Clutching his blanket, Teasle shifted close to Orval and lit a cigarette off the glow of a stick from the fire. The flames were flicking low, and when Teasle churned the stick back into them, they rose warm, crackling. He had been right when he told Orval this would be like old times, although he had not believed it then, needing Orval to come along and disliking himself for using that kind of emotional argument on the man. But the feel of gathering firewood, tossing away stones and twigs to make the ground less rough, spreading his blanket, he had forgotten how solid and good that all was.
'So she left,' Orval said.
Teasle did not want to talk about it. She was the one who had left, not the other way around, and that made it look as though he was in the wrong. Maybe he was. But she was too. Still he could not bring himself to put blame on her just so Orval might not think poorly of him. He tried to explain it neutrally. 'She might come back. She's thinking about that. I haven't let on much, but for a while there, we were arguing quite a bit.'
'You're not an easy man to get along with.'
'Well, Christ, neither are you.'
'But I've lived with the same woman forty years, and as far as I can guess, Bea hasn't thought much about leaving. I know people must be asking you this a lot now, but considering what you and I are, I believe I have a right. What were the arguments about?'
He almost did not answer. Talking about very personal things always embarrassed him, especially this which he had not yet reasoned out - who was right, whether he was justified. 'Kids,' he said, and then since he had begun, he went on. 'I asked her for at least one. I don't care, boy or girl. It's just that I'd like someone to be to me like I was to you. I - I don't know how to explain it. I even feel stupid talking about it.'
'Don't you tell me that's stupid, buddy. Not when I tried so long to have a kid of my own.'
Teasle looked at him.
'Oh, you're like my own,' Orval said. 'Like my own. But I can't help wondering what sort of kid Bea and I would have made. If we had been able.'
It hurt - as if all these years he had been no more to Orval than the once needy child of a dead best friend. He could not accept that; it was more self-doubt from Anna leaving, and now that he was talking about her, he had to get it in the open, finished.
'Last Christmas,' he said, 'before we came to dinner at your place, we went over to Shingleton's for a drink, and watching his two kids, the look on their faces with their presents, I thought, maybe it would be good to have one. It certainly surprised me that at my age I wanted one, and it sure as hell surprised her. We talked about it, and she kept saying no, and after a while I suppose I made too big a thing of it. What happened, it's like she weighed me against the trouble she thought a baby would be. And left. The crazy thing is, as much as I can't sleep for wishing her to come back, in a way I'm glad she went, I'm on my own again, no more arguments, free to do what I want when I want, come home late without calling to explain I'm sorry to miss dinner, go out if I feel like it, screw around. Sometimes I even think the worst part about her leaving is how much the divorce will cost me. And at the same time I can't tell you how much I need her back with me.'
His breath came out in frost. The birds were gathered loudly. He watched Orval drag on the last of his cigarette close to his fingers, their joints gnarled and yellow from nicotine.
'And what about who we're after?' Orval said. 'Are you taking it all out on him?'
'No.'
'You sure?'
'You know I am. I don't act tougher than I have to. You know as well as I do that a town stays safe because of the little things kept in control. You can't do anything to prevent something big like a holdup or a murder. If some-body wants to do them bad enough, he will. But it's the little things that make a town what it is, that you can watch to make it safe. If I had just grinned and took what the kid was handing me, fairly soon I might have got used to the idea and let other kids hand it to me, and in a little while I would have been letting other things go by. It's me I was concerned about as much as the kid. I can't allow myself to loosen up. I can't keep order one time and not another.'
'You're still awfully eager to chase after him, even though your part of the job is ended. This is state police business now.'
'But it's my man he killed and it's my responsibility to bring him in. I want all my force to know I'll stop at nothing to get at anybody who hurts them.'
Orval looked at the pinched butt of the cigarette he was holding and nodded, flicking it into the fire.
