Chris Offutt - The Good Brother

He drove east along the river, found Rock Creek, and stopped at a bar. The female bartender told him about a cabin several miles up the road. He entered a hollow and was reminded of Kentucky — a narrow road that separated hillside from creek. The land opened to a wide bottom that offered summer campsites, RV hookups, and tipis you could sleep in for an appalling price.

Just beyond a bend, a man stood in water to his knees. He wore a short vest and rubber boots that ran past his armpits. He didn’t seem to have entered the creek so much as to have grown from it. Suddenly he snapped upright and a fishing rod flashed above his head, trailing a thick luminous line. He pulled the line with his free hand and Joe shook his head at the tangled mess that would surely surround him in the water.

The narrow road twisted with the water’s flow. Half the hollow lay in deep shadow cast by the mountaintop. Rock Creek glittered to Joe’s right, swift and wide, broken by vacant beds of stone. A small green sign announced his passage into Granite County. The road became dirt. He followed a turnoff to a small house beside a stack of firewood bigger than the house itself. The ground was hard and tipped by frost. There had been a light dusting of snow but wind had moved it, leaving patches of white against the earth. Winter lived here while town still held autumn.

A man stepped from the woods, wearing a flannel shirt with sleeves ripped away at each elbow. He carried an ax in a casual manner. Joe was chilly in his jacket, but the man seemed impervious to weather.

“Came about the cabin,” Joe said.

The man led Joe through open woods to a twin-rut road that ended at a small cabin made of log. A stove flue poked from the roof. “Door’s open,” the man said. His voice was low and thick, as if unaccustomed to speech.

The inside air was much cooler than outdoors. The cabin was one large room and a bath with pine walls that soaked up light. The furnishings consisted of a bed, a table, two chairs, a couch, and a bureau. There was a woodstove with a metal thermometer attached to the flue. From the window Joe could hear the rash of water over rocks. Another thermometer was visible through the glass.

Outside, the landlord removed a tube of lip balm, uncapped it, gave his mouth a coat, recapped the tube, and slid it into his pocket. He performed the entire process with one hand.

“Looks good to me,” Joe said. “How warm is it?”

“It’s a summer cabin, insulated with sawdust and newspaper. You’ll need plenty of firewood.”

“Can I get it off you?”

The man shook his head. He gave Joe a scrap of paper with a name and phone number for wood. He told him the rent.

“If I pay in advance, will you lower it?”

“Now you’re talking my language,” the man said. “I’m Ty Skinner.”

He offered his hand and Joe hesitated before taking it. He wanted to get the words right. He should have practiced.

“I’m Joe Tiller.” It sounded hollow and thin.

“Proud to know you. I’ll be your neighbor, but you won’t hear a sound out of me. Nearest phone’s at the tavern by the interstate. You can get your mail there. It’s got the only TV for miles. Only people, too.”

“I’m here for peace and quiet.”

“You’ll fit in, then. But you got to be out by May. Rent triples for tourists.”

“Tourists?”

“This is the best fly-fishing stream in the world. It’s famous. Canyon fills up with boneheads all summer.”

Joe understood that a canyon was the same as a hollow.

“Think I’ll need snow tires?” he said.

“They just mean you travel further before you get stuck. Then you got a longer walk back.”

“I never thought of it that way.”

“Most of you southern boys don’t.”

“How’d you know that?”

“You got an accent. Don’t worry, I like southerners. It’s the Californians I’d like to shoot. They think blue’s the same color everywhere. Out here it’s not.”

Joe nodded. He was confused by Ty’s words, but didn’t want to show any affinity to a Californian.

“Is that them standing in the water back there?”

“No,” Ty said, “They’re locals. Fish all winter. Best thing about Alaska was no Californians.”

“You lived up there?”

“Ten years.”

“Like it?”

“Fucking loved it, man.”

“Then why leave?”

“Got lonely. I came down to Montana for the social life.”

“I heard it’s beautiful up there.”

“You can’t eat the scenery.”

Ty looked at him briefly and walked into the woods. The tall pines took him swift as sudden dusk.

Joe went inside his house. He turned the faucets on and off and tested the shower. He plugged in the refrigerator and listened to the hum. He sat on the couch. He moved to the chair. He lay on the bed, which sagged. He opened each drawer of the bureau and lifted the windows to flush a stale smell. There was nothing on the walls. He went outside and sat on a stump. The cabin was half the size of his trailer, and the mountain rose behind it like a fortress wall He was Joe Tiller and this was where he lived.

He returned to Missoula, where he called the wood man and arranged for a delivery the next day. The treeless mountains surrounded the town in pale green humps that seemed to be set in place rather than rising from the land. Higgins Street ended at a large red sculpture of the letter X repeated four times. Joe wondered why the town emphasized the alphabet.

The midday air warmed him. He thought vaguely of buying a calendar, but time had ceased to be important. Beside a bar was a pawnshop filled with knives, CD players, leather coats, and guns. The proprietor wore a pistol on his hip and moved with an athlete’s grace. His pale eyes were flat and hard. On a glass display case was a stack of bumper stickers, each of which said FEAR THE GOVERNMENT THAT FEARS YOUR GUN.

Eventually Joe would need a weapon, but he couldn’t yet bear the notion of handling a gun. Instead, he bought a snakeskin belt and a leather buckle imprinted with a royal flush in diamonds.

“I’ll be back for a pistol,” he said.

“You need a Montana driver’s license. Plus there’s a five-day wait. Government sticks its beak in all our business.”

“Why’s that?”

“Can’t take care of its own, I guess.”

“Don’t make much sense.”

“No. They forgot it wasn’t too long back, we used guns out here for protection. I been here four generations. My grandfather killed off wolves that bothered his stock, and now they’re putting wolves back and taking our guns. I’m glad he’s not around to see it. Here, take this.”

He handed Joe a leaflet printed on a single sheet of paper, folded in thirds. On the front panel were the words LIBERTY TEETH and a crudely drawn American flag. Joe opened the paper to a drawing of two crossed rifles and the words “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed — UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION.”

The third panel showed a blurry picture of George Washington with a word balloon above his head: “Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people’s liberty teeth and keystone under independence.”

“George Washington,” Joe said. “Think he really said that?”

“He was a soldier, wasn’t he?”

“Reckon so.”

On the wall behind the man hung a prosthetic leg. It was old and heavy, with exposed springs and cracked leather straps, Joe figured it was an antique. It was colored to resemble flesh but had faded to the hue of a terrible burn. Joe pointed to it.

“Guess ITI know where to come if I need one.”

“I thought he’d be back the next day.”