as Patrick had. And the lingering picture of the smug volunteers troubled Patrick, as though, for him, it was they who had set the fire. But then, that was a little simple, too.
When Patrick first returned to the ranch, he didn’t quite know what he was doing there. Yet he couldn’t look back on his years in the service as a period in which things had made much sense. His tank-driving lay somewhere between an update on a family tradition and the dark side of the moon of a highly camouflaged scholarship program. Still, he blamed himself because he had let things drift, and he now occasionally noticed that not only was he not in his teens, he was actually at an age when a certain number of people died of heart attacks. Heart attacks! He knew he was under stress but he didn’t know stress of what. Maybe it was just the jaggedness-of-the-everyday. He thought of the term “stress-related” and he wondered if that was why he behaved sometimes in ways he wished he hadn’t. He didn’t, for example, like drinking as much as he did; yet he liked and approved of
some
drinking and the occasional comet binge with all bets off. But lately he was waking up in the dark with his heart pummeling its way through his chest and a strange coldness going through his body, waking nightmares in the dark; and he didn’t know where it was coming from. He tried the trick of counting blessings like sheep, but the personal components would not cohere. He loved his sister and grandfatherand horses; he loved the place. But he couldn’t help thinking that it was edges and no middle. And as soon as he’d had that thought, he began to doubt it, too. He worked hard for the conclusions, then evaporated them with doubt. Worst of them all, though, was the one he called sadness-for-no-reason.
He had come home hoping to learn something from his grandfather. But the old man was still too cowboy to play to nostalgia for anyone; though as a boy he had night-hawked on the biggest of the northern ranches, had seen gunfighters in their dotage, had run this ranch like an old-time cowman’s outfit, building a handsome herd of cattle, raised his own bulls and abjured farm machinery. Still, he got closer to the past in recollection: “It’s not like it used to be. They’ve interfered with the moon and changed our weather. That’s why the summer clouds sail too high to rain on our old pastures. The goddamned sonic booms have loosened all the boards in the houses, and that’s why we have all those flies. Didn’t used to have those. Things up there affect us. Like when you have an eclipse and the chickens fall asleep. Something happens inside and we don’t know what it is. And the ground water is going in the wrong direction … twisting, turning sonofabitch. I had a surefire witch out here try to douse me a well for a stock tank. He said, ‘I can’t help you, Fitzpatrick, the inside of the world is different.’ Used to be I’d have that water witch out and the bark would peel off that stick and that old willow butt would jump and buck with him and hell, we’d go fifty feet and have more gallons a minute than a guy could count.” Ground water danced in his eyes.
“I thought it always changed.”
“Go up on Antelope some night and look down at the yard lights. Used to be coming off any these mountains it was dark. Just throw the reins away and let the horse takeyou home. When that sheepherder went crazy in 1921, Albert Johanson, who was sheriff, went up to Hell Roaring and shot him between the eyes and left him. I packed in there and took the stove and tent down for Albert and then I had to put this dead Basque on a mule and pack him out. Well, it got dark. I come clean out at the west fork of Mile Creek and I could see maybe one light on the flat. But I didn’t know whether I had that stiff or not till I got to Wellington’s ranch and we got a lantern. I had the herder but my hitch had slipped. I had him face down on a little Spanish kind of a
When Patrick first returned to the ranch, he didn’t quite know what he was doing there. Yet he couldn’t look back on his years in the service as a period in which things had made much sense. His tank-driving lay somewhere between an update on a family tradition and the dark side of the moon of a highly camouflaged scholarship program. Still, he blamed himself because he had let things drift, and he now occasionally noticed that not only was he not in his teens, he was actually at an age when a certain number of people died of heart attacks. Heart attacks! He knew he was under stress but he didn’t know stress of what. Maybe it was just the jaggedness-of-the-everyday. He thought of the term “stress-related” and he wondered if that was why he behaved sometimes in ways he wished he hadn’t. He didn’t, for example, like drinking as much as he did; yet he liked and approved of
some
drinking and the occasional comet binge with all bets off. But lately he was waking up in the dark with his heart pummeling its way through his chest and a strange coldness going through his body, waking nightmares in the dark; and he didn’t know where it was coming from. He tried the trick of counting blessings like sheep, but the personal components would not cohere. He loved his sister and grandfatherand horses; he loved the place. But he couldn’t help thinking that it was edges and no middle. And as soon as he’d had that thought, he began to doubt it, too. He worked hard for the conclusions, then evaporated them with doubt. Worst of them all, though, was the one he called sadness-for-no-reason.
He had come home hoping to learn something from his grandfather. But the old man was still too cowboy to play to nostalgia for anyone; though as a boy he had night-hawked on the biggest of the northern ranches, had seen gunfighters in their dotage, had run this ranch like an old-time cowman’s outfit, building a handsome herd of cattle, raised his own bulls and abjured farm machinery. Still, he got closer to the past in recollection: “It’s not like it used to be. They’ve interfered with the moon and changed our weather. That’s why the summer clouds sail too high to rain on our old pastures. The goddamned sonic booms have loosened all the boards in the houses, and that’s why we have all those flies. Didn’t used to have those. Things up there affect us. Like when you have an eclipse and the chickens fall asleep. Something happens inside and we don’t know what it is. And the ground water is going in the wrong direction … twisting, turning sonofabitch. I had a surefire witch out here try to douse me a well for a stock tank. He said, ‘I can’t help you, Fitzpatrick, the inside of the world is different.’ Used to be I’d have that water witch out and the bark would peel off that stick and that old willow butt would jump and buck with him and hell, we’d go fifty feet and have more gallons a minute than a guy could count.” Ground water danced in his eyes.
“I thought it always changed.”
“Go up on Antelope some night and look down at the yard lights. Used to be coming off any these mountains it was dark. Just throw the reins away and let the horse takeyou home. When that sheepherder went crazy in 1921, Albert Johanson, who was sheriff, went up to Hell Roaring and shot him between the eyes and left him. I packed in there and took the stove and tent down for Albert and then I had to put this dead Basque on a mule and pack him out. Well, it got dark. I come clean out at the west fork of Mile Creek and I could see maybe one light on the flat. But I didn’t know whether I had that stiff or not till I got to Wellington’s ranch and we got a lantern. I had the herder but my hitch had slipped. I had him face down on a little Spanish kind of a
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