on the story he’d been telling himself. But even as he asked his derisive question he was reminding himself how he might have been absent for his own child. “Did you think selling drugs was a way of learning business?”

David looked weary. He didn’t want to play anymore. “You’re right, Dad. What was I thinking?”

“I’m not saying I’m right.”

“No, Dad, you’re one hundred percent right.”

“Well,” he said, “I’m right some of the time.”

This exchange, more than anything, troubled Szabo. Here was David, broken down, imprisoned, soon to be released with his stigma. And Szabo was only adding to his insecurity, instead of trying to make the situation better.

There was plenty to do when he got home. And there was something to learn when he visited his mother: Barney had absconded with the Charlie Russell painting. The next morning, Szabo met the detective who was interviewing his mother while fanning away the smoke with his clipboard. She only glanced at Szabo, crestfallen, defeated. From the detective, a handsome fellow in a short-sleeved shirt, too young for his mustache, Szabo learned that his ranch hand’s name wasn’t Barney; it was Ronny — Ronny Something. Ronny’s gift was for slipping into a community with one of his many small talents: the sculptural woodpile had taken him far. The painting would go to a private collector, not likely to be seen again. “This isn’t Ronny’s first rodeo,” the detective said. “The only thread we’ve got is the Ph.D. There is no actual Ph.D., but it’s the one thing Ronny drops every time. There’s been a string of thefts, and they all lead into the same black hole. I don’t know why everyone is so sure that Ronny wants to help them.” When Szabo repeated this to Melinda and saw her wide eyes, he just shrugged and shook his head. Maybe to change the subject, she asked after David, and Szabo told her that he would soon be coming home.

Only the very treetops caught the first light as Jessica started up Cascade Creek, a sparkling crevice in a vast bed of spruce needles. As she walked, the light descended the trunks and ignited balsamic forest odors, awakening the birds and making it easy to find stepping-stones to cross the narrow creek. She’d found this trail on a Forest Service map; the contour lines had suggested a climb she could manage, and by scrutinizing images on Google Earth she had seen the small watershed open into what looked like a meadow or a strip of saturated ground. Jays were foraging in the hawthorns and, as day emerged, the hurrying clouds signaled fast-changing weather. Jessica’s pack held a spare down vest, a windbreaker, and an apple.

She came to a spot where the creek fell through a tangle of evergreen roots to form a plunge pool. Sitting for a moment, she followed the movement of bubbles into its crystalline depths, lost in her thoughts, free of history. Time was not the same dimension here that it was in the rest of her life, and floating like this was something to be savored. The bubbles in the plunge pool reminded her of the stars she had fallen in love with so long ago, years before she became an astronomer and began to spend her days analyzing solar data from the Yohkoh satellite or the RHESSI spectroscopic imager. The stars were no longer a mystery to her; these bubbles would have to do.

After the plunge pool, the trail became steeper, and it pleased Jessica to feel her attention shift to her aching calves. She surprised a hawk on a low branch, not a soaring hawk but one that flashed through trees and seemed to take her with it. As she followed its search for an opening wide enough to ascend through, she saw a bright, grassy area ahead, a gap of light in the evergreens. She would explore there, then retrace her steps down the creek.

Once she’d reached the edge of the meadow, she stopped, unable at first to understand what she was seeing: two figures, proximate and mutually wary, one circling the other. Without moving, she grasped that a man, pistol dangling from one hand, was contemplating a wolf he had trapped; and the wolf, its foreleg secured in the jaws of a trap, was watching the man as he looked for a shot. Then the wolf turned and faced the forest in what seemed a despairing gesture. Jessica began to shout, running toward the man. She called, “You’re not going to do that!”

The man turned, startled. “I sure am,” he said gently. He was of an indeterminate age, tall and bareheaded in a canvas coat. His lace-up boots had undershot heels. A hat lay on the ground by his foot; his face was slick with sweat. “If this isn’t something you’d like to watch, you might just want to be elsewhere.”