amen, oh boy, I knew you’d be back one of these days. And look at you. Just take a look at you. Like you climbed out of a ditch. Look at your hands,” she said. “They’re a mess. I suppose you’re broke.” She was dolled up, her hair long and streaked blond, crimped like Chinese noodles, her eyelids iridescent blue.
Diamond extended his fingers, turned his carefully scrubbed hands palm up, palm down, muscular hands with cut knuckles and small scars, two nails purple-black and lifting off at the base.
“They’re clean. And I’m not broke. Didn’t ask you for money, did I?”
“Oh, eat some salad,” she said. They ate in silence, forks clicking among the pieces of cucumber and tomato. He disliked cucumber. She got up, clattered small plates with gold rims onto the table, brought out a supermarket lemon meringue pie, began to cut it with the silver pie server.
“All right,” said Diamond, “calf-slobber pie.”
Pearl, his ten-year-old brother, let out a bark.
She stopped cutting and fixed him with a stare. “You can talk ugly when you’re with your rodeo bums, but when you are home keep your tongue decent.”
He looked at her, seeing the cold blame. “I’ll pass on that pie.”
“I think all of us will after that unforgettable image. You’ll want a cup of coffee.” She had forbidden it when he lived at home, saying it would stunt his growth. Now it was this powdered stuff in the jar.
“Yeah.” There wasn’t much point in getting into it his first night home but he wanted a cup of real blackjack, wanted to throw the fucking pie at the ceiling.
She went out then, some kind of western junk meeting at the Redsled Inn, sticking him with the dishes. It was as if he’d never left.
He came down late the next morning. Pearl was sitting at the kitchen table reading a comic book. He was wearing the T-shirt Diamond had sent. It read, Give Blood, Ride Bulls. It was too small.
“Momma’s gone to the shop. She said you should eat cereal, not eggs. Eggs have cholesterol. I saw you on t.v. once. I saw you get bucked off.”
Diamond fried two eggs in butter and ate them out of the pan, fried two more. He looked for coffee but there was only the jar of instant dust.
“I’m going to get a buckle like yours when I’m eighteen,” Pearl said. “And I’m not going to get bucked off because I’ll hold on with the grip of death. Like this.” And he made a white-knuckled fist.
“This ain’t a terrific buckle. I hope you get a good one.”
“I’m going to tell Momma you said ‘ain’t.’”
“For Christ sake, that’s how everybody talks. Except for one old booger steer roper. I could curl your hair. And I ain’t foolin. You want an egg?”
“I hate eggs. They aren’t good for you. Ain’t good for you. How does the old booger talk? Does he say ‘calf-slobber pie’?”
“Why do you think she buys eggs if nobody’s supposed to eat them? The old booger’s religious. Lot of prayers and stuff. Always reading pamphlets about Jesus. Actually he’s not old. He’s no older than me. He’s younger than me. He don’t never say ‘ain’t.’ He don’t say ‘shit’ or ‘fuck’ or ‘cunt’ or ‘prick’ or ‘goddamn.’ He says ‘good lord’ when he’s pissed off or gets slammed up the side of his head.”
Pearl laughed immoderately, excited by the forbidden words and low-down grammar spoken in their mother’s kitchen. He expected to see the floor tiles curl and smoke.
“Rodeo’s full of Jesus freaks. And double and triple sets of brothers. All kinds of Texas cousins. There’s some fucking strange guys in it. It’s like a magic show sometimes, all kinds of prayers and jujus and crosses and amulets and superstitions. Anybody does anything good, makes a good ride, it’s not them, it’s their mystical power connection helping them out. Guys from all over, Brazil, Canada, Australia dipping and bending, bowing heads, making signs.” He yawned, began to rub the bad knee, thinking about the sulfur water deep to his chin and blue sky overhead. “So, you’re going to hold on tight and not get bucked off?”
“Yeah. Really tight.”
“I’ll have to remember to try that,” said Diamond.
He called the Bewd ranch to give Leecil a hello but the number had been disconnected. Information gave him a Gillette number. He thought it strange but called throughout the day. There was no answer. He tried again late that night and got Leecil’s yawning croak.
“Hey, how come you’re not out at the ranch? How come the ranch number’s disconnected?” He heard the bad stuff coming before Leecil said anything.
“Aw, I’ll tell you what, that didn’t work out so good. When Dad died they valued the ranch, said we had a pay two million dollars in estate taxes. Two million dollars? That took the rag off the bush. We never had a pot to piss in, where was we supposed a get that kind a money for our own place that wasn’t nothin when Dad took it over? You know what beef is bringin? Fifty-five cents a pound. We went round and round on it. Come down to it we had to sell. Sick about it, hell, I’m red-assed. I’m up here workin in the mines. Tell you, there’s somethin wrong with this country.”
“That’s a dirty ride.”
“Yeah. It is. It’s been a dirty ride sinct I come back. Fuckin government.”
“But you must have got a bunch of money for the place.”
“Give my share to my brothers. They went up B.C. lookin for a ranch. It’s goin a take all the money buy it, stock it. Guess I’m thinkin about goin up there with em. Wyomin’s sure pulled out from under us. Hey, you’re doin good with the bulls. Once in a while I think I might git back in it, but I git over that idea quick.”
“I was doing o.k. until I messed up my knee. So what about your kid, was it a girl or a boy? I never heard. You didn’t pass out cigars.”
“You sure do ast the sore questions. That didn’t turn out too good neither and I don’t want to git into it just now. Done some things I regret. So, anyway, that’s what I been doin, goin a funerals, hospitals, divorce court and real estate closins. You make it up here this weekend, get drunk? My birthday. Goin a be twenty-four and I feel like I got mileage on for fifty.”
“Man, I can’t. My knee’s messed up enough I can’t drive. I’ll call you, I will call you.”
It could be the worst kind of luck to go near Leecil.
On Thursday night, sliding the chicken breasts into the microwave, she prodded Pearl to get the silverware. She whipped the dehydrated potatoes with hot water, put the food on the table and sat down, looked at Diamond.
“I smell sulfur,” she said. “Didn’t you take a shower after the springs?”
“Not this time,” he said.
“You reek.” She shook open her napkin.
“All rodeo cowboys got a little tang to em.”
“Cowboy?
