"Rome," she said. "I missed some episodes." She finished her bourbon and poured another at the kitchen counter. Her neck was reddened from the sun. she said. "I missed some episodes." She finished her bourbon and poured another at the kitchen counter. Her neck was reddened from the sun.

"How'd it go in your garden today?"

"It grew," she said.

He kissed her on the cheek.

"You could stay. We could watch some TV, and you wouldn't have to say a thing to me. It'd be like you weren't even here."

"Duty calls," he said.

She turned toward the living room with her drink and the DVD, and he figured she must've started on the bourbon around four, four-thirty. That was the stage she was in, this quiet, distracted mood. She'd be ready for a fight in an hour and ready for bed an hour after that, and if she remembered what they'd fought about the next morning she never mentioned it. Mornings were her best time. He stopped on the sunporch and called back into the house, "I love you," but heard no reply.

He drove his '92 Dodge pickup out north on Highway 345 with the windows down and when he cleared the last little subdivision of pricey new five-acre ranchettes he turned the lights off, continuing in the waxing twilight and faint starlight. The pale roadway seemed to rise up out of the landscape, gripping him with the sensation of not having to steer at all, as though he were effortlessly lifting off a runway, but his right front tire bit into the gravel off the shoulder and he overcorrected across the center line, then straightened and switched the headlights back on. For the first time it occurred to him that maybe killing himself would be just the ticket, just not tonight.

He turned onto a graded ranch road by the Montana line and drove west for a mile before pulling over. He shut off the lights and killed the engine, the night sounds swelling, and with them an expectation of disappointment. She wasn't here and he now doubted she'd come. He looked at the lighted dial of his wrist-watch-not yet ten-thirty-and laid his head back against the headrest, shutting his eyes, focusing lightly on the low, rounded whistling of a screech owl, and then there was the sound of something collapsing around him and he snapped his head up as she cranked her SUV in a U-turn through the gravel and parked in front of him, bumper to bumper. He looked at his watch again, slowly understanding he'd been asleep for half an hour.

She climbed in, closing the door and exhaling as though she'd run the whole distance from Sheridan. She held a brown paper sack on her lap, the top folded down.

"I about gave up on you," he said.

She was staring straight ahead out the windshield. "The first time I got about a mile out of town and lost my nerve. I turned around and drove right back home. The second time I just slowed down when I thought about turning around."

He reached over to take her hand but she hunched forward, staring in the side mirror.

"Isn't this kind of public?"

He glanced in the rearview mirror. There weren't any lights, nothing but the weak, cloud-cast shadows. "I guess it would be if somebody came by."

He drove another mile before finding a two-track heading south. He opened and closed the barbed-wire gate behind them, idling out across a pasture of a dozen sections or more. They parked on a rise with a view across the foothills to the south, and up toward Montana in the other direction, sitting for a moment listening to the engine tick as it cooled.

"I'm not unhappy."

"I am," he said.

She looked at him. "Can we get out?"

They walked toward the mountains until they came to a sandstone outcropping and scooted out on their butts to the weathered edge, sitting there with their feet dangling. There was enough light so that the sage still appeared to have some color to it, a kind of blanched moss, and the sky held a band of royal blue around the horizon.

She unrolled the top of the sack and pulled out a six-pack of Miller Lite, popping the tab on one and then another. "I couldn't find any Hamm's," she said. "I don't know whether they even make it anymore."

There was a muted scraping to their right, nothing more than hearing your neck scratch against a corduroy collar, and they both turned toward the sound.

"Are there rattlesnakes out here?"

"I don't know. Yeah, there probably are."

She slid around behind him, settling again on his other side. "Are you very frightened?"

"Mostly I'm worried about the end of it. About what it'll do to Jean if I last a long time."

"Maybe she'll surprise you."

"Maybe she will. I've been surprised by lots of things."

They put the empty cans in the sack and opened new ones.

"I don't think I would have wanted a divorce if we'd been older," she said. "If we were as old as we are now."

He could make out the rise of her cheeks, the bridge of her nose, but not the color of her hair or eyes. She was staring straight at him.

"I was still young enough then to think my life could change," she said. "I'm over that now."

"I thought you said you weren't unhappy."

"There's a difference."

She leaned into him and he draped an arm across her shoulders, holding her tight. It was his better arm.

"I guess I've never expected anything to change," he said. "But then I'll eat the same goddamn thing for lunch every day, and never once think about ordering something different."

She laughed softly, and he stroked her hair.

"I'm not going to leave Larry. I know better. That's where I'm going with this."

"I never thought you would."

She looked away, sipping her beer. "When I think about you dying, I get that same feeling of wanting to run. Like when I was young." The slight palsy in his arm set up a vibration in her shoulders and neck, enough to make her voice quaver, and he brought it back into his lap.

"That's about how I feel too," he said.

She set her beer down and pressed against him, wrapping herself around the arm as a girl might cling to a vine, as a woman might if she thought the warmth of her body could heal.

Sixteen.

A BANK OF COTTONWOOD BANK OF COTTONWOOD fluff had drifted in against the river-rock foundation, and when Paul parked beside the cabin it huffed up in the headlights, skittering away into a brake of wild roses. He cut the engine, sitting quietly in the darkness, the sawing of crickets, the gentle exhale of the night winds feeling like an embrace. fluff had drifted in against the river-rock foundation, and when Paul parked beside the cabin it huffed up in the headlights, skittering away into a brake of wild roses. He cut the engine, sitting quietly in the darkness, the sawing of crickets, the gentle exhale of the night winds feeling like an embrace.

He flipped his cell phone open, the face and number pad glowing amber in his hand. He'd turned the ringer off while he and Griff were at the drive-in, and there still weren't any messages. He dialed and she answered on the first ring.

"Hey, baby." It was her half-phony, half-seductive voice.

"This is Paul."

"Well then, hey, baby brother."

She laughed, and he could hear others laughing around her, the click of glassware against a faint background of conversation.

"Don't you check your messages? I've been calling since this morning."

"I sure wish I would've looked at my caller ID. Right now, for instance."

"Most people wouldn't admit that."

"I've never for a minute thought I was like anybody else." The background noise dimmed.

"Where are you?"

"I'm enjoying a cocktail."

"Where?"

"At a lovely home in Seattle."

"How lovely?"

"Very," she said. "The poor can't afford enlightenment."

"You want to tell me why you shipped Kenneth south?"

"He wasn't shipped shipped anywhere. He's with his father." anywhere. He's with his father."

"I know where he is, and as far as fathering goes, Rodney's just a guy you met at a powwow in Lodge Grass twelve years ago." He heard the sizzle and buzz of rainfall. "You drinking outside?"

"I am now. How did dear McEban take it? When Rodney showed up with the papers, I mean?"

"He absorbed the blow."

"The Guides thought it was best."

"It's me, Rita. You don't have to act like you believe your own bullshit."

"I believe if you were more in touch with your higher self, this is something you'd understand."

"What I understand is that Rodney got a wild hair up his ass and decided he wanted to play father for a month."

"The man has his own children."

"So, this was your idea?"

"Mrs. Rodney thought it was a good idea too. After I explained the situation to her."

"Jesus Christ, Rita."

"Her name's Claire. Unlike you she's a person of deep compassion."

He could hear the hiss of a car passing in the street. "I can't believe you did this to your own kid."

"Mostly it's important for Rodney. Growth-wise, that is."

"Why don't you just say you wanted to punish him for knocking you up."

"I was never meant to bear a child. I don't have the hips for it, or the temperament."

"Really?"

"Bye now," she said.

He snapped the phone shut, tossing it on the dash and sliding the seat back. He thought he'd sit just long enough to allow the sound of her voice to drain out of his mind, but he didn't want to be out here all night, and the kitchen lights were still on at McEban's.

He stepped up onto the porch and looked in through the window. The aluminum shelving from the refrigerator was tilting out of the sink, the countertops stacked with dishes. He let the door slam coming in and stood in the mudroom. McEban was on his knees on the floor. He'd stripped off his T-shirt, his pale torso as thickly muscled as an ape's.

He sat back on his heels. "How was the village?"

"Hopping."

"Were they showing anything good at the movies?" There was a bucket of soapy water at his side.

"The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance."

"Jimmy Stewart was in that, wasn't he?"

"Yeah, he was. They're going to play an old Western one day every week all summer long. Mostly for the tourists, I guess. Will you go to bed if I help you?"

McEban looked around as though gauging the amount of work left. "I think I would."

"You wouldn't sneak back down and start another project?"

"I believe I'd be satisfied along those lines."

He bent to the floor again, and Paul slipped his shoes off, tiptoed across the worn linoleum and pulled a rag from a box full of them underneath the sink. His eyes watered from the stink of the cleaning solution.

"I'm going to Africa," he said.

McEban quit scrubbing, still hunched forward on his hands and knees, his back wet as the floor, sweat dripping from his nose. He sat back again, drawing an arm across his face. "Where to in Africa?"

"Uganda. For an NGO."

"Good for you."

"You know what NGO stands for?"

"Nongovernmental organization." He reached out to wipe a spot he'd missed. "I don't know why I know that, but I do. You going to be gone for the rest of your life?"