The Ploughmen: A Novel by Kim Zupan

Author:Kim Zupan [Zupan, Kim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780805099522
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Published: 2014-09-30T00:00:00+00:00

TEN

“A story about a Butte Chinaman and some rings,” Millimaki said.

“Oh, Christ, yes.”

“Something about fingers and an HP officer.”

“Ancient history, Val.” The sheriff waved a dismissive hand. “An old story before my time and most likely without merit.”

Millimaki experienced a moment of great relief. The prospect of recalling details of Gload’s tale of dismemberment and implied departmental failings left him exhausted. Beyond that, he realized with some surprise, he would have felt a sense of betrayal.

“In any event, Deputy, I mostly called you in by way of a follow-up. The last time we spoke there was an issue or issues with your wife. Has that situation improved?”

Millimaki had taken the hard chair opposite the sheriff’s desk and he glanced toward the door, beyond which Raylene sat at her vast desk, more formidable at her station there than the ghoulish nightshift bailiff.

“Don’t worry about her, Val. Until she finishes her morning crossword she doesn’t pay a lick of attention to me. I could be cold as a dead cod in here. When I have my inevitable myocardial infarction I hope it’s in the PM.”

Together they regarded her back, a broad expanse of garish tropical blooms. Her head beneath its plumed vortex of hair nodded above the page.

“You can close the door if you want, but that usually just sets off her radar.”

Millimaki had finished his shift twenty-six hours earlier and had forced himself to stay awake until dark and still he’d hardly slept. The cabin door from its planing now shuddered under the wind and when he’d gotten up and shimmed it tight with two table knives it instead produced a muttering as though words were forming in the outer dark and came encrypted through the moaning gaps. At some point in the very early morning he dreamt again of his mother, her stained lips forming these night sounds into words he could not decipher, though he woke and lay among tangled sheets for an hour trying. He knew he should sleep but the image would not abate. He relented and sat on the edge of his bed watching the new long day paint the windowpanes. Now he sat in front of the cluttered desk blearily regarding his unpolished boots.

“She’s staying in town with a friend,” he said.

“Ah.”

“She’s going to stay in town for a while,” he said. He looked up, his gaze reaching no higher than the sheriff’s chest. “We needed some space. Well, she did anyway.”

“Yes. Space. Space is a common theme.”

“That’s my word. The conversation was a bit more involved than just that.”

The sheriff leaned back in his chair. He rested the tips of his index fingers in the slack underside of his jaw. The chair as he imperceptibly rocked emitted a faint feline noise.

“The department is a testing ground for marital Darwinism, Val. This is what we do, one might say what we love to do, but it is frequently opposed to or at least makes difficult the husbanding of marriage. I mean that in the agricultural sense, husbanding.

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