Justice. Larry Watson
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growing up through the floor of the hotel room it would not look more out of place in these surroundings than Lester.
Tommy stopped bouncing on the bed. He looked up at Lester. “You know, you’re so fucking dumb sometimes it hurts. You know that—it hurts.”
Lester looked to Frank like a dog appealing to its master.
“If one of us gets a girl,” Frank said slowly, “we’ve got to have a plan so he can have the room to himself.”
“If he wants to keep her to himself,” said Tommy.
Lester snorted. “You ain’t too cocky, are you. Where the hell you going to find you a girl?”
Tommy started bouncing on the bed again. “You know her name, don’t you,” he said to Frank. “Goddamn. You know her name!”
Frank shrugged his shoulders. “I remember her first name. That’s all.”
With a bound Tommy was off the bed and at Frank’s side. “Come on. Get her over here. Her and her mama both. We’ll have us some red meat for supper.”
Frank shoved Tommy aside. “You wouldn’t know what to do with it.”
Tommy put his head and shoulders down like a football lineman and pretended to run into Frank. He stopped his charge short and came up grinning. “You try me. Get her up here. Try me.”
“Get your own.”
Lester was searching through the pile of duffels and packs. “Where’s those fucking cigars.” He came up with one in his mouth. “You’re going to look for girls. Don’t make me laugh. You ain’t going to find any. In the meantime we ain’t supposed to get into that liquor. Shit. We’ll end up taking it back home. Three days and I won’t get off a shot or pull a cork. Shit.”
Wesley suddenly felt ill. After those long hours in the cold car the hotel’s warmth was too much for him. There didn’t seem to be enough air, and he couldn’t take a deep breath because of the strong smell of camphor in the room. He tried moving away from the chest of drawers but the odor followed him. He knew he wouldn’t be able to take the smell of Lester’s cigar.
“I’m going down to the lobby,” he announced.
“What for?” asked Frank.
“Not for anything. I’m just going down there.”
“Suit yourself.”
As he left the room, Wesley heard Lester say with disgust, “You want ‘em, you go get ’em.”
Wesley sat in the lobby on a hard, oil-stained horsehair sofa. There were smells here too—cigar smoke again and something like creosote. He kept himself turned to the side so he could look out the window and monitor the storm. He was certain now; yes, the snow had stopped falling, but the wind continued to rise and as much snow filled the air from the ground up as it had earlier from the sky down. He didn’t know why he still cared. He knew he wasn’t going hunting. There was nothing to do but wait out the hours and days until it was time to return to Montana. Maybe they’d go back tomorrow. Tonight they’d look for girls, find none, get drunk, and drive home early tomorrow. The hotel had presented them with an expense none of them had planned on.
While Wesley stared out the window the old woman from behind the desk approached him. She walked slowly, taking tiny steps and listing from side to side. She stood in front of Wesley a long time before she spoke.
“Where’s your family?”
The question was simple, yet Wesley had trouble understanding what she meant. Did she want to know how near his family was, if he had relatives around McCoy?
“My brother’s upstairs.”
She twisted her mouth as though she were trying to dislodge something from her teeth.
“You got more than a brother, don’t you.”
“In Bentrock, Montana. Like we wrote on the register.”
She snorted. “If I could read that I could read it for myself.”
“It’s in Montana.” Wesley realized he had already said that, and he began to explain where in Montana. “Northeast Montana. Not far from the Canadian border. Bentrock is the county seat.” His voice softened and trailed off until, like snow falling, it was barely there. “My—I mean, our—parents live there.” The old woman turned and walked away, but Wesley could not stop. “We go on this hunting trip every year, but this is the first year none of our folks came along. My brother’s going to be in college next year. He’s got offers from all over....”
The day had gotten colder, but the boys walked down the wooden walkway of McCoy’s main street with their coats flapping open in the wind. They had brought along knit caps and wool caps with earflaps, but now all of them but Lester had switched to Stetsons. They wore them pulled down low and held onto them to keep them from blowing off. They walked four abreast but no one had to step aside for them because no one else was on the street. They were going to the Buffalo Cafe, an eatery the woman at the hotel recommended. The cafe was, she said, “where most of the guests eat. Families too.”
As they entered the cafe, a bell attached to the door announced their arrival, but no one came forth to greet them. They stamped the snow from their boots, brushed flakes from their sleeves, and slapped their hats on their trousers.
The skin under Lester’s nose was raw from his jacket’s rough wool, but he wiped his nose one more time on his sleeve. “And you were going to find you some girls. Hell, there’s nobody out today. We ain’t even going to get a hot meal.”
“They’re open,” said Frank. “The door wasn’t locked.”
The cafe reminded Wesley of someone’s home. The walls were covered with peeling, yellowing wallpaper, the windows with lace curtains, the floor with mismatched rag rugs. If it weren’t for the fact that there were four oilclothcovered tables instead of one, Wesley believed he could have been in the dining room of a neighbor back in Bentrock. Then he noticed two more differences hanging on the walls: a blackboard listing the day’s menu and the prices, and, in place of a family photograph, a massive buffalo head, horned and glossy-eyed, its shaggy, matted fur the darkest presence in this brightly lit room.
Tommy pretended to sight a rifle at the buffalo and then squeezed the imaginary trigger. Deep in his throat he imitated the muffled sound of a gunshot and then rocked back on his heels as if the gun had a tremendous recoil.
At that moment a tall, gray-haired woman came through a curtained doorway and into the cafe’s bright interior. She wore a man’s faded plaid flannel shirt over her print dress. The sleeves of the shirt were rolled to the elbow revealing her muscular forearms. She was wiping her hands on a dish towel.
Two Indian girls, teenagers, came out of the back room behind the tall woman. When Wesley saw the girls he almost gasped out loud. Jesus, there they were. Frank and Tommy wanted girls and there they were. The sons of bitches didn’t even have to go looking for them.
One of the girls was almost as tall as the gray-haired woman, while the other girl was short and overweight. The shorter girl had a pretty face though, and something about the way she never stopped smiling made Wesley think she was a friendly, good-natured person who would be easy to talk to. Her black hair hung loose, past her shoulders. Under her unbuttoned wool coat she wore a dark blue dress with a small white collar. Her black rubber overshoes were too big for her; she had to slide her feet to keep the boots from slipping off. With every step she took, the overshoe buckles jingled and the wet rubber squeaked on the wooden floor.
But of the two, the taller girl was the real beauty. She was slender and graceful and carried herself confidently. Her hair was plaited in two long braids that hung down her chest. She wore