Maggie turned to face her. The girl was looking straight ahead with one hand on the door handle, sitting up rigid and tense in the seat as though she were waiting for the right moment to jump out and run.
All right, I’ll tell you again, Maggie said. I can’t guarantee anything about this. Don’t ask that. But you need to regard this as an opportunity. They called last night and said they would take you, that they’d try it. That’s a great deal for them to say. I think it will be all right. You don’t have to be at all afraid of them. They’re about as good as men can be. They may be gruff and unpolished but they don’t mean anything by that, it’s only they’ve been alone so much. Think of living your life alone for half a century and more, like they have. It would do something to you. So you can’t let their gruffness bother you or deter you. Yes, they are rough around the edges, of course they are. They haven’t been rounded off. But you’ll be safe out here. You can still come in to school, ride the bus back and forth and complete your course work as usual. But you have to try to remember what it’s been like for them. Both their folks died in a highway truck wreck when these old men were younger than you are now. Afterward they just quit attending school, if they’d ever gone very much anyway, which I don’t think they did, and they stayed at home and went to work ranching and farming, and that’s about all they’ve known in the world or had to know. Up to now that’s been enough.
She stopped. She studied the girl’s face to see what effect her talking had had.
The girl was looking out over the nose of the car toward the straight two-lane highway. After a while she said, But Mrs. Jones. Do you think they’ll like me?
Yes, I do. If you give them a chance they will.
But it seems crazy to be going out here to live with two old men.
That’s right, Maggie said. But these are crazy times. I sometimes believe these must be the craziest times ever.
The girl turned her head to look out the side window at the native pasture beyond the ditch and fenceline. The flower spikes of the soapweed stuck up like splintered sticks, the seed pods dry and dark-looking against the winter grass. Do they have a dog? she said.
There’s an old farm dog.
Do they have any cats?
I didn’t see any. But I would guess they do. I’ve never heard of a farm yet without at least one or two stray cats around to keep down the mice and rats.
I’d have to quit my job at the Holt Café. I’d have to tell Janine.
Yes. But you wouldn’t be the first one to quit washing dishes for Janine. She expects that.
Does she?
Yes.
The girl continued to look out the window. Maggie Jones waited. Whenever there was a gust of wind the car was rocked on its wheels. After a while the girl turned back and faced forward again. You can go on if you want to, she said. I’m okay now.
Good, Maggie said. I thought you would be. She steered the car back onto the blacktop and they drove down the narrow highway. After a time they turned east onto the gravel county road and then onto the track which led back to the old house with the rusted hogwire strung around it and the stunted elm trees standing up leafless inside the rusted wire. Maggie stopped the car in front of the gate. She and the girl got out.
The McPheron brothers had been watching for them. They came out of the house at once onto the little screened porch and stood waiting for the women to come up to the house. But they neither spoke nor made any gesture. They looked as stiff and motionless as if they’d been shaped out of plaster and then stood up on the porch like two lifelike statues of minor saints.