Montana Rhapsody

by Susanna Solomon

He turned around, his eyes red-rimmed. “Yes, miss?”

  “I’m so sorry, I thought you were someone else.”

  “I met my wife here, forty years ago, and since she’s been gone . . . I make the trip myself, you see, all the way from Havre. On our anniversary.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Laura sputtered.

  “Twenty years ago, to the day, and I still miss her. Could you give me a moment, please, for us to be together?”

  “Yes, of course,” she said, and walked back across the bridge.

  Three floors above, in room 301 of the Union Hotel, E.B. pulled back his drapes and stared at the brick wall of the back of the hotel’s other wing. Still, no view. He’d asked them for one—his one and only splurge on this whole trip—and they’d given him an inside room. As soon as he dropped the drapes, the telephone rang. He ignored it. Reception again asking for his credit-card number? They’d kept getting it wrong and the machine hadn’t wanted to take it. Ken wanting a drink? After he’d made a fool of himself in the van? No. Whoever it was, they could wait.

  He had just come up the stairs from seeing Laura run away from him, when he’d been trying to explain, trying to make it right. He shouldn’t have bothered. He needed a drink. That goddamn Berniece had screwed everything up, again. Mack from the Feed ’N’ Seed was going to meet him at the Banque bar, across the street. He’d go there right after his shower.

  He scrubbed and scrubbed in the tepid water till his skin was sore, washing away sunscreen, mud, river water, sweat, and Laura’s scent. He came out and dried himself with a washcloth like he’d learned in the service. He felt better, sort of, but hollow inside. Why was he wasting time trying to get clean? He’d just go back to the ranch and cover himself in filth like he always did. He threw on his dirty pants, hoping that Jack’s lazy son Frank had at least turned the front two acres. But the rest of the place? It would take more than a week to catch up.

  He stared at himself in the mirror; not too bad for thirtysix, but there were more crow’s-feet around his eyes from lack of sleep, new strain lines across his forehead, and his hair stuck up again.

  What he deserved from spending the night out without pad or covers. He hadn’t had to make Laura so damn comfortable. Just his luck to fall for some girl and get his heart broken again. When would he ever learn? He thought for a moment of going to her room, but couldn’t stand the thought of her turning him away again.

  His hands missed the familiar feel of a paddle. He would do anything to be back on the river again, even with Laura complaining, her voice in his ears. Throwing on his sweatstained blue shirt, he noticed that his arms and face were darker now, but his chest was still a fish-belly white. A farmer’s tan. He was proud of it too. Four generations of Bensons behind him and they all had looked the same under their clothes. The history of the land etched into their skin, something Laura hadn’t understood at the start. What could he expect from a woman who thought nature was an empty parking lot? He gave her credit, though, for coming around, learning to love nature as much as she had. Wistful, he knew she wouldn’t like LA so much now that she’d been to Montana.

  He walked down the landing to the lobby, past a clerk jabbering on an iPhone, past the wrought-iron windows and millwork of reception, out through the double lobby doors, and into the oblique light of dusk. Across the street, the sign Moose Drool beer in yellow neon blinked in the evening sun.

  He took a glance at the river flowing by. The river he loved, the river he’d turned to for solace after Berniece left, the river that had broken his heart, then mended it. He ambled over toward the walking bridge—the first bridge ever built across the Missouri in Montana. It had seen even more history than his family and looked golden in the light. A small mist hung above the water, rising off the river and drifting in the breeze. Shafts of light and shadows crossed the river and the bridge.

  Three figures walked out of the shade. E.B. stepped up onto the bridge, the wooden boards laid when his greatgranddad was a boy. The last rays of sun hit him square in the eyes, and he held up his palm to see who was walking toward him. A three-year-old boy was skipping around, despite calls from his parents to slow down. A family he’d never have.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a figure just beyond the glare, half-hidden in the shadows on the center of the bridge beside the trusses, watching the river in silence and stillness. Was it Mrs. Guthrie, one of the little old ladies of Fort Benton, out for a stroll? He couldn’t tell.

  He walked a third of the way across and thought about the river, how it started in Three Forks, then over the falls, and here sinuous and curvy, a moving ribbon of water on its way across, easily, a thousand miles or more to empty into the Mississippi River and then into the Gulf of Mexico.

  Maybe he’d been a little too hard on himself. He’d had a pretty good trip, met someone wonderful, and let his heart crack and open again a little, since Berniece had left months ago.

  Maybe it was a good thing, God’s little lesson, teaching him to be humble. He leaned against the railing, watching the mist. He felt thankful for a little romance, a taste of romance, and he gazed into the water and relived the image of Laura in his mind, her hand on his shoulder at camp, the sound of her voice, doing everything he could to memorize every detail.

  The smell of roses drifted in the air. It was so real that it made him feel a little dizzy. He felt something, a hand on his arm, probably Mrs. Guthrie’s. She was always eager to tell him something. His imagination was working overtime, and he couldn’t believe the scent of roses was so real, so Lauralike, and he couldn’t remember if Mrs. Guthrie wore roses, but she was so close, and he was happy for a few minutes, and he could pretend she was Laura. He closed his eyes.

  And then he heard her voice.

  “I’ve been looking for you,” she said.

  E.B.’s eyes flew open. Hoping didn’t make it so. Of course, she was here to say good-bye. He turned to her, flushed with heat. The river was suddenly so far away, his hopes flowing away with the current.

  “All ready for LA?” he asked, trying to keep the tremble out of his voice.

  “I guess,” she said, standing a little too close.

  For a second, he felt like she was vibrating.

  “I didn’t mean anything with Berniece,” E.B. said suddenly, throwing the first idea he had into the air.

  “I tried calling you,” Laura said, facing him. “Room threeoh-one, correct?”

  “That was you?” he asked, unintentionally revealing he had ignored her call.

  “I thought you’d left for Loma.”

  “You didn’t change,” he said.

  “Neither did you. These clothes feel like pajamas,” she said, scraping one shin with her foot.

  “One and the same, the city girl and the country hick,” he said, turning to her and smiling.

  “I don’t know much about living in the country,” Laura said, flicking a leaf into the river. “I usually go to bed just before dawn.”

  “That’s when I get up.” He laughed. Had she said “living in the country”? Did she want to? He stayed silent a moment, not noticing the shadows lengthen, darkness seeping down from the hills, bats taking flight, nor the whoosh of pelicans coming in for a landing.

  “Winters are tough here on the plains,” he said.

  “Not so bad,” she said.

  “And who told you that?”

  “And early dawn, when the light is clear and pure?” She squeezed his hand.

  Just keep talking. E.B. wrapped his fingers through hers.

  “I don’t know how to cook.” She paused. “But I can learn.”

  E.B.’s heart filled his chest. He felt her arm on his shoulder, on his back, and gathering all of her, her scent and her soul and her voice and the sound of her laughter, all into him, and he held her, tight, for the longest time.

  He kissed her soft mouth, the mouth that came into his, the body that pressed against his, the warmth that emanated from her body. Her back was so smooth under
his rough hands, her breath warm in his ear.

  “If we keep doing this, you’re going to miss your plane.”

  “I canceled my reservation,” she said.

  Below them, a family of mergansers came out from under the shadow of the bridge and started across the river, mom in front, paddling slowly, while behind her, ten babies paddled hard, their eyes eager, one behind, working to catch up. Far off an owl hooted as shadows lengthened, the bridge disappeared into mist, and E.B. and Laura kissed, until it was too dark to see, and he guided her, arms entwined, back into the hotel and up to room 301.

  fini

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Many many thanks and love to master writing teacher James N. Frey for yelling “more conflict, more conflict.” For friends and writers who have seen this manuscript develop over the years: Inga Silva for her compassionate and kind support, Jeffrey Philips, Cara Black, Elaine Taylor, Margaret Cuthbert, Dorothy Mack, John King, Brooke Warner, Muncie Morger (Fort Benton), Mike and Meredith (Fort Benton). Last, but not least, for Stu, for taking me to the river in the first place.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  photo credit: Meghan Roberts

  SUSANNA SOLOMON, a writer and electrical engineer, lives in Marin County, where she has run her own engineering consulting firm for more than twenty years. Her books include two short story collections, Point Reyes Sheriff’s Calls and More Point Reyes Sheriff’s Calls, and her stories have appeared in Foliate Oak Magazine, Meat for Tea – The Valley Review, and online in the Mill Valley Literary Review and Harlot’s Sauce Radio. An avid outdoor enthusiast, Susanna has backpacked in Yosemite, Glacier National Park, Point Reyes, the Bernese Oberland, and the Gasternal in Switzerland. She’s walked across England on the Coast to Coast Trail, and has canoed extensively on the Missouri River in Montana, the Jacks Fork and Eleven Point Rivers in Missouri, and the Russian and Eel Rivers in California. She now spends her free time studying Tai Chi and Tai Chi sword and swimming in Tomales Bay, which is ten minutes from her home.

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