Eventide (Plainsong #2)(3)

You make sure to call us, Raymond said.

I’ll call every week.

That’ll be good, Harold said. We’ll want to hear your news.

Then they drove home in the pickup. Heading east away from the mountains and the city, out onto the silent high plains spread out flat and dark under the bright myriad indifferent stars. It was late when they pulled into the drive and stopped in front of the house. They had scarcely spoken in two hours. The yardlight on the pole beside the garage had come on in their absence, casting dark purple shadows past the garage and the outbuildings and past the three stunted elm trees standing inside the hogfencing that surrounded the gray clapboard house.

In the kitchen Raymond poured milk into a pan on the stove and heated it and got down a box of crackers from the cupboard. They sat at the table under the overhead light and drank down the warm milk without a word. It was silent in the house. There was not even the sound of wind outside for them to hear.

I guess I might just as well go up to bed, Harold said. I’m not doing any good down here. He walked out of the kitchen and entered the bathroom and then came back. I guess you’ve decided to sit out here all night.

I’ll be up after a while, Raymond said.

Well, Harold said. All right then. He looked around. At the kitchen walls and the old enameled stove and through the door into the dining room where the yardlight fell in through the curtainless windows onto the walnut table. It feels empty already, don’t it.

Empty as hell, Raymond said.

I wonder what she’s doing now. I wonder if she’s all right.

I hope she’s sleeping. I hope her and that little girl are both sleeping. That’d be the best thing.

Yes, it would. Harold bent and peered out the kitchen window into the darkness north of the house, then stood erect. Well, I’m going up, he said. I can’t think what else I’m suppose to do.

I’ll be up shortly. I want to sit here a while.

Don’t fall asleep down here. You’ll be sorry for it tomorrow.

I know. I won’t. Go ahead on. I won’t be long.

Harold started out of the room but stopped at the door and turned back once more. You reckon it’s warm enough in that apartment of hers? I been trying to think. I can’t recollect a thing about the temperature in them rooms she rented.

It seemed like it was warm enough to me. When we was in there it did. If it wasn’t I guess we’d of noticed it.

You think it was too warm?

I don’t guess so. I reckon we’d of noticed that too. If it was.

I’m going to bed. It’s just goddamn quiet around here is all I got to say.

I’ll be up after a bit, Raymond said.





2


THE BUS CAME FOR THEM ON THE EAST SIDE OF HOLT AT seven-thirty in the morning. The driver waited, was turned sideways in the seat staring at the front of the trailer house. She honked the horn. She honked a second time, then the door opened and a young girl in a blue dress stepped out into the untended yard of cheatgrass and redroot, walking toward the bus with her head down, and climbed the metal steps and moved to the middle where there were empty seats. The other students watched her pass in the narrow aisle until she sat down, then started talking again. Now her mother came out of the trailer holding her younger brother by the hand. He was a small boy dressed in blue jeans and a shirt that was too big for him buttoned up to his chin.

After he had climbed aboard the bus the driver said: I shouldn’t have to wait for these kids like this. There’s a schedule I got to follow, if you didn’t know.

The mother looked away, peering through the row of windows until she saw the boy was seated beside his sister.

I’m not going to tell you again about this, the driver said. I’ve had it with you people. There’s eighteen kids I got to pick up. She swung the door closed and released the brake and the bus jerked down Detroit Street.

The woman stared after her until the bus turned the corner onto Seventh and then looked all around as if someone along the street might come to her aid and tell her what to say in reply. But there was no one else outside at this time of morning and she went back to the trailer.

Old and dilapidated, it had once been bright turquoise but the color had faded to a dirty yellow in the hot sun and the blasting wind. Inside, clothes were piled in the corners and a trash bag of empty pop cans was leaning against the refrigerator. Her husband sat at the kitchen table drinking Pepsi from a large glass filled with ice. Before him on a plate were the leftovers of frozen waffles and fried eggs. He was a big heavy black-haired man in outsized sweatpants. His enormous stomach was exposed below his maroon tee-shirt and his huge arms dangled over the back of his chair. He was sitting back resting after breakfast. When his wife came inside he said: What’d she do? You got that look on your face.

Well, she makes me mad. She isn’t suppose to do that.

What’d she say?

She said she got eighteen kids to pick up. She said she don’t have to wait for Richie and Joy Rae like that.

I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, I’m calling the principal. She isn’t allowed to say nothing to us.

She isn’t allowed to say nothing to me never, the woman said. I’m telling Rose Tyler on her.



IN THE WARM MID-MORNING THEY LEFT THE TRAILER AND walked downtown. They crossed Boston Street and followed the sidewalk to the back of the old square redbrick courthouse and entered a door with black lettering spread across the window: HOLT COUNTY SOCIAL SERVICES.