Thomas Mcguane - Keep the Change

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The branches were heavy with early wet snow. Joe looked out from his kitchen window and felt his unshaven face. The light on the snow-edged world was dazzling. He used to feel this way a lot, almost breathless. He quickly started a pot of coffee and returned to the window to look at the snow starting to shrink in the morning sun. There was a soft mound of it on his woodpile, and on the ends of the logs he could see that water from snow melt had sunk into the wood. A sudden memory came back across the years: his father cleaning grouse at the sink in the ranch kitchen, a raft of feathers on darkened water. “I wish I was a vegetarian,” he’d laughed. “You never have to pick number-eight shot out of a tomato!” The sky was blue and the air coming from under the slightly opened window so cool and clean that he admitted to himself that his spirits were starting to soar. He thought he’d begin to get his things together. He stood in the window a moment more and looked out at the beautiful white hills.

What Astrid had said, more or less, was that they would pretty much have to see.

Thomas McGuane is the author of several highly acclaimed novels, including The Sporting Club; The Bushwhacked Piano , which won the Hilda Rosenthal Award of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters; Ninety-two in the Shade , which was nominated for the National Book Award; Panama; Nobody’s Angel; Something to Be Desired; To Skin a Cat , a collection of short stories; and An Outside Chance , a collection of essays on sport. His books have been published in seven languages. He lives in Sweet Grass County, Montana.