The Loop

  Townsend had his own show on one of the networks (though Buck had never seen it) and apparently flew himself up here now and again from LA, parking his personal jet in Great Falls and helicoptering himself out to the ranch, which some other outsider had been brought in to manage.

  He had knocked Jim and Judy Nielsen’s nice old house down and replaced it with something ten times the size. It had a huge hot tub overlooking the mountains and a proper thirty-seat movie theater in the basement.

  Buck joined the end of the line waiting for food. In the old days the folk dishing it out would have noticed him and brought him a plate stacked high, for free. Not today though. It was being served by two spotty kids he didn’t know.

  He waited his turn and watched while Jordan Townsend and his cute little wife processed like royalty through the crowd. Townsend was doing his Hollywood best to pass as a cowboy. With his carefully faded workshirt and Wranglers, he was wearing a new Stetson and a pair of handtooled boots which must have cost a thousand dollars or more.

  His wife (number three, according to Kathy) had a pair too, but it was her only western concession. Otherwise, in her designer sunglasses and that little white dress she was almost wearing, she was every inch the movie star. Which, by all accounts, was what she was, though no one Buck knew had seen any of her movies. Apparently she had two names: one she was known as professionally and one she liked to go under when incognito in Montana. Buck couldn’t remember either.

  Rumor had it that she was twenty-seven, exactly half her husband’s age, but Kathy said you had to take this with a pinch of salt because most actresses spent several years being twenty-seven. The only other thing Buck knew about her (though, if he tried, he could imagine more) was that her Christmas present from Townsend last year was a small herd of bison.

  Buck reached the head of the line and paid one of the spotty kids his three dollars for a plate of steak and chili beans. He stood to one side and took a mouthful while the golden couple glided by, nodding and smiling at the natives, Buck included.

  ‘Hi, how’re you doing?’ Townsend said. Buck knew the guy had no idea who he was.

  ‘Good. How are you doing?’

  ‘Great. Good to see you.’

  And he breezed on past. Asshole, thought Buck.

  The steak was tough and greasy and Buck chewed it balefully, watching the sway of the actress’s cute little ass as she and Townsend processed toward the parking lot with the righteous glow of local duty done.

  It seemed wrong to hate people you hadn’t met, but Buck couldn’t help it. They and their type were buying up the whole damn state. There were some places you could hardly move for all the millionaires, moguls and movie stars. It seemed you were nobody in Hollywood or New York City unless you had a ranch and a slice of Big Sky country.

  The result was that real estate prices had gone so far through the roof that decent, young, born-and-bred Montanans didn’t stand a chance. Some of the newcomers kept the land working, or tried to, but most either didn’t have a clue or else didn’t care. It was just somewhere they could play cowboys and impress fancy friends they invited from the city.

  Buck tried the beans and found they weren’t any better than the steak. He was looking about for a garbage bin when he saw Abe Harding’s troubled face heading through the crowd toward him.

  That’s all I need, Buck thought.

  They’d been neighbors for thirty years and in all that time had never really gotten to know each other. You could fit Abe’s place twenty times into the Calder spread and still have space to spare. The land was a lot poorer too and it was well known that Abe had borrowed too much money on it and was always on the brink of bankruptcy. With those eyes peering out from under a frowning shelf of eyebrow, he looked like some kind of paranoid, rock-dwelling eel.

  ‘Hi there, neighbor, howya doin’?’

  Abe nodded. ‘Buck.’

  Abe scratched his nose and darted a look around him like someone about to pull a heist. His jaws moved restlessly on a wad of tobacco and you could see the brown juice at the corners of his mouth.

  ‘Got a moment?’

  ‘Sure. Like some of this food? It’s good.’

  ‘No. Mind if we take a walk?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Abe led the way, not saying another word until he was sure they wouldn’t be overheard.

  ‘What can I do for you?’ Buck said.

  ‘You know that wolf that killed your Kathy’s dog?’

  ‘Uh-huh. Reckon he had one of our calves too.’

  ‘So I heard. This wolf. He was a big, black fella, right?’

  Buck nodded.

  ‘Well, we’ve seen him again. And he had two others with him.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Up on the allotment. We were up there, putting some new salt and mineral down and we heard this howl and Ethan says, “That’s the weirdest coyote I ever heard.” Then we saw them, plain as day, three of them. This big fella and two gray ones.’

  All the while he spoke, his eyes kept on the move, rarely meeting Buck’s and then only for a moment. As though he were filled with something itchy and resentful.

  ‘Were they going for the cattle?’

  ‘No, but they sure as hell were thinking about it. If I’d had my gun with me, I’d have had ’em. I left Ethan up there and went home to get it, but they took off. Couldn’t even find their tracks.’

  Buck thought for a moment.

  ‘Have you told that biologist girl about it?’

  ‘Nope. Why should I tell her? Feds put them there in the first place. Damn woman asked if she could tramp all over my land. I told her what she could do with herself.’

  Buck shrugged.

  ‘I tell you, Buck, I can’t afford to lose a single calf right now.’

  ‘I know what you mean.’

  ‘I’m not so sure you do, but it’s the truth.’

  ‘But you know, Abe, you go shooting them and get yourself caught, you could wind up in a whole lot of trouble. Jail even.’

  Abe spat a cheekful of black juice onto the pale grass.

  ‘Goddamn government. They lease you the land, take your money, then let these varmints loose to kill your cattle.’

  ‘Then throw you in jail if you try and protect ’em. Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, does it?’

  Abe didn’t reply, just narrowed his eyes and looked off across the fairground toward the stage area where the band were unloading their gear.

  ‘Thing is, we’re going to gather early and bring the herd down where we can keep a better eye on them. I was wondering if you’d mind lending a hand.’

  ‘Sure I will.’

  ‘Appreciate it.’

  ‘You bet.’

  ‘I tell you, there’ll be hell to pay if there’s any of ’em missing.’

  Luke had only come down to the fair because he’d promised his mother he would. He didn’t plan on staying long. Rikki Rain and the Ragged Wranglers were one good reason to leave. They’d been playing for an hour now and it seemed a lot longer. Another good reason was that Luke had just spotted a group of kids he had graduated with, including Cheryl Snyder, who he’d had a thing about all through high school.

  Her dad owned the gas station and she was one of the nicest and definitely the prettiest girl in the school. As a result, she was usually surrounded by the worst kind of guys, four of whom were now showing off to her and her friend Tina Richie outside the fortune-teller’s tepee.

  Luke was on his way back to the Paragon booth with some sodas for Ruth and his mother who were busy packing up everything they hadn’t sold. Cheryl and the others didn’t appear to have seen him and he was about to duck between the booths and take a detour around the back when he heard her call out.

  ‘Luke! Hey, Luke!’

  He turned and pretended to be surprised. Cheryl waved and Luke smiled and held up the sodas to show he couldn’t wave back, wondering if that was enough and could he still escape. But she was heading toward him, the other
s sauntering behind. She was wearing blue jeans and a skimpy pink top that showed her midriff. Luke remembered, as he often did, that time they’d kissed at a New Year’s party a couple of years ago. She was the only girl he’d ever properly kissed. Which at his age was downright pitiful when you came to think about it.

  ‘Hey, Luke, how are you?’

  ‘Oh, hi, Ch-Ch-Cheryl. I’m f-f-fine, thanks.’ Tina and the others came up alongside her and Luke smiled and nodded at them and they either smiled back or said hi with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

  ‘I haven’t seen you all summer,’ said Cheryl.

  ‘Oh, well, I’ve been w-w-working on the ranch, you know. H-h-helping my d-d-d-dad out.’

  He watched their eyes, as he always did when he stuttered, for any hint of laughter or embarrassment or of pity, which was by far the worst. The other two he could handle.

  ‘Hey, Cooks, we saw you on the TV, when that wolf got your sister’s dog,’ Tina said. One of the boys, a loudmouth called Jerry Kruger, gave a comic howl. He’d made Luke’s life a misery for awhile in junior high, until Luke knocked him out cold one day in the yard. Luke’s reputation had soared. He’d never had to use his fists again.

  ‘Have you seen it again?’ Cheryl said.

  ‘The wolf? No. He was p-p-probably just p-p-passing through.’

  ‘Too bad,’ Kruger said. ‘Tina was hoping to play Little Red Riding Hood with him. “Oh Grandma, what big bazongas you’ve got!”’

  ‘Jerry, why don’t you grow up?’ Cheryl said.

  No one seemed to know what to say next and they stood there for a moment, listening to the raucous tones of Rikki Rain. Luke held up the sodas.

  ‘I’d better be g-g-going.’

  ‘Okay,’ Cheryl said. ‘See you around.’

  They all said goodbye. As he went off, Luke heard Kruger laugh and say, ‘P-p-probably just p-p-passing through,’ and the others telling him to hush.

  It was cooler now and Helen wished she had brought a sweater. She was wearing hiking shorts and boots and a T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up. She had Band-Aids over the teeth marks Abe Harding’s dogs had made on her legs. Amazingly, the skin wasn’t pierced.

  Most of the people she had met over the past weeks were here at the fair and, with the exception of the Hardings, she’d chatted with all of them. Everyone had made a fuss of Buzz, who was having the time of his life. She had him on a leash but he’d still managed to forage several suppers among the scraps people had dropped.

  She knew it was time she was going. She had a late night ahead of her. But with everyone around her enjoying themselves, she was reluctant to leave. It was partly, she realized, a simple hunger for human contact.

  At other times, in other moods, she might equally have let herself feel excluded or envious, the way she sometimes did lately when she saw a pair of young lovers or (God, she was so pathetic) women her age with babies. Instead, today, she had simply let herself bask in the banter and bustle of the crowd and felt more at peace with the world than she’d been for a long time.

  Observing the people of Hope on this sun-washed September afternoon, she had found herself moved by their sense of community, by the roots that seemed to hold them to this place and to a way of life that, despite years of tribulation and all the mad rushings of the world, endured in its essence unchanged.

  Helen’s favorite rancher, Doug Millward, seemed the epitome of all this. When they bumped into each other, he had insisted on buying her an ice cream. He bought one for himself as well and they’d stood eating them, watching the high school band parade. He was a tall, soft-spoken man, with kind blue eyes. She knew he didn’t much care for wolves but he seemed to have a tolerant respect for what she was trying to do. She confided that someone had been sabotaging her traps and when he heard what had happened at the Hardings’, Doug sighed and shook his head.

  ‘It probably won’t make you feel any better about him, but Abe’s had a tough time of it over the years.’

  ‘I heard he was in Vietnam.’

  ‘Yeah. Saw some bad things, so they say. I’ve never heard him talk about it. But I do know he has a lot of trouble making ends meet. And those boys of his aren’t a whole lot of help. Been in and out of trouble since they were kids.’

  ‘What kind of trouble?’

  ‘Oh, this and that, you know. Nothing too serious.’

  She could see he was reluctant to spread gossip. He watched the band in silence for a moment, as if working out how much to tell her.

  ‘They hang out with one or two fellas who, let’s say, I wouldn’t be happy for my kids to spend time with.’

  ‘Like who?’

  ‘Couple of them work for the logging company. Into all this militia stuff, you know - antigovernment, big on guns, that kind of thing. A while back, they and Wes and Ethan Harding got caught illegal hunting. They cornered a whole herd of elk in a canyon, just mowed them all down.’

  He paused. ‘I’d appreciate you not telling anyone where you heard that.’

  ‘No, of course.’

  ‘And they’re the exception not the rule. There’s a lot of real good people live in this town.’

  ‘I know.’

  Suddenly he laughed. ‘Hey! We’re getting a little serious here, Helen.’

  He said he had to go and meet Hettie at the 4-H sale and after they said goodbye, Helen wandered off, thinking about what he’d said.

  The crowd was thinning now and some of the booths were packing up, which was more than could be said for the band. Rikki Rain was wailing on about her man being out somewhere doin’ with someone else what she was doin’ without at home. Helen didn’t blame him.

  The sun had slipped behind an anvil of red and purple cloud above the mountains. But suddenly now it found space among them to set the fairground aglow, turning every face to gold as if casting a final blessing on the day’s events. As she walked along the line of booths, a rabble of small children exploded around her and ran ahead, chasing each other and laughing at their giant shadows that raced before them on the grass.

  It was then that she spotted Luke Calder talking with his friends. She watched and listened unseen. His stutter came as a surprise. And when that little creep imitated him, she had felt like marching over and slapping him on the face. She was sure Luke must have heard. He was heading off through the crowd and because it was the same way to the parking lot, she found herself following him.

  She had only seen him twice since that first day, once in town and once on his horse up in the forest. On both occasions he had seemed shy and avoided talking with her. She knew he was spending a lot of time up on his father’s allotment, to keep an eye on their herd. But whenever she was over that way, he was nowhere to be seen.

  He was at the Paragon booth now, saying goodbye to his mother and Ruth. Then he set off toward the parking lot and Helen followed.

  ‘Luke?’

  He turned and stopped and when he saw her, his eyes seemed for a moment to show alarm. Then he smiled nervously and touched his hat to her.

  ‘Oh, hi.’

  As she walked up to him, she realized how tall he was, a good six inches taller than she was. Buzz clearly thought he’d found a long-lost friend and Luke squatted to stroke him.

  ‘We haven’t really had a chance to meet yet,’ Helen said.

  ‘I’m Helen.’ She held out her hand to him but he was too busy being licked by Buzz to see.

  ‘Yeah, I kn-n-know.’ He noticed her hand just as she was about to let it drop. ‘Oh, sorry, I d-d-didn’t . . .’ He straightened up and shook hands.

  ‘And your new friend for life here is Buzz.’

  ‘B-Buzz. He’s . . . cute.’

  Helen was suddenly as tongue-tied as he was and the two of them stood there for a few seconds, smiling at each other like halfwits. She waved an arm in a clumsy gesture that was intended to take in the fair, the mountains, the sunshine and everything she’d been feeling about them.

  ‘Isn’t this all great? My first r
odeo!’

  ‘You t-took p-p-part?’

  ‘No! I mean, the first rodeo I’ve ever been to. God no. Me and horses: disasterville.’

  ‘D-disasterville. That’s good.’

  ‘You don’t ride in the rodeo?’

  ‘Me? Oh. No.’

  ‘You’re not staying for the music?’

  ‘Oh. No. I’ve g-g-got some th-things to do. Do you like it?’

  Helen frowned and scratched her head. ‘Well . . .’

  Luke laughed and his big green eyes softened, giving Helen a glimpse of what he might really be like. But his shy defense was quickly back in place.

  ‘I hear your dad talked them into staying.’

  He nodded. ‘He’s real g-g-good at that k-kind of thing.’

  He looked away across the fairground, all trace of laughter gone now and it occurred to her that having Buck Calder for a father wouldn’t be easy for any boy. There was another awkward silence. Luke had turned his attention to Buzz again.

  ‘Well, I’m afraid I still haven’t managed to find your wolf.’

  He looked at her sharply. ‘Why m-m-my wolf?’

  She laughed. ‘I don’t mean yours, you know, personally. I meant—’

  ‘I never saw him.’

  Helen could see his cheeks coloring up.

  ‘No, I know. I was just—’

  ‘I’d b-b-better be g-g-going now. Bye.’

  ‘Oh, okay. Bye.’

  Helen stood there a moment, wondering what she’d said wrong. They made their separate ways to their cars. She waved as Luke drove off, but he didn’t wave back, nor look in her direction. She followed his car out of town but he was driving faster and when she turned off the pavement, he was only a distant cloud of gray dust ahead of her.

  She stopped at the row of mailboxes at the turning up to the lake, even though she had checked hers already on the way into town. It had been empty, as it usually was. Since coming to Montana she’d had letters from her mother, her father and two from her sister. But none from Joel. The last she’d heard from him was a belated birthday card in Cape Cod and in all those long weeks she must have written him five or six times. Perhaps he hadn’t received them? Or perhaps he couldn’t get letters out? She guessed mail and things like that must be difficult there.