Close Range: Brokeback Mountain and other stories. Annie Proulx

we wouldn’t know it.”

      “I do this for a paycheck,” said Musgrove getting under the hood with his baby and pulling at the truck’s intestinal wires. “Had to live on rodeo we couldn’t make the riffle, could we, baby?” Neve sauntered over, scratched a match on her boot sole and lit a cigarette, leaned on Musgrove.

      “You want a knife?” said Leecil. “Cut the sumbuck?”

      “You’re getting your baby dirty,” said Diamond, wishing Neve would take it.

      “I rather have a greasy little girl than a lonesome baby, mhhmhhmhh?” he said into the baby’s fat neck. “Try startin it now.” It didn’t go and there wasn’t any time to waste fooling with it.

      “You can’t both squeeze in with us and my mare don’t like sharin her trailer. But that don’t mean pig pee because there’s a bunch a guys comin on. Somebody’ll pick you up. You’ll get there.” He jammed a mouthguard—pink, orange and purple—over his teeth and grinned at his charmed baby.

      Four bullriders with two buckle bunnies in a convertible gathered them up and one of the girls pressed against Diamond from shoulder to ankle the whole way. He got to the arena in a visible mood to ride but not bulls.

      It worked pretty well for a year and then Leecil quit. It had been a scorching, dirty afternoon at a Colorado fairgrounds, the showers dead and dry. Leecil squirted water from a gas station hose over his head and neck, drove with the window cranked down, the dry wind sucking up the moisture immediately. The venomous blue sky threw heat.

      “Two big jumps, wrecked in time to git stepped on. Man, he ate me. Out a the money again. I sure wasn’t packin enough in my shorts today to ride that trash. Say what, the juice ain’t worth the squeeze. Made up my mind while I was rollin in the dirt. I used a think I wanted a rodeo more than anything,” said Leecil, “but shoot, I got a say I hate it, the travelin, traffic and stinkin motels, the rest of it. Tired a bein sored up all the time. I don’t got that thing you got, the style, the fuck-it-all-I-love-it thing. I miss the ranch bad. The old man’s on my mind. He got some medical problem, can’t hardly make his water good, told my brother there’s blood in his bull stuff. They’re doin tests. And there’s Renata. What I’m tryin a say is, I’m cuttin out on you. Anyway, guess what, goin a get married.” The flaring shadow of the truck sped along a bank cut.

      “What do you mean? You knock Renata up?” It was all going at speed.

      “Aw, yeah. It’s o.k.”

      “Well shit, Leecil. Won’t be much fun now.” He was surprised that it was true. He knew he had little talent for friendship or affection, stood armored against love, though when it did come down on him later it came like an axe and he was slaughtered by it. “I never had a girl stick with me more than two hours. I don’t know how you get past that two hours,” he said.

      Leecil looked at him.

      He mailed a postcard of a big yellow bull on the charging run, ropes of saliva slung out from his muzzle, to his younger brother Pearl, but did not telephone. After Leecil quit he moved to Texas where there was a rodeo every night for a fast driver red-eyed from staring at pin headlights miles distant alternately dark and burning as the road swelled and fell away.

      The second year he was getting some notice and making money until a day or so before the big Fourth of July weekend. He came off a great ride and landed hard on his feet with his right knee sharply flexed, tore the ligaments and damaged cartilage. He was a fast healer but it put him out for the summer. When he was off the crutches, bored and limping around on a cane, he thought about Redsled. The doctor said the hot springs might be a good idea. He picked up a night ride with Tee Dove, a Texas bullrider, the big car slingshot at the black hump of range, dazzle of morning an hour behind the rim, not a dozen words exchanged.

      “It’s a bone game,” Tee Dove said and Diamond thought he meant injuries, nodded.

      For the first time in two years he sat at his mother’s table. She said, “Bless this food, amen, oh boy, I knew you’d be back one of these days. And look at you. Just take a look at you. Like you climbed out of a ditch. Look at your hands,” she said. “They’re a mess. I suppose you’re broke.” She was dolled up, her hair long and streaked blond, crimped like Chinese noodles, her eyelids iridescent blue.

      Diamond extended his fingers, turned his carefully scrubbed hands palm up, palm down, muscular hands with cut knuckles and small scars, two nails purple-black and lifting off at the base.

      “They’re clean. And I’m not broke. Didn’t ask you for money, did I?”

      “Oh, eat some salad,” she said. They ate in silence, forks clicking among the pieces of cucumber and tomato. He disliked cucumber. She got up, clattered small plates with gold rims onto the table, brought out a supermarket lemon meringue pie, began to cut it with the silver pie server.

      “All right,” said Diamond, “calf-slobber pie.”

      Pearl, his ten-year-old brother, let out a bark.

      She stopped cutting and fixed him with a stare. “You can talk ugly when you’re with your rodeo bums, but when you are home keep your tongue decent.”

      He looked at her, seeing the cold blame. “I’ll pass on that pie.”

      “I think all of us will after that unforgettable image. You’ll want a cup of coffee.” She had forbidden it when he lived at home, saying it would stunt his growth. Now it was this powdered stuff in the jar.

      “Yeah.” There wasn’t much point in getting into it his first night home but he wanted a cup of real blackjack, wanted to throw the fucking pie at the ceiling.

      She went out then, some kind of western junk meeting at the Redsled Inn, sticking him with the dishes. It was as if he’d never left.

      He came down late the next morning. Pearl was sitting at the kitchen table reading a comic book. He was wearing the T-shirt Diamond had sent. It read, Give Blood, Ride Bulls. It was too small.

      “Momma’s gone to the shop. She said you should eat cereal, not eggs. Eggs have cholesterol. I saw you on t.v. once. I saw you get bucked off.”

      Diamond fried two eggs in butter and ate them out of the pan, fried two more. He looked for coffee but there was only the jar of instant dust.

      “I’m going to get a buckle like yours when I’m eighteen,” Pearl said. “And I’m not going to get bucked off because I’ll hold on with the grip of death. Like this.” And he made a white-knuckled fist.

      “This ain’t a terrific buckle. I hope you get a good one.”

      “I’m going to tell Momma you said ‘ain’t.’”

      “For Christ sake, that’s how everybody talks. Except for one old booger steer roper. I could curl your hair. And I ain’t foolin. You want an egg?”

      “I hate eggs. They aren’t good for you. Ain’t good for you. How does the old booger talk? Does he say ‘calf-slobber pie’?”

      “Why do you think she buys eggs if nobody’s supposed to eat them? The old booger’s religious. Lot of prayers and stuff. Always reading pamphlets about Jesus. Actually he’s not old. He’s no older than me. He’s younger than me. He don’t never say ‘ain’t.’ He don’t say ‘shit’ or ‘fuck’ or ‘cunt’ or ‘prick’ or ‘goddamn.’ He says ‘good lord’ when he’s pissed off or gets slammed up the side of his head.”

      Pearl laughed immoderately, excited by the forbidden words and low-down grammar spoken in their mother’s kitchen. He expected to see the floor tiles curl and smoke.

      “Rodeo’s full of Jesus freaks. And double and triple sets of brothers. All kinds of Texas cousins. There’s some fucking strange guys in it. It’s like a magic show sometimes, all kinds of prayers and jujus and crosses and amulets and superstitions. Anybody does anything good, makes a good ride, it’s not them, it’s their mystical power connection