Nothing but Blue Skies Read Online Free PDF

beginning the pull into the canyon had a kind of cheerfulness.
    When he walked into the house, his phone was ringing. He ran to answer. It was Holly. Whenever he heard her voice, he felt something change inside himself: an indifference to time, for one thing, a floaty focus.
    “Dad? I’m joining a sorority.” Holly was a sophomore.
    “You are?”
    “Aren’t you glad?”
    “Well, yes, I guess I am. I just thought you were down on sororities.”
    “That was before. This is now.”
    “Well, yes, I am glad, especially if this means you won’t be living in an apartment.” She knew that was what he felt. He was nervous about her unguarded life at college. Something had gone amiss with men, and the weak ones were dangerous.
    “That’s not what it means.”
    “Oh, I was hoping it did. Well, did you join one in particular?”
    She told him which one it was. He didn’t know one from another. He vaguely used to comprehend all that Greek stuff, with its comic rituals as a precursor to the characters on little motor scooters wearing fezzes. He wished she would be living in a solid building filled with women.
    “Actually, Hol, you know what? This is great.” He was determined to be enthusiastic. “How can I celebrate this appropriately?” He was into this one and it showed.
    “Why don’t you come up when I get settled in?”
    “I’d love to. Just give me the nod and I’m on my way.”
    “Yes, that’s what we’ll do. And now I’m headed for the library. Love you, bye.”
    Maybe he had become too dependent on Holly, but she didn’t mind, or didn’t let him know she minded. He didn’t think so, but there may well have been an element of kindness.
    For a while he couldn’t quite think of his work in an orderly way. If he couldn’t see how to get insanely rich or change the world in one or two days, he hardly wanted to go to work at all.Finally, he began to take it seriously again. His work had a fairly large value to him viewed purely as routine. At forty-four (his friends had made him a cake, a corona of birthday candles and a chocolate pistol with the red number 44), he couldn’t make out whether he was young or old, and for many reasons he didn’t want to find out through the women in his life. After Gracie left, Frank detected that most people found him a little eerie. He could make them laugh, yet they always felt scrutinized. Some people could stand that and some couldn’t. Examination was his disease. He often saw it in the faces of the people he cared for the most. Some of his adversaries in business saw him as a person of subdued and calculating malice. Frank was kind of proud of that. It was too bad when people he cared about felt eroded by his attention. But Holly wasn’t one of them.

5
    On Tuesday afternoon he drove to Harlowton for lunch with Bob Cheney, who managed the JA ranch. The JA was a pioneer cattle ranch that once belonged to the Melwood family; Mrs. Melwood, the widow of the last rancher in the family, left it to the Salvation Army and Bob Cheney managed it for them. Frank met Cheney at the Graves Hotel, waiting for him a short time on its veranda and staring out at the clouds over the prairie. They were as white as shaving cream. Cheney arrived in a truck filled with fencing materials and salt blocks, and parked right in front of the hotel. They went inside and ordered lunch.
    “How long has it been since you had yearlings on us, Frank?”
    “Long time ago. ’Eighty-one, anyway. Are you going to have any room for me this year?”
    “I don’t quite know yet. How many head?”
    “I’ll have to see where the market is, where the bank is.”
    “I don’t think I’ll be able to tend them. I’m short a man this season. I could find you a fellow, if you want to pay him.”
    “That could work. Do you think you’ll have room for three hundred head of steers?”
    “I might,” said Bob. Their lunch arrived and he smiled up at the waitress. Bob had a thin mouth, sharp nose and