BooksBarbecue
Back Half in Love Save as PDF
Chapters (17)
  1. Cover Page
  2. Title Page
  3. TOME
  4. FOUR LEAN HOUNDS,CA. 1976
  5. NATIVE SANDSTONE
  6. RANCH GIRL
  7. GARRISON JUNCTION
  8. RED
  9. AQUA BOULEVARD
  10. THE RIVER
  11. KITE WHISTLER AQUAMARINE
  12. LAST OF THEWHITE SLAVES
  13. THIRTEEN & A HALF
  14. PAINT
  15. THEICE HARVESTER
  16. A STAKES HORSE
  17. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Suzy lays out the tarot cards on the kitchen table. The cards say, Go on, go away. But out there in the world you get old. You don’t get old here. Here you can always be a ranch girl. Suzy knows. When Haskell comes in wearing muddy boots, saying, “Hi, baby. Hi, hon,” his wife stacks up the tarot cards and kisses him hello. She pours him fresh coffee and puts away the cards that say go.

GARRISON JUNCTION

IT HAD BEEN snowing hard for twenty-four hours and the snow stayed where it fell. A few cars crawled the streets, white lights emerging from whiteness, red taillights invisible until they were just ahead. The whole valley was socked in, the mountains invisible in the steady snow. Gina left the car running in the driveway with the heat on, and white flakes stung her eyes and melted on her cheeks. It would be worse up on the pass, where the snow came harder.

The phone was ringing inside the house, and the woman on the line asked for Chase. She said her name was Kathleen Sheehan and she was calling about a check; she said Chase would understand. Gina took down the Missoula number, put it in her pocket and went to the bathroom. Her bladder seemed to have shrunk to the size of a walnut. When she stood she felt shaky on her feet.

Chase came in, stomping his boots clean at the door. “How’s your car running?” he asked. He had put off getting studded tires on his truck all fall, and no garage in town had time for him now. Gina had put hers on when the roads were still dry.

“I think we should wait out the storm,” she said.

“Can’t wait.” He gathered a stack of manila folders and yellow pads for his deposition, his bare hands red from the cold. Gina wondered, watching him, if Kathleen Sheehan was a client—but then she wouldn’t be asking about a check, she’d be explaining why she hadn’t sent one.

Chase slid back the driver’s seat of Gina’s car as he climbed in, and lowered the seatback until he could see out the windshield. Gina buckled her seat belt over her queasy stomach. There were no cars on the valley road, and no cars coming from the mountains, only the snow blowing against the glass and the half-buried tracks ahead. A temporary orange sign posted where the road began to climb said: EMERGENCY VEHICLES ONLY.

“Chase,” she said.

“This is an emergency,” Chase said.