Let Him Go: A Novel (5 page)

The boy’s a Blackledge, Margaret is quick to say. His mother was married to our son.

Jack Nevelsen nods. All right, I have it. His voice drops to an even gentler register. Your grandson.

Our grandson. The sternness that jumped into Margaret’s voice a moment ago is gone too.

If we could ask one more favor, George says. We were planning to put up at the Northern Pacific Hotel. Is that our best bet here?

Jack Nevelsen takes his hat off and slaps it lightly against his thigh like a man embarrassed by his own clumsiness. Nora’s folks are here, he says, otherwise we could put you up. But sure. The Northern Pacific’s fine. A damn sight better than the Wagon Wheel, out on the west edge of town. The hotel’s run-down a bit from what it once was, but it’s clean and mostly quiet.

Clean is all I need, Margaret says. Thank you again.

All three shake hands once more, the sign that their transactions are concluded.

But no. Before the Blackledges can get back into their car, Sheriff Nevelsen stops them. Wait up. Here’s a thought. I’ve got an empty jail here. Not a prisoner in it. Four cells with cots, and you’re welcome to bunk down here. It’s as clean as the hotel and even quieter. And a hell of a lot cheaper. With your former line of work being what it was, I figure it wouldn’t bother you. And I don’t know about Mrs. Blackledge, but my Nora’s been in and out of that jail so often it’s like another room of our house.

Margaret holds up her hand in gratitude. Thank you for your offer, Mr. Nevelsen. We’ll take you up on it. I don’t have any prejudices or superstitions that would keep me from spending a night in your accommodations. A night in jail! I never thought it would come to that!

If any of the residents in any of the small, watchful houses across the street hear Margaret, would they recognize the sound of a woman laughing? On this street?
On this chilly autumn night? They’d be more likely to believe they were hearing a swift stream rushing over stones, though they’re far from any water that moves faster than a slow walk.

And you said the magic word, Margaret adds. Clean.

S
HERIFF
N
EVELSEN ENCOURAGES THE
B
LACKLEDGES TO
take the two cells with the best mattresses, which will mean that George and Margaret will not spend the night next to each other. Margaret accedes to this arrangement, and George insists that she take the larger cell, though when it comes right down to it, neither is more than a narrow room bare but for an iron cot and a small shelf built right into the wall. Since neither barred door will be locked and George and Margaret will have access to a toilet, Sheriff Nevelsen removes the slop bucket from each cell.

Sheriff Nevelsen hands a small stack of sheets and towels to Margaret. For what it’s worth, he says, the towels are from our place. Not jail-issue. The sheets—Nora uses nothing but hot water, and she’s generous with the bleach. Sorry I haven’t got something better in the way of blankets. And I thought I had some pillows somewhere, but damned if I can find them now.

These will do just fine, says Margaret. You didn’t have to go to all this trouble.

We have some bedding in the car, George adds. We packed for the long haul.

Margaret flaps open a sheet over the bare mattress. Yes,
the smell of bleach flutters through the cell and perhaps even a faint scent of the sunlight that dried the sheets.

Sheriff Nevelsen leans in the open door and takes out his cigarettes. He offers the pack to George and Margaret and when they refuse, he lights one for himself. Who’s working the ranch in your absence? he asks.

Margaret glances over at her husband as if she hopes he’ll be the one to answer this question. When it’s plain that George doesn’t intend to speak, she says, We sold the ranch a few years back.

But you were doing both, Nevelsen asks, law enforcement and running the ranch?

So to speak, George replies. It was mostly Margaret kept it going. If it had been me alone working the place, even if I could have done it full-time, we’d have gone under long ago.

Don’t listen to him, Mr. Nevelsen, Margaret says. For years he was working more hours than there were in a day and doing a damn good job at everything he turned his hand to.

Running for sheriff, George says, was supposed to come second to running the ranch. I thought a regular paycheck from the county would give us a little breathing room.

Jack Nevelsen blows a stream of smoke toward the jail cell’s low ceiling. I can imagine how well that worked.

I don’t have to tell you, says George, law enforcement will take all you can give it and still ask for more.

Same as ranching, says Margaret.

George nods in agreement. Same as ranching. It was Margaret’s to work or lease or sell. Her people homesteaded that land. And she was her father’s top hand almost from the day she could sit on a horse.

Margaret says, We made it work for a good many years. Damn near wore George down to the nub but we kept it going. But after our son died, we had his wife and son living with us. It was mostly for them we sold and moved to town. Thought she’d be better off with the company of people her own age.

And that turned out to be Donnie Weboy, interjects Jack Nevelsen.

That was Donnie. So you can see how that came back on us. But it was for the boy too. He could be closer to school, when the time came.

George shakes a Lucky Strike out of his pack, scratches a match on the rough wall, and lights his own cigarette. She makes it sound all personal, he says. Our circumstances weren’t so far off from a hell of a lot of folks’. We had a run of hard years. The price of cattle kept going down. One drought year after another. I tried a little wheat farming and no sooner got started than we got hailed out.

Sheriff Nevelsen says, It’s a wonder how anyone with a small spread makes a go of it in this part of the country.

But some do, says George. When we finally sold, it felt like . . . I don’t know—

Oh, hell, says Margaret. It was time. Past time.

The cell door does not swing open or closed but slides on a steel track, and now Jack Nevelsen moves the door a few inches in one direction and then the other. How’d your boy die, if you don’t mind my asking?

George and Margaret exchange the look that so often passes between husbands and wives:
Are you going to tell this or am I?

But was there ever any doubt?

Margaret Blackledge sits down on the cot before she
begins. She braces her chin in her hand as if she knows that telling this story will bring more than the usual vibration to her voice.

Thrown from a horse, of all things, and this was a boy who practically grew up in the saddle. Who was happier in the company of horses than of children his own age. And who loved saddles and tack the way some boys loved their toy soldiers. James kept hoping something would change so he could come back to the ranch for good, but that hadn’t worked out. So he was driving a truck for a local fuel oil company, and he and Lorna and their little boy were living in town. But they visited often enough and on this particular day, early August it was, they’d come out for a home-cooked Sunday supper. After, while we were all sitting outside digesting our meal, James decided he’d ride the circuit he’d ridden so often over the years—out to Dollar Butte and back again. Who knows what happened out there? There was some thunder far off and maybe a lightning flash spooked his horse.

Here George interrupts to say, Not that he couldn’t stay on board a spooky horse. If there was a better hand with a horse in our part of the state, it was this woman sitting right here.

With the back of her hand Margaret shoos away the compliment. What do you do, Mr. Nevelsen, when you have bad news to deliver? George here used to bring the priest or a minister with him.

Jack Nevelsen nods his assent to this practice. I brought along the coroner a time or two. He’s an old-time doc who knows everybody and they know him.

Margaret smiles tightly and continues, Back when
George was in office, folks had to know when the sheriff and a man of the cloth came up the walk, they better lock the doors and windows. Anyway. We got our news from a horse. James rode out on Honey, a barn-sour creature if there ever was one. Of course she’d come back to the herd first chance. George was the one who saw her coming and he was off the porch like a shot. We found James out by a twisty old juniper. He was lying there like he was left at the only landmark in all that empty prairie. With his neck broken. She sighs as though that tree has suddenly taken shape in her mind. He must have landed wrong. That’s all I can think. Because he sure as hell got thrown plenty over the years and he climbed back on.

Jack Nevelsen nods solemnly. How much of life is that. Right there. Trying not to land wrong.

George, who has been listening to this story as if hearing it for the first time, says softly, Tell him about Janie. The phone call.

Margaret shakes her head but proceeds with the telling. James was a twin. Did George mention that? James and Janie. Though when this happened she was already living in Minneapolis and working behind a desk. With no intention to come back to North Dakota if she could help it. But that evening she called us, she who hardly ever called. But the phone rang and it was Janie. Was everything all right with James? she wanted to know. Buy yourself a train ticket, I told her. I’ll pay you back when you get here. You’ve got a funeral to go to. Then I handed the phone to George. I couldn’t bring myself to say any more.

Sheriff Nevelsen looks to George, who wanted this part of the story told.

George says, She had to know the fact of it.

And that was your job, Jack Nevelsen says.

George draws deep on his cigarette and nods. The smoke drifts from his nostrils.

No practicing for that work, Sheriff Nevelsen says, then steps back from the jail cell and looks up and down the corridor. He walks a few steps, retrieves a coffee can from under a bench, and uses it as a makeshift ashtray to crush out his cigarette. He holds the can out to George, who puts it to the same use.

The sheriff tugs at the brim of his hat as though he’s about to step out into a stiff wind. I better get back to the house, he says. Nora can’t talk to her folks any easier than I can, but together we can manage until they go off to bed.

Thank you again for your hospitality, Margaret says.

Hospitality.
All three of them laugh at that word.

Well, says Margaret. I don’t know what else you’d call it.

Sorry I couldn’t do better for you.

Margaret pats the mattress. Sheriff, I aim to sleep like a baby.

The sheriff points out the wall where the light switches for their cells are located. I’ll leave the lamp on out in the office, he says.

Then Jack Nevelsen says good night and walks away from his guests in the Mercer County Jail. Neither George nor Margaret speaks until the echo of his footsteps fades and his key turns in the lock of the outer door.

Who’s the man you thought you’d find in office here? asks Margaret.

Wesley Hayden.

Well, he’d have to have been something special to
outshine Mr. Nevelsen. Folks around here have got themselves a good one.

George nods in agreement. Though we might have loaded him up with more than he wanted to hear.

I was surprised you wanted him to hear about Janie.

To this George says nothing.

It sounded even stranger, Margaret says, when I said it out loud.

And what do you suppose your Sheriff Nevelsen would think, says George, if he knew you felt like you had to bring along a .45 and a box of ammunition on this expedition to find your grandson?

I have no idea, George. But if you feel the need, you can tell him tomorrow. Right now, I’m pooped. I’d like to make good on my promise to sleep the good sleep.

A
ND SLEEP SHE DOES
,
BUT
G
EORGE
,
FOR ALL THE NAPS
and nights he slept in Dalton’s jail, lies awake. He chose the cell on the end, a room so narrow that when he lies on the iron cot he can reach out and touch the far wall and one of the large stone blocks that form the courthouse’s foundation. Cold radiates from the stone. The light that Sheriff Nevelsen left on in the outer office can’t find its way down the hall to where George lies. The smell of bleach and disinfectant stings his nostrils. Years of bodies have compressed the mattress into a shape that doesn’t match his own. When he shifts, the rusty springs beneath him let out an anguished groan. If his door should slide shut, he’d be locked away from Margaret, sleeping in her cell two doors down.

After more than an hour of staring into darkness that doesn’t vary whether his eyes are open or closed or whether he gazes into the future or the past, George gives up. He rises from his bed, dresses, grabs his cigarettes, and, stepping cautiously in case some forgotten obstacle might be in his way, gropes his way out of the cell and down the hall.

In addition to the disinfectant, there’s another familiar smell here. Gun oil? Across from Sheriff Nevelsen’s desk
there’s a rack with a 30-30 and two shotguns, handcuffs looped over the barrel of each. A new typewriter ribbon? Carbon paper? Ah, there it is. Right next to the door. A mimeograph machine with its distinctive pungent ink and paper, their odor the perfume of classrooms and public offices everywhere.