Chris Offutt - The Good Brother

Frank moved to a slight rise and raised his hands. The sun was bright behind him.

“You know,” he said, “the act of breaking bread is a mark of peace the world over. Has been since the beginning of time. I’ve often wondered what Adam and Eve’s first meal was. They were truly in paradise — no mud people or government to bother them.”

Joe grinned to himself, thinking that God’s ban on eating the apple was like a useless federal mandate. He wondered what mud people were.

“This is a splendid sight,” Frank said. “It does me good to see honest, hardworking people gathered by the water. I especially like seeing the children — all the small white faces of the future. This country is great because of God-fearing people who know right from wrong. Our families settled this land. Our grandparents fought for it, and our parents worked it.”

He stopped talking, his voice echoing off the river.

“I know I need to hush before I bore everybody by exercising my freedom of speech too much.”

He let the laughter subside before he continued in a gentle voice.

“Let’s have a moment to enjoy our right to worship with a silent prayer of thanks.”

He bowed his head and people looked down. In the brief silence came the shrill cry of a sandpiper across the river. Joe watched the crowd. He felt as he had when attending church at home — glad to be part of the group, though possessing less faith than most. One by one, people finished and lifted their heads.

Frank said a few good-byes and left, accompanied by the man with half an ear. Joe sat beside Botree and ate chicken and potato salad. Men encouraged people to sample their wives’ dishes, while women complimented each other. Botree rose to serve her children dessert.

Owen squatted beside Joe. “Got a minute?” he said.

Joe stood awkwardly, favoring his bad leg, which had stiffened. He and Owen joined Coop beside a rotting aspen log felled by a beaver. The river moved like a silver ribbon that frayed into small side channels, Behind them, people were working fast to clean the area before the coming dark. Three men were preparing a fireworks display beside the river. Dusk transformed the mountains into an unfurled bolt of crushed velvet.

“We’re willing to move out of the house,” Owen said, “so you and Botree can live in it with the kids,”

“What?”

“Make things easier on everybody all around. We’ll put up at the old bunkhouse. Johnny, too. That way you two can test the waters.”

“I ain’t making a deal for her,” Joe said. “What kind of people are you? Swapping her off like that.”

“She knows about it,” Owen said.

“I don’t believe it.”

“I did me some cowboying when I was coming up,” Coop said. “And one time we found a brush fire. Wind was blowing hard and there wasn’t no water for fifty miles. What we done was shoot a big steer. We skinned out half of it and tied ropes to a front leg and a back leg. Two riders dragged the skinned-out side across the fire line, turned around and dragged it back. It was like taking a rag to dust. After a while the fire was out.

“My granddaughter is like that wildfire, son. She’s had some boys to run a bloody carcass over her a few times, and she’s been smashed down pretty hard. Most of the fire got beat out of her. But you’re the first man that’s Mowed on her spark in a long while.”

Folds of darkness covered the mountains. Joe worked his mind one direction and another, as if he were bewildered in the woods and had found a path that he didn’t fully trust. At any moment it might turn to a rabbit trail ending in briers.

“Look,” Joe said, “I like Botree fine. She’s smart and she’s kind, and that’s more than most people. But this other, how you’re talking, it’s kind of a long way past where we’re at right now.”

“That comes fast,” Owen said. “Hell, that’s the easy part. Right, Coop?”

“I don’t know,” Coop said, “Been so long since I was with a gal, I forget if you get on from the right or the left.”

His laughter trickled to a phlegmy gasp and he spat lines of snuff to the earth.

“I ain’t agreeing to nothing till I talk to her,” Joe said. “You all got a way of answering some questions to death, and letting others rot on the vine.”

“What do you want to know?” Owen said.

“What’s Frank hiding from?”

“Nope.”

“Just like that.”

“Yep.”

“For as much space as there is around here,” Joe said, “you all got me codlocked pretty tight,”

“That’s Montana all right,” Coop said. “More cows and less butter, more rivers and less water, and you can see farther and see less than anywhere else.”

They heard the whine of a car driven too fast for the dirt road, its headlights shining on people carrying bundles of food. The car stopped beside the parked trucks. The driver sounded the horn in a steady rhythm of three long notes followed by three short. Joe followed Owen and Coop swiftly up the slope.

“Somebody dead?” Coop said.

“No,” said a man.

“What then?” Owen said.

“It’s Lucy,” the driver said. “She’s in jail.”

“Where?” Owen said.

“Missoula.”

“What charge?”

“No driver’s license. No registration.”

“How’d they get her?”

“Busted taillight.”

“Those bastards,” a man said. “She’s sixty-two years old.”

“Never did a mean thing in her life,” said another.

“All right,” Owen said. “Let’s ease down a notch. What’s the bail?”

“Five thousand,” said the driver.

He stepped away to confer with a few men as dusk moved down the slopes. Cigarettes glowed among the men. Owen returned to the group.

“They’re just messing with us,” he said. “I want everybody to bring some money to Coop’s tonight. Don’t worry, you’ll get it back. Lucy won’t turn outlaw on us.”

Families hurried to cars and trucks, speaking in low tones. Joe found Botree with the kids in her pickup.

“just drive around,” she said, “until the boys go to sleep.”

“I’m not sleepy,” Dallas said.

Joe headed toward the ranch. Night flowed down the valley. Abilene slept, sucking on a finger, his head in his mother’s lap. Soon, Dallas was asleep.

“What about this Lucy business?” Joe said.

“I’ve known her all my life. Everybody has. She’s a good woman. Her husband died and she lost her spread. Taxes just ate her up. She doesn’t belong in jail.”

Joe thought of his mother and wondered if the people of Blizzard would band together on her behalf. Five thousand dollars was a lot of money in the hills. Entire families lived on less per year.

“What are mud people?” he said.

“Anybody who’s not white.”

“Frank sounds like he doesn’t like them much.”

“What’s to like?” Botree said.

“People are people, aren’t they?”

“As long as they stay with their own.”

He’d never heard talk such as Botree’s before. The closest was gossip against certain families at home, usually the ones in the deepest hollows or out the farthest ridges, families such as his.

“That’s prejudice, Botree.”

“No, it’s not. Frank might be that way, but I’m not. There was plenty of Mexicans down in Texas.”

“You get to know any?”

“You sound just like Coop. That’s the first thing he wanted to know when I came back. If you’re worried about my kids, I can swear that their fathers are a hundred percent white.”

“That’s not what I mean. How can you talk that way and say you’re not prejudiced.”

“I’m not.”

“What about Indians?”

“I grew up around them. I know what they’re like.”