by Callan Wink
“Couple more little things. Girls get wet for the pretzel. Even if it goes wrong and you get all tangled up, just laugh about it. It looks complicated but it’s not too hard. My left hand is going behind my back. See how I’m looking back at it? That lets the girl know she’s supposed to grab it. Grab it, jackass. Okay, now I bring it up and over. Damn it, don’t let go. Try it again. Okay, grip tight, it’s coming up and over and you’re spinning, good. Just watch the elbows and go a little slower than the music. That’s the key. You see these asshole guys from Bozeman or Billings, and they’re dancing flat out no matter what the song is, jerking the gal around like a rag doll. Keep it slow and tight. Pull the lady to you. Okay, nice, now back to home base. There you go. Spin me out. Perfect, now grab that one there and lead me through the pretzel. Fuckin’-A, man. You’re a natural.”
“Oh, shut up,” August said, dropping Tim’s hands and stepping back. “There’s been three trucks that have gone by and seen us out here.”
“Why are you so uptight? My dad taught me and my brothers how to dance just like that. It’s no different than learning how to drive. It’s basic knowledge you got to have. Okay, that’s good enough; the rest you’ll figure out on the fly. You Michigan people are a trip. You remind me of a guy I knew in high school that moved here from the Upper Peninsula, Gerald Priest was his name. If he wasn’t sure about something he’d say, Well, Tim, you know, I don’t know, you know? Used to just kill me every time. I haven’t thought about him for a long while now. Wonder whatever happened to that guy. I think he was at graduation, then he disappeared. You know, I don’t know, you know? Funniest thing ever.”
* * *
—
Wilsall was besieged by pickup trucks. Stock trailers parked at haphazard angles around the rodeo grounds. The Bank Bar had a crowd of people spilling out onto the street, everyone holding beers or red plastic cups of mixed drinks. Tim drove slowly through the throng, windows down. “Goddamn, would you look at that,” he said. “So much ass. Those look sprayed on. Do they have like some sort of tool they use to get into them things? It’s going to be a good night, pal.”
Tim parked, and they dropped the tailgate of his truck and sat, drinking beers from the cooler they’d packed earlier, watching the procession of women in tight Levi’s and sundresses with boots.
“Are we going to go get a seat?” August said. “Might be getting pretty full.”
“What do you mean? We have our seat right here.”
“Aren’t we going to go watch the rodeo?”
Tim went wide-eyed. “Are you serious? You want to go watch dudes get bucked off bulls when we have a front-row seat to a parade of Western femininity at its finest?”
August laughed. “I’ve been to the rodeo down in Livingston. I guess I don’t really care about it one way or the other.”
“Of course you don’t. You’re like me, you work on a ranch. You don’t need to waste your free time watching a rhinestone-bedazzled mockery of the shit you do every day.”
As if on cue a man walked by wearing a gold belt buckle the size of a dinner plate. Spurs on his boots jangling with every step. Tim and August wordlessly stared at him, and when he’d passed Tim slurped on his beer and belched. “Too easy,” he said. “I’m not even going to comment.”
“I’ll start watching rodeos when they feature a fence-post-driving competition,” August said.
“Exactly. Or shit mucking. But until then, we’ll sit out here and take advantage of the sights. When the actual thing gets going we’ll make our way into the bar and get set up before it turns into an absolute zoo.”
* * *
—
By the time the rodeo finally let out, August and Tim had staked out a prime spot at the bar, close to the dance floor and the stage where the band was getting warmed up. People kept streaming in, and the whole place filled with a dull roar. Tim ordered them both shots and beers, and not long after they’d slammed their empty glasses down on the bar, a group of women materialized from the crowd near them. It seemed that Tim knew some of them and soon he was leading a short, busty blonde out onto the dance floor. A tall brunette with a rash of freckles across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose looked at August, smiled and shrugged, extended her hand.
August tried to keep Tim’s instructions in mind, but short, short, looong was immediately lost in the mass of people twirling on the dance floor. August pulled the girl in close, and she had a tangible heat, his hand on her lower back feeling the twin bands of muscle there. They rotated slowly and he spun her, and as she went he could see the white of her smile, her long hair splaying out around her face; could smell her citrus shampoo clear through the bar-sweat beer smell. There were elbows in his back, hats and hair in a kaleidoscopic twirl. He pulled her back in. He shuffled and was surprised to find that she seemed to mostly be in step with him. She put her mouth up to his ear, shouting over the band. “I’m Maya. Thanks for dancing with me. I love it, but I’m not very good.”
“I’m August,” he said. And then he spun her again and the talking was done. Before the song’s end their random progress around the dance floor brought them near Tim and his partner. Tim was leading the blonde through an intricate series of moves—her face flushed and happy, their arms a blur, both of them laughing. When the song ended, Tim dipped his partner low so that her head nearly hit the ground and then swung her back up. She gave a little jump and straddled his hips with her arms around his neck. He walked her to the bar that way, running blindly into people with his face buried in her cleavage.
August danced with freckled Maya; he danced with Christi, Tim’s partner; he danced with a procession of other women, their faces and bodies running together. The room was stifling, and he had sweat rolling down his temples. He did the few moves Tim had taught him, and he learned a few more from watching other couples. The band kept everything going, and he went from one partner to the next with hardly enough time in between to get a drink at the bar. For the most part, the women did the asking.
When the band stopped, Tim and Christi were deep in conversation at the bar. August ordered one more beer and finally sat, glad for the rest after what seemed like hours of frantic movement. People were trickling out now, and the bartenders were shouting about last call. August felt a warm hand on the back of his neck, and freckled Maya plopped down on the stool next to him. Earlier she’d been wearing a plaid shirt tied up at the midriff but that was gone now and she was in her tank top and Levi’s. Her arms were covered with the same spray of freckles that crossed her nose. There was a dark spot on her tank top at her lower back where her sweat had soaked through under the various hands of all the night’s dance partners.
“Whew,” she said. “I’m about danced out.” She laughed and nodded down at Tim and Christi. “Looks like those two are getting along well.” She turned her eyes on August and smiled. “I had fun dancing with you,” she said. “I tried to get back to you, but it seemed like every time I looked you had your hands full.”
August shrugged. “You’d get bored dancing with me more than a few times anyway. I only know, like, three moves. I was just doing them in different orders and hoping the song would finish before it became obvious that I’m clueless.”
Maya laughed and then her hand was on his arm. “I know what you mean. Have you ever watched an older couple dance? Sometimes they’re just so good, like they can predict each other’s movements perfectly.”
“Must take a long time to get that way.”
“Probably. I like to think that some of these old-time dancers started out like us.”
“Seems like dancing with the same person for years and years might get boring.”
“Dancing with the same person isn’t boring if you’re always trying new things. And maybe you take little breaks occasionally and have a quick dance with someone else just to reaffirm that dancing with your old partner is still the best.
” She reached over and took a long drink of his beer, her eyes on his the whole time.
Eventually Tim and Christi broke their huddle and came over, and before long they were all out in the back of Tim’s pickup. Only a few hours until dawn, the air cool, the occasional shouts of the diehards still standing around outside the bar. Tim had blankets, and the girls were wrapped up in them. They drank the remaining beers in the cooler, and before long Tim and Christi moved to the cab of the truck. Maya rose up, the blanket over her shoulders, raised her arms out like wings, and settled herself down over August. She laid her head on his chest. There was a soft laugh from the cab of the truck, then a differently pitched sound, and soon the whole truck was rocking unmistakably.
Maya snorted. “God, that didn’t take long,” she said. “Christi is such a tramp.” Maya was moving against him and August was fumbling with her belt, her zipper. She wasn’t exactly making it easy for him, but she wasn’t telling him to stop, either. When he started to pull her jeans off, she wriggled to help, both of them laughing when they got hung up around her ankles. Her panties soon followed and he moved down, starting with his tongue the way Julie had always liked it, slow at first. Maya’s hips were going, but where Julie would seem to ascend Maya actually started to slow. Eventually she was still, and so August tried harder. He moved his hand up until he could feel the soft cords of her throat; he clenched. She made a startled squawk, pulled his hand off her, and wriggled away. “What was that?” she said. “No more of that. I’m not into that.” He tried for a while longer, but something had been put off. Her legs were rigid now, she made no sounds, and eventually he just rolled away and lay on his back.
There were muffled yips from Christi in the cab. Maya groaned and turned on her side, facing away from him. It was quiet except for the soft squeaking of the truck’s suspension. “I don’t know how for some people it seems to be so easy,” she said. “I’m sorry. I just can’t get into it until I’m comfortable. That’s just the way I’m wired.”
“It’s fine. I’m tired, anyway.”
“Me, too. You can still put your arm around me if you want.”
Before long Maya was giving soft, halting snores and August lay there with his arm going numb underneath her. There were some decent stars, and he searched for a constellation in the shape of how stupid he felt.
* * *
—
He was awake to witness the dawn, and he disentangled himself from Maya and stepped softly from the truck. He was waiting on the porch when the cook came in to open the Wilsall Diner.
“Coffee?” he said.
“Yeah, you and every other person in this hungover town,” the cook said. “You can sit and wait. It’s going to be a few minutes.”
When August returned to the truck with two steaming Styrofoam cups, Tim was sitting on the tailgate and the girls were gone. Tim had found a beer somewhere and was drinking, not even trying to keep the smile off his face.
“Hair of the dog?” he said.
“Ugh. I might hurl if I tried that.”
“Suit yourself. It’s the best thing, really. You a little hungover, son?”
“Little bit.”
“Well, I feel great.” Tim gave a shout and stretched. “Good morning to be alive.”
“You’re probably still drunk.”
“I could still be. Whew. What a night, eh? Goddamn rodeo season. Best time of year. We’ve got at least a couple of these things a month through September. Buck up, pardner. It’s going to be a hell of a ride. So what was the deal with that Mayra?”
“Maya.”
“Maya. What kind of name is that, anyway? She was smoking. How’d that go for you? Does she have those freckles everywhere?”
“We only messed around a little. Nice girl.”
“Like, you mean she was a good girl kind of nice girl?”
“Pretty much.”
“Well, that’s not all bad. You laid the foundation, right? Usually the good ones it takes a bit of groundwork. That’s how the game is played. And, was I right about dancing, eh? Eh?”
“It’s all right.”
“Just all right? I saw you out there twirling them like a champ. It’s amazing they weren’t getting all tangled up and tripping, that’s how fast their panties were dropping.”
“Not quite.”
“Nah, you were doing good. But seriously, it’s better than actually talking to them to break the ice, isn’t it? I mean you had your hands on, like, twenty attractive, slightly sweaty young ladies last night and how many sentences did you actually have to come out with?”
August laughed and nodded. “You’re right about that. It’s usually never that easy for me.”
“Allow me one big fat I told you so. I’ve got a whole theory about it. You can pretty much tell if you’ll have good sex with a girl based on how you dance together. If everything is all awkward and jerky out there, that’s how the sex will be. If you just start flowing right out of the gate, then that’s how it will be when you get horizontal. Tim’s theory of attraction. Keep it in mind.”
“Looked like you and Christi were dancing pretty good.”
Tim finished his beer and flopped back into the bed of the truck. “You know who is definitely not a good girl?”
“I have an idea.”
“She’s not good, but she might be perfect. Little Timmy is in love.”
August worked the come-along on the final strand of wire, and when it was tight he made a double wrap around the corner post and stapled it in place. He wound the tag end of the wire around the standing end with his pliers, and when it was secured he removed the come-along and the fence was done. He plucked the top strand a couple times with a gloved finger, and it thrummed satisfactorily. He sighted down the wire. Despite the roughness of the ground, his posts ran mostly clean and straight.
Ancient was down in Billings getting parts for the baler and seeing Kim. It was just midmorning, and August was done for the day. He tossed his gear in the milk crate lashed to the back of the four-wheeler and headed back down the hill to the house. In his room he stood with the door to the small fridge open, drinking orange juice from the carton. He washed his coffee mug and spoon and bowl from breakfast, dried them, and put them away. There was a broom in the small closet, and he used it on the kitchen floor. When he was done he examined the contents of the dustpan—they were negligible—then spent ten minutes leaning back on his bunk contemplating the underside of the box spring above him. Silence above and silence below, silence to his right and left. He heaved to his feet and headed to town.
* * *
—
At the Feed-n-Need he perused the small selection of fishing tackle. He settled on a six-foot ultra-light Ugly Stik and a Zebco 202. He picked up a small plastic divider box and a handful of Mepps and Blue Fox spinners, a canvas-insulated creel with a shoulder strap, and, as an afterthought, a wide-brimmed straw hat.
The man behind the cash register had a full gray beard with a brown stain at the corner of his mouth from tobacco spit. “Going fishing?” he said, raising his coffee mug to his lips, making no effort to start ringing August up.
“I was considering it,” August said.
“Where you going to go?”
“Probably just go mess around on the Musselshell.”
“Used to be good. You’re about twenty years too late on that one.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s these pivot lines these ranchers are using, and the stuff they spray on their fields for the grasshoppers. People want to tell me that that stuff is only toxic to bugs, and I say, What do you think trout eat?”
“I can see your point there.”
“Not a real popular opinion to have around here, but the cow sultans and their minions are ruining the fishing in this state. What these guys don’t realize is that their days are numbered.”
>
August adjusted his items on the counter. Looked at the cash register. Rocked a little on his heels. “Oh yeah?” he said.
“Definitely. This way of raising meat isn’t going to be viable in another fifteen, twenty years. Soon we’re going to be a nation of vegetarians. Not because we want to be, but out of necessity.”
“Are you saying because of global warming?”
“Not directly, but as a result. Only the elite are going to be able to afford Montana beef. The rest of us are going to be scrounging. I’m not saying it’s going to be completely apocalyptic, but it will be a lesser doomsday, at the very least.”
“Well, that sounds bad.”
“Everything seems normal now but we’re on the cusp.” The cashier waved his finger in a circular motion. “Feel lucky that you live out here. It could be a lot worse. Imagine being in New York City.”
