Kent Haruf - Plainsong

You going to want to smoke again? Ike said.

Yes.

All right.

He got out two more of the cigarettes from his shirt pocket and together they sat smoking fifteen feet back from the tracks in the shade. They watched out into the sun on the trackbed and neither talked nor moved for some time.

When they came up to the house from the horse barn in the afternoon near the end of the month they saw there was a black car parked at the gate in front of the house. They didn’t recognize it.

Who’s that?

Nobody I know, Harold said.

The car had a Denver license plate. They went on around it and up the walk onto the porch. Inside the house they found him sitting at the walnut table in the dining room seated across from the girl. She was holding the baby. He was a tall thin young man and he didn’t get up when they came in.

I come back to take her with me, he said. And the baby too. My daughter.

So that’s who you are, Harold said.

He and the old McPheron brothers looked at one another.

You don’t stand up when somebody enters the room in his own house, Harold said.

Not usually, no, the boy said.

This is Dwayne, the girl said.

I reckoned it must be. What do you want here?

I told you, he said. I come back for what belongs to me. Her and the baby too.

I’m not going though, the girl said.

Yeah, he said. You are.

Do you want to go, Victoria? Raymond said.

No. I’m not going. I told him. I’m not leaving here.

Oh yeah, she’s coming. She’s just playing hard to get. She just wants to be coaxed.

No, I don’t. That’s not it.

Son, Harold said. I reckon you better leave. Nobody wants you here. Victoria’s made that pretty clear. And Raymond and me damn sure don’t have any use for you.

I’ll leave when she gets ready, the boy said. Go on, he said to the girl. Go get your stuff together.

No.

Go on, like I told you.

I’m not going.

Son. Are you kind of hard of hearing? You heard her and now you heard me.

And you heard me, the boy said. Goddamn it, he said to the girl, go on now. Get your things. Hurry up.

No.

The boy jumped up and started around the table and grabbed her by the arm. He pulled her up out of the chair.

Goddamn it, do it. Like I been telling you. Now move.

The two brothers came around the table toward him.

Son. Now you leave her alone. Let go of her.

The boy jerked her arm. The baby fell to the floor and was shocked and began to wail. And she jerked loose and squatted to pick her up. The baby was crying wildly.

I’m sorry, he said. I didn’t mean that. Just come on. She’s mine too.

No, the girl cried. I’m not going. We’re not going.

That’s enough, Harold said. That’ll do. The brothers took him by the arms and he started to fight them, and they lifted him off his feet, squirming and twisting and caterwauling, and carried him out the door, and they were hard and determined and stronger than he was, and they took him outside down the steps through the yard gate.

Let go of me.

On the gravel drive they released him.

The boy looked at them. All right, he said. I’m going, for now.

Don’t come back.

You haven’t heard the last of me, he said.

Don’t you ever come back bothering her again.

He turned and went on to the car and got in and started it and turned around, spraying up gravel behind him, and roared out past the house into the lane and onto the county road. The McPheron brothers went back into the house. The girl had the baby in her arms, sitting at the old table again. The baby was quieted to a whimper now.

You all right, Victoria? Raymond said.

Yes.

Did he hurt you?

No. But he scared me. I tried to hold him here, talking till you came up to the house, hoping you would. I packed some things, taking my time, hoping you’d come up to the house as soon as you could.

Do you reckon he’ll come back? Harold said.

No.

But he might. Is that what you think?

I don’t know. Maybe he will. But I think he just wanted to make a show.

You didn’t want to go with him, did you? Raymond said.

No. I want to be here. This is where I want to be now.

All right. That’s what’s going to happen then.

The girl turned and unbuttoned her blouse and began to nurse the baby and it stopped whimpering, and the old McPheron brothers looked away from the girl out into the room.

Memorial Day. The two women came out onto the steps of the porch in the evening with the light behind them burning in the kitchen, visible through the open door, backlighting them. Except for the discrepancy in their sizes, they might have been mother and daughter. Their dark hair was damp about their faces and their quiet faces were flushed from the hot kitchen, from the cooking. Behind them in the dining room the table had been pulled open and the leaves put in and the white tablecloth laid on, and afterward the table had been laid with tall candles and with the old china the girl had discovered in the high shelves of the kitchen, the old dishes that had been unused for decades, that were chipped and faded but still serviceable.

Alone at the table the old white-haired man, Maggie Jones’s old father, sat facing the windows, waiting without words or complaint, a dish towel already tied about his neck. He stared across at the uncurtained windows in some thought of his own that was long familiar to him. Absently he took up the silver from beside his plate and held it in his hands, waiting. Suddenly he spoke into the air. Hello. Is anybody there?

On the porch the women looked out into the yard where the two boys were seated in the swing with the baby and farther out toward the barn lot and the work corral where the three men stood at the fence, each with a booted foot crooked on the bottom rail, an elbow slung over the top rail, comfortable, talking.

The boys had the baby in a glider swing, rocking her a little in the evening, this little thatch-haired black-eyed girl. Guthrie had said an hour earlier, I don’t know about this. They might be careless with her, forget her for a moment. But the girl had said, No they won’t. I know they’ll take good care of her. And Maggie Jones had said, Yes. To which Guthrie had said, But you boys be careful with her.

So they had the little girl in the glider under one of the stunted elm trees inside the old hogfencing wire, rocking her by turns on their laps in the cool evening, while the blue farmlight played over her face.

Meanwhile out at the work corrals the McPheron brothers and Guthrie looked over the fence at the cattle and calves. The red-legged cow was among them. Guthrie noticed her. The old cow eyed him with rancor. Is that her? he said. That same one I’m thinking of.

That’s her.

Didn’t she have a calf? I don’t see one with her.

No sir. She was open all along, Raymond said.

She never threw a calf this spring?

No.

What do you plan to do with her?

We aim to take her to town, to the sale barn.

Harold looked out past the red cow toward the darkening horizon. We heard in town the Beckmans got theirselves a lawyer now, he said.

Yes, Guthrie said. I’ve been hearing that.

What’ll you do?

I don’t know yet. I haven’t made up my mind. It depends on what comes of it. But I’ll be all right. I’ll do something else if I have to.

Not farming, Harold said.

No. Guthrie grinned. Not farming, he said. I can see what that leads to. He nodded back toward the house. What about her now?

We want to hope she’ll be here for a good while yet, Raymond said. She has another year of school. Besides this last term she missed. She’ll be here a while still, we believe. We sure hope she will.