“Come in,” Barclay said again, amused. “Or I’ll complain to Stanley about his bottle man’s favoritism, paying visits to Dolly’s girls but not to me.”
Confounded, she stood where she was.
“This is Sadler,” Barclay said of the red-haired man. “He doesn’t bite. Are you sure you won’t come in? Don’t you want to see my house?”
Sadler was watching her, smiling faintly, coolly. She said, “What’s so special about it?”
“Only that it’s mine.”
“Seems like it’d be a lot of work to see everything that’s yours.”
“You’ve been listening to gossip. Fine, wait here.” He disappeared briefly, came back with the empty basket. Shutting the door on Sadler and his newspaper, he said, “I’ve been spending more time in Missoula, and I don’t like hotels, so I thought I should have a place.” He drew a gold cigarette case and lighter from his pocket, and sat on the edge of the porch, black shoes splayed in the grass. He patted the planks beside him. “Sit for a minute. Do you smoke?”
She sat. “Sometimes.” He lit a cigarette for her—ready-made, not hand-rolled—then his own. She noticed his hands were lightly freckled, the nails clean and carefully trimmed. She thought of Caleb’s cigarette case, Caleb at her breast. Caleb was not so unlike this man but less controlled, less formed. Caleb’s nails were bitten to the quick.
“I’ve just come back from Chicago,” Barclay said. “Have you ever been there?”
“Only on a train when I was a baby.”
“Have you ever been outside Missoula? Excluding infancy.”
“I’ve been to Seeley Lake, and my uncle took me to Helena, once.”
“But not outside Montana.” She shook her head. He said, “Well, Montana’s a good place. As good as any I’ve seen.”
“I want to see other places.”
“Elsewhere is overrated, in my experience.”
“What places have you been?”
“Oh, lots.”
“Outside America?”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever been to the Arctic?”
“No, thank god. It sounds terrible.” He saw her reaction. “You’d like to go? You don’t think it sounds lonely?”
“I wouldn’t mind.”
He had a crooked smile, higher on one side. “I’ve had enough of being lonely, I think.”
She nodded, at a loss for what to say.
“Aren’t you going to ask why I’m lonely?”
“All right.”
“So ask.”
“Why are you lonely?”
“It’s a chronic condition. My father sent me away to Scotland, where he came from, when I was very small. To a cold, dark, dismal school run by cold, dark, dismal people. Dark in terms of their souls, not their skins, which were extremely white. I’ve always been considered a curiosity. Brown for a Scotsman, ghostly for a Salish. My mother is Salish. Did you know that?” Underneath his careful ease she caught an almost imperceptible quiver of nerves, like fishing line gone taut after a bite.
“Yes.”
“You’ve been asking about me?”
“No,” she said too forcefully. “I heard it somewhere.”
He seemed amused. “That must mean you know my name, even though, rudely, I haven’t introduced myself.”
“You’re Barclay Macqueen.”
“What else do you know about me?”
“You have cattle up north.”
“What else?”
“You’re a businessman.”
“What kind of business?”
She looked him full in the face, dragged on her cigarette. The tobacco was milder than anything she’d smoked before but also richer. “Cattle. Like I said.”
“What else do you know?”
“Not one thing.”
“You understand discretion. That must serve you well in your business.” A sidelong glance. “The bakery business.” She smiled, looked away to hide it. He said, “What do the girls at Miss Dolly’s say about me?”
Frightened but bold, she said, “They say you like everything just so.”
He had a rough, barking sort of laugh. “That’s true. I do. Why shouldn’t I? Everybody should know what they want.” His eyes moved over her face. “Marian Graves. What is it you want most?”
No one had ever asked her such a question. To be a pilot. To be a pilot. To be a pilot. Telling him would be so simple, would require only four words. But she said, “I don’t know.”