CHAPTER

13

So he hadn’t found Olivia the night before. He came out of a deep sleep with a headache and his face tight from the punch he’d taken from the cowboy in the Rodeo Tavern. He took the fact that he had been unable to locate the young prostitute as an omen that he should have called off his search. To hell with omens. He would drive to Casper alone.

The day went slowly. He watched a ball game on the television, the signal from Casper just strong enough to offer a blurry, snowy picture. A nap helped a couple of hours pass, though he awoke every few minutes to check the time. At dusk he was ready to leave. He walked out to his car, which was parked beside the house, and heard Sixbury shouting in the barn. He stepped toward the barn lot.

“Get out of here!” shouted the old woman angrily.

Then Patrick came backing out of the barn, his arms crossed in front of his face. Sixbury came out after him, hopping on her good leg, her prosthetic limb in her hands. She was swinging it at the retarded man.

“You filthy beast,” she said.

David knew that she had finally caught Patrick with a ewe. He stood at the fence, not knowing what to do.

The straps of Sixbury’s leg slapped against Patrick’s arms. Then Patrick grabbed the leg and snatched it away. The old woman waved her arms, balancing on her good leg, shouting for her false limb, calling the man a filthy idiot. She fell.

David jumped the fence and ran to her. She had fallen backward into a sitting position. Patrick didn’t look at David. He just ran, the leg under his arm, over the fence and across the north pasture toward the river. David tried to help Sixbury to her foot, but she shook her arms from his grasp.

“Saddle the pony,” she said.

David followed her instructions directly. He ran into the barn and took the little quarter horse’s tack from the wall. He had the horse geared up quickly, dropping the saddle on the animal’s back without a blanket. He led the pony out. Sixbury had scooted over to the barn door and pulled herself up.

“Get me up there,” she said.

David picked her up and put her on the horse. This was the first time he had seen her without her leg. Until now he hadn’t had an idea of how much leg she actually had. It was gone a few inches above where her knee had been. She had trouble balancing herself in the saddle.

“Let’s go,” she said.

David walked beside the horse, helping the old woman stay astride. They went through the gate of the corral and then over the north pasture. Sixbury said nothing, just looked straight ahead.

To their left the sky was a rich pink, the last of the sun sinking behind the Pumpkin Buttes.

“Thirty years,” said Sixbury, as they started down a hill toward the wide spot in the river from which a couple of branches sprouted. “When he was a child it was okay. He was even cute. But now that he’s an adult, well, he’s still a child. His father was so good with him. You’d think that I’d be used to it all by now, but I’m not. Sometimes I hate him. Sometimes, I have no children.”

There was nothing for David to say. He just held onto the horse’s bridle and balanced Sixbury. It had been a frightening, absurd scene; the old woman swinging her limb at the wide-eyed idiot while balanced on a single leg, anger and frustration in her voice and face and, finally, a reaction from the retarded man, a violent snatching of the false leg. David viewed this as only the second time he’d seen Patrick as human, the first being when he had seen him with the ewe in the barn. Both instances were sad, unfortunate, and pitiful. David thought that perhaps Patrick’s only connection with humanity was that he was pitiful. And it was more than retardation; a deficient mind could also be insane. He could see the river some yards ahead, the wide, deep part where the current seemed slower and less alive than at other points. From the west bank, they could see Sixbury’s prosthetic leg floating in the middle.

“Shit,” said Sixbury. Then, after a pause, “Well, what’re you waiting on?”

David knew what she was talking about. He was supposed to go out there and fetch the leg. He kicked off his sneakers and started into the water. He waded till he was chin high. He grabbed the leg and delivered it to Sixbury. He stood there dripping water, the night breeze chilling him. He looked at the river. “You don’t think…” He looked at Sixbury. “Can he swim?”

“No.”

David trotted back into the water. He was diving blind, feeling about.

Sixbury called to him. “Get up here!” As he dragged himself out again, she said, “You can’t find him like that. Hell, he may not even be in there.” She was sitting on the ground now, fastening the last of her straps. She pulled herself up by grabbing the stirrup of the saddle. “Go back to the house and get flashlights. Call the sheriff. And put on some dry clothes.” She looked around.

David put on his sneakers and started walking. He stopped. “You going to be okay here?”

“Yeah, yeah. Go on. Take the horse, for chrissakes.”

David mounted the pony, gave him a kick, and was off in a medium gallop back to the house. There, he called the sheriff and told him of the situation. It would take an hour for a deputy to get there.

In dry trousers, a sweater, and boots, David rode the horse back to where he had left Sixbury. She was sitting on the ground watching the river. She turned to look at him as he pulled the horse to a halt.

“Fall off and stay a while, cowboy,” she said.

“You okay?”

“Help me up.” David helped her stand and she brushed her dress. “What do you think?”

“The deputy’s on his way.”

“So, I guess we should get back and wait for him.” She went to the pony and, without David’s help, climbed astride his back. There was not much of a moon and there were scattered clouds, so it was very dark.

David kept one hand on the saddle, walked alongside her; he could not see. The pony knew the way.

In the house, Sixbury went for the bourbon and suggested that David build a fire. She’d just dropped down into her rocker when the deputy knocked at the door. David let the tall, husky man in.

“Hey there, Sixbury,” he said.

Sixbury raised her glass. “Quinn.”

“I’m Quinn Rutland.”

“David Larson.” He shook the man’s hand.

“So, what’s going on, Sixbury?”

“Patrick’s run off,” she said.

“We think he may have drowned,” David said.

“And why do you think that?”

“Well—er—we found Sixbury’s leg floating in the river, a wide spot.”

The deputy filled his cheeks with air then blew it out. He pulled out a notepad and a pencil. “Let’s take this from the beginning.”

David looked at Sixbury. She rocked and nodded, sipped her whiskey. David rubbed the back of his neck. “I came out of the house and Sixbury and Patrick were having a fight.”

“A fight.”

“Yeah. Sixbury had her leg off and was swinging it at him. Out by the barn.”

Rutland wanted to laugh; this was evident.

David half-smiled nervously. “Then Patrick snatched the leg and ran off across the north pasture.”

“What was the fight about?”

David looked at Sixbury.

“I caught him with a ewe,” said Sixbury.

Rutland just looked at her.

“She caught him fucking a sheep,” David said.

The deputy could not contain himself; he laughed. “I’m sorry, Sixbury,” he said, biting his lip.

David wanted to laugh, too. “Then we tracked him to the river.”

“Both of you?”

“Sixbury was on the horse.”

“With one leg.” He laughed again. “I’m sorry, but this is funny.”

Sixbury knocked her whiskey back and poured another. Rutland tried not to look at her.

“So, you got to the river.”

“Yeah,” said David, “and we found the leg floating out in the middle.”

“And no Patrick?”

“No Patrick.”

“That right, Sixbury?”

Sixbury looked at the deputy and nodded.

“Sixbury says he can’t swim.”

“Well, he could have thrown the leg out there and run off. That’s probably how it happened.”

“It was kinda dark,” said David.

“He’ll probably turn up tomorrow.” Rutland closed his pad and slipped his pencil into his breast pocket. “If he doesn’t turn up, give us a call and we’ll look around for him. You okay, Sixbury?”

Sixbury didn’t answer.

“It was nice meeting you, David.” He shook David’s hand and smiled as if he wanted to laugh again.

“Yeah, same here,” said David.

The deputy said goodbye again and left. David sat on the sofa and put his head back, looked at the ceiling. Sixbury pushed the cork into the bottle and tossed it onto the sofa.