Ticks and dead babies roamed the night. Bloated, sucking ticks, crawling-out-my-ear ticks-my dreams reeked of the b.u.g.g.e.rs. I found them in my pubic hair, hanging off my b.r.e.a.s.t.s, imbedded in my lower eyelid.

But the tick revulsion was diddly compared to opening my locker in GroVont Junior High to find Shannon smothered on my math book or lifting the toilet lid on Auburn with open eyes staring up from under the water.

Time after time I came awake choking, sweating like a stuck pig. Nightmares based on true fear must unleash a reaction in the sweat glands. Being in a coma was easy thrills compared to that night in my own yard.

The mid-morning sunlight caught me curled up against the far panel with the sleeping bag wrapped around my neck. My fist clutched the empty Milk Duds box.

When I crawled from the tent Mrs. Barnett was standing on the sidewalk holding a cut-gla.s.s bowl of candy. She wore a synthetic dress, and her tongue made those little click sounds you think of when you think disapproval from an old woman. She stepped past me and went up the sidewalk to where Sugar Cannelioski waited in her matching slacks and top outfit looking like the Barbie doll from h.e.l.l.

"How thoughtful of you," Sugar said in this drippy southern accent she must have picked up overnight. "I just love pralines." Sugar held the door so Mrs. Barnett could totter inside, then she looked at me on my hands and knees in the corner of the yard.

"Don't even think about asking to use my bathroom," she called. I flipped her off, but she was already inside hostessing and missed it.

"My bathroom, you flat-chested s.l.u.t," I said to the ground. Memories of that bathroom left a bad taste in my mouth, anyway. Every time Dothan went righteous the first place he looked for a bottle was the tank on the back of the can. What an insult. I may have been drunk, but I wasn't stupid.

I didn't even want Yukon Jack right then, which I took as a sign I wasn't an alcoholic but a regular person temporarily thrown off by her father's death. Or something. Something had thrown me off.

What I wanted was black coffee followed by a hot shower and more black coffee. What I had to do was get my b.u.t.t upright and down the road.

Except for the Teton Mountains, the Killdeer Cafe had been about the only consistency in my young life. The dump had gone through maybe six name changes, but for me the cafe had always been Max in back slinging grease and Dot out front taking care of people who didn't eat at home. She'd quit for a couple years about the time Shannon was born, and I don't think I ever had my bearings the whole time she was gone.

Dot has all this curly black hair that goes with her rounded cheeks and chin. I wouldn't say she's fat, but fat is such a subjective deal. If I was shaped like Dot, I'd say I was fat. Half the single men in Teton County were in love with her. Single men will fall in love with any woman who brings them food.

When I came through the door she was sitting at the counter, eating a sweet roll and staring at a paperback book propped against a napkin dispenser. The first instant Dot saw me shock flashed in her eyes, but she hid it quickly. I appreciated the effort.

"Coffee, hon?" Without waiting for an answer she grabbed the pot and brought it to my normal booth by the window. Dot talked to fill in that uncomfortable s.p.a.ce when you first see a friend who has screwed up.

"Have you read this Teachings of Don Juan book? Jacob picked it up somewhere and now he has his heart set on becoming a sorcerer. People turn into crows and fly over the ocean. They eat hummingbird hearts. I think it endorses drugs."

Booths, tables, and cracked-plastic-covered stools, the Farmer Brothers stainless-steel coffee urn, the pyramid made from single-serving cereal boxes, a calendar with the months framing a University of Wyoming football schedule-the name might change, but the restaurant had achieved a glacial kind of pace that gave me comfort. The newest decor addition was three years old. That came about when Max changed the name to the Louis L'Amour Room and the real Louis L'Amour threatened a lawsuit. Max framed the personally signed threat letter and hung it next to the Dutch Master box turned cash register.

The coffee cup kind of quivered in both my hands. "Taking drugs isn't healthy, Dot, no matter what that Mexican says. G.o.d wants us to drink whiskey."

Dot laughed like I was kidding. "What can I get you, Maurey? Max went to the dentist after the breakfast rush, so I'll fix it myself."

"Nothing but coffee, I only need coffee."

"Pooh on that, girl, you need nourishment. Why don't you freshen up in the ladies' room while I whip us up a snack."

Dot coming close enough to criticism to suggest I freshen up was the equivalent of Lydia telling me I looked like something the cat threw up.

"Yeah, maybe I will," I said, "but no food. I don't want your food." I took my coffee cup to the John. As I pa.s.sed the counter I stopped to look at the Don Juan book. The cover showed a man and a cactus in burnt orange and burro brown. It was just the sort of drivel Park would have changed his life over. Myself, I distrusted all guru types. None of them wore jeans.

In the bathroom I stripped down for a tick check. From what I could see of myself it was easy to understand the shock flash I'd caused Dot. A week like the one I'd just gone through is tough on the old body. A coma, or wherever I spent Monday afternoon through Friday morning, is great if you're trying to lose weight but h.e.l.l on the complexion. Only color on my entire body came from these bags under each eye. They were the same burro shade as the man's blanket on the Don Juan book cover.

I haven't been much for long gazes into mirrors since the self-inflicted haircut a couple months after Dad's thing. During the shower at Lydia's I'd kept my eyes on my feet, right where they belonged. In the Killdeer can I discovered brand-new, never-seen bones-mostly around the hips and sternum. My eyes looked like peach cross sections with the pits removed.

At fifteen I'd been regarded as the prettiest girl in the valley. Maiden aunts and h.o.r.n.y politicians said so all the time. "Maurey, you're the prettiest girl in the valley." The only good to come of my downfall was to all those mothers who once said to their dogface daughters, "Just you wait. About the time you bloom she'll be mud on a boot." They must be dancing in the streets by now.

I came back to Dot sitting across the table from just what I didn't want-a rib-eye steak, mashed potatoes and gravy, and biscuits, and a quart gla.s.s of tomato juice.

"I said I didn't want food."

She doubled her chubby fists around the salt and pepper shakers. "You aren't leaving this room until that plate is clean."

The urge was to dump it all on the floor and say "The plate's clean," but Dot's round face was such a study, with her chin out and her eyes blinking. She reminded me of a mama sage hen that spread her wings and attacked my shins once on the trail to Taggart Lake. The hen hissed and spit while her babies peeped in tiny bird panic. One swing of my hiking boot and I'd have kicked that chicken to kingdom come, but bravery in the helpless always gets me, especially if the helpless is a mother. I went way back around the other side of the creek and scratched the h.e.l.l out of my legs on wild rose bushes.

This time I sat down and cleaned my plate. It was really good. The steak was char rare running in blood, the mashed potatoes straight real stuff with lumps, no flakes added as a buffer. The biscuits were hot and homemade, and if they gave a n.o.bel Prize for gravy, which they should, Dot would have to learn Swedish.

It was the first time in ages I'd taken pleasure out of anything more wholesome than Yukon Jack and masturbation. Dot held on to those salt and pepper shakers the whole time I ate. I think she'd committed herself to violence if I didn't cooperate, and the relief from my not calling her bluff struck her silent.

I felt softer. "Dot, what do you think I should do?"

She watched me drain the tomato juice, then she got up and went after the coffeepot. I waited like a child while she poured the refill.

"Here's the truth, Maurey. You want the truth?"

People who ask that question generally go on to say something unpleasant. I blew coffee steam at her and nodded.

"If you stop drinking, you'll get your baby back, and if you don't, you won't."

I always knew Dot was stupid. "Look, Miss Holy Righteous Woman, I have problems. My husband is a s.a.d.i.s.tic p.r.i.c.k, my mother's crazy, my brother must be a pervert although I can't figure what kind yet. Dad is dead. Drinking is a symptom of something terribly wrong. If you cure the disease, the symptoms take care of themselves."

She studied my face a long time. "Did I ever tell you how Jimmy's grandfather died?" Jimmy had been Dot's husband. He's kind of a local legend because he was the first boy from Wyoming killed in Vietnam.

"Is this going to be a pithy story ill.u.s.trating a point?"

Dot went right ahead. "Jimmy's grandfather Homer had a mean Angus bull that could jump any fence and strut over any cattle guard. Homer and that bull hated each other like lifelong enemies. One day the bull got Homer against a loading chute and stomped him to bits. Broke both his legs, destroyed his kneecaps."

"Wasn't Jimmy raised by his grandmother down in Bondurant?"

"Homer was Christian Scientist and said the Lord would set his legs. The Lord didn't and they started to stink, so Jimmy's dad went against Homer's wishes and called Doc Heinlein. You remember Doc Heinlein, he delivered you and Petey. He was just a kid when this happened, straight out of Provo."

"How much are you charging for this steak?"

Dot looked at my plate. "You didn't order it, I can't charge for something you didn't order."

"If it's free, I'll sit through this story. Otherwise Paul Harvey starts soon and I don't want to miss the news."

Vexation skipped across Dot's face, but she plowed on through her anecdote. "Doc Heinlein took one look at Homer's legs and said, 'Homer, you've got a problem. Those legs are gangrene and if I don't cut them both off, you're going to die.'

"Homer said, 'I've got a problem all right, but it ain't my legs, it's that blankety-blank bull.'"

I love it when Dot says "blankety-blank" instead of "mother-f.u.c.king" or whatever the people she's quoting really said.

"Jimmy's grandfather loaded his Winchester coyote rifle and drug himself by his arms-wouldn't let anybody help him-drug himself into the yard and across to the feed corral, where he gut-shot that mean Angus twice. Then he lay down next to it and watched for three hours while the bull died. Jimmy's dad and Doc Heinlein played dominoes on the porch."

"Dominoes? What is this, Beverly Hillbillies?"

"Finally the bull expired and Homer threw back his head and laughed. He looked over at Jimmy's dad and Doc Heinlein and he said, 'There, I solved my problem.'" Dot smiled at me, her face pink with conviction.

I bit. "So, what's the punch line?"

"Jimmy's grandfather died anyway."

"I don't get it."

9.

I decided to bag the shower until after Paul Harvey. My only real challenge was to coerce Faith Fratelli into turning the TV off and the radio on, which would be a trick. Imagine the surprise when I walked into the Sagebrush to find her staring glumly at a blank screen.

"It's them stupid Watergate hearings," she said. "They're on every channel, all day. No game shows, no soaps. I feel like crying."

n.o.body was in the lounge, unless you count Oly Pedersen. He did the wooden Indian number down the bar, the only sign of life the dull glow coming off his goiter. "Maybe the TV people think Nixon is more important than Concentration," I said.

Faith sent me a disgusted look. "If All My Children isn't back tomorrow, I'm zipping off a letter to the networks will make their hair curl. What are you steamed over this time?"

I hadn't realized I was visibly steamed. Must have been the sound of gritting teeth when I sat on the bar stool. "Dot Pollard p.i.s.ses me off."

"The Dot Pollard I know? Works at the Killdeer? Wouldn't say a bad word about a mouse?"

"She thinks just because she feeds a person she can tell them how to run their life. I'll take a Yukon, up, and a Blue Ribbon for the old guy."

Faith rummaged in the well and pulled out a nearly empty Yukon Jack bottle. "I can't believe Dot gave advice without being asked to."

I reconstructed the scene in my mind. "I guess I did ask. But that doesn't matter, she's still a mean b.i.t.c.h."

Faith's lips moved as she counted out the shot. "One, two, three. You asked for advice and she said something you didn't want to hear?"

"She was mean about it."

Faith took Oly his beer. "No wonder Maurey's p.i.s.sed, she asked for advice and got an answer."

I swear Oly smiled. You couldn't actually see where anything on his face moved, but there was a moment of cognizance at my expense.

What had my existence come to? I'm being ganged up on by an airhead whose quality of life is directly affected by All My Children and an upright catatonic. "Turn on the d.a.m.n radio."

"Stand by for news."

I love Paul Harvey. Not for what he says. What he says is a bunch of founding-fathers, John-Birch-Society, welfare-mothers-enjoy-pregnancy, I-love-America-by-golly gush. It's his voice. G.o.d cussed out Moses in that voice. Dad used it to break horses. Even when Paul Harvey is wrong, I believe.

Just to prove I didn't really have to have the alcohol-I was only drinking because I wanted to, not because I needed it-I held off on Jack until "page two." That's the canning jar commercial. Page one is the real news, in this case more Watergate crud, page two the commercial, page three the outrageous thing the liberals did, page four another sincere commercial. Then comes the twenty-two-pound cantaloupes and lifesaving p.u.s.s.ycats, then the daily b.u.mper snicker and public commendations for survivors. Then another commercial followed by a punch-line story that farmers chuckle over and repeat endlessly at feed stores across America.

I was on my second shot and Paul was winding up for his big finish when the front door crashed open. A hand appeared low down on the door frame and a voice yelled, "Banzai, motherf.u.c.kers."

Shane's radish face appeared as he struggled with his wheels. Behind him, Lloyd the farmer did whatever you do to push a fat man in a wheelchair through a tight door into a bar. While it was a grunt, the pair seemed experienced and sure of the outcome.

Shane's voice was a gush. "We visited your tent. It leans to port."

Lloyd gave a shove that popped the chair into the room and across toward the quarter-slot pool table. Behind me came the pft sound of Faith opening a soda pop bottle. Lloyd said, "Give Maurey a break. There weren't enough pegs. Can't set a tent proper without enough pegs."

"I wasn't criticizing Maurey, who's criticizing Maurey? Yo, Oly, you stud, got any yet this morning?" Shane did something with his right hand that spun the chair toward me. "Oly drives the high school chicks wild, we can't keep 'em off him."

I missed the end of Paul Harvey's story. He'd been booming about a weasely little termite exterminator in Nebraska with twelve wives and a fiancee. Somebody asked one of the wives-a fifteen-year-old named Trixie who worked in the laundry room at Holiday Inn-why all these women married the weasel and not a one wanted a divorce now they'd found out about each other. Even the fiancee still planned a white wedding.

And just as Paul Harvey came to her answer, Shane started in with the Banzai clamor. That's the kind of c.r.a.p doesn't happen when you drink at home.

I decided to deal with it. "What are you doing nosing around my camp?"

Shane reached between his legs and pulled out a bottle of Coors. He held it high like a bowling trophy. "Feast your eyes on this, little la.s.sie."

"Little la.s.sie?"

"Coors beer, Rocky Mountain spring water at a dollar sixty cents a six-pack. What do you think of that?"

"Coors is cow p.i.s.s in a can."

Shane belched this hoot that pa.s.sed for laughter. "Of course, except in this case it's cow p.i.s.s in a bottle. But, and this is a but to remember, I am also holding a lesson in life. Do you drink cow p.i.s.s?"

Lloyd crossed between us to collect two gla.s.ses of Coca-Cola from Faith. Out of all the creeps to make fun of my tent, he'd been the one who saw why it collapsed. If only he wasn't wearing sandals.

Shane repeated himself, only louder. "Do you drink cow p.i.s.s, Maurey Talbot?"

"I'd DT first."

The radish split into a grin. "As would any decent, G.o.d-fearing alcoholic. Thanks, buddy." He took the c.o.ke from Lloyd. "But, I'm here with the truth, honey, easterners will pay five bucks for this bottle right here." He shook the Coors. "Five bucks for warm cow p.i.s.s. And, little la.s.sie, do you know why they'll commit this atrocity?"

"They're crazy." Wyomingites think anyone living in the eastern time zone is nuts.

Shane slammed the bottle on the pool table. "Because Coors is illegal in the East. Everyone wants what they can't have, even if it means drinking cow p.i.s.s. They'd eat manure if the government told them not to."

Another trouble with drinking in bars is you run into the sort of people who hang out in bars. I gave a who-are-these-jerks eyebrow roll to Faith, but she'd gone back to staring at the blank TV screen. Evidently she'd heard the Coors spiel before.

"That's where you come in," Lloyd said. He had worn-brown eyes with wrinkles all over h.e.l.l-one of those guys who hit the wall and reacted by staring at the sun.