Read Online Give Me Your Heart by Joyce Carol Oates - Free Book Online Page B

sprawl of what looked like fossilized corncobs and mortar, and a barn the size of a
three-car garage with a slumping roof and a strong odor of manure and rotted hay, pleasurable in his nostrils. In a manure pile a pitchfork was stuck upright, as if someone had abruptly decided
that he’d had enough of ranch life and had departed. Leonard felt a thrill of excitement, unless it was a thrill of dread. He had no clear idea why he was here, being shown the derelict
Flying S Ranch in Mineral Springs, Colorado. Why he’d sought out Mitch Yardman. The first husband, Oliver Yardman. If his middle-aged wife cherished erotic memories of this man as he’d
been twenty years before, what was that to Leonard? He was staring at his hands, lifted before him, palms up in a gesture of honest bewilderment. He wore gloves, which seemed to steady his hands.
He’d been noticing lately, these past several months, that his hands sometimes shook.
    Just outside the barn, Yardman had paused to make another call on his cell phone. He was leaving a message, his voice low-pitched, threatening and yet seductive. “Hey babe. ‘S me.
Where the fuck are ya, babe? Call me. I’m here.” He broke the connection, cursing under his breath.
    At the rear of the barn, looking out at the hills, Yardman caught up with Leonard. The late-afternoon sky was still vivid with light, massive clouds in oddly vertical sculpted columnar shapes.
Leonard was staring at these shapes, flexing his fingers in his leather gloves. Yardman swatted at his shoulder as if they were new friends linked in a common enterprise; his breath smelled of
fresh whiskey. “Quite a place, eh? Makes a man dream, eh? Big sky country. That’s the West, see. I lived awhile in the East, fuckin’ hemmed in. No place for a man. Always wanted a
nice li’l ranch like this. Decent life for a man, raise horses, not damn rat-race real estate . . . Any questions for me, Dwayne? Like, is the list price negotiable? Or—”
    “Did you always live in Makeville, Mr. Yardman—Mitch?” Dwayne Ducharme had a way of speaking bluntly yet politely. “Just curious!”
    Yardman said, tilting his leathery cowboy hat to look his client frankly in the face, “Hell, no. The Yardmans is all over at Littleton. Makeville is just me. And that’s
temp’ry.”
    “Yardman Realty & Insurance is a family business, is it?”
    “Well, sure. Used to be. Now just me, mostly.”
    Yardman spoke with an air of vaguely shamed regret. Burned out, Leonard was thinking. Yardman’s sulky mouth seemed about to admit more, then pursed shut.
    “You said you lived in the East, Mitch . . .”
    “Not long.”
    “Ever travel to, well—Florida? Key West?”
    Yardman squinted at Leonard, as if trying to decide whether to be amused or annoyed by him. “Yah, I guess. Long time ago. Why’re you askin’, friend?”
    “It’s just, you look familiar. Like someone I saw, might have seen once, I think it was Key West . . .” Leonard was smiling; a roaring came up in his ears. As in court, he
sometimes had to pause to get his bearings. “Do you have a family? I mean, wife, children . . .”
    “Friend, I know what you mean,” Yardman said grimly. “Some of us got just as much family as we need, know what I’m saying?”
    “I’m afraid that—”
    “Means my private life is off-limits, Dwayne.” Yardman laughed. His face crinkled. “Hey, man, just kidding. A wife’s a wife, eh? Kid’s a kid? Been there, done that.
Three fucking times, Dwayne. Three strikes, you’re out.”
    He’d been married three times? Divorced three times? Risky for naive Dwayne Ducharme to say, with a provocative smile, “No love like your first. They say.”
    “No fuck like your first. But that’s debatable.”
    Leonard froze. Had Valerie been Yardman’s first? One of the first, maybe. Leonard believed this must be so.
    Now Yardman meant to turn the conversation back to real estate: in his hand was a swath of fact sheets. Any questions?