57
LATER DUANE TALKED to Willy about the return of Double Aught.
“I guess you two have got something going,” Willy said. “As far as I know there’s no reason why a human couldn’t be friends with a rhino.”
“It’s not exactly that we’re friends,” Duane said. “It’s more like he’s my brother.”
“Wow,” Willy said. “The brother you never had?”
“I did have a brother—I nearly forget it sometimes, since he died at birth.”
“I don’t think anyone ever told me that,” Willy said.
“I’m not sure your mother even knows about it—or your aunt, either.”
“Wow,” Willy said, again. “I’m going to have to think about this.”
58
DUANE WAS IN the big house, trying to balance his checkbook, when Casey Kinkaid walked in the door. She wore a shirt with little ties in front, exposing her navel and her young belly.
“I hope you’re watching your calendar, Mr. Moore,” she said. “I finally turned eighteen. Mind if I use your bathroom?”
“Go right ahead,” Duane said, courteously, though he found Casey’s sudden arrival more than a little alarming. A few minutes later, when she walked into his kitchen stark naked, his alarm intensified.
“Tah dah!” she said, spreading her arms and legs.
Without moving, or so much as touching her, Duane could easily believe that Casey would make a successful porn star. She had, for starters, what most viewers would believe to be a perfect body—a 10 on a scale of 10, like in the movie of that name.
“I’m not fucking that airman with the big dick anymore,” Casey mentioned. She looked down at him, where he sat with a bank statement and a pile of checks.
“I mean, you don’t need to be intimidated by the size of Joe’s dick,” she said. “It works better for making porn than it does in real life.”
She walked around the table and spread her legs even wider. What was there to be seen, he could easily see.
“The one thing I don’t like about making porn is having to shave your pussy,” Casey said. “Producers say pubic hair hides too much, but what do they know?
“While I’ve been waiting to turn eighteen you’ve kind of grown on me, Mr. Moore,” Casey said. “That’s why I’m standing here naked, feeling my pussy getting wet. I’m real well lubricated usually, when I fuck,” she added.
Then she dropped to her knees, unbuckled Duane’s jeans and gave him a blow job, a treat he had not had in a while. He kept thinking he ought to stop it—the girl was barely Willy’s age—but before he could take evasive action he came and the blow job was over.
“How’s that, little buddy?” she said, addressing his prick. “If I were a guy I’d never wear underwear—too hard to get a stiff dick out of underwear, and then the underwear gets all yucky unless the girl is real good at swallowing all the cum.”
Then she giggled.
“Gee, I kind of raped you, didn’t I, Mr. Moore?”
Then she came out from under the table and headed for the bathroom again. Just as she emerged, dressed, the phone rang, but Duane didn’t answer it. He just sat, amid his checks.
“Probably your other girlfriend, that’s why you’re not answering that phone,” Casey said. She bent, kissed him lightly on the lips and left.
Duane knew he had just permitted something to happen that was clearly very foolish. Maybe Casey really was eighteen—but it could also be that she was just sixteen. His role had been passive but that wouldn’t matter much if Casey decided to blackmail him. It would be the talk of the region. The one bright spot was that she couldn’t have gotten pregnant—not from what they had just done.
The other side of the coin was that he hadn’t had sex in a while, and getting that unexpected blow job had felt very good.
He was an aging man—how many chances was he likely to get for casual pleasure of that sort? A blow job might never come his way again.
Besides that, the truth was he liked Casey. He had enjoyed what happened, and he would enjoy it if it should happen again.
Whether he would actively try to make it happen again—with all the risks it involved—was something he would have to think about.
For the moment, balancing his checkbook just didn’t match his mood, so he put rubber bands around the piles of checks and left that tedious task for another day.
59
THE CALL DUANE had ignored was from Dickie. Instead of returning it Duane got in his pickup and rode the twenty miles to the company offices in Wichita Falls.
When he walked into the office the first thing he saw was a small-boned, neat Asian woman who sat in front of the main bank of computers. Her black hair was cut very short, and there was a delicacy about her movements that impressed Duane very much. She did not look at him.
This woman, Duane knew, must be Dal.
“Yep, that’s her,” Dickie said. “I don’t like to interrupt her when she’s concentrating—I’ll introduce her later.”
“She was a boat person,” he added. “She’s seen rough times.”
“How old is she?” Duane asked. “I wouldn’t have thought she was old enough to be a boat person.”
“She was,” Dickie said.
“What brings you over here in the heat of the day?” Dickie asked.
“I did something bad,” Duane said.
Dickie laughed, a nice deep laugh.
“No you didn’t, Daddy,” he said. “You just had sex with Casey,” he said. “So have plenty of others.”
“But not you?”
“Not me because my dear wife, Annette, would chop me into little pieces if the news got back to her, which it would.”
“I don’t see Casey anywhere—did she quit?” Duane asked.
“Fired,” Dickie said. “It was inevitable, given her habits. I caught her having phone sex with the president of a very large bank—a man crucial to our financing, and the father, I believe, of six children.”
“Did she leave town?”
“Not yet,” Dickie said. “She’s probably over there right now having phone sex with some of her other customers.”
“Can she make money doing phone sex?” Duane asked.
“About a thousand a day, net, she claims,” Dickie said. “She’s said to be very good at making sucking sounds.”
“This is not the world I was born into,” Duane said. “But it may be that my little lapse didn’t do any real damage.”
“No damage, probably,” Dickie said. “Nearly everybody could use some kind of sex now and then. Even me, but then I’ve got Annette and her sharp grubbing hoe to think of.”
When they came out of the office Dal was staring just as intently at the bank of computers.
“She’s in a zone,” Dickie said. “We might just want to save the introductions for next time.”
“Does she have children?”
“Four—two dead, two alive,” Dickie said.
Though he lingered a few minutes, Duane did not meet Dal. The time was just not right.
60
THINGS TOOK A serious downturn at the Rhino Ranch when three rhinos died within a week: an old female, past breeding age, a young female and a middle-aged male. These deaths represented an immense setback for the program. Double Aught vanished from the papers, to be replaced by learned opinion from the best rhino vets in America—brought in by K.K. Slater, who called Duane and asked if she could stay in his house again; the vets and publicity people would find lodgings in Wichita Falls.
“Maybe I’ll grill you a real steak for a change,” he suggested.
“That would be nice,” K.K. said. “Has Boyd Cotton ever had a girlfriend?”
The question surprised him.
“Well, I believe he married twice but both wives died. I’m not sure he’s ever had what you would call a girlfriend.”
“Didn’t think so,” K.K. said. “This is bad about the rhinos, though not unexpected.”
“Why would it be
expected?”
“Because they’re complicated, with tricky digestive systems, which makes them hard to translocate. Relocation efforts had been made before, but never with much success. They dehydrate easily.”
“What will you do?”
“Make some mud wallows, for starters,” she said.
“So far we’ve lost four out of forty,” she said.
“It still leaves you thirty-six.”
“Not enough,” K.K. said, and hung up.
61
THE CESSNA ARRIVED at dusk. Duane had expected to see Myles and various of the vets, but K.K. came alone, and said little as Duane drove her the short distance to his house.
While K.K. cleaned up he grilled two thick steaks, procured from a local butcher he trusted, baked two potatoes, sliced some tomatoes from his own garden.
K.K. had arrived none too clean—she’d been working with a young filly all day and didn’t take time to change until she arrived at Duane’s.
“Sometimes the thought of making even the slightest effort to be ladylike pisses me off,” she said. “Do you know who the San are?”
“’Fraid not,” Duane admitted.
“They’re usually called Bushmen,” she said, “though some consider that racist now. They are a tribe of small people who live, most of them, in the Kalahari Game Preserve, which is a precarious place to live if you’re hunter-gatherers, like the San.”
“Okay,” Duane said.
“I’m thinking of bringing one here,” K.K. said. “If I do I would appreciate it if you kind of keep an eye on him, for a while.”
“Does he speak English?”
“Heavens no,” she said. “The San speak a click language, very hard to learn. The ones I’ve met are very shy, and they’re maybe the best trackers in the world.
“There’s one I call Sam,” she went on. “He calls me Jack. The San are more sensitive to animals than any native people I’ve ever met. They’ve learned to use a global tracking device. Mainly they know when something’s wrong with an animal. If Sam had been here maybe the three rhinos wouldn’t have died.”
“Well, bring him—I’ll try to help.”
“I guess we just got off to a bad start somehow, Duane,” she said. “Why did we?”
“I’m prickly around rich people,” he said.
He got up and brought coffee. K.K. had eaten every bit of her meal. When he set her coffee in front of her she poured a little more bourbon into it.
“Could Double Aught still breed?” Duane asked.
“With him it doesn’t matter,” she said. “We must have at least a gallon of his sperm stored up.
“And since we’re on the subject, consider this fact: I myself have been celibate for seven years.”
Duane could not repress a moment of anxiety but K.K. patted his hand.
“Don’t panic, honey…it’s Boyd Cotton I want,” she said.
Duane had not been as taken by K.K.’s celibacy announcement as she might have thought. In a dim way he had more or less known it. He had been in the company of Boyd and K.K. to have sensed the interest, and there was nothing to be surprised about. Boyd Cotton was a compelling man. Karla Moore, Duane’s dead wife, had several times mentioned what an attractive man Boyd Cotton was.
“Boyd’s standoffish, but I suppose your chances would be as good as the next woman’s,” he said.
“In other words, slim to none,” K.K. said.
“I wouldn’t say none, but I agree about slim,” he said.
62
SAM OF THE SAN traveled light. He wore a loincloth, carried a sack of sorts over his shoulder, had a tiny bow and quiver with five or six arrows in it and was barefoot. The only thing that seemed to place him in the modern age was his global positioning device, which he kept in a little holster, clipped to his loincloth.
He arrived by helicopter and the whole Rhino Enterprises crew was there to greet him: K.K., Myles, Bobby Lee, Boyd, the Hartman brothers and Duane—an honorary guest. Though not really part of Rhino Enterprises, he did not want to miss the arrival of the first Bushman to ever appear in Thalia County.
To Duane, Sam seemed even smaller than Dal, but he moved with the same delicacy. He smiled as he got out of the helicopter but then went right to work. He marched over to Double Aught, who was standing with a female near the hay racks, which were stuffed with fresh alfalfa.
The small man spoke in his click language a minute or two, and what he said seemed to startle—perhaps even admonish—the rhinos, both of whom huffed before they trotted away.
“Now I’ve seen a miracle,” Bobby Lee said. “A man who can talk to rhinos and be understood.”
“Sam disapproves of much of what we do,” K.K. admitted. “He thinks the rhinos should forage for their food, like they do in Africa.
“Life is not easy for the San,” she went on. “They live in a hard place—not unreasonably, they consider us wasteful slobs.”
“Who’s he gonna shoot with that bow and arrow?” Dub Hartman asked.
“The arrows are poisoned, of course,” K.K. mentioned. “One of those arrows will kill the largest antelope—not immediately, but eventually. But the San are a patient people. They can wait for the antelope to drop.”
As they watched, Sam of the San walked away, in the direction the two rhinos had gone.
“Well, Sam’s here, that’s a relief,” K.K. said. “How about taking me to lunch, Boyd? I hear there’s a place in Seymour that’s good.”
“Hop into my chariot,” Boyd said, meaning his pickup.
It was as if he had been expecting the question. A minute later they were gone.
63
“LIFE’S GETTING STRANGER,” Bobby Lee said. “When do you reckon that little man will come back?”
“Now how would I know?” Duane said.
There was a shed near the tower that contained a couple of off-road vehicles and a variety of tools.
“Myles says he’s gonna live in that shed,” Bobby said. “He said that in Africa his whole family just lives by a bush.
“I guess the boss lady is going to seduce old Boyd,” he added.
“Doubtful,” Duane said, before walking off toward his cabin. He had enjoyed seeing Sam of the San, but he had no interest in speculating about K.K. and Boyd.
For one thing, he had a romantic quandary of his own to consider. Casey Kincaid had struck, and he was not finding it easy to forget her easy sexuality. He liked Casey and had begun to look forward to seeing her again, though he still had the uneasy feeling that a rather big bill might be presented someday. At present he was yo-yoing between apprehension and desire.
It was the kind of situation that called for wise counsel, and the wisest counsel he had available to him was Honor Carmichael, who was in Maine when he called.
“I feel guilty when I call you about things like this,” he said.
“Oh, don’t,” she said. “If I didn’t want to talk to you I’d just change my number.”
“Okay,” Duane said. “Casey Kincaid gave me a blow job.”
“If that’s all she did, forget it, and if she gives you another one, enjoy it,” Honor advised.
“Well, I sure enjoyed the first one, but I’ve got a bad feeling that something’s coming along that I’m not going to enjoy all that much.”
“Like pregnancy, you mean?” Honor asked.
“Yep.”
“I think I’m going back to my retirement, Duane,” Honor said. “You’ll just have to handle this yourself.”
And she hung up.
Duane felt disappointed. Usually when he talked to Honor he felt better for their just having talked. This time he just felt anxious.
64
A BUSHMAN IN THALIA?” Willy said, when his grandfather called to report. “That’s cool. I guess I’ll miss him, though. I’ll be off to England tomorrow.”
Duane felt a sag inside. Willy had always been a major ally.
“Let me know when you get settled,” he said. “It’s kind
of weird around here now, between the Bushman and the porn star. Plus Dickie has hired an Asian woman to replace Annie. I haven’t met her yet.”
There was a pause.
“Are you involved with that porn star?” Willy asked.
“I don’t think so, but there are some gray areas,” he admitted. “I might have made a little mistake, but I didn’t get anybody pregnant.”
“I hope you keep it that way,” Willy said. “If you got somebody pregnant it would totally freak my mom out—and my aunt too.”
“There’s nothing to worry about on that score,” Duane said. “Enjoy England.”
65
AFTER THE DEATHS of the three rhinos and the strange escape of Double Aught—if such an escape actually happened—Boyd Cotton had started riding the line a lot, sometimes in daylight, sometimes at night.
This left Bobby Lee alone on the tower, and he had never been particularly happy alone.
“It wouldn’t hurt you to stop and visit with me a little while, if you’re on the way to your cabin,” he told Duane.
“I’ve been visiting with you for nearly sixty years—why wouldn’t I stop and visit?”
“Yeah but you haven’t been seeing Casey for sixty years,” Bobby said. “You might be pussy-whipped, and if you’re pussy-whipped you might not feel up to climbing the damn ladder.
“You might be too pussy-whipped to help out an old friend who’s lonely.”
It was a curious admission on Bobby Lee’s part.
Indeed, Duane himself had begun to feel lonely from time to time. Much of his life had been lived in the midst of a mob: first his family, and then his derrick crews.
Duane was so unfamiliar with loneliness that, once he began to suffer from it, it took him several months to identify it. The fact was, he had come to like the company of people—even people he once would have been unable to tolerate.
He knew that his lifelong friend Bobby Lee must be lonely from time to time. He had no steady woman, now that Jenny Marlow was dead. But the fact was, Bobby Lee had seemed lonely nearly all his life.