CHAPTER 20

The calves continued to come through May and the first part of June. The hair on the back part of the buffalo thinned and slicked to a muscular sheen that would make a gorilla jealous. The mature bulls hung off by themselves, lying on the hillsides like monarchs of the plains. Their manes grew long and black and by July they began pushing one another around, testing, readying themselves for the great breeding competitions to come. The fence was completed but we had not been able to celebrate. There was still the corral to finish. I started going out most evenings—after a day of boring holes and tamping them with Gert—to watch the buffalo. Now that the calves were all on the ground, the herd became tame again and would come running for range cake or just to say hello. Curly Bill was the biggest of the Gashouse Gang but still much smaller than the mature bulls. His deformed horn had grown down at a twisted angle but the good horn was growing thick and strong. He eyed the older bulls as they jostled one another, no doubt feeling a twinge of his own testosterone.

One evening after watching the buffalo graze until they disappeared in the murky pink light of the setting sun, I came into the yard just in time to hear the phone ringing in the house. I hurried up the side path into the house and picked up the phone just before the answering machine kicked in. It was Mary Berger.

“Dan,” Mary said, “we got a problem.” The sound of her voice told me that something was very wrong and I assumed it was Ron’s heart.

“A problem?”

“Well, more of a tragedy.” I was quickly sorting back to the last day I had seen Ron. His complexion had been gray but he had been stronger.

“What is it, Mary?”

“It’s Jess,” she said.

“Jess? Stan and Sharon’s Jess?”

“Yeah, they just found him a couple hours ago. He’s dead.”

I sat down in a chair and exhaled. “What happened, Mary?”

“Well . . .” She didn’t want to tell me. “Well, the poor kid committed suicide. Stan found him.”

“Jesus.”

“Poor Stan. He’s taking it pretty hard.”

That’s the last thing I remember clearly. She went on to ask me if I could go down and sit with Stan and Sharon and I said I would. But what kept ringing in my ears was, “He’s taking it pretty hard.”

After Mary hung up I put the phone back in its cradle but left my hand resting on top. The sun was down now, the house was dark. I felt a hollowness in my chest and knew I could not face Stan alone. Without a conscious thought I picked up the telephone again and called Jill. I blurted out what had happened and told her I didn’t think I’d be much good consoling Stan and Sharon alone.

“When?”

“I don’t know. Tonight, eight o’clock.”

“Two hours. Okay. I’ll be there. You sit down. Have a whiskey. Take a hot bath.”

Twenty minutes later, I sat in as hot a water as I could stand and sipped a tall glass of Crown Royal. I let the alcohol fumes mix with the hot steam coming up from the bath and breathed them deep into my chest. I thought my mind would be racing. But it wasn’t. If I thought of anything, I don’t remember what it was.

Jill is a farm girl, so she knows what it means to “sit up” with a family ravaged by grief. It’s a fifty-minute drive from her house to mine; that gave her just a little over an hour to fix a basket of food that could have fed Erney and me for a month. There was a pie and two casseroles. Fresh green beans sliced and cooked with bacon, fresh fruit, and a green salad. “People always need food,” she said as she whirled into the house.

I was just coming out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around my waist. “You ready?” She looked first at the towel, then at my frightened face. She smiled and shook her head. “Come on. Get dressed. It won’t be that bad.”

By country roads it is eleven miles to Stan and Sharon’s house, but only a mile and a half through the pastures. We crossed through the first buffalo gate and down onto the bottom, where Jess had planted the wheat just a few months before. There were stars but the white headlight cones made them impossible to see. One of my horses stood at the edge of the light like a spectator at a funeral procession. His head turned slowly as we bounced past. Then we were on Stan and Sharon’s ranch and the path led past staring black cows with their calves and into the valley of Whitewood Creek. There the cottonwoods rose up and loomed above the track that wound through the thickets where white-tailed deer scurried to get out of our way.

Stan and Sharon live in a modular home on the site where Sharon’s parents and grandparents had a house. It is a lovely spot at the end of a gravel road with a live creek mumbling behind the buildings. The lights from the house spilled out into the yard and as I pulled the pickup to a stop I could see that the only other vehicles in the driveway belonged to Stan and Sharon. I sat paralyzed in my seat until Jill reached over and laid a sustaining hand on mine. She patted me gently. “Come on,” she said, “they’re alone in there.”

We started up the stairs to the deck that serves as a front porch. Jill took my arm and held it tight. I carried the basket of food in the other arm and let her guide me to the front door. Summer moths bashed themselves against the porch light, and before we got to the door Stan’s massive bulk filled the window and cut off the light coming from inside the house. He pushed the door open and as soon as his red eyes met Jill’s they were in an embrace. He sobbed and the sight and sound of it made me shudder. Jill whispered something into his ear and moved into the house to find Sharon. Stan looked up at me and I held out my hand. He took it but the grip was limp. “Come on in,” he said. He turned ponderously and the slump of his shoulders broke my heart.

Sharon and Jill were holding each other like sisters, but as I approached, they broke apart and together took the basket of food from my arms. The kitchen was already filled with a mountain of dishes and baskets brought by other neighbors but Sharon took the offering with genuine gratitude. She dug into the basket while Jill, moving into Sharon’s kitchen as if it was her own, set about making a pot of coffee. I went to the living room and sat down across from Stan. He was settled on the couch like a crumpled newspaper. In a special cabinet beside him were the spurs of Jesse’s grandfather, and above the couch were pen-and-ink drawings of Stan, Dan, and Jess, all in cowboy hats, all with broad smiles on their faces. I did not know what to say and was saved from trying by the women, who came with apple pie and coffee.

I did not expect that any of us would eat, but the pie was the best I had ever tasted. The coffee was rich, and before we were finished Stan began to talk. He began by describing the image that must have been crystal clear in his mind: his sole surviving boy, hanging from the rafters of the garage. I could picture Jesse’s face, the way the rope must have distorted it. “He could have just stood up,” Stan said. His eyes squeezed tight and the tears forced past the lids and rolled down to his own distorted mouth. The story came out in fits and starts. Jesse had gone off the wagon. He’d gotten picked up for his third DWI. Stan’s voice broke and the sobs burst out as if they had their own lives. But the father’s voice forged on. Jess never hurt anyone. He was a gentle kid, did his job and came home. People liked him. Everyone had a story about his kindness.

Stan needed to talk, and to watch him force himself to continue made me lean forward in my chair. I wanted to touch him and finally reached out and did just that. He looked up at me and spoke with a trembling face. “I talked to him yesterday,” he said. “I knew he was scared.”

“Scared?” I wanted to understand completely.

“The three-strike rule,” Stan sputtered. “He thought they were going to put him in jail.”

I sat back in my chair, stunned that Jess would take such action to avoid losing his freedom. I do not remember what else we talked about that night, but we stayed until late. Finally it was Jill who stood and said that it was time to go. “These people need their sleep,” she said. “They have a lot ahead of them.”

Then Stan said something that frightened me. “We got nothing ahead of us,” he said in a tone of defeat that I had never heard before. I saw Jill’s and Sharon’s eyes meet. Then Jill went to where Stan sat on the couch, leaned over, and hugged him. Sharon walked us to the door.

“If you need anything . . . ,” I said. For some reason I had not cried all night. In the shadows on the deck I stood with a rigid jaw.

Sharon nodded. “We’ll call.” We hugged then and I did my best to encourage her to squeeze tight. Then she turned to Jill. They, too, embraced. But when they let go their eyes lingered and something was communicated that was beyond my ability to understand.

Jill and I took the long way home. I did not have the heart to drive through the darkened pasture and pass the field Jess had planted. As soon as we were out of Stan and Sharon’s driveway the dam that had been holding back my tears disintegrated and I was forced to pull over. Jill hugged me the same way she had hugged Stan. She rocked me and I let the sobs come out in gusts.