by Chris Offutt
The dealer gave him pocket kings and he raised the limit before the flop. Four players called. The dealer flopped three cards simultaneously, a nine of hearts and an ace, deuce of clubs. Everyone checked to Joe and he bet out. Two players called and he put one on a club flush draw, the other on a pair of aces. The dealer burned a card and turned a king. With three kings, Joe checked, setting a trap. There was a bet and he raised, and a player re-raised. The third man called the bet and Joe considered folding. Three kings was a good hand but the action suggested higher cards against him. Joe made the final raise.
The river card was a nine of clubs. That gave the board two nines and three clubs with an ace and a king. Joe had a full house, kings over, against a certain flush and an unknown hand. He bet the limit, found a raise, and re-raised. The player raised back. Joe pushed the remainder of his stack to the middle, and the other two players called.
“Let’s see what we got,” the dealer said.
Joe hesitated before displaying his hand, in order not to appear overeager for the pot. He showed his cards and prepared an expression of sheepish good humor, as if he felt bad for possessing a hand of such strength. One player flashed his club flush and threw it in the muck. The other man flipped two aces, giving him a higher fall house than Joe’s. The dealer paused so everyone could see the outcome, then shoved the chips to the winner. Joe pushed his chair from the table. He had a headache and an urge for candy.
“Drawing dead, wasn’t I,” he said.
He walked through the cafe in a loser’s daze, reliving the hand. It made a good bad-beat story, but everyone had them, and no one wanted to hear another.
The bars had closed and people were staggering into the cafe. A trio of bleary-eyed students bumped against him and continued without apology. Joe stepped aside as a biker escorted one of the strippers to her car. In the bright fluorescence, she looked tired and lost. A young woman sat before a slot machine, pushing buttons in a daze. A scar cut her eyebrow in half. At her feet slept a baby in a car seat.
A waitress stood beside a table of fraternity cowboys from the university. She raised her voice and called to the cook behind the counter.
“He needs them,” she yelled. “We got one who needs them!”
The cook grinned at the waitress, who was grinning at her customers. Everyone seemed to be grinning but Joe, who was envious of a kid so much at home here that he could order brains and eggs for breakfast.
Outside, falling snow blurred the air. The lights of the city were softly diffused, casting a glow over the silent streets. Joe drove home, parked, and stepped into the harsh wind that sliced through his pants and numbed his legs. He recalled making a windbreak for his trailer at home. He had planted hybrid poplars that were guaranteed to grow six feet per year, the result of a special root grafted to each stem. He felt similar to those trees. Just as their alien roots had grown into the earth, he needed a past that led here.
In the cabin he built a fire as his father had taught him, tightly rolled paper on the bottom, kindling with air channels, two small logs over that, and a big log in the back. Making a fire was one of the few endeavors that he enjoyed. He went outside and stacked wood on his right arm against his chest. The smell of smoke hung in the air, held to the earth by snow. He remembered Boyd’s contempt for people who lived in a hollow rather than on a ridge. “House in a hollow makes weather follow,” he’d often said. Now Joe had become a lowly hollow-dweller, even though the hollow was fairly wide. This much open space in Kentucky would be the site of a town.
Light leaked through wall cracks like grain from a slashed feed sack. There were hills and trees and a creek, but none of it was his. He thought of his father’s log cabin and knew he’d never live in it. It was the only thing he’d ever truly wanted. He wanted to cry, but it was a distant sensation, like the first urges of hunger.
He packed the stove, knowing that the wood would burn to ash by morning. He slid into his sleeping bag. The bare walls seemed to contract and expand like a lung. He wanted some pictures and a radio. He wanted something to read.
In the morning, fog lay across the mountain peaks as if the trees were wrapped in gauze. He drove to Missoula, The Wolfs bar was already lined with drinkers and he vowed to stay out. He searched the junk shops until he found a clock-radio, a deck of cards, and a toaster. The book selection was mainly romance with a few cookbooks. Deep in a corner, beneath a brittle canvas tent, he discovered a milk crate filled with paperback westerns, a thick history of railroads, a computer guide, and an economics textbook. While carrying the crate through the store’s narrow aisles, his elbow brushed a pile of tri-folded pamphlets to the floor.
At the top of each in big letters were the words LIBERTY TEETH. Below was a quote from James Madison: “Americans have the right and advantage of being armed—unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust people with arms.” At the bottom of the page was the phrase MONTANA FOR FREE AMERICANS ONLY.
Joe stacked the pamphlets on the counter, confused by their purpose, Kentucky was a gun culture, but he’d already seen more weapons in Montana than at home. It seemed odd for people here to be concerned about having enough guns, like a wheat farmer who worried about running out of seed.
He paid and walked to his Jeep. West of town he parked at a tire store, surprised by the line of people. There were three clerks, two men and a woman, and when it was Joe’s turn, the woman stepped forward. Her snap-front shirt was embroidered with roses.
“Busy, ain’t it,” he said.
“Weather does that.”
“Weather?”
“It’s snowing up high. Road to Lolo was a mess this morning. I passed two pileups on the way in.”
“Not too bad now, is it.”
“I’m not driving to work now, either.”
“I guess not,” Joe said. “I need four new tires.”
“Who doesn’t.” She laughed. “What are you driving?”
Joe gestured through the plate-glass window. He wasn’t sure what to call it—a Jeep or a Wagoneer, a car or a truck.
“That blue rig?” she said.
“Yup.”
“Will you be driving snow, gumbo, or highway?”
“I’m not exactly sure what gumbo is.”
“If you don’t know, you aren’t driving it. Snow or highway?”
“Just regular road, I reckon,”
She came around the counter and rolled two tires off a rack. He admired the ease with which she handled the heavy rims. He had never bought new tires before and she patiently explained variations in width, tread, and grip. After twenty minutes, he bought a set and waited in a small room while the mechanics switched the tires. Three other men were there.
“Snowing up high,” Joe said. “That Lolo road was a mess this morning,”
No one looked at him.
“Good for the tire business, I guess,” he said.
The man sitting directly across from Joe lowered his head in a single slow nod and looked away. In Kentucky the men would be hunched forward, discussing weather, dogs, and tobacco prices. These men maintained a studied effort to occupy their own space.
When a mechanic drove the Wagoneer to the lot, Joe returned to the office and settled his bill. A burly man in a short-brimmed pearl Stetson was talking to the same woman who’d helped Joe. The man became confused by the variety of options. It seemed to annoy him that a woman knew more than he did about truck tires. He raised his voice and spoke slowly to her, the same way people in Lexington had spoken to Virgil when they thought he was a dumb hillbilly.
The woman stepped backward and began to nod. A male clerk took over and the woman began anew with an Indian couple. They listened carefully and asked many of the same questions as Joe.
He paid cash and received his change. The woman in line behind him was nearly fifty, but was dressed like a college student. She reminded Joe of a woman from the hollows at home who’d moved to town and married a doctor.
“
I feel sorry for that gal,” she said. “Don’t you?”
“Who,” Joe said.
“Her.” She gestured to the saleswoman talking to the Indian couple about tires. “It’s just a shame she has to spend her time educating those people.”
The man behind the counter gave Joe a receipt.
“They’re from deep on the Rez,” he said. “Probably the first time they bought new tires in their life.”
“I don’t guess they’ll pay with a credit card,” she said.
“We got all kinds of payment plans,” the clerk said. He tapped the bald spot on the back of his head. “See that? It’s from the tipi flap hitting the back of my head sneaking in and out at night.”
Joe looked from one to the other, unsure of what to say. They had taken him for a Montanan and he was pleased until he realized that their mistake was based on his skin. As he left, the saleswoman began to raise her voice and speak slowly to the Indians.
He drove to his cabin and spent the afternoon watching squirrels work like ants, dragging pine cones the size of their bodies to hideouts in the woods. Instead of dusk, the light simply ceased. He built a fire and stood in the middle of the room with a blanket over his shoulders. The radio emitted fuzzy static across the dial. He wished he could get religion. People at home took it up when they drank too much, got old, or were hunting a spouse, but Joe figured God wasn’t ready to hear from a murderer so soon. When the stovepipe glowed he lay on the couch. He nodded to the stuffed possum and closed his eyes. Sleep came easily, the sweetest of escapes.
The cold woke him at dawn. The plank floor chilled his feet through wool socks. In his long johns, Joe stepped to the porch for more wood and was transfixed by the sound of many geese. They flew overhead in long ragged lines, their cries braiding in a harmony that surrounded him like wind. As they followed the valley south, the air slowly stilled until silence returned. Stray light haloed the mountain peaks.
He made a fire, and when the stove was hot enough he boiled water for coffee. The radio still didn’t work. He started reading a paperback western but it opened with a man alone in a cabin, and he set the book aside. He wished he had photographs for his walls. Already the memory of his mother’s face was fading in his mind. He’d spent much of his life outside, and he wasn’t sure if walls kept him in, or the world out. People covered them with things, and he wondered if it was to hide what walls were—obstacles to light.
In the bathroom mirror he tried to find a sign of himself. The features were familiar. He had his father’s jaw and cowlick, but the face was no one he knew. A beard was growing. The deep-set eyes were the same, pale and squinty.
He went outside and sat on the stump. Mist turned the trees from green to gray. The most light was near the water, and the sound of Rock Creek carried easily over the snow. He rose and struggled through heavy brush to the water’s edge. At a sharp curve in the creek’s path he watched the water come out of a turn, race past him, and plunge into the next bend. It moved much faster than the Black-foot or the Clark Fork River, and was at certain points wider than either one. He couldn’t figure the difference between a creek and a river in Montana.
Motion in the landscape made him still, and he breathed through his mouth to reduce sound. Brush shook across the creek two hundred yards upwind of where he sat. A large white shape emerged tentatively from the woods of a narrow draw. Joe thought it was a deer covered with snow until he saw the short neck and the dark horns that curled from the heavy head. The ram stepped into the clearing and drank from the creek. Its fur was thick and shaggy. As abruptly as it appeared, the bighorn vanished into the woods. Joe watched until the brush stopped moving.
Beyond the water, green moss glittered on the granite bluffs. Joe spoke for the first time all day.
“My name is Joe Tiller and this is where I live.”
He repeated himself over and over. His voice mixed with the hum of the creek, and his words swept into the woods. When his throat ached from the cold he returned to the cabin and went to bed. The weight of blankets pressed against him as if nailing his body in place. He stared at the pine ceiling varnished to a gloss that caught light in the burrs of its knots.
This was not his world.
14
* * *
The first snow never left, but stayed in great drifts that completely obscured the rear of Joe’s cabin. Montanans, he noticed, never referred to snow as snow, but called it weather, as if the term made the season easier to endure. He wondered what they called spring rain.
Without a work schedule, Joe’s body found its own rhythm. He rested when tired and ate when hungry, adopting the simple cycle of an animal. He spent part of each day restacking the firewood, building columns and filling between them with smaller logs. He read the history of railroads and wondered what became of all the Chinese who’d done the work. The books on computers and economics he used for kindling, a page at a time.
A pine knot made a dull explosion in the stove and Joe went outside to gather more wood. It was the most sun in a week and he felt grateful. The brightest light shimmered ahead of him and he trudged through a knee-deep drift to face the sun. A gust blew snow from the boughs of an ancient pine. His face warmed. He closed his eyes. For a moment he forgot himself and wondered how his mother was. Boyd had taken care of her as best he could, a responsibility that Joe had inherited, Marlon would take the role now. She was probably deciding if the giant candy canes made of cardboard would last another Christmas, Joe’s mind moved like lightning to chop that thought short. He opened his eyes. Trees along the peaks were glowing silhouettes.
When his beard was full, he went to town for his driver’s license. The clerk asked for his address.
“I’m in a fishing cabin on Rock Creek,” Joe said.
“Rural route?”
“I don’t know.”
“Mailbox number?”
“It’s Just temporary,” Joe said. “I get mail at a bar.”
“We’ll make it general delivery, Rock Creek,” the man said. “Social Security number? Or do you want your own?”
“My own what?”
“A different number?”
“That’d be fine.”
“I figured so,” the man said. “It takes a little longer.”
Joe wondered if Montanans had a special respect for privacy, or if everyone outside of Kentucky did. He stood awkwardly before the gray background and waited for the camera’s flash, another act that would sever him from home. The state was supplying him with proof of who he wasn’t. The clerk made two photographs and gave Joe the spare. He sat in the waiting area and studied the tiny picture, confused by its resemblance to his brother. Joe didn’t think he looked like Boyd in the flesh, but the picture did. He stared at it for a long time, trying to understand the difference.
The clerk shook Joe’s shoulder.
“Hey, Mr. Tiller. You all right?”
Joe blinked at the man.
“I called you three times,” the man said. “Here’s your new license.”
Joe slipped it in his pocket and left. Outside, he stared at the mountains around the town—his town now, his land and sky. He removed the Kentucky license from his wallet. The picture didn’t look like anyone now. He bent it in half and dropped it down a sewer grate.
He drove through Missoula, trying to understand why people lived in such a tight cluster. He supposed they had more friends than he did, but town only made him lonely. Driving offered comfort, the motion itself a form of solace, and when he reached his cabin, he didn’t want to go in. It was a pathetic-looking little shack, cold and dark, like old man Morgan’s house.
Stricken with panic, he turned away and ran, lifting his legs high of the weedy snow. His breath blew hard. He was the only color in a land of black and white. His foot slipped and he fell and his head bounced against a snow-covered rock. He rolled on his back, waiting for his vision to clear. A silken sky stretched between the mountains, the blue of water overhead. He felt as if he were lyi
ng on a beach looking out to sea.
He’d heard that freezing to death was the easiest way to die. You were supposed to get warm after a while and slide into sleep. The snow would cover him like a quilt. He’d never awaken in a strange place again. When he realized where his mind had taken him, he was overwhelmed with terror. He stood and began moving. With no one to turn to, he had to be careful not to turn on himself.
He returned to his Jeep and drove out of the canyon. Spruce boughs drooped beneath the weight of snow. The creek was frozen along the bank, forming a white border for its flow. He met a car and the driver lifted a forefinger in what passed for a wave. Joe was still a stranger, but his vehicle was known.
He stopped at the bar by the interstate and parked beside three cars, one bearing a Buffalo Bills bumper sticker. As he stepped inside the saloon, his head grazed a gigantic moose head hanging from the wall. Below it was a cigarette machine. He sat at the bar, a long slab with high stools placed on a floor covered with peanut shells and sawdust. Slot machines lined the wall. A machine gun was fastened above the bar with Christmas lights hanging from its front sight. Two men shot pool in the back.
The bartender had a stalwart cant to her posture as if she was prepared to withstand rough weather and rougher men. Joe ordered juice, and while she filled a glass, he studied three large squares of posterboard that hung behind the bar. A list of names was crudely printed on each.
“That’s who’s barred,” the bartender said. She pointed to each list in turn. “Barred for a week, barred for a month, and barred for life.”
“What’d they do?” Joe said.
“The first list is for fighting and the second is for coming in with a weapon.”
“What’s the third?”
“Using the weapon.”
She was looking Joe in the eye, a female version of many Montana men, thick-shouldered with no neck, big hands, and a determined attitude—not someone to get riled. The fact of her gender made her more intimidating than the men. She strode away and Joe watched her hips inside her jeans.