“I hope you don’t mind if we eat in the kitchen?” She went to the stove, lifted the lid on something, and stirred it with a long wooden spoon that came from a crock full of implements that was tucked into the corner of the counter. The steam rose and separated as it drifted past the shining adzed surface of the beams. I was willing to bet she didn’t have to worry about mouse poop. She had turned and was looking at me. “It just seemed cozier. If we eat in the dining room with just the two of us, it will be like that scene from Citizen Kane.” I nodded, trying to think of the scene from Citizen Kane, only able to come up with the one with the screaming cockatoo. “In anticipation of the snow, I’ve made hot buttered rum, or would you rather we start with some of this wonderful wine you’ve brought?”
“I think it’s only supposed to snow an inch.” Henry had his magic; I had the little computerized Norwegian. “But the hot buttered rum sounds great.”
She sprinkled sugar, cloves, and nutmeg into two thick-faceted glass tumblers, poured rum on top, added a couple of sticks of cinnamon and hot water, and finished it off with a large dollop of what read on the wrapper as IRISH COUNTRY BUTTER.
“We’ll save the wine for later. This’ll do your throat some good.” She leaned on the counter and raised her own glass. “Here’s to our first official date.” We touched glasses, and I felt the warmth in my chest before I even took a sip.
“So, he was clinically depressed?”
“Undiagnosed.”
Dinner was everything my stomach had hoped it would be: pasta with a cioppino of spinach, tomato, clams and mussels, and homemade country bread with which we both sopped up the leftover sauce. She followed this up with a homemade apple pie, topped with vanilla bean ice cream, and continued with the hot buttered rum, in spite of the wine. My mood was so warm and tranquil that I was beginning to fear that I might fall right off the little Italian stools and onto the floor. “I remember coming out here with Dad when I was a kid. He shod your father’s horses, and I tagged along.”
“Yes. I was trying to remember if I was here.”
“Yep, you were.”
She looked into her glass. “Was I a little snot?”
“Yep, you were.”
She laughed a soft laugh. “One chance and I blew it, huh?”
“It was summer, and you were gone all the other times. Didn’t you used to go somewhere?”
“Maine.”
“Maine. Doesn’t seem fair; summer is the payoff in Wyoming.” She stirred her drink with one of the thin sticks of cinnamon.
“I didn’t get much of a choice at the time.”
I tried to steer the conversation without appearing boorish. “Richest man in three counties, what’d he have to be depressed about?” She smiled, allowing the tiny bit of boorishness to pass.
“I don’t think he cared for himself too much.”
“How about you?”
“Did I care for him?” She paused, genuinely considering the question. “I suppose not, but the further down the road I go, the more I see my relationship with him having had an effect on every single choice in my life… in a negative or positive way.” She stared at the candles that had melted into the holders and blew them out. “That would have made him happy.” She stretched a hand across the table, and I stuck a paw out to meet her. She took my hand and turned it over, examining the creases on the sides of my fingers. I could feel an electric charge racing up my forearms as she traced the folds with a fingernail. “I like your hands, big and powerful, but they move very carefully, like an artist.”
“Piano lessons.”
“Really?”
“Very early on, I developed a love for boogie-woogie.”
“Oh my. I guess that’s what they call full-octave hands.” A moment went by. “That explains the piano at your house. You’ll have to play for me.”
“I’m kinda out of practice, which is kind of the theme for my life as of late.”
There was a long pause. “One of the cowboys found him in the tack shed. I guess he didn’t want to make a mess in the house.” She continued looking at my hand, and for a moment I thought she was going to cry, but instead she laughed a short laugh and smiled as she looked up at me. “Daddy’s little girl; not exactly the most compelling of psychological profiles, huh?”
“How could he leave something like you?” It was out before I could analyze how corny it was going to sound, but she didn’t laugh. Instead, it was a short, broken sob that forced her to wipe her nose and run the side of her thumb past the corner of her eye in an attempt to keep her mascara from running. I handed her my napkin but held on to the other hand. She laughed this time and straightened slightly. “Where’s your dog?”
She sniffed and then laughed again. “He’s in the mudroom out back, sulking.”
“Maybe I should meet him?”
She straightened an imagined run at the corner of her eye with the napkin. “I didn’t think you liked dogs.”
“I like dogs fine. Does he like people?”
She wiped her nose. “He hasn’t met that many.”
“Great, let me go get the rifle.” This time the laugh was wholehearted. “Your father is why you don’t allow guns in the house?”
“I just don’t like them. It seems to me that no matter what they always lead to bad things. My opinion is that produced for their specific purpose, they are inherently bad.” We stared at each other for a moment, then she continued, “I know that they are a necessary evil in your line of work, but I don’t allow necessary evils in my home.”
I cleared my throat and nodded. “How about your life?” Her eyes stayed with mine.
“I’ll have to think about that.”
“Okay.” I released her hand. “Speaking of necessary evils, where’s the mudroom?”
She stood and patted the table the same way Brandon White Buffalo had earlier in the day. “Maybe I better introduce the two of you.”
I waited with my hot buttered rum and killed off the last bit of crust. For pies like this, a man could hang up the old star and gun and slowly become as large as a minivan in stretch jeans. I sat the fork down and listened to the clatter as very large claws attempted to gain purchase on the Mexican tiles. I heard mild protests and a few thumps, and I would have been alarmed but for the continued giggling that accompanied the general commotion.
He was bigger than I remembered, and I remembered him being very big. He was caught by surprise at seeing somebody besides her in the house, and the disconcerted quality was evident in the head that was as big as a five-gallon gas can and quizzically turned to the side. She still had a hold on the leather collar; if she hadn’t, I’m sure he would have gone straight for me. I heard the throaty warning start deep in his chest as I desperately tried to remember the word for stew and hoped he understood Lakota.
She slapped him on the head and growled herself. “Stop that. Now!” The change was instantaneous; the eyebrows shifted, and his head dropped. He looked like a scolded Kodiak. He began panting and looked at me with his head rising to a comfortable interest, ears forward, and with the inquisitive slant once again visible. She shook his head a little with the collar but didn’t release it. “There, you can come over and say hi.”
I stood, and his eyes traveled up with me, but he still seemed calm. I thought about what Henry had said about dogs and hoped this one wasn’t Cheyenne. As I came around the center island his tail began to wag. I knew the drill and approached, standing with my hand out, palm down and fingers in. His big head stretched forward, sniffing, then a tongue as wide as my hand lapped my knuckles. I stroked the big, furry head and scratched behind his ears as a hind paw as big as my foot thumped on the ceramic surface. “He’s a big baby.”
We took our drinks into the living room, and she brought the phone from the kitchen; she said she was expecting a call from Scottsdale. She waited on the sofa as I began making a fire in the moss-rock fireplace. The dog dutifully groaned and stretched out on the Navajo rug in front of the hearth. Periodically, his eyes would glance toward the rifle tucked into the corner by the door. He did it more than once, and I was sure he was seeing something over there that I couldn’t.