Nobody's Angel Read Online Free Page A

than his own, normally. But, for instance, being Mary’s older brother produced, just now, the following question: Who is Saint John of the Cross? I thought Jesus was the one with the cross. It was as if the cross was a party favor, a prize for the most serious face.
    “Want to stop at Three Forks and get plastered?” Mary inquired. Her hands made laughing shapes in the air, foretelling gala Three Forks. A saloon conjunction of the Missouri headwaters.
    “It isn’t the day for that.”
    “There’s another one with Ohio plates.”
    “I don’t care.”
    “Our home state is being deluged by those of Ohio.”
    “It’s fair.”
    When the universal shitstorm seemed to mount its darkest clouds, Patrick always said that it was fair. Mary fell silent. Her trouble was she thought it
wasn’t
fair. They’d had words about this before. Mary had said his calling everything fair made him more fatal than any Hindu. People like him, she accused, refused smallpox vaccine. Who did he think he was with this fairness? The truth was
nothing
was fair. That’s where I’ve got you, said Patrick.
    But Mary’s travails had today deprived her of fight. She fixed a stony look upon I-90. She didn’t think any of thesigns were funny and she stopped counting Ohio plates. Patrick began to worry. He could hear her breathing.
    When they spiraled down the Deadrock off-ramp, Mary said, “The other thing is, I’m in a family way.” The blackbirds shot across the lumberyard, and they both decided that watching them veer between the sawdust stacks was quite the best thing to do.
    They passed the smoking waste-burner and log reserves of Big Sky Lumber in silence; and similarly Madison Travertine, where water-cooled saws made weird pink marble slabs out of million-year-old hot-spring mineral accumulations. They crossed Carson’s Bridge over the big river while Patrick considered his next question and the mysterious sign painted on the rocks under the high falcon nests:
PLEASE STOP IT
    Nobody knew what the sign meant. In place of direct attention, Patrick accumulated roadside information: ROCK SHOP — AGATES , TERRI’S BEAUTY SHOP , YUMMEE FREEZE , HEREFORDS : MONTANA’S GREATEST TREASURE , U - NAME IT WE’LL FIND IT , a white barn in the turn with a basketball net, a rough-breaks sign, white crosses in Dead Man’s Curve, and the broad, good pastures, defined in the earth slits of flood irrigation. A farmer with a shovel watched the passing water.
    “Who’s the father?”
    “Not telling.” Drawing a lower eyelid down with her forefinger: Share God’s joke on us.
    “Okay.”
    “Do you have any babies in Germany?”
    “I don’t believe so.”
    “Little visits you might have made?”
    “Who said I made little visits? I was busy in the tank. You need a shower.”
    “Boy, do I.”
    “I should warn you, Mary.”
    “What?”
    “
Mother’s
visit coming up soon.”
    “Whew.”
    “So …”
    “I don’t know. Tough it out, I guess.”
    “Are you stable?” Patrick inquired.
    “Terribly. I wouldn’t have given them my name otherwise. I let them circulate my fingerprints while I caught up on some reading.” She patted her satchel of books.
    Patrick glanced over at Mary, glimpsed the eczema-like condition that left her hands cracked and red from the nervous attacks. They fluttered under his gaze.
    “How’s Grandpa?” she asked.
    “Just a little bit remote. You catch him at the right time and he pours it all out. Otherwise, he’s kind of floating around.” He was slipping toward Mary.
    “That’s because he’s old,” said Mary. “And because he knows he’s going to die soon.”
    Patrick could supply no refutation: He was in midair; he had no family and he wasn’t in love. He did try to make his sigh as significant as possible. Mary arched her brows.
    “What have you been doing for a living?”
    “Let’s not go into that,” said Mary.
    “Where have you been?”
    “I was in Belle Fourche, then Denver. I was in Texas