Firebird (The Flint Hills Novels) (17 page)

"You're a pretty amazing man."

"I'm just a cowboy."

"Sure."

"I think the phone lines are still working. You want the phone connected?" he asked.

"Not necessary. I have a cell phone now. I bought one for Eliana too."

"Can I have the number?"

"If you'd like it."

"You wouldn't mind if I called?"

"I was hoping you would."

For a long while they sat without speaking. They stared silently at their intertwined hands, heads lowered, their faces close.

"I love you," he said softly.

She grew very still. He couldn't see her face.

"Annette?"

He lifted her chin.

"Look at me."

A smile trembled on her lips.

"You can't do that," she whispered.

"Can't do what?"

"You can't love me. I can't love you."

"It's too late."

* * *

After that day Ethan rode out to see her several times a week, and in those bleak, bare surroundings they looked upon each other with new eyes. There were only the one table and two hard wooden chairs. And her violin stand with her music. She said she liked the acoustics of an empty room. So when they were together they sat in straight-backed chairs and talked about reviews of films they wished they could see, about articles Ethan had read in
The
New Yorker,
about Annette's father and Ethan's mother, about medieval mystics, and
The Ascent of Man.
And when Ethan could bear it no longer, he would lean across the table and kiss her, or stand and take her in a long, tender embrace. And then he would leave.

Ethan didn't know how to patch up his feelings so that they fit into his life, and he knew it was wrong, but he told himself she was leaving, and then he'd get married, and life would just go on as planned. Neither of them planned on heartbreak.

He continued to attend mass, and as he kneeled beside Annette every Sunday, he thought it sadly ironic that this woman, whom he should not be loving, was bringing him closer to the God he had abandoned. At times he thought that if Annette had been with him at the time of his father's death, if he had been able to turn to her instead of Katie Anne, he would have something to hold on to now, rather than this vague, shifting guilt that fogged his conscience whenever he thought of the old man.

Both of them carried on as if nothing had changed between them. Responses to Annette's comeback were overwhelming, far beyond her modest hopes. Her winter schedule was already shaping up with guest performances in Lyons, The Hague, Heidelberg, and Munich, and her agent was pushing her to start as early as October.

Ethan began to focus on the details of his house. Evenings he and Katie Anne would sit down at the kitchen table with catalogs and samples to discuss countertops and cabinet finishes, carpets and color schemes. They rarely disagreed, and for the first time in their relationship she began to feel like he was making her a partner in a future life. Admitting her to his sacred place, his house. At the same time, his lovemaking became more urgent, more passionate, and afterward he was more reflective. Sometimes in the night he'd get up, and she'd find him in the living room reading poetry. She'd go to him and drape her arms around his neck, and he was always loving and affectionate to her, but she sensed a sadness that hadn't been there before. She knew better than to badger him, but she couldn't help but think something had changed, and her instincts told her that Annette Zeldin had something to do with it.

Chapter 18

Ethan got a cold blast of reality one evening while playing pool with Jer at the Beto Junction Truck Stop. It was late at night and the empty beer bottles stood in a row on the windowsill behind their table. Ethan was doing most of the drinking. Jer had wanted to quit much earlier, but Ethan had begged him to stay, so Jer kept his buddy company. Besides, Jer had a few things to say. Things that had been weighing on him. This was as good a time as any to bring them up.

Jer chalked his stick and leaned over the table.

"Six ball in the side pocket," he said. He made the shot and walked around to the other side of the table. "You're gonna get yourself in deep, deep shit if you let this thing go on."

"What can I do, pal? You're on a roll," Ethan said.

"That's not what I mean."

Jer hovered over the seven ball, calculating his next move.

"What're you talkin' about?"

"You know what I'm talkin' about. Don't play dumb ass on me." Jer bent down to eyeball his next shot. "Unless you're so shitfaced drunk right now you really don't know."

The balls cracked and the seven ball dropped into the corner pocket.

"Are you fuckin' her?" Jer asked.

Ethan laid his cue across the table and bent down to look Jer in the eye.

"Don't even use that word in the same breath with her."

Jer peeled Ethan's stick off the table. "Yeah, I don't much like the sound of it, either." He sighted down his cue. "But I guess I got my answer."

Ethan tore Jer's cue out of his hands and slammed it down.

"You've got nothin'. Don't mess with me, Jer."

His friend glared back at him. "You can't make enemies around here," he said. "You make enemies with Tom Mackey and you're dead meat. You're a canner. You won't have a friend in all of Chase County. And you can't survive out here without friends."

Jer put up his stick and took his coat and hat from the rack. As he buttoned his coat he said, "Katie Anne's been askin' questions. She ain't as blind as you think."

After Jer left, Ethan sat at the counter drinking coffee with the truckers. But the coffee was only to warm him and give him something to play with. He didn't really need it. Jer's comment about Katie Anne had triggered something in his brain, releasing a flood of adrenaline and darn near drowning him in sobriety.

When he got home Katie Anne was asleep, but there was a note on the kitchen table:
Daddy called. Just wanted to make sure you hadn't forgotten about tomorrow. He'll pick you up at seven.

Ethan liked working cattle with Tom Mackey. He liked the man, envied him his down-to-earth simplicity. If ever any esoteric or abstract thoughts entered his mind, Tom wrestled them to the ground. He dealt in numbers, in deeds, in blood and dander, hide and meat. He set his mind to the objective necessities of livestock, the branding and vaccinating and castrating, the feeding and moving. When Ethan was riding the range with Tom Mackey he was able to laugh at that other side of himself that sat up in his office late at night reading Rilke and Yeats. He stole a glance at the man now and wondered what reveries ever passed through his mind, and what he'd done with them.

"There he is," said Tom Mackey, pointing to a big black Angus bull staring at them.

"You're not figurin' on sellin' him, are you?" asked Ethan.

"Hell no. Old Paco's the best breeding bull I've ever had."

The two men slowly eased their horses through the herd, scattering the cows.

"I'm gonna give him away."

Ethan felt his horse shudder.

"Give him away?"

"Well, I figure now you've got your fencin' finished on Emma Ferguson's property I could go ahead and give you your wedding present. I want you and Katie Anne to come out here tomorrow and cut fifteen cows outta this herd and put 'em to pasture with Old Paco on your place."

Tom reached over and slapped Ethan firmly on the back.

"Welcome to Chase County," he said.

* * *

Katie Anne said she wasn't feeling well the next morning, so Ethan cut the cows with Tom and one of the Mackey cowhands. They drove the small herd back over Jacob's Mound and at the top of the hill Ethan thought he could hear the faint strains of a violin in the distance. But he kept his eyes fastened to the cow rumps and would not look toward the east. His heart pounded in his chest like the horses' hooves pounded the dry winter ground, and he laughed a strangled, miserable laugh when he thought of Ulysses lashing himself to the mast. Tom Mackey heard him laugh and looked at Ethan and grinned. Ethan was drowning in guilt.

He spent the rest of the day on his property. The house was nearing completion, thanks to the unseasonably warm and dry winter, and Ethan poked around the construction site, inspecting tiles and moldings and insulation and anything else that could possibly need his attention. By the time he got home, Katie Anne had already gone down to the main ranch, where they were to dine with her parents.

Tom Mackey was unusually voluble that evening. He had just taken delivery on a new Cessna, and when Ethan arrived he opened a bottle of champagne he'd chilled just for the occasion. Ethan didn't particularly care for champagne but he drank to keep Tom company and to muddle his brain. Katie Anne looked especially pretty. She had gone into Strong City that afternoon to have her hair cut and her nails done, and she threw shy, seductive smiles at him when her parents weren't looking. It reminded Ethan of the evenings they had spent together when they first met.

During dinner Ethan drank too much champagne and Katie Anne drank nothing at all. He got the impression she was watching him, and the more he drank, the more uncomfortable he became. He listened to Tom talk about his basic training as a pilot during World War II out at Luke Field in Arizona. How the guys used to fly their little propeller-driven Steerman planes out over the desert in 125-degree weather. How they would buzz the saguaro cacti, flying so low they'd make the tall gangly things sway. Tom Mackey was his savior. His father. Tom wouldn't abandon him.

He glanced over at Katie Anne. She hadn't eaten much. She was scratching at something on the tablecloth with a pale frosted pink nail. He looked away, back at Tom, because he was acutely aware of the muddle he felt as he looked at her. Damn. What would he do without Tom?

After dinner Ethan glued himself to the old man. They went into Tom's office to look over the prospectus on the new Cessna and Katie Anne stood in the doorway, watching them. After a moment she walked over to where her father sat and wrapped her arms around his neck.

"Guys, I'm tired. I'm gonna take my Jeep and go on home." She glanced at Ethan. "You mind, honey?"

He looked up at her and found himself trapped in a gaze of startling transparency. Like she could read his mind. He looked quickly away.

"I'll take you home," he muttered, and started to rise.

"No," she answered quickly. "Stay with Dad." She kissed her father's cheek. "You guys look like you're havin' fun."

Tom Mackey patted his daughter's hand. "You feelin' okay?"

"I'm fine. Just tired, that's all."

"You sure are lookin' pretty tonight."

"Thanks, Daddy," she whispered.

* * *

After she left, Ethan had a hard time focusing on his conversation with Tom. Betty Sue made him down several cups of hot coffee before she let him drive home.

When Ethan walked up the front steps to the guest ranch the lights were off, but he saw a ghostly flicker from the television set in the bedroom and he knew she was still awake. He was just hoping to get through another night. One night at a time. He'd get through this.

He undressed and got into bed next to her.

"You want me to turn this off?" she asked.

"What is it?"

"I don't know. Some old movie."

"Who's in it?"

She shrugged. "I don't know."

The remote control was lying on her stomach. For a long time he watched it rise and fall with her breathing.

He wanted to take her hand; he wanted to say,
I can't do it. I can't go through with it.

Instead he said, "I'm sorry about this evening. I had a little too much to drink."

After a long pause she asked, "Do you want to watch this?"

"No."

She picked up the remote control and turned off the television. Then, without a word, she pulled the blankets up around her neck and rolled over with her back to him.

Ethan lay staring at the dark ceiling for a long time, then he turned his back to her and tried to sleep