by Chris Offutt
“We have to go.”
They dressed quickly and went down the mountain cold and wet, giggling like children. They huddled in the truck while its engine heated the cab. The windshield clouded from within and they rubbed it with their hands, making peepholes to the sky. The stars gleamed close. The truck smelled of minerals and flesh.
20
* * *
The woods of Idaho caught fire late in June. Smoke lay in ribbons along the horizon, transforming dusk to a garish display of color, Joe had never seen so much smoke. Kentucky woods were moist and shady, and the occasional blaze was easily controlled. Here, the fires lasted for week.
He and Botree attended a Fourth of July picnic at a meadow along the Bitterroot River. Clouds moved like surf across the sky. Abilene and Dallas joined other children. Women clustered around a young mother and her infant beneath a cottonwood. Owen talked with a group of men Joe recognized as the ones who’d questioned him in the barn. Near the river, Coop played a game of horseshoes, his pitched shoes arcing once, sunlight flashing on the iron.
Joe felt as if he was passing for a local in a foreign country, with Botree as his camouflage. He stayed near her, shaking hands and being polite, much like a church social at home. He recognized a few people, including the gas station attendant and the man who’d sold him wood last autumn.
Men and women tended to separate, except for the teenagers, who roamed in a pack. They were dressed in high-fashion ranch clothes-crisp jeans, shiny belt buckles, new hats and boots. Each boy’s back pocket held the round imprint made by a tin of snuff. A young girl bent from the waist and bit the leather Wrangler patch loose from a boy’s pants. She scampered away, giggling.
Botree laughed at Joe’s startled expression.
“That means they’re going steady,” she said. “It tells everybody else that boy’s taken.”
“What’s the next step?”
“Wearing shirts that match.”
“Shoot, my clothes don’t even match each other.”
“You know what impressed me most at their age?”
“What?”
“When the boy made his dog sit in the back.”
“All this is a new one on me,” he said, “Do I have to watch the back of my britches around you?”
“No, I’m over my buckle-chasing days,” Botree said. “I knew one gal used to custom-order her belt. Instead of her name on the back, she’d put her phone number.”
“Where’s she at now?”
“Got six kids and a ranch by Great Falls. Goes to town once a month, if the weather holds.”
“Sounds rough.”
“Around here,” Botree said, “that’s the top of the line. Only thing lonelier than a ranch is not having a man with you on it,”
Dallas and Abilene ran down, a slope, their faces flushed.
“Know what,” Dallas said. “I climbed a tree. From the top I could see past the world,”
“Know what?” Abilene said. “Me, too.”
They ran away.
“Where’s Johnny?” Joe said.
“Probably up by the trucks with his buddies,” she said. “They think nobody knows they’ve got half-pints in their boots.”
“I figured there’d be more people drinking. Beer, at least.”
“Not with the families around like this. That’s why the young bucks go off on their own. You want some?”
“Not really.”
“Don’t stay dry on my account,” Botree said, “Once in a while won’t hurt. You should see me on tequila.”
“I never drank it.”
“More like it drinks you. The best in Texas had a worm in the bottom.”
“What for?”
“I don’t know. But that worm kicked worse than a mustang in a tin barn.”
Several hundred yards away, children were playing in a grove of aspen. Joe could see each leaf clearly. He enjoyed Montana’s dry-climate, the light and space that offered a solace he’d never found at home.
Botree touched his arm. “I’ve got to take a look at Gailie’s new baby.”
Joe watched her walk through wild grasses, moving over the earth in her heeled boots. He climbed the slight rise to the parked trucks silhouetted against the sky. The last one had its tailgate dropped. Johnny and two young men sat on its edge, passing a half-pint of whisky. Johnny offered the bottle to Joe.
“Take a slug of redeye,” he said.
“Ain’t bourbon, is it?” Joe said.
“Some blend,” one of the men said. “We been drinking Canadian whisky since Prohibition.”
“What are you all chasing it with?” Joe said.
“Cigarettes and spit.”
Joe lifted the bottle and let the liquor slide into his mouth. The burn spread along his limbs. He spat and took another drink.
“Damn, boys,” he said. “That stuff works like gravy on Sunday.” He passed the bottle to the nearest man. “I’m Joe.”
“Kip,” the man said. He wore a white Stetson with a pale gray band. He gave the whisky to the other man.
“Here, Z-man,” Kip said.
Z-man took the bottle. A wispy mustache grew above his mouth. “Two bubbler,” he said.
He finished the whisky in two swallows, which forced a pair of bubbles to the surface. He jerked the empty bottle from his mouth and blinked rapidly.
“That’s got a whang I like,” he said.
“Where’s the other bottle,” Johnny said, “Joe’s got to catch up.”
“That’s all right,” Joe said. “You all are too far ahead.”
“I just started,” Kip said. “Z-man’s out front a mile. He couldn’t hit the ground with his hat.”
“I could with yours,” Z-man said.
“Don’t mess with my hat,” Kip said.
“Why not?”
“I’ll kick your ass so hard you’ll have to take off your shirt to shit.”
Z-man began to giggle. He pulled his shirttail free of his jeans, held it away from his body, and leaned backwards. He lost his balance and stumbled against the truck.
“God doggit,” he said. “I didn’t even see him hit me.”
Johnny uncapped a fresh bottle and gave it to Joe.
“Don’t pay them, any mind,” Johnny said. “They been that way all their lives,”
“What are they,” Joe said. “Kin?”
“Brothers.”
Joe passed the bottle back to Johnny, who capped it. Sunlight flared off the truck’s chrome bumper. Joe squinted. He felt great. The river glowed, in the western light.
“Johnny,” he said, “You’re lucky to have these boys for friends.”
Johnny ducked his head and stared at the dirt.
“Give me that damn bottle,” Z-man said, “before he gets blubbery and starts kissing.”
Johnny tossed him the half-pint. After finishing it, they went downslope. Joe walked carefully so no one would know he was a little drunk.
“Hey,” he said to Johnny. “Maybe we can take Botree and the kids to town, one day.”
“Botree doesn’t go to town, Joe.”
“Why not?”
“Said she got enough of it down in Texas.”
“Enough of town? I don’t get it.”
“There’s people in Missoula she don’t want to ran into.”
“Who?”
“Hell, I don’t know. She was pretty wild for a while.”
“What do you mean, wild?”
“You know what I mean,” Johnny said. “The kind of wild a woman can get.”
Joe circled the group to Botree standing near the river. The mountains were violet in the afternoon sun. Botree sniffed the air, her nose wrinkling.
“Your breath would crack a mirror,” she said. “You found Johnny’s bottle, didn’t you?”
“Well,” Joe said. “I got a little primed.”
“For what?”
“Ever what comes down the pike.”
“We better get you some food before you chase the w
rong calico.”
“Not me. I’m in good shape right where I’m at.”
Botree smiled, her eyes soft. Joe brushed her lips with his. A golden light suffused the air. The smell of barbecued chicken blended with wildflowers.
“We used to meet like this every weekend,” Botree said. “We’d talk in the day and sing at night.”
“You sound like you miss it.”
“I do.”
“But not now.”
“Things changed,” Botree said. “There used to be more of us. We met for holidays, birthdays, people’s anniversaries. We played softball and went swimming. But when Frank stopped organizing it, everybody just quit. Yes, I miss it. We all do. I wish it could be like before.”
“I know that feeling,” Joe said.
“Sometimes I get afraid of what we’re turning into.”
“What do you mean?”
“We used to be really part of each other. Now, I don’t know. I don’t see anybody but other people in the Bills. We always talk about the same things.”
“What’s that?”
“How bad things are.”
“Well, things are pretty bad, aren’t they?”
“We used to talk about how we were going to make things better. For the country and for ourselves. I don’t hear that anymore.”
“You can always leave.”
“I did, Joe. I went down to Texas and it was like another world. I didn’t fit in. This is what I came back to.”
“It sure is pretty country.”
“We don’t see it the same as an outsider,” Botree said. “Everything you think is pretty is a piece of bad history to us. The beautiful cut-bank is where a cowboy went over and broke his leg. That stand of cottonwood is where we found a whole string of cows dead from lightning. Ranchers spend more time looking at the sky than the land, worrying about weather,”
“You ain’t a rancher,”
“No, but we used to be. Coop leases range land. He had to sell off a piece to pay the bank a few years ago.”
“That’s tough.”
“It about broke him. You wouldn’t believe what this land is worth, Joe. He gets calls every month. There’s one guy in California wants to move here and raise llamas.”
“For what, the far?”
“Who knows? We’re all that’s left of a ranch family, and Owen’s give out on the work. It’s all Johnny can do to mend fence. We’d have to sell land to buy cattle, then rent our own grazing back.”
“That’s no good.”
“Not much to raise my boys into.”
The sound of ringing metal carried across the meadow. An older man stood beside the table of food. He dangled a horseshoe on a string and beat it rapidly with another horseshoe. He stopped, and as the sound echoed along the valley, he shouted:
Beans in the pan
Coffee in the pot
Come on and get some
Eat it while its hot.
Across the meadow, people began moving toward the food. Two women headed for the trees to bring the children.
“Is beans the main dish?” Joe said.
“No,” Botree said, “that’s what he always hollers. He was a cowboy in the Depression. Him and Coop lived on son-of-a-bitch stew one winter, and beans the rest of the year. It was the hardest time of their lives, but to hear them tell it, the happiest.”
Joe thought of Morgan’s claim to have eaten owl during the Depression. His mother had never spoken of that time, which meant she preferred not to remember it. He knew people at home had lived on wild greens that grew in their yards.
They joined the line of people moving toward the food. Botree fixed plates for the boys and led them to a quilt with other children. Frank walked slowly to the tables, shaking hands and chatting on his way. He stopped opposite Joe, who was spooning salad onto a paper plate. Behind Frank and to his left stood a man wearing fatigues with a rifle slung over his shoulder. Joe recognized him as the man with the damaged ear.
“Hello, Joe,” Frank said. “Good to see you on your hind legs again.”
“Thanks,” Joe said. “How you been getting on?”
“Fine, just fine. The battle never stops, does it?”
“I guess not.”
“People are impressed by you, Joe. Nothing but good to say, nothing but good. When I first met you, I thought, here’s a man who knows his own way. Could have been better circumstances, huh?”
He focused his entire being on Joe, prepared to smile or become serious. Joe had seen a preacher act the same way toward a man whose soul he was bent on saving.
Joe smiled at Botree. “There’s harder ways to meet folks.”
“But you just can’t think of them right now,” Frank said.
He laughed, joined immediately by several others. The man with the rifle remained impassive, as if mirth was beneath him. Frank spread his arms in a gesture that included the meadow, the river, and all the people.
“Isn’t this grand,” he said. “The Fourth of July. It makes me feel like I’m not alone in this world to see so many good people together, bound to each other for a common good.”
“And what is that?” Joe said.
The crowd became very quiet.
“What?” Frank said.
“The common good,” Joe said. He could feel the whisky in him. “What exactly is it?”
“Why, Joe,” Frank said. His voice held the fluid tone of a man who was running for office. “We’re all here for the same reason—to protect freedom. You’re the first in a long line of patriots who are coming to join us.”
He swiveled his head to the crowd, spreading his arms to take in the entire meadow.
“All across the country, people are getting fed up with crime, drugs, and poor schools. They’re fed up with a court that lets murderers go. They’re fed up with a government that passes useless mandates. They know what America should be, and who it is for.
“I love Independence Day, Joe. Democracy is a wonderful invention. And like all good things, it’s got to be taken out and oiled once in a while. Eight now, our country is an old machine that’s showing wear, and our government is a lousy mechanic. It cannot simultaneously drive the car and keep the engine running. That’s why ‘We the people’ are the first three words of the Constitution. And we the people must band together to make sure it protects us. I love America. I want to keep this country what it was meant to be—free.”
Frank moved to a slight rise and raised his hands. The sun was bright behind him.
“You know,” he said, “the act of breaking bread is a mark of peace the world over. Has been since the beginning of time. I’ve often wondered what Adam and Eve’s first meal was. They were truly in paradise—no mud people or government to bother them.”
Joe grinned to himself, thinking that God’s ban on eating the apple was like a useless federal mandate. He wondered what mud people were.
“This is a splendid sight,” Frank said. “It does me good to see honest, hardworking people gathered by the water. I especially like seeing the children—all the small white faces of the future. This country is great because of God-fearing people who know right from wrong. Our families settled this land. Our grandparents fought for it, and our parents worked it.”
He stopped talking, his voice echoing off the river.
“I know I need to hush before I bore everybody by exercising my freedom of speech too much.”
He let the laughter subside before he continued in a gentle voice.
“Let’s have a moment to enjoy our right to worship with a silent prayer of thanks.”
He bowed his head and people looked down. In the brief silence came the shrill cry of a sandpiper across the river. Joe watched the crowd. He felt as he had when attending church at home—glad to be part of the group, though possessing less faith than most. One by one, people finished and lifted their heads.
Frank said a few good-byes and left, accompanied by the man with half an ear. Joe sat beside Botree and ate chicken an
d potato salad. Men encouraged people to sample their wives’ dishes, while women complimented each other. Botree rose to serve her children dessert.
Owen squatted beside Joe. “Got a minute?” he said.
Joe stood awkwardly, favoring his bad leg, which had stiffened. He and Owen joined Coop beside a rotting aspen log felled by a beaver. The river moved like a silver ribbon that frayed into small side channels, Behind them, people were working fast to clean the area before the coming dark. Three men were preparing a fireworks display beside the river. Dusk transformed the mountains into an unfurled bolt of crushed velvet.
“We’re willing to move out of the house,” Owen said, “so you and Botree can live in it with the kids,”
“What?”
“Make things easier on everybody all around. We’ll put up at the old bunkhouse. Johnny, too. That way you two can test the waters.”
“I ain’t making a deal for her,” Joe said. “What kind of people are you? Swapping her off like that.”
“She knows about it,” Owen said.
“I don’t believe it.”
“I did me some cowboying when I was coming up,” Coop said. “And one time we found a brush fire. Wind was blowing hard and there wasn’t no water for fifty miles. What we done was shoot a big steer. We skinned out half of it and tied ropes to a front leg and a back leg. Two riders dragged the skinned-out side across the fire line, turned around and dragged it back. It was like taking a rag to dust. After a while the fire was out.
“My granddaughter is like that wildfire, son. She’s had some boys to run a bloody carcass over her a few times, and she’s been smashed down pretty hard. Most of the fire got beat out of her. But you’re the first man that’s Mowed on her spark in a long while.”
Folds of darkness covered the mountains. Joe worked his mind one direction and another, as if he were bewildered in the woods and had found a path that he didn’t fully trust. At any moment it might turn to a rabbit trail ending in briers.
“Look,” Joe said, “I like Botree fine. She’s smart and she’s kind, and that’s more than most people. But this other, how you’re talking, it’s kind of a long way past where we’re at right now.”
“That comes fast,” Owen said. “Hell, that’s the easy part. Right, Coop?”