Let Him Go by Larry Watson

Author:Larry Watson [Watson, Larry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction, Historical, Literary, Women's Fiction, Domestic Life, Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, Thrillers, Suspense, Family Life, Historical Fiction, literary fiction
ISBN: 1571311025
Amazon: B00C4GUX96
Publisher: Milkweed Editions
Published: 2013-09-03T05:00:00+00:00

23.

AFTER SPENDING SO MUCH OF THE DAY IN AIMLESS activity, the Blackledges relish having tasks to perform. They rearrange the tent and its poles, and they undo the neat piles and packets of towels and bedding and stuff them into corners of the Hudson’s trunk. George takes the dishes out of a box and puts them in his suitcase, layered between articles of clothing. Through this process of repackaging and disposing, they come up with a few empty boxes and cartons, and these they tear apart and put into the incinerator barrel behind the motel along with the food that can spoil or go stale. Margaret steps back from the Hudson and though most of their possessions are still in their cabin, she surveys the car as though it were fully packed.

If we have to, she says, we can put a suitcase or two on the front seat between us and Jimmy could ride there.

Hell, you can hold him on your lap all the way. It’s not that long a trip.

At this suggestion she smiles. Of course she could do that. Of course.

Should we check out in the morning? George asks. Or wait until Lorna makes up her mind?

The clouds that have raced across the sky all day have turned invisible with the approach of night. A few stars wink high above the eastern horizon. Now that she’s stopped working, Margaret has to wrap her arms around herself against the evening’s dropping temperature. We’ll check out, she says.

...

George is sitting in their room’s only chair. He’s reading the day-old copy of the Billings Gazette he picked up in the motel office. Waiting on his tongue is the news about a man who died in a grain elevator in a small Montana town near Bozeman. Tongarden was the man’s name. Hadn’t there been a rancher south of Dalton named Tongarden? The dead man was forty-seven years old. Wouldn’t their Tongarden have been about that age?

But when Margaret comes out of the bathroom George’s question and his curiosity about Tongarden vanish. She’s wearing a white nightgown with a scoop neckline trimmed in floral lace interwoven with satin ribbon. It has a center placket with shell buttons, and Margaret has left the top two buttons undone. The bottom of the nightgown has pintuck pleats, and the hem is finished with ruffles. She bought the nightgown at DeLancey’s in Dickinson, North Dakota, one autumn over twenty years ago, after a particularly hot, dry summer on the ranch. She’d never spent that much on nightwear, and perhaps never that much on a single item of clothing, but at the time drastic action was in order. The money was well spent. The nightgown has never failed to have its intended effect.

George says, You brought that.

Hell, I brought damn near everything I own.

But that . . .

Oh, quit gawking, and let’s have that drink of whiskey.

It’s late September but when Margaret wears the nightgown you can see that her throat and a V extending down her chest are still red from the summer’s sun.

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