by Chris Offutt
“I don’t know,” Coop said, “Been so long since I was with a gal, I forget if you get on from the right or the left.”
His laughter trickled to a phlegmy gasp and he spat lines of snuff to the earth.
“I ain’t agreeing to nothing till I talk to her,” Joe said. “You all got a way of answering some questions to death, and letting others rot on the vine.”
“What do you want to know?” Owen said.
“What’s Frank hiding from?”
“Nope.”
“Just like that.”
“Yep.”
“For as much space as there is around here,” Joe said, “you all got me codlocked pretty tight,”
“That’s Montana all right,” Coop said. “More cows and less butter, more rivers and less water, and you can see farther and see less than anywhere else.”
They heard the whine of a car driven too fast for the dirt road, its headlights shining on people carrying bundles of food. The car stopped beside the parked trucks. The driver sounded the horn in a steady rhythm of three long notes followed by three short. Joe followed Owen and Coop swiftly up the slope.
“Somebody dead?” Coop said.
“No,” said a man.
“What then?” Owen said.
“It’s Lucy,” the driver said. “She’s in jail.”
“Where?” Owen said.
“Missoula.”
“What charge?”
“No driver’s license. No registration.”
“How’d they get her?”
“Busted taillight.”
“Those bastards,” a man said. “She’s sixty-two years old.”
“Never did a mean thing in her life,” said another.
“All right,” Owen said. “Let’s ease down a notch. What’s the bail?”
“Five thousand,” said the driver.
He stepped away to confer with a few men as dusk moved down the slopes. Cigarettes glowed among the men. Owen returned to the group.
“They’re just messing with us,” he said. “I want everybody to bring some money to Coop’s tonight. Don’t worry, you’ll get it back. Lucy won’t turn outlaw on us.”
Families hurried to cars and trucks, speaking in low tones. Joe found Botree with the kids in her pickup.
“just drive around,” she said, “until the boys go to sleep.”
“I’m not sleepy,” Dallas said.
Joe headed toward the ranch. Night flowed down the valley. Abilene slept, sucking on a finger, his head in his mother’s lap. Soon, Dallas was asleep.
“What about this Lucy business?” Joe said.
“I’ve known her all my life. Everybody has. She’s a good woman. Her husband died and she lost her spread. Taxes just ate her up. She doesn’t belong in jail.”
Joe thought of his mother and wondered if the people of Blizzard would band together on her behalf. Five thousand dollars was a lot of money in the hills. Entire families lived on less per year.
“What are mud people?” he said.
“Anybody who’s not white.”
“Frank sounds like he doesn’t like them much.”
“What’s to like?” Botree said.
“People are people, aren’t they?”
“As long as they stay with their own.”
He’d never heard talk such as Botree’s before. The closest was gossip against certain families at home, usually the ones in the deepest hollows or out the farthest ridges, families such as his.
“That’s prejudice, Botree.”
“No, it’s not. Frank might be that way, but I’m not. There was plenty of Mexicans down in Texas.”
“You get to know any?”
“You sound just like Coop. That’s the first thing he wanted to know when I came back. If you’re worried about my kids, I can swear that their fathers are a hundred percent white.”
“That’s not what I mean. How can you talk that way and say you’re not prejudiced.”
“I’m not.”
“What about Indians?”
“I grew up around them. I know what they’re like.”
“What are they like?”
“They just want to take. They can’t help it because that’s all they know. They’ve had everything in the world given to them, free land on the Rez, free food, even free houses. They won’t work. All they do is drink.”
“All of them?”
“Not every single one, no. But they’re the exception. The rest just want to live off the white man.”
“So you don’t like Indians.”
“I didn’t say that. I like Indians fine. I like them best when they stay on the Rez.”
Joe accelerated and the truck weaved. He realized he was too angry to drive. He parked under a cottonwood and stepped to the road. A shooting star cut briefly through the sky and was gone before he could focus on its passage. Botree left the cab, her face pale in the moonlight.
“Where I grew up,” Joe said, “there wasn’t nothing but poor white people out in the county. We had the bootlegger, poker games, and shootings. When we went to town, people didn’t like us because of that, and they treated us bad. I knew it when I was a kid. It was little stuff, but it was there. Like at the grocery store, the bag-up boy helped everybody get groceries in the car but my mother. Later I got a job on a trash truck. People in town looked down on me because of it.”
“That would never happen here,” Botree said.
“No? What about a dishwasher or a poker dealer? What about a stripper?”
She turned away to stare toward the mountains, where sky and earth blended in the night. She leaned against the bumper, her arms folded across her chest.
“I know a little something about that,” she said, “A long time ago I used to dance at the Wolf. I saved some money but afterwards I couldn’t get work anywhere in town.”
“That’s what I mean.”
“Then I went down to Texas and got pregnant. People treated me like I had a disease. Like I was nothing, because I wasn’t married.”
Ursa Major sprawled in the night sky. The air chilled Joe’s arms.
“Johnny has a girlfriend,” Joe said. “She’s a dancer at the Wolf.”
Botree stood without moving, a shadow in the moonlight.
“They have a ten-month-old girl.”
“Oh, Johnny,” she said. “Oh, no.”
“There’s another thing,” he said. “The reason he never said nothing about it.”
She cocked her head, waiting.
“She’s an Indian.”
Botree was quiet for a long time. Stars shimmered in the sky like water on paint. Wind rustled the tree boughs. Botree lifted her hair free of the jacket collar.
“What a damn shame,” she said. “A half-breed’ll have it tough.”
“She’s half your family, too.”
“I don’t know how much help that is. Look at how the rest of us turned out.”
Joe touched her hand. She trembled and was still.
A dull thump came from inside the truck and Dallas peered through the windshield. Botree and Joe climbed in the cab. A quarter moon lay above the silhouetted mountain peaks.
“The moon’s broke,” Dallas said.
Joe and Botree laughed. As Joe drove, he explained the lunar cycle.
“The moon gets cut in half every month?” Dallas said.
“Sort of, yes.”
“And that gets cut in half.”
“Right.”
“So a fall moon is when it gets all its pieces back.”
Within a few minutes, Dallas was asleep again. Joe turned onto the ranch road and slowed the truck as he spoke.
“I had a little talk with Coop and Owen. They offered to move into the old bunkhouse. You know anything about that?”
“Yes.”
“I told them I had to talk to you first.”
“I appreciate that. They don’t want to be in the way.”
“Are they?”
“Not to me,” Botree s
aid. “But they’re my family. They’re trying to help how they can.”
“Help what?”
“If you want to leave, say so. Your leg is fine. There’s no need in you staying anymore unless it’s something you want to do.”
“Do you want me to?”
“Yes,” she said, “that’s what I’d like.”
Joe reached across the children and covered her hand with his. He wanted to remain in the cab of the truck forever, driving dirt roads in the night. The dog star glowed. The Milky Way lay like a sleeve of lace among the stars.
21
* * *
Botree carried Abilene through the mud room and down the long hall, while Joe followed with Dallas. They placed the boys in bed and watched as they rolled toward the middle of the mattress, their heads bowed to each other. Abilene placed a hand on his brother’s arm.
“They’re good little boys,” Joe whispered.
“They fight some.”
“But they stick up for each other.”
“Like dogs in a pack.”
Botree left, but Joe stayed for a long time, thinking of the room he’d shared with his brother, its slant ceiling and cold corners. The attic had offered them a privacy denied the rest of the family. During summer the room was very hot. Dallas rolled over and his arm brushed Abilene, who stirred before sucking his finger.
In the living room, men and women from the picnic stood about, holding automatic rifles as casually as garden tools. Several had bolstered pistols on their hips. A few wore fatigues and combat boots, while others wore Bills hats. They reminded Joe of a Wednesday night prayer meeting except for the guns.
Coop huddled at the dining room table with three men. Beside a CB radio were stacks of money and gold coins.
“Is that to get Lucy out?” Joe said.
“Yes,” Botree said.
“With gold?”
“A lot of these people here, that’s all they’ll keep.”
“I guess they don’t believe in money.”
“That’s right.”
Joe wanted away from the group. They weren’t his family or his friends. He went to his room and sat on the bed, surrounded by clean white animal skulls. He wondered why people only banded together to fight, rather than to protect. The same was true of Kentucky. Nothing pulled a family closer than a threat to one of its members, right down to second or third cousins.
From a paper sack beneath his bed, he removed some cash and his gold coin. His Jeep was in the barn. He could walk out the back door and be halfway to Missoula before anyone noticed his absence. He remembered Ty’s talk of Alaska and wished his leg was strong enough to go.
He returned to the main part of the house. Coop was pouring coffee into several cups on a tray. A woman sat at the table, counting money. Joe set the pile of bills on the scarred table and used the gold coin to hold them in place. He leaned against the wall beside an ancient horse skull patched with moss.
“Thanks, Joe,” Owen said. He turned to the group. “So far Frank don’t know nothing. He’s out of CB range until he gets to his camp. Locking up Lucy might be a trick to draw him out.”
“Just what them bastards would try,” a man said. “Getting to him through a woman.”
“I wish to hell they’d pull me over,” another man said. “It’d be the last time they’d stop an innocent citizen.”
“They’re going after the weak,” said a man, “like a goddam wolf. Next they’ll try for our kids.”
The arrest had increased the Bills’ sense of their own importance. Joe felt the excitement spread through the room, a tension that reminded him of the Blizzard post office on the day government checks arrived. People were enjoying themselves more than they had at the picnic.
Owen raised his hand to hush the crowd.
“What we got to do,” he said, “is be more prepared for something like this. We’ll keep money on hand to get the next person out quicker, and you can bet there’ll be a next time. I want everybody to double-check your brake lights and turn signals. Don’t give them a reason to pull you over.”
“They’ll use any excuse,” a man said. “They’re rabid dogs with no leash.”
“Stay in radio contact with your neighbor,” Owen said. “If you go to town, or even down the road, tell somebody. Make sure the CB in your vehicle works. Now about weapons. Their law says you can carry in plain sight, so don’t conceal. Put your pistol on the dashboard or on your hip, not in gloveboxes and coat pockets. Keep the big weapons hid, especially your AR-15 and your Mini-14. We can get you back, but not your rifles.”
Owen looked at the crowd. “Any questions? Anything anybody wants to say?”
People glanced at each other and away, as if no one wanted to induce another to speak. A man stepped forward. His hair was short and his bottom lip was swelled by snuff. He looked older than Coop.
“They will take your guns,” he said slowly, “just like they took my ranch four years ago. They will come on your land and steal your property.”
“When New York City went broke,” another man said, “the banks let them slide, but not us.”
“It’s the Jews,” said a man. “They run the banks and they’re trying to run Congress.”
“They want to make the white man weak so the mud people can take over.”
“I’d like to say,” a man said, “the law crossed the double-yellow on this one. Owen’s right. We can’t give them no ways to get at us. They got the law, hut we got the Bill of Rights.”
People nodded to each other. Joe sensed a hardening in the atmosphere, as if a collective will had begun to congeal. He realized that they talked about the same issues over and over, like someone recently saved by the church. He was both, attracted and repulsed by the Bills, similar to the desire he’d felt for the drunken bartender.
Another man spoke.
“What happens if they don’t cut Lucy loose?”
“They will,” Owen said, “They’re trapped by their own laws that way. We raised bail. They’ll let her out.”
“What about Frank?” someone said.
“We’ll notify him as soon as Lucy’s safe.”
“Is there anything else needs doing tonight?” said a man.
“When Lucy gets home,” Owen said, “it might be nice if someone stayed with her.”
A woman stood and slipped on her coat.
“One last thing,” Owen said, “The papers in Missoula and Spokane are going to get all over this, and we don’t need trouble with them. Talk to reporters if you want, but don’t go loco, and don’t let them get anywhere near Coop,”
A few men chuckled. The woman who had been counting money spoke to Owen in a low voice. He nodded and addressed the crowd.
“We got enough to bail Lucy out,” Owen said.
People cheered and clapped their hands.
“All right,” Owen said. “Time to go get her. We can’t have any trouble, so no hotheads are going. No weapons, either. One problem. The vehicle needs to be registered to someone with a driver’s license, or they’ll arrest you, too. Who’s got a government ID card for travel?”
He looked from person to person, his face impassive. A few shook their heads, and Joe sensed the group’s frustration. Owen was staring at him. Other people noticed, and turned to him. Botree looked at the floor. Joe felt the way he had at the Wolf the night he’d gone on his poker rush. The action was his and he stepped forward, as if pulled.
“I’ve got a license,” he said. “And my Jeep is legal.”
He and Owen shared a gaze. Joe regretted having spoken.
“Any objection?” Owen said to the group.
The men and women looked at one another to reassure themselves of the decision. Botree continued to avoid Joe’s eyes.
“All right,” Owen said. “We’re done here. Folks, you’re welcome to stay, but I know you got families to get home to. Botree, we need something to put this money in,”
People began moving to the door. Many looked at Joe as the
y left, but no one spoke. Coop joined him.
“Well, cowboy,” Coop said. “Good of you to pitch in.”
“You all helped me,” Joe said. He was upset with himself for having volunteered.
“Now you know what we’re all about,” Coop said.
“Not really.”
“Still got questions?”
“Just one, Coop.”
“Fire away.”
“How come you got a horse skull hanging in the dining room?”
“Ever eat horse?” Coop said.
“No.”
“I did. That skull’s to remind me to be thankful I never have to again.”
Coop went to the CB base unit and adjusted the controls. The house was nearly empty. Botree set a duffel bag on the table and began placing the money inside.
“It’s all or nothing,” he said.
“I used to be that way.”
“I didn’t,” Joe said. “It’s new to me.”
“You sure you want to do it?”
“No, but I’m going to anyhow.” He shrugged. “What else am I going to do? Leave? If somebody else shoots me, I might not make it.”
“You probably would,” she said. “Most men I’ve met try to act tougher than they are. With you, it’s different. You don’t know how tough you really are.”
“I never had to be, Botree. I always had somebody do that for me.”
“Who?”
Owen came in the house and Botree gave him the duffel bag. Joe followed him outside. Stars showed in patches of night. At the barn, Owen opened the door of a large feed room to reveal the Jeep. Joe climbed in and inhaled deeply, savoring the musty smell of its interior. He turned the key and nothing happened.
“Let me jump it,” Owen said. “I’ll be right back.”
Wind throbbed inside the barn, a sound like crumpling tin. Joe wondered if it was too late to change his mind. Headlights flashed as Owen drove Botree’s old pickup across the rutted land. He parked, fastened the cables, and after a minute the Jeep’s engine started. While it idled, Owen wired a CB radio under the dashboard.
The Jeep handled rough, as if the metal had stiffened from disuse. Owen kept the duffel bag between his boots.
“What’s Frank wanted on?” Joe said.
“There’s a bunch of little charges,” Owen said. “Refusal to register his car, obstructing justice, possession of illegal firearms. That sort of thing.”