a tape to try out,” Lauchlin said. “I was just leaving.”
“How is it, Tena? You like it?” Clement kissed her forehead. “You got a bit of garden on your face,” he said, wiping off the smudge of dirt with his thumb. He opened the refrigerator and plucked out two bottles of beer.
“I’m sure I’ll like it, when I get the chance to listen,” she said, touching her cheek. “You’re done in the woods already, are you?”
“Damn it, no. We broke another blade. Cooper forced a log through it. We were supposed to have a spare in his truck, but there isn’t, of course, he probably sold it, that’d be like him, or never bought it in the first place, and here I am driving all the way home to get one. Lauch, have a beer with me, it’s hot, we need it. Tena, dear, I have to get back soon. Everything all right? You need me to bring you anything? I’ll be home for supper but a little late.”
“I’ll fry you a steak when I hear your truck. Bye, Lauchlin. Thanks for the tape and everything.”
“I can get you others,” he called back to her from the doorway.
“Could you? That would be fine.”
Clement led them across the yard which contained all the activity now, there was nothing of a farm about it. Clement used the old outbuildings for storage, equipment pressed against the dirty, broken windows, odd bits of lumber. Years back, structures that would have been visited daily—the milk house, the wagon shed, the little pigbarn or chicken house—but now they sat isolated, untended, thick weedy grass crowding and rotting their sills. Without animals, without crops, the hay was useless and Clement ignored the fields, laced with scrub trees, with bullthistle and goldenrod, raspberry canes, entwined with vetch and ever more tangles of wild roses.
They stood just inside the shade of the stable door, the humid gloom behind them, warm smells of sawdust and spent oil, rubber, gasoline. “You know,” Clement said, after a long swig of beer, “I want to tell you something. I trust you, Lauch, but it’s just between us. Nobody else, not Tena for sure.”
“For sure,” Lauchlin said. “Nobody.”
“That partner of mine…” He rubbed his face briskly with his hand, a habit that reminded Lauchlin of a schoolboy when the answers wouldn’t come. “I could hammer him good if I wanted, if it comes to that. I’m too damn big for him and he knows it. But there’s something underneath him, eating away. He’s a man of resentments, they go way back, long before me, but I guess I dredge them up some way. I don’t know just what to expect from him anymore.” Clement looked toward the house where Tena could be seen in the window, her blonde head bowed over the sink, framed by blue curtains. “Sometimes I wish I could just wave to her,” he said, almost whispering, “when I see her like that.
“Anyway. I told Cooper this morning he wouldn’t get a cut from this job. He owes me too much. We eat our lunch and he doesn’t talk. That’s the way he is, he don’t talk, he simmers. Then later he flings an axe, not right at me but in my direction, just flung it, and me with my back to him. I mean it just wheels through the air, it’s not like he fired it expertly or anything, but Jesus, a double-bitted axe, could have opened me up like a chicken, and us miles from a hospital. I yanked that axe out of the ground, I couldn’t believe it, the head was a good three inches into the sod. Are you nuts or what? I said to him. It got away from me, he says, staring at me like he hadn’t done nothing. Youever see his eyes? There’s a queer chill to them. And what in Jesus’ name were you doing, I says, practising for the hammer throw? You aiming for the Olympics? He wouldn’t say a word more, went back to work, if you could call it working. I was shaking, believe me, I could hardly talk.”
“You’re right about the eyes,” Lauchlin said.
Clement drained his beer and tossed the bottle behind him into the old hay.
“How is it, Tena? You like it?” Clement kissed her forehead. “You got a bit of garden on your face,” he said, wiping off the smudge of dirt with his thumb. He opened the refrigerator and plucked out two bottles of beer.
“I’m sure I’ll like it, when I get the chance to listen,” she said, touching her cheek. “You’re done in the woods already, are you?”
“Damn it, no. We broke another blade. Cooper forced a log through it. We were supposed to have a spare in his truck, but there isn’t, of course, he probably sold it, that’d be like him, or never bought it in the first place, and here I am driving all the way home to get one. Lauch, have a beer with me, it’s hot, we need it. Tena, dear, I have to get back soon. Everything all right? You need me to bring you anything? I’ll be home for supper but a little late.”
“I’ll fry you a steak when I hear your truck. Bye, Lauchlin. Thanks for the tape and everything.”
“I can get you others,” he called back to her from the doorway.
“Could you? That would be fine.”
Clement led them across the yard which contained all the activity now, there was nothing of a farm about it. Clement used the old outbuildings for storage, equipment pressed against the dirty, broken windows, odd bits of lumber. Years back, structures that would have been visited daily—the milk house, the wagon shed, the little pigbarn or chicken house—but now they sat isolated, untended, thick weedy grass crowding and rotting their sills. Without animals, without crops, the hay was useless and Clement ignored the fields, laced with scrub trees, with bullthistle and goldenrod, raspberry canes, entwined with vetch and ever more tangles of wild roses.
They stood just inside the shade of the stable door, the humid gloom behind them, warm smells of sawdust and spent oil, rubber, gasoline. “You know,” Clement said, after a long swig of beer, “I want to tell you something. I trust you, Lauch, but it’s just between us. Nobody else, not Tena for sure.”
“For sure,” Lauchlin said. “Nobody.”
“That partner of mine…” He rubbed his face briskly with his hand, a habit that reminded Lauchlin of a schoolboy when the answers wouldn’t come. “I could hammer him good if I wanted, if it comes to that. I’m too damn big for him and he knows it. But there’s something underneath him, eating away. He’s a man of resentments, they go way back, long before me, but I guess I dredge them up some way. I don’t know just what to expect from him anymore.” Clement looked toward the house where Tena could be seen in the window, her blonde head bowed over the sink, framed by blue curtains. “Sometimes I wish I could just wave to her,” he said, almost whispering, “when I see her like that.
“Anyway. I told Cooper this morning he wouldn’t get a cut from this job. He owes me too much. We eat our lunch and he doesn’t talk. That’s the way he is, he don’t talk, he simmers. Then later he flings an axe, not right at me but in my direction, just flung it, and me with my back to him. I mean it just wheels through the air, it’s not like he fired it expertly or anything, but Jesus, a double-bitted axe, could have opened me up like a chicken, and us miles from a hospital. I yanked that axe out of the ground, I couldn’t believe it, the head was a good three inches into the sod. Are you nuts or what? I said to him. It got away from me, he says, staring at me like he hadn’t done nothing. Youever see his eyes? There’s a queer chill to them. And what in Jesus’ name were you doing, I says, practising for the hammer throw? You aiming for the Olympics? He wouldn’t say a word more, went back to work, if you could call it working. I was shaking, believe me, I could hardly talk.”
“You’re right about the eyes,” Lauchlin said.
Clement drained his beer and tossed the bottle behind him into the old hay.
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