The Wolf Border(11)

She looks up. The young man is staring at her again. He raises his pint glass and smiles, drinks the remaining beer, leaves a spit of white foam webbed in the bottom of the glass. He is fit under his shirt and jacket, bullish, very blue-eyed. He is wearing a wedding ring. A wife at home then, watching television, drinking wine with her girlfriends, or minding a baby, perhaps. A wife who knows nothing, or maybe chooses not to care. The rules are always the same.

In America it’s easier: the codes, the expectations, what is and is not on offer. Oran is the easiest choice, and always available, but the hope and petulance afterwards are tiresome. She sees him most days in the office, must navigate tensions. He’s too close, too keen. Sometimes she goes to the casino. The gambling is uninteresting, and she doesn’t bother with it. But there are new faces, and a lone single woman such as her, not wearing a low-cut dress or heavy make-up, is no cause for concern, is not touting for business. The casino bar is busy. She steps through bodies to the counter and orders a drink, scans the room, as if searching for a friend who is late. Something about the cut of one of them – it is hard to know what exactly, the way he carries himself, his movement, or strength of bones – appeals. The way he acts can be interpreted: confidence, frustration, availability, a man on the border of a relationship, leaving or entering it, feeling entitled either way. She’ll lean past to take a serviette from the dispenser, between him and his friend. Sorry, hun – excuse me. That’s OK. A conversation starts up, designed to facilitate, nothing more. Her occupation is controversial, divisive – she avoids talking about it. Every man has an opinion. Often she will lie, limit the truth – I work on the Reservation; I’m in conservation.

The hunters are easily identified – close-shaven, militaristic, or long-haired and greasy, white marks from the sunglasses along their temples. Western liberals are preferable, the polo players, the pseudo-ranchers; their shirts neater, leather money-belts, a new truck. If her job is ever revealed, they are surprised. She is not a woman of hemp trousers and dry braids, neuter, husbandless, not an eco-freak. A woman like her someone will be f*cking, or want to f*ck. Her eyes are between colours – towards green, and in the daylight unquestionably green.

The rest is easy; everything plays out. Can I freshen that drink for you? Thanks, but I was just leaving. Hey, you’re Scottish? He is tall, looking down, his hand resting along the counter where she stands, almost mantling her. His friend is ignored, so turns away. No, just the other side of the border. Well, I’ve been to Edinboro – let’s have a scotch for Scotland, he suggests. OK. Three drinks is her limit. There will be a discreet place to test it – outside the restrooms, or in the parking lot. Proclivities can be detected, risks. A few will pull back, suddenly ashamed or guilty, but not many. The drives are sometimes long to get to an apartment, or the house of a compliant friend. She does not take them to her cabin. There are cheap motels on the way out of town. She’s crossed the Lolo Pass before, has gone into Washington State. She drives her own truck. He follows behind.

Or, more recklessly, she pulls off the road, down a dirt forestry lane, past seized-up logging equipment and stacked lumber. He parks behind her, gets out of the car, walks up slowly. Wrong turn? Got a flat? The darkness is not deep with the wattage of so many stars. She opens the truck door, steps out, leaves it standing open. In the cab light copper moths flicker; there are fireflies pulsing in the grass between pale trunks. Pretty night. She says nothing. She can’t really see his face. He keeps talking, makes another joke. Then he figures it out. He steps in, kisses her, one of evolution’s stranger necessities. It does not take much to accelerate him, the angle of her body, her tongue. He backs her against the truck, trying to judge the levels of permission: is this an interlude or the main event – his thoughts almost audible. He runs a hand over her shirt, over her breasts. She puts hers to his groin, the bulking jeans. Now he believes. Then it is like gentle fighting, both with each other and the impediment of clothing. They climb into the flatbed of the truck, and her shirt is taken off. She has a scar on her back, kidney to fifth thoracic, the line is buckled, stitched by a regional surgeon. A good story, but she doesn’t often tell it. She is swollen with blood; he slips his fingers in. The flash of a wagon’s headlights on the other side of the trees; a low rumble on the asphalt. Transporters, for whom the night is ephedrine and bluegrass.

The metal truck bed is damp, smells of oil and blood from the occasional deer carcass. She reaches into her pocket for her wallet, but he already has his open, is tearing the foil, fitting it over. She turns on all fours, not for his benefit, but the presentation is not lost on him. He murmurs agreement: hell, yeah. Another night he might go down on her, on any woman, make her swim, but this is different, sudden, abandoned. He kneels in place, pushes against her. He needs help to get inside, or he doesn’t; the moment is invariably erotic.

She braces against the cab wall and he holds her hips. There is just movement and noise, flesh slapping. Outside the truck: pine resin, tar, moths. A dry storm above Kamiah, lightning flashes like late-night television. The country underneath seems raw and heavy as lead, as if never intended to be unearthed. She rears back. He puts an arm around her stomach, pulls her for more depth. He reaches round to stroke her, courteously. Then it is automatic, impossible to stop. A man’s identity is revealed in the habit of climax; it is the real introduction. Fuck. Jesus Christ. He slumps against her. But the true psychology is in the withdrawal. Quick, perfunctory, or inched delicately out. Whatever was seen in the bar, in his face, his body, predicted correctly. Can I freshen that drink for you? Thanks, but I was just leaving. Sometimes she walks away.