“What?”
“I really shouldn’t be thinking of anything funny now.”
“Because of Quane?”
“Yes.”
“People make jokes at funerals all the time. They don’t mean to, but they can’t help themselves.”
“A mild form of hysteria?”
“Maybe,” I said.
“I always thought of Mr. Quane as such a sad man. He always seemed terribly unhappy.”
“He probably was.”
“Did he have many friends?”
I thought about that for a moment. “No,” I said, “I don’t think so. He had Murfin. Murfin was his friend. And me. I suppose I was his friend. That’s about all. He knew a lot of people, but I think he was a little short on friends.”
“Some people need a lot of friends,” Ruth said.
“Does all this talk about friends have something to do with what you thought was funny?”
“Perhaps,” she said. “I was thinking that it was a little something like a western.”
“A western what?”
“Film.”
“Oh,” I said. “How?”
“When we moved out here four years ago it was because we had our reasons, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“I was thinking that those reasons were very much like those of the gunfighter in a western who stops gunfighting and settles down to something else.”
“Because he’s scared?”
She shook her head. “No, because he’s tired of being a gunfighter or bored with it or even both.”
“God, you’re a romantic.”
“I’m not through, either,” she said. “So he’s tending his pea patch or raising his cattle or doing whatever it is that he’s decided is better than gunfighting when they come to see him.”
“Who?”
“The town folk.”
“Ah.”
“They’re worried.”
“About the crooked sheriff.”
“Who dominates the town by fear and force.”
“And a fast gun.”
“One of the fastest,” she said.
“Maybe even faster than the old, retired gunfighter.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. But the town folk turn to him and beg him to do something about the crooked sheriff.”
“Do they offer him any money?” I said. “That’s not a bad incentive.”
“Perhaps they do, but not much, and it’s not really the reason that he agrees to help them.”
“What’s the real reason?”
“He’s curious about whether he’s still better at what he once did than anyone else.”
“He can get killed finding out.”
“Not in a western,” she said and all the lightness went out of her voice.
There was a pause and then I said, “I think you’re trying to tell me something in that elliptical way that you sometimes use. I think you’re trying to tell me that you’d prefer me to stay home and tend the pea patch.”
“Of course I would,” she said. “But there was also something else.”
“What?”
“I was also trying to tell you that I understand why you won’t.”
I rose and went over to her and put my hand on her shoulder. She reached up and put her hand on mine, but she didn’t look up at me. She stared out over the pond where the ducks seemed to be holding their evening regatta.
“Well, if it’s to be done,” I said as gravely as I could, “I think it should be done quickly.”
“Yes,” Ruth said and gave my hand a squeeze, “but you’d better change your clothes first.”
So I changed my clothes and went out and milked the goats. They seemed fairly glad to see me.
Chapter Eight
The next morning at nine I was back in Georgetown knocking on my sister’s door. She wasn’t naked this time when she opened it. She was wearing white pants, a blue silk blouse, and a scarf on her head. She was also carrying a broom in one hand.
“Jesus,” I said, “you look the way TV commercials think a housewife should look.”
“Fuck off,” she said.
I went in and my niece and nephew bounded into the room with my nephew yelling, “Harvey, Harvey, Mama says we’re gonna go out and see you and Ruth Saturday and you got a new swing and everything.” Maybe it wasn’t a yell, but it was loud.
Before I could reply, Audrey said, “En Français, goddamn it! En Français.”
My nephew, whose name was Nelson, age six, frowned, thought about it, and said, “French is too damned hard.”
My niece, Elizabeth, age five and a vixen, smiled smugly and said in rapid, perfect French, “Good day, uncle, I hope you are well and that Aunt Ruth is well and that the dogs and the cats and the ducks and the goats are also well.” Then she stuck her tongue out at her brother.
I picked Elizabeth up before her brother smacked her one and said in French, “The goats asked only yesterday if you were coming Saturday.”
“Goats can’t talk,” her brother said. But he also said it in French. “Goats can only say baaaaaa.” That was in French, too, perhaps even the baaaaaa.
“Did you ever speak French to a goat?” I asked him, still in French.
He looked at me suspiciously, but finally gave in with a wary, “No.”
“Well, goats speak only perfect French,” I said. “So until you’re perfect, they won’t talk to you.”
He still wasn’t convinced, but when I put his sister down, he took her hand and said in French, “Let’s go outside and play.”
My niece turned to me, smiled silkily, and showed off her perfect accent again. “Farewell, uncle, I will enjoy seeing you and Aunt Ruth and the dogs and the cats and the ducks and the goats on Saturday.”
“You forgot the peacocks,” I said and repeated “peacocks” in English.
That was a new word for her so she pronounced it carefully a couple of times and then said, “And, of course, the peacocks.”
Her brother gave her hand a yank and they raced out of the room toward the rear of the house and the garden.
“You’re right,” I said to Audrey. “They’re six and five.”
She shook her head. “I think I started them on the French too late. I should have started them at two or three instead of four.”
“They’re doing fine,” I said.
She nodded toward the rear of the house. “Let’s go back in the kitchen,” she said. “I’ve got to sweep up the cornflakes. The maid couldn’t make it this morning.”
“Where’s Sally?” I said.
“She’s not here either,” Audrey said.
Back in the kitchen she poured me a cup of coffee which I drank while I sat at the table and watched her sweep up some spilled cornflakes. I thought she was a little out of practice, but I didn’t say anything. When she was done she joined me at the table with a cup of tea.
“Well, you’re certainly doing the elder brother role this week,” she said. “Two days in a row.”
“I was sort of in the neighborhood.”
“You were. Sort of.”
“You’ve decided to come out Saturday then?” I said. “Ruth was tickled when I told her you might.”
“Harvey.”
“What?”
“What the fuck’s on your mind?”
I sighed and took the spoon out of my pocket and put it on the table. Audrey looked at it, picked it up, then stared at me, and said, “Where’d you get this?”
“You recognize it?”
“Christ, yes, I recognize it. It’s Mother’s.”
“You’re sure?”
“Of course, I’m sure. Good God, you must know what it is. It’s what we used on Sunday and Christmas and Thanksgiving and Easter. It’s a spoon from the good silver. Mother’s good silver. It’s even got the L on it. See.”
I had already seen the L for Longmire, but I looked anyway.
“You took the silver, didn’t you, I mean after Mother died?”