and then send the rest of it to the Rescue Mission. Dixie didn’t want to do that. Giving Jamie Lee’s stuff away so soon would make her feel like she was trying to get rid of Jamie Lee’s memory as well. Besides, what other mother would want to dress her little boy in a dead baby’s clothes?
Billy wandered up the stairs and into the bedroom. Pulling off his boots, he stretched out on his side of the bed. ‘You shouldn’t be up here, Dix, if all it’s going to do is make you cry.’
‘I got to cry sometime, Billy. He was my little baby.’
‘Yeah, but he was going to die anyway, wasn’t he? You always knew that.’
‘We’re all going to die anyway, Billy, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less when it happens.’ Pulling the tissue box off the bedside table, Dixie took one out to wipe her eyes.
‘Come here,’ Billy said and reached out his arms. ‘You need cuddling.’
Dixie lay down beside him. ‘Know what really breaks my heart?’ she said.
‘What’s that?’
‘That we can’t afford to get him a proper coffin.’
‘The one he’s got looks good, Dix.’
‘I remember seeing this picture once in National Geographic. There was a baby girl laid out in this white wooden coffin. It was so pretty. She looked like a sweet little angel lying there. Not dead at all. She had her head on this satin pillow and ribbons in her hair. That’s what I wish we had for Jamie Lee.’
‘Jamie Lee wouldn’t want no ribbons in his hair, Dix.’
Dixie sighed. ‘I didn’t mean that part. I meant the white wood coffin. I want Jamie Lee to look nice. Like a little angel. Pure-like, you know?’
Billy let go of her and turned over on his back. Putting his hands behind his head, he fixed his gaze on the sloping ceiling over the bed and didn’t say anything more.
Dixie glanced over. ‘You heard anything on that railroad job yet?’
Billy just kept staring at the ceiling. ‘Actually I’m thinking I won’t go down there,’ he said at last. ‘They’re taking on men at the sawmill and I was thinking tomorrow I’ll go check that out instead.’
‘I don’t like thinking of you working around all them dangerous saws. And railroad work’s more steady-like. It’ll pay more over the long run.’
Billy didn’t answer.
Dixie sat back up. There was a little knitted duck that Leola had made for Jamie Lee over on the bedside table. Reaching out, Dixie picked it up. She’d intended to put it in the box with Jamie Lee’s clothes, but putting it away had made her feel too sad. Holding it in her lap, she stared at it.
‘The thing is,’ Billy said, ‘I only need work till I get enough money for horses, Dix. Once I got those horses, I can start up my guide business. So, the way I reckon it, if I can get on at the sawmill and work a couple of months, I’ll have enough for a small string of horses by Fall. That’s when all the hunters come, so it’ll be a great time to start up.’
‘Where you intending to keep horses, Billy?’
‘Well, at the start I’ll be on the trail with them mostly, won’t I? Won’t need to keep them anywhere too permanent. They’re going to be able to feed themselves wherever I stake out camp. I’m reckoning on running week-long trips when the hunters come in. Maybe even two-week trips, like Bob Mackie does, only I’m planning on taking the hunters way into the Crowheart Wilderness. I know that area so good. Like the back of my hand. And no one else around here takes hunters there.’
‘That’s because it is a wilderness area, Billy. The government put lots of restrictions on what hunting you can do, once it got declared a proper wilderness.’
‘That’s a big piece of land, Dixie. Nobody’s ever going to be watching all of it.’
‘Billy?’ she said incredulously. ‘Don’t get silly ideas. You can’t go advertising to take people hunting somewhere it’s illegal to hunt and you won’t get no business if you don’t advertise for what you’re doing.’
‘Don’t you think I know that? Besides,’ he said and tapped the side of his nose, ‘Billy knows his ways.’ Then he grinned. ‘And know what else I plan to do? Come summer and all those fucking tourists? I’m going to take me and my horses down by Simpson’s Bridge and just ride along where they can see me from the highway. Then when they’re driving through, the tourists’ll be saying, “Look, Mom! A real cowboy!” and they’ll stop and want to take pictures and I’ll charge ’em. And I’ll offer to give ’em day trips – you know, taking Mom, Dad and kids out, so they think they’re getting to be cowboys too. They’ll do it on impulse. People always spend money better on impulse. I can take them up to the old mines. Or over to Beulerville, so they can see a real by-golly ghost town. Easy bucks, man. The tourists are always willing to pay so much just to do ordinary stuff. So, the only time I’m going to need to pasture the horses is in winter and we’ll be rolling in money by then.’
‘We ain’t never going to be rolling in money, Billy, so don’t kid yourself.’
‘Yeah, but this time it’s going to work out. This guide business will be it for us, Dix. You know how good I am with horses. And you just tell me who knows the Crowheart better than me?’
‘I just wish we had enough for Jamie Lee to have a white coffin.’
‘There’s thousands of bucks waiting to be cut loose from all them city cowboys. No kidding. You can’t believe the things some people pay serious money to do.’
‘But we need the coffin right now, not in the Fall. Not next year. Not after the guide business takes off.’
‘He’s got a coffin, Dixie.’
‘He’s got a blue plastic box.’
‘It’s not plastic. It’s fibreglass.’
‘They’re burying my baby in a blue plastic box.’ The tears started again. ‘You should have taken that railroad job, Billy. Leastways long enough to get Jamie Lee decently buried. I mean, he was near enough your own son. You’re the only daddy he knew.’
‘I would have, Dix. You know how much I always wanted to do right by Jamie Lee. But I’m no good at that kind of work. I need to be my own boss. Got too much cowboy in me. Can’t you understand how great this guide business is going to be? Won’t be nobody to worry about except me and the horses, and I love horses, man. Me and the horses and all those city dudes, waiting to get their pockets picked. I’ll make you enough money to roll in. I promise.’
‘That’s what you said the other times too, Billy. Fact is, we need money now, not some far-off time that might never come. You should have took the railroad job.’
An injured silence followed. At last Billy sat up and reached for his boots. He pulled them on. Then he hunched forward enough to peer out of the small, gable-end window.
Dixie sighed. The knitted duck was still sitting in her lap, so she lifted it up and pressed it to her cheek. ‘Know what? I almost got killed tonight,’ she said softly.
Billy didn’t reply.
‘Did you hear me?’ she asked, turning. ‘And you know who almost done it? Spencer Scott. Him and two other guys from up the canyon. They were drunk as skunks. Weaving all over the place in their pick-up. I got up on the steps of the United Methodist Church just in the nick of time. Came this close to hitting me.’ Dixie measured out the distance with her hands.
‘I wish the canyon folk would all just go the fuck back to California,’ Billy replied. ‘I get so fed up with them around here. They think owning the land is the same as belonging here.’
‘Spencer Scott’s really handsome, Billy. Handsomer even than in the movies. He gave me his handkerchief.’