1978

The tiny snowball floated to the top of the glass. A little iceberg bobbled on the surface, spinning as it absorbed whiskey. It looked like a snow cone, and then dissolved. CJ looked at the glass with reproach and took a drink. "It must be too hot in here. It melted. Now the whiskey is watery."

"Put the bottle in the snow, and it will stay cold and the snow won't melt."

"You're so smart Harry, but it won't last that long."

Harry drank his and poured more. The wolf's snout sat between them. It snarled, baring its teeth, and its prosthetic tongue stuck out to one side just a little bit through a slightly opened mouth, and he offered it a drink.

"He's not thirsty today. Says he's stiff enough." Harry laughed so loudly that the shillelagh leaning against his chair slid off onto the floor with a loud thud.

The wolf found nothing to laugh about, but stood erect and alert, ears facing forward. Its large yellow eyes with black slits looked more like windows into some fiery crucible than something it once used to see. The inscription on the footboard told the story of the wolf's demise. It said they found this beast walking in the forest surrounding the Lewis River Valley that feeds into Jackson Lake, and they used a 270 Winchester 30 – 06 / 250 grain.

"It's how they first saw the dog before they shot it. They like to keep things natural looking."

"Poor fella."

"You drunk, Harry?"

"Not as stiff as these bastards," he said, waving his arm around the room. His eyes stopped at the rifle leaning up against the far wall near the front door.

The storm was beating the house senseless. The wind had been increasing hourly, rocking the windows as if it was trying to pull them free from the walls. For the moment, they were safe from the elements. They sat in silence listening to the howling wind and the bang, bang, cu-thump thump of the house. Harry grabbed the shillelagh and hobbled over to the front window to look out. His leg felt better.

CJ got up to stoke the fire to keep it alive.

The logs sparked and sizzled. One of them rolled out of the fireplace and onto the rug there. It smoldered a bit and sparked into flame. She looked frantically for something to extinguish the fire with and finally tore off her robe and threw it on top of the small flame. As she pounded the floor, she reminded to Harry of some naked Aboriginal woman pounding grain into flour.

She finally looked over at Harry standing against the front window smiling at her. "What are you looking at?"

He did not answer. The aboriginal pose took him back to his wife Nancy.

"Just thinking about another adventure, I had once a while back. You want to hear about it?"

CJ looked as if her teacher in class asked the question, and she needed to come up with an answer or look foolish. "Nah."

"Harry, Harry," he heard her saying, as he crept out of his reverie, "you wanna join me?" She was naked and heading for the sauna in the back.

Why not? He followed her and watched her as she stripped for him. He joined her in the steaming tub. She wasted no time in straddling him, trying to rouse him to perform. "I feel sort of weak, CJ, I think my fever is lingering."

But she was alluring, the soapy water glistened off her breast as she bobbed in and out of the water, and she wasn't the kind of girl to take no for an answer. He knew that, and why should he refuse such an invitation? 

"Come here, you," he said. He pulled her to him and kissed her deeply, passionately, and she slid onto him. The water splashed onto the floor, and they laughed, and Harry felt tired afterward and got out of the tub slowly and put on his robe.

He dreamt he was in a house he shared with seven other boys in college. He had been drinking all afternoon when a knock on the door woke him up. He was in the chair of the cabin, sitting by the stuffed wolf. He got up to answer it. When he opened the door, he found he was in the tomb in Chile. It was a dark cave with an empty grave inside a tiny pyramid. He had pulled back the stone covering the entrance and gone inside but in the grave was Dago, laying face up as if someone laid him there. He was dead, frozen solid. He had fallen into the hole, and his torch was cold and dark on the floor of the tomb above him.

But the sun was beating down. It was hot, and the flies were everywhere, and he could hear the buzzing of flies and the monkeys screeching in the distance and he took a sip of an icy drink and beads of water dripped down the sides of the tall tumbler and the sound of the ice clinking woke him up.

But he was still in his dream, and noticed that his feet were cold and numb, frozen in two blocks of ice. They were bleeding, and the blood jolted like lightning through the ice.

Dago said something about someone very bad. He said that Harry should be careful and that he would be next. His feet burned from the cold, and they began to itch. He had the bag of jewels in his hands and threw them down into the grave on top of Dago.

Then suddenly Skinny appeared painted in blue azure, and he looked like a sacrificial slave and his eyes were covered with red scarabs and on his finger was a great ring of rubies, and black onyx shaped like a snake, and he stood over the decaying body of Mouse, whose face was half-covered with rotting flesh. Dago's voice told him to run, and he turned with significant effort as if he stood in a pool of mud and he panicked, and his heart raced and it was hard for him to breath. 

He was drowning.

He woke hours later on his back in the bedroom. CJ was wiping his head with a damp cloth. "Not again," he said.

"No. You did conk out pretty fast afterward and didn't sleep too restful. Then you were sweating so I hadda cool you off a bit." She looked concerned, worried. "You can't have an infection anymore. I think you have a cold or something. How do you feel?"

"I'm hungry now."

"Good," she said, "have some more beans."

"I need meat. That brisket would be nice." He followed her into the main room of the cabin, and she walked over to the fireplace and took the meat off the spit where it had been resting and sliced some.

"What do you think he'll do when he finds out about Mouse?"

"He ain't gonna be happy, I can tell you that."

Harry's head still hurt. Water was the only cure for that, and they at least had enough of that. His leg throbbed and it felt damp under the bandage, but he said nothing.

"We don't have to worry about that till the snow stops anyway."

Harry drifted off to sleep sitting in his chair with his leg up, there was little else to do until she brought a plate of brisket, and beans over to him and set it on the table, and gently nudged him awake.

He ate in silence.

"You must be starvin,'" she said, "I ain't never seen anyone eat my cooking without complainin' 'bout it."

"Oh, man," he said, and handed her the plate, "that hit the spot." She took the plate to the kitchen.

"Is he in trouble?"

"Who?"

"Conner."

CJ considered the question, and slowly said, "Nah. Most likely Skinny will drop him off somewhere and send him packing."

"You really think he'll do that? He came after us with that goon of his." Harry didn't say more, because he wasn't sure how Skinny's mind worked.

"He wants me and..." She did not finish the sentence.

"And what? Me?"

"Yeah. He wants us both," she said. "He's a nut, I tell ya, Harry."

"Still, I don't get it. Why all the trouble over a..." He stopped short. "But he knows that Conner will want to find me, and I don't think Mr. Dude Ranch is going to let him do that."

"Ya know Harry, they're snowed in just like us."

Outside the wind had not let up; it still shook the windows and blew through the eaves. "Listen to the wind howling," she said.

It howled long and mournfully. "That sounds like wolves, not wind."

"No Harry. Don't be silly. It's gotta be the wind. What would wolves be doing out in this weather anyway?"

"They have to eat."

The howling continued for a bit more and then it was quiet, but soon then they heard the wolves outside the cabin growling at each other, more than one, and they were close. Harry walked over to the window and looked out. It was darkening, and he could not see too far. So, he opened the door and stuck his head out enough to keep the lights from the house behind him. A howl died quickly, and he thought he saw them scurry away.

"I'm going to bed." He walked back to the bed, took off his robe, and climbed in. CJ dimmed the lights in the main room and came after him, took off her robe, and climbed naked into his arms.

Tired and happy, she slept contentedly. Their lovemaking usually made him tired, but he had had enough sleep for a while, and he lay next to her for some time watching her until her breathing slowed. She was on her back, facing away from him and the thin covers draped loosely over her prone figure. Her breasts were at rest, and her firm stomach lay flat falling to her abdomen as it disappeared behind the slight rise of her hipbones where the sheet rose like a tent supported by the center pole. Slowly her chest rose, and quickly it fell as she breathed in and out. As the minutes passed, her breathing slowed to a soft, almost imperceptible rhythm.

Was this what he was looking for? Did he need another woman to complicate life? He could hear Conner castigate him, "Of course you don't need this shit, you stupid ass. But that's you, always getting in over your head."