Bitterroot (Billy Bob Holland 3)

"Yeah. Let me pay you now, though," Maisey said.

"That's a new one," the waitress said.

After Maisey finished her drink, she went to the rest room. When she came back, the waitress was picking up her empty glass and setting down another vodka collins on a napkin.

"Who paid for this?" Maisey said.

"Some guy at the bar," the waitress replied.

"Which guy?"

"Honey, this is a dump. One of these bozos buys you a drink, marry him," the waitress said, and walked away, her short skirt swishing across the tops of her fishnet stockings.

Maisey slid another cigarette from her pack, then realized she didn't have matches to light it. Her face was hot, her ears humming with the noise in the room. The electronic feedback in the band's speaker system was beginning to affect her like fingernails on a blackboard. She took a long swallow out of her glass and felt the coldness of the vodka flow through her like wind

blowing across snow.

One more drink and she would call her father. By that time his silence and the depression he would wear like a mantle on the long ride home, the acknowledged failure of their relationship that would almost form a third presence in the car, the echoes of all the insults they had hurled at each other earlier, would be lost in fatigue and the ennui that always followed their arguments and the residual numbness of the vodka that now nestled in her system like an old friend.

A boy in his early twenties, in beltless khakis and a pressed, long-sleeved denim shirt with a pair of glasses in the pocket, was standing by her chair now. He held a green and gold can of ginger ale in his hand, and the wetness of the can dripped through his fingers. His eyes crinkled at the corners.

"Can I help you with something?" she asked.

"I heard you talking and I knew you were from the South. I'm from North Ca'lina. So it was me bought you the drinks. Did you mind I did that?" he said.

She tried to sort through what he had just said. Behind him, on a revolving bar stool, sat a man in a white, wide-brim Stetson and a cowboy shirt that rippled with an electric blue sheen. He was watching her and the boy with the naked curiosity of an animal. "Say again?" Maisey said.

"I didn't want to offend you by buying those drinks without asking, but you're really a pretty lady," the boy said.

"Who's that man watching us?" she said, then realized her anxiety had made her seek reassurance from a stranger whose features disturbed her for reasons she didn't understand, like someone who belonged inside a drunk dream.

"That's Wyatt. He wants me to rodeo with him, but I think I'm gonna study aeronautical engineering at the university."

"Aeronautical engineering at the University of Montana?"

"I haven't made up my mind. I might study religion or forestry instead. You want to dance?"

"I have to go home."

"Another vodka collins is coming. You got to stay for the drink. It's bad manners if you don't stay for the drink."

"Your friend is using his hand for a codpiece. Who are you?" she said, her head spinning.

"I'm the guy bought the drinks," he replied, and wrinkled his nose.

She gathered up her purse and rose from the table and walked toward the front door, realizing, as the blood rushed to her feet, that she was drunk.

Outside, the air was cold, the wetness of the street glazed with yellow light. She walked toward the main thoroughfare, although she had no idea what she intended to do. The door of a parked car opened in front of her, and one of the football players stepped out on the sidewalk and grinned at her.

Then he was joined by his two friends. They towered over her, like trees. No matter which direction she turned, she could see nothing but the size of their chests and arms, the necks that were as thick as fire hydrants, the tautness of their grins.

"I want to catch a cab. Can I get one on Higgins?" she said.

"We'll take you home," one of the boys said.

"No, that's all right. I have money for a cab," she said.

"Come on, get in back. You shouldn't be out on the street by yourself," the same boy said.