had played on the same baseball team in high school. Phil was a first baseman, and Frank always thought he had the right sort of detachment for that position, a driftiness in responding to the facts, a kind of lag timing peculiar to first basemen.
“Hi, Frank.”
“Phil. We’ll go in my car.”
Phil put his tackle in the back seat of Frank’s car and got in.
Phil Page was a brakeman on the railroad. Their friendship, which went back a quarter of a century, had been revitalized by troubles with their marriages. It was just like being back on the baseball team together. Phil usually fished with him on the weekends, but only if they made what he called a reasonable start.
“How’s the railroad life?”
“Rolling.”
“Making any money?”
“A little.”
“Where are we going?”
“Let’s go way the shit up the Sixteen,” said Phil. “I’m in a brook trout state of mind.”
They stopped at a twenty-four-hour convenience store to get some lunch supplies. The woman at the cash register was watching television so intently that Frank was able to slit the plastic wrap on a porn magazine and get a glimpse of the photographs, one after the other; it was like a seafood catalogue. Hard to maintain fascination in the face of that. The vagina was a splendid thing, but viewed as a monument it was entirely terrifying. The tiny, out-of-focus heads in the shadows behind those colossal, multicolor Mount Rushmore–sized cunts made Frank sorry he had looked. He wondered if these young women were discovered at soda fountains the way they used to discover Hollywood movie stars.
Phil came around the corner. “Man cannot live by bread alone,” he said, then held up a jar. “He must have peanut butter.” Phil displayed the two described items. “What else?”
“Two six-packs.”
The country opened up quickly as they came down out of the Bridger Range going east toward the route of the old electric railroad. Blue skies, white flatiron clouds, sagebrush and grass, rhythmic hills betraying sea-floor origins, a sinewy black road that lifted on occasion to afford a glimpse of sparkling watercourses in the willows, cows of different colors but the same expression, doe-eyed calves, hawks contouring an air cushion on the surface of the land, the golden skeletons of tumbleweed blowninto the fence corners, pictures of politicians on the telephone poles grinning insincerely into the vast space, and gophers running, heads down for speed or heads up to alertly observe themselves being run over.
A truck went by with a pair of scowling ranchers in front.
“I wonder if their mothers tie weights in the corners of their mouths,” Phil said. “You know, kinda like the Watusis do to their ears and lips. I bet that’s the case, the mama rancher hangs weights in the corner of baby’s mouth. Then the little boy baby gets a little cowboy hat and little boots with little spurs and weights for his mouth. Next they give the little shit a little lariat and stick a pair of steer horns on a hay bale. Most generally, the little shit is called Boyd, and in ten or twenty years’ time Boyd’s getting drunk and beating cows with his stock whip, abusing his old lady and stubbing out cigarettes in front of the TV.”
“During this entire time,” said Frank, “your railroader is mostly in church or tending his kitchen garden or cuddling a litter of rabbits to help them through a blue norther. He’s a man of few words but they are always the same words: ‘The Railroad Built Montana.’ ”
“Turn left,” said Phil. “Asshole.”
The road took them off into a prairie with brilliant pale stands of bear grass and, below, a spring surrounded by aspens. A quarter mile beyond the spring a long slough solidified into a shining expanse of canary grass, deep green and dense. The Sixteen River meandered between parallel bands of willows, a true sagebrush trout stream heading west to rattlesnake canyons and the wide Missouri.
They stood beside
“Hi, Frank.”
“Phil. We’ll go in my car.”
Phil put his tackle in the back seat of Frank’s car and got in.
Phil Page was a brakeman on the railroad. Their friendship, which went back a quarter of a century, had been revitalized by troubles with their marriages. It was just like being back on the baseball team together. Phil usually fished with him on the weekends, but only if they made what he called a reasonable start.
“How’s the railroad life?”
“Rolling.”
“Making any money?”
“A little.”
“Where are we going?”
“Let’s go way the shit up the Sixteen,” said Phil. “I’m in a brook trout state of mind.”
They stopped at a twenty-four-hour convenience store to get some lunch supplies. The woman at the cash register was watching television so intently that Frank was able to slit the plastic wrap on a porn magazine and get a glimpse of the photographs, one after the other; it was like a seafood catalogue. Hard to maintain fascination in the face of that. The vagina was a splendid thing, but viewed as a monument it was entirely terrifying. The tiny, out-of-focus heads in the shadows behind those colossal, multicolor Mount Rushmore–sized cunts made Frank sorry he had looked. He wondered if these young women were discovered at soda fountains the way they used to discover Hollywood movie stars.
Phil came around the corner. “Man cannot live by bread alone,” he said, then held up a jar. “He must have peanut butter.” Phil displayed the two described items. “What else?”
“Two six-packs.”
The country opened up quickly as they came down out of the Bridger Range going east toward the route of the old electric railroad. Blue skies, white flatiron clouds, sagebrush and grass, rhythmic hills betraying sea-floor origins, a sinewy black road that lifted on occasion to afford a glimpse of sparkling watercourses in the willows, cows of different colors but the same expression, doe-eyed calves, hawks contouring an air cushion on the surface of the land, the golden skeletons of tumbleweed blowninto the fence corners, pictures of politicians on the telephone poles grinning insincerely into the vast space, and gophers running, heads down for speed or heads up to alertly observe themselves being run over.
A truck went by with a pair of scowling ranchers in front.
“I wonder if their mothers tie weights in the corners of their mouths,” Phil said. “You know, kinda like the Watusis do to their ears and lips. I bet that’s the case, the mama rancher hangs weights in the corner of baby’s mouth. Then the little boy baby gets a little cowboy hat and little boots with little spurs and weights for his mouth. Next they give the little shit a little lariat and stick a pair of steer horns on a hay bale. Most generally, the little shit is called Boyd, and in ten or twenty years’ time Boyd’s getting drunk and beating cows with his stock whip, abusing his old lady and stubbing out cigarettes in front of the TV.”
“During this entire time,” said Frank, “your railroader is mostly in church or tending his kitchen garden or cuddling a litter of rabbits to help them through a blue norther. He’s a man of few words but they are always the same words: ‘The Railroad Built Montana.’ ”
“Turn left,” said Phil. “Asshole.”
The road took them off into a prairie with brilliant pale stands of bear grass and, below, a spring surrounded by aspens. A quarter mile beyond the spring a long slough solidified into a shining expanse of canary grass, deep green and dense. The Sixteen River meandered between parallel bands of willows, a true sagebrush trout stream heading west to rattlesnake canyons and the wide Missouri.
They stood beside
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