"I know," Rulon said, standing and shoving papers into his briefcase. "I know."
Joe used the arms of his chair to push himself to his feet. His legs were shaky.
"Tell the pilot we're ready," Rulon said to Ward. "We need to get going."
Ward hustled out of the room, followed by Governor Rulon.
"Governor," Joe called after him. Rulon hesitated at the doorway.
"I may need some help in the park," Joe said, thinking of Nate Romanowski.
"Do what you need to do," Rulon said sharply. "Don't ask me for permission. You're not working for me. I can't even rememberwho you are. You're fading from my mind even as we speak. How can I possibly keep track of every state employee?"
Outside, the engines of the plane began to wind up.
"Call me," the governor said. Joe's head was still spinning from the meeting as he wheeled the Ford into the turn-in at Saddlestring Elementary. Lucy was standing outside with her books clutched to her chest in the midst of a gaggle of fourth-grade girls who were talking to one another with great arm-waving exuberance. When all the girls turned their faces to him and watched him pull up to the curb, he knew something was up. Lucy waved good-bye to her friends-Lucy was a popular girl-and climbed in. As always, Lucy looked as fresh and attractive as she had at breakfast.
"Sheridan's in big trouble," Lucy said. "She got a detention, so we'll have to wait for her."
"What do you mean, big trouble?" Joe asked sharply. He wished Lucy hadn't told him her news with such obvious glee. He continued to drive the four blocks to the high school, where Sheridan had just started the month before.
"Some boy said something at lunch and Sherry decked him," Lucy said. "Knocked him right down to the floor, is what I heard."
"That doesn't sound like Sheridan," Joe said.
"It would if you knew her better." Lucy smiled. "She's a hot-headwhen it comes to her family."
Joe pulled over to the curb and turned to Lucy, realizing he had misread his youngest daughter. She was proud of her sister, not happy with the fact that she was in trouble. "What exactly are you telling me?"
"Everybody's talking about it," Lucy said. "Some boy made a crack about you in the lunchroom, and Sheridan decked him."
"About me?"
Lucy nodded. "He said something about you not being the game warden anymore, that you got fired."
"Who was the boy?"
"Jason Kiner."
That stung. Jason was Phil Kiner's son. Kiner was the game warden who had been assigned Joe's district by Randy Pope. Joe had always liked Phil, but was disturbed that Kiner never called him for background or advice since assuming the post and moving his family into Joe's old house near Wolf Mountain.Joe assumed Pope had told Phil to steer clear of the former inhabitant.
"And Sheridan hit him?"
Lucy nodded eagerly, watching him closely for his reaction.
Joe took a deep breath and shook his head sadly, thinking it was what he should do as a father when he really wanted to say, Good for Sheridan. Joe and lucy waited a half-hour in front of the high school for Sheridan to be released. Lucy worked on homework assignedby her teacher, Mrs. Hanson, and Joe thought about how he would present the opportunity the governor had given him to Marybeth. He had mixed feelings about it, even though Rulon had been right that Joe's first reaction had been to yell Yes! The "Yellowstone Zone of Death" file was facedown on the bench seat between them.
"Mrs. Hanson says Americans use up most of the world's energy," Lucy said. "She says we're selfish and we need to learn how to conserve so we can help save our planet."
"Oh?" Joe said. Lucy loved her teacher, a bright-eyed young woman just two years out of college. Joe and Marybeth had met Mrs. Hanson during back-to-school night and had been duly impressed and practically bowled over by her obvious enthusiasmfor her job and her passion for teaching. Since Lucy's third-grade teacher had been a weary, bitter twenty-four-year warhorse in the system who was counting the days until her retirement,Mrs. Hanson was a breath of fresh mountain air. Over the past month, Lucy had participated in a canned-food drive for the disadvantaged in the county and on the reservation, and a candy sale with profits dedicated to Amazon rain forest restoration. Lucy couldn't wait to go to school in the morning, and seemed to start most sentences with, "Mrs. Hanson says…"
"Mrs. Hanson says we should stop driving gas-guzzling cars and turn the heat down in our houses."
"Gas-guzzling cars like this?" Joe asked, patting the dashboard.
"Yes. Mrs. Hanson drives one of those good cars."
"Do you mean a hybrid?"
"Yes. And Mr. and Mrs. Hanson recycle everything. They have boxes for glass, paper, and metal. Mrs. Hanson says they take the boxes to the recycling center every weekend."
"We have a recycling center?" Joe asked.
"It's in Bozeman or Billings."
Joe frowned. "Billings is a hundred and twenty miles away."
"So?"
"Driving a hundred and twenty miles to put garbage in a recyclingbin doesn't exactly save energy," Joe said.
"Mrs. Hanson says the only way we can save the planet is for all of us to pitch in and work together to make a better world."
Joe had no answer to that, since he didn't want to appear to Lucy to be in favor of actively contributing to a worse world.
"Mrs. Hanson wanted me to ask you a question."
"Really?"
"She wants to know why, if you're a cowboy now, you don't ride a horse? She says horses are much better for the environmentthan trucks and ATVs."
"Do you want me to pick you up from school on a horse?" Joe asked, trying to keep his voice calm.
Lucy started to say yes but thought better of it. "Maybe you can still come get me in a truck, but you can ride a horse around all day on the ranch to help save the planet."
"What are you reading?" he asked, looking at her open spiralnotebook.
"We're studying the Kyoto Protocol."
"In fourth grade? Don't they teach you math or science at that school?"
Lucy looked up, exasperated with her father. "Mrs. Hanson says it's never too early to learn about important issues. She says, 'Think globally and act locally.' " On the state highway to the Longbrake Ranch, Sheridan stared out the passenger window as if the familiar landscape held new fascination for her. Lucy continued to do her homeworkwith the notebook spread open on her lap.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Joe asked finally.
"Not really," Sheridan said.
"We'll need to discuss it, you know."
Sheridan sighed an epic sigh, and without seeing it, Joe knew she performed the eye roll that was such a part of her attitude these days.
Joe glanced over at his oldest daughter, noting again to himselfhow much her profile mirrored Marybeth's. In the past six months, Sheridan had become a woman physically, and borrowedher mother's clothing sometimes without asking. Joe had trouble believing she could possibly be fifteen already. How had it happened? When did it happen? How did this little girl he knew so well, his best buddy while she was growing up, suddenlybecome a mysterious creature?
"Did you really knock him to the floor?" Lucy asked her sister.
After a long pause, Sheridan said, "Jason Kiner is an ass."
Joe wished the reason for the lunchroom argument had been something besides him. He hated thinking that his daughters could be ashamed of him, ashamed of what he did, what he was now. A cowboy. A cowboy who worked for his father-in-law.
But, he thought, a cowboy with an offer.
3
Joe, marybeth, and their daughters trekked across the hay meadow for dinner in the main ranch house with Bud and Missy Longbrake and two sullen Mexican ranch hands. As they walked across the shorn meadow the dried hay and fallen leaves crunched under their feet, the sounds sharp. The brief but intense light of the dying sun slipped behind the mountains and lit up the yellow/gold leaves of the river bottom cottonwoods, igniting the meadow with color. Despite the fact that there wasn't a high-rise building within two hundredmiles and Sheridan had never been to New York, she referredto this magical moment each evening as "walking down Broadway."