Where I'm Calling From

in the drive, with its headlights on and a flashing blue light on its roof. It was followed, a minute later, by a pickup truck pulling what looked like a horse trailer, though with the fog it was hard to tell. It could have been anything—a big portable oven, say. The car pulled right up onto the lawn and stopped. Then the pickup drove alongside the car and stopped, too. Both vehicles kept their headlights on and their engines running, which contributed to the eerie, bizarre aspect of things. A man wearing a cowboy hat—a rancher, I supposed-stepped down from the pickup. He raised the collar of his sheepskin coat and whistled to the horses.
    Then a big man in a raincoat got out of the car. He was a much bigger man than the rancher, and he, too, was wearing a cowboy hat. But his raincoat was open, and I could see a pistol strapped to his waist. He had to be a deputy sheriff. Despite everything that was going on, and the anxiety I felt, I found it worth noting that both men were wearing hats. I ran my hand through my hair, and was sorry I wasn’t wearing a hat of my own.
    “I called the sheriff’s department a while ago,” my wife said. “When I first saw the horses.” She waited a minute and then she said something else. “Now you won’t need to give me a ride into town after all. I mentioned that in my letter, the letter you read. I said I’d need a ride into town. I can get a ride—at least, I think I can—with one of these gentlemen. And I’m not changing my mind about anything, either. I’m saying this decision is irrevocable. Look at me!” she said.
    I’d been watching them round up the horses. The deputy was holding his flashlight while the rancher walked a horse up a little ramp into the trailer. I turned to look at this woman I didn’t know any longer.
    “I’m leaving you,” she said. “That’s what’s happening. I’m heading for town tonight. I’m striking out on my own. It’s all in the letter you read.” Whereas, as I said earlier, my wife never underlined words in her letters, she was now speaking (having dried her tears) as if virtually every other word out of her mouth ought to be emphasized.
    “What’s gotten into you?” I heard myself say. It was almost as if I couldn’t help adding pressure to some of my own words. “Why are you doing this?”
    She shook her head. The rancher was loading the second horse into the trailer now, whistling sharply, clapping his hands and shouting an occasional “Whoa! Whoa, damn you! Back up now. Back up!”
    The deputy came over to us with a clipboard under his arm. He was holding a big flashlight. “Who called?” he said.
    “I did,” my wife said.
    The deputy looked her over for a minute. He flashed the light onto her high heels and then up to her hat.
    “You’re all dressed up,” he said.
    “I’m leaving my husband,” she said.
    The deputy nodded, as if he understood. (But he didn’t, he couldn’t!) “He’s not going to give you any trouble, is he?” the deputy said, shining his light into my face and moving the light up and down rapidly.
    “You’re not, are you?”
    “No,” I said. “No trouble. But I resent—”
    “Good,” the deputy said. “Enough said, then.”
    The rancher closed and latched the door to his trailer. Then he walked toward us through the wet grass, which, I noticed, reached to the tops of his boots.
    “I want to thank you folks for calling,” he said. “Much obliged. That’s one heavy fog. If they’d wandered onto the main road, they could have raised hob out there.”
    “The lady placed the call,” the deputy said. “Frank, she needs a ride into town. She’s leaving home. I don’t know who the injured party is here, but she’s the one leaving.” He turned then to my wife. “You sure about this, are you?” he said to her.
    She nodded. “I’m sure.”
    “Okay,” the deputy said. “That’s settled, anyway. Frank, you listening? I can’t drive her to town. I’ve got another stop to make. So can you help her out and take her into town? She probably wants to go to the bus station or else to the hotel. That’s where they usually go. Is that where you want to go to?” the deputy said to my wife. “Frank needs to know.”
    “He can drop me off at the bus station,” my wife said. “That’s my suitcase on the porch.”
    “What about it, Frank?” the deputy said.
    “I guess I can, sure,” Frank said, taking off his hat and putting it back on again. “I’d be glad to,