Dead Silver

42

It was still morning, and we weren't in any rush to get there. Buddy Pertwee worked for a landscaping business and wouldn't be available until late afternoon. I decided to avoid the Interstate and take a longer route that was one of my favorite drives-all two-lane roads, first northwest to the Blackfoot River corridor, and then following the Blackfoot west to Missoula. There'd be hardly any traffic most of the way, and the landscape was a showcase of what I loved about Montana.

The day was typical for this time of year, with big billowy clouds that put a biting edge on the breeze when they darkened the sun, but then would part for a tantalizing burst of warmth. Canyon Creek was still iced along the banks but mostly rippled fast and free, so clear it made me thirsty. The forest thickened and the patchwork of snow became a solid quilt as we climbed the hairpin curves up Flesher Pass. From the top, the view stretched for miles, ended only by mountains or the horizon.

"I didn't sleep with Ian again, since us," Renee said. Her words came out of the blue; she'd hardly spoken for the last half hour, and she hadn't mentioned him at all until now. The Continental Divide seemed an odd place to suddenly bring him up. But then again, maybe it was exactly right.

I got one of those pleasant little tingles that I'd gotten with her before, a mix of emotions and physical sensation that brushed across my skin, or maybe rose up through it.

"I figured that was none of my business," I said. "But it's nice to know."

"I told him about you and me."

"I've been wondering about your ring."

"I gave it back to him," she said. "We didn't completely break the engagement. I just need to step away for a while."

"How'd he take it?"

"He was very understanding. Hurt, but he knows it's not about him. It's my own problems, that I've been having all along. Then on top of that comes this crazy situation with my father."

I was relieved. I had feared that Ian was the one who had broken the engagement because she'd confessed our affair or he suspected it, and that her regret might be growing.

"Does he still think you'll come to your senses?" I said.

"I guess so. He's the one who asked not to break things off. But he might change his mind. And let's face it, there'd be women standing in line for a nice young doctor."

"I hardly know Ian, but I suspect he's not going to change his mind unless he has to."

She gave me a quick grateful smile. "I hope I don't sound heartless. I feel guilty, of course."

I felt bad for him, too. But if I'd been him, I sure wouldn't have wanted to be on a marriage track with a woman who felt anxiety instead of anticipation.

Renee settled back and turned her attention to the roadside scenery, while I concentrated on negotiating the steep tight turns of the pass. Coming up it was one thing; going down was another, especially in an old rig like mine. This truck was built for work, and though it handled well and soundly, it didn't have the correction buffers built into modern vehicles. If you went into a curve a few miles per hour too fast or a few feet too far to one side, pulling out would be hairy at best. Then again, she was still running as strong as ever after forty years-well worth the extra effort-and she'd never let me down.

As the terrain leveled out the road continued to wind through a particularly lovely area approaching the Blackfoot highway. West of the Divide, the ground cover of snow mostly disappeared except in the distant higher mountains, and the crisp blue of the sky segued into a softer gray. The weather over here tended to be warmer and wetter anyway, and now it looked like a front was moving in from the Pacific. A fine drizzle began as we followed the Blackfoot, fat and roiling with spring runoff. The last few miles into Missoula took us through Hellgate Canyon, a narrow cliff-lined stretch that had been a favorite place for hostile Native tribes to ambush each other. According to one theory, this was the origin of the city's name-a Salish Indian word meaning "horrible."

We splurged on a good hotel, a sedate older place near downtown, and got a third-floor room with a little balcony overlooking the Clark Fork River. After lunch, we still had a couple of hours to while away before meeting with Buddy Pertwee. We decided to stay home and rest up-get ready for the reason we'd come here.

There's a special quality to a situation like that. With the door closed, the room was our sanctuary, cozy and private, and nobody knew or cared that we were there. We stretched out on top of the bed and bundled up together in the comforter, achieved a satisfactory arrangement of limbs, exchanged one brief chaste kiss, and slipped into a delicious trance soothed by the murmur of the river below and the fingers of rain streaking the hazy windows.