Enough of Billy

Three of McKinnon's foreign cows were at the fence when Eli turned off the highway and into McKinnon's lane. Great red beasts, shambling and shaggy, they looked like ruined carpets. They looked like buffaloes. But they weren't buffaloes. McKinnon's buffaloes were in one of his other pastures.

The animals stared through their fence at Eli as he passed. He waved at them. Eli waved at everyone. Up the rise to the house and barns, into the yard. The doctor's car parked there. Eli pulled in beside it, stopped. Everywhere, McKinnon's poultry: McKinnon's barred rocks, McKinnon's guinea fowl, McKinnon's huge gray geese striding about like lords, with a lord's height, a lord's pride, a lord's brains.

Eli parked his truck and stepped down into the yard. A goose whose head was level with his waist advanced menacingly on him, but Eli made a feint toward it, and the goose sheared off and let him be.

Wesley came out of the barn. He was wearing rubber boots knee-high and carrying a bucket of green mud. He nodded at Eli, joined him, and put his bucket down.

"What have you got there?" Eli asked.

"Goose shit," said Wesley. "Swamping goose shit all morning. Worst job on the place, you know it? Worse than cows."

Eli nodded.

"Good news is, we've got lots of it," Wesley said. "Goose shit. We've got lots of goose shit. That's the good news."

"Right," said Eli. "How's Mac today?"

"How's Mac today?" said Wesley. "Or how's Mac, today?"

"Today."

"Miserable," said Wesley. "Hung over. Pissed off. Mean. How do you need him to be?"

"Oh, I don't know," Eli said. "Happy? Cheered up? Feeling good?"

"Came to the wrong shop, then, buddy, didn't you?"

"Feeling generous?" Eli went on.

"Not today," said Wesley. "Girlfriend moved out."

"She did? When?"

"Yesterday."

"That was the young one? The nurse?" Eli asked.

"Nurse?" said Wesley. "That's one word for it, I guess. Young? I don't know if I'd call her young. She was out of high school. Said she was, anyway."

"She didn't last long, did she?" Eli asked.

"Long enough, it looks like," said Wesley. "Boss is about worn down to the belts."

"Well, I'll go ahead, anyway."

"I wouldn't," said Wesley. "I just told you: it ain't a good day."

"There is no good day, though, is there?"

"I'm just saying," said Wesley. "You don't want to do it today. If it's about Billy."

"I don't want to do it any day," Eli said. "Is Westcott with him? That's Westcott's rig."

"Westcott? He's been here an hour," said Wesley. "He'll be done shortly."

Eli looked toward the house.

"Is this about Billy?" Wesley asked him. "This is about Billy, ain't it?"

"What do you think?" Eli asked. He started for the house.

"Well, good luck," said Wesley, and he bent to pick up his bucket.

Eli found Dr. Westcott washing his hands at McKinnon's kitchen sink. No sign of McKinnon.

"Hullo, Eli," said the doctor. "How have you been? Doing all right?"

"Sure," Eli said. "You? How's Mac?"

"Oh, bright as a new penny," said Dr. Westcott. He picked up a dishtowel and dried his hands. "Bright as a new penny. Fit as a flea. You know Mac."

"Wes said the housekeeper left."

"So I heard," said Westcott. "Too long a walk to church for her, I expect. Missed her mom. Missed her pony."

"Can I see him?"

"I don't know why not," said Westcott, "if you want to. You're about the only one who does."

"Does what?"

"Want to see Mac."

"You see him."

"I'm paid," said Westcott.

Out of the kitchen and along the passage. Door to the right at the bottom of the unused stairs. McKinnon's office, study, library, bedroom, where he had had them get him set up. McKinnon's books, McKinnon's pictures, McKinnon's guns...