Chapter 30
morgan
After dinner, Morgan went back down to the office.
Jack had given him the cold shoulder as they ate, and with good reason.
Morgan had taken advantage of Jack last night, when he shouldn’t have, and the results of the encounter, in spite of the tiny gold speck of joy hidden deep inside him, had left a bad taste in Morgan’s mouth.
In the chilly room, he returned to the task at hand, that being entering the last of the stray receipts and then balancing the books. He was as good at math as he was at anything that didn’t involve people’s feelings, but he couldn’t for the life of him get the numbers to work.
He used the functions in the spreadsheet to try and get the amounts to balance.
He used the ancient calculator he’d found in a drawer.
He used the calculator on his phone. Then he tried the old-fashioned way, writing down the numbers by hand, and did the addition and subtraction with a stub of a pencil.
Even after checking his work, doing the addition from the bottom up, didn’t help: The totals kept coming out incorrect.
None of the amounts, payable or otherwise, matched the bank statements.
The other odd thing was that the bank statements for each month for the past two years were way less than the amount of goods sold.
Maybe he was missing a zero or hadn’t carried the ones like he should have.
Or maybe he’d entered the numbers wrong.
Or maybe he was missing some numbers, and was being too stubborn to realize it.
He needed a distraction. A mental reset.
With a flick of his finger at the papers on his desk, he pulled up a search engine and then a travel site, and looked up flights out of Billings.
There were no seats available tomorrow, presumably on account of flights that had been canceled during the storm, but two days out, he could get Jack on a plane.
None of the airlines offered nonstop service from Billings to Southern California, so travel time was around five hours. Which meant he’d better pick an early flight so Jack wasn’t arriving in a strange city late at night.
Not that Jack couldn’t fend for himself, of course, but Morgan wasn’t going to strand him at the airport with no way to make it to the beach. Should he book a few nights at a hotel so Jack could get himself squared away?
Squared away with what, a job? Morgan scoffed at himself and considered putting Jack in a first-class seat. There was a flight with a quick stop in Salt Lake City to the tune of $1,500.
Adding on an ocean-view room at the very nicely reviewed Georgian Santa Monica would be another $750 a night. Say, three nights?
Sure. Bring the total to around $4,000 so Jack wouldn’t have to sleep on the beach or beneath a bridge or on a bench in a park somewhere. Or he could get Jack a week’s stay at a hostel in downtown Santa Monica for around $250.
With the $1,000 Morgan planned to send him off with, Jack would have money for food and whatever else he needed. Which was what? To stick his toes in the sand and eat a hot dog purchased from a beach vendor and watch the sunshine play on the salty water?
Sure, it painted a pretty picture, but it was nothing a person could build a future around.
After the hostel kicked him out, after all the hot dogs were eaten and the sand had grown cold around his toes, what was Jack’s plan?
Keep on taking illegal rides on freight trains wherever they were headed?
Put himself at risk jumping on and off giant metal vehicles with a traveling weight of 10,000 tons?
Morgan checked the search engine. Yes. A long-haul freight train could weigh anywhere from 3,000 to 18,000 tons.
But maybe Jack wanted to search for his erstwhile pals, Blue and Star, and rove around with them some more, until they once again betrayed him and Jack found himself stranded, looking for shelter. Looking for something to steal just to stay alive.
Or he might find another stranger to take him in. A stranger who might not be as nice as Morgan, who might have more nefarious intentions of the sort portrayed in true crime dramas.
No. No matter how frustrating the current situation—for which Morgan could only blame himself—Jack didn’t deserve that.
But other than letting Jack stay at the feed and grain and pretending that what had happened between them hadn’t happened, what else was he to do?
Send Jack home to his family, who hated him?
Arrange for Jack to get some kind of training so he could get a regular job?
Take over Jack’s decisions for his own life, as if Jack hadn’t a mind of his own?
Following through on any of those options might make Morgan a dyed-in-the-wool asshole rather than simply an asshole of opportunity, but at least Jack would have some kind of future.
In the end, it wouldn’t matter. He’d be willing to risk offering, but Jack would likely refuse all help, and Morgan couldn’t blame him.
Maybe he should simply ask Jack what he wanted. Or maybe he should pack it in, leave the math that wasn’t mathing for another day, and get some rest.
He thumped his way upstairs and took a step into the parlor, where Jack was flipping through a large, glossy coffee-table book.
“Good night,” Morgan said.
“Night,” Jack replied.
In his room, Morgan ran over the day in his mind as he got ready for bed.
Maybe he was an asshole because he needed Jack gone for reasons he couldn’t pinpoint, as though he’d listed them on a mental sheet of paper that had turned ephemeral, vanishing with diaphanous ease.
He needed Jack to leave because. Because why? Because he needed to be alone so he could focus on the task at hand, getting the books and the feed and grain in order so he could sell.
But he wouldn’t be able to sell until spring, according to Mabel, Gus, the three old guys, and his own lawyer. So if that wasn’t going to happen for at least six months, why the hurry to get Jack out the door?
He didn’t want to answer that question, but he knew why. Because before Jack, he had truly believed that it was better to stay alone.
In the short time Morgan had known Jack, though, the young man’s company had been like a flicker of light on a dark, starless night. A swath of brightness, offering companionship and showing Morgan that the world was not so bad.
And he knew, as he brushed his teeth, then steadied himself to pee, balancing evenly on both legs, the wall at the ready in case he needed it to lean on, that the occupants of the town of Hysham—trustworthy, sturdy souls, seasoned by High Plains blizzards and blistering summers—had been trying to tell him the same thing.
That there was something worthy to be found, if only he could pull his head out of his ass to see it.
He could imagine Mabel’s reaction to Morgan kicking Jack to the curb simply because the connection between them had gotten too complicated.
Wrapping his robe around himself, he looked down the passage to where the kitchen door was slightly ajar. Beyond that, across the landing, Jack was lying on his futon. Asleep or falling asleep.
There was nothing for it but to turn out the lights, go to bed, and gird himself to be cheerful and polite in the morning. To stick to his current plan, even if it hurt.
Sending Jack away would be for the best. Jack had been headed to the coast before they’d met up, and now he would be continuing on his way, and that was that. Morgan would make him wear his new clothes and give him his money so he could buy that hot dog from the beachside vendor.
An hour after getting into bed, Morgan told himself that it was the glow bouncing off the banks of snow outside that was keeping him awake and not his own head full of thoughts, a churning that couldn’t let him find a comfortable spot on the pillow.
He should close the blinds. And he could take something to help him sleep, as sleep was the key to healing. Or he could stay awake, a form of self-punishment, darkness and shadow and restlessness, that he probably deserved.
After another hour, the sheets rumpled beneath him and above him, the twisted blankets on the verge of flinging themselves to the floor, Morgan’s body was still tight and he was still wide awake.
The post-midnight train would soon be coming, slinging itself along the tracks, announcing—two long blasts, one short, another long—the moment that it would reach the railroad crossing for the street right next to the feed and grain.
He didn’t mind the lonesome sound. It was a good reminder that it was late, time to sleep, and its regularity was a signal that the world wagged on and he was only in Hysham for a while. Then the rest of his life could continue.
The apartment was still, no activity but the old furnace in the basement battling the persistent cold. Morgan couldn’t hear Jack at all, of course not. So why did his ears ache from listening?
Then he did hear something. A foot on the stairs. The click of a door, the one at the bottom of the landing, sounding impossibly close. Or maybe the building was creaking in the cold, and the wooden floors had carried the sound to him.
A whistle of wind signaled a door being opened and closed. Morgan imagined the rush of cold air racing up the stairs, battling against the leftover warmth from the small stove in the parlor.
He pulled his robe around him over the sweatpants and T-shirt he’d worn to bed and, barefoot, tottered down the hall as quietly as he could, moving through the dark kitchen, across the landing, and into the parlor.
Which contained only darkness and long shadows, the couch, the faint glow of the stove, the easy chair at the far end of the room. The empty futon.
Jack’s leather jacket and boots were gone. The bedding was folded, as though Jack had never lain down for a good night’s rest.
So where had he gone? Not to the bathroom; Morgan had just come down the hall.
Glancing out the window, between the slats of the blinds, he saw the glint of starlight on the snow. And a lone figure, dark against the brighter blue-white surroundings, heading up the road to the railroad crossing. Where it halted as though waiting for the train.
Maybe Morgan hadn’t told Jack that no trains would slow down, let alone stop. The fact that the train Jack came into town on stopped long enough for him to get off had been a happy accident.
It wasn’t likely to happen twice. And the idea that Jack imagined he could hop aboard a train going at least twenty-five miles an hour—maybe more, since it was the middle of the night—solidified into a horror that made Morgan cold all over.
Jack was going to try, and it was going to kill him. And then not only would Morgan actually be the asshole he was always worried about being, losing Jack would kill him, too, or whatever part of him that was worth a damn.
Even if Jack managed the jump, it was well below fucking zero degrees out. Jack’s leather coat wasn’t enough to protect him against a night such as this. He’d need a thick blanket, something to build a fire in, and heavy gloves. A hat. And damn boots that had more than a paper-thin sole.
Morgan was to blame for this. Him and no one else.
The truth—scary and eerily clear—was that he didn’t want Jack to leave. Why had it taken Jack sneaking off in the middle of a freezing night for Morgan to realize this? And how could he convince Jack to stay, after everything that had happened between them?
He stopped himself from chasing those thoughts. As always, he was thinking about his own needs, thinking about what he wanted, when Jack was out there in subzero temperatures, risking his safety so he could live on his own terms.
Furious with himself, anxiety eating at his heart, Morgan raced back to his room to pull on thick socks, a second pair of sweatpants, a sweatshirt. Grabbing his cane and his coat, he thumped down the stairs to slip on galoshes over his sneakers.
His left knee screamed at him, and he ignored it, barreling out the front door to limp down Buford Street toward the railroad tracks. The asphalt was crusted with snow on the edges, potentially slick down the middle. The plow had removed the snow so efficiently that all that was left was ice.
Morgan stuck to the side and gasped at the cold air entering his lungs, approaching Jack, who could surely hear him but didn’t turn around.
The train was coming. From a distance came the two long blasts followed by a short one announcing its approach, a ghostly call in the night. The starshine on the snow seemed brighter than daylight.
Just as the train screamed out another long blast, entering the crossing, Morgan grabbed Jack’s arm.
There was no way Jack could have jumped on that train anyhow—it was going too fast—but when he turned in Morgan’s grasp, iced tears on his face, he was shaking. The train was loud and fierce, and Morgan held on just in case.
“What are you doing?” Morgan yelled as the snow from the freight train’s trucks flung itself all around them, trapping them in an icy whirlwind. “I said I’d take you to Billings if you wanted. What were you thinking?”
It was pointless to keep shouting. Even if he could be heard over the roar of the train, Jack’s stony expression said he wasn’t listening. The train sent a cold wind over them both, pushing it into their bones.
Before the last freight car had sped over the road crossing, Morgan was pulling Jack to follow him. He wanted to go back to the feed and grain, back to a place where they could figure this out.
That was when he slipped and started to go down, the soles of his galoshes worn too smooth. Jack caught him, staggering, his hands solid on Morgan’s arm.
Morgan’s knee protested but held him as he steadied himself, and still Jack didn’t let go as the last of the wind from the train settled on their shoulders, leaving everything around them in stillness.
It was too cold to stay outside. They needed to get back before they froze to death.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get warm.”