Duane's Depressed by Larry McMurtry Page B

played cards, using the notepad to keep score, if they were playing a card game that involved a score. Such visits had only occurred a few times. Duane soon discovered that what he came to the cabin for was solitude.
    But it was good that he had the notepad, and two or three ballpoint pens. Now that he intended to walk to town when he needed something, and would only have a small backpack to carry his supplies in, it behooved him to make careful lists before he went shopping. His first list only consisted of four items: matches, bacon, chili, and a file. He stood for a long time, looking out at the scudding clouds, trying to think of something else hemight need on his trip in. Finally he added one more item to the list: twenty-two shells. He debated in his mind whether to bring a short shotgun back with him. Quail, duck, and wild turkey were all still in season—and the wild pigs were always in season. With a shotgun he could provide himself with a variety of succulent fowl, at least until bird season closed.
    But in the end he decided against the shotgun. He wasn’t a back-to-nature crank, after all. He didn’t have to kill everything he ate—canned goods would suit him fine, for the most part. If he developed a sudden hunger for game he would just have to sneak up close enough to something to kill it with the twenty-two.
    The clouds lay so low above his hill now that he could no longer see the buildings of Thalia, or, indeed, much of anything. It would be dark in a few hours. Between his relaxing and his wood chopping he had used up much of the day. If he intended to walk to town to pick up the file and a few groceries he had better get started. He couldn’t tell what the clouds intended. If it started to sleet or snow everyone at home would freak out all the more when he told them he was going to walk back to the cabin and spend the night.
    Then, watching the two hawks scout the valley, he sat down in his lawn chair again and covered himself—to the chin this time—with the thick poncho. It was a little too cold to be sitting out on a hill in a lawn chair; the heat that he had generated with all his wood chopping had begun to leave him: better to go inside and build a fire with some of the wood he had chopped. Shorty, by dint of frantic effort, had managed to scramble up on the boulder where the old ground squirrel had sat when it scolded him—but the old ground squirrel, at the moment, was snug in its burrow. Shorty stood triumphantly on top of the boulder, yipping at nothing. Then a jackrabbit appeared, well west on the hill, and Shorty was off in hot pursuit.
    After a time Duane went inside and built a good fire in the little fireplace. There wasn’t going to be a sunset to watch that evening—just a slow fade from dim to dark. The moment for hiking into Thalia had passed. There was nothing he needed that he couldn’t do without until the next day. He still had the soup, the can of English peas, some crackers, and plenty of coffee. The axewas thoroughly dulled, but then he didn’t need to chop any more firewood for a while. He had an abundance, stacked right by his door. If part of what he was attempting to do was free himself from habit, then making a habit of walking to town every single day was no way to start.
    After a time Shorty came back, rabbitless, and Duane let him in and brought the lawn chair in too. He realized well enough that there were still a few impediments to his enjoyment of the simple life—a few barriers that still had to be removed, the main one being his family. When he left that morning to walk to his cabin it hadn’t dawned on him that what he really wanted to do was live in the cabin permanently. He just told Karla he was going for a walk. He didn’t tell her he was leaving her because he hadn’t realized it himself until he had sat in the lawn chair for a few hours and thought about things. She may have had her apprehensions but she didn’t really know what was going on with