A bowlegged trapper walked into the bar carrying a Browning automatic .22 rifle. “Let’s go in with the gun,” Colette said. “No sense in leaving it out here to get stolen.”

Inside, the bar had dusty pine floors, scratched and gouged plywood walls, and a drooping, water-stained Sheetrock ceiling. To the left was a long bar backed with a forest of liquor bottles. To the right were a few bare wooden tables, a blank expanse of dance floor, and a cracked and faded Rockola jukebox with strapping tape holding its glass bubble together. Several middle-aged trappers sulked at their tables, dressed for Saturday night in untucked thin plaid shirts, sharing long-necked beers with two sunburned women. “See,” Colette said. “There are women here. It’s not gonna be so bad.”

Standing near the bar were twenty or so younger fellows, stout and shaggy, many in rubber knee boots and short-sleeved denim shirts. They compared rifles and waved money around for side bets and entry fees. One fat, dark man held a long-necked bottle in his right hand and poked another big fisherman with his right forefinger, sloshing beer down the other fellow’s shirt. The man with the wet shirt grabbed the bottle and turned it upside down in the fat man’s belt. This caused a momentary reshuffling of the room, but no punches were thrown, and the fat man ordered another beer, waddling out to the spindly wharf at the rear of the building to dry in the sun.

When Colette walked into the bar, she drew many stares, and when she paid the entry fee, everyone who noticed her either smiled bitterly or glowered. Paul looked about at the smelly crowd and bent down to her. “Let’s go back home. It’s not worth it.”

She waved him off. “Do you know how hard I have to work to get five hundred dollars?”

Paul made a face and turned to Etienne, who was already back from the bar with three foaming cans of beer. “Here’s your change, dogmeat,” Etienne said.

“I don’t think Colette wants a beer.”

“I know. These two’s for me.”

The jukebox came alive and several couples stood up to dance. A Sabine Indian, his face the color of burgundy, came up to Etienne and poked him in the ribs. “My wife says she wants to dance with you,” he said, his expression unreadable. Etienne glanced at the man’s sheathed hunting knife and followed him through the crowd.

Paul turned toward Colette in time to see a gray-eyed young man say something to her under his breath. She flashed around, her rifle upright, and pumped a shell into the chamber. The young man turned quietly to the bar as she backed out of his reach. She looked at Paul and said, “Save your strength.” He took a long pull on his beer and watched her lower the hammer on the Winchester.