He had a cowboy shirt on, fancy, but not storebought. There were hand-embroidered cowboy boots on his cuffs, on his left shoulder a horse head with an eye too big. It had fine detailed stitching, like lasso roping for the yoke. The fabric looked wet and was the color of beans. He’s proud of himself, Louise thought and pressed the side of her forehead and cheek to the cool door window. She could feel wind skim her scalp; it pulled a strand of her hair through the window crack. Louise leaned her head back on the seat and looked ahead at the path of his headlights. The moon could not light up this darkness. The land lay out blind to them. He drove his car too close to the edge of a hill. She saw the rapid eyes of a porcupine, the gray needles of his coat, then the night again, pinholes of stars, the road threading out, the weak moon.

They were leaving the town of Arlee and she was looking forward to Missoula. She pressed her tight back into the seat, lit a cigarette, and opened the ashtray. It was clean. She tapped it shut and rolled down the window. The man gripped the steering wheel. She could feel the smooth force of the car, the solid whining road.

“What’s your name?” she said. The man swallowed. “My real name,” he said, “is Vivian.”

“What’s your other name?” she asked. She could half see his reflection on the windshield. He was rubbing his neck.

“Vance.”

“Vance,” she repeated, but she did not offer her name. They passed one car with a dull headlight low to the ground. The other headlight shot the windshield silver and for a moment there was only a blinding whiteness, then the sky beyond, dense as velvet. Louise listened to the man breathe. He turned on the radio. A voice from Great Falls listed midland farm prices, the price of corn, wheat, potatoes. The radio popped and hummed. She licked the powder off a stick of gum and stuck it back in her pocket to light another cigarette. She handed the cigarette to the stranger, saying nothing. He pulled a breath in slowly, his chest full, exhaling a sigh. She could smell his lungs, sweet from sips of Coca-Cola, and she tried to imagine him naked. He would live at home, she thought, a man whose mother sewed cowboy shirts for him, pressing detailed horses and lassos to his bowed shoulders. A man who would only be naked behind a bathroom door, his butt red from a hot bath. She smiled at him and he glanced at her, his eyebrows as thin as his nose. She felt a sudden warmth for him, sitting in his dark car smoking cigarettes, traveling over roads that had scorched her feet too many times. She could like him.