Missoula was quiet. He passed the Wolf and a few taverns. Now that Joe was here, there was nowhere he wanted to go. He felt the same way about town that Boyd had.
He changed channels on the CB until he found the truckers’ band. The occasional scraps of conversation lent him comfort as he drove to the ranch. If he’d surrendered after shooting Rodale, he’d be in prison now, but receive letters and visitors. Most importantly, he’d have a date for release. Instead, he had a landscape that beguiled him with its light and space, a community that wasn’t his, and a woman in whom he could not confide. The promise of Alaska struck him as a last resort, like poison that a terminal patient keeps handy.
22
At summer’s end the days stayed hot while night took a jacket. The rivers were low and many creeks had dried to long skinny threads between patches of dusty earth. A series of lightning storms ignited several fires in western Montana. Smoke flowed along the valleys like water. It flooded basins and rose as if in a dam, spilling black air into the next network of open space between the slopes. Daylight was tinted by floating ash. Sunsets gleamed like neon.
Coop, Owen, and Johnny moved into the bunkhouse, leaving Joe alone with Botree. Joe hadn’t shared a bedroom with anyone except his brother, and felt awkward for a couple of weeks. He wasn’t sure who was supposed to turn off the lights at night, or make the bed in the morning. He worried about the protocol of undressing and getting into bed. Botree’s practical approach gradually relaxed him.
Every day after breakfast Botree gave the children school lessons, using mail-order textbooks that came with, guides and schedules. Dallas was performing math problems at a third-grade level, adding and subtracting rapidly in his head. He thought it fanny when Joe told him he still counted on his fingers at times. Botree used a system of phonics to help the boys learn to read.
While the children studied, Joe exercised his leg by walking a little farther each day. He followed the fence line into the woods and found a deer trail that led toward the river. His wounded leg was stronger, although pink scars surrounded his knee like ragged lace. He was slowly beginning to enjoy the open valley. With so much land in sight, there were few surprises. He could see an enemy coming from a long way off. Nothing would take him by ambush.
On an August morning, motion in the underbrush made him stop moving. A hawk stood on a log clutching a pheasant. Satisfied that Joe posed no threat, the hawk spread its wings for balance, opened the pheasant’s chest, and began eating the interior. Small bones cracked and tendons popped. The bird’s severed head lay in the scuffed dirt.
Botree was waiting for him by the corral when he returned. Dust covered her boots like a skin.
“Owen came by,” Botree said.
“What are they living on down there?”
“MREs, mainly.”
“What the heck is that?”
“Meals Ready to Eat. It’s military food. Just open it up and eat.”
“They’re going to regret moving out.”
“It’s their choice,” Botree said. “Owen brought your gold coin and some money. He said you can get work driving a supply truck to the firefighters. The fires are worse and they’re bringing in crews from all over the country. They need lots of drivers. Pays good.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“You said you used to work on a truck.”
“They won’t hire me. I don’t have any references around here.”
“Lucy’s cousin is in charge of hiring. He wants to return the favor.”
“I don’t reckon it’ll hurt to talk to him,” he said.
The prospect of a fob excited Joe more than he expected. He had always worked, beginning in grade school when he raked leaves for quarters from his mother. Later he had dug ditches, shoveled manure, and repaired fence. He enjoyed the exhaustion that followed labor, the strain in his limbs, the satisfaction of seeing the result of his work. Hauling supplies to firefighters would be similar to moving garbage — both were necessary and both offered a measure of autonomy. He hoped he wouldn’t work alone.
That night he and Botree lay in the darkness of their bedroom. The house was quiet. The bright points of Orion were visible through the window.
“That guy,” Joe said, “Lucy’s cousin. Is he a Bill?”
“Yes.”
“Are there other Bills working on the fires?”
“Quite a few.”
“Doesn’t working for the government make them hypocrites?”
“The government hires a bunch of different businesses. Trucking is just one. There’s food and medical, too. You’re getting paid by the trucking company, not the government.”
“It’s still federal money.”
“A lot of the land that’s burning is federal, too. That makes it our land. Your land.”
“Then we should work for nothing, right? To protect our property.”
“You’re taking this whole thing a little far, Joe.”
“Me? You all are walking around with enough guns to fight a war, and I’m the one who’s going too far,”
Botree rolled onto a propped elbow, curving the blanket with her hip.
“A lot of people depend on the fires to make a year’s worth of money in four or five months. Next spring, they’ll have work clearing the burn. Some of the people will be Bills.”
Joe regretted having spoken. A job would allow him to buy the kids some toys. He wondered what Botree would like. She wore no jewelry and had little regard for possessions at all. He felt good about lying beside a woman and starting a new job. He leaned to kiss Botree. She kissed him back, then covered his body with hers.
In the morning, Abilene cried when he left. Aircraft droned along the valley, heavy tankers carrying fire retardant, and smaller planes with hotshot crews who parachuted into the fire. The western horizon was brown with smoke. He found Job Service in Missoula, and filled out an application. He was sent to a warehouse where a crowd waited for an interview. They were rough-looking men who appeared as ready to fight each other as the fires. Joe’s name was called quickly, and several people glared at him. He entered a tiny room with a desk and stacks of paper. The interviewer had a burr haircut, steel glasses, and an eagle tattooed on his forearm.
“I already know you got a license,” he said. “Can you drive a big truck?”
“Yes.”
“Narrow roads, mostly dirt.”
“I was raised on them.”
“Start tomorrow. Be at the loading dock at seven for truck assignment.”
“Thanks,” Joe said.
“No,” the man said. “Thank you,”
Joe went to the Wolf for lunch. After eating he stepped inside the poker room. The dealer lifted his eyebrows in recognition and a few players glanced at Joe. A television flickered without sound. The woman in the chip cage was reading a magazine. There was an empty seat but he had no desire to play. Six months before, the game had offered a sense of belonging that he no longer needed.
He wished his brother could see him now, but if Boyd were alive, there would be no Joe, no life in Montana. Virgil would be foreman of the garbage crew, married to Abigail, and their kids would go to the same school he had attended. Every week the family would convene at his mother’s house for Sunday dinner.
The next day, he rose at dawn. The western sky held a smoky darkness that would never fully leave the day. He ate a banana and drank a cup of coffee, the same routine he’d followed for years in Kentucky. He made a sack lunch and strolled to his Jeep. His leg felt fine.
In Missoula he parked at the warehouse and walked to the loading dock, where several men drank coffee and smoked cigarettes. A man with a clipboard stared at him.