Not that I’d rather hide behind the family skirts.
Chuckette’s father turned out to be no threat anyway. He was this little guy, like five-three, with wire-rim glasses and hair parted flat down the middle.
“Here.” He held out the green scarf.
“She can keep it,” I said.
“There’ll be no gifts from your kind in a Christian household.”
Chuckette stood behind him and to the right with her head down and her shoulders slumped.
“I’m really sorry, Chuckette,” I said. “I didn’t plan for this to happen.”
Her eyes came up to mine in the saddest, most beseeching deal you ever saw. “You loving me was the only good thing that will ever happen in my life.”
“I know.”
“At least I can say I was happy once.”
Her father flinched. “Charlotte, go to the car.”
We both watched as she dragged herself, like a defeated animal, across the yard and into their station wagon. I felt sad for her, but I didn’t know what to do. You can’t marry everybody who bases their happiness on you.
Her father turned back to me. “You think this is funny, don’t you.”
“No, sir, I feel bad.”
“Don’t lie to me. You never for a moment took my daughter seriously.”
Wasn’t much I could say to that one.
His little nose kind of trembled. “Boy, I may not look mean, but I’ve got the power of the Lord and a thirty- thirty with a scope, and I’ll do what it takes to protect my family.”
“I respect that, sir.”
I told Maurey what Chuckette said about me loving her was the only good thing that would ever happen to her, and how I realized that was probably true.
“Oh, bull, Sam. She was going to dump you before church camp this summer anyway. She likes Rodney Cannelioski only she’s afraid he won’t like her because she’s soiled on account of you.”
“That’s a lie.”
“She told half the school today that you’re a bad kisser and she only went steady with you because you’re so unpopular and she felt sorry for you and thought it was her Christian duty.”
“I’m a good kisser.”
Maurey shrugged and bit pizza. “She says you slobber.”
This didn’t make sense. We were ostracized at school, how would Maurey know what Chuckette said to anyone. “Who told you all this?”
“Sam, I’m pregnant, not deaf.”
“But no one spoke to me today.”
“Maybe Chuckette’s right.”
After pizza and Chuckette’s father, Maurey and I sat on the front step to watch the sun set behind the Tetons. Another thing about GroVont that’s different from Greensboro—at one time of year the sun goes down at 9:30, when just a few months ago it disappeared by 4:30. That’s a big difference in day length. It disorients everything.
“Nobody up here has a decent porch,” I said.
Maurey’s hair was in barrettes and her face glowed like Katharine Hepburn in
Otis yip-barked while Soapley bent over the bed of his truck, shoving something back toward the tailgate.
“Even the poorest family in North Carolina has a porch big enough for two chairs and a swing. Nobody here takes the time to sit and watch.”
“Usually too cold,” Maurey said. “Anyhow, you’re talking about a mud room. There’s no call for nostalgia over a mud room.”
“A porch is not a mud room.”
“Is when there’s mud.”
“Does Buddy plan to brand my butt?”
Spires of sunset bent around the peaks and flowed down the canyons. The mountains still had snow, so they came off a soft white, gold, and rose. One thing Wyoming has is nice stuff to look at.
“What makes you think Dad might brand your butt?”
“Dot said he would. She said he’d calf-tie me and sear a red TM in my ass, and if I really pissed him off he’d delouse, dehorn, and castrate me.”
“She was kidding; a person can’t be dehorned.”
Soapley shoved what looked like a fat, limp body off the back of his truck. Otis jumped back and forth across the body, having a fit.
“Bear,” Maurey said.
“Maybe I deserve to be branded. Impregnating girls is immoral and deserves punishment.”
“Soapley killed a bear.”
As we crossed the street, Maurey explained Buddy’s policy on teen sex. “Dad thinks a boy gets laid whenever possible regardless of the consequences. He says the boy will trick his way into a girl’s jeans any way he can and that’s fair, you can’t blame the boy any more than you can blame a coyote for stealing a chicken.”
“That’s a good attitude.”
“Not that he wouldn’t shoot any coyote caught in the act.”
“This is a real bear?”
“It’s the girl’s responsibility not to get laid. She has a choice the boy doesn’t have.”
“What’s it mean?”
“You’re a coyote and I’m a slut.”
“Right between the eyes.” Soapley pointed with his knife, a wicked-looking blade in a new-moon curved shape.
“Where’d you get him?” Maurey asked.
“He was feeding on a dead horse up Cache Creek.”
On his back, the bear looked small and pitiful. He was a reddish brown, darker on his belly, with a black nose and scummed-over eyes. His fur was patchy and one ear torn into two strips. I’d never seen a real bear before; this was somewhat of a disappointment.
I knelt to touch the pad on one of his back feet. “Why was there a dead horse up Cache Creek?”
Soapley stuck the knife into the bear’s tunnel and moved his hand down one leg like the bear had a zipper. “Because I shot a horse up Cache Creek. Why’d you think? Horses don’t just die where you need bear bait.”
“Wasn’t Red, was it?” Maurey asked.
Soapley looked at her and nodded. “He was old, not worth much anymore.”
Soapley proceeded to skin the bear. I don’t know where the guts were, back with old Red, I guess. Under his skin the bear was waxy like a melted candle.
Maurey knelt next to me. “Red sure was a good horse.”
“Best I ever had,” Soapley said.
Otis bit into the good ear, stiffened all three legs, and tried to pull the bear away. When Soapley backhanded his nose, Otis growled as if this was a tug of war for life. Soapley slapped again and Otis let go long enough to bite him. Where bears are concerned, loyalty among horses, dogs, and men doesn’t mean much.
As the sky gradually darkened, Maurey and I stood by the tailgate, watching Soapley work. He did a real efficient job, pausing only now and then to kick Otis off whatever limb he was working on next. Skinned, the bear looked exactly like a hunch-backed boy about my age who’d been dipped in Crisco. The fingers were unnerving—
