Free Dalva by Jim Harrison

had seen him at a restaurant with an attractive woman. He was also wearing elegant but old-fashioned suits that had the vaguely foreign touch of New York or London.
    It was confusing when I got out of the hospital and learned that I was only to be at Maureen and Warren’s for another day, or until the weather let up. Warren and Grandfather got me from the hospital in an old Dodge power wagon borrowed from Warren’s job. The streets were partly drifted over and no one was around though it was noon. The wind blew so hard the whole world became blinding white, and Warren would stop the truck until it cleared a bit. I could sense their nervousness but thought it was all quite wonderful because I was out of the hospital.
    Back at Warren’s I ate my promised hamburger in the kitchen with Ruth sitting beside me, the sort of silly relief you want from hospital food, and listened to the quarrel in the living room. Naomi wanted to take me home and Grandfather insisted that it was the doctor’s second choice to a drier climate. I could hear the anger in his voice as he repeated charges of how Naomi was suffocating us in our Nebraska “nest” and, in this case, my health was at stake. Naomi’s voice was a little quavery in protest though on our way to Michigan, in the hotel in Duluth, she admitted we all ought to get “out and around” more often. She had said she tended to think of the world as something that had killed her husband and the farm as their beloved and safe place. Grandfather made a speech to the effect that everything was arranged. A friend of his from Chicago was going to pick them up in his plane and fly me to Tucson. My uncle Paul whom I had only seen at my dad’s funeral would take me to his ranch house near Patagonia, where there would be a registered nurse who was also a teacher. All the calls had been made and the plan was final.
    And that’s what happened. The weather cleared in the night, the plane from Chicago arrived, and off we went, arriving in Tucson in the evening. It was someone’s corporate plane so there were nice chairs to sit on, also a small bed where I could rest. I played gin rummy with Ruth who must have been twelve or so. Ruth whispered to me that she had thanked God I was pregnant because she at last had gotten to go places and ride on an airplane. She was sorry to say it but it was true. We met Uncle Paul at the airport along with a dark-skinned woman who called herself Emilia. Ruth and I sat and watched television—Naomi disapproved of it so we had none at homeo—whileGrandfather, Naomi, Paul, and Emilia had a meeting in an office. Ruth was angry because she had learned we weren’t going to keep the baby. She was unsure about my abilities but she knew she could handle the job. They came out of the office and we said goodbye.
    Paul put his arm around me when we watched out the window as the plane took off for Grand Island. “You look like your dad and my mother. I was always sort of homely myself. Emilia here knows everything worth knowing. You’ll like her.”
    At the Desert Inn there were two bedrooms for us and a parlor where we ate dinner. I was so quiet that Paul asked me what I was thinking about. I admitted that I always had heard that he was a wild-eyed and crazy treasure-hunter who lived with different women without being married. I also told him that when I went to see the movie The Treasure of the Sierra Madre with Naomi she said Humphrey Bogart was just like my uncle Paul. He thought this was very funny and told me he had been surprised and happy when my father had the sense to marry a farm girl.
    Like many men who wander the world and live far from their native culture, Paul had evolved elaborate and private theories about many things. The same thing seems to happen with all solitary people, hermits, country bachelors, trappers. The moment we reached his ranch house the next morning we went on as long a walk as my