Breaking Point

some.”
    Butch nodded, but his eyes stayed hard on Joe’s face, like he was expecting another shoe to drop.
    Joe grunted again as he stood on the ground. His lower back joined his knees and thighs in the pain parade. But he thought it important to dismount, get on Butch’s level, so he wouldn’t seem imperious by talking down to him.
    “I didn’t see your rig anywhere on the Big Stream,” Joe said. “What did you do, walk here through the National Forest?”
    “From the road,” Butch said, peering up and over Joe’s shoulder.
    “That’s quite a hike.”
    “It wasn’t so bad.”
    “Seven, eight miles?”
    “I do twenty a day when I’m hunting,” Butch said without a hint of boastfulness. He was stating a fact. That was something Joe had noticed before when he talked to Butch, whether it was about hunting, or the snowpack, or roads that were still open into the mountains and break lands, or their daughters—no humor, no nuance. Butch was a serious man who didn’t use many words and who seemed to regard small talk as a waste of time and calories. In that regard, Joe found him a kindred soul.
    Joe led Toby twenty feet toward Butch and tied the horse to a live tree. While he did, Daisy bounded forward, tail stiffly wagging from side to side, and snuffled Butch’s camo trousers. There was an etiquette about entering another man’s camp, and that was to keep a distance until invited inside. Daisy had broken the rule.
    “Daisy,”
Joe warned, dropping his voice.
    “It’s fine. I like dogs. She hunt?”
    “We’ll see,” Joe said. “I’m working with her until bird season, and then I’ll give her a go. Don’t let her eat what you’re cooking.”
    “Just heating up coffee,” Butch said. “I already had lunch. You hungry?”
    “No, but thanks for asking.”
    “I know I’m not supposed to have a fire.”
    Joe nodded. There had been an official fire ban since early that summer, placed there by the Forest Service due to the dead trees. The rule was hated by campers and hikers. Dozens of campsites had been closed in the area, and dozens more were rumored to be closed. Joe hadn’t said anything because the fire ban was federally enforced and not in his purview.
    When Joe didn’t respond, Butch nodded, then stood there expectantly. Joe wanted to tell him to relax. Instead, he tried for common ground.
    “When I left this morning, Hannah and Lucy were still asleep on the living room floor. They like to get out sleeping bags and watch movies, but I think they talk more than they watch,” Joe said. Lucy and Hannah were both entering the ninth grade at Saddlestring Middle School. They’d been friends since grade school and shared the same interests in drama, choir, and dance. Lucy never hesitated to tell Joe and Marybeth that she envied Hannah, who lived in town and could ride her bike everywhere. Unlike her, who was stuck in a state-owned Game and Fish Department house eight miles away from the action on a gravel road.
    “Teenagers can sleep,” Butch said.
    Joe laughed. “I’ve got three of ’em. Three girls, that is. You’re right—they can sleep.”
    “That’s what they seem to do best,” Butch said, his face suddenly wistful. Then: “Hannah used to be my little buddy. I’d get her up before dawn and we’d go out and scout game or go fishing. She kind of lost interest in that when . . .”
    Joe looked up, waiting for the rest. But Butch had flushed and looked away. And Joe realized the rest of the sentence might have had to do with Lucy.
    “Never mind,” Butch grumbled.
    Joe let it go. He knew the feeling. His oldest daughter, Sheridan, had accompanied him often into the field when she was growing up. She’d announced once that she wanted to be a game warden herself, or a master falconer, or a horse trainer. That was before Sheridan had completed her first year at the University of Wyoming, though she had yet to declare a major. She could sleep, too, and that’s all she did on the days she wasn’t working as a waitress at the Burg-O-Pardner to earn money over the summer before starting her second year.
    April, their seventeen-year-old ward, worked part-time at a western-wear store in retail between bouts of being grounded. And when she was home and grounded . . . she slept.
    “When did she get there?” Butch asked.
    “Hannah?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Last night some time,” Joe said. “I saw her car parked out front.”
    Butch nodded. Then, without preamble: “I hope you