The Great Alone

The women—and Leni—rushed along behind him, slipping and sliding in their haste.

“Don’t, Tom, really,” Mama said.

He wrenched open the saloon’s door. Leni instantly smelled damp wool and unwashed bodies and wet dog and burnt wood.

There were at least five men in here, not counting the hunched, toothless bartender. It was noisy: hands thumping on whiskey-barrel tables, a battery-operated radio blaring out “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown,” men talking all at once.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Mad Earl was saying, his eyes glazed. “The first thing they’ll do is take over the banks.”

“And seize our land,” Clyde said, the words slurred.

“They won’t take my g-damn land.” This from her dad. He stood beneath one of the hanging lanterns, swaying unsteadily, his eyes bloodshot. “No one takes what’s mine.”

“Ernt Allbright, you piece of shit,” Mr. Walker hissed.

Dad staggered, turned. His gaze went from Mr. Walker to Mama. “What the hell?”

Mr. Walker stormed forward, knocking chairs aside. Mad Earl scrambled to get out of his way. “A pack of wolves attacked your place last night, Allbright. Wolves,” he said again.

Dad’s gaze went to Mama. “Wolves?”

“You are going to get your family killed,” Mr. Walker said.

“Look here—”

“No. You look,” Mr. Walker said. “You aren’t the first cheechako to come up here with no goddamn idea what to do. You aren’t even the stupidest, not by a long shot. But a man who doesn’t take care of his wife…”

“You got no right to say anything about keeping a woman safe, do you, Tom?” Dad said.

Mr. Walker grabbed Dad by the ear and yanked so hard he yelped like a girl. He dragged Dad out of the smelly bar and into the street. “I should kick your ass around the block,” Mr. Walker said in a harsh voice.

“Tom,” Mama pleaded. “Please. Don’t make it worse.”

Mr. Walker stopped. Turned. He saw Mama standing there terrified, nearly in tears, and Leni saw him pull himself from the brink of rage. She’d never seen a man do it before.

He stilled, frowned, then muttered something under his breath and yanked Dad to the bus. Opening the door, he lifted Dad as easily as if he were a kid and shoved him into the passenger seat. “You’re a disgrace.”

He slammed the door shut and then went to Mama.

“Will you be okay?” Leni heard him ask.

Mama whispered an answer Leni couldn’t hear, but she thought she heard Mr. Walker whisper, Kill him, and saw Mama shake her head.

Mr. Walker touched her arm, barely, just for a second, but Leni saw.

Mama gave him an unsteady smile and said, “Leni, get in the bus,” without looking away from him.

Leni did as she was told.

Mama climbed into the driver’s seat and started the bus.

All the way home, Leni could see rage building in her father, see it in the way his nostrils flared every now and then, in the way his hands flexed and unflexed, hear it in the words he didn’t say.

He was a man who talked, especially lately, especially in the winter, he always had something to say. Now his lips were pressed tightly together.

It made Leni feel as if she were a coil of rope drawn around a cleat with the wind pulling at it, tugging, the rope creaking in resistance, slipping. If the line wasn’t perfectly tied down, it would all come undone, be torn away, maybe the wind would pull the cleat from its home in fury.

There was still a bright pink mark on his ear, like a burn, where Mr. Walker had taken hold and hauled Dad outside and humiliated him.