Part 2 (1/2)

Lydia had brought me a portable eight-track tape player, and I lay there on my side, looking at my baby and listening to the Blue alb.u.m by Joni Mitch.e.l.l. I started sobbing and couldn't stop. For six hours I cried and cried until the front of my hospital gown was soaked. How could that be possible? There aren't six hours' worth of tears in the human body. People say crying is good for you and after you let it out you'll feel better, but after six hours I was hopeless as ever.

That was the last time I cried until Mangum Potter drove away.

The afternoon Dad died Hank called Mom and Petey called me. I was giving Auburn a bath when the phone rang, and after I hung up I took Auburn out of the plastic basin to towel him dry. As I rubbed the towel up and down Auburn's precious body, I went kind of blank and forgot time. I just kept rubbing his legs, then his back and arms. I touched his belly and thought of Dad's skin. Dad's neck, his face above his beard, and the backs of his hands were dark as my corral boots, but the rest of his body was the color of banana pulp.

I talked to Auburn as if he were Dad. Said the stuff we all wish we'd said-I planned to plant a line of aspens at the ranch. The cigarettes he found in my saddlebags were mine. Was he disappointed in me? I asked if he thought we should get Auburn baptized even though we didn't belong to a church. Then I told Dad he was the only thing solid in my life, nothing would ever be real again. I said ”I love you''-all this time rubbing Auburn up and down with the towel.

That was the numbest I ever felt, more numb than Yukon Jack ever made me, more numb than the last time I made love to Dothan.

But all while I dried Auburn I never cried. That night fetal-positioned in bed, and the next day, then the funeral and the days after that-nothing. At times I felt like a monster, but I was just too empty for tears.

Someone tapped on the gla.s.s. A man I'd never seen before mouthed some words and did a crank-your-window-down motion with his hands. At first I ignored him, but that didn't work so I cracked the window an inch.

He spoke distinctly, as if I might be foreign or deaf. ”Are you okay?”

I nodded.

He pointed to a pickup on the shoulder across the road. A woman with her hair in foam curlers waved. The man said, ”We were driving by and thought you might not be okay.”

”I'm okay.”

The man wasn't prepared to leave me alone. He looked at the highway behind the Bronco, then hunched over to squint at me through the crack. ”You're in the middle of the lane.”

I stared at him.

”A car coming along might rear-end you.”

I was too tired to fight back. ”Thanks for stopping. I'll move my car.”

”You sure you're okay?”

”I'm unhappy.”

His head moved back. ”Then nothing's the matter.”

”I'm fine.”

Two pickups and an ambulance were parked outside the Sagebrush Lounge. Buck Fratelli keeps things way dark inside so a jealous cowboy coming through the door has to adjust long enough for snugglers to move apart or, in extreme cases, break for the back door. What it does is leave you standing up front until everyone present has copped their att.i.tude.

Faith Fratelli sat on a stool behind the bar, studying Pa.s.sword on a color TV with a purple-soaked picture. The Sagebrush used to be Talbot Taxidermy, and Buck wouldn't buy the dump unless Dothan's dad threw in his mutant animal collection. Taxidermists have a unique sense of humor. Along a shelf on both sides of the TV stood an array of jackalopes, fur-bearing trout, unicorns, sage hens with huge b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Buck's prize piece was a Wyoming werewolf, which is a b.u.t.t mount of a whitetail deer with gla.s.s eyes in the hips, the tail made into a nose, and a pair of razorback fangs set in the a.s.shole. Vicious-looking creature when you first see it and disgusting after that.

A voice on the TV whispered, ”The pa.s.sword is 'swordfish.'”

Faith blew cigarette smoke out her nostrils. ”Why do stupid people smile all the time? This guy looks like a Mormon missionary.”

Other than the skinny tie and that s.h.i.+t-eater under his nose, the guy didn't look a bit like a missionary. His s.h.i.+rt was purple.

Three ancient timber wolves sat on stools nodding over Blue Ribbon beer. The oldest wolf of them all was Oly Pedersen, who'd made a profession of outliving sidekicks. He'd signed up with Grandpa Pierce back in World War I, and they did the blood brothers thing men get into living in trenches with other men, so Dad always went out of his way to take care of Oly-drove him to the doctor, had him over for dinner on Christmas, that sort of thing. When I was a kid Oly'd chain-sawed me a rocking horse that was really neat.

A kid too young to be in the Sagebrush slapped at a Home Run pinball game while a skinny guy in white overalls and a fat guy in a wheelchair shot pool. The wheelchair guy rammed the cue ball like he wanted to kill it and hollered ”Banzai, motherf.u.c.ker” on every shot.

I said, ”Everclear.”

Faith glanced at me for the first time. ”Your makeup's a mess, Maurey.”

”I'm not wearing makeup.”

The wheelchair man spun around. ”Hippy chicks don't wear makeup. Bras either. And they don't shave nothin'.”

”Shut up, Shane,” Faith said with no energy, as if she said it often and didn't expect to be heard. ”You making purple pa.s.sion, Maurey?”

”The pa.s.sword is none of your business.”

Faith missed it-flew right over her head. ”Kids buy Everclear cause it's 180 proof. They mix it with gallons and gallons of Hawaiian Punch, call it purple pa.s.sion.” Faith p.r.o.nounced it the same as everyone else in town-High-wayan.

”I'm in kind of a hurry here.”

”The boys use it to get the girls drunk.” Faith had pitch-black hair pulled into a ponytail and two turquoise bracelets on her left wrist. She was pleasant and Buck was smart, and between them they made ends meet, which isn't easy in GroVont.

I waited while she rang up the fifth and slid it into a sack. The grinner on TV said, ”Shark,” and his female partner said, ”Lawyer.”

”What do you want with Everclear, Maurey?” Faith asked. ”You're a Yukon woman.”

”I'm gonna drink myself to death.”

Faith laughed without taking her eyes off Pa.s.sword. ”Don't you wish.”

I dropped two dollar bills on the bar. ”Get Oly a Blue Ribbon, Faith, tell him it's from Dad.”

The pool players were conferring, and as I left, Shane, the fat one in the chair, wheeled into my path. His head twitched. ”We have a wager.”

”I'm sure you do.”

”Lloyd claims that dime in your back pocket is heads facing out, and I maintain it is tails.”

I stuck my fingers in the pocket in question. There was plenty of room, for fingers, anyway. ”How much did you bet?”

”The next round.”

”You both lose, it's a quarter.”

”Heads or tails quarter?”