The High Divide by Lin Enger Read Free Book Online Page B

with you—it wouldn’t look right,” she said.
    Fogarty laughed. “It doesn’t look right either when a woman’s husband leaves her and stays away for months on end. Now take my arm, hold your head up, and come along. It’s only a mile north, and we’ll be there in no time. If folks happen to see you, fine. I’m good people.”
    She refused his arm, but the tremor in the man’s bottom lip gave her courage, and she consented to follow him out of the house and into the street where he helped her onto the buckboard of his spring wagon, which was covered in a fresh coat of white paint. He tipped his flask for another swallow, then took up the driving lines. Gretta kept her eyes trained ahead as they drove north toward the edge of town, looking to the side just once, when a man’s voice called her name—“Gretta?”—a voice she knew and could not ignore: Otis Bending, an old carpenter who often helped Ulysses with his larger projects, the houses and barns. She lifted a hand and offered a flat smile she hoped he could see through, a smile that said, It isn’t what you think. Otis only scowled, his enormous hands hanging like spades beside him. Gretta felt cold suddenly. The sun had gone behind a bank of clouds, the dead scent of autumn in the air, dust and woodsmoke and dead grass. She imagined her sons walking along some strange road or hunched in a woods, sharing a loaf of her bread—or the pair of them in a train car, wrapped in their blankets and lying close together for warmth. Tears welled in her eyes, but she squeezed them back and dried her face with her sleeve. She couldn’t help thinking of the nights she’d climbed into the loft and touched their hair as they slept—Danny’s silken curls and Eli’s full, heavy ones, cool in her fingers.
    Fogarty yanked on the driving lines and the young gelding veered left, plunging off the road onto a dirt trail. Gretta had to grasp the seat with both hands to keep from pitching off the wagon. “Whoa, easy there,” Fogarty said, flicking the lines and driving on, the wagon jouncing and squeaking in the ruts. They wound through a stand of cottonwoods, the blue stripe of the river glistening as they headed toward a place Gretta knew from years ago when she and Ulysses still fished together. Once he’d caught a catfish the size of a piglet and staked it over a wood fire, and she still remembered the tangy flavor of its gray meat.
    â€œWhere is he?” Fogarty asked.
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œIf you want my help, I need to know where you’re going.”
    â€œHe might be in St. Paul, where he grew up,” Gretta said, unable to look at the man. She despised him for the power he had to question her like this. “I don’t know where else he’d go.”
    â€œBut he hasn’t contacted you?”
    â€œNo.”
    Fogarty removed his flask again and drank, though it wasn’t easy, his hand bobbing at every jerk of the wagon. There was the dull ping of teeth striking tin, but he managed to fasten on with his lips and take a long pull. Thirty feet from the water he hauled back on the lines and yanked the hand brake. The gelding snorted and shook itself. Fogarty turned and raised a finger to Gretta’s face. He licked his bright lips. “I was faithful to my wife while she lived,” he said, “and I’ve been faithful to her memory since she died. I try to be a good man.” His cheeks were blotchy and his breath sour.
    Gretta couldn’t speak.
    â€œNo doubt you’ve been holding out on me, keeping a tight grip on that rent money. But I’ll add to that.” He tapped an index finger against the chestpocket of his tight-fitting vest. “I have five dollars here. For you. I have to know, however, that my generosity will be met with a mutual feeling.”
    Gretta’s hair prickled at the base of her neck. “Mutual