Just After Sunset

Pammy hopped from tile to tile, a prank in motion, seeming to use the squares as a giant hopscotch board. Her red dress jumped around her plump knees. "I knew a man, his name was Danny," she chanted in a monotonous one-note holler. It made David's fillings ache. "He tripped and fell, on his fanny. I knew a man, his name was David. He tripped and fell, on his bavid." She giggled and pointed at David.

"Pammy, stop," Georgia Andreeson said. She smiled at David and brushed her hair from the side of her face. He thought the gesture unutterably weary, and thought she had a long road ahead with the high-spirited Pammy, especially with no Mr. Andreeson in evidence.

"Did you see Willa?" he asked.

"Gone," she said, and pointed to the door with the sign over it reading TO SHUTTLE, TO TAXIS, CALL AHEAD FROM COURTESY PHONE FOR HOTEL VACANCIES.

Here was Biggers, limping toward him. "I'd avoid the great outdoors, unless armed with a high-powered rifle. There are wolves. I've seen them."

"I knew a girl, her name was Willa," Pammy chanted. "She had a headache, and took a pilla." She collapsed to the floor, shouting with laughter.

Biggers, the salesman, hadn't waited for a reply. He was limping back down the length of the station. His shadow grew long, shortened in the glow of the hanging fluorescents, then grew long again.

Phil Palmer was leaning in the doorway beneath the sign about the shuttle and the taxis. He was a retired insurance man. He and his wife were on their way to Portland. The plan was to stay with their oldest son and his wife for a while, but Palmer had confided to David and Willa that Helen would probably never be coming back east. She had cancer as well as Alzheimer's. Willa called it a twofer. When David told her that was a little cruel, Willa had looked at him, started to say something, and then had only shaken her head.

Now Palmer asked, as he always did: "Hey, mutt--got a butt?"

To which David answered, as he always did: "I don't smoke, Mr. Palmer."

And Palmer finished: "Just testing you, kiddo."

As David stepped out onto the concrete platform where detraining passengers waited for the shuttle to Crowheart Springs, Palmer frowned. "Not a good idea, my young friend."

Something--it might have been a large dog but probably wasn't--lifted a howl from the other side of the railway station, where the sage and broom grew almost up to the tracks. A second voice joined it, creating harmony. They trailed off together.

"See what I mean, jellybean?" And Palmer smiled as if he'd conjured those howls just to prove his point.

David turned, his light jacket rippling around him in the keen breeze, and started down the steps. He went fast, before he could change his mind, and only the first step was really hard. After that he just thought about Willa.

"David," Palmer said, not joshing now, not joking around. "Don't."

"Why not? She did. Besides, the wolves are over there." He jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. "If that's what they are."

"Course that's what they are. And no, they probably won't come at you--I doubt if they're specially hungry this time of year. But there's no need for both of you to spend another God-knows-how-long in the middle of nowhere just because she got to missing the bright lights."

"You don't seem to understand--she's my girl."

"I'm going to tell you a hard truth, my friend: If she really considered herself your girl, she wouldn't have done what she did. You think?"

At first David said nothing, because he wasn't sure what he thought. Possibly because he often didn't see what was right in front of his eyes. Willa had said so. Finally he turned back to look at Phil Palmer leaning in the doorway above him. "I think you don't leave your fiancee stranded in the middle of nowhere. That's what I think."

Palmer sighed. "I almost hope one of those trash-pine lobos does decide to put the bite on your city ass. It might smarten you up. Little Willa Stuart cares for nobody but herself, and everyone sees it but you."

"If I pass a Nite Owl store or a 7-Eleven, you want me to pick you up a pack of cigarettes?"

"Why the fuck not?" Palmer said. Then, just as David was walking across NO PARKING TAXI ZONE painted on the empty curbless street: "David!"

David turned back.

"The shuttle won't be back until tomorrow, and it's three miles to town. Says so, right on the back wall of the information booth. That's six miles, round-trip. On foot. Take you two hours, and that's not counting the time it might take you to track her down."

David raised his hand to indicate he heard, but kept going. The wind was off the mountains, and cold, but he liked the way it rippled his clothes and combed back his hair. At first he watched for wolves, scanning one side of the road and then the other, but when he saw none, his thoughts returned to Willa. And really, his mind had been fixed on little else since the second or third time he had been with her.

She'd gotten to missing the bright lights; Palmer was almost certainly right about that much, but David didn't believe she cared for nobody but herself. The truth was she'd just gotten tired of waiting around with a bunch of sad old sacks moaning about how they were going to be late for this, that, and the other. The town over yonder probably didn't amount to much, but in her mind it must have held some possibility for fun, and that had outweighed the possibility of Amtrak sending a special to pick them up while she was gone.

And where, exactly, would she have gone looking for fun?

He was sure there were no what you'd call nightclubs in Crowheart Springs, where the passenger station was just a long green shed with WYOMING and "THE EQUALITY STATE" painted on the side in red, white, and blue. No nightclubs, no discos, but there were undoubtedly bars, and he thought she'd settle for one of those. If she couldn't go clubbin', she'd go jukin'.

Night came on and the stars unrolled across the sky from east to west like a rug with spangles in it. A half-moon rose between two peaks and sat there, casting a sickroom glow over this stretch of the highway and the open land on both sides of it. The wind whistled beneath the eaves of the station, but out here it made a strange open humming that was not quite a vibration. It made him think of Pammy Andreeson's hopscotch chant.

He walked listening for the sound of an oncoming train behind him. He didn't hear that; what he heard when the wind dropped was a minute but perfectly audible click-click-click. He turned and saw a wolf standing about twenty paces behind him on the broken passing line of Route 26. It was almost as big as a calf, its coat as shaggy as a Russian hat. In the starshine its fur looked black, its eyes a dark urine yellow. It saw David looking and stopped. Its mouth dropped open in a grin, and it began to pant, the sound of a small engine.

There was no time to be afraid. He took a step toward it, clapped his hands, and shouted, "Get out of here! Go on, now!"

The wolf turned tail and fled, leaving a pile of steaming droppings behind on Route 26. David grinned but managed to keep from laughing out loud; he thought that would be tempting the gods. He felt both scared and absurdly, totally cool. He thought of changing his name from David Sanderson to Wolf Frightener. That would be quite the name for an investment banker.

Then he did laugh a little--he couldn't help it--and turned toward Crowheart Springs again. This time he walked looking over his shoulder as well as from side to side, but the wolf didn't come back. What came was a certainty that he would hear the shriek of the special coming to pick up the others; the part of their train that was still on the tracks would have been cleared away from the junction, and soon the people waiting in the station back there would be on their way again--the Palmers, the Landers, the limping Biggers, the dancing Pammy, and all the rest.

Well, so what? Amtrak would hold their luggage in San Francisco; surely they could be trusted to get that much right. He and Willa could find the local bus station. Greyhound must have discovered Wyoming.

He came upon a Budweiser can and kicked it awhile. Then he kicked it crooked, off into the scrub, and as he was debating whether or not to go after it, he heard faint music: a bass line and the

cry of a pedal steel guitar, which always sounded to him like chrome teardrops. Even in happy songs.

She was there, listening to that music. Not because it was the closest place with music, but because it was the right place. He knew it. So he left the beer can and walked on toward the pedal steel, his sneakers scuffing up dust that the wind whipped away. The sound of the drum kit came next, then a red neon arrow below a sign that just read 26. Well, why not? This was Route 26, after all. It was a perfectly logical name for a honky-tonk.

It had two parking lots, the one in front paved and packed with pickup trucks and cars, most American and most at least five years old. The lot on the left was gravel. In that one, ranks of long-haul semis stood under brilliant blue-white arc sodiums. By now David could also hear the rhythm and lead guitars, and read the marquee over the door: ONE NIGHT ONLY THE DERAILERS $5 COVER SORRY.

The Derailers, he thought. Well, she certainly found the right group.

David had a five in his wallet, but the foyer of 26 was empty. Beyond it, a big hardwood dance floor was crammed with slow-dancing couples, most wearing jeans and cowboy boots and clutching each other's butts as the band worked its way deeper into "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights." It was loud, lachrymose, and--as far as David Sanderson could tell--note perfect. The smells of beer, sweat, Brut, and Wal-Mart perfume hit him like a punch in the nose. The laughter and conversation--even a footloose yeehaw cry from the far side of the dance floor--were like sounds heard in a dream you have again and again at certain critical turns of life: the dream of being unprepared for a big exam, the dream of being naked in public, the dream of falling, the dream in which you hurry toward a corner in some strange city, sure your fate lies on the far side.

David considered putting his five back in his wallet, then leaned into the ticket booth and dropped it on the desk in there, which was bare except for a pack of Lucky Strikes sitting on a Danielle Steel paperback. Then he went into the crowded main room.

The Derailers swung their way into something upbeat and the younger dancers began to pogo like kids at a punk show. To David's left, two dozen or so older couples began a pair of line dances. He looked again and realized there was only one line-dancing group, after all. The far wall was a mirror, making the dance floor look twice as big as it really was.

A glass shattered. "You pay, partner!" the lead singer called as The Derailers hit the instrumental break, and the dancers applauded his wit, which probably seemed fairly sparkling, David thought, if you were running hot on the tequila highway.

The bar was a horseshoe with a neon replica of the Wind River Range floating overhead. It was red, white, and blue; in Wyoming, they did seem to love their red, white, and blue. A neon sign in similar colors proclaimed YOU ARE IN GOD'S COUNTRY PARTNER. It was flanked by the Budweiser logo on the left and the Coors logo on the right. The crowd waiting to be served was four-deep. A trio of bartenders in white shirts and red vests flashed cocktail shakers like six-guns.

It was a barn of a place--there had to be five hundred people whooping it up--but he had no concerns about finding Willa. My mojo's working, he thought as he cut a corner of the dance floor, almost dancing himself as he avoided various gyrating cowboys and cowgirls.

Beyond the bar and the dance floor was a dark little lounge with high-backed booths. Quartets were crammed into most of these, usually with a pitcher or two for sustenance, their reflections in the mirrored wall turning each party of four into eight. Only one of the booths wasn't full up. Willa sat by herself, her high-necked flower-print dress looking out of place among the Levi's, denim skirts, and pearl-button shirts. Nor had she bought herself a drink or anything to eat--the table was bare.

She didn't see him at first. She was watching the dancers. Her color was high, and there were deep dimples at the corners of her mouth. She looked nine miles out of place, but he had never loved her more. This was Willa on the edge of a smile.

"Hi, David," she said as he slid in beside her. "I was hoping you'd come. I thought you would. Isn't the band great? They're so loud!" She almost had to yell to be heard, but he could see she liked that, too. And after her initial glance at him, she went back to looking at the dancers.

"They're good, all right," he said. They were, too. He could feel himself responding in spite of his anxiety, which had returned. Now that he'd actually found her, he was worried all over again about missing that damned pick-up train. "The lead singer sounds like Buck Owens."

"Does he?" She looked at him, smiling. "Who's Buck Owens?"

"It doesn't matter. We ought to go back to the station. Unless you want to be stranded here another day, that is."

"That might not be so bad. I kind of like this pla--whoa, look out!"

A glass arched across the dance floor, sparkling briefly green and gold in the stage gels, and shattered somewhere out of sight. There were cheers and some applause--Willa was also applauding--but David saw a couple of beefcakes with the words SECURITY and SERENITY printed on their T-shirts moving in on the approximate site of the missile launch.

"This is the kind of place where you can count on four fistfights in the parking lot before eleven," David said, "and often one free-for-all inside just before last call."

She laughed, pointed her forefingers at him like guns. "Good! I want to see!"

"And I want us to go back," he said. "If you want to go honky-tonking in San Francisco, I'll take you. It's a promise."

She stuck out her lower lip and shook back her sandy-blond hair. "It wouldn't be the same. It wouldn't, and you know it. In San Francisco they probably drink...I don't know...macrobiotic beer."

That made him laugh. As with the idea of an investment banker named Wolf Frightener, the idea of macrobiotic beer was just too rich. But the anxiety was there, under the laughter; in fact, wasn't it fueling the laughter?

"We're gonna take a short break and be right back," the lead singer said, wiping his brow. "Y'all drink up, now, and remember--I'm Tony Villanueva, and we are The Derailers."

"That's our cue to put on our diamond shoes and depart," David said, and took her hand. He slid out of the booth, but she didn't come. She didn't let go of his hand, either, though, and he sat down again feeling a touch of panic. Thinking he now knew how a fish felt when it realized it couldn't throw the hook, that old hook was in good and tight and Mr. Trout was bound for the bank, where he would flop his final flop. She was looking at him with those same killer blue eyes and deep dimples: Willa on the edge of a smile, his wife-to-be, who read novels in the morning and poetry at night and thought the TV news was...what did she call it? Ephemera.

"Look at us," she said, and turned her head away from him.

He looked at the mirrored wall on their left. There he saw a nice young couple from the East Coast, stranded in Wyoming. In her print dress she looked better than he did, but he guessed that was always going to be the case. He looked from the mirror-Willa to the real thing with his eyebrows raised.

"No, look again," she said. The dimples were still there, but she was serious now--as serious as she could be in this party atmosphere, anyway. "And think about what I told you."

It was on his lips to say, You've told me many things, and I think about all of them, but that was a lover's reply, pretty and essentially meaningless. And because he knew what thing she meant, he looked again without saying anything. This time he really looked, and there was no one in the mirror. He was looking at the only empty booth in 26. He turned to Willa, flabbergasted...yet somehow not surprised.

"Didn't you even wonder how a presentable female could be sitting here all by herself when the place is juiced and jumping?" she asked.

He shook his head. He hadn't. There were quite a few things he hadn't wondered, at least until now. When he'd last had something to eat or drink, for instance. Or what time it was, or when it had last been daylight. He didn't even know exactly what had happened to them. Only that the Northern Flyer had left the tracks and now they were by some coincidence here listening to a cou

ntry-western group called--

"I kicked a can," he said. "Coming here I kicked a can."

"Yes," she said, "and you saw us in the mirror the first time you looked, didn't you? Perception isn't everything, but perception and expectation together?" She winked, then leaned toward him. Her breast pressed against his upper arm as she kissed his cheek, and the sensation was lovely--surely the feel of living flesh. "Poor David. I'm sorry. But you were brave to come. I really didn't think you would, that's the truth."

"We need to go back and tell the others."

Her lips pressed together. "Why?"

"Because--"

Two men in cowboy hats led two laughing women in jeans, Western shirts, and ponytails toward their booth. As they neared it, an identical expression of puzzlement--not quite fear--touched their faces, and they headed back toward the bar instead. They feel us, David thought. Like cold air pushing them away--that's what we are now.

"Because it's the right thing to do."

Willa laughed. It was a weary sound. "You remind me of the old guy who used to sell the oatmeal on TV."

"Hon, they think they're waiting for a train to come and pick them up!"

"Well, maybe there is!" He was almost frightened by her sudden ferocity. "Maybe the one they're always singing about, the gospel train, the train to glory, the one that don't carry no gamblers or midnight ramblers...."

"I don't think Amtrak runs to heaven," David said. He was hoping to make her laugh, but she looked down at her hands almost sullenly, and he had a sudden intuition. "Is there something else you know? Something we should tell them? There is, isn't there?"

"I don't know why we should bother when we can just stay here," she said, and was that petulance in her voice? He thought it was. This was a Willa he had never even suspected. "You may be a little nearsighted, David, but at least you came. I love you for that." And she kissed him again.