Eventide - Kent Haruf [94]
You did.
Yes. We did.
You want to take me to the firemen’s ball at the Legion.
We figured we’d come out and pry you loose. You wouldn’t go otherwise.
Raymond looked at him and turned and now he looked at Victoria.
Yes, why don’t you? she said. I want you to have some fun.
I thought you kids would want to go into town again yourselves. This is your last night. You have to go back to school tomorrow.
We need to get packed and you can’t do anything to help with that. Why don’t you go? I want you to.
He looked across at the boy and Katie as if they might be of some help. Then he looked at nobody. It just appears to me like this is a goddamn conspiracy, he said. That’s what it appears like.
It is, Maggie said. Now go put on your town clothes so we can get going. The dance has already started.
I might do that, he said. But I’m going to tell you something first. I’ve never been so pushed around in all my life. I don’t know if I care for it, either.
I’ll buy you a drink, Maggie said. Will that help?
It’ll take more than just one drink to wash this down.
You can have as many as you like.
All right, he said. I seem to be outvoted. But it’s not right, to treat a man like this in his own house. In his own kitchen, when he’s just trying to settle his supper.
He stood up from the table and went upstairs to his bedroom and put on his good dark slacks and the blue wool shirt Victoria had given him and got into his brown boots, then he came back downstairs. He told Victoria and Del and Katie good night, then followed Maggie Jones and Guthrie outside. They waited for him to get into Guthrie’s old red pickup, but Raymond said he would drive his own vehicle so he could come home when he wanted to. At least you can’t stop me from doing that, he said.
But we’ll follow you into town, Maggie said. So you don’t get lost on the way.
Well, Maggie, Raymond said. I’m beginning to think you got kind of a mean streak in you. I never noticed it before.
I’m not mean, she said. But I’ve been around you men for too long to harbor any illusions.
You hear that, Tom?
I hear it, Guthrie said. The best thing to do is just go along with her when she gets like this.
I guess so, Raymond said. But I’ll tell you what. She’s going to make me think of a barn-sour horse yet, if she keeps on this way.
THEY DROVE OUT THE LANE AND ALONG THE GRAVEL county road onto the blacktop, the headlights of the two pickups shining into the night one after the other along the barrow ditches. Then they entered town and turned west on US 34. There was a wreck across from the grocery store and the highway patrol routed them around it. They went on through town and parked in the crowded graveled lot outside the white-stuccoed American Legion and went downstairs and paid the cover charge to a woman sitting on a stool at the entrance to the barroom and dance hall. A country band was playing at the back. The music was loud, and the long smoky room was already filled with people standing two and three deep at the bar and sitting in the booths along the walls, and there were more people clustered at the foldout tables in the big side room where the sliding doors had been pushed back. Men in western suits and women in bright dresses were dancing in the thin scatter of sawdust on the floor in front of the band.
Come on, Maggie said. Follow me.
She led Raymond and Guthrie to a dark booth in the far corner that a friend from school had been saving for them. It’s about time, the woman said. I couldn’t have kept it much longer.
We’re here now, Maggie said. Thank you. We’ll take care of it.
They sat down. Raymond peered around in silent amazement and interest. There were other ranchers and farmers he knew, out for a Saturday night of dancing and partying, and a great number of people from town. He turned to look at the band and the people out on the floor dancing in wide circles. Presently a barmaid came up and they ordered drinks, then Guthrie and Maggie got up to dance to a song she said she liked.