Thomas Mcguane - Gallatin Canyon

Dulcie arrived straight from her shift at the optometrist, and Neville Senior welcomed her in his most courtly manner. “Came right away,” she said. “Two saps in the waiting room with drops in their eyes.” She seemed taken aback at first by his nervousness and perhaps foresaw the long hard work sometimes necessary to overcome the anxiety of skittish customers for the sake of the almighty dollar. Bummer.

Dulcie kept her purse beside her; the cell phone inside it required only a single key to be pressed and her mission would be accomplished, either by an arrest or the heading off of an assault. It seemed she would have to buy time to size up the transaction. Some adjustment of plan was required because unexpectedly this geezer had a plan of his own. After a long day at the optometrist’s shop, Dulcie was glad to learn that the heavy lifting would come later, but at the very least they had old man Neville for procuring. That it was for his own flesh and blood was hardly extenuating, and one way or another she’d get paid. Anything to get away from dreary folks reading the acuity chart: “P. . E. . C. . F. . D — I can’t read that last line. . ” Of course you can’t, you need glasses!

He gazed at Dulcie with admiration: at first lustful but, when she noticed, adding avuncular overtones and calling her dear so as to assure her he wasn’t getting ready to whip it out. She might have been touched if she’d known this modest transaction would later in the year result in his suicide — though it was not easy to say what might get through to Dulcie Jones, barrel racer.

While Dulcie went off to spruce up in the bunkhouse, Orval gave Neville a tour of the place, apologizing for the disorder of the kitchen as they passed through. “It takes a heap of living to make a home a heap!” he said merrily. Neville said he bet Orval had a million more where that one came from. When they were out of earshot, Orval said, “You’re kind of a smart-ass, aren’t you?” He got right in Neville’s face.

“If you say so,” Neville said, as though trying to help Orval in the best way he knew how. Orval was thinking of slugging him and stared at the spot on Neville’s face where he imagined landing the blow. Overcoming the temptation he asked how Neville had met his daughter, making it clear by his tone that he was sorry it had ever happened. He’d been counting on a cowboy or someone in law enforcement.

“My dad introduced us. She’s going to be our new vice president. He wanted me to get to know her on behalf of our business.”

“Vice president? Vice president of what?”

“Of our bank, Southeast and Central Montana Bank. Member FDIC.”

“What about the optometrist?”

Neville remembered her looking without glasses at the road map that morning.

“I guess she doesn’t need him,” he said, suddenly wondering if Dulcie was farsighted. He might not feel as safe with her at the wheel. He’d been so relaxed watching his day go by in the rearview mirror, never going rigid against his seat belt as he did whenever he distrusted the driver. He so looked forward to what he expected from Dulcie, and yet he felt the responsibility of considering her as a candidate for vice president of the bank. He realized he didn’t quite understand the situation, but knew he would do anything in the world for his father, to whom he helplessly longed to reach out. But this was different. The bank had always been kept from him, so that his father’s asking him to do something connected with his livelihood suggested a change.

“You want to drive the tractor?” Orval asked. Neville understood he was being humored, but he hadn’t expected Orval to go rural on him this quickly.

“I doubt it.”

“Well, what would interest you, Neville?”

“You got any archaeological sites?”

Orval went outside, started the tractor, and backed it up to the loaded manure spreader. It was clear he had decided to go about his business, but Neville followed him innocently as he drove out into the pasture and then activated the PTO, showering the youth with turds. Neville saw right through his apologies and walked back to the house, looking for Dulcie. He had a mean-spirited impulse to tell her that her father would not be welcome at the bank. But all that was tempered by the attraction he felt for her, aroused by her various provocations and double entendres. His girlfriends had always acted as if being available was enough. It wasn’t; he required much more. Neville enjoyed this sense that Dulcie was after him like a bad dog, and knowing she was just trying to get the vice president’s job made it all oddly spicy.

“What happened to you?” she asked, when he caught up to her in the yard.

“I’m not too sure.”

“I think it’s time we got us a room.”

“Amen to that,” Neville said, with a look of terror. She was flicking at him with the backs of her fingernails, loosening some of the debris.

Driving out of the yard, Neville leaned well out the window to wave goodbye. Orval’s return wave seemed to say good riddance and confused Neville, who thought they’d hit it off.

Once out of the driveway, Dulcie made the gravel swirl under the tires. They were heading now for the Absarokee cutoff; she told Neville she had a good spot in mind. She held his gaze until he said, “Watch the road.”

They wound along well-kept hay meadows, tractors in the field spitting out bales, swathers moving into the dark green alfalfa and laying it over in a pale green band close behind the standing grass. The road flattened, and in its first broad turn was the small, tired motel. Dulcie pulled up in front of the office. As she got out of the car, Neville asked her to be sure there was TV. A crevice of irritation appeared briefly between her eyebrows and she turned to the entrance. When she came back, she climbed in brusquely and threw the key on the seat. She gave him a long look and said, “Room seven,” allowing her tongue to hang out slightly. Neville gave a small bounce to show he understood.

When the door closed behind them, they surveyed the room, its brown pipe bed, plastic curtains, and gloomy prints of the Custer massacre and the Blizzard of ’86. Dulcie took it all in, and when she turned to Neville he was holding up one of his new condoms. “Americans are coming together to stamp out HIV,” he said, with touching sincerity. “Can you help me with this?”

Not at all self-conscious, Neville stripped and stood naked next to his pile of clothes, instantly erect. Dulcie lit a cigarette and knelt in front of him. There was nothing to do but apply the condom. Cigarette held in the V of her teeth, squinting against the rising smoke, she rolled it on deftly. “Now,” she said, standing up, “I’ll just go into the bathroom and get ready.”

“Take your time,” said Neville, moving instinctively for the television. As he watched it, she opened the door to the bathroom for an instant and took his picture.

“Memories.” She smiled and closed the door again, wondering what the cops would make of a guy with nothing but a channel changer and a rubber. She created a bit of noise with the shower curtain, the faucets, and a cupboard door. It seemed like enough. She stood stock-still and listened. She thought someone else was in the room; then the realization that it was only the television made her doubt her sexuality.

Downhill Racer. Neville was Robert Redford. He locked his knees together and bent into every slalom, concentrating so thoroughly that the condom fell off. After a while, he began to miss Dulcie and rapped politely on the bathroom door. Neville wasn’t stupid. He smiled to himself; he knew she wasn’t in there. He got dressed and went outside. The bathroom window was wide open, the curtains hanging against the wall of the motel. The car was gone. He returned to the room and tried to kick the condom across the rug, but it just rolled up under his foot. He carried it dangling to the wastebasket and then stretched out to enjoy something reliable. Even the light of the TV flashing on the ceiling seemed pleasant. During the slow parts of the movie, he luxuriated in his relief. He couldn’t fathom Dulcie and he wasn’t even going to try. Nevertheless, out of fealty to his father, he would confide his intuition that she’d make a poor vice president. It was not out of a sense of having been betrayed but the unseemly picture of a vice president crawling out the window of a cheap motel. In this, he was well brought up, and he loved his poor, confused papa.