Montana Highway 52

Saturday morning Wes picked me up at the curb in front of the theater and made a U-turn on the empty four-lane street. We went on past the downtown and Custer’s and the Amtrak station. 

We crossed the interstate on an overpass and drove a meandering country road northeast out of town, through rolling hills the color of pheasant feathers. In the distance rose blue pine-ridged mountains.

We saw several ranches, each with an unpainted stock barn and corral and a narrow white two-story farmhouse beside a single locust tree. 

From a rise I saw a herd of elk far off in a side valley and later two golden eagles on the tops of power poles. A prairie chicken crossed the road in a heavy blur of wings. The dry pastures were empty beyond the barbed wire fences, except for ground squirrels and three fat does that didn’t run but turned their heads with large eyes and wide ears to watch us pass. 

To the east, bare granite peaks began to stand up in a slanted line of jagged broken pinnacles. When I asked, Wes said they were the Bear Tooth Range. 

It was good to get out of town on the deserted two-lane road, away from the awful sound and smell of the mill. I thought of the man who’d nearly lost his leg. I wondered if he’d eaten his lunch against the brick wall, if he’d been the one that first day who’d spread his arms wide and said that Sleeping Child Lake was full of big fish. 

We crossed a bridge over a stream with thick yellow rushes and fluffy cattails. Up the stream where the high tulles ended, a man and two boys were fishing from the bank with red and white floats.

“I don’t have a license. You sure we aren’t going to get busted by the warden?”

“Haven’t yet. It’s secret. The warden doesn’t know about it. It’s not on his compass.”

I leaned back sleepily, watching the autumn country go by, then lurched forward. I put a hand on the dash.

“Jesus, look at that—”

“I see him,” Wes said.

He came up slowly, then pulled off onto the shoulder, and we got out of the cab. 

The black-haired man in cowboy boots kept crawling on all fours. His head was down; something dangled from a leather cord around his neck. He moved his palms forward and dragged his knees. 

The knees of his Levis were torn and red with blood. Wes walked up behind him, then leaned down, talking just above his ear:

“Joe?”

The man continued to crawl. 

“Joe White Horse?” Wes said again.

“Yes,” the man said. He kept crawling. Wes took a step.

“Joe!” Wes said. He reached down and touched the man’s shoulder.

White Horse stopped. He looked up, then turned his head sideways. 

“Who is it?”

“It’s Wes Blackdeer. Mary’s boy.”

White Horse looked at Wes’ boots, then up at his silver belt buckle.

“Yes. I know you, Wes.”

“I’m going to take you home.”

“You are?” White Horse looked back at the asphalt.

“Yes,” Wes said. 

“To Mary’s house?” White Horse asked.

“No. To your house.”

“Okay,” he said. 

“Get his legs,” Wes said. He put his hands under White Horse’s arms and turned him over. 
On White Horse’s shirt front, at the end of the leather thong, lay a Sleeping Child carving like mine, like the one the old woman had worn at the country store in Idaho.

“Grab his feet.”

Wes and I lifted White Horse and carried him to the truck. He was light, like a hollow bird bone or the quill of a feather. He didn’t make a sound.

“Where you want him?”

“In the back. I’ll lay out a blanket.” 

We stood White Horse up carefully against the truck. 

“Hold him under the arms.”

I held him as firmly and gently as I could. I could feel his thin chest and the back of his shoulders.

“Hold him while I get the blanket.”

“Is that you, Wes?” White Horse asked me, squinting.

“It’s Bill, Wes’ friend.”

“Oh,” White Horse said. “Bill.” 

Wes spread a blanket in the truck bed. We lifted White Horse in and set him down. Wes put a folded coat under his head. 

Wes leaned over him. “You all right?” 

“Yes.” White Horse looked up like a man in a hospital bed.

“You want a drink of water?”

“No,” he said.

“Okay,” Wes said. He stepped down from the truck, lifting the tailgate. We got in and Wes pulled onto the road. 

I looked back through the window at White Horse. One raw palm was turned upward. I couldn’t tell how old he was. He was brown and folded in on himself, like a flower turned from the sun. He could be anywhere between 65 and 85. 

“You think he’ll be all right?” I asked.

“I think so,” Wes said.

We drove on in silence. 

“It’s worse at night.”

“Night?” I turned to look at Wes.

“They get their government checks and hitch a ride into town. They stay till they drink it all up. Then they try to crawl home. Cars hit ’em.”

I stared at Wes. “Where’s he going?”

“The reservation.”

“How far is it?”

“Twenty-two miles.”

“Christ. Did you see his hands and knees?” 

“He’ll be all right. We’ll have to make a detour.”

“I don’t care about fishing,” I said.

“Sure. We’ll go. After we drop him off,” Wes said.

I looked back through the rear window again. White Horse had his eyes closed. I looked at his plaid shirt front and thought I saw it rise and fall. I couldn’t tell for sure with the truck moving. The Sleeping Child gleamed in the sun. 

“Don’t you want to take him to the Kootenay hospital?”

“No,” Wes said. “I want to take him home.”

He drove on until a line of power poles branched off to the east. He turned onto a gravel road that went down and across a wide swale. 

On the other slope was a fence and cattle guard and a government placard.