Read Borderland for Free Online

away the vision and looked at the land with new interest. The colors were
surprising. Bright yellow sunflowers bordered the road, and the buffalo grass,
dying in the drought, seemed to turn a dark cinnamon color when a cloud
obscured the sun. Even the sky seemed bluer here, the kind of blue the
word-makers had in mind when they'd come up with the word azure. It was clean
and clear and infinite.
    "Pretty,
isn't it?" he said aloud. "This is where the buffalo used to roam,
girls."
    Nolan
smiled and sang a few bars of "Home on the Range."
    "Go
on," Christa said when he stopped. "What's the rest of the
song?"
    "You
mean you don't know it?" Nolan asked. He scowled and looked at Vic.
"What the hell are they teaching 'em to sing now?"
    Andy
promptly launched into a tuneless version of her favorite pop song, until Nolan
promised her a candy bar to shut up.
    "I
hate that shit," he said. "I—" Nolan paused when he saw Vic
glaring at him. "Sorry. I keep forgetting."
    Andy
made a face. "Does that mean we shouldn't like songs on the radio?"
    "No,"
Vic said, still looking at Nolan. "Like what you want, Andy. Don't let
other people influence you. Make up your own mind."
    "I
like what Uncle Nolan likes," Andy responded and Nolan grinned at Vic.
    Vic
shook his head and turned his gaze back to the road. He immediately started and
gave a yell as Nolan nearly drove past the weather beaten sign and the turn off
for Denke.
    "Relax,"
Nolan said after an axle-grinding turn. "I'm on top of it."
    Christa
sat up. "Can we take the car top down? I want to ride through town with
the top down. Can we?"
    Vic
shrugged at Nolan's look. "It's up to you. It's your car."
    "Okay,"
Nolan said. "I need to get rid of some Pepsi anyway."
    "What?"
Andy said as the Buick slowed and rolled onto the side of the road.
    "He
has to pee," Christa translated.
    "Oh."
Andy was disappointed. "I thought he was going to throw away some Pepsi.
I'm thirsty."
    "Maybe
we can stop somewhere in town," Vic said. "I could use something cold
myself." He was hoping against hope that there was still some canned food
in his dad's house. He had exactly five hundred dollars to get them started out
here. He thought he might sell one of the studs for seed money and go from
there, just playing everything by ear until he knew what he was doing. If worse
came to worse, he could always try to hire on somewhere in town or on someone's
farm until he was on his feet again. He was still under forty and in relatively
good shape. Not as good shape as Nolan, perhaps, but he could hold his own.
    "Daddy,
Andy's looking!" Christa said.
    "I
was not!"
    "You
were too! I saw you turn your head when he started peeing."
    "Hey,
cut it out," Vic said. "Both of you."
    The
sulks were forgotten a few moments later as they rode toward Denke with the
wind in their faces and the sun on their limbs. Nolan eased up on the accelerator
as they reached the outskirts of town, and Vic could feel the attention in the
car shift to their immediate surroundings.
    "No
paved roads?" Nolan said in dismay. "Is this the right place? I
didn't see a sign or anything."
    "No
stoplights either," Christa observed. She nudged Andy. "Look. This is
where we're going to live."
    "Not
exactly," Vic said. "According to the lawyer, Dad's place is about
ten miles from town."
    Nolan
glanced at him. "I thought you'd been here before?"
    "I
never said that. I was born here, that's all. Dad always met me in Wichita ."
    "At
Aunt Chula's," Christa said. "I was real little, but I remember the
time I saw him. Andy was just born."
    "Vic,"
Nolan said. "Does this place smack of Mayberry or what? Look at it."
    Vic was
looking. Denke was small, white, and so clean as to be almost picturesque.
Flowers bloomed in front of every house, and every lawn was short and evenly
cut. Only the shutters and trim of individual houses varied from the sparkling
white. Vic guessed it was some kind of town covenant with cleanliness, which
was okay by him. What was not okay were the