“No, sir. I just can’t abide the idea of it.”
“I don’t follow.”
“You feel sorry for the poor animals!” Nora exclaimed. “That’s it, isn’t it?”
Mr. Fahey sat back. His face was turning burgundy. “You can’t abide the idea of my business? The business that built this house? That bought this art? That’s paid you all summer?”
“I couldn’t accept your offer,” Jamie said, “though I appreciate your generosity.”
“You couldn’t—” Mr. Fahey cut himself off with a small sputter. “The offer is rescinded. I couldn’t trust a man who doesn’t eat like one.” He narrowed his eyes. “And you’re not to hang around my daughter anymore. Don’t think I don’t see you trailing after her.”
Desperately, Jamie searched Sarah’s face for understanding, but he saw only confusion and worry. She looked at her mother, who gazed steadily back, gave the smallest of nods. Sarah gathered herself, said to her father, “He doesn’t trail after me.”
“You’re not to see him anymore!”
Again she looked to her mother, but this time Mrs. Fahey was studying her plate. Tears overflowed onto Sarah’s cheeks, but Jamie saw she would not go against her father.
“Son.” Mr. Fahey was pointing a thick finger at him. “Son, God put animals on this earth for food. Animals kill and eat each other. We’re animals, too. We’re just smart enough to have figured out a better way to get meat than wandering around with bows and arrows. We’ve bred these animals to eat them. Cattle and pigs and chickens wouldn’t exist if they weren’t food.” He opened his mouth, pointed to his canines. “These?” he said. “God gave us these to show us what He wants us to eat. And that is the steak on your plate!”
Jamie put his napkin on the table, rose from his chair. “Goodbye,” he said. “Thank you.”
As he walked down the hall, he could hear Mr. Fahey shouting after him that he was an apostate and a fairy and that he should get out, get out of his house.
He did not feed the dogs that night. He went to Union Station and bought a ticket on a night train to Spokane and then on to Missoula.
Lonely and righteous, Jamie went home and learned his sister was engaged to Barclay Macqueen.
Missoula
August 1931
Two weeks before Jamie came home
A pale evening sky, deep rivers of shadow between the mountains. Marian circled until the drivers switched on their headlights, landed on the strip of flat land they’d illuminated. While they were unloading the cases, Caleb came walking out of the forest, his rifle across his back. The drivers’ hands went to their holsters.
“It’s all right!” Marian cried. “He’s my friend!” She jogged to meet Caleb, threw her arms around him in a way she would not have if they’d met in Missoula. Out here, there was a sense of occasion. “How did you find me?”
He was brown from the sun. His hair was braided down his back. “A little bird told me. How about a lift home?” Caleb had built himself a small cabin up the Rattlesnake from Wallace’s house.
She glanced at the men, who were making no secret of watching them. “You won’t be scared?”
“What’s there to be scared of? Aren’t you a good pilot?”
She’d been late arriving, and now they were late taking off. Darkness had fallen entirely by the time they reached Missoula, and the city’s lights shone gold among the mountains.
After she’d put the plane to bed, Marian drove Caleb back through town, up the creek past Gilda’s house, past Wallace’s house. After the road had dwindled to a rutted track in the forest, he told her to stop where a trail led off through the trees. “Come have a drink,” he said. “You saved me two days’ walking.”
The cabin was not far. As they walked in the dark, Marian said, “Why don’t you get a car?”
“I don’t want the responsibility. I don’t really like ownership in general.”
“Sometimes it’s worth it on balance, isn’t it?” she said. “Not that I have much experience.”
“I’d rather keep things simple.”
His cabin stood in a circular clearing and was small but expertly constructed, with tightly notched corners and each log hewn to sit flat on the next, smooth strips of mud daubing sealing the gaps. He took a key from his pocket.
“You lock your door,” she observed.