Callan Wink - Dog Run Moon

“Sometimes.”

“Sha, I bet you do. Okay. Go into the bathroom and come out in five minutes.”

Perry went into the bathroom and sat on the toilet seat. It was a small bathroom and his bent knees hit the shower door. He realized he had forgotten to call Andy. He waited as long as he could, and when he emerged, the lights were off in the room except for the small bedside lamp. Kat had let her hair down. She was on her back on top of the comforter and her black hair spilled across the pillow. She had the hotel Bible split open facedown on her stomach. She was wearing one of his white T-shirts, a pair of his white-and-red-striped boxer shorts. Her skin was very dark against the white cotton, her nipples erect and visible through the thin material. She had her eyes closed and her arms lay out by her sides.

“Oh, hi,” she said drowsily, “I was asleep. I must have just nodded off while reading.”

—

On the final day of the reenactment, clouds came down across the Bighorn Mountains and the sky opened up. It was a mud bath. Between acts everyone stood under the pavilion at the visitor’s center. The warriors’ painted faces streaked. Their feathers soddened. Soldiers drank coffee, miserable in wet wool tunics and pants. During a short break in the rain, Perry found Kat retouching her paint, using the side mirror of a Winnebago in the overflow parking lot.

“Can you believe this,” he said. “I checked the weather and there was no mention of rain.”

“Imagine that, the weatherman being wrong.” She was using two fingers to rub the white paint over her cheek and the side of her jaw.

“In the last show I got killed in a puddle and had to lay there for fifteen minutes while the crowd cleared the grandstands.”

“Poor General.” She flashed him a quick smile.

“Kat?”

“Yeah?”

“My wife has breast cancer.”

She turned to him slowly. She put her arms around him and her painted face left a dull smear on the rough wool of his tunic.

“But it’s going to be okay. I think we’re going to be all right.”

—

After the last show everyone went down to the War Bonnet Lounge and got drunk. It was an annual tradition on the final day of the reenactment. All the reenactors piled into the dim bar, most still in full dress. The place was hazy with cigarette smoke and the stink of slow-drying wool. A gray-haired man in a full eagle-feather headdress played the jukebox. Grimy cavalry soldiers played pool with shirtless warriors. Perry ordered a beer and when the bartender — the same goateed guy from the other night — extended the bottle, he didn’t release his grip when Perry tried to take it from his hand.

“Don’t think people don’t know about you, man.”

“What?” Perry said, unsure he’d heard correctly in the noisy bar.

“Don’t what me, man. You come to get you some red pussy? Is that your deal? John Realbird is my cousin, man. You think you can come here and do whatever the fuck you want?”

Perry felt the blood coming to his face. He looked to see if anyone else was hearing the conversation. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, pal. I’m just here for the reenactment like everyone else. They pay me to come. I’ve been coming here for years.” Perry backed away from the bar and the bartender said something but Perry couldn’t hear over the jukebox and raised voices. Someone clapped Perry on the shoulder and pressed a drink in his hand. When Kat came in he nodded at her and left out the back door. After a while she followed.

—

They were both a little drunk, and in the room they got drunker. Kat perched precariously on the shaky foldout ironing board and Perry sat on the end of the bed. They passed a pint of J&B.

“My paint is different this year,” she said.

“I know. I asked before, what does it mean?”

“I’ve been wanting to tell you. I just didn’t know how.”

She touched her cheek, the red circle. “This is a part of me, a piece of my heart that is gone forever.” She touched the other cheek, the chalky white paint. “This is my soul, blank as a field of snow, white like a ghost wandering the world.” Perry nodded solemnly. Kat gave a snort and shook her head. “You white people are suckers for that Indian shit. Hand me that bottle.” She drank deeply and laughed like none of it was true.

—

He nearly forgot to call Andy, and when he remembered, it was late. Kat was slid up against him on the bed, maybe asleep, maybe just being quiet. He dialed with one hand to not disturb her.

“Hello?” Andy’s voice was groggy with sleep.

“Hi, it’s me. Sorry it’s late.”

“Jesus, it’s late.”

“I know, I just got caught up with everything here and forgot to call you yesterday and I just wanted to see how you were doing and so I’m sorry but I called you anyway.”

“You sound kind of drunk.”

“I am kind of drunk. End-of-reenactment party. Drinking firewater with the locals. That kind of thing.”

“Sounds fun. I’m kind of jealous. Tonight I tried to make a tofu stir-fry. I’m not sure what happened but the tofu ended up scorched and the vegetables were still raw.”

“Tofu can be tricky.”

“Apparently. You know what else I did?”

“Hm?”

“I bought a pack of cigarettes and smoked almost half of them.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“What kind?”

“Don’t laugh.”

“What kind?”

“Virginia Slims. Long skinny girly ones.”

“I’ve never seen you smoke before. I’m having a hard time picturing it.”

“I’m new to it, so I’m not very good at it yet, but maybe I’ll do it for you when you get back.”

“Wearing something sexy, holding a glass of wine?”

“If you’d like.”

Kat had reached one arm across Perry’s chest and pushed her face down against his neck. The raven feather in her hair brushed his cheek. Her hand found his, the one that wasn’t holding the phone.

“Okay. I look forward to it. Have you tried blowing smoke rings yet?”

“No.”

“Well, practice.”

“I will. I was going to leave it as a surprise. You know, you come home from your reenactment and all of a sudden you have a smoking wife. A wife that smokes. That is something you’d probably never expect.”

“Well, it’s still a surprise, this way. I almost don’t believe it.”

“Yeah, you know why I started?”

“It is a question I had considered asking. Why?”

“Because what’s the point of not smoking? I’ve been not smoking for thirty-three years. Look at where it has gotten me. Now I’m going to be smoking. Make sense?”

“Perfectly.”

“Okay, I’m going to let you go, very tired.”

“Okay.”

“Love.”

“Love.”

“Love.”

Kat’s lips brushed his ear in her whisper. He hung up the phone. He was a scalped and bloody mess.

—

Before dawn Perry woke to find Kat’s side of the bed empty. He turned and saw her standing over him in the dark, fully clothed in jeans and T-shirt. She brought her fingers to his face and smoothed his mustache. When she moved her head down to him her hair folded like black wings around them.

—

In the morning Perry crammed the uniform, now smelly and stained, into his suitcase and gave a final look around the room to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything. He put the empty bottle of J&B in the trash can. When he went out to the parking lot, he found a fluorescent orange aluminum arrow shaft protruding from the rear passenger tire of his Camry. Perry considered the arrow for a moment and then pulled it, with some difficulty, from the tire. The fletches were glued-on pieces of hot pink vinyl. The shaft had the word WHACKMASTER printed down the sides, and black squiggly lines, which, coupled with the orange, were supposed to give the appearance of tiger stripes. The edges of the broadhead were chipped and rusty. Perry got the donut tire from the trunk and switched out the flat. He put the arrow in the backseat and left the War Bonnet driving slowly on the small spare.