The Fancy Dancer

little more about the deficiencies of my spiritual life, Father Matt filled his pipe again and said:
    “Actually, your notion about moving to the diocesan office isn’t all that unrealistic.’’
    “How come?” I said.
    “Well, maybe I shouldn’t get your hopes up. But Bishop Carney is going to need a new secretary this fall, and he’s looking around for a replacement. He wants a young priest, and you’re one of the men being considered.”
    The gloom lifted off me with the speed of light.
    “He has a special regard for Father Vance, and he’s not one hundred percent sure that he wants to take you out of Cottonwood. So don’t get your hopes up. Just...”
    “... Pray,” I said, grinning.
    Father Matt smiled. “Sometimes our fantasies and God’s will coincide.”
    As I left, I wondered why I’d stuck with this one spiritual director so slavishly since the seminary days. Habit was one of my curses. On the other hand, Father Matt could make me uneasy or frighten me worse than any other priest I knew. Maybe this ambivalence about him was what was holding me back.
    » » »
    When I got to the city limits of Cottonwood, the clock in my dashboard said just past nine-thirty p.m.
    As I drove along the darkened fairgrounds and saw the bright neon signs and the two traffic lights of Main Street up ahead, I relaxed a little and thought, Father’ll be pleased, I’m home a little early. The lighted clock in the tower of the dark City Hall said nine thirty-five. The only life on Main Street was hidden in the bars, and even that wasn’t as lively as on Fridays and Saturdays.
    But as I stopped at the first red light, by the City Hall with its severe Doric columns, a Saturday-type disturbance caught my eye.
    On the comer of Main and Placer Streets stood the City Hall. Right across from City Hall, on Placer, was the gloomy old brick Rainbow Hotel, where the Greyhound bus depot was. (That bus, or a small plane from the airstrip, or a car, or your own two feet, were the only ways you could get out of Cottonwood anymore. ) Between the Rainbow Hotel and the boarded-up old building that had once been the livery stable, there was an alley.
    In that alley, a fistfight was going on. I rolled down the car window and sat there in the car watching it Even over the idling engine, the crash of hotel garbage cans, the oofs and grunts and the thud of fists were clear. I was mildly curious. Anybody who could get up enough energy for a fight on Sunday night sure must have something eating at him.
    Two of the men were rolling over and over at the mouth of the alley. I recognized a black leather jacket with silver lettering on the back. One of the men was Vidal.
    My insides clenched. I looked up Main Street to see if Winter’s squad car was on its way, but the street was empty. Either nobody had seen the fight yet and called the cops, or somebody was just now doing it and Winter would be along in a few minutes.
    The men got up and started punching each other, and disappeared into the alley again.
    I didn’t want to see Vidal arrested. Maybe I could break up the fight. It was my duty anyway, no matter who it was.
    A second before the light changed, I gunned the engine and wheeled the car off into Placer Street. Parking just past the hotel entrance, I jumped out. As I ran toward the alley, the scufflings, grunts and smack of fists got louder and louder. The garbage cans crashed again, and a woman yelled from a window above the alley, “Hey, cut it out down there!”
    I charged into the alley and got a good look now. The smell of dank earth, old brick and garbage hit my nostrils.
    Vidal was fighting with two well-known roughnecks from the little ranch community of Whalen, fifteen miles up the valley. They were the Smith brothers, one a blacksmith, the other a trackdriver. They were both over six feet, and both would drive a hundred miles to find one good fight. Vidal, however, was holding his own with them pretty well. He was over six feet too, and if the Smith brothers were brawn, he was quicker, faster and brainier—a case of a panther fighting two jaguars.
    For a moment I stood frozen at the alley entrance. I had read about violence, seen it, been emotionally affected by it, preached against it. But I had never felt so uncomfortably close to it as now. The sheer savagery of Vidal’s fight was overwhelming. I hardly recognized him. The saddened, disturbed drunk with the silver necklaces who had slumped down in my confessional last