Chapter 17 Mara — Day 43
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The Marfa town square sits flat and pale under a sky that hasn't decided what color it wants to be yet. My boots hit the sidewalk first. Beau follows, one hand at the small of my back for exactly two seconds before he lets it fall away.
“Breathe,” he says.
“I am breathing.”
“You're holding your shoulders like a pallet.”
I let them drop. He doesn't smile. He knows better than to smile at me right now.
The auction house isn't really an auction house.
It's a room off the side of the old dance hall the county rents when Presidio wants to sell off dirt.
Folding table on a low platform. Two chairs.
A microphone that pops when someone breathes near it.
A hundred folding chairs in rows that pretend to be neat.
A card table by the door holds paddles and a clipboard and a bored teenage girl with a pen.
I sign in. Vale, Mara. Number 27. My preapproved bid ceiling from Selene Hart is a folded slip of bank paper in my back pocket like a small warm animal.
It says two-thirty-five at the top and Selene's initials at the bottom.
The bridge is secured against McKay's own appraisal and closes only if I win at or below that number; afterward Selene can fold it into the ranch restructure.
One dollar more and I come home without financing.
“You're twenty-seven,” Beau says, low, reading over my shoulder. “Good number.”
“It's just the next one on the list.”
“Still.”
I hand him a paddle too. He looks at it like it's alive.
“I'm not bidding,” he says.
“I know you're not. But if you sit there without one, you'll look like a cop.”
He takes it, fighting a laugh. He tucks the paddle under his arm and follows me to the fourth row from the front, aisle seat.
Thirty people, maybe. Two ranch families out of Presidio.
A hay broker out of Fort Davis in a shirt he ironed.
A rancher who wintered his cows on our east fence two years running before he sold up.
The auctioneer at the front, sorting index cards with a licked thumb.
A woman from the county appraiser's office in a navy blazer, doing sudoku like she's been paid for the sudoku instead of the appraising.
“Explain it to me again,” Beau says under his breath. “Slowly. Like I'm from Toronto.”
“You are from Toronto.”
“That's why.”
“Old McKay died in April.” I keep my voice down.
“Three hundred acres, no house, no barn. A stock tank, two wire fences, a windmill that still turns. It shares my north line for a mile and a quarter. If I own it, the ranch has scale again. If I own it, I go back to Selene and say — look. Look what my collateral just became. Reprice me. Move the foreclosure clock.”
“And if you don't.”
“Then I own what I own.”
“And Rivas.”
“Rivas has been sniffing at McKay's for a year. If he gets it, he flips it into his solar footprint, and he's got me pressed on the north as well as the south.”
Beau nods once, slow. He looks at the room like he's counting exits.
“How high can you go,” he says.
“That's my business.”
“Mara.”
“Two-thirty-five.”
“Thousand.”
“Yes, Beau. Two hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars. Not one hundred and eighty pennies.”
“What's the parcel worth.”
“About two-fifty on a good day. Two-eighty if a fool wants it. It's dry land.”
“So two-thirty-five is disciplined, if the bank can carry it.”
“It's what Selene approved. I don't go over. That's the point of a ceiling.”
“And if it goes higher.”
“Then whoever wants it more than I can pay for it can have it, and I go home with the plan I came in with, and I figure out what part of my herd I sell in October.”
“Mara.”
“Beau.”
“I'm not arguing.”
“You sound like you're arguing.”
“I'm listening.”
He doesn't answer past that. He rolls the wooden handle of the paddle between his palms once, checking the balance. He lays it flat across his knee, hands flat on top. He's still in a way I've come to recognize — a man thinking harder than he wants me to see.
The auctioneer taps the mic. It pops. A woman in the front row jumps.
“Good morning, folks. We've got the one item on the docket today. The estate parcel of the late Mr. McKay, three hundred acres, deeded, described in your handouts. Opening bid on the county's floor is set at seventy-five thousand. Do I have seventy-five.”
I lift my paddle. Number 27.
“Seventy-five to the lady in the fourth row. Do I hear eighty.”
Somewhere behind me a paddle goes up. “Eighty.”
“Eighty. Eighty-five.”
I lift. “Eighty-five.”
“Ninety.” The hay broker.
“Ninety. Ninety-five.”
I lift. “Ninety-five.”
For a beat, no one moves. The rancher two rows back shakes his head and folds his arms. The hay broker looks at his boots.
“Ninety-five going once,” the auctioneer says. “Ninety-five going —”
The door at the back opens.
I don't turn. I hear it. Everyone in the room hears it. The auctioneer stops talking. There's the sound of a bolo tie clicking against a shirt button and the dry small cough of a man clearing his throat before he owns a room.
“My apologies for the tardiness,” Dante Rivas says.
“Sir, please sign in.”
“Of course. And a paddle for my counsel as well.”
Pen scratches at the card table. A woman's heels — expensive, not from Marfa — clip and stop.
The two of them walk up the center aisle and take seats in the second row, one row up so I have to see the crown of his head.
The lawyer sits with a leather folio on her knees and a small tight smile like she's already tired of the weather.
Rivas lets his eyes find me. He nods, the way a man does at a woman he's decided he understands.
“Miss Vale,” he says.
“Mr. Rivas.”
He looks at Beau then. His eyes rest a half-second too long. Whatever he sees, he files. He turns to the auctioneer.
“Where were we.”
“Ninety-five, sir. From the lady.”
“One-oh-five,” Rivas says.
The room goes still. Beau's arm doesn't move, but I feel his weight shift toward me a quarter of an inch. I don't look at him.
“One-oh-five,” the auctioneer says. “Do I hear ten.”
I lift. “One-ten.”
“One-twenty,” Rivas says.
“One-twenty-five.”
“One-thirty-five.”
“One-forty.”
“One-fifty.”
He's going up ten a bid now. I'm going up five. He's telling the room he can. My throat's dry. I lift.
“One-fifty-five.”
“One-sixty-five.”
“One-seventy.”
“One-eighty.”
Beau turns his head toward me a fraction. My ceiling is two-thirty-five. Selene's paper in my back pocket. My mouth is a straight line. I lift the paddle.
“One-eighty-two.”
“Two dollars over,” Rivas says pleasantly, not looking. “Very frugal. Ninety.”
“One-ninety-two.”
“Two hundred.”
The auctioneer looks at me. He's not being cruel. He's doing his job. His eyes are apologetic under his brows.
“Do I hear two-ten,” he says.
I don't lift. Not yet. Beau leans in an inch. His voice touches the shell of my ear.
“Step out with me a moment.”
“Not now.”
“Mara.”
“Not now.”
I lift the paddle. “Two-oh-five.”
“Two-fifteen,” Rivas says.
“Miss Vale,” the auctioneer says softly.
Beau's hand is on my forearm now. Warm. Not hard. Not pulling. There.
“One minute,” he says. “Sir, please. Give the lady one minute.”
The auctioneer looks at Rivas. Rivas spreads his hands, generous, a man who has decided he already owns the room and can afford to be gracious.
“Take five,” Rivas says. “Take ten.”
I stand. If I don't stand now I'll say something in front of the appraiser's clerk that I can't take back.
I walk past Beau down the aisle and out into the hallway that runs to the old dance-hall kitchen.
I stop at the wall between a poster for a chili cook-off and a fire extinguisher.
The linoleum's scuffed. The air smells like coffee somebody made an hour ago and forgot.
Beau pulls the door most of the way shut behind him. He exhales, slow and deliberate, the way he does before hard things.
“Mara.”
“Don't.”
“Let me handle him.”
I turn. My face is hot. I know it's hot because he's looking at it.
“You can't afford to,” I say.
“Let me try.”
“No.”
“Mara —”
“You can what, Beau. Bid. With what. With the ranch salary I pay you. With the truck you drive. What are you going to do, go to two-fifty against a man whose lawyer wears the shoes she's wearing. On what.”
He doesn't answer for a beat. His mouth opens and closes. Something crosses his face I don't have a name for. It's not hurt. It's older than hurt. It's the look of a man who's put his hand on a door he isn't going to open.
“I can try,” he says again, quieter.
“No,” I say. “You can't. And I won't have you shamed in front of that man because I let you.”
“That's not what would happen.”
“Beau.”
“What.”
“It's a public sale. Do you know what that means.
Every rancher in that room is watching me.
Selene at the bank will hear the number by lunch whether I win or lose.
Rivas is going to hear my ceiling and my name in the same sentence.
I don't get to be rescued. Not here. Not by anyone. Especially not by a man nobody in that room can put a last name to.”
“I have a last name.”
“Not the kind that spends.”
His jaw works. Once. He doesn't argue.
“You're offering,” I say, softer. “That's what you're doing. Standing here in a hallway offering to be a man with money for me. And I'm asking you not to. I'm asking you to sit down beside me and watch me lose this like a person, and go home with me.”
He goes still. His shoulders drop. His hands hang at his sides. He looks like he's setting down something he was carrying. He doesn't argue. He doesn't push.
“Okay,” he says.
“Thank you.”
“Mara.”
“What.”
“You're allowed to lose this and still have a ranch.”
“I know that.”
“Do you.”
“I do, Beau. Move.”
He moves. I push the door open and walk back down the aisle and sit in the fourth row on the aisle in seat number 27. I lay the paddle across my knees. I nod at the auctioneer.
“Ready.”
“Two-fifteen to Mr. Rivas,” the auctioneer says. “Do I hear twenty.”
I lift. “Two-twenty.”
“Two-thirty,” Rivas says.
“Two-thirty-two.”
“Two-forty.”