The owner turned around and looked at the shelf where he kept his pastries. “Sorry, the cherry pie is all gone.”
“I’ll have some the next time I’m by. I like it here. You’ve got a nice class of people.”
The owner began picking up the dirty dishes from the counter and didn’t look up again until the man had left. He dialed the number of his missing employee and let the phone ring for two minutes before he hung up. Because he didn’t know what else to do, he went outside into the harshness of the sunlight and looked up and down the highway, waiting for her car or a sheriff’s cruiser to appear. Then he crossed the four-lane and began kicking the fallen rock off the edge of the road back onto the shoulder.
Geta Noonen loaded his suitcase into the used SUV he had just purchased and drove slowly out onto the highway, the gravel that was impacted in his tire treads clicking as loudly as studs on the asphalt. He passed the owner and tapped on the horn and stuck his arm out the window to wave good-bye. The owner waved back and continued to clean the broken rock out of the traffic lane, lest someone run over it and have an accident.
THE MORNING WAS bright and cool when Geta Noonen drove into Missoula and went into a hardware and farm-supply store and came out with four hundred dollars in boxed and bagged purchases. After he had covered them with a tarp in the backseat of the SUV, he drove downtown and found a parking spot under the Higgins Street Bridge, one hour in advance of the Out to Lunch concert held weekly in the park by the Clark Fork. He slipped on a pair of aviator glasses and bought an ice cream cone from a vendor and strolled along the river walkway, pausing on an observation deck that allowed him an unobstructed view of the children riding the hand-carved wooden horses on the carousel and the kayakers practicing their maneuvers in the rapids by the bank.
As the sun rose into the center of the sky, he took up a position by a concrete abutment in the shade of the bridge and watched the cars filling the lot. When he sighted a rusted compact with two teenage girls in it, he folded his arms over his chest and gazed at the riverbank and the crowd filing under the bridge to the concert. The two girls locked their vehicle and walked through the man’s line of vision without noticing that he was watching their every move.
He strolled close to their car, then placed his hands on his hips and looked up at the sky and the mountains that ringed the city, like a tourist on his first day inside the state. He stooped over as though picking up a coin from the asphalt and sliced the air valve off one tire, then another. After the tires collapsed on the rims, he inserted the knife blade into the soft folds of rubber and sawed through the cord so they could not be repaired. He folded the knife in his palm and dropped it in his pants pocket and watched the concert from the back
of the crowd, his eyes fastened on the two teenage girls.
At 1:05 P.M. the girls returned to their rusted compact and stared in shock at the slashed tires.
“I saw a couple of bad-looking kids hanging around your car,” the man said. “When I walked over, they took off. I got here too late, I guess.”
The girls were obviously sisters, perhaps two years apart, with blue eyes and blond hair that was almost gold. The older girl had lost her baby fat and was at least three inches taller than her sister. “Why would anyone do this to us?” she said.
“Guess it’s the way a lot of kids are being raised up today,” the man said. “I’d offer to change your tire, but you’ve got two flats and probably only one spare. Is there somebody you can call?”
“Nobody’s home,” the younger girl said.
“Where are your folks?”
“Our mother works at the Goodwill,” the older girl said. “Our father drives part-time for a trucking company. He’s in Spokane today. He’ll be home tonight. He’s a minister. We have assembly at our house on Wednesday nights.”
“I’m Reverend Geta Noonen. Call your mother and ask if it’s all right if I drive you two home,” the man said.
“There’s no point in worrying her.”
“I tell you what. I’ll put your spare on, and we’ll take the other rim to the tire store and get the tire replaced. Then we’ll come back here and put it on, and you’ll be on your way.”
“I have to be at work at the Dairy Queen at three-thirty. I can’t think. I don’t have any money, either,” the older girl said.
“I’ll pay for it, and you can pay me back later.”
“What does a tire cost?” she asked.
When he told her, she looked as though she were about to cry.
“Look, don’t worry about it,” he said. “Take my cell phone and tell your mother what’s happened. We’ll drop the rim at the tire store, and I’ll drive both of you home. I’ll take you to work, if need be, or I’ll take you to pick up your new tire. We’ll handle it together. There’s no problem that can’t be solved. Whereabouts do you live?”
“Out Highway 12, west of Lolo.”
“You’ll have to give me directions. Now call your mother and tell her everything is okay.”
“I don’t know how to thank you.”
“You don’t owe me anything. You’re giving me a chance to practice a little of what I preach,” he said.
Forty-five minutes later, he turned off Highway 12 onto a dirt road and headed up a gulch between wooded hills that were scarred by logging roads from the days of the clear-cuts. “It’s sure pretty out this way. Do you know if there are any rentals hereabouts?” he said.
“We rent out a room sometimes,” the older girl said.
“I just need a place to come and go, and a small storage area,” he said. “I’m a traveling minister, kind of like the old-time saddle preachers, except I don’t have a saddle.”