She would make it through the winter even without Baptiste, even when most days she had little more to eat than fry bread and beans. She belted her skirts now to keep them from falling down. A few days earlier the health nurse had placed two fingers at Louise’s chest and had tapped until Louise could hear the dull hard thump of her bones. She knew the nurse thought she had TB. Louise knew her sickness was only hunger. All winter long she would wake up nightly, shivering in her frostbitten dreams of eating venison. She woke remembering how Charlie had chased her up the narrow canyon, how she had hid in a rock split that would swallow her now. She knew this hunger would grip her into spring. A hunger that would stay with her long after the Indian celery had blossomed. A hunger that had made her stingy and jealous.

She hadn’t seen Harvey Stoner in a while and then one night he pulled up just outside her grandmother’s house and parked. She had grabbed her coat and left with him. Harvey Stoner had taken Louise to Kalispell, a dark bar no different from the bar in Dixon. She kept her coat on even though the snow melted from her shoes. She was afraid Stoner might see how thin she had become, how hungry she was. She had hoped he would take her out for a meal so she could save her food for her grandmother, but Harvey did not talk about food. It was early December. Dusty red lights glowed in nests of angel hair above the bar. A string of red and green lights was tacked in the narrow window that overlooked Main Street.

Stoner talked to the bartender and gave her four bits to play the jukebox. She pocketed one quarter and slipped the other quarter into the machine. She heard Harvey shake for the jukebox. She could hear the bartender whispering, feel the lazy approval of Harvey’s gaze on her backside.

“Get some peanuts, Harvey, will you?” she said, hoping he would not hear the hunger in her voice.

“She wants my nuts,” the bartender said, and both men laughed.

She felt the floor cool with a thin sheath of snow as the door opened. She read the jukebox list and punched until she felt the hand on her shoulder. It startled her but she had learned not to show fear, not to jump at sudden advances. She looked up and saw her husband. She felt her heart strike her chest. She glanced past his shoulder, expecting to see his girlfriend, but he was alone.