She went outside to the car. They followed her and went down the little walk and stood at the wire gate in the freezing wind, waiting for her to back up and come forward in the rutted driveway and drive back out past the house toward the county road. As she passed she waved at them. They lifted their hands and gestured back to her.
When she had gone they didn’t talk to each other but returned to the kitchen and drank down the coffee in their cups and put on their winter caps and gloves and pulled on their overshoes and buckled them, and then went back down the porch steps into the yard to return to work as mutely and numbly as if they had been stunned into a sudden and permanent silence by such a proposal.
But later, when the sun had gone down in the late afternoon, after the sky had turned faint and wispy and the thin blue shadows had reached across the snow, the brothers did talk. They were out in the horse lot, working at the stock tank.
The tank had frozen over with ice. The shaggy saddle horses, already winter-coated, stood with their backs to the wind, watching the two men in the corral, the horses’ tails blowing out, their breath snorted out in white plumes and carried away in tatters by the wind.
Harold chopped at the ice on the stock tank with a wood axe. He flailed at it and finally broke through into the water below, the head of the axe sunken helve-deep out of sight and suddenly heavy, and he pulled it out and chopped again. Then Raymond scooped out the ice chunks with his cob fork and flung the ice away from the tank onto the hard ground behind him where it landed among other frozen blocks and pieces. When the tank was clear they lifted the lid from the galvanized watertight box that floated in the water. Inside the box was the tank heater. When they looked inside they could see that the pilot light had blown out. Harold took off his gloves and withdrew a long firebox match from his inside pocket, popped it on his thumbnail and cupped the little flame and held it down into the box. When the pilot light took he adjusted the flame and drew his arm out, and Raymond wired the lid tight again. Then they checked the propane bottle that was standing out of the way. It looked all right.
So for a while they stood below the windmill in the failing light. The thirsty horses approached and peered at them and sniffed at the water and began to drink, sucking up long draughts of it. Afterward they stood back watching the two brothers, their eyes as large and luminous as perfect round knobs of mahogany glass.
It was almost dark now. Only a thin violet band of light showed in the west on the low horizon.
All right, Harold said. I know what I think. What do you think we do with her?
We take her in, Raymond said. He spoke without hesitation, as though he’d only been waiting for his brother to start so they could have this out and settle it. Maybe she wouldn’t be as much trouble, he said.
I’m not talking about that yet, Harold said. He looked out into the gathering darkness. I’m talking about — why hell, look at us. Old men alone. Decrepit old bachelors out here in the country seventeen miles from the closest town which don’t amount to much of a good goddamn even when you get there. Think of us. Crotchety and ignorant. Lonesome. Independent. Set in all our ways. How you going to change now at this age of life?
I can’t say, Raymond said. But I’m going to. That’s what I know.
And what do you mean? How come she wouldn’t be no trouble?
I never said she wouldn’t be no trouble. I said maybe she wouldn’t be as much trouble.
Why wouldn’t she be as much trouble? As much trouble as what? You ever had a girl living with you before?
You know I ain’t, Raymond said.
Well, I ain’t either. But let me tell you. A girl is different. They want things. They need things on a regular schedule. Why, a girl’s got purposes you and me can’t even imagine. They got ideas in their heads you and me can’t even suppose. And goddamn it, there’s the baby too. What do you know about babies?
Nothing. I don’t even know the first thing about em, Raymond said.
Well then?
But I don’t have to know about any babies yet. Maybe I’ll have time to learn. Now, are you going to go in on this thing with me or not? Cause I’m going to do it anyhow, whatever.
Harold turned toward him. The light was gone in the sky and he couldn’t make out the features of his brother’s face. There was only this dark familiar figure against the failed horizon.
All right, he said. I will. I’ll agree. I shouldn’t, but I will. I’ll make up my mind to it. But I’m going to tell you one thing first.
What is it?
You’re getting goddamn stubborn and hard to live with. That’s all I’ll say. Raymond, you’re my brother. But you’re getting flat unruly and difficult to abide. And I’ll say one thing more.
What?
This ain’t going to be no goddamn Sunday school picnic.
No, it ain’t, Raymond said. But I don’t recall you ever attending Sunday school either.
Ella
When he drove to Chicago Street to her little house after she had called him at school it was late in the afternoon. He parked and walked up the sidewalk past the three elm trees, the one with the sap still showing the dark stain but no longer so raw nor fresh this late in the year, and then when he stepped onto the porch he discovered that she was already waiting for him at the door. She opened it even before he could knock. She let him in and he entered the little front room of the place and saw at once that she had been packing. Her two suitcases were set out on the floor and the room itself was clean and spruce and neat again, as it had been when she’d moved in. Dustfree and anonymous again, it was returned once more to its former state: a little rental house on Chicago Street on the east side of Holt.
When he had a good look at Ella he could see that she too was better now. Not as good as she had looked once, but her hair was pretty again, just washed and brushed back from her face, and she was dressed in wool slacks and a good white blouse. She had lost weight since he’d last seen her, but it didn’t appear that she would lose any more.
He gestured toward the suitcases. Are you going somewhere?
I’m going to tell you about it, she said. That’s why I called you.
So tell me, he said.
She looked at him. Her eyes still bore a kind of wounded fierceness, as though the sadness and the anger were both just below the surface. I hoped you weren’t going to be that way today, she said.
What way?
I didn’t want it to be like this, not this time.
Why don’t you go ahead and tell me what you have in mind, he said. You called school and I came.
Can we at least sit down? she said. Will you do that?
Yes.
She seated herself on the couch and he sat opposite her on one of the wooden chairs. On the couch she looked small, almost frail. He picked out a cigarette from his shirt pocket. Are you going to object if I smoke?
I’d prefer that you didn’t.
He looked at her. He held the cigarette but didn’t light it. Go ahead and talk, he said. I’m listening.
Well, she said, I wanted you to know that I’ve decided to go to Denver to my sister’s. To stay with her for a while. I called her and it’s all set. She has an extra bedroom and I can have the use of that. I won’t be in the way and it’ll give me time to think. We both think it’ll be for the best.
For how long?
I don’t know. I can’t tell that yet. For as long as it takes.
When?
You mean when am I going?
Yes, when do you plan to leave?
Tomorrow. In the morning. I’ll be taking the car.
You’ll be taking the car. That’s news.
You don’t need it. You have the pickup.