(1989)
FROM AN UNSETTLED SKY THE FIRST SNOW OF THE SEASON was falling. Amos Fielding was sitting in his office with his hands laced behind his head staring at a framed photograph of his late wife, Sara. It was mid-October and all the leaves had long since fallen and been swept away by the north wind. His office was entirely empty save for a box or two of photographs and placards that had hung so long the walls were stained with the outlines of each. The boxes were stacked near the door where Betsy, his longtime secretary, was crying. Between sobs she said,
Where yeh going again?
Washington, Fielding said.
The capital?
Other direction.
Don’t it rain there all the time?
I don’t know.
It’s a long way for a I don’t know, she said.
Yeah, Fielding said. Long way.
He kept his eyes on the photograph.
Just cause Sara ain’t around don’t mean yeh get to fly off the handle and move halfway round the world. You’re almost seventy for godsake.
Seventy-three.
You’re provin my point.
Bought a small horse ranch, he said. Fully furnished. Got a whole Western motif. Paid in cash. Cheap land out there. Big back deck that looks the Cascade mountains square in the eye.
Goin a have any neighbors out where yeh going?
Nope. Just me and the horses. Suppose I ought to get a dog. Dogs like horses, don’t they?
Betsy shrugged her shoulders.
Well, Fielding said, I’ll get one anyway.
He could see she was hurting.
Don’t take it in vain, Bets, he said.
What’s that supposed to mean? Don’t take it in vain?
I don’t know. Thought it sounded good.
With all the I don’t knows you’re filled with, yeh should be able to cobble something together.
Yeh know John Wayne had a place out there. A place on the . . . the . . . Hell, what do they call it?
He looked at a magazine opened on his desk. Tapped the photo with his finger.
Juan de Fuca, he said.
Juan de what?
If yeh didn’t know better you’d think it was a place filled with senoritas and margaritas.
Yeh don’t know better.
Betsy shifted on her feet.
Yeh don’t even like horses, she said.
Neither did John Wayne.
So that’s it? Betsy said. That’s why you’re going? Cause John Wayne lived out there?
Yeh know the reason.
No I don’t. None of us do. No one in this town does.
I’m goin because every damn little thing reminds me that Sara ain’t here.
And how about that? Betsy said. She nodded at a box of old police records, testimonies and photographs of particularly heinous crimes collected over the decades. She said: Yeh wouldn’t happen to be runnin away from that too?
Maybe, he said.
Maybe?
Yeah maybe. Maybe it’s a way to forget it. To reconcile somethin. Keep it as a reminder of things I never want to see again.
Isn’t there anything we can do to change yer mind?
I reckon not.
Yeh always been bullheaded.
Yeah.
When yeh hittin the road?
Fielding looked at his watch. He compared it to the time on the wall clock. He took his feet off his desk. He tucked the photograph of Sara under his arm.
Right now, he said.
He put on his hat and walked to the door and took up the last two boxes and leaned down to kiss Betsy on the cheek and then walked out of the Allamakee County courthouse for the final time.