Jim Boring

Ray Wilkes sat on the boot-worn single step up to his back porch, his long legs stretched before him, boot heels sunk in the dust of the yard. He leaned back on his elbows and looked at the sky from under the brim of his battered Stetson. The sun was going down behind the barn and the sky was purple and pink and orange. To the west sunlight was bouncing off the back of some pillowy clouds turning their tops pink and gray. Wilkes spit into the dust. Just messing with us, never going to rain.

He got up from the porch step and stretched. His back hurt. He was too old for working a ranch alone. And now that Mary had left him, what was the point. He walked stiff-legged across the yard and one of the hounds got up and followed him, wagging its ragged tail. Wilkes undid the latch to the corral and the dog followed him through the gate. The mare was hung low in foal, ready to drop any day now. The horse whinnied, shook her mane and walked slowly toward him. She lowered her head to nudge his chest and he scratched her ears and rubbed her nose.

"Billy's come home," he said to her in a cracked, unused voice. The horse widened her eyes at the sound and shook her head.

He looked back at the sky. Not much light left. Better get to it.

Wilkes crossed the yard and went into the house. The inside looked like a place with no woman. Like a man with nothing to gain or lose lived there. Well, then it looked like it ought to, Wilkes thought. He crossed the dusty, unkempt front room and went into the kitchen. His oatmeal bowl from breakfast was still on the table, the leftover mush in it turned to concrete. Yesterday's dishes were still in the sink and so were the dishes from the day before.

The box was on the table. It had arrived this morning and the mailman, Horace Snipes, delivered it with his head down and mumbled some words of sympathy to Wilkes before he left. Just an ordinary box, about six or seven inches across, a lot like the box they shipped him his arthritis pills in. It had a return address in Los Angeles.

He had only been to Los Angeles once, on the way back from Viet Nam. That was, what, thirty-two years ago? Jesus. Mary had met him in San Francisco, her hair long and braided down her back. A hippie chick he had called her. They drove through Big Sur, and along the coast all the way to L.A., smoking dope and screwing in the back of her VW van with the Peace sign on the door. They saw a water spout along the way. It was beautiful. So was she. And then they had come here.

He picked up the box and went back out onto the porch. The hound slapped his tail against the floorboards and smiled up at him, panting. Wilkes looked again at the sky. Morning's the time for crowing, the time for bullshitting yourself about things. This time of day is for licking wounds and settling things. A man's only a man in the middle of the day or the middle of the night, swinging an axe or riding a woman. This time of day he's just nothing. The door of the pickup creaked when he pulled it open and creaked again when he pulled it closed. He put the box on the seat beside him. The hound climbed up on the door and he shooed the dog away and headed out.

Wilkes looked in the rear view mirror. Nothing but red dust. It looked like the whole state of South Dakota got up and was coming after him. He glanced down at the cardboard container on the seat next to him. Dust to dust, he thought.

He drove as fast as the old truck would go down the dirt road into the Badlands. Driving fast on this kind of road kept him focused, kept his mind off things. The windows were open and the lingering July warmth and the engine heat poured in on him. Sweat coursed down the deep grooves in his sun worn face. He reached under his seat and pulled out a dirty bandana, spun it into a loose coil with his left hand and pulled it around his neck. Then without slowing he took his right hand off the steering wheel and quickly knotted the kerchief. Sweat was seeping down from beneath his hat, soaking the hair beneath the brim. Don't complain and don't explain, he thought.

He had tried to teach that way of thinking to Billy but it hadn't worked. Mary had said that it wouldn't but he had told her to keep out of it, that some things were just between a father and son.

He swerved to avoid a deep hole in the road. Before him the land spread out in a wide space like the bottom of a frying pan. Tumbleweed blew across a landscape of stunted brush and bent scrub trees. Next to him on the seat the cardboard box bounced precariously near the edge. Wilkes reached over and put it on the floor beneath his legs.

He couldn't see the rock yet, but he would be able to soon. He knew where it was, just west, into the canyon, where the foothills began. He had taken Billy there when he was ten, showed him how to split shale without shattering it; taught him how to chip flint and how to use it to make a fire. They had tracked a coyote while it was stalking a covey of quail. Like Indians, he had told Billy.

Now the flat, black rock came into view. It was a rounded slab of slate, the visible portion of it thirty feet long and almost as wide, it protruded out of the rust-colored earth and hung over the edge of the shallow ravine that led into the narrow darkness of Colby Canyon.

Wilkes gripped the wheel with both hands and yanked it hard to the right. The pickup swayed and recovered, left the road and slammed its way, bouncing and pitching across the rough ground. He stayed on the gas and the truck roared and spewed brush and still greater clouds of red dust billowed up behind it. Everything ahead of him was clear and it was no more than half a mile to the rock. If the springs held out he thought he could make it. He almost did, but a hundred yards from the rock , the pickup blew a tire, veered and dove into a soft patch of sandy soil. His face hit the steering wheel.

He seemed to see Billy. Was that possible? Oh god, Billy. He's running over the rock, pointing at something, calling him, laughing. Ah, Billy.

When Wilkes awoke the blood had dried on his nose and upper lip. The radiator hissed softly and slowly. The sun was noticeably lower in the sky. He touched his nose; it wasn't broken. Wilkes sat for a moment and listened to the truck. Then he took the bandana from his neck and carefully blew into it and wiped the blood from his face. He reached into his shirt pocket, retrieved a pack of Camels, shook one out and lit it with the old Zippo he had carried since Viet Nam. The truck was tilted forward and down into the ground. Wilkes leaned on the steering wheel with both arms, took a deep drag on the cigarette and looked out at the rock. End of the road.

The door creaked and squealed again when he opened it. He had to jump -- the rear wheels of the truck were almost off the ground. It was awkward and Wilkes stumbled when he landed but caught himself before he fell. He stood for a moment, collecting himself. The dust had settled and the sun was dropping fast, spraying light from behind the low, distant rain clouds that Wilkes knew would pass without releasing their weight onto the parched earth. The spare gas tank was still secure in the sidewall bracket in the back of the truck. Wilkes hung on to the roof of the cab, leaned over and spun the wing nuts open, then yanked the can free and swung it to the ground behind him. Then he reached in and picked up the cardboard box from where it was jammed behind the brake pedal. With the can in one hand and the box in the other he began walking toward the rock.

Mary had been right about a lot of things, he had to give her that. She had said that someday Billy would bolt if Wilkes wasn't careful. She had said that Billy wasn't cut out for wrangling horses and stringing barbed wire. Wilkes hadn't seen it that way. To him it was just a matter of time; Billy just needed more time than most to get the hang of it. That was all. That was what he thought, but she had been right.

Now the sun was lower still and the black rock glinted and shone as Wilkes stepped onto it. He put the can and box down and surveyed the rock. What you could see of it was round, almost like a disk some giant had hurled into the ground and forgotten. He walked out to the edge and looked across the ravine into the canyon. It was dark in there now between the narrow walls. The sun was sinking fast. Wilkes turned to see the shallow depression in the middle of the rock. It was as he remembered. He stood looking at it. A breeze came up from the canyon behind him and moved the hair on the back of his head. It would cool down fast now. The heat would be gone soon. He watched a pair of sparrow hawks drop slowly out of the sky circling each other, going to nest.

When Billy had left , Wilkes couldn't understand it. What had he done? Or not done? How did the boy that he had taught to split rock right here get so far from home? So far from him? He shook his head and walked over to the gasoline can. Mary had been right; it was his fault. He hadn't meant to drive the boy away; he had meant to show him how to be a man. But Mary had been right, and now Mary was gone, and now Billy had come home.

Wilkes poured the gasoline into the depression, the natural pan formed by the rock. The fumes rose into his face and the breeze carried them away. After he emptied the can , he set it down and picked up the cardboard box. Not much to look at.

He waded into the pool of gasoline, sat down, cradling the box in his lap, and snapped open the Zippo. The light flared on the black rock just as the sun went down.

DUST

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