“Well, you got to go back over there. You picked him, he’s your husband, father a your kids. Go on over and fix things up. Get right with Mr. Wham. If you are smart keep your mouth shut about what happened. And he got any idea a comin over here to make trouble I got my .30-06 ready for him. You just let him know that. And you keep your ass over there, too. What happened last night was a big mistake and it will never happen again. I tried a help you with the hurt kid but that’s where it stops. Get out a my life.”
She gave a snort through her nose. “You sure don’t get it about Rase. I bet he’ll kill you. He won’t be scared a no .30-06 in the hands somebody don’t shoot much.”
He knew she was right, and it made him furious. “Get out.Now . Get out.”
She got up, leaving her still full coffee cup, and uttered the ultimate Wham riposte. “Fuck you.”
She stuffed Lye under her arm, made a big deal of dropping the wetted blanket on the floor, and left, kicking the door closed with her nimble foot. As soon as she was around the corner he went out to the Jeep and got his rifle, brought it inside, and loaded it.
He watched their trailer through the scope, expecting to see Rase Wham leap down the stairs in a blind fury, coming for him. But nothing happened and he supposed Cheri had kept her mouth shut for the moment, that they were all pigging out on Sugar Puffs, even the mountain man. He stripped his bed and shoved every soiled garment and sheet and pillow slip he could find into the laundry bag ready to go into town and spend the morning at the local laundry. He’d call his mother and find out about his checks, get his cousin Zane’s telephone number.
Before he could leave he saw Graig and Cheri get in the Power Wagon and drive away. He guessed they were going to pick up Vernon Clarence, who probably had quite a hangover. That left Rase alone in the trailer with Barbette and Lye. If he was going to make a move now would probably be the time.
He rushed out to his Jeep, threw the laundry in, and took the way past the pack rat trailer across the sand and sage rather than drive past Rase’s trailer, where the aggrieved husband could pick him off from a window.
His own tires had left a distinct trail from the night before, and he followed them easily but drove across the shallow end of the wash rather than going completely around it. The incline was steep but not impossible. Still, a bad place to get stuck.
While his clothes were washing he called his parents’ house.
“Buddy, where in the world are you?”
“Didn’t you get the letter I sent with the address?”
“No. Quite a lot a mailfor you, but nothing from you.”
“Ma, I got a ask you for a favor. I need my paycheck and savins account check really bad. Kind of a difficult situation has developed here. I decided I’m probly goin a Alaska, maybe contact Zane, stay there a few days if it’s all right with him, get a job on one a the fishin boats. So I need Zane’s address and telephone number. So I can call him. Like I don’t know if he’s on the coast or what. But most of all I need those checks. Can you send them Express Mail? Or I suppose I could drive up there and get them if Dad’s not still mad.”
“Denali is in the middle, not on the coast. And Dadis still mad and as a matter a fact he’s got all your mail in a big envelope out in his truck.”
“Oh no.” His father was capable of forging Buddy’s signature and cashing the checks, taking the money against the value of the stolen goods. “But I need those checks. Can you talk to him, tell him I’m kind a desperate? Call you back tomorrow?”
“I’ll try, Buddy. And I’ll dig up Zane’s number and address. Some place like ‘Banana.’ I keep it up in the attic with the Christmas card boxes.”
“O.K., Ma, I’ll call you tomorrow around noon. Love you.”
He spent an uneasy night, the rifle in bed with him, half-expecting to hear Rase Wham kick in the barricaded door. Hadn’t Rase said he had an AK-47? Mr. Kalashnikov’s little invention could shoot through a trailer as if it were made of rotten muslin. But Monday morning came, and with it the receding rumble of Rase’s truck as he drove to work in the near dark.
At noon Buddy went to town to call his mother. His father answered.
“Yes, your checks are here. I got them out in the truck. Your mother told me you were havin a problem. What kind a problem?”
There was no point trying to hide anything from his father. He told him that Rase Wham had erupted in his life again, that something had happened with the wife, that he was worried that Rase might shoot him.
“Jesus, Buddy, nothim again. You got a real talent for trouble. Listen, you better get out a there. He could do it and maybe get away with it. His old man is Apollo Wham—Polly Wham—in the legislature now, knows everbody. He could pull strings and sweep the dirt under the rug. Just come on home right now. Don’t waste time talkin on the phone, don’t go pack your bags, just get in your Jeep and get here. Say it will take you five hours—get your ass home.Now . We’ll discuss the ramifications when you get here.”
It was a relief to know that his father thought the situation was serious. He was right—get out now while Rase was at work. But he didn’t want to leave his clothes, the arrowhead he’d found, and the .30-06 still in the trailer. At some point he would have to go back for them.
At home he spent hours with his father driving around and talking. He told him everything, about the mountain man, about Rase’s kids, Vernon Clarence’s broken arm, the drive to the hospital, and about Cheri’s successful assault.
He called Zane in Nenana, Alaska.
“Buddy, that’s great! I’ve been trying for years to get some of the family to come on out here and look at the finest piece of real estate on the globe. I got a couple friends know some guys that fish and I’ll ask around, see if there’s any jobs. Even if you don’t get on a boat there’s some work. When do you think you’ll be out?”
“Pretty soon. I got a go back to Wamsutter and get my stuff and I got a do it before the storms come. There’s already been some snow. You got snow there?”
“Do birds have four toes?”
The next day, a Thursday, cold, cloudy, and packing a strong wind, he drove back to Wamsutter and took the bad dirt track out to the trailer, sliding down into the wash and clawing his way up the other side. Although he’d been gone only three days, there were two more drill rigs in sight. The weather report said possible snow showers. As he parked at the trailer a few flakes of snow fell and he could smell a storm closing in, not snow showers but a mean storm. Once again the weather report was wrong.
Nothing inside the trailer was disturbed. He went first to the little kitchen window and looked out.
There were no vehicles at the Wham trailer.
“Nobody home,” he said to himself. He gathered his clothes, blankets and sheets, and his rifle, still in the bed, packed them in the Jeep. He would call Cootie and tell her that one month of trailer life in the Red Desert had been enough for him.
In Wamsutter he parked in front of the post office and, mindful of the rifle in the back, was locking the Jeep when he heard a child’s voice.
“Buddy!” It was Barbette, a half-eaten apple in her hand.
“Well, well, it’s the Sugar Puff girl. How are you, Barbette?”
“I’m not the Sugar Puff girl anymore. Graig says Sugar Puffs aren’t no good for you. But apples and bananas and grapes are.”
He looked around nervously but did not see Rase’s truck. He did see Graig’s old Power Wagon, and walking toward it were Cheri, holding Lye, and Graig. Vernon Clarence skipped along, singing some small song and gripping Graig’s shirt fringe with his good hand.
“Mama! Graig,lookit !” Barbette screeched.“It’s Buddy!”
He lifted his hand in a lukewarm salute, not knowing if Rase would come out next, his arms full of beer, his heart full of murder. Cheri gave him a canary-eating grin, and Graig rumbled and laughed.
“Son of a bitch, if it ain’t old mountain man Buddy. We figured you skipped out and we’d never see you
again.”
“I just come back pick up my stuff at the trailer. I’m headin out, actually. Goin a—west. Heard about a job.” That was in case Rase asked where he had gone. Rase was capable of following him to Alaska. Another good reason to work on a boat.
Vernon Clarence was pulling at his sleeve. He seemed a different child, the dull face animated, his eyes bright and bold.
“Buddy,” he said. “Buddy. Buddy. Buddy, guess what?”
“What? I see you still got your arm in that red cast.”
“Buddy.” And he pulled hard. “I want a tell you somethin. A secret.”
Buddy crouched down, and Vernon Clarence’s sticky lips came close to his ear. He whispered loudly and happily.
“Buddy,the wufs ate Daddy .” He laughed, paused to watch the effect this news would have. Buddy, without any effort, looked astonished. Vernon Clarence continued to unload his momentous news.
“And Graig says not to tell nobody. Graig is our daddy now. And no wufs can eat him because he is their friend! And they won’t eatus because he is our new daddy!”
“Congratulations,” he whispered back to Vernon Clarence and stood up. Something very bad had happened to Rase.
Graig was looking at him. He had to have guessed what Vernon Clarence had whispered. Buddy extended one hand helplessly as if there was nothing to say, found himself looking into the mountain man’s eyes. The old merry twinkle was extinguished. A hard, alpha stare had taken its place. Cheri must have told him her version of what had happened the night Vernon Clarence’s arm was broken, and Graig now saw him as a rival.
He meant to say something mollifying, add an exit line, and get the hell out of Wamsutter, but he began to back away and when he opened his mouth what he said was “I see you got your own pack now.”
Summer of the Hot Tubs
ELKTOOTH, WYOMING,HAS LITTLE GOING FOR IT BEYOND the junkyard despite a population of nearly eighty people. If you want a fancy dinner or batteries or tampons you drive forty-four miles down Dog Ear Creek until you hit Sack and there are two stores and a garage. But Elk Tooth has its attractions—the three bars—Silvertip, the Pee Wee, and Muddy’s Hole.
The old tradition of pioneer wayside eating houses—road ranches—hangs on as well. There is one of these north of town which serves supper for three dollars although there is no menu choice and Mrs. Polidora uses paper plates, unsatisfactory if you like to hear your fork clink. Paper plates or not, Mrs. Polidora will put a platter of elk steaks on the table flanked by a big green bowl of mashed potatoes, a pitcher of milk gravy, and a saucer of chokecherry jelly. Somehow she can make that elk last a year.
In Elk Tooth everyone tries to be a character and with some success. There is little more to it than being broke, proud, ingenious and setting your heels against civilized society’s pull.
Mrs. Polidora’s steady customer is Willy Huson, who fixes trucks and lawn mowers in a minimal way. He was born and raised in Elk Tooth but for years lived in distant cities in distant states working as a mechanic for United Airlines. When questioned why he left a lucrative job to return to Elk Tooth he says, “I couldn’t take it no more.” What “it” is no one asks, for everyone in Wyoming knows of the red hell that lies beyond the state’s borders. He lives with a tan dog he calls Igor.
Willy Huson has neither workshop nor garage but tinkers in the narrow dirt run in front of his trailer. If the job is a big truck he parks it in the road and lies under it after putting up a folding sign at the curve. The sign saysSAND HER DOWN , which is Willy’s way of saying “Go slow, mechanic in road.” Igor, seeing Willy lying in the road, follows his example and has been hit twice.
Sometimes, in a burst of energy, Willy continues to work on a vehicle after the problem is repaired, putting in salvaged hoses, running wires to buttons and switches. Deb Sipple, a character himself, once drove away in his 1983 Toyota pickup with a freshly flushed radiator and eleven toggle switches on the dashboard that activated nothing. Mrs. Straw Bird got her Explorer back with an enormous fixed spotlight on top that her husband said would do very well for spotting owls at night or enemy aircraft if it hadn’t been that the horn blew every time they switched on the beam. Customers pay what they feel the work is worth. Little that Willy Huson fixes runs longer than five days or fifty miles, whichever comes first, but the general feeling is that sometimes that is all you need—it will hold together long enough to get to Sack and the real garage.
At one time Willy Huson had started to build a garage onto the side of his trailer and framed out a lean-to with poles stolen from Forest Service buck fences—a pole here, another there. He nailed on four boards selected randomly from his pile of warped lumber, then quit. It is a point of pride in Elk Tooth to quit whenever and whatever needs quitting. If Willy Huson stops working on a lawn mower or skimobile or truck at a crucial time, it is the owner’s tough luck. Nothing can bring him back to something he’s quit.
He takes his time setting to work, and some vehicles sit in front of the trailer for months before he lifts their hoods. Bartender Amanda Gribb, who has once or twice 86’d Willy from the Pee Wee, waited seventeen weeks for her 1956 Chevrolet truck and worked up a grudge while she waited. She had taken it to him in the autumn. It was a spring day when she found a grimy postcard in her mailbox. It said, “fixed. come get it.” She got a lift out to the trailer with Sven Polidora, a little drunk but on his way home seven miles west of Huson’s trailer.
The truck stood forlorn with one wheel in the ditch. She called Willy’s name but there was no answer. She shrugged and got into the truck. There was a note on the seat. “leave money in mailbox.” She turned on the ignition first—no point in leaving money if it still didn’t run—and two tremendous explosions shook the vehicle. Fire spurted out the back end of the truck. The engine died. She looked in the rearview mirror and saw dozens of small burning objects scattered on Willy Huson’s grass, setting it on fire. She got out. Once she got beyond the idea of a terrorist attack the nuggets of fire looked familiar; one or two that had escaped ignition were plainly dog kibble. She scooped up the smoldering lumps with a tin can lying in the yard. She guessed that during the winter some enterprising mouse had stolen dog food from Igor’s dish and packed it away in the tailpipe of the truck. She put the smoking can in Willy’s mailbox along with a nickel, restarted the truck, and drove back to town trailing a stream of sparks and some coarse language.
Last summer a kind of madness swept through Elk Tooth, a passion for outdoor hot tubs. No one, of course, bought one. All of them were fashioned from scrap metal, old stock tanks, and odds and ends found at Donald’s Rawhide Cowboy Junkyard. The more fastidious built plank boardwalks around the tub perimeters to keep dirt and cactus spines out of the water. In a fuel pinch, sections of the walk could be tossed into the firebox. All the hot tubs were heated by wood-fired stoves.
Willy Huson, who sets his heels not only against the outside world but against Elk Tooth’s social leaders, was a holdout, full of scorn for outdoor bathing. “If I want a soak my ass I’ll drive up to Thermop.”
Thermopolis and its famed hot springs was 240 miles distant from Elk Tooth and clogged with tourists. A willingness to go there, said Deb Sipple, showed how Willy’s mind had been damaged by out-of-state residence.
“Thing is,” said Sipple, “I seen his expression when he was lookin atmy hot tub. He’d give his left nut a have one just like it.”
Near the end of the summer Willy Huson visited his grandmother on the old family ranch near Lingle, where the Husons had run cows since 1872. Foraging through an equipment shed he came across an object that screamed “hot tub.” Better than “hot tub” it screamed “weird and unique hot tub unlike (and better than) any other.” With the help of his uncle Doug and two of Doug’s boys, Pliers and Rammy, he got it into Willy’s truck. He started back to Elk Tooth singing “Wrong-Eyed Jesus” along with Jim White.