Below Zero

She looked at him, openmouthed.

Alex said, “Sorry, Patty.”

“My God,” she said, “you’d actually choose your money over our marriage? Over me? That’s why you brought him in here?”

“Don’t forget the planet,” Stenko said helpfully.

“I’m sorry, Patty,” Alex said again.

Stenko said to Patty, “This is the man you want to spend your life with?”

She laughed harshly, more of a bark. “Exactly what I was thinking.”

“So,” Stenko said to her, “it’s up to you. You want the phone?”

She looked from Alex to Stenko and back to Alex.

Stenko said, “Sorry kids. I’d hoped we could come to an understanding, but like I said, I’m impatient. Time’s up.”

7

Saddlestring

JOE ROLLED INTO TOWN AT THREE-THIRTY IN THE MORNING as the fingers of morning mist began their probing ghost-creep from the river into Saddlestring and the single traffic light at First and Main blinked amber in all directions. There were no lights on yet downtown, and the traffic consisted of a single town cop spotlighting a raccoon in an alley. The only people up, it seemed, were the bored clerk reading a newspaper on the counter of the twenty-four-hour Kum-And-Go convenience store and the morning cook at the Burg-O-Pardner starting on the biscuits and sausage gravy for early rising fishermen.

His street was dark as well except for the porch light burning at his house and the kitchen light next door at neighbor Ed Nedney’s, a retired town administrator who’d no doubt arisen early to get a jump-start on late-fall lawn maintenance or putting up the storm windows or plucking the last few errant leaves from his picture-perfect lawn— completed tasks that would make Joe’s home look poorer by comparison and Joe himself seem derelict. This is what Nedney lived for, Joe thought.

Joe didn’t like his house, and every time he came back, he liked it less. It wasn’t the structure or the street; it was simply that he didn’t like living in town with neighbors so close, especially after years of waking up on Bighorn Road to the view of Wolf Mountain and the distant river. But it was where his family lived, and that fact far outweighed his dislike of the location.

His neighborhood was new in terms of Saddlestring itself—thirty years old—and had grown leafy and suburban. The Bighorns could be seen on the horizon as well as the neon bucking bronco atop the Stockman’s Bar downtown. The houses seemed to have been moved a few inches closer together since the last time he was home a week ago, but he knew that was just his tired eyes playing tricks on him.

He flipped a U-turn and parked behind Sheridan’s twenty-year-old pickup—her first car! —leaving the driveway open for Marybeth’s van. Tube bounded out as if he knew he was home at last, and Joe unstrapped the eagle from his pickup wall and picked the bird up to take to his shed in the backyard. It squirmed when he lifted it up but relaxed as he carried it, either resigned to its fate or calmly looking for an opportunity to blow up and escape. He carefully avoided the talons, aware that if the eagle gripped his hand or wrist it could take him down to his knees in pain. The eagle turned its sock-covered head from side to side as he carried it toward the house.

He didn’t hear Ed Nedney come out and stand on his front porch in his robe smoking his morning pipe. And he didn’t see him until Ed cleared his throat loudly to indicate his disapproval of Tube, who’d wandered from Joe’s lawn onto Nedney’s perfect grass to defecate. The pile was huge, steamy.

“Geez, I’m sorry,” Joe said. “I’ll clean that up.”

Nedney snorted, as if to say, Of course you will. Then: “So the game warden returns. How is life in Baggs?”

He said “Baggs” the way a rich San Franciscan would say “Iowa”—with disdain.

“Fine,” Joe said, regretting what Tube had done.

“What do you have there all wrapped up in swaddling clothes?”

“A bald eagle.”

“My God. Does it screech?”

“You should hear it. It can wake the dead.”

“As long as it doesn’t wake me.”

“I didn’t think you slept,” Joe said, “with all the lawn maintenance and all.”

“Well, I do. What’s wrong with that dog? Why does she look so . . . ridiculous? She looks like a sausage.”

“He’s a he. His name is Tube.”

“Going to be home for a while?”

“Yup,” Joe said, thinking, Probably not.

“Maybe you’ll get a chance to get the house painted before the snow hits,” Nedney said casually.

“It’s not that bad,” Joe said, wishing he hadn’t sounded so defensive.

“Check out the north side under the eaves. The wind is starting to chip away at the paint. Believe me when I tell you this,” Nedney said, sighing, the weight of the unkempt world on his shoulders. “I have to look at it every day.”