Let Him Go: A Novel by Larry Watson
The first landmark to vanish was the hill they sit on now, as the snowstorm rolled down the eastern slopes of the Rockies, picked up speed as it crossed Montana, and everywhere in its wake left a featureless landscape, both distance and contours of earth erased. The windows of the Blackledges’ house hummed and rattled in their frames, snow hissed against the outer walls, and wind whistled down the chimney. Her house was blizzard-besieged, but Margaret had her hands full with the people inside. Some kind of bug had bitten George and the twins, and all of them were sick, going off like Roman candles at both ends, vomiting in kitchen pots and scurrying to the toilet with diarrhea. George bore his illness with nothing but groans, but James and Janie called for Margaret with every cramp and convulsion. Between times when she was holding someone over the toilet or changing bedding, Margaret would glance out at the storm. And be glad. Their illnesses had come on during the night, and they all woke that morning unable to climb out of bed except to scramble to the bathroom. That meant that the twins didn’t go off to school, and George didn’t drive into town or ride off to mend a fence or feed stock. She didn’t have to worry about any or all of them finding their way home through the storm. She and George had installed indoor plumbing two years before, so that problem was solved. The wind could howl and the snow drift high: Margaret Blackledge had her children and her husband safe—sick but safe—in rooms she could oversee. She’d have been a fool to ask for more from this life.
Margaret extends her arm out the car window and marks an X in the air. It’s close to the gesture a priest makes, but if she were to speak, her benediction might be nothing but her father’s original homestead claim. The southeast quarter of section 14, township 132, range 99, Dalton County, North Dakota. In Margaret’s memory those numbers are as fixed as any dates drilled into the minds of schoolchildren.
She brings her hand back in and touches it to her long, slender throat. She continues to look outward but now it’s to her husband she speaks. I’ve had enough loss, George.
You know that’s what life is. Loss, fast or slow. Jesus, if the years teach us anything—
That doesn’t mean I have to sit back and take it. Not while I have strength or will to do something.
Accept it or not. Nothing lasts. He slaps his hand against the Hudson’s dashboard. Not flesh or steel. Not walls or possessions. Not friends or family. Hell, look around. This is the country of all that isn’t anymore. You don’t need me to make a list.
You’re right, George. Her eyes flash like sunlight on window glass. I don’t need a goddamn list. And I didn’t need a trip out here as a goddamn reminder of anything.
But a list like that, once its enumeration has begun, has its own momentum. Comfort, but pain too. Certainty, but doubt too. Strength. Beauty. Desire. Love. And one day only the memory of all those . . . and then not even memory.
George wrestles the gearshift into reverse and executes the turn that will take them back to the highway. It’s a road they’ve driven thousands of times before but which they both believed they’d never travel again.
5.
DRIVING WEST AND NORTH OUT OF DALTON, GEORGE and Margaret listen to the quiz show Winner Take All on the Dickinson radio station, though neither of them is able to answer a single question. When they lose this program to static, Margaret twists the dial back and forth until she finds a program out of Glasgow, a swap shop that comes in as clear as a meadowlark’s call. They shake their heads over the caller who has a pair of salt and pepper shakers for sale—fully loaded, he says—and they smile at the caller who wants to buy a scythe because his grass got away from him over the summer. Then those voices fade and are replaced by a crackle and hiss that sounds as though someone recorded blowing sand.
In the absence of other voices, Margaret says, Maybe you’re worried he’d grow up spoiled if he lived with us.
A straight, level stretch of highway. No other cars on the road. But George Blackledge says nothing and stares out the windshield as if the world out there were asking for all his attention.
Maybe you think, Margaret continues, I couldn’t bring myself to discipline him. And we know you wouldn’t. That’s something I could never figure out about you, George. You could stand up to a mad-dog drunk and haul him off to the hoosegow but you couldn’t speak a cross word to your children. But come to me about it—oh, that was easy enough for you. James has to break the ice on the horse tank first thing, not when it suits him. Janie’s dawdling when she’s gathering eggs again. So then it was my job to get after them. I used to wonder if that’s when the tremors started, when I had to hand out my own scoldings and yours too. I’d be mad as hell at you for giving me that duty but I had to turn it around on the twins. Not fair, George. It wasn’t fair.
As intently as he stares straight ahead, she stares at him, at that large skull that must be filled with words—it must be—but which remains as silent as if it were chiseled from granite. She waits a mile or more, until the road finds a reason to curve, a grassy butte hardly high enough to justify going around. I give up, Margaret says. Again.
She tries the radio dial once more, and soon she finds a Williston station where an announcer tells them they’re listening to The Northern Plains Gospel Hour. But before so much as a line of a song is out—I’m just a poor—George reaches over and snaps off the radio.
Goodness, says Margaret.
I try to stay out of their churches, George says. They can keep their goddamn music out of my car.
That would make it my fault, Margaret says, for inviting it in. But it’s just a song, George. A pretty song. You’ve probably heard me sing it myself. Though the way I massacre a tune, you maybe wouldn’t recognize it.
Then turn it back on if you like, George says. He takes out his pack of Lucky Strikes, shakes one loose, and brings it to his lips. Without being asked, Margaret pushes in the cigarette lighter.
That’s not what I’m saying. But when it comes to letting things go, George Blackledge, you sure as hell talk a better game than you play. How many years ago did you walk away from your father? And you’re still looking over your shoulder. Just because he was a Bible-thumper—
And if it was just Bibles he thumped, that’d be a different story.
Fine. A man who beat his wife and children. A cruel man.
The lighter pops out and he brings its glowing rings to the tip of his cigarette. He inhales deeply and then blows a stream of smoke toward the small window vent. And a tyrant, says George. A cruel tyrant.
All right. He was all you say and then some. But my God, the man’s been dead and gone for how many years? And you still can’t listen to a hymn? It must have been hell for you, sitting through James’s service.
Like it was for you. And the music didn’t have a goddamn thing to do with it.
Now it is George who turns the radio back on.
I’m just a-going over Jordan. I’m just a-going over—
And it’s Margaret who turns it off.
The sun has dropped low enough to bring up the colors in the prairie grasses, the shades of lavender and gold that can’t be seen at any other moment of the day and that incline most travelers through this landscape to silence. Gospel hour indeed.
6.
WHEN THEY ARRIVE IN BENTROCK, THE COUNTY SEAT of Mercer County, Montana, dusk has finally let loose its long hold on the day. Darkness has fallen from the apex of the sky and risen from the rooftops and tall trees, taking over all but a streak of the western horizon. Streetlamps and porch lights have come on and windows have been closed against the evening chill. The only birds flying at this hour are the nightjars hunting insects stirred by the day’s heat. The owls are waiting for that blood-red smear in the west to disappear.
To drive into this little town from the wide, undulating, horizontal world of the prairie means to experience an abrupt alteration of scale. Here people have tried to install the vertical, though they’ve been modest about it. No building rises higher than two stories. The trees have had less th
Because this town is small and all its intentions apparent, even to a first-time visitor, the Blackledges have no difficulty finding Main Street and the hotel where they plan to spend the night. Even easier to locate is the nearby courthouse, a brick and stone structure that also houses the county jail and the sheriff’s office. The entrance to both is at the back of the building, and George pulls in to the un-paved lot and parks the car.
I want to see if Sheriff Hayden’s in, George says. He and I worked on an extradition case once. Knew a hell of a lot more law than I did. When we explain our situation, I believe he’ll be able to provide some direction.
As her husband opens the car door, Margaret asks, Isn’t it late for him to be here?
The light’s on. And they don’t keep bankers’ hours. You of all people ought to know that.
Fine. But don’t tell him more than you need to.
I couldn’t if I wanted to.
What I mean is, this isn’t a legal matter.
No, George says, stepping out of the car. Not so far it isn’t.
Margaret climbs out too. My God. How can I get this sore doing nothing but sitting in a car? You go ahead, she says, first reaching high overhead and then bending down to touch her toes. I’ll stay out here and stretch my legs and enjoy the evening air.
George heads toward the jail, and Margaret proceeds in the other direction, striding across the gravel with the long-legged pace of someone measuring off distance. When she reaches the farthest corner of the lot, she stops, wraps her arms around herself as protection against the dropping temperature, and sniffs the air. Although she can’t see it from here, just down the block from the courthouse is a greenhouse. She and George commented on it as they drove past, its glass walls and roof reflecting light from a sky that to their eyes held nothing but darkness. And inside would be other elements rapidly vanishing from the outer autumnal world—warmth, soft dirt, fragrances from flowers blossoming according to their own season. What must it be like, on a night like this, when another hard freeze is coming on, or during a winter snow, to smell moist dirt and what grows from it, when even the odor of decay is welcome . . . She looks up at the sky where, within the hour, the first stars have appeared. Long past the moment when her neck begins to stiffen and ache, she continues to stare into the darkness, even though none of the human secrets she needs to know are to be found in the stars but rather closer to the earth her boots stand upon.
Finally she walks back to the car. She doesn’t get inside but leans against the hood and its still-warm metal. Soon she hears footsteps kicking through the gravel, and in the light from the jail’s back door she sees two men approaching. They might be doubles, a pair of tall, slow-moving men who walk as though they have yokes across their broad shoulders, yet something in their carriage hints that they can carry still more weight. They’re wearing uniforms issued by the same army—sweat-rimmed Stetsons, plaid shirts with snaps instead of buttons, Levi’s, and boots. The man who is not Margaret’s husband takes off his hat as he comes near.
Margaret, George says, this is Jack Nevelsen. Jack’s sheriff here. Wes Hayden’s been out of office for some time now.
With the two men standing side by side, it’s apparent that George Blackledge has years on Jack Nevelsen, but the resemblance is close enough for them to be father and son. Does being sheriff give a man that distant, careworn look, or will people in this part of the world elect only a man who has it?
Pleased to meet you, ma’am, Nevelsen says, extending his hand. Yes, the Haydens are living in Fargo now. Wes and his family, anyway.
I explained our situation, George says.
Nevelsen nods and though there’s no light overhead but what comes from the stars, when he puts his hat back on his eyes are cast deeper in darkness. The thing is, Nevelsen says, the Weboy clan has two branches. Like I told your husband, the ones up here—they’re townsfolk. Good people. They’ve had a little hard luck but they’re hardworking and law-abiding. Frontier Saddlery here, that’s a Weboy operation. Or at least started up by the family. But from what I’ve heard, the Weboys down around Gladstone are nothing but trouble. Always looking for the easy dollar and not much caring how they get it. That’s the branch Donnie’s from, and maybe that’s where you’d find him. Back with his people. If he’d landed anywhere around here, especially with a young woman and a child, I’d have heard.
Margaret turns a slow circle as if to verify her location. Donnie talked about living up here. I’m sure of that.
Yes ma’am. He spent a few summers here. Staying with his aunt and uncle. On the run maybe, though Sheriff Hayden would have been the one to know for sure about that. Nothing but rumor ever came across my desk about Donnie. You say he’s married to the woman? And they’ve got a little boy?
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.
7.
SHERIFF NEVELSEN ENCOURAGES THE BLACKLEDGES 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.
W
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.