Juliet in August (33 page)

Fire in the Hole

With the day's last light on the horizon and a can of no-name cola in his hand, Hank stands next to the buffalo stone—
his
buffalo stone, he thinks—and stares at the beer box of empties and the container of insect repellent that someone had left behind. The same damned someone who left the gate open. Maybe even the same someone who covered the rock, once again, with graffiti and made him susceptible, once again, to the presence of the historical society and an art restorer in his pasture. Luckily, at this time of the evening, his calves are by the slough to the west. It had been the last straw, though, the gate again, and then the beer box and his discovery of the new graffiti, the outlines of hands in pink and green and yellow as though his pasture were a public park. Hank had loaded into his truck box what he figured he needed to solve the problem once and for all, but now he scratches his head and stares at the stone and doesn't know what to do next. What seemed like a good idea a couple of hours ago is starting to look like less of a good idea, due to his lack of expertise about what could be a hazardous venture. He can think of only one person who knows anything about blasting, and that's old TNT Norman. He lives with his daughter now, Karla, and Hank figures he can't be calling her house at this hour, at least not without knowing that she stays up past ten.

He decides there's no harm in driving by the house to see if there's a light on since he can't very well just guess at this, and when he gets there the older daughter—Lou, the one who is so hard to get along with—is sitting out front in her car reading a magazine under the dome light with old man Norman in the backseat. Hank parks his truck behind the car and he can see Lou looking in the rearview mirror to see who's pulling up behind her. Hank steps out of the truck and walks over to her open window.

“Howdy,” he says. “Nice night. Hey there, Wally. How're you doing?”

“Nice night for sitting out here wasting time, waiting on that inconsiderate sister of mine,” says Lou. “I missed a perfectly good candle party because of her. She's selfish, that's what she is.”

Hank wonders why they're waiting in the car, but he doesn't ask. “Funny thing,” he says, “but I need some advice. Mind if I climb in the backseat and ask your dad a few questions?”

“Go ahead,” says Lou. “As you can see, we're not going anywhere.”

Hank opens the back door and gets in. He's still carrying his can of cola, which he drains, and then he isn't sure what to do with the can. If he were in his own vehicle he'd drop it on the floor. Old TNT is slumped against the far door, the ravages of the stroke showing in his flaccid face and the way his body looks loose, like he has no bones. Why Lou hasn't taken him in the house is beyond him, but then Lou has a reputation for being ornery. She had a husband once and it was no surprise to anyone when he took off with another woman.

“So, Wally,” Hank says. “I seem to recall that you did a little blasting back in your pipeline days.”

TNT Norman perks up considerably when he hears the word
blasting,
and shifts his weight awkwardly so that he's leaning toward Hank instead of against the car door.

“I was wondering if you can give me a few instructions on how to blast that old buffalo stone out of my pasture,” Hank says. “Damned tired of the kids leaving the gate open and letting my cows out.”

“Yup, yup,” Walter Norman says, and Hank wonders if maybe his mind is too far gone for him to remember what Hank needs to know.

But then the old man asks what Hank has for blasting powder. Hank can't understand him at first, his voice is so quiet, and he leans closer and asks Walter to repeat what he said. This time Hank understands and he tells him dynamite. He's had it out in his shed for a while—thought he might need it for the new well, but then he didn't after all and it's been sitting around in the shed; probably should have found a safer place but no harm done. Hank lists what else he has in the truck, and Walter says quietly, “Good, good, good, that ought to do 'er.”

Then Lou puts down her magazine and turns around and says, “I have a dandy idea.”

And that's how Hank ends up heading back toward the pasture in the darkness with old man Norman in his truck, his wheelchair in the box with the blasting supplies. Lou's instructions are to take him home to Karla when they're done, and if Karla isn't home, to deliver him to Lou's house. She'd asked the old man if he needed to go to the bathroom and he'd said no, and Hank hoped that he knew what he was saying.

When they get back to the pasture, Hank opens the gate and drives the truck up to the stone and then he gets the old man out and into his wheelchair. The mosquitoes are bad, so Hank sprays himself and Walter with the can of repellent that's sitting on the stone's flat surface. The old man's eyes light up when he sees the box of beer on the stone, but Hank disappoints him by telling him it's full of empties.

“Anyway,” Hank says, “we're both as dried out as Methuselah these days, and that's likely a good thing, eh?”

The old man still looks disappointed.

With Walter Norman giving instructions, Hank grips the auger's handle and begins to twist it into the ground, leaning on it with his weight. Three blasting holes, the old man advises, six feet deep if Hank can manage that. His auger won't go down that far, but Hank figures he can go four and a bit. Good enough. He gets as close to the stone as he can, angles under as much as possible. The daylight is completely gone, but the moon is bright and Hank can see what he's doing. A light breeze comes up, which makes things easier. It blows the mosquitoes off and cools Hank down. As he digs, old man Norman relates the story about blasting the dugout and the barn being blown all over the country. The old man speaks so softly that Hank has to listen hard to hear, but it doesn't matter because he's heard the story at least a dozen times before. It was one of the old man's favorite bar tales when he was still drinking. Hank was still drinking back then, too, so he'd been in the Juliet Hotel bar on several occasions when it was told. Tonight, old TNT adds a part about the wife's laundry ending up full of holes and Hank hadn't heard that before.

Because the soil is so sandy, it takes Hank less than an hour to get the three holes dug, and then he lays the dynamite and lead-in line according to TNT's instructions and fills in the holes with gravel and soil and tamps it down. Once that's done, he loads his shovel and auger into the truck box and moves the truck back to the approach, and then he moves the old man, pushing him in the wheelchair across the rough pasture trail. He runs lead-in line from the blasting holes over to the truck and attaches the detonators. When Hank has everything ready, he looks at old TNT in his wheelchair and sees that he can hardly contain his excitement. He's practically bouncing in his chair in spite of his paralysis, as though this is the most exciting thing that's happened to him in ages. Hank doesn't doubt that it is.

“Are we ready?” Hank asks.

“We sure as hell are,” the old man says, and then he shouts something as loudly as he can, which isn't very loud. It comes out as an elongated grunt and Hank can't make out the words.

“What was that?” Hank asks, and this time he gets it. “Fire in the hole,” the old man is saying, and Hank thinks that's so funny, he laughs and then he shouts it himself, “Fire in the hole!” and Hank's voice is a good deal louder than old man Norman's. Then he detonates the blasts, one at a time.

Nothing much happens. They can hear the blasts all right, and dirt and gravel fly up out of the holes in the moonlight. But no big pieces of rock arc through the air, and once the dirt settles, the dark shape of the stone remains unchanged as far as Hank can see. The two men stare at the silhouette as though something might yet happen, another blast might rocket the whole massive stone, but it sits where it is and the night grows quiet again except for the mosquitoes and Hank's cows bawling off to the west.

“Should we have a look?” Hank asks, and then he wheels the old man through the pasture once again toward the stone. Pushing the wheelchair along the rough trail takes more effort than digging the holes did, and Hank works up a good sweat.

When they get to the stone, they see the auger holes have expanded considerably in size, but other than that, the stone looks the same. The beer box is still sitting on top, just as it was before, not even disturbed, Hank thinks, but when he picks it up he sees that the bottles have disintegrated into a pile of glass in the bottom.

“How about that,” Hank says, shaking the box and listening to the tinkle of the broken glass.

The old man looks puzzled. “I thought we had 'er,” he says.

“That dynamite was sitting around for some time,” Hank says. “Maybe it was past the best-before date.” He puts the beer box on the old man's lap and says, “I don't think I'm good for another go tonight. Best get you home.”

He pushes Walter back across the pasture to the truck, the glass tinkling whenever they hit a bump in the trail, and when they're just about to the gate they hear a crack, like river ice in the spring, and when Hank turns around he can see that the rock has split in two. Right up the middle, two near-perfect halves in the moonlight, and he turns the old man around so he can see it, too.

“That's not really what I had in mind,” Hank says.

“I figured we had 'er,” the old man says again.

Hank would like to go back and have a look at the stone, but he's had enough of wheeling old TNT around the pasture.

When he gets Walter into the truck and his wheelchair in the box, he goes back and pulls the wire gate tight to the fence post and latches it up. Then he gets into the cab and hauls the remains of his six-pack of cola into the front seat. He hands a can to Walter and cracks one for himself. It's warm, but it still tastes good. He sees Walter struggling with the tab, so he turns the dome light on, but even then Walter can't get it, doesn't have the strength to peel it back, and so Hank does it for him and then Walter shakily lifts the can to his lips and spills some down his front and Hank pretends he doesn't notice.

“Well, we did half a night's work, anyway,” Hank says, and old TNT says, “We sure did, we got 'er half done, anyway,” and then he says, “I want to thank you, Hank. My life's not much anymore.” He speaks quietly, but Hank hears him.

“Hell,” Hank says. “You don't have to thank me. I should be thanking you. Wouldn't have got anywhere without a foreman. Likely would have blown myself up.”

And they leave it at that.

When Hank gets to Karla's house, there are no lights on. Hank is going to take the old man over to Lou's, but then Walter tells him to just take him inside.

“I don't know,” Hank says. “I'm a little scared of that Lou. Maybe I should do what I was told, eh?” He tries to make a joke out of it and cajole the old man into agreeing to go to Lou's, but TNT insists that he wants to stay at Karla's and he says that Karla will be home sooner or later. He's just going to go to bed. He'll be okay on his own.

When they get inside, Hank finds out that he has to help the old man onto and off of the toilet, and then out of his clothes and into a pair of cotton pajamas. He doesn't mind. Fair trade, he figures, for the help with the blasting. He gets Walter a glass of water, just like you would a child, and then he helps him into bed. He turns out the lights, all but a lamp by the couch in the living room. He sees the little pile of sheets and blankets on the floor by the couch and supposes that this is where Karla sleeps. Lucky man, he thinks, to have a daughter who'll take care of him like that. He wonders what it is he can smell in the air and then remembers that Karla does hair. He thinks she's done Lynn's hair a time or two. He hears a rooster crow from someplace close by and wonders what a rooster is doing in town, and crowing at this time of the night. Must be lost, a country rooster lost in town.

When he gets outside, the rooster is sitting on the hood of his truck. It looks at him and crow-hops a bit, up and down on the hood, but it doesn't scramble off, so Hank makes a grab for it and catches it by the legs. He holds it squawking upside down, not sure what to do with it now that he has it. It's a bantam rooster, too scrawny for the stewpot, but kind of pretty. He can see the green and rusty colors under the streetlamp. He decides any rooster that is found hopping around on the hood of his truck belongs to him, finders keepers, and he opens the door and tosses the rooster into the cab. Lynn has a few chickens. He'll add this one to her flock. The rooster settles right down on the seat of the cab like it's used to riding around in trucks.

On the way home, Hank decides to stop and have another look at the stone, and when he's walking up to it he sees that his yearlings have made their way around to this corner of the pasture, and they make him think of buffalo, and he can almost see the giant beasts wallowing in the dust and scratching up against the stone to rid themselves of their winter coats. And when he thinks of the buffalo he almost feels bad that he's split the stone in two instead of leaving it up to nature to decide when it's time for change. He walks around the stone, taking care not to stumble in a hole, and he leans in and runs his hand against the clean hard split. There's a
V
between the two pieces, and the way the moonlight shines through, it looks like a gorge or a canyon, or perhaps the Red Sea parting. Hank steps through the opening, and when he emerges on the other side he sees a white-faced calf staring at him. The moonlight shines on a pink fluorescent hand painting, and he places his own hand over the outline, but his hand is much bigger so he walks around the stone and tries a few more until he finds a lime-green one that fits. He thinks about the compulsion humans seem to have for leaving their mark; the kids are no different, and maybe the art restorer would be kind of interesting with her white gloves and fancy tools and little jars of chemicals, like a scientist. Although her tools wouldn't help her repair this latest assault on the stone, the split down the middle.