The Fancy Dancer

delinquents, that I’d sure like to see you do that kind of magic on. Maybe we could get the little Meg Shoups before they happen.”
    “It sounds like a good idea,” I said. “The trouble is, I’m half-overworked already. But why don’t you talk to Father Vance about it? He has the say-so.”
    Winter must have dropped by the rectory that same day and had a cup of coffee with Father Vance, because the next day my pastor called me into his office. He seemed grudgingly pleased.
    “I’ve heard some good things about you from John Winter,” he said. “Of course, Vidal’s not in heaven yet, so don’t let up on him. And this idea of Winter’s, the program for delinquents, well, you’d have to fit the program into your spare time. And as near as I can see, you don’t have any. Unless you’d like to give up your trip to Helena once a month.”
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    In the middle of the first week of July, there came the first really traumatic day of that summer.
    Cottonwood had celebrated the Fourth of July with a few firecrackers, a firemen’s barbecue, and a parade by the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Now the ranch people were starting the haying operations. I knew a little bit about ranching from my father—much of the bank’s business was still in agricultural loans. The last week in June, the ranchers shut off the irrigation water, and by the first week of July, the fields were dry enough to cut.
    Along toward noon that day, a lady called to cancel a counseling appointment. So it looked like I would have my thirty-minute lunch hour free for once. Father Vance was on call for emergencies.
    So I called Vidal down at the garage. “Why don’t you grab us a couple of sandwiches? It’s a beautiful day—let’s get out of town for a few minutes.”
    He came roaring up the hill on his bike, his hair blowing in the hot breeze. He was wearing his greasy coveralls and clutching a paper sack.
    “Whatsa matter?” he kidded me. “You got church fever?”
    “Church fever?”
    “That’s when a priest gets cabin fever,” he said.
    We laughed, and I climbed on the bike behind him, and held on to him. I was in such a hurry that I kept my cassock on. In one more minute, we were out on the flats on the east side of town. We passed Fulton’s Greenhouse. Then v/e were sweeping up the long slope of Powderhou.se Hill. The road was bounded by two barbed-wire fences and one power line, and an eternity of dry hills and ravines on either side.
    We went howling and popping up past the old powderhouse, where they had stored ammo for the cavalry detachment garrisoned in Cottonwood until 1902. Then we passed the. abandoned brickworks, which had made all the brick for Cottonwood’s early buildings, including St. Mary’s. The earthquake had hit it hard, and the kilns and the stack had caved in.
    At die top of the hill, we hit another flat, or “bench,” that lay along the east side of the valley above the river floor. Up here there were thousands of acres of wild hay, dry-land wheat and native pasture. Here and there you could see hundreds of scattered dots in a pasture—cattle—and the toy buildings of some far-off ranch. I knew the griefs of many of those ranches, for the owners were parishioners of mine.
    Ten miles away, the mountains lifted from the eastern edge of the bench. Their peaks were streaked with the last of the snows, which would vanish in the hot days of July.
    Wind and dust stung my eyes, and my hair blew wildly. I wrapped my arms hard around Vidal, glad to be sheltered behind him. He was taking the full blast of the wind, but I knew he loved it. He was driving the big bike flat out, at about eighty miles an hour. I could feel his hard back against my chest. It was good to be tearing off down that long road with this strong friend.
    Now and then the road bent at right angles, and Vidal had to slow sharply. The land up here was laid out in neat sections. At one ninety-degree curve, we spotted three antelope standing about a hundred yards from the road. They must be some of the last left in the country. They bounced off into a nearby gully, flashing their snow-white rumps.
    Suddenly Vidal slowed the bike down. Ahead was a vast hayfield—it must have been three hundred acres. Along it, near the road, stood a lonely little clump of quaking aspen trees. Vidal turned the bike off the road there, and shut it off. The entire wild trip had taken about five minutes.
    The silence was deafening.
    “How’s this for a picnic