The Big Both Ways Read Free

that dog’s blood on you after all.”
    “I’ve got a clean handkerchief in the glove box,” she said, her fingertips twisting at the fabric of her dress. Suddenly she looked down the road to where there was a small gas station beside the river with a few cabins behind it.
    “I need to rest,” she said, and wheeled back out onto the road.
    It was awkward watching the woman making arrangements with the homely boy wearing overalls. It was only the middle of the afternoon and she was renting a room. When she came back, she threw the key on his lap and lurched the car up to the first little cabin along the edge of the woods. She opened the door and her hands were still shaking.
    “I’m sorry,” she said, “I was only able to get one room with a small bunk.” She didn’t look him in the eyes. “You could stay on the floor, or you could wait for a ride out on the road. The boy here said there is a bit more traffic later in the afternoon.” She pulled a leather bag out of the backseat and dug around in it. She pulled out a surprisingly big roll of bills and peeled off a ten dollar bill then waved it nervously in his direction, still without looking at him.
    “For your trouble,” she said.
    “No,” Slip said, “I think I’ll stay.”
    She held out her hand. “My name is Ellie Hobbes,” she said.
    He took her hand, and though the skin was soft her grip was much stronger than he expected.
    There was a tin stove in the corner of the cabin, one bed, and one chair next to a table that stood beneath the only window. Slip brought in his bindle of clothes and his toolbox and set them both under the table. Outside, the river slid past in a constant rush. The water was a light emerald green, and the spring current turned the rocks in the riverbed so that there was a consistent chunking and chortling above the sizzle of water. Slip started a fire in the stove with some cedar chips and a couple of pages from a magazine. Then he added splits of dry fir. They crackled inside the stove sending whiffs of smoke puffing out the seams until the flue started to draw.
    Ellie sat on the narrow bunk. The metal webbing creaked underneath her and she seemed even smaller than she was. Her hands cupped around her elbows as if she were trying to hold herself in. Slip sat on the floor in the corner of the room. He propped his bindle behind him and leaned against it.
    “Tell me about yourself,” she said. She shivered even though the room was warming up and the dampness was retreating through the cracks in the walls.
    He told her that his friend had died in the woods earlier in the day. He had been topping a tree. He told her because he believedthat women were sympathetic, but all she said was, “bastards,” very softly under her shivering breath.
    “Tell me about what you want to do,” Ellie said, breaking the awkwardness between them. So he told her about working on Grand Coulee Dam. He told her his plans to go back east of the mountains and get land to start a ranch. He told her about electrification and power to pump water, about irrigation and how the Great Basin country would soon be a productive paradise. He talked about how beautiful and green the fields would be and how there would be nothing like it anywhere in the world. He was happy talking about this fantasy he told himself was his future, for he really didn’t know how to talk about Jud’s death.
    He talked about his friend Andy who had worked alongside him on the Grand Coulee Dam, and about how they had talked about going in together on a place, about how Andy was a good worker and had been saving up some money by working in his uncle’s barbershop down in Seattle. He explained that he was intending to go to Seattle and round up Andy, and as soon as they could get a truck and a few materials together they’d head straight over Stevens Pass and start looking for a place.
    Ellie laid down on top of the covers. She lay on her side with her hands for a pillow. Slip knew