Page 84 of On the Land, We Shoot Straight
He slapped Red on the rump and went into the house to get something to eat. When he went to bed that night, the house felt emptier than it ever had, emptier than when he’d lived here all those years by himself.
He went over again in his head what Charmaine said. About whoring. Grady wasn’t no fool, he’d known Cole had been up to something. Kid fucked like a porn star and kissed like a virgin. But something didn’t add up in it. Something he reckoned he’d been circling around and didn’t want to face.
He didn’t sleep. He got up before dawn, got in the truck and drove. It wasn’t as good on account of not having the dogs, but he knew all the places in a hundred-mile radius Cole could be camping and he searched every single one. Nothing.
It was night again when he pulled onto the shoulder before his driveway and thought about it. No way Cole would’ve gone into town. But before he’d arrived at Grady’s, he had to have been doing some work and asking for work somewhere else. Tom drifted through his mind, but Grady dismissed it—no way was Cole was taking the banker up on his offer. There was JP, but Grady had the feeling Cole didn’t want to head that far from thecounty, and JP’s town was closer to Redbo than the center of Freeson; he didn’t know why, but there was a reason Cole had been sticking close to his old home. And no way was he in town. But someone in town might know something.
Grady made a U-turn. The high beams swept the road and the brush bright white between the blue-black of the night around him. He headed for town.
The streets were empty, and the whole place had the same cool blue feeling of night as everywhere else, the few street lights dropping an orange ball on the ground here and there. Grady parked in front of the grocer, got out and made his way to the one building where light and noise filtered onto the street.
As he walked in, all heads turned to him as one. A few nodded before turning back to their beers and conversation. Grady nodded at Donna when she smiled at him and went to pour. Grady sat. Floyd inclined his head at him as he did so. Grady didn’t mind Floyd. His farm neighbored Grady’s to the east, and when Grady said he didn’t mind him, he meant he was tolerable among the majority of the townspeople because he kept to himself. He was tall, thin, and older than Grady’s daddy had been; he had a son on the land with him, who’d be double Grady’s age and waiting for the old man to die so he could take over. Grady had the feeling he’d be waiting a while longer.
“Grady,” Floyd said.
“Floyd.”
“How’s the missus?”
Grady sipped the beer Donna placed in front of him. “Gone.”
Floyd nodded.
“Already?” Donna asked.
Grady looked at her. She was wearing a bright pink shirt and had lipstick to match. The whole look was too much, and if Charmaine were here, she would’ve said so to Grady on the side.
“Already,” Grady replied.
“Ain’t sure why she married it if she don’t like the land,” Donna said and smiled, her teeth big and gummy under the lipstick.
Grady grunted. He looked past her to the other end of the bar and saw Joel, who met Grady’s eyes and smiled. Joel was talking to the usual crowd of farmers and ranchers, and Grady noticed them all glance his way and then look back to Joel as if they had something on their minds but weren’t willing to share it. Grady got the feeling then they knew all about Cole and might know where he was at now. The problem was Grady didn’t know how to raise it without straight-up asking, which he was about to do when he heard Donna saying to them that “Grady’s missus done took off already.” She glanced back at him, and they all followed her look and looked away again.
“She ain’t comin’ back,” Grady said, and then wondered why he had.
Floyd stirred beside him and looked up from under his bushy gray eyebrows. “Never marry a city one.”
Grady shrugged.
“I reckon she didn’t like what you had goin’ on out there, Grade,” Joel called from his spot at the other end of the bar.
Grady shifted so he was looking right down the bar and head-on at him. Joel met his look, his face flushed with booze and his smile sleazy.
“Not sure I take your meaning,” Grady replied.
Joel laughed, and the men around him shifted like a flock of birds rearranging their feathers, looking anywhere but at Grady.
“But I reckon she’ll come back now he’s gone,” Joel said, his face amicable like he had just provided Grady with a welcome solution.
Grady spun fully and looked right at him. “Still not sure I’m takin’ your meaning.”
Joel grinned, like they were sharing a joke. “Old Man Willy was in here bragging on it not thirty minutes before you came in—”
Grady stood and walked out. He could hear Joel calling his name in bafflement and ignored it. He got in his truck, started the engine and reversed, heading out of town in the opposite direction from his own farm towards the Willy place.
It was a good hour to get to there, and Grady made it in forty minutes. He navigated the dirt track to the farm house and saw the porch light was on. Old Man Willy’s wife was standing there looking at who might be driving up at this time. Grady stopped, got out and walked to the bottom of the steps.
“Grady?” she said, unsure and surprised as she tugged her dressing gown closer to herself.
