the snowy street.
The old woman at the desk regarded the boys suspiciously when they came in. She was short and squat and had tiny dark eyes. The blanket she kept wrapped around her shoulders like a shawl dragged on the floor as she moved around behind the desk. She gave them the key to a room but warned them, “You boys. I got other guests. Make trouble and you go.” Her accent was thick, Germanic.
Frank asked her, “Where should we put the car?”
“Where you got it now?”
“Out in front.”
“What’s the matter with there?”
Their second-floor room had a bed with an iron bedstead, a dresser with a porcelain pitcher and washbowl, a straightbacked chair, and a small table beside the bed. Over the bed hung a small framed picture of the Last Supper that looked as though it had been cut from a magazine. The window shade was up and the lace curtains tied back, but the window looked out on nothing but a snowy field.
Lester lifted the hem of the chenille bedspread and peered under the bed. “Is there a slop bucket or somethin’? As long as there isn’t a biffy.”
Wesley recalled that Lester’s family did not have indoor plumbing.
“Bathroom’s down the hall,” Frank said.
Tommy pointed at Lester and laughed. “You never stayed in a hotel before, have you?”
“What the hell for?” Lester answered angrily. With his boot he shoved his canvas duffle against the wall. “Don’t bother me to sleep outside. I’ll do it tonight if you like.”
“Nobody has to sleep outside,” said Frank. “But we do have to set up a plan.”
Tommy bounced up and down on the edge of the bed, making the springs whine. “What kind of plan?”
“Let’s say one of us wants to bring a guest up here,” Frank explained. “The others are going to have to clear out for a spell.”
“A guest?” asked Lester.
Wesley felt sorry for Lester. He stood in the middle of the room, still wearing his coat with the dirty matted sheepskin lining and with the earflaps on his fraying wool cap tied down. Lester was the most skilled outdoorsman of the group, a crack shot with a rifle and a shotgun and a fisherman who could land a cast within inches of a lily pad. If they brought down a deer Lester would be invaluable; he could field dress a deer with a speed and efficiency that a butcher might envy. Yet if a tree were growing up through the floor of the hotel room it would not look more out of place in these surroundings than Lester.
Tommy stopped bouncing on the bed. He looked up at Lester. “You know, you’re so fucking dumb sometimes it hurts. You know that—it hurts.”
Lester looked to Frank like a dog appealing to its master.
“If one of us gets a girl,” Frank said slowly, “we’ve got to have a plan so he can have the room to himself.”
“If he wants to keep her to himself,” said Tommy.
Lester snorted. “You ain’t too cocky, are you. Where the hell you going to find you a girl?”
Tommy started bouncing on the bed again. “You know her name, don’t you,” he said to Frank. “Goddamn. You know her name!”
Frank shrugged his shoulders. “I remember her first name. That’s all.”
With a bound Tommy was off the bed and at Frank’s side. “Come on. Get her over here. Her and her mama both. We’ll have us some red meat for supper.”
Frank shoved Tommy aside. “You wouldn’t know what to do with it.”
Tommy put his head and shoulders down like a football lineman and pretended to run into Frank. He stopped his charge short and came up grinning. “You try me. Get her up here. Try me.”
“Get your own.”
Lester was searching through the pile of duffels and packs. “Where’s those fucking cigars.” He came up with one in his mouth. “You’re going to look for girls. Don’t make me laugh. You ain’t going to find any. In the meantime we ain’t supposed to get into that liquor. Shit. We’ll end up taking it back home. Three days and I won’t get off a shot or pull a cork. Shit.”
Wesley suddenly felt ill. After those long hours in the cold car the hotel’s warmth was too much for him. There didn’t seem to be enough air, and he couldn’t take a deep breath because of the strong smell of camphor in the room. He tried moving away from the chest of drawers but the odor followed him. He knew he wouldn’t be able to take the smell of Lester’s cigar.
“I’m going down to the lobby,” he announced.
“What for?” asked Frank.
“Not for anything. I’m just going down there.”
“Suit yourself.”
As he left the room, Wesley heard Lester say with disgust, “You want ‘em, you go get ’em.”
Wesley sat in the lobby on a hard, oil-stained horsehair sofa. There were smells here too—cigar smoke again and something like creosote. He kept himself turned to the side so he could look out the window and monitor the storm. He was certain now; yes, the snow had stopped falling, but the wind continued to rise and as much snow filled the air from the ground up as it had earlier from the sky down. He didn’t know why he still cared. He knew he wasn’t going hunting. There was nothing to do but wait out the hours and days until it was time to return to Montana. Maybe they’d go back tomorrow. Tonight they’d look for girls, find none, get drunk, and drive home early tomorrow. The hotel had presented them with an expense none of them had planned on.
While Wesley stared out the window the old woman from behind the desk approached him. She walked slowly, taking tiny steps and listing from side to side. She stood in front of Wesley a long time before she spoke.
“Where’s your family?”
The question was simple, yet Wesley had trouble understanding what she meant. Did she want to know how near his family was, if he had relatives around McCoy?
“My brother’s upstairs.”
She twisted her mouth as though she were trying to dislodge something from her teeth.
“You got more than a brother, don’t you.”
“In Bentrock, Montana. Like we wrote on the register.”
She snorted. “If I could read that I could read it for myself.”
“It’s in Montana.” Wesley realized he had already said that, and he began to explain where in Montana. “Northeast Montana. Not far from the Canadian border. Bentrock is the county seat.” His voice softened and trailed off until, like snow falling, it was barely there. “My—I mean, our—parents live there.” The old woman turned and walked away, but Wesley could not stop. “We go on
