Ariel's Crossing - Bradford Morrow [58]
“Up to what he’s usually up to, right?” she asked Carl, who nodded. Of course he was, thought Kip. Marcos was an unfailingly consistent man, not unlike his folks. Reliable, tried, true. Traits both he and Mary, in different ways, emulated yet resisted. When Carl rose from the table, Kip knew he would, too. Would walk with him through the kitchen, out the door, and into their workday. Marcos would already be out dragging the arena with a round harrow pulled by a small tractor to prep it for the morning’s free-lungeing and sweating the horses. Kip wouldn’t need to ask which of those horses to let out first, or which paddock to put them in. Wouldn’t need Marcos’s help washing down any of their boarders. He had become integrated into Rancho Pajarito, despite his habit of behaving otherwise. That knowledge—brought on by the clink of a spoon in a cup, the most paltry sign of household commonplace—would follow him throughout his day and into the late afternoon down at the fieldhouse.
What Kip did before he left with Carl, though, was ask Franny, seemingly out of nowhere, if she’d ever met a guy named Clifford.
“Why do you ask?” her breath coming short.
“No reason.”
“There’re a lot of Cliffords in the world.”
“This guy’s last name is Carpenter.”
Franny blanched as she said, somewhat sternly, “Don’t know him, Kip.”
“Well, you’d like him if you did. Has some cobwebs in the attic if you know what I mean, but then we all do. Me especially.”
Sarah asked her, once Kip left, “What was that about?”
“I haven’t the vaguest.”
“You’ve been helping him down at the fieldhouse. He seem okay to you?”
“Right as right.”
“He’s a complicated character, but we love him.”
Franny sat unstirring, thinking how funny it was that people referred to themselves as characters, as if the world really were a stage.
“That Clifford Carpenter he was asking you about has been up at the convalescent center quite a long time, poor dog. Disconnected from everything and everyone. War vet. Just as sweet as can be. One of those people who make you remember that there but for the grace of God go you.”
“Do you think it’d be so bad. Being totally out of it, I mean? Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn’t be blissful.”
“Who ever said bliss was the be-all?”
“He and Kip were friends?”
“Kip was always gentle with him, very kind—brotherly almost. Not that Clifford even knew who he was from day to day.”
Franny rose from the table. “Got to get to work myself.”
“I ought to take Kip up to visit Clifford sometime. You’d be welcome to join us.”
“Maybe sometime. If you think it’d be a good thing.”
How much smaller could the world get? What she wouldn’t give to visit him, but she couldn’t. One thing was sure—Franny was beginning more and more to ruin Mary’s life.
Good Friday or bad, which would it be? Ariel drove east up out of Pojoaque through Nambé pueblo, toward Chimayó. Thank god it’s Friday. Name of a bar? She hadn’t had a drop since a week ago tonight. The gin debauch at the farm. Was she taking care of herself or of this other she hosted? Forget about that, keep moving forward.
She drove past corrals where chestnut horses and paints stood. A big cat lay dreaming in the purple shade of the overlook mission, El Sagrado Corazón. A goat wearing Moses’ beard and Lucifer’s horns crossed the road and a midnight-blue magpie strutted along its shoulder. Sometimes a brilliant field of green grass came into view but most of the scape was variant browns—tawnies, powders, hazels, beiges, tans. She saw no people anywhere as the road left all dwellings behind.
The turnoff to Chimayó. Before her, behind, and also to either side was a sweeping magnificent emptiness. Brittle thumbs of terra firma reaching upward. A formation that resembled a flock of nuns. Sandy flats stretched between blackgreen globes of piñon and juniper billeted along arroyos and over the jagged flats in all directions. Masses of clouds heaped themselves