CHAPTER TWELVE
Reese
I was hitting Tom’s head against the floor, growling in my throat. How dare he say that? How dare he try and make a fool out of me? How dare he…
“Bradford!” someone yelled behind me. “Mister Bradford!”
I was growling, feeling as if the strange black rage that lived inside me had possessed me, when someone shouted my name.
“Mister Bradford! Get off him.”
I blinked and stepped back. I realized Sumner had me by the shoulders and was pulling me off. I shrugged away his grip.
“Let me go,” I said.
I felt the rage recede. Suddenly I was exhausted. I stood and staggered back a moment, then shook my head to clear it.
Tom was sitting at the garage, hunched over, lungs rasping. I could hear him cough, each hacking grunt a reproach. I looked at the silent workers and felt the beginnings of shame. It was the rage—the disquiet, dark anger that filled me and never really seemed to leave me. I shivered.
“Everyone,” I said quietly, “let’s get back to work.”
They all looked at me. I realized then that I might as well stop for the day. The storehouse was just not going to get repaired this afternoon. They were all shaken up and I couldn’t say I blamed them.
One of the guys, Bill, laughed.
“Hell, sir,” he said. “Never seen anyone go for someone that hard.”
I gave him my best silencing look. I felt a hollow gratification when it worked. I shook my head.
“Dismissed,” I said quietly. “Let’s all go get some rest. Grant?”
“Mm?”
“How’s he doing?”
“Reckon he’s okay,” my oldest and most sensible laborer—the only guy who worked on the ranch regularly—nodded. “He’ll be fine. No harm done.” He gave me an appraising look. I tensed.
“Fine,” I said thinly. I had the feeling that Grant knew more about me and my rages than he was letting on—probably he’d seen something like that before. He was a sensible fellow.
“Should we take him back to town?” one of them asked. I nodded.
“I’ll drive. It’s about time you all got back,” I said. I always gave a lift back to town to my day laborers—it was the least I could do.
They all nodded, looking uncomfortable. I noticed no one wanted to talk. I went to get my keys, and they climbed onto the pickup, quiet and subdued. One of them was giving their wounded fellow water and I winced, seeing how he didn’t look at me and neither did the others.
The drive to town was slow and uncomfortable. I left them near the center of town, where I always had in the past, and they jumped off, grave and unsmiling.
I drove off feeling like a pariah. It was my luck it was informal labor. If I’d gone for an employee like that, I’d likely get myself sued. Or in trouble with the union, or damn well arrested.
Reese, you loser.
I was sick with shame when I got off and went into my house. I found the cake on the doorstep. Swallowing hard, jaw clenching, I took it inside.
I don’t know why I snapped like that. I did, really. That mocking tone was the same mocking I was faced with every day, in my own head, when I thought about Parker and Hewitt. I’d let them die. I was weak, a coward. The last thing I’d wanted was for Kelly to think of me like that. I wanted her to see me as a strong man.
As I thought that, I frowned. I thought girls were supposed to like men who were strong willed and domineering. But she had looked at me like I was despicable. I grunted. I’ll never understand women!
I put the cake in the kitchen and went to the sitting room. There, I flopped down in the dusky dark of the place—it was oriented east and never saw sun past midday—and closed my eyes.
What does Kelly think of me?
Worse than the impending possibility of a lawsuit, worse than letting myself down, worse, even, than the shame, was that thought. I’d made her see my worst side. Now she would hate me. How could she not?
I sighed. “Why not?” It was for the best. I wanted her to keep away from me. Now she would.
I sat in the dark for a long while. My memories filled with Kelly, and I found myself feeling bad. I liked her. I liked her a lot. Maybe I’d misunderstood. Maybe she wasn’t so much angry with me as frightened. I decided to call her.
“Kelly?” No answer. I hung up.
I waited five minutes—perhaps she was out—and called again. “Kelly?” I sighed. “Answer me.”
But she didn’t. I put the phone away, my mood dark. I went through to the kitchen. It was only three o’ clock in the afternoon but I already felt sick and tired of being awake. I realized I hadn’t made lunch and I set about making some. I heard my message tone and went running through to the sitting room to fetch it.
It was Jackson.
“Oh, for crying…” I swore. I had really wanted it to be Kelly. But there was no message from her.
I ate lunch in the kitchen, restless and straining to hear my phone. I kept on thinking she might call me. But she didn’t. I answered Jackson’s message—he was suggesting we spent Saturday in town together—and he phoned.
“Hello?” I said tiredly.
“Hey,” he replied. His voice was that easy, calm voice I remembered. “Long time no hear.”
I chuckled hollowly. “Yeah. Listen, Jacks; I’m in a bad place right now.”
“Oh.” a pause. “Should I go away? You want to talk?”
I sighed. I wanted to swear and yell and possibly throw things. But of the two proffered options, talking was better than sitting here broodingly. “Yes,” I said.
He laughed. “What’s happening, man?” He sounded concerned and I felt myself relax.
“Well, it’s like this. I met a girl a couple days ago.”
“Mm?”
I liked the neutral reply. “And, well, it’s driving me mad. On the one hand, I think she likes me. But then, on the other hand, she’s all…weird.”
“Weird.”
“Yeah. Like…she blew up at me when I said girls don’t do farmwork, and then again when we had a bit of a disagreement about something, and then today, when I lost it a bit…”
“Why is this weird?” he asked candidly. I sighed.
“I guess when I just say it like it is, it doesn’t sound weird. But, like…” I paused, feeling as if there was some fundamental point Jackson pointedly missed. “Like, I’m just being a guy.”
Jackson chuckled. “Some girls don’t like feeling put down, Bradford.”
“I didn’t put her down! I was treating her like, well…like a girl.”
“That’s what I mean.”
I frowned at that. “How’d you mean?”
He whistled. “Lieutenant, I don’t remember you having a head as thick as an armor-plated truck. But there’s something here you don’t understand. Girls are people. Not some strange weaker sex. Let that idea go back to the end of the last century.”
I sighed. None of this made sense. The way I had been raised was to treat girls differently to guys. They were weaker than us, after all. And guys had to be strong, and brave, and unfeeling…
And you’re so strong and brave aren’t you, Lieutenant Bradford. You’re so heroic you let your own men get blown up and didn’t save them.
I ground my teeth.
“Jackson?” I said.
“Yes, Lieutenant Bradford?”
“You’re an ass,” I said. He laughed.
“Maybe. But I’m not wrong.”
I sighed. “Maybe.”
“Well, I’m right but you don’t have to believe it. Now, am I going to see you Saturday?”
I sighed. I felt profoundly nihilistic. I was fed up with myself, fed up with him. Fed up with everything in this world that made no sense and confused the hell out of me. Which, right now, meant everything in it. Nothing made sense…
“Maybe,” I said.
He chuckled. “Good. See you at the Green Mill pub?”
“Maybe,” I said.
He sighed. “See you, lieutenant. And…take care. Bye!”
“Bye.”
I held down the button as if I wanted to strangle it. I was feeling angry and restless. Jackson hadn’t helped. Why’d he take her side? She was being unreasonable. I was in the right in my views—all I’d done was be a man: aggressive, combative, reactive.
Yeah. And if that was the standard of manhood, a voice said in my head, Captain Soames would be Man of the Decade.
Captain Soames had been one of our most hated officers. He had been known to run men to heat exhaustion, and he was a merciless bully who’d been shot down in heavy fire in the first engagement in the hills. We all suspected that one of his own men had taken him out, but of course no one said it. We all hated him.
I had to agree that, by the standard of masculinity my father had imposed, Captain Soames would have made the grade. But he was easily the most despicable person I’d ever met; a petty, arrogant tyrant. Would I want to be like him? Was I like him?
“I don’t even know anything anymore.”
I went through to the kitchen. It was four P.M. and early, but I decided to have a beer. I cracked it open and drank, feeling my nerves relax. The feeling of tightly wound tension dissolved. I laughed cheerfully. There were plenty of beers in the fridge. If one made me feel better, the rest would only make me feel better still.
What else was I going to do tonight?