"Why'd you do that?" she said.

"You ever read Ernest Hemingway?" I asked.

"A little."

"In For Whom the Bell Tolls a Republican guerrilla is about to die on a hilltop in Spain and he tells himself, 'The world is a fine place and well worth the fighting for.' I always try to remember that line when I get down with the nature of things," I said.

We stopped at a restaurant on the eastern shore. It was too cool to eat by the water, but we took a table near the back window where we could see the afterglow of the sun on the hills on the far side of the lake and a steep-sided wooded island where there was a lighted log mansion set inside the trees and a white seaplane was taxiing in a rocky cove at the base of a cliff.

"I might have a chance to buy one of those islands out there," she said.

"You have that kind of money?" I said.

"Not really. But you only live once, right?"

It started to rain out on the lake, and the string of electric lights over the marina came on and Cleo gazed at the boats rocking in their slips, her thoughts known only to herself.

"This is one of the prettiest places I've ever been," I said.

But she didn't seem to hear me.

"I talked with an FBI agent about my son once," she said. "I told him my son was killed on National Forest lands. I thought I could get federal help solving his murder. He called back and said he checked, the body was actually on a state road when it was discovered. I hung up. I couldn't find words to speak. I've always regretted that."

The waitress brought the wine and poured it into both our glasses. Cleo took a sip, ate a piece of bread, then drank deeply from the glass. When she set it down, her mouth was red, her face striped with shadows from the raindrops that ran down the window. Beyond the marina was a motel built on a promontory above the lake. There was a blue neon sign over the entrance and families were eating in a back dining room that was supported by pilings built into the rock.

"You don't have to work tomorrow, huh?" I said.

"No."

"I'm glad."

"Why?"

"Maybe we could do something together," I said.

"You've never been married?"

"No. I have a son, though. He's twenty. He goes to Texas A amp;M."

"What happened to his mother?"

"She died. She was married to another man when she conceived our son. His name is Lucas. He's probably one of the best string musicians in the state of Texas."

The waitress brought our food and went away. The lake was dark now, and a sailboat was anchored out in the chop, its cabin glowing with an oily yellow light. The back door of the restaurant was open to let in the cool air, and I could hear a band playing at the motel up on the promontory.

"That's Glenn Miller," I said.

"Montana is a time warp," she said.

"So are all good places," I said.

She was quiet for a moment, then she set down her fork and lifted her eyes.

"You're not eating," she said.

"I don't eat much," I said.

"Billy Bob, you have a tendency to stare at people."

"Do you want to go?" I said.

"Where?"

"Down the road. Any place you've a mind. I don't care."

She watched my face, then picked up her purse.

We got into my truck and drove as far as the motel next door. I parked under the porte cochere. Through the lobby window I could see a girl of high school age behind the counter.

"You sure this is what you want?" Cleo said.

"Don't you?"

She didn't answer. She opened the truck door for herself and stepped out in the rain. The neon glow on her skin seemed to disfigure her face. For a moment I thought I saw L.Q. Navarro under the porte cochere, raising his hand in a cautionary way.

Inside the room I turned off the lights and sat in a chair and pulled off my boots with the awkwardness of a man who in reality had never been good with intimacy. A crack of light shone through the drawn curtains and I could see her silhouette as she undressed, a bare thigh, a crinkle in her hip as she pushed her panties down over her knees. The window was open and down below we could hear sounds from the gravel parking lot. I took off my trousers and shirt and walked up behind Cleo and placed my hands on her shoulders and started to turn her toward me. But her attention had been captured by the voices that rose on the wind from the parking lot.

"No! Let me alone!" a little boy was shouting.

"You get in the car, Ty!"

"I'm not going. You can't make me! Get away from me!" the boy yelled.

Cleo held back the curtain, indifferent to her nudity, and stared down at a middle-aged man in a white shirt and tie trying to pull a small boy by his wrists inside an automobile. Cleo's face wore an expression of unrelieved sadness.

"That's the family we saw in the lobby. The kid's probably throwing a temper tantrum," I said.

"I know," she said.

"He's all right," I said.

"I know that. I know that he's all right."

Later, in bed, I tried to pretend to myself that I wanted to give more than I wanted to receive. But I knew the selfishness that was always at work in my life, the heat and the repressed nocturnal longings and the violent memories that made me wake sweating in the false dawn, the dust and blood splatter that flew from L.Q. Navarro's coat the night I shot him, all these things that burned inside me, that made me ache for the absolution of a woman's thighs and breasts and the forgiveness of her mouth and the kneading pressure of her palms in the small of my back.

I buried my face in the smell of Cleo's hair and held her tightly against me and felt my heart twist and a dam break in my loins and all the sound and light in my body enter her womb.

I propped myself up on my arms and looked down into her face. Her stomach and thighs were moist against mine, and I was smiling at her and expected her, at least perhaps, to open her eyes lazily and smile back, her mouth ready to be kissed again. But her eyes were tightly shut, her brow creased with three deep lines, as though I had just made love to a fantasy and she was looking up into a hot sky that was tormented by carrion birds.

And I knew what Doc had meant when he said that neither the weight of headstones nor our heartbreaking and vain attempts at re-creating first love would ever disallow the hold of the dead upon the quick.

The next night Lamar Ellison was in a bar up the Blackfoot River, crashed on beer and reds, listening to the country band, talking to Sue Lynn, splitting a pitcher with Hollywood movie types who liked to float the Blackfoot and the Little Big Horn in safari hats and fly vests that showed off their suntans. Who knows, maybe he'd end up in the movies himself. Hey, look what happened to the Angels when they latched on to Leary and all these middle-class pukes who couldn't wait to fry their heads with Osley purple.

There was Holly Girard over at the bar, her husband, too. Xavier was big shit with the writers' community around here. Big shit in New York and Hollywood, too. European television crews interviewed him in lowlife bars, which Lamar couldn't figure out, because why would a guy who owned a mansion above the river want everybody to see him on camera with drooling rummies?

Had Xavier heard about that rape beef? That doctor, the SEAL, was a writer or poet, too, wasn't he? Man, that wasn't good. Xavier had keys to the right doors and got an artistic buzz or something goofing with bikers and guys who'd been inside. Besides, the guy's wife was a first-rate box of chocolates.

Lamar took the pitcher back up to the bar and stood next to Xavier, nodding at both him and his wife, blowing his cigarette smoke at an upward angle to show the right respect.

"Hey, my man Xavier," Lamar said.

"Yeah, Lamar, what's happenin'?" Xavier said. But his eyes were oblique, focused on the band and the dancers out on the floor, a swizzle stick deep in his jaw.