"He's picking me up. You'd better not be here when he does," he said.
"Free country," I said.
"It used to be. Before the likes of y'all took over," he replied.
"Who's this 'y'all' we're talking about?"
"Liberals, muff divers, tree huggers, the people who are ruining everything."
"You want to be a hump for Wyatt the rest of your life?"
"Don't call me a hump. I'm not a hump."
"You only listen to people who denigrate you, Terry."
"Do what?"
"You grew up being dumped on. So in your mind the only people who really know you are the ones who run you down. A guy like me tells you you're standup and you blow me off."
He looked out the window, down onto the sidewalk.
"He's coming. Get out of here," he said.
"You like Maisey?" I asked.
He looked at me silently, as though there were a trick in the question.
"Ellison and his friends already put their mark on her soul. Give her a break. Stay away from her," I said.
"I'm not good enough?" he said, his glasses full of light.
"Back in North Carolina you broke into a house and tied two people to chairs and shot the man and cut the woman's throat. They'll stand by your deathbed one day, kid. Count on it."
His jaw dropped and his breath went out of his mouth as though I'd punched him in the stomach. Then I saw his attention shift to the doorway. I turned and looked into the face of Wyatt Dixon.
"Why, I be go-to-hell if it ain't the counselor again, right in the midst of it all. Counselor, every time I see you I'm put in mind of a shithog ear-deep in a slop bucket. Search me for the explanation. By the way, did you know that boy of yours pulled a skinning knife on me this morning?"
He let his grin hang, his eyes dancing with delight at the expression on my face.
I DROVE BACK to Doc Voss's place on the Black-foot but Lucas wasn't there.
"You know where Sue Lynn Big Medicine lives?" I asked Maisey.
"Lucas said by a junkyard in East Missoula," she replied. "You saw Terry this morning?"
"'Terry? You're on a first-name basis with this ass-wipe?" I said. She was sitting on the porch step with a book splayed open on her knee. Her calico cat was flipping in the dust by her feet. She squinted her eyes at me in the sunlight.
"That's his name, isn't it?" she said.
"Don't let that guy get near you, Maisey."
"I wish you wouldn't tell me what to do."
"Don't any of you kids have any judgment about the people you associate with?" I asked.
"Your problem is with Lucas, Billy Bob, not me. Please change your tone of voice."
There's no feeling quite like being corrected by a sixteen-year-old girl.