What about ’em? Lacey asked again.
What do I think? Henry glanced once more at the mare with foal and at the aging gray. Well as you can see there’s three don’t belong here. They’d be happier inside tin cans. But at least we ain’t stuck with no rib-short dish-faced dingy-brained A-rabs.
They pitched a ten-by-six wall tent under the nearby sycamores of Turkey Creek. Here Lacey would make his residence through the coming month while refurbishing the cabin for winter. Here he would live with his woman friend—but which one?—while guarding the gate that barred the road that led into Turkey Creek Canyon and the wild uplands beyond.
Henry stayed with Lacey for three days and nights. He helped him restore the plumbing in the ranch house, hook up propane tanks to the kitchen, repair the windmill and get the generator going. On the second day he bridled and saddled the bay and herded the old gray, the sick mare and her sickly colt into the canyon and up the jeep trail that led onto the plateau above. There was water up there, in the draws and stockponds, and plenty of forage to keep the animals alive until mortality caught up with them—disease, old age, a mountain lion—whatever came first. He returned down canyon to Lacey, who was working on the four-wheel-drive pickup.
Next day, satisfied with the sound of the pickup’s motor, they toured the entire ranch. In a fold of the mountain eight miles southwest they found a line cabin in good shape: roof intact, windows complete, the door hanging straight on its hinges. Inside was a castiron cookstove (like my mother’s, thought Henry), table, chairs, a pair of steel cots. A mesquite-log corral stood behind the cabin, enclosing a flowing spring lined with watercress. Near the spring they found sign of deer, javelina, bighorn sheep, black bear, coyote, bobcat.
Henry left next morning with a list of needed tools, supplies, automotive parts and reading material. Lacey had forgotten to bring his Louis L’Amour books and his Soldier of Fortune magazines. But not his rifle, his shotgun, his sidearms, his crossbow, his recurved bow, his compound bow or his case of military cutlery.
Feeling that the Emily Ives Bancroft Sanctuary for Fur-Bearing Quadrupeds lay under good hands, Henry Lightcap drove back to Tucson. He found his wife barefoot and knocked up, spraddle-legged on a chair, reading another Bach invention on her violin. She looked strong, rosy, smug with pleasure and pride—pregnancy became her. He stroked her hair, touched her ears, caressed her neck, withers, back, croup. Good conformation. She stirred with satisfaction, lowering her bow. He checked the eyes: her eyes seemed darker, bluer, softer than before; they looked upon him—him, Lightcap, hillbilly redneck pseudointellectual—with kindness, with a deep steady unlimited love that melted the gristled cockles of his bewildered heart. He crawled before her on the floor, lifted the loose dress she wore and kissed her glossy knees, the warmth of her inner thighs, the pink labia beneath the delicate golden curls of her mons veneris. Claire put down her instrument and reached for his. She read no more that day.
XIV
The bear hunters and lion hunters with their packs of dogs gave Henry a little trouble in October. But they were few and sober. They laughed at Henry when he explained the new policy at Turkey Creek: hunters welcome but no motorized transport allowed. Shoot your bear, he said, kill your lion, but you’ll have to pack it out on your shoulders. Or rent his mule, Daphne, for $250 a day. The men grinned, fingering their whiskers, spat on the ground, looked at the neatly dressed unarmed clean-shaven Lightcap and then at those shady characters, Hooligan and Lacey, lounging under the sycamores near the tent, playing two-hand stud.
You got yourself a tough job, buddy.
Henry smiled: I get paid pretty good.
They turned back to their pickup trucks. We’ll see you again, buddy, said the last to depart.
Have a nice day.
In November the deerslayers began to appear, pale-faced chiropractors, warehouse clerks, computer tapers from Tucson and Phoenix. Arriving at evening on day before opening, they’d been driving for many miles and they tended to reek, as sport hunters do, of Wild Turkey, Old Grandad and too much Jack Daniel’s. The first group left peaceably, pausing only at the sanctuary entrance a mile down the road to shoot up the sanctuary entrance sign. A second group put on a show of resolve. Six men in a caravan of three new pickup campers, each truck towing a jeep, they were not about to be turned away. They’d been here before, the spokesman explained to Henry, many times, and the former owner had never denied them use of the canyon road. His tone was testy, his eyelid jumping with nervous tics.
New ownership, explained Henry, new rules: no motor vehicles allowed on what always was and still is a private road. He indicated the old wooden hang-gate across the dirt lane, the rusted, bulletriddled but still legible NO TRESPASSING sign. Entrance by permission only, he explained.
We don’t want to hunt on your private land, the man said—a short bulky fellow with fat mustache and restless eyes. We just want access to the state land above the canyon. We request permission to use your jerkass road.
Sorry, explained Henry, but my orders are no motor vehicles allowed.
The hunter aimed his rifle—a 30.06 with scope—at the wildlife warden’s belly. We demand permission, he explained. The five men with him smiled, holding their rifles at the ready. Whiskey fumes hung in waves above their heads. Keaton Lacey came out of the tent wearing his quick-draw holster tied to his thigh. Henry glanced at him, held up one hand, shook his head. To the hunters he said, In that case, gentlemen, permission granted. He opened the gate.
Henry and Lacey watched the caravan of trucks and jeeps—one jeep with a ripped bikini top, the others with no tops at all—roll through and disappear into the twilight under the sycamores. When the noise of their low-gear driving faded out, Lacey said, Why’d you do that?
I was afraid you’d shoot somebody.
Why not? said Lacey. The way they was bunched up I could’ve fatally maimed all six with maybe three, four shots.
That’s what I mean.
So we’re gonna let those bastards get away with threatening you with a deadly weapon?
I guess so. You have any better ideas?
Lacey thought. For about a moment. How’d you like that brand-new Ford 250?
Where’s the Hooligan? Henry said.
He went to town. He should be back anytime.
All right, soon as he gets here we’ll go up on the mesa.
Hooligan returned near midnight. Henry and Lacey left at once in the four-wheel-drive ranch pickup, following the deer hunters. In the bed of the truck they carried a block and tackle with frame, Lacey’s large and comprehensive box of tools and a canvas tarpaulin. They discussed the plan as they drove along the creek, under the ghostly trees and up the narrow cliff road.
When they reached the rim of the canyon Lacey shut off his lights and drove by starlight. After a while they saw the glow of a fire a mile ahead near the first windmill. Lacey pulled into a grove of scrub oak. In the dark, under the canopy of dry fluttering leathery leaves, they laid out bedrolls and slept until an hour before dawn.
Waking, Lacey stayed with the truck. Henry walked forward until he reached a lookout point above the hunters’ camp. As expected they were stirring about, despite heavy-duty hangovers, fixing breakfast by lantern light on their Coleman stoves. Henry waited and watched, binoculars dangling from his neck. Finally the hunters were ready. Two to a jeep and loaded for game, they motored off to the south, taking the trail road that led to Flat Top Mountain, six miles away. Henry climbed the windmill, gave the all-clear signal to Lacey—a circular sweep with his flashlight. The glow of the rising sun began to touch the horizon with color.
Henry stayed aloft on the windmill tower, keeping watch, as Lacey drove up and went to work at once under the hood of the Ford 250. Within thirty minutes he had the radiator out, all hoses and wiring disconnected, the frame blocked up with steel jackstands, the rear wheels chocked and the block and tackle rigged above the motor.
Henry looked down, saw Lacey slide on his back under
the front of the truck, wrenches in hand. He thought of the grease, the dust, the mud, and raised his eyes to the horizon. The morning sun beamed forth beneath a gold-vermilion ceiling of cirrocumulus clouds. Another mackerel sky in Christian America.
He heard the clank of metal below, the noise of driveshaft being pulled from transmission box, the clank of exhaust pipe freed from manifold, looked down and saw Lacey emerging, saw him stand and tug on chains and hoist the great Ford V-8 powerplant—390 cubic inches—up from its black cavity in the Ford’s bosom. The engine hung within the tackle frame, swaying slightly, dripping oil, while Lacey jacked up bumper, removed stands, lowered front end to normal position, chained the ranch Chevrolet to rear of trespassing Ford and dragged it six feet backward, out from beneath the hanging motor.
Henry climbed down the windmill as Lacey backed the ranch truck under the hoisted engine. Finishing his work, Lacey covered it with the canvas tarp while Henry tidied up, closing the hood on the hunter’s Ford, wiping off grease stains, polishing the chrome trim. Again Lacey drove their ranch truck behind the Ford and pushed the Ford into precisely the position it had occupied before, concealing the oily mess on the ground.
They drove home in time for lunch. Skipping the meal this time Lacey announced that he’d be performing an engine transplant—not his first—within the next twenty-four hours. Thank that donor for me, he said, and motored off to Tucson in the loaded pickup. The hunters came down from the hill that evening in heavy rain with four dead bucks but driving only two pickup campers instead of the original three.
Henry demanded an explanation for the missing vehicle before he would let them out the gate. The owner of the donor Ford, sitting rigid, soaked and cold behind the wheel of his open jeep, looked grim. His red nose leaked. His eyelid twitched. He chewed on his dripping mustache.
You’re behind this, he said to Henry. Open that gate.
You’re the one pointed the rifle at me, Henry said. I’d recognize you anywhere. Like in a court of law for instance.
Open that gate.
Smiling, Henry opened the gate. I’ll be back, the man said, wiping his wet mustache. Rain dripping down his neck.
He never came back. Probably declared the truck stolen, collected a claim against his insurance company. Lacey waited a month, then towed the gutless Ford under some trees and stripped it down to nothing but frame and cab. He even sold the doors, the windshield, the fenders, the hood, the leaf springs, the coil springs, the floor mats. He removed the wool-upholstered bench seat and used it for a sofa outside his tent, where it soon acquired the fine sun-bleached silver-gray patina of maturity.
Much later they discovered the remains of the sick mare and her colt, shot dead by persons unknown, rotting in a ravine west of the windmill.
XV
Henry Lightcap found himself summoned from time to time to the corner office on the fourteenth floor of the Pioneer Building. Joseph S. Harlow, III, seemed ever affable, the cigars first-rate, the Scotch, with a brand name seen by Henry only on backbars and in magazine advertisements, freely offered. Mr. Harlow called Henry Henry and insisted in turn on being addressed as Joe. Nevertheless, despite his democratic show, there remained an obtuse angle to the relationship that irked and puzzled Lightcap. He was easily irked. Slow of wit, he was easily puzzled, but finally figured things out one afternoon.
Henry delivered his reports, oral and written, and handed over the monthly accounting of expenses. Harlow seemed pleased with the first and barely glanced at the second, nodding with approval. Henry finished his drink and took a final puff on the fat cigar in his thumb and fingers. He was eager to leave. He’d not set eyes on Claire for three days and two nights. She was now great with child, an egg with legs, ripe as a golden honeydew melon.
Harlow said, One thing I’d better tell you now, Henry.
What’s that, Joe?
You won’t like it, Henry.
Then don’t tell me, Joe.
Harlow smiled. We’re going to have to restock the place with cattle.
No!
I said you wouldn’t like it. But we have to do it. If we don’t we lose the grazing permits. We lose our leases.
Can’t do that, Joe. The Emily Ives Bancroft Sanctuary is going to be an elk farm, not another goddamned stinking cow ranch.
I don’t like it either, Henry. But we’re going to do it. It appears that both the state and the federals have the same policy on grazing permits—use them or lose them.
That’s the beef ranchers’ policy. Anyhow we are using them. We’ve got mule deer, whitetail deer, coatimundi, black bear, coyote, javelina, badger, gray fox, ringtail coat, kit fox, raccoon, gopher, ground squirrel, packrat, desert turtle, bighorn, bobcat, mountain lion, maybe a jaguar, and if we can get the goddamned Fish & Game to move we’ll have elk and even some grizzly on the place.
Harlow gazed at Henry, still smiling. I know, Henry, I know. But we have no choice. Wildlife doesn’t qualify as livestock.
Fight those swine. Sue the bastards. You’ve got a law firm around here somewhere. Henry looked under the desk, into the corners of the room, through the floor.
Yes, Henry, two floors down.
That Collude, Obfuscate, Shyster & Pettifog group.
Yes. They’re good. But we’re not using them. We’re going to buy cattle and you and your little helpers—that Lacey? that O’Hooligan? Henry, where do you find such people?—are going to haul them out to Turkey Creek and turn them loose.
I won’t do it.
But first you’re going to put in more cross fencing.
There’s too many cross fences already. I won’t do it.
Not right away, of course. But in March and April, when the javelina season is over and the pig hunters return to their ratholes.
Can’t do it, Joe.
Furthermore the board has decided that the sanctuary must begin to pay its own way. No one thinks your salary is high or your operating expenses unreasonable. But the income from the bequest is not going to be enough to pay all expenses plus meet annual mortgage payments. Or so it appears. Raising cattle will help.
Raising cattle defeats the purpose. Cows piss in the water holes, shit in the streams, grow flies, eat up the forage, tramp down seedlings, ruin damn near everything. I won’t do it.
But Henry—you’re working for us.
No, I’m working for the wildlife.
No, you’re working for us. We hired you, Henry, remember? You’re what is called an employee, Henry.
An employee?
Yes, Henry. You are an employee. I am the employer. The board makes policy, I carry it out, you do the fieldwork.
I refuse to be an employee.
Then you resign?
I refuse to be forced out. Henry stared through the window at the gathering twilight, the brass and violet sky, the fading profile of the mountains. That wildlife preserve is like home to me, Joe. I belong there. That place needs me. You can’t fire me, I won’t resign, and I won’t turn it over to a herd of ugly stupid stinking spongy bawling bellowing shambling shit-smeared fly-covered disease-spreading lopeared dewlapped splayfooted inbred degenerate bovine brutes.
Well phrased, Henry. Harlow’s voice remained as placid as before, his tone amused and tolerant. I appreciate your crescendos. But it’s futile. You understand? We can always replace you. Easily, I’d imagine. Harlow gazed, like Henry, out the wide corner window, enjoying the diminuendos of the light. I’d advise you to consider the matter carefully.
Henry stood up. You consider; I’m leaving.
Leaving the job?
Leaving this fucking air-conditioned fucking soundproofed glassy-walled claustrophobical six-sided overpriced high-rise stalinoidal administrative fucking prison cell.
Not so good, not so good, you’re weakening, Harlow said as Henry Lightcap strode from the room, attempting but failing to slam the door behind him. The door closed with an institutional-strength hydraulic braking device that prohibited slamming. Hydraulic tyranny, hic et ub
ique.
XVI
Henry stared at the ceiling, his arm around Claire’s bare shoulders. They lay in their master bed, the mattress on the floor, and listened to a recording of Glenn Gould playing the Goldberg Variations. Intended to be soporific for an insomniac nobleman, the thirty transsubstantiations of an enigmatic theme had been keeping spirits bright and intellects entertained for 230 years.
What’s that? he asked.
The Goldberg Variations.
Best Jewish music I ever heard.
Gould’s first recording was better. The one he made back in the fifties. This new one’s self-indulgent. He’s playing with himself.
Play with me.
She turned toward him, stroking the black hairs on his white narrow pigeon-breasted chest, the wiry curls on his sunken loins. You’re so skinny, Henry. How am I ever going to fatten you up?
Go two inches farther down.
You’re so subtle. Her exploring fingers descended to his private parts. She fondled the delicate balls, the limp languid connecting rod. No response from the sensitive plant.
Not much life in the old sexual organism tonight. Am I getting too pregnant for you?
Henry placed a hand on her swollen belly, her dimple of an umbilicus. He thought he could feel tremors of the life within. Never, he said. When’s this thing due now?
About six more weeks. Maybe seven. She waited; he made no answer. Are you worried, Henry?
What about?
About the baby? You think it’s going to tie you down too much? Restrict your freedom?
Freedom’s just another word. He stared up through candlelight at the old-time water stains on the plaster, the hairline crack that seemed to be growing a little, week by week, inch by inch, toward the defunct light fixture bolted to the middle of the ceiling.
You’re thinking about something. Tell me.
A pause. From the street outside came the noise of a barking motorcycle, sparks flying, as it backfired to a halt at the intersection. Four or five fenced-in chained-up psychotic Beware Dogs barked in reaction, idiots to an idiot. Thyroid cases.