Kent Haruf - Plainsong

Raymond looked at his brother in amazement. They had arrived at the house and stopped on the frozen rutted drive in front of the wire gate. Goddamn it, he said, that’s a cow. You’re talking about cows.

I’m just saying, is all, Harold said. Give it some thought.

You’re saying she’s a cow is what you’re saying.

I’m not either saying that.

She’s a girl, for christsakes. She’s not a cow. You can’t rate girls and cows together.

I was only just saying, Harold said. What are you getting so riled up about it for?

I don’t appreciate you saying she’s a heifer.

I never said she was one. I wouldn’t say that for money.

It sounded like it to me. Like you was.

I just thought of it, is all, Harold said. Don’t you ever think of something?

Yeah. I think of something sometimes.

Well then.

But I don’t have to say it. Just because I think of it.

All right. I talked out before I thought. You want to shoot me now or wait till full dark?

I’ll have to let you know, Raymond said. He looked out the side window toward the house where the lights had been switched on in the darkening evening. I just reckon she’s getting bored. There’s nothing to do out here. No school nor nothing else now.

She don’t appear to have many friends to speak of, Harold said. That’s one thing for sure.

No. And she don’t call nobody and nobody calls her, Raymond said.

Maybe we ought to take her in to town to a picture show sometime. Do something like that.

Raymond stared at his brother. Why, you just flat amaze me.

What’s wrong now?

Well, do you want to attend a movie show? Can you see us doing that? Sit there while some Hollywood movie actor pokes his business into some naked girl on the screen while we’re sitting there eating salted popcorn watching him do it — with her sitting there next to us.

Well.

Well.

Okay, Harold said. All right then.

No sir, Raymond said. I didn’t think you’d want to do that.

But by God, we got to do something, Harold said.

I ain’t arguing that.

Well, we do, goddamn it.

I said I know, Raymond said. He rubbed his hands together between his knees, warming them; his hands were chafed and red, cracked. It does appear to me like we just did this, he said. Or something next to it. That night when we was talking to her about the market. I tell you, it seems like you get one thing fixed and something else pops up. Like with a young girl like her, you can’t fix nothing permanent.

I hear what you’re saying, Harold said.

The two brothers looked toward the house, thinking. The house was old and weathered, nearly paintless, the upstairs windows looked down blankly. Next to the house the bare elm trees blew and tossed in the wind.

I’m going to tell you what though, Harold said. I’m beginning to have a little more appreciation for these people with kids nowadays. It only appears to be easier from the outside. He looked at his brother. I think that’s the truth, he said. Raymond was still looking toward the house, not saying anything. Are you listening to me? I just said something.

I heard what you said, Raymond said.

Well? You never said nothing.

I’m thinking.

Well, can’t you think and talk to me at the same time?

No, I can’t, Raymond said. Not with something like this. It takes all my concentration.

All right then, Harold said. Keep thinking. I’ll shut my mouth if that’s what it takes. But one of us had better come up with something pretty damn quick. Her staying in that bedroom all the time can’t be any good for her. Nor for that baby either she’s carrying inside her.

That night Harold McPheron put in a call to Maggie Jones. Harold and Raymond had decided that he should do that. It was after the girl had gone back to her bedroom for the night and had shut the door.

When Maggie picked up the phone Harold said to her, If you was to buy a crib, where would you think to get it?

Maggie paused. Then she said, This must be one of the McPheron brothers.

That’s right. The good-looking smart one.

Well, Raymond, she said. It’s nice of you to call.

That’s not as comical as you think, Harold said.

Isn’t it?

No, it ain’t. Anyhow, what’s your answer? Where would you buy a crib if you was to need one?

I’m to understand that you don’t mean a corn crib. You wouldn’t have to ask me about that.

That’s right.

I believe I’d drive over to Phillips. To the department store. They’d have a baby section.

Whereabouts is it?

On the square across from the courthouse.

On the north side?

Yes.

Okay, Harold said. How you doing, Maggie? You doing all right?

She laughed. I’m doing fine.

Thanks for the information, he said. Happy New Year’s to you, and hung up.

The next morning the McPheron brothers came up to the house from work about nine o’clock, covered up against the cold, stomping their boots on the little porch, taking their thick caps off. They had purposely timed their return to the house so as to find the girl still seated in the dining room at the walnut table, eating her solitary breakfast. She looked up at them where they stood hesitating in the doorway, then they came in and sat down across from her. She was still in her flannel nightgown and heavy sweater and stockings and her hair was shining in the winter-slanted sun coming in through the uncurtained south windows.

Harold cleared his throat. We’ve been thinking, he said.

Oh? the girl said.

Yes ma’am, we have. Victoria, we want to take you over to Phillips to do some shopping in the stores. If that’s all right with you. If you don’t have something else planned for the day.

This announcement surprised her. What for? she said.

For fun, Raymond said. For some diversion. Don’t you want to? We thought you might appreciate getting out of the house.

No. I mean, what are we shopping for?

For the baby. Don’t you think this little baby you’re carrying is going to want some place to put his head down some day?

Yes. I think so.

Then we better get him something to do it in.

She looked at him and smiled. What if it’s a girl though?

Then I guess we’ll just have to keep her anyway and make the best of our bad luck, Raymond said. He made an exaggeratedly grave face. But a little girl’s going to want a bed too, isn’t she? Don’t little baby girls get tired too?

They left the house about eleven that morning after the McPheron brothers had finished the morning feeding. They had come back in and washed up and changed into clean pants and clean shirts, and by the time they had put on the good handshaped silver-belly Bailey hats that they wore only to town the girl was already waiting for them, sitting at the kitchen table in her winter coat with the red purse looped over her shoulder.

They set out in the bright cold day, riding in the pickup, the girl seated in the middle between them with a blanket over her lap, with the old papers and sales receipts and fencing pliers and the hot wire testers and the dirty coffee mugs all sliding back and forth across the dashboard whenever they made any sharp turn, driving north toward Holt, passing through town and beneath the new water tower and carrying on north, the country flat and whitepatched with snow and the wheat stubble and the cornstalks sticking up blackly out of the frozen ground and the winter wheat showing in the fall-planted fields as green as jewelry. Once they saw a lone coyote in the open, running, a steady distance-covering lope, its long tail floating out behind like a trail of smoke. Then it spotted the pickup, stopped, started to move again, running hard now, and crossed the highway and hit a section of woven fence and was instantly thrown back but at once sprang up again and hit the fence again and at last in a panic scrambled up over the wire fence like a human man would, and ran on, loping again in the open, traversing the wide country on the other side of the road without once pausing or even slowing down to look back.