Part 1 (2/2)

Frostbite came home that afternoon dragging the saddle, so Hank walked up the ridge and found Dad. Near as Hank could tell after backtracking, Frostbite stepped in a badger hole and rolled over on Dad, who caught a rib through the lungs. Dad knew he was dead soon, so instead of trying to make the ranch, he coughed blood and crawled clear up to a spine with a view of the Tetons he'd always admired. Hank found him leaning on a rock with a bunch of blue penstemon clutched in his left hand and his black beard turned to the sunset.

Son of a b.i.t.c.h cowboy died like a f.u.c.king poet. I could have killed him.

Arnold did the loyal-cowdog-of-the-West thing and bit Hank when he first picked up Dad's body.

I named Frostbite. Dad said animals deserve the same respect as people, and he hated names like Spot and Fury. Our herd was big on thirties movie stars.

On my tenth birthday I sat on the top rail of the corral while Dad led this skewbald colt in from the barn and handed me the reins. The yearling stuck the left side of his face up against mine with his nostril flare right in my ear. He wasn't all that tall, but his back was broad and he had perfect hips for vaulting. I looked in his eyes and I knew. Sometimes you just know these things, like in college when I would meet a boy and know within five minutes I was going to nail him. That's how I knew about Frostbite. We would fall in love and have one of those Disney Old Yeller, La.s.sie-and-Timmy relations.h.i.+ps.

We did, too. Frostbite and I trusted each other like no one trusts a lover. For three summers we spent almost every waking moment together, until the year I got pregnant. We were Intermountain Vaulting Champions for my age group in 1962. Champions. Me and Frostbite. He ran full blast across the arena at the Denver Coliseum and I did handstands, sidekicks, somi swings. We had a backflip dismount that knocked the collective socks off the crowd.

It's weird when your true love and loyalty horse rolls over on your father and kills him.

Paul Harvey was talking sincerely about Watergate. The Senate did this, Nixon did that, Sam somebody was outraged. I couldn't tell what side Paul Harvey was on, but whichever it was, he really meant it. I poured another cup of Claude. I named this bottle of Yukon Jack Claude after a boy at college who followed me around like a pet beagle my whole freshman year. He was sweet, with horn-rimmed gla.s.ses, two-tone sweaters, and a calculator case holster on his belt, and I could have brought him untold joy if I'd let him sleep with me. I should have. He deserved untold joy if only for his persistence, and I'd have hardly been compromised at all. Lord knows I got nailed by enough boys who didn't like me in college; it wouldn't have hurt to get nailed by one who did.

Paul Harvey had discovered a man in Missouri with a twenty-two-pound cantaloupe. If you only heard the sound of the words but not what they meant, you'd think cantaloupes and Watergate and Kerr canning jars were all equally fascinating.

As Paul Harvey came to the daily b.u.mper snicker, my phone rang.

”You broke her heart again.”

”Hi, Petey, how's Mom?”

”She's an obsessive compulsive with a thankless daughter.”

Here is that day's b.u.mper snicker: ”Love your kids at home and belt them in the car.”

Since I wasn't talking, Petey went on. ”Yesterday was Mother's Day.”

”I'm a mother.”

”We spent all day in the parlor next to the phone. I'd planned to take her to luncheon at Signal Mountain Lodge, but she was afraid you'd call while we were out. We had her hair done nice, too.”

”Petey, are you saying you wasted a whole Sunday sitting with Mom?”

”I knew you wouldn't call. Too busy mooning over Dad who's eight months dead to call your live mom on Mother's Day.”

Got me with that one. ”n.o.body wished me a happy Mother's Day. You don't see me whining in the parlor.” Which was sort of a lie. Shannon sent a Mother's Day card made out of construction paper with models cut from a catalog glued to represent a family-me, Sam Callahan, Lydia, and her. Lydia, Sam's mom, who more or less raised Shannon the first five years, held a cigarette, and I was in a bra and slip. Playtex Cross Your Heart. I bet anything Sam made her do it. Probably even picked out the models to cut, because the one was me had dark hair and big b.o.o.bs. Last time Sam Callahan saw me was at Dad's funeral when I was nursing Auburn. He laughed at my b.r.e.a.s.t.s-not the comfort called for from a best friend.

”n.o.body wished you happy Mother's Day because you're such a bad mother,” Petey said. ”You lost the first one and you'll lose this one too. Or he'll grow up like Dothan. I'd drown a baby before I risked that.”

”Petey, do you like boys?”

He hung up.

Before Paul Harvey got through the list of those turning one hundred years young today, Petey called back. I poured more of Claude's soul and answered the fifth ring. He said, ”Take that back.”

”I didn't accuse you of anything, I just asked. Dot says she's never seen you with a girl, so I wondered if you like boys.”

”No, I don't like boys.”

”But you don't like girls either.”

”Girls smell bad; they make me sick.”

”That leaves Mom.”

He hung up on me again, although I deserved it. No one likes being accused of having the hots for a parent. Especially my mom.

I went back to the window and looked at myself in it and tried to picture Petey and Mom kissing. It wouldn't come. I'm usually good at picturing really disgusting s.e.x acts. I can just see Dothan with all those Kiwanis wives, especially Sugar Cannelioski. He'd be on top; Dothan can't deal with any other position. He'd stick his pointy Talbot chin in her right shoulder and grind. That's the only way he knows how to do it. I'm in the grocery store and I see a Kiwanis wife rubbing her right shoulder, I figure Dothan's been grinding again.

He has a little brother, Pud, that everyone says does it with animals. I like to picture that. Pud's kind of cute in a r.e.t.a.r.ded sort of way. I picture him behind a calf with the back hooves tied to his boots and his arms around her belly. He has this look on his face like Tony Randall eating a bad lemon.

The calf looks as if she's had better.

Sometimes at sporting events I like to picture men in bed with each other. The one I have the hardest time picturing in bed lately is me. After a semi-loose three years of college, then a real short rabbit period when I first married Dothan, I lost enthusiasm for s.e.x as a personal experience. Since Auburn was born I'd only woken up with pain in my right shoulder twice, and at least one of those I think Dothan sleep-f.u.c.ked.

Yukon Jack was my kind of companion. Jack never lets you down, never comes and goes to sleep just as I'm getting started. He's monogamous and predictable. A certain amount of Jack causes a certain amount of warmth. He's always there and he never calls me c.u.n.t.

The AA guys carried the harmonica player back up the steps. He grinned and nodded just like he didn't care he was a crippled old alcoholic who had to go to meetings in the Mormon church. The men stood around with their hands in their back pockets and talked, but the women adjusted foundation garments and drove away. AA over meant I'd lost some time and was late picking up Auburn.

Consistent as Tupperware, the phone went off again.

”I am gravely ill.”

”I'm sorry I'm late, Mrs. Talbot. The Bronco wouldn't start, but I gave it a rest and it might now. How's Auburn?”

”Whenever I am late to the Great Books Club I get nervous, and when I get nervous I become ill. You know I become ill, Maurey. Why would you purposefully try to make me become ill?”

Always lie to in-laws. ”The Bronco flooded, Mrs. Talbot. I'll be there in ten minutes.”

”It's my day to deliver Lord Byron's eulogy, which I wrote myself.”

”I'd love to read the eulogy if you have a copy.”

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