She’s gone to San Antonio, the boy said.
Dont call her she.
Mama.
I know it.
They drank their coffee.
What do you aim to do?
About what?
About anything.
She can go where she wants to.
The boy watched him. You aint got no business smokin them things, he said.
His father pursed his lips and drummed his fingers on the table and looked up. When I come around askin you what I’m supposed to do you’ll know you’re big enough to tell me, he said.
Yessir.
You need any money?
No.
He watched the boy. You’ll be all right, he said.
The waitress brought their dinner, thick china lunchplates with steak and gravy and potatoes and beans.
I’ll get your all’s bread.
His father tucked his napkin into his shirt.
It aint me I was worried about, the boy said. Can I say that?
His father took up his knife and cut into the steak. Yeah, he said. You can say that.
The waitress brought the basket of rolls and set it on the table and went away. They ate. His father didn’t eat much. After a while he pushed the plate back with his thumb and reached and got another cigarette and tapped it against the lighter and put it in his mouth and lit it.
You can say whatever’s on your mind. Hell. You can bitch at me about smokin if you want.
The boy didnt answer.
You know it aint what I wanted dont you?
Yeah. I know that.
You lookin after Rosco good?
He aint been rode.
Why dont we go Saturday.
All right.
You dont have to if you got somethin else to do.
I aint got nothin else to do.
His father smoked, he watched him.
You dont have to if you dont want to, he said.
I want to.
Can you and Arturo load and pick me up in town?
Yeah.
What time?
What time’ll you be up?
I’ll get up.
We’ll be there at eight.
I’ll be up.
The boy nodded. He ate. His father looked around. I wonder who you need to see in this place to get some coffee, he said.
HE AND RAWLINS had unsaddled the horses and turned them out in the dark and they were lying on the saddleblankets and using the saddles for pillows. The night was cold and clear and the sparks rising from the fire raced hot and red among the stars. They could hear the trucks out on the highway and they could see the lights of the town reflected off the desert fifteen miles to the north.
What do you aim to do? Rawlins said.
I dont know. Nothin.
I dont know what you expect. Him two years oldern you. Got his own car and everthing.
There aint nothin to him. Never was.
What did she say?
She didnt say nothin. What would she say? There aint nothin to say.
Well I dont know what you expect.
I dont expect nothin.
Are you goin on Saturday?
No.
Rawlins took a cigarette out of his shirtpocket and sat up and took a coal from the fire and lit the cigarette. He sat smoking. I wouldnt let her get the best of me, he said.
He tipped the ash from the end of the cigarette against the heel of his boot.
She aint worth it. None of em are.
He didnt answer for a while. Then he said: Yes they are.
When he got back he rubbed down the horse and put him up and walked up to the house to the kitchen. Luisa had gone to bed and the house was quiet. He put his hand on the coffeepot to test it and he took down a cup and poured it and walked out and up the hallway.
He entered his grandfather’s office and went to the desk and turned on the lamp and sat down in the old oak swivelchair. On the desk was a small brass calendar mounted on swivels that changed dates when you tipped it over in its stand. It still said September 13th. An ashtray. A glass paperweight. A blotter that said Palmer Feed and Supply. His mother’s highschool graduation picture in a small silver frame.
The room smelled of old cigarsmoke. He leaned and turned off the little brass lamp and sat in the dark. Through the front window he could see the starlit prairie falling away to the north. The black crosses of the old telegraph poles yoked across the constellations passing east to west. His grandfather said the Comanche would cut the wires and splice them back with horsehair. He leaned back and crossed his boots on the desktop. Dry lightning to the north, forty miles distant. The clock struck eleven in the front room across the hall.
She came down the stairs and stood in the office doorway and turned on the wall switch light. She was in her robe and she stood with her arms cradled against her, her elbows in her palms. He looked at her and looked out the window again.
What are you doing? she said.
Settin.
She stood there in her robe for a long time. Then she turned and went back down the hall and up the stairs again. When he heard her door close he got up and turned off the light.
There were a few last warm days yet and in the afternoon sometimes he and his father would sit in the hotel room in the white wicker furniture with the window open and the thin crocheted curtains blowing into the room and they’d drink coffee and his father would pour a little whiskey in his own cup and sit sipping it and smoking and looking down at the street. There were oilfield scouts’ cars parked along the street that looked like they’d been in a warzone.