When she pulled open the heavy Mexican door, she was clobbered with noise: laughter, shouting, glasses set down hard, and the Gipsy Kings playing too loudly through the speakers. She smelled booze and sweat, perfume, cheese pizza, vomit, disinfectant, and sawdust. People were nearby. Lots and lots of them around her. Close.
A ripple of silence spread when she entered, as if she were a pebble thrown into the sea of chatter. Heads came up, faces turned to her, staring. It immobilized her.
From behind, she felt arms tighten around her, Josie embracing her. Sam stood beside his wife, his arms outstretched to gather Billie in as soon as Josie let go.
“Tough luck, kid,” he said.
“We’re all scared of fire out here,” Josie added. “Every damn one of us. Every damn year I hold my breath in case it’s us. We all do.”
As Josie talked, they led Billie to their table, tucked in the far corner. As they sat, Billie noticed that the room had again filled with talk and the faces had turned away from her. She sat on an overturned barrel with a chair back added to it, and DT himself—all three hundred and fifty pounds of his bearded, bug-eyed self—appeared beside her to take her order.
“On us,” Sam told her.
Billie thanked him. “White wine.”
Josie pointed to the empty glass in front of her. “Me too. Fill me up.”
DT finished scribbling and thumped Billie’s upper arm with a huge, rubbery fist. “Hear you had a close call, pardner.”
“I lost a horse.” Tears flooded her eyes, but she refused to let herself blink so they wouldn’t fall.
“But you didn’t lose your herd, kid. Didn’t lose your house. Not,” he gestured to Josie and Sam, “their house.”
Sam bolted the rest of his drink. “Didn’t lose the valley,” he added. “Gin ’n lime, DT. Okay?”
“Or the mountain,” Josie added.
“Or the mesa grasslands and the cattle grazing there,” said DT. “Back a dozen years ago, fire took out the whole east face of that range down south.” He grabbed a glass of wine from the tray of a passing waiter dressed like a prospector. “This gal needs it first,” he told the startled man. “Fire up at her place today.”
Billie said thank you a few more times then downed the wine in a couple of gulps, as if it were water and she was shipwrecked.
Another glass appeared in DT’s paw, and he set it in front of her. From the corner of her eye, she noticed a thin body dragging up a chair toward their table, and Ty sat down with them. “Hey, Mom, Dad.” He turned to Billie, pointed at her glass. “You might want to sip this one.”
Billie glared at him and bolted the first half, then eased up. The wine, she noticed happily, had got hold of her joints. Her elbows felt relaxed. Her ankles, knees, even the nape of her neck felt juicy and limber.
“I sure appreciate you coming out with the backhoe,” she said, careful to enunciate.
Ty cocked back his chair, sitting slantwise with one lengthy ankle hooked around the lowest rung. The other foot pushed back, piston-like, so he could rock. We could be sitting on a Southern porch, Billie thought. Not hunching over cable spool tables in an ocean of sawdust.
She raised her hand to ask for another glass before she had finished this one. Among the weathered faces of cowmen and repairmen drinking, talking, playing cards, and shooting pool at the tables along the far wall, she spotted Richard, clean as stainless steel, perched on a stool at the bar. Loose from booze, she waved to him. He cocked his head at her, half smiled and stood.
In one of those weird conversational lulls all bars are given to, she heard the wind shriek through the loosed window frames. She glanced outside and saw branches blown horizontal. Dirt pinged against the door and windows, and each new person who arrived was more disheveled than the last.
“Join you?” Richard stood between Josie and Ty, across the table from Billie. The question was directed at Ty, not her.
“Sure,” Josie scooted her chair over.
Richard caught Billie’s eye as he sat. He smiled without moving his lips, just a tightening at the corner of his eyes, unnoticeable to anyone but her. He leaned forward, reached across the table and shook her hand.
“I heard about your fire,” Richard said. “Anything I can do to help—”
“We already helped her,” Ty said.
Richard nodded. “Well, maybe down the road, then.” He caught DT’s attention with a wave and pointed a circle around the table. “Another round.”
DT disappeared behind the bar for the drinks. Billie’s palms were numb, her hips liquid, verging on molten. She wondered if anyone could tell.
“I’m thinking we should take you home,” Josie whispered in her ear. “You’re on your way to being drunk.”
Nope, Billie thought. Not going home now, not ever. Not drunk, either. This seemed witty enough to say aloud. Then she realized just how much she didn’t want to go home, didn’t want to pass the barn, the burned hay, the trailer with its memories of the filly. She didn’t want to crawl into bed with that fresh in her mind.
DT set down their glasses. Billie grabbed at hers with both hands, circled its base, rested her chin on its lip.
“You’re pretty bombed, honey,” Josie said.
“I don’t think so.” Billie spoke on an exhale, heard herself slur. “Oops. Gulliver will have to drive me home.” She turned to Richard. “My dog is a designated driver.”
Josie exchanged
