Dog Run Moon by Callan Wink Read Free Book Online Page B

he might like to build a snow fort. Kind of like an igloo, but also with some sticks, like a tipi. He enlisted his brother’s help. His mother helped for a while, too, but then she said she was tired and went to sit on a bench. There were some trees over there, and he could just see the river behind her. She was wearing a bright-red Livingston Fire Department hat that used to be Dale’s, and he had the thought that if snowmen had blood, their insides would look like a cherry snow cone.
    When he looked up again a short time later, he saw that there was a man, sitting on the bench next to his mother. They were at opposite ends, and he was too far away to see if they were talking. It didn’t look like they were. It looked like the bench was too small for the two of them, like they didn’t want to be on it with each other. The man was wearing a bright-orange hunting cap. Neon orange. His mom had her bright hat on, and this man had his on, and everything else was white snow or gray tree trunks or black river. He stopped working on his fort wall and started to walk over. His mom thought he was a little kid still, but he wasn’t. He was ten years old now and he’d picked up a fallen cottonwood stick as big around as his wrist, and he was stomping fast through the deep snow, watching his mother the whole time.
    When he got closer, he could see his mother wiping at tears, smiling. This was fairly common now too. She had her cheerful voice and then her even more cheerful wiping-away-tears voice.
    “It’s fine,” she said. “I’m okay, honey. Say hi to Ken. We were just talking.”
    “Hi, Ken.” He still had his stick resting on his shoulder. Ken’s eyes were red rimmed, and his nose was running. He was leaning over doing something with his hands in the snow next to his leg. He threw the snowball with almost no warning. “Batter’s up, kid,” was all he said.
    Probably Ken thought he’d miss, but his dad had taught him how to hit a long time ago, and he was ready even though it looked like he wasn’t. He swung his cottonwood stick as hard as he could, and the snowball evaporated into a mist of cold white powder that slowly filtered down over all three of them. He could feel it melting on his neck under his collar. It turned to wet drops like tears under Ken’s cheeks. It coated his mom’s dark hair so it looked like she’d instantly gone old and gray.
    “Hot damn,” Ken said. “What a cut that was. You might make the big leagues yet.”

ONE MORE LAST STAND
    A t the last rest stop before Crow Agency, Perry pulled off and donned the uniform in a stall in the men’s restroom. Navy-blue wool pants and high-topped leather riding boots. A navy-blue wool tunic with gaudy chevrons and large gilt buttons. Elbow-length calfskin gloves. A broad-brimmed hat with one side pinned up rakishly. He smoothed his drooping mustache and ran his fingers through his long blond hair. When he got back into his car, he had to take off the hat. He was tall, and the crown crushed against his Camry’s low ceiling.
    Out over the Bighorn range the sky was going red, a red shot through with sooty black tendrils of cirrus horsetail. He came in fast, pushing the Camry up to ninety down the last hill into the Little Bighorn valley. It felt like a charge, headlong and headstrong, brash, driving hard into the final waning moments of a lurid sunset. He put the windows down to feel the rush of air. Only in this place, Perry thought, could the sky look like an expanse of infected flesh. What was the saying?
    Red sky at night, sailors take fright?
    Red sky at night, keep your woman in sight?
    How about: red sky at night, bad men delight?
    —
    He’d gotten his usual room at the War Bonnet Motel and Casino. There was a king-sized bed and an ironing board that folded down from the wall and an unplugged mini-fridge. The first thing he did was plug in the mini-fridge. The second thing he did was take off and hang up the uniform. Then Perry stretched out