"Sure," I said.

"I mean it, all the way across the road," he said.

I held up my palms.

"No problem," I said.

"Don't you want me to move my truck, though? We're blocking a lot of traffic."

I saw the sun-bleached boy and the girl walk Sally Dio around to the other side of the van. A sheriff's car was driving around the traffic jam on the edge of the road. Cletus put his revolver back in his nylon shoulder holster.

"You crazy sonofabitch," he said.

The holding cell in the county jail was white and small, and the barred door gave onto a small office area where two khaki-uniformed deputies did their paperwork. The cell contained nothing to sit or sleep on but a narrow wood bench that was bolted into the back wall, and no plumbing except a yellow-streaked drain in the center of the cement floor. I had already used the phone to call the babysitter in Missoula to tell her that I would probably not be home that night.

One of the deputies was a big Indian with a plug of chewing tobacco buttoned down tightly in his shirt pocket. He bent over a cuspidor by the side of his desk and spit in it. He had come into the office only a few minutes earlier.

"They already told you Dio's not pressing charges?" he asked.

"Yes."

"So it's just a disorderly conduct charge. Your bond's a hundred bucks."

"I don't have it."

"Write a check."

"I don't have one."

"You want to use the phone again?"

"I don't know anyone I can call."

"Look, guilty court's not for two days."

"There's nothing I can do about it, podna."

"The judge's already gone home or the sheriff could ask him to let you out on your own recognizance. We'll see what we can do tomorrow."

"I appreciate it."

"You came all the way up here from Louisiana to stomp Sally Dio's ass?"

"It sort of worked out that way."

"You sure picked on one bad motherfucker. I think you'd be better off if you'd blown out his light altogether."

For supper I ate a plate of watery lima beans and a cold Spam sandwich and drank a can of Coca-Cola. It was dark outside the window now, and the other deputy went home. I sat in the gloom on the wood bench and opened and closed my hands. They felt thick and stiff and sore on the knuckles. Finally the Indian looked at his watch.

"I left a message for the judge at his house. He didn't call back," he said.

"I got to take you upstairs."

"It's all right."

As he took the keys to the cell out of his desk drawer his phone rang. He nodded while he listened, then hung up.

"You got the right kind of lady friend," he said.

"What?"

"You're cut loose. Your bail's your fine, too. You ain't got to come back unless you want to plead not guilty."

He turned the key in the iron lock, and I walked down the wood-floored corridor toward the lighted entrance that gave onto the parking lot. She stood under the light outside, dressed in blue jeans and a maroon shirt with silver flowers stitched on it. Her black hair was shiny in the light, and she wore a deerskin bag on a string over her shoulder.

"I'll drive you back to your truck," she said.

"Where's Clete?"

"Up at Sal's."

"Does he know where you are?"

"I guess he does. I don't hide anything from him."

"Nothing?" I said.

She looked at me and didn't answer. We walked toward her jeep in the parking lot. The sheen on her hair was like the purple and black colors in a crow's wing. We got in and she started the engine.

"What's China pearl?" she asked.

"High-grade Oriental skag. Why?"

"You knocked out one of Sal's teeth. They gave him a shot of China pearl for the pain. You must have been trying to kill him."

"No."

"Oh? I saw his face. There're bloody towels all over his living room rug."

"He dealt it, Darlene. He's a violent man and one day somebody's going to take him out."

"He's a violent man? That's too much."

"Listen, you're into some kind of strange balancing act with these people. I don't know what it is, but I think it's crazy. Clete said he met you when you drove Dixie Lee all the way back to Flathead from a reservation beer joint. Why would you do that for Dixie Lee?"

"He's a human being, isn't he?"

"He's also barroom furniture that usually doesn't get hauled across the mountains by pretty Indian girls."

She drove up the east shore of the lake without answering. The trunks of the aspens and birch trees were silver in the moonlight, the rim of mountains around the lake black against the sky. I tried one more time.

"What does it take to make you understand you don't belong there?" I said.

"Where do I belong?"

"I don't know. Maybe with another guy." I swallowed when I said it.

The scars on the backs of her hands were thin and white in the glow of moon- and starlight through the window.

"Do you want to take a chance on living with me and my little girl?" I said.

She was silent a moment. Her mouth looked purple and soft when she turned her face toward me.

"I won't always be in this trouble. I've had worse times. They always passed," I said.

"How long will you want me to stay?"

"Until you want to leave."

Her hands opened and then tightened on the steering wheel.

"You're lonely now," she said.

"After we were together, maybe you'd feel different."

"You don't know that."

"I know the way people are when they're lonely. It's like the way you feel at night about somebody. Then in the daylight it's not the same."

"What would you lose by trying?"

She slowed the jeep on the gravel shoulder a few feet behind my parked pickup truck and cut the engine. It was dark in the heavy shadow of the pines. Out over the lake the sky was bursting with constellations.

"You're a nice man. One day you'll find the right woman," she said.

"That's not the way you felt this morning. Don't put me off, Darlene."

I put my arm around her shoulders and turned her face with my hand. Her eyes looked up quietly at me in the dark. I kissed her on the mouth. Her eyes were still open when I took my mouth away from hers. Then I kissed her again, and this time her mouth parted and I felt her lips become wet against mine and her fingers go into my hair. I kissed her eyes and the moles at the corner of her mouth, then I placed my hand on her breast and kissed her throat and tried to pull aside her shirt with my clumsy hand and kiss the tops of her breasts.

Then I felt her catch her breath, tear it out of the air, stiffen, push against me and turn her face out into the dark.

"No more," she said.

"What-"

"It was a mistake. It ends here, Dave."

"People's feelings don't work like that."

"We're from different worlds. You knew that this morning. I led you into it. It's my fault. But it's over."

"Are you going to tell me Clete's from your world?"

"It doesn't matter. It's not going anywhere. Maybe at another time"

"I'm just not going to listen to that stuff, Darlene."

"You have to accept what I tell you. I'm sorry about all of it. I'm sorry I'm hurting you. I'm sorry about Clete. But you go back home or you're going to be killed."

"Not by the likes of Sally Dee, I'm not."

I put my arm around her shoulders again and tried to brush back her hair with my hand.

"I'm sorry," she said, but this time calmly, with her eyes straight ahead. Then she got out of the jeep and stood in the dark with her arms folded and her face turned toward the lake. The water's surface was black and flecked with foam in the wind. I walked up next to her and put my fingers lightly on her neck.

"It's no good," she said softly.

I could not see her face in the shadows. I walked away from her toward my truck. The gravel crunched loudly under my feet, and the wind was cold through the pines.