Read Online Remember Ben Clayton by Stephen Harrigan - Free Book Online

opposite end of the room with a seductive physicality. He heard the profound, reverberant notes of an owl’s voice as the bird made its rounds on silent wingbeats from tree to tree around the house. He heard as well the snorting and stamping of horses from the nearby stable, and from the unimaginable distances of the night came the anxious, cascading calls of coyotes. These were the sounds, Gil noted, that would have ushered Ben into sleep from his earliest childhood—so different, surely, from what he had listened to in France during the last nights of his life.

FIVE
    L amar Clayton sat on the porch with the dog in his lap as he pondered the sketch. He was in no hurry to provide a reaction. Gil waited him out, pretending to study the movements of a solitary buzzard in the pale morning sky. Maureen stood against the porch rail, sipping her second cup of coffee from one of the late Mrs. Clayton’s delicate china cups.
    “That ain’t what I had in mind,” Clayton finally said. “You got him standing next to Poco, not in the saddle.”
    “This is a stronger conception.”
    “I pictured it different.”
    “I know you did.”
    “Then why are you arguing with me about what I want?”
    “Because I know my business and this is the better approach.”
    Clayton looked over at Maureen. “What do you think?”
    “He could do it the way you suggest,” she said, “and it would be very satisfactory, even exceptional. You’d receive fair value for the price you paid. But if you want it to be a work of art, you should allow my father the freedom to make it one.”
    “I want a good likeness. I don’t care about it being no work of art.”
    “I think you do, Mr. Clayton,” Maureen said. “You care about that or you would have hired someone else.”
    Clayton seemed to take her point, though grudgingly. He looked at the sketch again, then handed it back to Gil.
    “All right, you do whatever you want.”
    “Good. I’ll plan on coming back in a month or so with a maquette for your approval.”
    “That’s agreeable.” Still in her owner’s lap, Peggy twisted over on her back and growled softly until Clayton consented to rub her slick belly. “How much you want to get started?”
    “The usual terms are a third on approval of the maquette, a third on approval of the clay, and a third on delivery.”
    “The clay? What’s that?”
    “That’s the full-size sculpture. I’ll make the maquette first, then a scale model, then the finished clay. That’s what the plasterer will make a mold of, and in turn the foundry will take the plaster mold and cast it in bronze.”
    Sensing that this pragmatic cowman would find it of interest, Gil launched into an explanation of the plasterer’s process and the lost-wax casting technique that the foundry would employ. He also talked about the pipe fitting and carpentry that would go into the construction of the armature, the stamina involved in hauling buckets of clay or standing for hours at a time at the top of a towering ladder sculpting the features of a monumental face. Clayton leaned forward in his chair, his solemn demeanor eroding a bit as a keen interest began to show in his eyes. He seemed to be regarding the sculptor on his porch as not just an alien conjurer but a man like himself who worked with his hands.
    They talked for another twenty minutes while Maureen went inside to pack their things. When it was time for them to leave, Clayton lifted the resentful dog off his lap and rose to shake hands.
    “You going to be coming back along with your father, Miss Gilheaney?” Clayton asked Maureen, as Ernest was cranking the balky motor of the car in the dusty driveway.
    “If he invites me, Mr. Clayton.”
    “If I’m doing the paying, I guess I can do the inviting,” he said, meeting her eyes for only a moment before looking away shyly. “You come back.”
    ERNEST HAD JUST DRIVEN off the ranch property onto the main road leading to Abilene when he turned to Gil in the front