Closed Roads and a Frozen Well

	Punt had come into the room from the bathroom with toilet water still dripping from his mouth, and sat down next to Ellis.  He dripped on the floor, only an inch or so from Francine's feet.
	"God what a disgusting animal," she whined.
	Punt, unaffected by this, leaned forward and sniffed at her leg.  She swatted him on the nose with the paperback book she still held, and he backed off, but not before emitting a slight growl.
	"There!  Even the dog's tired of your whiny bullshit, Francine.  You need to just mellow out or something," Duncan said taking his feet off the coffee table and reaching for the candy tin.
	"Sure, you think you can just start up a joint and we'll all just forget about it."  Francine sounded determined to make a big deal out of the dogs.
	"That might be a good idea."  John mumbled under his breath.
	"What's that?"
	"Nothing."
	Ellis had crossed the room and now sat in the overstuffed chair kitty-corner from where Francine perched next to John.  Punt followed him, glaring back at Francine, before he circled twice and lay down near Ellis' feet.  Duncan had taken the last joint out of the candy tin and rolled it between his fingers, looking at it.
	"You do roll a nice joint, Ellis, even if they are a little puny."  Duncan looked at Ellis and smiled.  He then looked over at John with a serious expression that slowly turned to a smile as well.  "John, I don't mean to be an asshole, but I think Francine needs to understand something about the farm.
	"Understand!"  She said, leaning closer to John.  "I understand alright.  You're as bad as the God damn dogs, they're just plain filthy, and you're such a slob, you don't even care."
	Duncan calmly lit the joint, took a hit and passed it to Fred, who seemed to be too engrossed in the television to pay much attention.  He did manage to grasp the joint, take a long drag off it, and hand it toward Ellis, who, busily manufacturing a fresh cigarette, declined by silently holding up his hand.
	Duncan blew out the remainder of his shortly held breath, and looked up at Francine.  "You know, since Ellis' ex- wife Karen moved out about a year ago, this place has been a kind of haven for us poor happy bachelors.  Since Karen, the girls have kinda come and gone around here, but none have really stayed very long.  Frankly, I think you're right in some ways.  We're kind of a crude bunch, and our manners, here at home at least, may lack a bit of sophistication, and as soon as it gets really cold and the well freezes up, things will get even more primitive, and with all due respect, I don't think I could put up with any woman who could live here.  I guess the bottom line is that this place is pretty much a hovel, and we like it that way."
	No one said a word, not John, not Ellis, and certainly not Francine.  The joint, which had stopped with Fred, resumed its movement again.  Duncan took a long slow drag, sucking in a little fresh air along with the smoke, and handed it to John, who took it without a word.  Punt stretched slightly and began to lick his testicles.
	"Punt's got the right idea," Fred said, looking away from the television for the first time.  "That's pretty much how I feel about the whole thing."
	John offered the joint to Francine, but without expression or acknowledgment of any kind, she stood, turned away, and went quietly upstairs.
	John, still holding the joint, took a second hit and handed it back to Duncan.
	"Boy, I sure hope I didn't fuck up," Duncan said softly, looking at John for an answer.
	"Not really.  It was time for her to figure that out anyway.  She'd probably have only lasted another couple three days even if the dogs all moved to the barn, and we bought a new mop."  John slid down in the chair and stretched himself out to where he could put his feet up on the coffee table.
	"Mop?"  Ellis questioned.
	"Oh nothing.  She was just wanting a new mop this morning before you guys got back."
	"Hey Duncan, what's this about the well freezing?"  Ellis said, as he flicked the ash from his cigarette into his shirt pocket.
	Duncan laughed and held his hand out in Ellis' direction.  "Give me your cigarette makins, I want'a roll one of'em."  Ellis handed over his tobacco.
	"What about the well?"  Ellis asked again.
	"When it gets cold, it freezes."
	"How cold?"
	"Oh, I don't know, it kinda depends how long it's been cold, but it seems like last year it was only down to about ten degrees when it froze."
	"Did it thaw out when it warmed back up?"  Ellis seemed to want to know all about the well.
	"Well yeah, it thawed out in the spring again, but not until then."
	"That's the way it was the year before too."  John added.
	"You mean we just don't have water in the winter?"  Ellis asked.
	Fred sat up and stretched.  "Yeah, that's pretty much it.  The well's really only a wide spot in the creek, and it's not that deep, so it just freezes along with the rest of the creek.  Is anybody hungry?
	Everybody agreed that something to eat would be good, and Fred went into the kitchen to scrounge up some dinner.  He sliced some potatoes into a frying pan, threw in a little butter, and set them on the stove in the parlor.  When they had cooked for about fifteen minutes, he threw in some cut up green peppers and onions.  He dug around in one of the cupboards and found a lid for the pan, and after he salted and peppered this soggy mess he covered it, and sat back down on the couch.
	"What's this we're watching?" he asked Duncan.
	"A movie, 'Walden of the North', it's about this guy that gets lost up in the Yukon, and then gets found by these women from some utopian culture somewhere up there, or something like that.  I remember seeing it a long time ago, but I don't really remember it."
	 "The picture sure is shitty."
	"That's snow.  The picture's in the Yukon.  There's snow everywhere."
	"I don't know, that still looks like a pretty shitty picture," Fred persisted.
	"It's not all that good, I guess, probably cause of the snow storm."  Duncan got up, went to the kitchen door, and looked out.  It was too dark to see, so he opened the door.  The wind whipped snow into the kitchen as he opened it, and he shut it again quickly.  "I guess It's still snowing out," he said and sat back down.
	They all sat there and watched the movie in silence.  Fred finished making dinner and they ate.  When dinner was over John went upstairs to bed, or at least to Francine.  Fred made it most of the way through the movie before he headed for bed, and Duncan and Ellis sat up half the night watching the late movie.  When the late movie ended, Duncan turned off the television, leaned over and shook Ellis who had fallen asleep, and then went up to bed himself.  Ellis yawned, got up and put the dogs outside, put another can of coal in the stove, and went to bed as well.
	The next day began with Fred clamoring down the rickety back stairs about seven o'clock.  The main house was cold and he first checked the stove, which had gone out as usual.  He built a fire, put the coffeepot on the stove, and sat down at the kitchen table to read a newspaper that had been brought home, for starting fires, nearly a week ago.  It was still snowing hard and it looked like there was already nearly a foot on the ground.  Where the wind had drifted the snow up against the barn, it was considerably deeper.  About seven thirty, Francine came down stairs carrying a suitcase.
	"I need a ride into town," she began.  "I think it's best if I find some other place to live.  It's clear that you boys don't want me around, and I don't want to be somewhere I'm not wanted."  She walked over to where her coat hung on a nail behind the wood cook stove, removed it and started to put it on.
	"Have you looked outside?"  Fred said, turning the page of the newspaper.
	"What difference does that make?" she said, pulling her coat up tight around herself and walking to the window.
	"Nobody's going anywhere until the snow plow comes by and clears the road."
	"But I want to leave now."
	"You're going to have to walk, and I wouldn't recommend that right now.  I don't think you'd get very far in this snow."
	"I have to leave now though."  She was adamant.  She paced back and forth between the parlor and the kitchen.  "I just can't ever see that Duncan again, ever."
	Fred got up, found two reasonably clean cups, and poured coffee for them both.  "Sit down.  Let's talk a minute."
	"Don't you start telling me what to do.  I don't want to sit down."
	"Suit yourself.  Have a cup of coffee."
	"I don't want a cup of coffee either."
	"Alright then, just listen."
	She continued to pace while Fred folded the newspaper and set it on the table next to himself.  Finally she stopped and stared out the window at the snow coming down.
	"Look," he said firmly.  "There's nobody here that doesn't like you."
	"Except you, and Ellis, and Duncan, that's all."  She continued to stare out the window.
	"That's not true.  We just don't want you to try and change our way of life here, that's all."
	"You call this life?"
	"Well, it may not seem like much, but it's the way we want it.  It's fine with us.  You know, we've been living like this out here for about two years, and I don't think you're going to come along and change it overnight."  One of the dogs scratched at the kitchen door, and he got up and let it in.  Francine shuddered a little at the sight of Punt, as he walked through the kitchen and lay down next to the stove in the parlor.  "I don't blame you for wanting to leave.  We live pretty crude out here, but I guess we kinda like it, and it's not that bad.  It's kinda mellow, and you might even like it if you just tried a little."
	She turned from the window, and stared at him for a moment, trying to evaluate his motives.  When she was satisfied that he meant her no harm, she walked to the table and sat across from him.  He pushed the coffee he had poured for her across the table, and she took it.
	"I still think Duncan hates me."  She took a drink of coffee, and set the cup on the table.
	"No, Duncan doesn't hate anyone or anything.  He's not going to stand for his world being changed too much without a fight, and I guess it's not really fair, but we do kinda have you outnumbered.  I think you're welcome to live here, but just don't try to change things too much."  Fred got up and dug around in the kitchen cupboard where they had put the large bag of marijuana the day before.  He took out one of the smaller bags and returned the rest to the cupboard.  He then walked into the parlor and returned with a packet of cigarette papers and the coffeepot.
	"You want a little more coffee?"
	She pushed her cup toward him, he filled it along with his own and sat down, setting the pot on the table.  He then took one paper from the packet and began to roll a joint.  She sat quietly drinking her coffee and watching him fumble around with his project.  Finally he tore the paper in half, and the whole thing fell apart onto the table before him.
	"Here let me have all that stuff."  Francine set down her coffee and reaching across the table, she scooped Fred's mess toward herself.  She pulled out the two halves of the cigarette paper and set them aside, took another from the packet and folded it neatly in half.  She then scooped the crumbled leaves into a little pile with her hand and placed them into the paper one pinch at a time.  Fred watched her curiously, wondering how she would do.  She rolled the marijuana back and forth in the paper several times, and then in one smooth movement, she applied a little pressure and rolled the whole thing into a perfect cylinder about three eighths of an inch in diameter.  She licked the gummed edge and set it on the table in front of him.
	"Pretty nice, where'd you learn how to do that?"  Fred was impressed.
	"You don't think women should be able to roll a joint?"  She was a little defensive and leaned back in her chair with her coffee.
	"Oh I don't know about that, I've just never seen this nice a joint, ever."  He picked up the joint from the table and turning it in his fingers, admired the craftsmanship that had gone into it.
	"When I was a kid, I used to sit and roll cigarettes for my dad for hours.  I don't think he ever had to roll them for himself.  He just carried around this beautiful little cigarette case full of my cigarettes."  She smiled and relaxed as she leaned forward to take the joint Fred had just lit.
	They sat and smoked and talked quietly at the kitchen table for most of the next half-hour.  She learned a little of Fred's past, his having grown up North of Spokane on one of the small lakes, his aborted trip with the navy, and short experience working as a low level engineer for the Boeing company.  She told him stories of growing up in what she called a small town in north central Pennsylvania.  Fred didn't think small towns even existed until you got west of the Mississippi River, but he didn't say anything.  She had come to Washington a year ago to attend graduate school in molecular biology.  Her husband at the time was studying Veterinary medicine, and he ran off with a cute little undergraduate from Nebraska, leaving her with not enough financing to finish her Masters degree.  She had worked at various waitress jobs for a while, but lost the last one when her boss had tried to put the move on her, and she had refused him.  She and John had met and gone out several times when the small trailer she was living in, caught fire and burned up, leaving her without a place to live, which is why she was here.  What she had in the suitcase was all that she had in the world.
	Fred thought about her situation as she talked.  She wasn't in a very different situation than any of them, except that outside circumstances had put her where she was, and they had pretty much made their own beds.  It seemed to him, though, that she either had to get used to their raw living conditions or find a little more normal place to live.  He also thought about John and Duncan, and what had brought them to the farm.  John, he thought, would probably prefer a little more domesticity in his world, at least from time to time, but for the most part, the farm fulfilled most of their needs for the present.  As far as he and Ellis went, the farm provided just the right balance between comfort and a feeling of roughing it.  He thought again of Francine, as she sat across the table from him, her suitcase on the floor at her feet.  She looked sad and tired.  She wore a red, men's shirt and faded blue jeans, her long brown hair hung loosely down in front of her, partially covering her finely formed features.  He didn't feel sorry for her, but he did have a strange respect for her that he hadn't had the day before.  She was used to a very different world than where she was now, and she was doing the best that could be expected from her.
	There was a thump or two from upstairs, and then the sound of someone descending the stairs.  Duncan stumbled through the kitchen on his way to the toilet.
	"Smells like you two are at it pretty early down here," he said disappearing into the bathroom.
	Fred looked over at Francine.  "Roll up one of those beauties for Duncan.  It'll impress the shit out of him."
	She began to fashion another joint while they both sat listening to Duncan, just a few feet away, draining off the leftovers from the preceding day.  Presently the waterfall subsided to a trickle and then stopped.  Duncan emerged from the bathroom looking as disheveled as usual, what little hair he had was sticking out in all directions and he wore only a pair of tan corduroy pants and a moth-eaten tee shirt.  His bare feet were pink on the cold floor.
	"Going somewhere, Francine?" he said looking down at her suitcase sitting next to her.
	"Nope."  She didn't look up, but continued working on the fresh joint.
	"What's this suitcase doing here then?" he pushed.
	She didn't answer him, and Fred looked up at him frowning and pushed the coffeepot in his direction.
	"Get a cup and sit down."
	Duncan did.  He poured his coffee and leaning back, put his feet up on the chair between Francine and himself, and then slowly took notice of what she was doing.
	"What the hell.  You're going to show us how to roll joints now too?"  Duncan chuckled, and took a cigarette out of the half-full pack sitting on the table.
	She hesitated, and pressed her lips tightly together trying to control the urge to tell him where to get off.  Finally she looked up at him, smiled, and resumed rolling.  When she had finished, she set the joint on the table and gave it a slight flip, in Duncan's direction, with her finger.  It rolled smoothly across the table and stopped in front of him.  He just stared at it.
	"Light that fucker."  She leaned back, crossed her arms and gave Fred a smile.
	Fred returned her smile, and then looked over at Duncan.
	"Well.  What's the hold up?  You afraid you might wrinkle it or something.  It's just a fucking joint.  If you're nice, she might roll up a mountain of'em for you."
	Duncan sat frozen, looking at the paper cylinder lying in front of him.  He looked at Fred and then Francine, and then brushing the hair out of his eyes, set down his cigarette and gingerly picked it up.  He rolled it between his fingers testing its firmness, and then striking a match, lit it.  He puffed at it a couple times getting it lit, then took a long deep drag, and handed it to her.  She took a slight puff and passed it on to Fred.  Fred did the same and handed it back to Duncan.
	Duncan blew out his first hit and sat staring at the smoldering joint for a moment.  "It smokes as good as it looks.  That, is a mighty fine joint.  I'll take a couple hundred of those, if you please."  He looked at Francine and smiled.  "Sorry.  Truce?"  He took another hit and held it out for Francine again.  She took the joint and puffed on it nodding her head slightly.
	"Okay," she said, still holding her breath, and handed the joint to Fred, who merely took it and passed it on to Duncan.
	"You two smoke that and make peace."  He got up, went into the parlor and checked the stove.  The stove was barely going.  Only a few coals still glowed in the bottom.  He got another can of coal, dumped it in the stove and sat down on the couch to read.  Duncan and Francine finished the joint in the kitchen, agreed to work out their differences, and then she went back upstairs to see if she could get a rise out of John.  Duncan let Birthday and Sundance in the back door, where they had been scratching for some time, and then went into the parlor and turned on the television.
	"I guess we can get along, if she doesn't try and change things too much," Duncan said as he flopped down on the couch next to Fred.
	"I think she'll get used to things around here.  She's had a pretty bad time.  It's only been about a week since she lost everything in the fire, and this place really is a hovel, not to mention cold."  He put down his book, got up, went over to the stove, and looked in.  Smoke billowed out as he opened the door, he quickly closed it again and opened up the draft at the bottom of the stove.  Air rushed in, causing the smoke in the stove to escape though the cracks for a brief moment before igniting with a whoosh that caused the iron plates on top to jump and the door to fly open, spewing the remainder of the smoke out into the room.  Fred quickly closed the door again, and stepped back looking at Duncan with his nose wrinkled up in disgust of the nasty smell of the coal smoke.
	Just then Ellis came in from the back, letting the back door slam behind him.  "Jesus Christ is the house on fire or what," he said on his way to the bathroom.
	"Don't know, the smokes too thick to tell yet," Duncan said laughing.
	The television picture had begun to roll and Fred reached over and smacked the side of the set.  Nothing changed.  He smacked it a little harder and the picture steadied.  There was a football game just starting.  One team had just kicked the ball off to the other.
	"Oh good!"  Duncan said putting his feet up on the low table between the couch and the television.  "Looks like Green Bay and the Bears."
	"Which one's which?"  Fred asked sitting down in one of the soft chairs.
	"The guys in the green and gold are the Packers."
	"I thought you said it was Green Bay and the Bears."
	"It's the Green Bay Packers, you dumb shit," Duncan said shaking his head.
	"Sorry, I thought you had to be a dumb shit to even care about that stuff.  It's just a bunch of big dip shits running around banging into each other, chasing a weird shaped ball."
	"You don't have any sport in you Fred.  You're just not a good American.  In fact we could have you sent into political exile if we told the right people.  You know that."  Duncan laughed and lit a cigarette.
	"We might as well go back to the coliseum in Rome and watch a bunch of slaves cut each other to bits or get torn apart by wild animals."  Fred laughed as well, got up, stepped over Duncan's legs, and went into the kitchen.  He checked the coffeepot to see if there was coffee in it and then returned to the parlor, set the pot on the stove and sat back down.
	Ellis came out of the bathroom, wandered through the kitchen and finally entered the parlor and dropped into the large overstuffed chair nearest the door.  Punt rose, tail wagging, and walked to greet him.  His lean strong body flexed, as he seemed to glide across the room and put his nose in Ellis' lap.  Ellis stoked the dog's soft square nose, and looked over at Fred and Duncan.
	"You guys seen how much it snowed?"
	"Yeah, it's still snowing too," Fred answered.
	"Hard," Duncan said.
	"It's blowing too.  If this keeps up, there'll be no school tomorrow," Ellis said, taking out his tobacco and starting a cigarette.
	"I think it's safe to say that there's all ready no school tomorrow for John and I.  In fact, I think a snow like this could close school for a week."  Duncan chuckled, leaned forward, picked up an ashtray from the table and settled back into the couch again.
	"What's this on the tube?"  Ellis asked.
	"The behemoth bowl," Fred said, putting his feet on the table next to Duncan's.
	"It's no bowl.  It's just the Green Bay, Chicago game," Duncan corrected him.
	"Which ones which?"  Ellis asked.
	What's with you two fuckers?  You from some other planet, or what?"
	"The guys with the ball are Chicago.  Isn't that what you said Duncan?"
	"No, Chicago's got the blue and white uniforms.  Jesus, If we had a phone, I'd call the cops and have both of you hauled off to jail."
	The three of them sat quietly watching the football game, the snow continued to fall silently outside, and John and Francine remained upstairs in bed most of the morning.  Around noon, Ellis got up, put another can of coal in the stove, and announced he was hungry.  He prepared the usual potatoes and onions, with eggs thrown in on top.  About the time they were done, John and Francine crawled out of their steamy nest and joined the group for brunch.  When they had finished eating, Duncan went into the kitchen and returned with one of the small bags of marijuana.  He tossed it on the coffee table and looked at Francine with a smile.  She smiled back, and without a word took the bag and the papers that accompanied it, and began the ritual of the joint.  Ellis, who up to this time had been the master roller, looked on with interest.  It was evident from the first that she had done this before, and when the first of about a dozen uniform little cylinders came off the line, he was impressed, and said so.
	"Nice joint Francine, damn nice."  He leaned forward, picked it up and inspected it carefully before lighting it.
	The joint went quietly around the room; each taking their turn with it until it expired.  The football game ended with what Fred called, a typical gladiator ending.  The fans swarmed onto the field in an excited frenzy.
	"Look at that bunch of idiots, they look like a mess of ants, but not as smart," he said laughing.  He got up and went into the kitchen.  "Hey, it's quit snowing.  Ellis, let's go skiing.  There should be plenty of snow, and I waxed both our skis yesterday, when it started snowing."
	Ellis stretched and then yawned loudly.  He stood up and went to the window.  The sun was even trying to poke it's way through the clouds, and it looked like the rest of the day could be beautiful.  Punt had gotten up, followed him into the kitchen, stretched, and yawned as well.
	"Yeah, it looks like the skiing could be pretty good.  We might as well see if we can avoid breaking a leg.  Let's ski over the hill to Gale's and see what he's up to."
	"Sounds good, let's go."  Fred went out the back door to the rear part of the house, where his belongings were.
	Ellis followed, and presently they returned, dressed for the outdoors.  Fred made a visit to the bathroom and Ellis walked into the parlor and stood looking at the others sitting sluggishly in front of the television.
	"Boy, you guys look energetic.  That football game must have really worn you out."  Reaching down and picking up the candy tin from the table, he asked, "Anyone mind if Fred and I grab a couple of these for the trip?"  Duncan and John shook their heads, but said nothing.  Francine looked up and smiled slightly.
	"Please, that's why I made them," she said, getting up to check the stove.
	"Have fun, don't break anything.  Say hi to Gale and Liz," Duncan called as they went out the back door.
	The wind had stopped blowing and it felt almost warm out, even though it was only in the mid-twenties.  They put on their skis.  Fred had a pair of skis that were made in Norway and imported to this country only several years before.  Ellis had a pair that his father had used nearly fifty years ago, when he was a kid.  At first they trudged along awkwardly, a bit off balance, but by the time they were out of sight of the farm, they were gliding smoothly in nearly a foot of freshly fallen snow.  They slid along the roadway in the direction Duncan and Ellis had come from the night before.  As they rounded the corner and plowed through the several feet of snow that had drifted into the road cut, they could look up the shallow valley in which they lived, and see nothing but snow and fence posts sticking out.  The wind had varied the depth of this white blanket, and these cedar posts became a snow gauge by which to measure its thickness.  Ellis looked down the long low flat that Duncan had plowed his way through the evening before.
	"Wow!  Look at the snow in the flat, Fred.  It's clear up to the top of the fence posts the whole length.  I don't think Duncan will be blasting through there for a while."
	"No shit, you two were the last ones through there until spring for sure."
	Their progress slowed as they started up the steep hill that separated them from Union Flat Creek, where Gale lived.  They shuffled along single file, with Ellis picking up the rear.  Fred's thin touring skis sunk deep into the light snow as they climbed.  Ellis' father's skis were wider and much too long for him, but they held him well up out of the snow.  After just a few hundred feet they changed positions so that Ellis broke trail.  His wide skis packed a lose path that held Fred out of the deep drifts that had formed along the steep eyebrow that they now traveled along.  It seemed like a long trudge to the top, but finally they arrived at the crest, from which they could see in all directions for several miles.  Looking back to the North from where they had come, the tips of water towers, that watered the green summer lawns of Colfax, poked up over the smooth white hills.  To the East, Kamiak Butte rose up out of this rolling snowy carpet like a mirage.  Its snow-covered trees shimmered gray-green against the blue sky and the foothills of the Bitter Root Mountains of Idaho.  In front of them, the ground dropped off steep to Union Flat Creek, where they were going.  From there the land rose again to the breaks of the mighty Snake River, lying nearly two thousand feet below them, as it wound its way from Wyoming to its confluence with the great Columbia River some hundred miles to the West.  Beyond the Snake the earth climbed nearly straight up to form the Blue Mountains that rippled the land all the way to Oregon.  The bright sun cast shadows on the surging hills, accentuating their sensuous forms, as they lay dormant under their winter coverlet.  It was down hill from here, and Ellis bent down and adjusted his bear-trap bindings, clamping his heels down tightly to his skis.  These old bindings, dating from the nineteen twenties, were named for their ability to hold a foot so tight that you would tear it off before it could come away from the ski.
	"Let's go!"  Fred said, poling forward and kicking off toward Gale's house at the bottom of the hill.  He slid smoothly, picking up speed rapidly as the ground steepened.  Ellis followed in his tracks and soon they were both speeding toward the expanse of brush and rocks that lined the edge of this shallow, but steep canyon.  The road carved a narrow path through this otherwise impassable obstacle that lay between them and the abrupt drop that would bring them to their destination.  With Fred leading the way, they sped, snow flying, through the gap, made a sharp turn to the left and headed down the last steep straight stretch to the snow covered gravel road at the bottom.
"Yea hoo!"  Ellis called as he slid sideways to a stop at the bottom of the hill.  "I thought I was going over the edge back there at the corner."
	"Yeah, I almost lost it on that corner too," Fred agreed.  "You were so close, I thought you were going to run over me."
	"Yeah I know.  I couldn't slow down without crashing."
	They stood across the road from Gale's driveway.  No tracks led in or out.  His old Chevy truck sat covered with snow and pointed toward the road for a better chance at getting out if he ever decided to try.  Behind the truck was a tall picket fence with an iron gate that lay open to the snow-covered walkway leading to the house.  The building was a typical Palouse farmhouse with a screened porch and small windows.  It sat snuggled into a thick grove of trees and bushes, not far from the gravel road.  The white paint peeled from the clapboard siding, and the weathered asphalt shingles showed signs of having been recently patched.  Smoke rose from the chimney and an electric light shown in the kitchen.
	"It looks like they're home," Fred said, adjusting his skis in that direction.
	"Yep.  Nobody's gone in or out yet today."
	They crossed the road and slid down the slight incline of the driveway.  After removing their skis and leaning them against the fence, they made the first tracks of the day on the short walkway up to the house.  Fred knocked, and a dog barked from inside.  Presently Gale's wife Liz opened the door with a smile, and welcomed them into the warm kitchen.  Gale was in the small living room re-lacing the rawhide onto a pair of snowshoes.
	"Hi you guys.  I was just getting these things ready to go check my traps.  I got ready to go about two hours ago, and the mice had eaten all the damn rawhide off'em.  Fuck!  I should've been out there a long time ago, but we got hung up in town last night and didn't get home till about four o'clock in the morning."
	"You were so drunk, I'm surprised we even made it home."  Liz said pouring a cup of tea from an open saucepan that had been warming on the Monarch cook stove.  This old wood burning relic, leftover from a past era, was the jewel of Liz's life.  She would have left her husband before she'd have left that stove.  It glistened with chrome and blued sheet metal from top to bottom.
	"Shit!  I wasn't any drunker than you were.  In fact you couldn't even find the truck when we left the bar.  You should have seen her."  Gale laughed, made the last wrap on his snowshoes and tied off the rawhide.  "There, that ought to keep me up out of the snow a little.  You guys want to go check a few traps with me.  There's only about ten or so up the creek from here about two miles."
	"Sounds cool to me," Ellis said, looking over at Fred.
	"Yeah, that would be a nice ski up the creek.  Do you ever get anything in your traps?"
	"Oh yeah.  I nearly always get a couple of rats, and sometimes I catch a coyote.  A couple weeks ago I got a raccoon and a beaver and three rats in the same day."
	"Rats!  What do you do with rats?"  Ellis asked, amazed.
	"Muskrats.  I skin'em and sell them.  They're worth about three or four bucks apiece, depending on how big they are."  He set the snowshoes aside and put on his boots.
	"Anyone want a muffin?"  Liz asked from the kitchen.  "They're just out of the oven, fresh, with blueberries."
	"Jesus yes," Fred said heading for the kitchen.
	They all had a muffin.  Gale finished getting ready to go, by stuffing some rope, a couple extra traps, and several other things into a small packsack, and putting on his coat and an old felt hat.  He also picked up his rifle that leaned up in the corner next to the back door, and they headed outside.  Once outside, he opened the breach of the gun, placed three cartridges into the box magazine and closed the bolt making sure none of the bullets were in the chamber of the gun.  Fred and Ellis had put on their skis and waited for him at the gate.  After Gale wrestled briefly with the bindings on his snowshoes, he straightened up, shook each of his feet to make sure the snowshoes were attached firmly, and the three of them headed off in the direction of Union Flat Creek, several hundred yards behind the house.  The ground dropped away steeply as they left the confines of the back yard, and both Fred and Ellis swooshed down the short incline and came to rest about fifty yards ahead of Gale, who trudged along slowly on his wide cumbersome mesh of rawhide.
	"Don't you guys get too far ahead of me and scare off a buck or something."  Gale called after them.  "It's deer season, and I'd shoot a big buck if we see one."
	When Gale caught up with them, they let him lead the way.  Following his wide, partially packed trail was easy, and they strung out six or eight yards apart, plodding along until they reached the banks of the creek.
	Ellis trailed along dreamily, looking at the snow in the trees along the edges of the stream.  It lay heavily on the branches, pulling them down in soft curves.  Occasionally it would slide off the branch and fall to the ground, causing little self-contained avalanches that looked like small blizzards surrounding the effected tree.  The creek hugged the steep bank on the far side from where they were as it meandered back and forth across the valley.  While Gale checked and reset his first trap, Ellis looked up into the heavily forested hillside ahead of them where these, second growth trees stood tall and straight, averaging about a foot in diameter.  The stumps, left behind by loggers from around the turn of the century, lay scattered among the live trees.  Many of these remnants from an earlier forest were three and four feet across, and their well anchored roots and short stumps still remained as a reminder of times before the white man came to claim all this land for his omnipotent God.
	The foot prints of a deer led down out of this thick vegetation to the creek, where it had come to drink, and then led away again, disappearing into the underbrush near the water.  The tracks of other smaller animals could be seen here and there, where they had made their way through the fresh snow in search of food.  This new snow muted all sounds except that of the gurgling water, flowing gently, steadily, on without end, in its continuous cycle.  Ellis mused inwardly as he stood motionless on his flat sticks in the deep snow.  He wondered where this water began, and where it would end.  Would it end in the ocean, or was that just the beginning.  He thought of that magic trick water plays, when it becomes invisible and sneaks away, far up into the sky, where it lets the wind push it like a memory across the surface of our world, to where it reappears again on its way back to the earth.  What a miracle this is, in the huge pile of miracles that make up our version of life.
	Ellis was pulled away from his drift by the sound of a rifle bolt cycling a cartridge into the chamber, and he turned to face the sound.  Gale had seen movement in the brush across the creek and now trained his well-experienced sights on something Ellis could see moving about a hundred yards up the slope.  The thick brush obscured their view, but they could tell it was a deer moving slowly through a dense clump of dogwood growing somewhat out of place in the deep shadows of this North slope.  The animal moved stiffly and cautiously, staying as much out of sight as it could.  It had seen us long before Gale had trained his rifle on it, and it knew very well of the danger he presented.  This brush was like an island in the midst of otherwise open ground that would offer little protection, and as it neared the edge of its cover, it broke into a run.  It leaped out of the thicket bouncing, running, nearly flying, as it traversed the hillside, darting in and out from behind the trunks of this second growth.  Gale stood, rifle shouldered, heart pumping, looking for horns on this fleeing animal, as it came in and out of sight.  Its white flag of a tail flicked a kind of Morse code at them standing far below in the flat beside the creek, and then there they were, the antlers.  They showed clearly against a patch of snow.  Gale's focus narrowed to a single point, like a laser beam between himself and the buck dancing his escape among the trees.  The shot rang out across the valley like a crack of thunder.  The echoes bounced back and forth between the valley walls soaking up all other sounds for miles.  The deer didn't fall, or flinch, or even look around, but instead it sped on, farther out of the danger of man, at least for now.
	"Damn!"  Gale muttered under his breath, and cycled the rifle bolt again.
	The spent casing was stripped, hot, from the chamber and tumbled, smoking, through the air, to where it landed in the deep snow, and melted its way to the ground with a little sizzling sound that was sucked up into the 'bang'.  A fresh new bullet slid into the chamber and the bolt closed with a sure click that could be felt, but not heard, and Gale started to shoulder the rifle again, but stopped short, realizing the deer had reached safety.  The ordeal was over.  The tensions of the moment subsided along with the echoes of the 'bang', and the serenity of the gurgling creek once again filled the space.
	"Damn!" he said again.  "That was a big deer."  He slid the bolt back, opening the breech of the gun and carefully took the live bullet from the chamber, and pushed it back down into the box magazine.  He took another shell from his pocket, placed it in the magazine as well, and closed the bolt, leaving the chamber empty again.  "Here, hold this a minute," he said, handing the rifle to Fred.
	Fred took the gun, and Gale bent down to the trap he was resetting and finished up the set.  He stepped up away from the creek, took his gun back from Fred and started off up stream.
	"You're not going after him?"  Ellis asked, picking up the rear again.
	"Humph, you saw how fast he can move."  Gale answered.  "I could spend all day and never see anything but tracks."
	They moved along up the creek, following the meanders as they swung from one side of the valley to the other.  When they reached a spot where Gale had a trap, they stopped while he checked its status.  With some he did nothing, but others he would reset or even move.  At one of these stops, Ellis took off his gloves and rolled a cigarette, and as they moved quietly up the valley, he left a string of little blue-gray smoke clouds hanging in the still air, marking their path.  Finally at about the fourth or fifth setting, they found reward.  Lying still in the snow, was a muskrat.  It had stepped into the trap and was held by two of its small feet.  When Gale approached, it squirmed and struggled to escape, but without success.  He took off his pack, and reaching in the top, produced a section of shovel handle about eighteen inches long.  Stepping down to where the rat lay straining at its confinement, he struck the unlucky animal a merciful blow on the back of the head.  It gave a little shiver, and then lay still.  It had passed on to wherever muskrats go in their part of the continuing cycle of life and death.  He depressed the trap spring and pulling the rat from its jaws, tossed it up next to his pack sack.  He reset the trap, placed it in a strategic place, and climbed up to where Fred and Ellis stood watching.  With the rat tucked away in the pack, the three of them proceeded up stream to the next trap.
	They made their way slowly from trap to trap, following Gale as he trudged along on his elongated woven rawhide platters.  By the time they had reached the end of the trap line they had picked up a total of four rats.  Gale seemed pleased with his catch, and they returned home along the same trail.  The going was much easier now that the three of them had packed the snow along the creek once, and the return trip went quickly.  A cold breeze had begun to blow up stream, bringing clouds with it.  The sun had set over the rim of the valley and dusk was beginning to close in on them.
	Gale still led the way, keeping a steady eye on the steep tree-covered hillside across the creek.  He paid little attention to Fred and Ellis, but instead, he drifted off into his own realms, those half-real places he often went when hunting.  Big bucks danced along just out of reach.  Sometimes they darted in and out of sight, or ran circles around him.  Hunting time was a special time.  It was his own.  He had to answer to nothing but nature during those times.  He felt secure and somehow, oddly enough, he felt in complete control, at least of himself.  He was glad that Fred and Ellis were content to merely slide along behind him in silence.  If they had talked, it would have spoiled his colorful drift.  He felt like he was showing them a new world, a world with a strange tension attached to it.  There was a kind of irresistible contradiction involved in this world, where he immersed himself in the beautiful magic of nature, and at the same time attempted to take a piece of it away with him.  He knew if he saw a deer he would try to take it out of that natural loop in which it lived, but then, was not he too part of this loop as well, or was he?  It was like he had flipped a coin up into the air and on one side he was part of this cycle of the deer, and on the other side he was an alien force out to interrupt the delicate balance that seemed to exist.  This imaginary coin flashed at him, first one side, then the other, over and over, dragging him deeper and deeper into conflict with his own beliefs.  First one side showed dominance and then the other.  All his thoughts and visions whirled together into a spinning cloud like a little tornado in his head.  Thoughts that once were clear, turned to fog and drifted farther and farther out of reach, until they were gone, and he was left trudging along in the deep snow with the cold wind blowing in his face.  They were nearly home, and his legs ached and his hands were numb from the cold.
	"I gotta skin these rats.  You guys want a beer?"  Gale asked, as they climbed the little incline into the back yard.
	"Sure, that sounds good.  I suppose we should head back over the hill before too long though, it'll be dark before we get there now anyway," Fred answered.
	Gale took off his snowshoes, Fred and Ellis their skis, and they went into the house.  Liz was cooking something on the stove and listening to music.  Gale gave her a kiss, and went to the refrigerator for beer.
	"Hey, there's a bottle of Cribari in here.  How's wine sound instead of beer?"
	"Yeah, that sounds even better to me, I'm cold as hell," Ellis answered.
	"Me too," Fred agreed.
	Gale poured out three tin cups full of wine and set them on the table in the kitchen.  Liz had a small glass with a little of the same wine left in it, and he filled that as well and set the bottle on the counter.  They all took their cup in hand and Gale held his up to toast.
	"To the big buck that got away, may we meet another day."  He smiled and took a large drink from the cup.
	They all drank with him, and he took out a roll of butcher paper from behind the door into the living room, and rolled out several feet of it onto the kitchen table, cut it off and returned the roll to behind the door.
	"You're not going to skin a bunch of dead things in the kitchen, are you?"  Liz asked turning from the pot she was stirring at the stove.
	"That was my plan.  I'm sure not going to do them outside."  He continued his preparations as if she hadn't said a word.
	"I just hate all that hair and blood and shit in the kitchen when I'm trying to cook."  She turned back to her work, shaking her head.
	"Oh shit.  I'll be done in just a few minutes, there's only four small rats, and it doesn't make a mess anyway.  I don't have to gut them or anything."  He pulled one of the rats from his packsack and laid it on the paper.
	Liz didn't say any more, but took a drink of her wine and went to a spice rack on the wall next to the stove and taking a tin of paprika from one of the shelves, she put a liberal dose into the pan before her on the stove.  Gale took a jackknife from his pocket, slit the rat up the belly and began the removal of its little fur coat.  Fred and Ellis sat quietly looking on with interest.  It took Gale no time at all to slip the rat out of its skin and begin on the second one.
	"Anyone feel like burning one?"  Ellis asked setting his cup on the table and reaching into his shirt pocket where he had put the joints earlier.
	"That sounds good.  Did you guys score some in Seattle while you were there?"  Gale asked.
	"Yeah, a bunch," Ellis said, lighting the joint and handing it to Liz, who had just turned toward them from the stove.  She took a hit and handed it to Gale.
	"Don't get a bunch of rat slime on that thing."
	"Yeah, Yeah."  He wiped his hands on his pants and took the joint from her.
	He took a long hit and handed it to Fred.  Fred looked the joint over, inspecting it for signs of rat slime, and when satisfied it was fairly clean, he took a hit himself and handed it to Ellis.  The joint continued to make its rounds, diminishing a little at each stop until it was gone.  Gale finished the second rat, drank down the last of his cup of wine, and reached for the bottle on the counter.  He refilled his cup, held the bottle out to Fred, who took it, filled his and Ellis' cups, and set the remainder on the table.  When Gale had finished his skinning, he had a small pile of pelts and the four fleshy, naked rats were lined up on the table.  They looked gruesome.  They reminded Ellis of a picture he had seen of a mass grave at a Nazi concentration camp.  He quickly turned that picture off.
	"Hey how's work at the library?" he asked, looking up at Liz.
	"It's all right I guess, same old stuff.  The books come in and you figure out where they go."  She turned briefly and resumed her cooking.
	Gale went out to the porch, and came back with four boards a little over a foot long, five or six inches wide and rounded sharply at one end.  He opened a drawer in the counter and took out a small box of thumbtacks.  He then took each rat hide, one at a time, stretched it tightly over a board, and tacked it securely in place to dry.  He put the tacks back in the drawer and took out a paper sack.  Gathering up the carcasses of the muskrats, he put them into the sack and folded down the top.  He then rolled up the butcher paper he had been working over, and went into the living room where he stuffed it into the stove.
	"When you guys go home," Gale said, returning to the kitchen,  "would you mind taking these rat carcasses with you and dumping them out somewhere on the way.  They'll make a good meal for some critter."
	"Sure," Ellis said finishing up his wine.  "In fact we ought to be doing just that."
	Fred agreed, drank the last of his wine, and stood up.  They put on their coats, grabbed the rats and headed out the door.  The breeze had picked up into a full wind blowing hard up the valley.  It was cold on their hands and faces as they put on their skis.  With their gloves over their hands and hats pulled down as far as they could be pulled, they slid out the driveway and away from the warm glow of the house.  They crossed the gravel road and headed up the steep snow covered dirt road for home.  There was a thick cloud cover and as soon as they were away from Gale's house the darkness closed in on them like the inside of a cow.  The wind was whipping the snow up off the ground and swirling it around in the air as if it were a blizzard.  Their earlier tracks were gone and their present tracks were soon filled in as well.  They trudged up the hill looking away from the wind, and saying nothing.  Ellis held the sack of rat carcasses in one hand along with his ski pole, making it even harder to climb the steep rise out of the valley.  When they had reached the sharp turn where they had nearly gone off the edge earlier, Fred stopped and waited for Ellis who was lagging behind as usual.
	"This might be a good place to dump out the rats," he said, as Ellis caught up with him.
	"Sounds good to me," Ellis said, opening the bag and throwing the contents as far as he could and stuffing the empty sack into his coat pocket.  "Jesus Christ it's cold.  That fucking wind must be blowing a hundred miles an hour."
	"Well twenty anyway," Fred answered and they plodded along again, heads tucked down as much out of the wind as possible.  It took another fifteen minutes to reach the top of the hill, and by the time they did, they were cold and tired.  Ellis pulled up the rear, even panting a little.  Fred waited for him again, but as Ellis slid up beside him, he pushed off over the crest and headed down the steep North slope for home.  Ellis followed without a rest, and was relieved to find the wind much less as he slid into the shadow of the North hillside.  What little light there was barely illuminated the snow enough for them to find their way home.  As this North slope ran out and they slid to a stop, they came into view of the farmhouse.  The lights from the parlor showed dimly through the blowing snow, and without a word, they homed in on this light, and trudged along with the wind in their faces for the last couple hundred yards to the house.  The dogs didn't notice them coming until they were nearly in the yard, and they set up an awful racket in their surprise.  Fred arrived first as usual, had his skis off, and was greeting the dogs when Ellis slid up to the back door.
	They kicked the snow off their boots and went in through the kitchen.  The television was blaring loudly from the other room, and the sweet smell of marijuana hung in the air.  As Fred went into the parlor he could see a large cast iron frying pan full of potatoes and onions on top of the stove.  He bent down and sniffed at it as he entered.
	"Hi, don't you be messing with that," Francine said, looking up at him.
	He held up his hands, and turned toward her.  "I wouldn't dream of it, just checking your seasoning, smells great."
	Ellis came in the room, went directly to the vacant spot on the couch between Duncan and John and sat down with a long sigh.  "God it's awful out there.  I don't think it started snowing again, but the wind's blowing hard enough it seems like it, and I'm about frozen."  He shivered to prove it and lay back with his arms around himself and closed his eyes.
	Fred laughed and moved closer to the warmth of the stove.  "Can we get you a nice blanket?" he asked.  "It's kinda nasty out there, but then, we all know what a wimp Ellis is.  Maybe if you put a little meat on those bones of yours, you could handle a nice day like this better."
	Ellis grunted, and then opening his eyes, produced a scowl that slowly turned to a smile.  "Yeah, I would like a nice soft binky and maybe a cuddly teddy bear to go with it."  He then sat up and reaching in his shirt pocket, he took out his tobacco and began to roll a cigarette.
	"How were Gale and Liz?"  Duncan asked.
	"Good," Fred answered, walking in front of the television and sitting in the overstuffed chair on the far side of the room.  "We went out and checked his traps with him, and watched him miss a deer."
	"You mean he tried to kill a deer?"  Francine asked with concern.
	"Sure, but it got away."
	"He picked up four rats though," Ellis added.
	"What do you mean rats?"  Francine asked again.
	"He sets traps down by the creek and catches muskrats, and sometimes beaver or coyotes," Fred explained.
	"What kind of traps, I mean, how do they get caught?" she pressed.
	"Shit, I don't know what they call them, but they're some kind of steel thing that snaps shut on their legs when they step in it."  He held his hands out and snapped them together as he said this.
	"Yeah that's those fucking leg traps that torture the poor animal for hours or even days, before the asshole comes along and hits it in the head with a fucking stick.  I'm going to report him."  Francine was suddenly livid with anger.  She got up out of the chair and went into the kitchen, took a large wooden spoon off the counter and returned to the parlor, where she began to stir the contents of the frying pan.  "We're going to make that kind of shit illegal.  Jesus Christ, some people are just barbaric.  It's like they haven't advanced since the fucking ice age.  He just kills those muskrats for the money, and not even much of that.  He's no better than a Goddamn hired killer.  I can't wait until Pauline and Sandy hear about this.  They love to terrorize a fucking asshole like that."  She stuck the spoon into the potatoes like she might have stabbed a knife into Gale's stomach, turned from the stove and flopped back down in the chair.
	"I think you're a little hard on Gale," Ellis began.  "He's actually a very nice guy, and don't forget he's a good friend of ours, and the laws, at this point, are on his side.  He does everything legally."
	"Legally!  What makes you think it's okay just because it's legal?  You guys are out marching in the streets about Viet Nam, and that fucking war's legal.  What the hell's the difference?"
	"Oh I don't know.  Gale's just one person trapping a few rats in a creek where there're lots of rats.  It's not like he's cleaning them out or anything, and besides, they're just fucking rats," Ellis said with a snicker.
	"No, they're muskrats, Ellis," Francine continued, " and he's not cleaning them out yet, because he can only catch a few at a time.  If he could catch fifty a day, he'd be happy to do that too.  He doesn't know how many rats are in there.  Nobody's ever studied that little creek down there to find out what's in it, certainly not muskrats.  But you can bet your sweet ass he'll keep trapping until they're all gone, or there gets to be so few that he gets bored and starts killing them all somewhere else."  She got up and went to the candy tin on the table, opened it and took out two joints, and then returned to her chair.  "I think this is a two joint problem, and the sooner I get stoned, the less apt I'll be to rip anyone's head off.  I really feel strongly about trapping and other forms of animal abuse."
	"But you'd leave the dogs outside in the cold all winter," Duncan threw in like a little dagger, without looking away from the television.
	"Oh!  You are paying attention, huh," then looking over at Ellis,  "besides they're just fucking dogs."  She then reached back as far as she could and struck a wooden match on the wall behind her, leaving a dark streak on the wall.  The match broke and the flaming part flew up in the air, and came down on her lap.  She shrieked, and jumped up brushing the flaming match head from her, but not before it burned a small hole in her pant leg.
	"You okay?"  Ellis asked, and she nodded.  "You deserved that."
	"I doubt it," she said in a huffy tone.  Then, taking another match from her shirt pocket, she lit it on the underside of the coffee table, and then lighting both joints at once, she passed one in one direction and one in the other.  "Let's smoke," she said.  Everybody smoked until the potatoes were done and then they gathered around and ate.  After dinner they sat around the parlor and watched the snowy picture on the television until, one at a time they went off to bed.
	The next day began with the sound of heavy equipment rumbling along the road that ran in front of the house.  The snowplow had come in from the Colfax side and was just turning around in the driveway, when Ellis looked out the kitchen window on the way to the bathroom.  The house was cold.  He opened the stove, and it had gone out.  He went out on the back porch, found a few pieces of dry kindling, grabbed a can of coal and an old newspaper and returned.  By the time he had lit a new fire the road grader was disappearing in the distance.  He sat down in the large chair nearest the stove and covered himself with an afghan that had been draped over the back of the couch.  He just sat there and listened to the soft crackling of the kindling as it began to burn in the parlor stove.  Long before it actually put out any heat, he felt warmed by the gentle sounds that emanated from this ornate cast monstrosity from the turn of the century.  Presently there was a scratching at the front door.  He rose, opened the door, and let all three dogs in.  They flopped down in a ring around the stove, head to tail, and lay there flopping their tails on the floor, making a kind of random rhythm that must have originated in some ancient canine ritual.
	Ellis sat thinking, no, dreaming of Molly.  It had been some time since he had felt anything but biological sensations for any of the women whose paths he had crossed, but with Molly it was different.  Although there was no lack of those tingly feelings that rose up out of his loins, there was something more.  There was a warm longing that originated somewhere mysterious, out of sight, somewhere nearly forgotten to him.  This feeling puzzled him, confused him, even worried him, but it also warmed him with a gentle caress that stirred a kind of tension he had not felt for a long time.  Something had begun there in Molly's room, or was it before that on the couch in the living room of her brother's house, or was it even sometime before that, sometime Ellis couldn't bring back into view?  He couldn't remember when that little spark had danced between them, igniting the fire that seemed to be looking for an evening breeze to whip its flames up into a hot storm.  He hadn't been aware of Cupid standing in the shadows of mildewed memories, poised there, bow drawn, arrow knocked, nothing on his mind, but the union of two unused hearts.  He wondered if Molly had seen him.  His fat little fingers clutching the bow.  Had she sensed the flight of that magic shaft as it stretched a delicate understanding between them?  Did she realize that this fragile connection was left for her and him to weave a web from, a web with a weft and a warp, a web that derived its strength from the simple intricacies of its own fabric, their own fabric.  These thoughts of Molly nurtured a feeling in Ellis that warmed the room more than the fire in the stove and as he stretched out in the chair, with his feet up on the coffee table, he seemed to compete with the flames as the primary source of heat, but nobody noticed, not even the dogs.
	The sound of the backdoor slamming and Fred's footsteps on his way into the bathroom, sucked Ellis out of this warm apparition that had held him suspended momentarily, and returned him to the chill of the parlor and the faltering fire in the stove that needed tending.  He got up and looked in the stove.  The coal was beginning to burn, and as he opened the door it belched smoke into the room.  He shut the door and went to the back porch for another can of coal.  Fred came out of the bathroom, grabbed a coffee cup from the sink full of dishes and was standing quizzically in front of the stove when Ellis returned with the can of coal.
	"No coffee?"  Fred looked disappointed.
	"Not yet," Ellis returned.  "The fire was completely out and I'm just barely getting it going.  I wish we had more wood to work with.  This coal's great once it gets going, but it's sure hard to get started."
	"I think there's a lot of old boards out in the barn, but you'd have to cut'em up a bunch before they'd fit in the stove."
	"I'll have to look at that later.  I think this is starting to take off.  I suppose we could put some coffee on now."
	Fred had already started preparing the coffee, and Ellis sat back down and began to roll a cigarette.  They finished at about the same time and as Fred set the coffeepot on the stove, Ellis lit his cigarette, leaned back in the soft blue chair and returned his feet to the low table in the center of the room.
	"Think we should bother waking John and Duncan to tell them the road's clear and they could go into school?"  Fred said, as he stepped over Ellis' legs and plopped down on the couch.
	"You think they'd get up and go?"
	"Probably not."
	"Let'em sleep then.  What the hell?  They'll do what ever they want anyway."  Ellis squirmed in the chair, and then settled back to enjoy the slight buzz he always got from his first cigarette of the day.
	"Looks like the sun's going to come out and be nice all day.  I was thinking about going for a long ski, maybe clear to the breaks of the Snake.  What do you think?"  Fred asked, leaning forward and picking up a county map from the table, unfolding it, and leaning back into the cushions of the couch.
	"That could be a ten or twelve mile trip, with a lot of hills to climb," Ellis said, blowing out a long thin stream of smoke into the still atmosphere of the room.
	"Well, every hill you have to climb, you get to ski down the other side," Fred said.  "I think climbing up out of Union Flat Creek would be the only hard work.  The rest would be fairly gentle slopes.  I was thinking that we could get up on this ridge the other side of the creek."  He held the map out toward Ellis and pointed to a place on it, "and just follow it all the way to the breaks.  There'd be hardly any hills at all.  It looks like it would be about twelve miles or so, round trip."
	"Boy, I don't know."  Ellis began.  "I was hoping those guys might go into school today.  I'd kinda like to go by and see Dave's sister Molly again.  I think she's a little sweet on me."
	"I think you're a little sweet on her, if you ask me."  Fred laughed, and continued to study the map.
	"Maybe.  She is pretty interesting."  Ellis said.  "I just have to get to know her a little better, at least.  She doesn't seem as dingy as most chicks I know these days, and I'm just going to sniff around for a while, and see what happens anyway."
	"Duncan may want to go in later, but he's already missed his first class, and he'll never get his shit together in time for his ten o'clock class, besides he doesn't like that one anyway."  Fred folded the map and threw it on the table.  The coffee had been percolating away on the stove for a few minutes, and he got up to check if it was ready to drink.  The liquid that bubbled up into the lid of the pot was a very light brown, and he figured it wasn't quite done, but he went into the kitchen and returned with two cups and set them on the low table at Ellis' feet.
	"That coffee'll be ready pretty soon," he said, as he reached for the candy tin.  "Maybe we should have a morning number to go with our coffee, don't you think?"
	"Sounds good."
	Fred took a joint from the little tin, rolled it between his fingers and looking carefully at it, said, "that Francine rolls a damn good joint."
	"Yeah, where'd she learn to do that, I wonder."
	"She said she used to roll hundreds of cigarettes for her dad when she was a kid."  He handed the joint to Ellis.  "Here, light that.  I'll pour the coffee."  Fred filled the two cups, overfilling the second one onto the table.
	"Nice job."  Ellis said laughing, as he lit the joint and handed it to Fred.
	Fred took the joint and his coffee, and stepping over Ellis' legs again, sat back down on the couch.  Ellis picked his cup up out of the little pool of coffee and wiped the pool off onto the floor.
	"Don't tell Francine I did that, or she'll kill us both," he said.
	"She might anyway," Fred said with a chuckle, and held the joint out for Ellis.
	"I don't know if I want any of that.  I think I'll pass for now."  Ellis took a drink of his coffee and getting up, went into the kitchen.  He began poking through the cupboards.  He opened every one, looked carefully at the contents and closed it again.  After he had surveyed the entirety, he returned to a lower cupboard near the door out onto the back porch, and took from it several paper sacks of various sizes, placing them on the counter.  He then went to another cupboard and took out a large mixing bowl.  From another he took a small red and white tin can with a lid like that on a paint can, and from a cluttered drawer he took a stout wooden spoon about a foot long.  All this he spread out on the counter before him and stared at it for a few moments.  He then walked back into the parlor.
	"I think I'll have a hit on that joint before I get to work here," he said, standing in front of Fred, who had just turned on the television and lay back on the couch.
	"What are you doing in there?"  Fred asked, handing Ellis what was left of the joint.  "Here take the rest of that, I'm done with it anyway."
	"You'll see if it works out," Ellis answered walking back into the kitchen.  "I might even put this roach in here if I feel like it."  He laughed and began putting the paper sacks in some order on the counter in front of him.  "Hey Fred, have you ever seen a measuring cup or some measuring spoons in here?"
	"Maybe, but I couldn't tell you where."
	Ellis didn't bother to look, but instead reached into the cupboard where coffee cups were kept and drew out a small porcelain tea cup with roses painted on the outside, and set it on the counter next to the other things he had laid out.  Opening the sacks one at a time, he measured out portions from each and put them into the large glass bowl.  He took a teaspoon from a drawer and pried open the little red and white tin, and took two spoonfuls of fine white powder from it and dumped it into the bowl.  All of this he stirred in the bowl until it was well mixed.  He then went back to one of the cupboards and took out a one quart measuring cup and placed it on the counter, and went to the refrigerator and took out two eggs.  He broke the eggs into the measuring cup and poured a cup or so of water into it as well.  When he had this mixed, he poured it into the bowl with the dry material and stirred it all together with the wooden spoon until it was the consistency of fresh concrete. He placed this stiff gooey mixture, one sticky spoonful at a time, into a frying pan and covered it with a large plate that acted like a lid.  Carrying this whole mess into the parlor, he placed it on the stove, and opening the firebox, he looked in.
	"That'll be ready to eat sometime next week, if I don't get some more fire in here," Ellis said as he headed to the back porch for a can of coal.
	"What the hell's in there?"  Fred asked as Ellis poured the coal into the stove.
	"Coal," Ellis answered.
	"I mean in the frying pan, dumb shit."
	"You'll see.  It's an experiment.  Poverty has driven us to the brink of invention."  He lifted the plate covering the pan and peeked in.  The gooey lumps of dough had already flattened out and cooking had begun.  "I have invented the Groat Cake, and it looks to be another success from the laboratories of the Rebel Flat Monastery."  Ellis sat back down in the easy chair and tried to submerge himself in the morning talk-show that barely made its way past the extremely poor reception on the television.
	The talk-show host was interviewing some poor haggard-looking woman about the fate of her daughter who had run off with some degenerate longhaired boy, and had been driven to indiscriminate sex, poverty, and a life of corruption by the use of drugs.  If one was to believe this woman, all was woe with the world, and the end was very near.  An entire generation had been seduced by the hidden chemistry of the Anti-Christ, and was about to plunge into darkness forever.  She went on and on about the evils of, what she called the devil's weed.  Both this poor hapless woman and the host had joined forces to lay all the ills of the country at the feet of this one single herb.  Marijuana could be blamed for it all.  The decline in education had come about because of it.  The rise in the crime rate was a result of it.  The decay of the moral state had been caused by it.  Even the war in Viet Nam was dragging on because the pot-smoking youth would not support the killing that had to be done to free those poor people from themselves.  Marijuana was responsible for everything but the weather, and even that may have to be re-evaluated in the near future.  The amount of marijuana smoke being released into the atmosphere was beginning to reduce sunlight.  It seems the daughter of this woman had smoked pot only once, and she had become immediately addicted, torn off her clothes and beckoned for the entire world to enter her most private chambers.  The poor girl had denounced her Christian heritage, given away any money she had, and then joined a commune somewhere in the Nevada desert.  According to the mother, she had even let the hair grow on her legs and underarms.  The audience found the situation totally deplorable.  Some even thought they should seek out this 'hell hole' in Nevada, and exorcise the demons that must inhabit the place.  This segment of the program ended with the host leading the audience in a prayer designed to free these unfortunate children from the grips of Satan.
	"Are those people for real?"  Ellis asked, as the commercial came on.
	"Boy, they're on a heavy trip.  Sounds like a cool place in Nevada, wherever, but I don't think I can take any more of those folk's bullshit," Fred said, getting up and changing the channel.
	Ellis got up as well and peeked under the plate that covered his newly invented groatcakes.  They had spread out in the pan and risen slightly, giving the impression of muffins.  He stuck one finger in under the plate, poking one of the dough gobs.  It seemed a little too soft and spongy so he let the plate back down and went into the kitchen.  He folded the tops down on the paper sacks that held the ingredients for this recent concoction, and put them back in the cupboard from where they had come.
	The sound of footsteps could be heard upstairs along with that of muffled voices.  Presently, two pair of feet, one heavy the other light, padded down the stairs, turned the corner at the bottom, and showed up in the parlor.  The largest of these feet were pink and cold looking as they rested on the bare wood floor.  The smaller pair were snuggled into green wool socks.
	"Morning."  Both John and Francine said this at the same time, and John turned and went into the bathroom.
	What's this on the stove?"  Francine asked, stepping to the frying pan.
	"Don't open that lid!"  Ellis called out from the kitchen.  "It might spoil the cakes."
	Francine looked at Fred, who hadn't moved his gaze from the television.  "Cakes!  What kinda cakes is he makin?"
	"Oh I don't know," Fred answered.  "I think he just poured a bunch of different shit together out there and thinks it'll cook up into something edible.  He called'em Goat Cakes or something."
	"Groatcakes!"  Ellis called from the kitchen.  "They're groatcakes, and you may not get any if you keep up that kinda talk."  He picked up a coffee cup and walked into the parlor.  Here's a cup Francine, coffee's on the table."  He pointed to the low coffee table.  It may not be too hot, because there wasn't enough room on the stove for it and the groatcakes both, but it should be good and warm."
	"Thanks!" she said, leaning down and picking up the coffeepot.  "What the hell are groatcakes, anyway?"
	"They're just a muffin with all the rules suspended," Ellis answered laughing.
	"Rules?  What rules do muffins have?" she asked.
	"Oh, you know, what you can put into them and still call them a muffin.  Shit like flour, baking powder, milk, and eggs.  In a Groat Cake, there aren't any restrictions on the ingredients.  You can put anything you want in a Groat Cake and it's still a Groat Cake.  Well, I guess it does have to be edible, and I suppose it should hold together into a single glob of some kind, but it can have most anything in it."  He lifted the lid slightly and pointed to the well-risen globs in the pan.
	Francine had poured her coffee and stood in the middle of the parlor holding the pot out as if to ask if anyone else wanted more coffee.  No one responded and she set the pot back on the table.
	"Here, look at these little beauties," Ellis said, taking the plate off the frying pan and walking to the kitchen to get a fork.
	"They're kinda weird looking, but they smell good," Francine said looking closely at Ellis' concoction.
	He returned with a fork, and poked it into one of the, now well-browned dough gobs.  "I think they're done," he said, and using his shirttail as a pot holder, he took the pan from the stove, walked back into the kitchen and set it on the kitchen table.  He then took his jackknife from his pocket and cut open one of the muffin-like cakes.  He held it up to his nose and smelled it carefully.  He reached down, scooped a hunk of butter out of the butter dish on the table, and applied it to the cake.  As the butter began to melt into the cake, he slapped the two halves back together and walked back into the parlor.
	"Cakes are ready, if anyone wants breakfast," Ellis said, stepping carefully in amongst the legs of the dogs, in an attempt to get to the far side of the room.  In the process he managed to step on the edge of Punt's tail.  Punt yelped and sprung to his feet, then turned around a time or two, growled at one of the other dogs and lay back down, a little farther out of the path.
	"Sorry Punt," Ellis said and sat down in the chair he had been trying to reach.  After looking into his Groat Cake to see if the butter had melted, he took a small bite.  Slowly a smile came across his face.  "Jesus, these are great.  They taste great.  You better have one."
	John appeared at the doorway with a Groat Cake in hand.  He had already taken a bite, and stood there chewing with his mouth full.  Everyone turned and looked at him, waiting for his proclamation as to the quality of Ellis' new invention.  Realizing he was on the spot, he made purposeful contortions with his mouth to imply he was giving careful evaluation to the flavors and textures within this shapeless gob of dough.
	"Well!"  Francine said.  "What's it like?  Can we safely eat these things?"
	John hesitated and then smiled.  "They're good.  Just like mom's."  He stepped into the room and held his cake out for Francine to take a bite from.  She leaned forward and munched a chunk off the edge of the cake.  A small piece broke loose, fell to the ground next to Sundance's nose, and bounced toward the center of the room.  Sundance and Punt both sprung to their feet at once and made for the fallen crumb.  Sundance, being much closer, got there first and gobbled down the morsel.  Punt, furious, bared his teeth and growled.
	"Punt!  Get back over here.  You asshole, lie down," Ellis yelled at the dog, and it returned to its resting-place near Ellis' chair.
	"God that dog's an asshole," Francine said after she had swallowed her bite of cake.
	"Be nice, Francine," John said.
	"All right, if that dog'll be nice too," she said, and then turning to Ellis.  "That is good.  I'm going to have one.  You better try'em Fred."  She went into the kitchen and prepared herself a Groat Cake.
	Fred pried himself off the couch, picked the coffeepot up from the table, returned it to the top of the stove, and went into the kitchen.  He too buttered a muffin and returned to the parlor.  He went to the foot of the steps and, looking up the stairs into the dim light, he yelled.  "Hey Duncan, you lazy fucker.  Breakfasts ready down here.  You better come and get it or we'll give it to the dogs.  They're already starting to fight over it."  He then returned to the couch and sat quietly eating his cake.
	There was a moan from upstairs, but nothing more.
	Everyone agreed that the groatcakes were a success, even though there was little about them that warranted much acclaim for Ellis.  They were, in fact, merely a muffin.  Ellis' description of them being a muffin without the rules was pretty good.
	"What all did you put in these?"  John finally asked.
	"Are you sure you want to know?"  Ellis answered.
	"No shit!  Fred mused.
	Ellis finished chewing his cake and swallowed.  He then took his tobacco and papers from his shirt pocket.  "Well, we actually have a pretty good supply of groat makins around right now, but the recipe, if there is such a thing for them, would simply read, flour, baking powder, and liquid.  Of course those things are kind of the minimum, and you can add anything else that's lying around the kitchen.  These have several kinds of flour, salt, sugar, and eggs, and some peanuts and a few raisins.  Oh yeah, I had to use water, but if we had milk, I think they would be better."
	There was a thump from upstairs as Duncan's feet hit the floor, followed by the sound of him scurrying around in his room and getting dressed.  Presently he thumped down the stairs and appeared, bleary-eyed in the doorway.
	"What the hell's all the racket down here?  Can't a guy get a little beauty sleep around here?" he said.
	"You better go back to bed, if beauty sleep's what you're after," Fred said laughing.  "In fact you better sleep for a week straight."
	They all laughed, even Duncan, who stood there with no shoes, his pants front buttoned up crooked, shirt not buttoned at all, and his thin hair sticking out in every direction.  Duncan, though in his early to mid twenties, showed definite signs of balding.  His hairline in front had receded nearly to the center of his head, and the remainder had a density much the same as the hair on a Chinaman's chin.  He was certainly a sight, as he stood there leaning against the door jam.
	"You're real funny Fred," Duncan said.  "What's that smell?  Like burnt tires or something dead.  Oh no, it's like something Ellis might have cooked."
	"Careful, or you won't get any," Ellis said, blowing smoke in Duncan's direction.  They both laughed, and Duncan turned and headed for the bathroom.
	Francine was in the kitchen buttering another muffin when Duncan came out of the bathroom.  "Hey Duncan, you should have one of these.  Ellis made some pretty good muffins.  He wants to call them groatcakes.  I think just to discourage people from eating them, but they're not too bad.  In fact they're quite edible."
	Duncan buttered up a cake, came into the parlor, and sat down on the couch next to Fred.  They all sat in front of the blaring television.  It was about ten o'clock and the daily string of soap-operas was beginning.  Duncan loved these insidious little slices of life at its worst.  These convoluted tales of families and friends and enemies, all mixed together, are like one of those soups that sits on the stove for days, even weeks, to be added to from time to time, by any and all that pass by.  It was these short daily reminders of how bad it could be, or maybe how bad it could get, that brought Duncan his greatest pleasure.  He said that he learned more from these group snapshots than he ever did in school.  It was hard to say if that spoke for the soap-opera or against school, but he spent far more time in front of the television than he did in class.  He could describe the thin thread that wove each and every one of these narrow worlds together, with a clinical detail that would have impressed his psychology professors greatly, if they had been able to see, as he did, the global truth in these isolated episodes.  He claimed that the lessons to be learned from the soap-opera were much greater and far reaching than anything he had yet seen in the University setting, and he had even begun writing a textbook, in his mind, that would, in his words, "draw together the sudsy lessons contained in these fantastic fantasies." 
	The Television blared on.  This seamy tale, being woven together in some television studio, and then magically air-lifted to them through that plastic box in the corner of the room, full of vacuum tubes and electronic circuitry, seemed to hold John and Francine in the same trance that it held Duncan, but Fred and Ellis were off on daydreams of their own.  Fred had resumed his study of the county map, and was somewhere between the top of one hill and the bottom of another.  Ellis had drifted his way back into the warm thoughts he had been building around the possibilities surrounding his next meeting with Molly.  He painted himself an image from the residue of these thoughts that, although somewhat out of focus, drew him farther and farther away from the television until it left his world entirely.
	"There it is!  Look at that!"  Duncan yelled, pulling Ellis away from his vision and back to the Soap Opera.  "It's the old Oedipus Complex.  They wrote these fucking things straight out of a psych 101 textbook.  It's classic.  The kid has a big fight with his dad, then the mother comforts him and he nuzzles her warmly.  I mean, hell, I'm surprised they don't show him nursing."
	"Jesus Christ Duncan, the kid's at least fifteen.  Are you some kind of pervert?"  Francine asked horrified.
	"That's just what I mean.  The kid's got an Oedipus complex and the mother's eating it up.  Look!  She's rubbing his chest.  Shit!  She's even unbuttoning his shirt, and he's kissing her on the neck."  Duncan was excited and sitting on the edge of the couch.
	Francine calmly got up, walked to the television and turned it off.  "They have just gone too far," she said walking out of the room.
	"What!  You asshole."  Duncan jumped up and turned the big blurry tube back on.  "This is important stuff," he cried.  "This is education at its best.  I'm going to make millions writing the textbook for a 'Soaps 301 class'.  It will be used at every major university in the country."
	"Why 301?  Why not 101?"  Fred asked.
	"This is heavy shit," he said.  "It's way too heavy for freshmen.  In fact it may be too much for juniors.  Maybe it should be reserved for seniors."
	Francine walked back into the room, and stood half-blocking Duncan's view of the television.  "Shit Duncan, you're just the student, and you're going to write the text book.  Maybe it should only be a grade school primer."  She laughed and then stepped aside, letting Duncan see his show again.
	"That does it," he said, reaching for the candy tin on the table.  "It's time to smoke before I get really mad."
	He took a joint from the tin and groped around in his pockets looking for a match.  Francine took a match from her shirt pocket, struck it on the side of the stove, and stepping forward, held it in front of Duncan.  "I should have lit this match on your forehead," she said with a chuckle.
	Duncan lit the joint, took a deep drag and handed it to her with a smile.  She took a hit and passed it on to John, who was sitting next to where she stood, and the rhythm of breathing, passed around the room.
	After about his third hit, Duncan blew out a cloud of thin, partially absorbed smoke and said,  "This could become a whole set of textbooks.  One for every grade level.  Each one delving deeper into the complexities of the wonderful lessons to be learned from the soap-opera.  I'll become fabulously rich."
	"How much of these text books have you written so far?"  Francine asked.
	"Well they're still mostly being formulated in my mind," he said, leaning back into the soft cushions of the couch.
	"And when does the writing begin?" she pressed.
	"When I get it put together in my head," he replied.
	"Sure, I can imagine when that'll be," she said, and walked out of the room.
	"Hey, what are the odds anyone'll be going into town today?"  Ellis asked.
	There was no answer.  Between the Soap Opera and the county map, Fred and John and Duncan had been sucked up into a consciousness beyond Ellis' reach.  Like the movement of water, trying to drift along a path of least resistance, they slid in and out of old storms and new calms.  Their pasts, and presents, and futures had all been poured together into one fluid moment that struggled in its effort to flow beyond the dams they had each built in their feeble attempts to control time.  They were unaware of the nature of a spinning mass, and its capacity to push and pull equally, that tendency it has to send one spinning off toward its ever thinning edges, and at the same time suck one deeper into its center, its very heart.  Water, in its continuous journey downhill, is at rest, at peace, even in love with its place in time.  Water has seen time at its best, and at its worst.  Water has seen the Yin and the Yang, and water has always been there to witness life, and death, and that space we seem to think exists between them.
	Ellis had slumped in the chair to where he was nearly lying down.  His feet stretched out over Punt lying in front of the chair, and tangled themselves in the legs of the coffee table.  He took his tobacco from his pocket and began to fashion a cigarette.  When he had finished, he carefully slid the tobacco and papers back into his shirt pocket and groped around looking for a match.  Unable to find one, he asked if anyone might have one and Duncan threw him a book of matches from across the room.  His aim was poor and Ellis had to reach for them as they flew by.  His feet, tangled in the table legs, jerked the table off its feet and onto its side, dumping the remainder of John's coffee onto the floor.
	"You two make a great team."  John remarked, leaning forward to retrieve his empty cup.
	"We had to practice that one for hours to get it right," Duncan said helping Ellis right the table.
	When the table was back in place, Ellis got up, dug the book of matches out from behind the chair where they had flown, and lit his cigarette.  "Anyone feel like going into town today?" He asked as he sat back down in the chair.
	"Yeah, I suppose I should go to my chemistry lab this afternoon," Duncan answered.  "God, I hate that fucking class.  The lecture isn't too bad, but they always do some dumb experiment in the lab.  It's just a waste of time."
	"I wouldn't mind riding in with you if you go," Ellis said.
	"It won't be until late.  That lab doesn't start until four ten, so I suppose we'll leave at three-thirty or so.  I think it's the time I hate the most about that lab class.  A person should be out drinking and smoking by that time of day, not sitting in a boring class.  Besides, I have to miss the last half of one of the best soaps because of that stupid class."  Duncan got up, went into the kitchen, buttered up a second Groat Cake and returned to the couch.
	"Hey Fred, if you want to go on a short ski trip, I'd be interested," Ellis said.
	"I was just looking here at the map.  What if we went up on the ridge," he said, pointing behind himself with his thumb,  "and skied all the way up to the landlord's, and then back down the ridge on the other side of the valley.  That looks like it would be six or seven miles.  Fred leaned forward and handed Ellis the map.
 	Ellis took the map and looked at it upside down for a moment before realizing it and turning it over.  After righting the map, he studied it for several minutes and set it on the table.  "Jesus, it's all up hill from here to Haines'.  How many feet do each of these contour lines stand for?" he asked.
	"Twenty feet I think."
	"That would make Haines' place nearly four hundred feet higher than here."  Ellis seemed worried about the climb.
	"Shit!  That's not much of a climb, considering it takes about three miles to get there.  Besides it will be downhill all the way home again.  It'll only take a couple of hours, let's go.  Fred was anxious to get out into the fresh air and away from Duncan's soap operas.  He stood and walked into the kitchen, buttered another groat cake and took a bit.  "I'm going to go anyway, whether you do or not," he said with his mouth full.
	"Yeah, I'll go," Ellis said getting up and following Fred into the kitchen.  "I better have another one of those too."  He reached down, picked up a cake and, without buttering it, took a bite.  "These things are starting to harden up aren't they?"
	"Yeah, a little, but they're still okay.  How much of that shit you made them out of, is there left?"  Fred asked.
	"Oh, I don't know, maybe half dozen more batches.  It's simple shit.  We can always get more."
	They both went out the back door, through the porch, and into their cold, unheated part of the house, put on warm clothing and returned to the kitchen, ready for the outside.
	"Hey you two.  We're going to ski up to Haines and back.  I'll be back in time to head into town with you Duncan, so don't go without me," Ellis said walking into the parlor and picking up the candy tin from the coffee table.  Duncan grunted without looking away from his soap opera.
	"We better take a joint or two for the trip," Ellis continued, mumbling.  "Looks like Francine better twist up a new batch of numbers here too."  He took two joints from the little tin, returned it to the table, and went back into the kitchen.  As he went by the pan of groatcakes, he grabbed one up and put it in his coat pocket.  "I think I better take one of these for the road."
	Fred put a cake in his pocket as well, and they went out the back door.  The sun had come out and it was very bright, making them both squint their eyes nearly shut.  By the time they put on their skis, their eyes had adjusted to the light enough to open them a little more and they started off.  They slid around the corner of the house and headed up the shallow valley in which they lived.  Following the same route as they had taken the day before when they went over the hill to Gale's house, they were soon out of sight of the farm and climbing the steep North hillside to reach the ridge they would travel on.  Once on the ridge they stopped to rest from the long climb.
	"Damn, you can see a long ways from up here," Fred said, leaning on one of his ski poles.  "Let's smoke one of those joints.  We've climbed the worst of the hills for the day."
	"Sounds good," Ellis said, unzipping his coat to get to the joints that lay safely in his shirt pocket.  "You can see the Blues from here," he remarked, groping around for a match.
	They're fairly clear today too.  I'll bet they're almost fifty miles from here," Fred said taking the lit joint from Ellis.
	"Pretty near that far anyway," Ellis said, blowing a thin stream of smoke and water vapor into the cold dry air.
	The Blue Mountains poked slightly up at the horizon to the Southwest.  They lay like a blue haze in the distance.  The sun sparkled on the fresh snow all around them.  Ellis felt a prickly sensation in his eyes from the sunlight, and he pulled his cap brim down to protect them.  He looked back to the North from where they had come.  The shadows cast into their tracks made a sharp contrast with the bright snow, and looked like the scratching's of a soft lead pencil on a new white piece of paper.  To Ellis, these tracks looked like a child's drawing as they wound their way back down the hill they had just climbed, and meandered along the road leading back to the house.  The soft rounded crest of the ridge they stood on, rose steadily to the East.  This gentle slope rose several hundred feet to their destination, about three miles ahead.  Looking in this direction, there was nothing to hold one's attention but the stark white ridge, and the deep sky.  This sky was like a deep pool of sulfuric acid with one copper penny dissolved in it.  Its blue color owed its abundance more to its very depth than the intensity of its dye.
	"Here, take that."  Fred reached out, handing Ellis the tail end of the joint.  "I don't want anymore of it."  He slid his skis back and forth on the snow, polishing the bottoms of them.  "Let's get going," he said sliding away to the East.
	Ellis seized the roach from him and took a long last hit, and threw the tiny remainder into the snow.  He stood there for a moment, holding his breath and watching Fred move rhythmically along the ridge ahead of him.  Presently he exhaled and followed along in his tracks.  Fred seemed to slide along effortlessly, like a dancer, his dark ski tips rising out of the snow in front of him and then falling back out of sight again in a pattern that repeated itself over and over, as he progressed up the slight incline.  Ellis followed dreamily, only partially aware of where they were and even less conscious of where they were going.  The visual simplicity of the stark whiteness of the snowy ridge and the cerulean blue sky was interrupted only by Fred's figure as it made an indelible mark in the soft snow.  It made him think of the basic design class he had failed so miserably at teaching a year before.  There it was, right in front of him, figure and ground.  But now there was figure, and ground, and sky.  What do you do with the sky?  It was like the trinity.  They all seemed to rely on each other for meaning, each adding to the stability of the whole.
	After a while, Fred stopped and stepped to the side, out of his tracks.  "You lead for a while.  Those big fat skis ought to break a nice trail."
	Ellis didn't say a word, but glided past him and plowed into the fresh white powder.  The snow was light, offering little resistance as he half slid, half stepped along the ridge.  The minimal picture of blue sky and white ground returned, crisp and clear.  The tips of his own skis moved up and down at the bottom of the picture, creating a kind of filmstrip effect.  Each frame moved with him as he moved steadily up the ridge.  A Red-tailed Hawk cut into this little movie from a top corner and sliced its way diagonally down across the picture until it collided with the ground some hundred feet ahead of them.  It left a thin dark line hanging in the blue sky, tracing its path from high above, to the small furry meal it now clutched in its talons.  It sat there for a moment, wings arched, head down, inspecting its prey.  Then as if launched from a catapult, the hawk once again headed skyward, tracing a wide curving arch that took the large bird and its dinner high above them and finally out of the scene.  The deep pool of a sky, the sparkling white ground, and the line of the hawk's movement all faded into the reality of just another cold winter day, and Ellis could hear the rhythm of his own breathing increase slightly as he labored up the incline of the ridge.  He slid to a stop where the hawk had touched down for his meal, and wondered what had put this hawk, and this poor unsuspecting, and now departed, rodent into the same frame of his movie.  Why this little mouse and not another?  Was there another mouse somewhere, waiting for this one to come home with dinner of its own or news from the neighbors?  What was the story behind the inner lives of these creatures?  Were there reasons for what happened to them day in and day out, or did things just happen to them without purpose at all?
	"Boy, that hawk made a hell of a scuff in the snow when it hit," Ellis said as Fred came up behind him and stopped.
	"Look there's blood," Fred said.  "He must have got something."
	"Yeah, it had a mouse or something when it took off."
	Ellis had caught his breath a little and he moved on smoothly up the ridge.  The incline had lessened some and he was now able to slide gracefully along without lifting his skis.  A line of tree-covered foothills ahead of them had added to the stark contrast of the snowy ridge against the endless sky.  They poked up abruptly out of the gentle rolling hills of the Palouse some twenty miles to the east.  These were the last remnants of the Rocky Mountains as they drifted Westward from the Great Divide.  They had thinned and diminished in size and stature, a little at a time, until they had petered out completely, here at the edge of this wide open space that ran on for some two hundred miles to the West before it bumped into the next range of mountains.  Ellis looked deep into these foothills as they rose into the distance before him.  They would become the Bitterroot Range and then the Rockies, millions of years old, tattered and worn, but not much rounded or smoothed yet by the elements.  These rocky crags, mostly covered with pines and firs at the lower elevations, stood as a barrier to the East that was only occasionally pierced by asphalt and rail.
	Ellis wondered what secrets were held in the forests of these mountains.  He had spent quite a little time in these hills to the East, but that was many years before, when he was a child.  Sometimes his Boy Scout troop would camp in the low mountains of the upper Palouse River drainage, and in the winters he had often gone up near its headwaters to ski with friends at a small ski resort.  It could hardly be called a resort, but there was one rope tow strung out for about a thousand yards along a bare section of a mountain, and a single old log building that served as a lodge.  The skiing was mediocre, but the hill was very steep and narrow, and if you could learn to ski here, you could ski most anywhere.  The owner of the place had befriended Ellis and a chum, and they had been allowed on occasion, to stay alone overnight in the lodge.  They would lay their sleeping bags out on the large split log tables that were scattered about the one big open room of the main floor, and late into the night, sip rum that his friend would steal from his parents.  One time they had brought a twenty-two rifle along, and shot the rats that clamored around on the large log beams that held up the roof.  They had diminished the rat population considerably, but only at the expense of adding to the problems of an already leaky roof.  This had ended their overnight stays and stressed their friendship with the owner.
	Ellis had reached the head of the small valley that held Rebel Flat Creek.  He stood at the highest point for miles around.  Fred slid up beside him and stopped.
	"Here we are," Fred said, out of breath from the last little steep climb that had brought them to this point.  "Look there's Haines."  He pointed down over the crest of the hill, on which they stood, to where the landlord was out feeding his cows.  Fred waved, but Haines was busy with his cattle and didn't notice them silhouetted on the ridge above him.
	"Well, do you want to ski back in the valley or stay up on the ridge?"  Ellis asked.
	"Oh, I don't know, let's stay up on the ridge.  You can see so much farther, and then we can really get up some speed on that last hill behind the farm."
	Ellis pointed a little ways ahead of them along the ridge, where a lone apple tree stood.  "Let's go over there and smoke a joint before we head back," Ellis said moving off in that direction.  This lonely tree stood just back from the crest of the hill far enough to be out of sight of the landlords place, but still high enough to leave them with a full three hundred and sixty degree view of the area.
	Ellis slid up next to the apple tree and came to a stop, sticking his ski poles into the fresh snow far enough to hold them and then bent over and took off his skis.  The wind had swirled the snow around the tree in such a way as to leave the ground nearly bare for eight or ten feet around it, leaving a nicely sculptured curb of snow nearly a foot high around the opening in this white blanket.  Ellis stepped off this curb into the opening, inspecting the tree.  He walked slowly around it while Fred took off his skis and joined him.  It was a large tree, over a foot in diameter.  Someone had trimmed all the lower branches, leaving it open, to walk under the remaining canopy of limbs.  A few soft brown apples remained hanging from the tips of the branches and many more lay rotting on the ground.
	Ellis leaned up against the trunk of the tree and reached in under his coat for the marijuana cigarette that was in his shirt pocket.  He took it out, carefully straightened it, and lit it.  He took a long deep drag and handed it to Fred, who did the same.  They both leaned against the apple tree and rested, smoking the joint in silence.  The sun warmed Ellis' back as he looked off to the North.  The white hills rolled on endlessly, delineated only by the slight shadows cast by the sun and the few trees and bushes that sprung up here and there out of the otherwise completely cleared ground.  He wondered how long this land could continue to produce the high yields of grain before the soil gave out completely or just utterly washed away.  He thought of the people he knew that farmed these lands.  They were nearly all nice, honest, well-meaning people that made a living for their families from this ground.  They didn't want to give this land up to the winds and rains, but they were either unaware of, or unconcerned with the unnatural demands they had placed on these fragile soils they depended on for their lives.  They all seemed to feel this land would continue to fulfill their dreams and their children's dreams forever.  In the early years, when this land was first broke out of the sod and put to till, these people were like the salt of the earth, one with the land.  It would have been hard to distinguish between them and the soil they plowed.  They were made from the earth they worked daily into the lives they led, but now things have changed.  The bankers and governmental agencies have stuck their noses into that same dirt and smelled the money that rests just below the surface.  These bankers and federal agents soon taught the farmers how to sniff out these dollars and then extract them from the soil they had previously treated so carefully, but now have abandoned for the money it contains.  Ellis was saddened by this prospect of economics taking the place of stewardship, and he tried to fight off a vision of these rolling hills becoming flat, and desolate, and void of life.  The blame, if any, for this shift in purpose by the farmer, can only be attached to him by the very nature of capitalism itself to nudge, no, push us all into believing that we must have more and more of everything.  The banker's blame is minimized by the same prevailing breeze that blows steadily from the center of a capitalist society, instilling in us all that obligation to accumulate far in excess of our true needs.  The government agent, clothed in righteousness, can not be blamed at all, for he is doing just what he was created to do.  He has succeeded in his mission.  He has changed the scope of agriculture into one gigantic bureaucratic film that now covers all of America, and is rapidly spreading beyond our shores.
	Ellis stood frozen in place, his back glued to the apple tree.  Dreams formed and reformed like clouds, swirling in his head until he couldn't tell what was now and what was some other time.  He could see a farmer guiding a plow pulled by two mules.  The sod rolled over, exposing the virgin soil beneath it.  He stepped carefully along behind his slow and arduous work.  Ellis' dream drifted smoothly to an old farmhouse where a woman was humped up over a washboard scrubbing clothes.  The woman too, looked as though she was working to her fullest capacity.  Rivers of sweat ran down her face and dripped into her wash tub.  Presently, a shiny automobile drove up to the farmhouse, a well-dressed man stepped out and went up to the door.  The farmer let him in and the three of them sat in the kitchen and talked.  Next Ellis was high above the farm, looking down.  He could see that the farmer was driving a tractor instead of mules, and his farm was twice as large.  He could see the farmer's wife feeding her laundry into an electric washing machine.  The house had a fresh coat of paint, and now that the woman didn't have to work quite as hard, she had planted flowers around the house.  The fences were mended and also sported a new layer of white wash.  The mules stood idle in the barnyard.  The shiny automobile pulled up again in front of the farmhouse, and the banker man got out and went in.  Once again the three of them talked, and when the banker left, things had changed.  The farmer rode a larger tractor and pulled larger plows around a much larger farm.  The wife cooked on an electric stove, had indoor plumbing, wore a bright new dress, and sat, with several children on the porch sipping lemonade.  Life was good for these people, but times were hard for the earth they had touched.  This land of theirs had been ripped open as far as the eye could see, and lay exposed to the elements.  The trees and shrubs along the waterways had been replaced with wheat, and the wildlife both large and small were few and far between.  Ellis tried to get away from his dream, but he was drawn deeper into the drifting cloud that held these visions.  The farm got bigger.  The tractor got bigger.  The farmhouse itself got bigger and brighter, and prosperity shined.  This land had finally brought wealth to the farmer and his family.  This dream of Ellis' faded gently into a soft blur, and when it returned, he held a crisp clear vision of the farmer coming up out of the barren soil, like one might step up from a root cellar.  He wore a hard hat and carried a pick and shovel.  He wasn't a farmer anymore at all, but now he was a miner.  He had mined this fertile ground for all it could give him, and now he stood in the middle of a wasteland.  The farmer, or miner, then walked to the house, took his wife and family, a large sack full of money, and drove away in a fancy car of his own, leaving a trail of dust behind him.
	A hundred yards down the ridge toward home, a coyote trotted up onto the crest of the hill from the other side and headed their way.  He loped along in the shallow snow that barely covered the ridge, unaware of their presence.  He stopped, stuck his nose into the snow several times, sniffing for mice, and then moved on in their direction.  Fred and Ellis stood very still watching the coyote move along the ridge.  The animal stopped again, stuck his muzzle into the snow and held very still.  In a moment he lunged forward and to the side a little, snapping at something just under the surface.  His nose, like a plow shear, spread the snow apart and he followed it as best he could on the slippery ground.  Presently the coyote stood still and after a slight quiver of his head, still buried in the snow, he raised up with a mouse dangling from his mouth.  He gave it a slight shake and dropped it on the ground at his feet.  He looked around casually and then after giving his catch a couple of affectionate licks, he gobbled it down in a single bite.  This handsome animal in its winter coat stood for a full minute looking at the same scenery as Fred and Ellis.  It turned a full circle several times, taking in the splendor of the sunny day and a full belly.  Now about fifty yards from them, the coyote looked up the ridge toward the apple tree.  Ellis felt their eyes met.  He could feel the coyote penetrate deep into his own being.  They stared at each other for some time.  Neither moved a muscle.  Finally, Ellis thought he could see the animal's nose wrinkling, trying to smell them.  There was so little breeze that the coyote was having trouble picking up a scent, but in time he did.  He spun in his tracks and headed at a full run down over the edge of the ridge away from them and was soon out of sight.
	"Wow!  Cool," Ellis said.  "That reminds me, I'm kind of hungry myself."  He fished around in his coat pocket and came out with the groat cake he had put there before leaving the farm.  It felt harder than it had earlier, and he inspected it carefully for dirt and crud that it may have accumulated in his pocket before taking a bite.  It had dried out some and was, at least at first, a little less palatable than it had been only an hour or so before.  As he chewed however, the flavors filled his mouth with satisfaction.
	"How is that thing?"  Fred asked, pulling himself away from the tree and walking around on the bare ground around it, that had been exposed by the wind.
	"It's not too bad, a little dry and harder, but it still tastes fine.  I expect by tomorrow it'll be hard enough to use for a hammer though.  Ellis laughed, and thought how he could fashion them into hammer heads before cooking them and then put handles on them in a couple of days and sell hammers.  This thought whisked through his head like a speeding car and was gone.  He too, leaned away from the tree and stepped up onto the snow and began putting on his skis.
	"I suppose we should keep moving.  I don't want Duncan to go into town without me," he said, snapping the binding tight on his ski.
	Fred put his skis on as well and the two of them began the gentle descent along the ridge toward home.  The coyote had stirred the snow considerably where he had caught the mouse, and his tracks, leading away from the place, showed the speed of his flight.  Ellis followed the tracks with his eye as they led off to the North over the crest of the hill and disappeared into the next valley.
	"Look!"  Fred said, pointing in the direction of the tracks.  "There he is."  The coyote was just coming up out of the valley on the far side.  He had slowed his pace, but as he looked back and saw them he picked up to a run again, and was soon over the next hill and out of sight.
	Ellis, with his long wide skis, was leading the way as they slid slowly down the ridge.  The slope was just enough to keep them moving effortlessly, and they both leaned back on their heels and enjoyed the smooth ride.  The hiss of their skis against the snow was the only sound, and the combination of the clear sunny day, the fresh cold air, and the unique scenes played out by the hawk and the coyote gave Ellis a feeling of soft warm euphoria that even the marijuana cigarette could not enhance.  The natural way these two animals had assimilated the little lives of their prey was in direct contrast to the cruel and bloodthirsty acts that came from his own kind, and he felt a kind of shame at being one of them.
	It wasn't like nature was fair and mankind was not.  Fair didn't even enter into it.  It was more a matter of motive.  The hawk and the coyote had interrupted the lives of these mice without malice, without contempt, without any of the complicated, ego-driven, reasons that attach themselves to man.  These pure, honest motives of nature's predators, are what keep the scales in balance.  These animals, without any conscious effort, know their proper purpose in the scheme of things.  It's not even a matter of them knowing, as in knowledge or awareness, but a condition where these creatures take their appointed place in the big picture, and hold tightly to that spot without complaint or any attempt to add to, or subtract from, or change in any way that situation that is theirs.
	Mankind, on the other hand, has pushed and pulled at the edges of his role in that huge fractal equation that seems to make up this world we call home.  Somehow we can't let well enough alone.  We have been given too much too soon.  Our own evolution has taken place in too short a time for us to keep up.  We still think and feel like a cave man, and we have developed a technology that far exceeds our intellect.  We have little, if any, awareness of what our role is in the fragile balance that exists all around us.  The religions of the world have, in an attempt to define this role, only exacerbated the lack of understanding man has for where he belongs.  He is like a piece out of place in the DNA of life.  He is a kind of break in the chain that produced, not a good honest mutation, that could go either way, from an improvement to a flaw, but a breakdown in the DNA chain that causes a true deformity, the kind that leaves the organism handicapped and struggling.  It's like Mother Nature let the cauldron containing the primordial soup boil over when she came to stirring in man, and that little piece of the recipe that would have held our intellect in check, went over the side.  Those few drops that dripped down the side of the cauldron and into the fire, left the world deformed by greed.  This final work, this pinnacle of her creative powers came out with a mistake.  Like she had dropped a stitch when she knit the sock of life, and left one of her creations missing an important part.
	Fred and Ellis had slid gently down along the ridge to where they were just above the farm, and they stopped.  The farm lay quiet and serene below them in the valley, several hundred yards away.  A thin wisp of smoke rose from the chimney.  The dogs were out in the yard.  Fred put two fingers to his mouth and whistled a long shrill note that, in the cold air, carried far beyond the farm and finally settled into the snow some miles in the distance.  The dogs looked eagerly around to find the source of the sound.  Fred uttered another piercing note, and they homed in on where they stood, silhouetted on the ridge above the house.  This set them to barking and jumping into the air.  Fred let out one more whistle that rose and fell and rose again a full octave, and then hung suspended over the valley like a bird gliding on the breeze.  This brought the dogs to attention, all three facing the ridge.
	"Where's the best place to cross the creek?"  Ellis asked, looking at the line of tall grass that poked up out of the snow and meandered along the valley floor.
	Fred pointed toward the house.  "Down there, by the well.  Follow me," he said, pushing off and heading down the steep hill before them.
	Ellis hesitated for a moment, watching Fred pick up speed.  The dogs too, watched from below, and then began to bark again.  Punt charged out of the yard with the others following him, and ran toward Fred as he made his descent.  Ellis slid off the crest of the ridge, slowly at first, but he too picked up speed rapidly as the slope steepened and gravity pulled him toward the farm and the approaching dogs.  Fred had picked up enough momentum that snow flew up and away from him like the bow spray of a speeding boat.  The bright sun reflected off these little particles of snow, making it look like he was descending through a shower of glitter.  Ellis, traveling in Fred's tracks, gained speed rapidly, and he quickly closed the gap between them.  The cold air rushed by his face, making his eyes water and blurring his vision.  Soon, Ellis was right on the heels of Fred's skis and about to run right up on them.  The spray from Fred's skis blew into Ellis' eyes, blinding him completely, and just before Ellis ran up over the top of him, Fred turned off hard to one side and out of Ellis' path.  Fred looked back as he turned, and could see Ellis plow straight-ahead into the huge wave of spray he had made as he turned.  The deeper snow Ellis hit as he left Fred's tracks, combined with not being able to see, sent Ellis out of control.  He lifted first one ski and then the other.  He leaned forward, and then back, and then forward again.  His center of gravity rose higher and higher, until he pulled up off the ground like an albatross trying to gain flight.  His arms and legs spread out in all directions, and just before he collided with the dogs, he plunged into the deep snow like a meteor, and came to rest under its surface.  Fred made a sweeping turn and came to rest within a few feet of where Ellis had fallen.  The dogs were all three jumping, and running in circles around the crash site.  Ellis finally poked his head up out of the snow and tried to shake the white powder out of his nose and ears.  He had snow packed into every crack and crevice that would hold it, and looked all the world like Frosty the snowman.
	"You okay?"  Fred asked.
	"I guess so.  He answered, spitting snow out of his mouth and reaching up to dig the snow pack from around the collar of his coat.  "Jesus Christ!  I think I have snow packed up my butt hole.  That was quite a crash.  How'd it look?"
	"Yeah, it was great.  I wish we had a picture.  You started to fall way back there where I turned out of your way."  Fred pointed back up the hill about fifty yards where their tracks parted. 
	Ellis swung his skis around downhill and sat up.  He pulled off his gloves and shook the snow out that had been packed up the sleeve of his coat.  He then stood up and brushed the snow off most of the outer surfaces.  "Well, I guess I didn't break anything," he said, sliding his skis back and forth under him.  He unbuttoned his coat and two large hunks of snow fell out from under it.  "Jesus, I'll never get all this snow out of here."
	"It'll melt," Fred said.
	"That'll be nice.  I'm glad we're nearly home, cause I'd be soaking wet and probably freeze to death, if we weren't."
	This will give Dave's sister a good reason to snuggle you in and get you warm," Fred said, giving Ellis a funny look, and then turned down hill and sliding away.
	Ellis watched him as he took a couple of long pushing steps on his skis to gain speed and then crouched slightly and let gravity pull him toward the farm.  Ellis followed and soon they were both in the side yard taking off their skis.  Ellis stood his skis against the house and then took off his coat and gave it a shake to get the rest of the snow out.  The two of them went into the house.  Ellis headed for the bathroom, and Fred flopped down on the couch next to Duncan.
	Through the poor reception on the television, Fred could make out, what appeared to be a golf match being played out in some tropical climate.  The palm trees sprung up out of the carefully sculpted grounds, and crowds of scantily dressed people stood around the edges of the green watching the players tap their little balls into that hole with the flag sticking out of it.
	"Jesus Christ!  Don't you guys ever do anything but watch this stupid shit on the tube?"  Fred asked, putting his feet up on the coffee table.
	"Hey man!  This is important shit," Duncan said.  "Pedro Pelunni is about to beat some English guy for the Spanish cup, or whatever."
	You mean this is being played in Spain?"  Fred asked.
	"Well it was played last summer sometime."  John threw in.
	"Holy shit!  You mean this isn't even live?  You're watching shit that's four or five months old.  You guys must be really bored.  You better get a life, a real life."  Fred shook his head, as Ellis came in from the bathroom.
	"What is this shit?"  Ellis asked.  "Can't you find an old movie or something?  Golf!"  This last he said with a disgust that would have gotten him thrown out of any respectable country club.  He walked to the far side of the room and slid into the big blue chair, and rolled a cigarette.
	"You still going into town, Duncan?"  Ellis asked, blowing a thin cloud of smoke across the room.
	"Yeah, after this match.  I'm not going to make it to my class, but we need coal, and I might go see a girl myself."  He blushed slightly when he mentioned seeing a girl.
	"You don't know any girls," Ellis said.
	"I know plenty of girls, a lot more than you think," Duncan retorted.
	"Gosh mom, you think the boy's finally got an interest in girls."  John said in a falsely deep tone and then gave out a chuckle.
	"Golly pa, I speckt that boy may be a heap a trouble, ifins he ever finds out what girls can do fer him."  Francine put on a falsetto, and everybody laughed including Duncan.
	"You'd be surprised what I know about girls, and one thing is, that you should never let them in the house, and never let'em talk, and if you're going to train one up for something important, you better start'em out real early, cause they sure are a bother if you don't."  Duncan settled himself deeper into the cushions of the couch and folded his arms as if he had just spoke the final word on the subject.
	"Oh Duncan!  You're such a chauvinist pig.  You're going to have to change that attitude if you're going to find any girls fit to keep," Francine said, still laughing from before.
	"Who said I would want to keep one?  I'm a 'love'em and leave'em' kinda guy, and can't be bothered with thinking about keeping one for anymore than a pet, you know what I mean?"  Duncan nudged Fred in the ribs with his elbow and slid a sideways glance at Francine to see if he had made her mad yet.
	Francine just shook her head and looked a little disgusted with him, and then got up and went into the kitchen.  "Like I said, you're a hopeless chauvinist and I'm going to report you to the authorities."
	"Which ones are those?"  Duncan asked.
	"I don't know yet, but I'll think of one to report you to, and then you'll be sorry."  Francine took the last groat cake from the pan and buttered it.
	"Hey Ellis these cakes are pretty good.  I think I'll make another batch this afternoon.  Got any secrets to pass on?"  She stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the parlor.
	"No, there's no rules for them, but don't get too carried away with the baking powder or the soy flour.  Too much baking powder and they'll taste shitty, and too much soy flour and they may come out like rocks.  I think there might be too much soy in these now, but other than that, you can just do whatever you want."  Ellis put his cigarette out in the ashtray on the table, and looked over at Duncan, who was entranced in the golf match.  "How long is that dumb thing going to last?"
	"Quiet!"  Duncan said under his breath.  "This is the last hole, and they're tied going in."
	"Boy that's one game I never could get into much," Ellis said.  " I played a couple of times in college, but it just seemed like you followed this dumb little white ball around and gave it a smack every once in a while.  Actually I think I spent most of my time looking for the damn ball in the bushes.  The guys I played with were real serious, and spent most of their time being pissed at themselves for a bad shot and throwing their clubs around.  I remember one of them threw a five iron up into a tree and it never did come down.  I think I quit playing with them after that.  Besides it's a game for rich capitalist maggots.
	"Shut up Ellis, Pelunni is about to putt," Duncan whispered.
	"Oh right, I forgot, quiet in the stands," Ellis chuckled.
	The fuzzy figure on the screen moved to the center of the green and squatted down to line up the putt.  The ball lay only ten or twelve feet from the flag.  He then stood, faced the ball, which was barely visible on the antiquated television, and took several practice swings.  He stepped forward about a half step, hesitated, and began the final stroke of the ball.
	"Yeah!"  Ellis yelled just as Pelunni's swing started forward.  The ball rolled toward the hole, but just before it got there it veered off to one side and went past the hole about three inches.
	"See Ellis, you asshole, you made him miss.  Now he's going to lose the match and it's all your fault.  You cost him a hundred thousand dollars," Duncan scolded Ellis for his rudeness, as Pelunni stepped forward, tapped his ball into the hole, and walked to the edge of the green.  The other player stepped onto the green and hit his ball about five feet into the hole, winning the match by a single stroke.  The crowd roared and clapped and then the station went to a commercial.
	Duncan stood and stretched, yawning loudly.  "You want'a go into town, huh," he said walking into the kitchen.  "We have to get coal before you get swept away by Dave's little sister."
	"Can we get coal before it gets dark?"  Ellis asked.
	"We probably shouldn't," Duncan said.  "It should work out though.  It's almost three now, so if we check the garbage at the grocery store and then go by Ray and Wally's and burn one with them, it'll be dark by the time we're done and we can get coal, and then you can go see your little girl friend."  Duncan wandered out of the room and into the bathroom.
	"Oh, I see, it's girl friend already.  I suppose you're going to have me all married up and out of here in a couple of days," Ellis said shaking his head.
	"That's an idea," Francine said.  "Maybe I should talk to this girl, and tell her what a stable steady man she'd be getting."
	"Yeah, maybe if you made up a good story, she'd take him off our hands" John threw in.
	"Jesus Christ!  I've only seen this girl three times or so.  I barely know her," Ellis whined.
	"That's all the better," Francine said.  "She won't know the true Ellis, and we can make you out to be a real prince."
	"I thought I was a prince," Ellis said laughing.  "You just stay away from her.  I don't want her corrupted by the likes of any of you."
	"Now how could we corrupt anyone?  Francine asked.  "We're all such nice upstanding souls.
	"Souls!"  Ellis almost shouted.  "You guys don't have souls, at least not that anyone could find.  There's just a big blank spot where a soul ought to be.  I'm getting out of here before your cold hearts rub off on me, that's assuming you have hearts."  Ellis left the room, shaking his head and went out the back to his room.  He gathered several things he wanted to take with him and returned to the kitchen just as Duncan came out of the bathroom.
	"You ready?"  Duncan asked.
	Yeah, Let's get out of here," Ellis answered.  "Hey Francine, you want anything special out of the garbage?  I know how you like the little tidbits we bring home."
	"Eat shit Ellis."  She didn't look at him standing in the doorway, but looked straight ahead at the television.
	"Sorry.  I was just trying to return the favor."  He put on his coat and followed Duncan out the back door.  "I hope you make a lot of groatcakes," he called back from the porch.
	The sun had dropped within a foot or so from the horizon to the South, and was sliding along toward the West, where it would soon drop into evening and out of sight.  It was cold and the sky was clear.  Duncan wondered if this would be the night that the well froze.  He had a large plastic jug in the car and hoped he remembered to fill it with water while he was in town.  The Toyota turned over slowly in the cold, but finally started, and they pulled out of the driveway followed by a cloud of exhaust.  The snow plow had cleared a narrow path about one and a half car widths wide, piling the removed snow along both sides of the road like a wall about two feet high.  Where the snow had drifted into the lower places this wall rose even higher.  One spot where the road cut through the edge of a steep hill, the snow must have been five or six feet deep before the plow had carved a trail, and dumped the snow out of the way.
	"Wow!  You could lose a car in a drift like that," Duncan said, as they passed through the drift.
	"No shit!  That's the kind of drift that can fill back in with just a little wind too," Ellis remarked.
	"Yeah, I know.  It doesn't even have to snow any more.  It's not windy now, but who knows what'll happen before we get home later," Duncan said concentrating on driving.  The snow plow had left a crust of packed snow, several inches deep on the roadway where it had passed, and the Toyota seemed to follow an unseen trail on its own.  Duncan's attempt to steer the car had little effect.  They passed three other homes before coming to the paved road that was nearly four miles from the farm.  The driveways back to these other homes were unmarked by car tires indicating that Duncan and Ellis were the only brave souls to venture out into the cold snowy world since the storm.  When they reached the paved road that connected Colfax with the Snake River they turned right and headed toward the town.  The plow had cleared two full lanes, down to the pavement in places, and Duncan relaxed his death grip on the steering wheel.
	"You think they plowed the Prune Orchard Road?"  Ellis asked.
	"I should think so.  It's traveled more than our road," Duncan answered.
	Sure enough, when they got to the Prune Orchard road, it had been plowed.  They turned right onto it, and once again Duncan had to work hard to keep the little station wagon pointed in the proper direction.  This was another four or five mile stretch of gravel road, filled with snow drifts that had been carved out to form a narrow trail that would accommodate only one car at a time.  They slithered and slid along this road for fifteen or twenty minutes before coming to the main highway that ran between Colfax and Pullman.  They turned right again and headed for Pullman.  There was a lot of traffic now and the road was very slick even though the plows had cleaned it nearly to the asphalt.
	"God, it's a long way to town this way," Ellis complained.
	"No kidding," Duncan said.  "It is more than twice as far.  We're pretty close to town when you can use the spring road, but most of the winter, I think it's about twenty-eight miles.  If you go down Union Flat it's even a little farther, but you don't have the traffic or as many cops to deal with.  I think we'll come back that way."
	"What are you going in for?"  Ellis asked.  "You're too late for your chemistry lab."
	"Oh, I don't know.  I thought you might get laid if I brought you in, and then you'd be easier to live with."  He laughed and lit a cigarette then held the pack out to Ellis.  "Here you want a tailor-made?"
	"Thanks."  Ellis took one and lit it.
	"I thought I would go down to the bar," Duncan continued, "and hope I ran into that Helen chick that's in my English class and find out what's been happening in there.  You never know, I might score something good with her.  That's only if I can find her.  I don't know where she lives or anything, I just see her at the bar fairly often.  I just thought I'd sniff around down there for a while.  I might even win a few bucks playing pool, unless that Bill guy from Moscow is in there.  He almost always wins when he's around."
	"You better stop in at Dave and Carol's with me for a few minutes.  If Molly's not there for some reason, I'll go down there with you and we can kick some ass on the doubles table.  I wouldn't mind making a few dollars off some fraternity boys."
	"Yeah okay," Duncan said, gripping the wheel tightly.  They both were quiet for several miles.  Duncan had to put his full concentration to work just to stay on the road.  He wondered why there was so much traffic.  They all seemed to be in a hurry, passing each other when ever they felt like it whether the road was clear or not.  The car behind them pulled out and fish-tailed around them, barely making it back into line before an oncoming car swooshed by at about twice the speed that would have been safe under the present road conditions.  The car, then in front of them, pulled out again passing the next car.  He fish-tailed again and this time lost control, spinning around in the opposite lane and just before colliding with a large semi-truck, veered off the road and into the ditch.  Duncan didn't even slow down.  He just gave the driver the finger as he and Ellis rolled by.  A mile or so up the road, there was another car in the ditch with a wrecker trying to pull it out.
	"God damn, this is awful.  We're going to be killed for sure," Duncan said.
	"Take the next left, right up there.  You even have a break in traffic.  You better slow down though or you'll end up in the ditch yourself."  Ellis rolled the window down just enough to throw out his cigarette and then closed it again.
	"Where's that go?"  Duncan asked, turning on his signal light and slowing down.
	"Off this fucking highway, and back through Albion," Ellis said looking back just in time to see the car behind them slide out of control.  Duncan turned left and the car behind them spun around, narrowly missing their rear bumper, and then dropped off the road into a clump of hawthorn trees along the side of the road.
	"Shit did you see that?"  Ellis said as Duncan straightened out after his turn and began to pick up speed again.
	"No, what happened?"  Duncan replied.
	"That car behind us, fucking near hit us and then went into that bunch of trees back there."
	"Poor trees," was all he had to say about that.  "God I hope you brought a joint with you.  I could use one right now."
	"I only brought one, but we can smoke it now if you want," Ellis said, fishing around in his shirt pocket.
	"Now is exactly when I want'a smoke it," Duncan replied.
	Ellis lit the joint, took a hit and handed it to Duncan.  The road was well covered with snow, but it had been plowed and most importantly there were no other cars.  It was almost like traveling through a dreamland.  The sun was beginning to set behind them and the low flat angle of the light left sharp patterns on the soft rolling hills all around them.  They traveled in and out of deep cuts in the snow that had drifted onto the road during the storm.  They went up one side of a hill and down the other for nearly forty-five minutes until they came to the edge of Pullman.  It was nearly dark and they decided to check the garbage behind the grocery store and get coal before stopping at any of their friends.  The garbage stop came up empty except two sturdy cardboard boxes that looked like they would make good coal containers, and they went directly to the University coal pile.  They filled the boxes and several sacks with coal in record time and pulled away just before the local police drove by on their regular check of the area.  Ellis wanted to go directly to Molly's place and so they did.  It was agreed that they would meet at the bar around ten o'clock if Ellis wanted to go back to the farm that evening.  As they pulled up in front of Molly's house, Ellis could see her standing in the front window looking out into the snow-covered front yard.
	"Looks like she's there," Ellis announced.  "You don't need to come in if you don't want to."
	"Okay, I think I'll just head on over to Wally's," Duncan said, pulling to a stop in the middle of the narrow street.  "I'll be at the bar around ten or so if you want to come back with me."
	Ellis opened the door and got out.  "See you."
	"Yep"
	He shut the door and stepped out of the plowed street into the deep snow between two parked cars and headed up the unshoveled front walk.  In the house, the sound of the television faded from Molly's consciousness and the anxiety of her wondering, whether Ellis would ever come by, faded into eager anticipation.  She waved, but he was too busy picking his way through the deep snow to see her, and she felt a little let down that he may not be as eager as she was.  She went to the door and opened it just as he was about to knock.
	They looked at each other with out a word for a moment, both not quite sure what to say.
	"I'm sure glad you're here," Ellis finally said, still standing on the porch.
	"Me too," she said.  I almost went out to dinner with Dave and Carol, but I just had a feeling you might come by.  Well, come in.  It's cold out there."  She gave a little shiver as she said this, and stepped back away from the doorway.
	Ellis stamped the snow off his feet one more time and went in to the warm parlor.  She shut the door behind him and walked to the center of the room.  Ellis took off his coat and threw it on a chair.  He stepped forward and took Molly's hand.  It was warm and felt very much alive, even more than alive.  She looked at him and a smile began to form all over her face at once.
	"I have been thinking about you a lot since last time," he said.
	"Me too.  I mean about you.  Actually about you and me."
	"What do you think?" he asked, letting go of her hand, walking over to the window and looking out into the snowy front yard.
	She walked over beside him and closed the drapes, blocking his view.  He turned toward her and they both took little half steps, to where they met.  As she raised her arms around him, he encircled her with his own.
	"Gosh, I'm glad you came now," she said as they squeezed each other gently.  "We can be alone, at least until the movie's over."
	"What movie?" he asked, not really caring.
	"I don't know," she said.  "What do you want to do?  We can either stay up here and watch television or go downstairs."
	"I've seen enough television for one day at my house, besides it's cozier down in your room."  He moved his arms from around her, held her face in both hands gently, and kissed her softly on the mouth.  She kissed back, lightly at first, but then as they became more familiar with each other's lips, she pressed harder and opened her mouth a little, inviting him in.  He accommodated her, gently passing his tongue around the edges of her lips, tenderly caressing the smooth ripples that made up the surface.  She too, slid her tongue carefully through the opening that connected them, testing the waters that may soon unite them more fully.  As they slowly parted from each other, she held his upper lip briefly with her mouth and then let go.  When they opened their eyes, they were both pleased to see smiles that came from deep beyond the surface of the others face.  Molly pulled away slightly and giggled.
	"Your mustache is tickley," she said.  "I think I'll have to pluck it out a little at a time.  You won't even notice."
	Ellis stepped back and put his hand up over his mustache.  "I think I'd notice that.  In fact I think I'd squeal and bite.  I might even have to get revenge."
	"That sounds like fun," she said, with a coy little grin.  "Let's go down stairs.  I want to see how revengeful you can be."
	"Oh, I can be really mean if I put my mind to it," he said, taking her hand in his.
	She led the way through the kitchen to the basement stairs, opened the door and switched on the light.  "After you," she said, smiling.  "I don't dare turn my back on you when you're like this."
	He headed down the steep stairway, and she followed closely with both hands on his shoulders, as if to guide him.  They reached the bottom of the stairs, and went through the dingy basement to Molly's bedroom.  Ellis opened the door and stepped into the nearly complete darkness.  Molly reached over and ran her hand along the wall until she found the switch and turned on the light with a sharp click.  The bare bulb, poked into the ceiling, made them both blink several times before their eyes adjusted.  The room was about the same as it was a couple of days earlier, with the exception that her desk had been picked up, and was now bare, but for a single candle in a brass holder.  The quilt, that had before covered her bed, had been folded neatly at the foot, revealing a soft blue blanket.  Molly went over to the desk, lit the candle, and then walked around Ellis, who stood frozen in the middle of the room, to switch off the electric light.  This bright little room took on a new appeal by candlelight, and Ellis felt warm clear to his center.  The bright colors muted, and the shadows flickered with the small flame.  Molly went over to her bed and sat cross-legged in the center of it.
	"Come sit with me," she said.
	Without a word, he climbed onto the bed and sat facing her with one leg tucked under him.  They said nothing, but looked into each other's faces for a few moments before Ellis reached out and took her hand in his.  She squeezed his hand and reached up, putting her other hand gently on his cheek.  A soft smile formed in the space that separated them as Ellis let go of her hand and took her face in both of his.  She leaned toward him, and as their lips met, the two of them toppled over on top of Ellis, tangled together like two kittens in a basket.  They moved gently as they straightened out their legs, and then lay still.
	"How long do you have, Ellis?" she asked, only partially separating their embrace.
	"Oh, I don't know.  Forever I guess," he said, kissing her softly on the edge of her mouth.
	"Good.  That should be long enough."  She pulled him closer to herself and held him tightly against her.
	They lay there quietly, absorbing each other's warmth, and thoughts, and smells for many minutes.  They touched each other, cautiously at first, but as their fears subsided they extended their exploration to those quiet out of the way places that lie hidden from all but our most intimate companions.  Their kisses deepened and their breathing became more rapid until they had to rest.  Molly unbuttoned Ellis' shirt and then pulled her sweater the rest of the way over her head and threw it onto the floor.  Ellis slid the rest of the way out of his shirt, dropping it over the side of the bed and looked back at her kneeling beside him.  The light from the candle flickered on her bare breasts and he reached up, circling one of her nipples with an index finger.  She leaned forward, her hands on either side of him on the bed holding herself at a convenient distance for his gentle probe, and kissed him, first on the forehead and then slowly working her way down, past his mouth to his bare chest.  She undid the buttons of his blue jeans and slid them off.  Then sitting up again, she slipped off her own pants, letting them fall to the floor, and grasping a corner of the quilt, she pulled it over them, lying back down beside him.  Their bodies, now hidden from even the light of the candle, intertwined into that rhythm of love that has for all of time, held its place in mystery.
	The candle flickered softly and the sound of the heater fan once again became the dominant sound in the room.  Molly and Ellis lay quietly in their pool of love, wrapped around each other like rose vines tangled into a trellis.  She lay, face up looking at the bare white ceiling.  She rolled her face toward him, kissing him on the cheek.
	"I have to be careful how I feel about you," she whispered.  "I'm just so confused right now.  All I know is that I don't want to be down there in San Diego.  I'm afraid I could jump into something too deep without even knowing it."
	Ellis rolled to one side, opened his eyes to the flickering light of the candle, and reached up touching her face.  "I think I know what you mean."
	"I'm hungry.  You want something to eat," she asked.
	"Yeah, I could eat something I guess."  He leaned forward and kissed her.  Like before, the kiss was soft at first, but developed into a deep intermingling of their mouths.  When they finally broke away, Molly sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed.  Ellis too, sat up and crossed his legs on the bed.  He watched as she stood and stretched slightly.  The dim light from the candle shown on her from one side, highlighting the soft gentle form of her body.  Ellis thought once again of his rolling hills.  He leaned forward and touched her bare skin, running his hand down her back and onto her buttocks.  She turned to him and then leaned down to kiss him once more.
	"What do you want to eat," she said as their lips met.
	His head spun a little as he thought about what he really wanted to eat, but then his stomach growled and he was returned to the mundane realities of food.  When they parted, Molly bent over and retrieved her pants from the floor and slipped them back on.
	"You must be hungry, from the sound of your tummy," she said, smiling.
	He didn't say a word, but gathered up his own clothes and proceeded to dress.  When they had both dressed, she turned on the electric light and walked to the mirror that hung by her desk.  She shook her hair slightly and took a brush from the top drawer.  Ellis watched her draw the brush through her hair several times, to remove the tangles he had helped to put there, and then she tossed the brush on the desk and turned to him.
	"Ready," she said, turning back to blow out the candle.
	He nodded without saying a word, and they left the room.
	Once in the kitchen, Molly went to the refrigerator and opened it.  She stood in front of the open door and gazed in.
	"What do you want to eat?" she asked.
	"I don't know, what are our choices?"
	"Oh, let's see.  There's eggs, and bacon, and salad stuff.  There's some dead looking leftovers from a few days ago."  She poked around looking deeper into the crowded mess that made up the contents of the refrigerator.  "How about some scrambled eggs with green peppers and onions in them?" she finally said.
	"Sounds good to me," he answered.  "I'll cut up the veggies."
	She took out the eggs, handed them to Ellis and dove into the drawer at the bottom for the peppers and onions.  "Oh look here's some mushrooms, and here's two slices of bacon we didn't eat at breakfast.  They're even cooked."  She placed all this on the counter next to Ellis and shut the door.
	"Knives are in that drawer," she said, pointing to a drawer under the counter next to the sink.  She handed him a wooden board about a foot square.  "Here you can cut on this."
	He set the board on the counter and began taking the vegetables from their separate plastic sacks and laying them out on the counter.  Molly dug around in a cupboard under the counter for a frying pan, and after making a choice, placed the large pan on the electric stove.  She broke the eggs and Ellis cut the vegetables and the two slices of bacon into small pieces, leaving them piled on the cutting board.
	She took an eggbeater from a drawer and whipped the eggs into froth, while Ellis watched.
	"That's kinda what you do to my head," he said smiling.
	She turned toward him with a slight frown.  "What do you mean."
	"Well, it's been so long since I felt like this about anyone, that it makes my head spin a little."
	She stopped beating the eggs and turned toward him slightly.  "Me too, and it happened so fast.  It's kind of confusing, but it feels good."  She leaned toward him and he put his arms around her.  Once more they held each other tightly for a few moments and then resumed cooking.  Molly went to the refrigerator again for some butter to cook the eggs in and handed it to Ellis.
	"Here, cut me a little slice of this for the pan."
	He cut a slice and put it in the pan that was heating on the stove.  She gave the eggs another good stir with the eggbeater and then dumped in the vegetables he had cut, and poured the whole mess into the frying pan.  It sizzled and sputtered for a few moments and then settled down to cook.
	"What do you think?  Should we slow down a little, or just keep on at full speed?" she said, without looking at him.
	"I suppose we should slow down, but I sure don't want to.  I feel real good right now and I don't want to change a thing except maybe even have more of you."  He reached over and stroked her arm gently.
	"I was afraid you'd say that," she said looking up at him with a smile.  "But I'm glad you did."  She turned the eggs and spread them out evenly in the pan.  "We're about ready here.  There's plates in that cupboard up there," she said pointing to the cupboards behind where Ellis stood.
	He took out two plates, found the silverware, and went to the stove where she served up the eggs onto their plates, and turned off the stove.
	"Let's go into the other room and watch TV," she said, turning to leave the room.  He followed her to the couch, and they sat down.
	The television was already on, and it looked like the evening news was just beginning.  They ate their eggs to scenes of American airplanes bombing the thick jungles of Viet Nam.  Plumes of smoke rose from what had moments earlier been villages full of people.  The announcer told them how these villages had been Viet Kong strongholds and that even the women and children were dangerous enemies of our brave troops, fighting only to assure peace and freedom for the people of the area.  These people were certainly, both free and at peace, that is, if one figured in, that their troubles were over for good and that they could wander the realms of the ether for evermore.
	Ellis shook his head.  "I can't believe that we're doing this over there.  How can we?  What's the point?"
	The picture flashed to helicopters flying low over the jungle spraying the countryside with machine gun fire, and then returning to their base where young smiley-faced soldiers emerged from their gunships waving to their mothers who sat safely back in their own living rooms.
	"What have they done to those guys?  They were just high school kids a year or two ago, playing football, and going to the prom, and trying to sneak a beer.  What have they done to make cold killers out of them?"  Molly asked, not really looking for an answer.
	The news broke for a car commercial, and Molly and Ellis finished their eggs and set the plates on the low table at one end of the couch.  When the news continued, there was a brief clip of students demonstrating against the war at some Midwestern campus.  Here, the commentator brought out how there was a great difference in the younger generation.  "Some kids," he said, "are willing to risk their lives and even die for our country, while others just march in the streets and complain."
	"Jesus fucking Christ!"  Ellis shouted, jumping up from the couch and pacing the room.  "That asshole doesn't have a clue.  Those guys aren't fighting, or dying for our country.  They're doing all this for those fat fuckers that run everybody's lives from back in Washington DC, those God damn politicians and rich bastards running multi-million dollar corporations.  There's money to be made over there, and we're going to kill as many people as it takes to get it.  You watch, they'll kill millions before they're done."  He continued to pace.
	"You better settle down Ellis." Molly said, holding her arms out invitingly to him, "or you're going to have a hemorrhage or something."
	He walked back to the couch and sat down next to her.  "I'm sorry," he said, "but I just get so pissed when I hear them trying to justify that God damn war."
	"Yeah," she said, "I agree with you.  If there weren't any rich people, things would be a lot better.  But you know how it is.  The rich just get richer, and the rest of us are just tools to help them get there.  It isn't right, but I don't know what we can do to change it."  She reached over and took his hand in hers, squeezed it gently and put her head on his shoulder.
	The television broke for another commercial, and Molly got up, gave Ellis a kiss on the cheek, and took the plates to the kitchen.
	"You want anything else to eat," she asked.
	"No, that was great.  I'm fine," he answered.
	She returned and lay down mostly on his lap, facing the television.  The news continued with the normal array of unpleasant stories from around the world.  The cold war raged on in Europe to balance out the hot war in Asia, and the Middle East simmered slowly in the caldrons of man's beginnings.  The navy was building up its sixth fleet in the Mediterranean to insure a balance of power there, and India created the new country of Bangladesh by splitting Pakistan in half, and not everybody was happy with it.  At home the housing industry endorsed the use of uranium tailings to backfill around new homes.  This, it seemed may cause homes to be dangerous from the radioactive content of the uranium sand, but there wasn't enough information yet available to really tell.  The government would take no responsibility for the problem if it became one.  The news ended and Molly turned toward Ellis.  She snuggled closer to him and closed her eyes.  He too shut his eyes and held her tightly to him, and they fell asleep with the television blaring in the background.
	At about nine o'clock the front door opened and Dave and Carol walked in.
	"Oh, now isn't this cute?"  Dave said, as he shut the door hard behind them.  "You better have proper intentions toward my little sister, young man."  He laughed and walked into the living room.
	"Oh, shut up Dave," Molly said, yawning and sitting part way up, before she plopped back down in Ellis' lap.
	"Really Dave," Carol agreed.  "You can be such a butt sometimes."
	Ellis stretched and yawned as well.  "What time is it?" he asked.
	"A little after nine," Carol answered.
	"I suppose I should go find Duncan, before he leaves me out in the snow."  He put his arms around Molly again and hugged her tightly against him.
	"His car was across the street from the bar when we left the movie," Dave said, sitting down and lighting a cigarette.  "He's probably hustling some poor frat boy out of his daddy's money."
	"That sounds good.  Maybe I can get a little of that too, if I get down there in time."  Ellis shifted around under the weight of Molly and she sat up with a little moan.
	"I will return," he said, standing up and adjusting his pants, which had crawled up during their nap.
	"Tonight?" she asked, with a look that made it plain she would like that very much.
	"No, but soon," he answered.
	"You better not wait too long, or I may forget all about you," she said, reaching up, from where she still sat on the couch, and stroking the back of his leg with her hand.
	Ellis turned to her, took her face in both hands and kissed her gently on the mouth.  "I couldn't bare to stay away very long," he said.
	"God!  Look at these two," Dave said.  "You'd think they were puppies."
	"Dave, you are such an asshole, I can't even believe we have the same parents sometimes."  Molly leaned to one side of Ellis, so as to see her brother.
	"Maybe we don't," he said.
	"I would hope not," she came back.
	"You two are like little children," Carol said shaking her head at them both.  "Ellis, you are welcome any time."
	"Thank you," he said.  "I guess I can put up with him if I have to.  I do have to get down there or Duncan will leave me here."
	"Well come back if he does," Carol said.
	"Please do," Molly flirted.  "In fact I hope he does.  You'll be all cold by the time you get back here, and I'll have to warm you up."
	"Now that sounds fun," Ellis remarked, raising his eyebrows and smiling broadly.  He put on his coat and hat and headed for the door.  Molly followed.  They had a long warm kiss before Ellis went out and she shut the door behind him.
	It was cold.  The snow crunched under Ellis' feet as he walked down the front walk.  Few people had shoveled their sidewalks and he decided to walk in the plowed streets.  Traffic was nearly non-existent and there were very few people out walking around.  He was well up on one of the four hills that made up this little college town of Pullman.  He walked to the end of the block and turned toward downtown.
	He tried to imagine what it must have looked like before the white man settled here and then built this university.  He would have been walking on one of four, larger than normal, rolling hills.  Originally the town was called Three Forks, because of the three small streams that converged into the South Fork of the Palouse River and then flowed Northwest, meeting the main Palouse in downtown Colfax, some fifteen miles away.  The beautiful forms of the hills were lost to the eye from the large buildings that covered most of the ground.  The university consisted of a hundred or more buildings with lawns and trees separating them, but from a distance it looked as though there was only one gigantic building, made of brick and cement.  Ellis was walking through the fraternity district, where large houses stood side by side, most of which were built in the nineteen thirties and forties.  These structures were, if judged only from an architectural point of view, cheap copies of older Victorian mansions, but if looked at from a social standpoint, they housed a confined cliquish society that exemplified snobbery at its finest.  Ellis had belonged to one of these social groups at a different college some years before, and even though he didn't fit in very well, he had many good memories from that period of his life.
	As he approached the next corner he could hear shouting and laughter at some distance.  A block and a half away, and off to his left, there were as many as fifteen or twenty people out in front of one of the sororities throwing snow balls and wrestling in the fresh snow.  They looked to be having a good time, and as he passed the intersection, he thought of some of the times he had spent in similar situations some years before.  He had been walking along the top of the hill where it was fairly flat and level, but he was starting to drop over the side where it steepened and headed into the valley below.  He took a few quick steps and then slid for eight or ten feet.  He did this again and again, each time sliding a little farther, as the roadway steepened more and more.
	Presently, the hill leveled out again and he came to a main road where traffic streamed by with regularity.  He had to walk on the sidewalk here.  After going only a single block, on this well traveled road, he cut across the street and headed for a quiet residential area where he could walk along more peacefully.  Here the trees, large maples and elms, hung over the narrow streets, forming a canopy that made Ellis feel cozy and protected from whatever elements that might be out there lurking in the night.  It was quiet here as well.  Only the sound of the snow beneath his feet and the occasional note of a distant car horn broke the thick silence that surrounded him.  He walked right down the middle of the road for several blocks before he came, once again, to a busy main street, where he had to shuffle along the unshoveled sidewalk.  He was nearly downtown and the lights from the many stores, now closed for the night, sparkled through the branches of the trees.  He dropped down the last little slope, crossed a set of railroad tracks and was down town.
	The sidewalks were shoveled here and he could walk without shuffling.  As he crossed the bridge over Paradise Creek, he looked down over the side into the water.  Ice had formed along the edges and snow had built up on it.  A few cattails poked up here and there, breaking the otherwise smooth transition of the snow into the free flowing water.  Ellis thought about the time he and a friend had made a makeshift raft from plywood and inner tubes and floated down this little stream in the early spring.  The raft had broken up, when it hit a rock about where he was looking and they had fallen into the cold water.  They had nearly drowned, but then after dragging themselves out of the water, they had become so cold, that they suffered from hypothermia and nearly died from that, before they managed to get home.
	He walked the next block or so to Main Street and turned toward the bar where he was to meet Duncan.  Mannequins stood in the windows of the large clothing store, displaying the latest fashions that Ellis would never think of wearing.  He wasn't really aware of it, but most advertising went past him without effecting its purpose.  When he reached the bar, he turned and went in.
	It was warm.  Smoke hung from the ceiling like a cloud, settling onto the crowded room as poison gas might settle onto a battlefield.  The jukebox blared, but was only semi-audible through the other sounds.  Glasses clinked, pool balls clacked, and people talked loudly and even yelled.  This was a very different world from where he had just come.  He had to stop for a moment and rearrange his brain to accommodate this new scene, before he walked to the back where the pool tables were.
	Duncan was sitting near one of the tables with a pitcher of beer before him and a cigarette in his hand watching the proceedings on one of the tables.  He looked up as Ellis approached and smiled.
	"Oh good," he said.  "I was hoping you'd get here.  I think we can make some money on that table over there."  He nodded at a table next to where he sat.  "You ready to play."
	"Yeah, I better get a beer first," Ellis said.
	"Just get a glass," Duncan said.  "I just got this pitcher."
	Ellis went to the bar, returned with an empty glass.  "I'll put up a quarter," he said, and walked around to the far side of the table and slid a quarter under the side rail of the pool table to indicate their intent to play.  There were two coins already there so he knew they would have to wait for ten minutes or so before it was their turn to challenge the table.
	Ellis sat down across from Duncan and filled his glass with beer.  "What's our competition?" he asked.
	"Not too much," he answered.  "That guy shooting isn't too bad, but his partner is shitty.  The other guys, that one in the red shirt and the big guy sitting next to him are fair, but they're getting real drunk.  One of the quarters up before us is that guy and girl behind us, and they can't play at all.  They just seem to want to give their money away, and I don't know where that other quarter came from."
	"Sounds good to me," Ellis said.  "We can use the money.  Hope we don't fuck up."
	They sat watching the game for a few minutes before Duncan asked, "Well, I take it Molly received you with open arms."
	Ellis looked over at him and smiled.  "She was glad to see me, if that's what you mean."
	"Well, did you get laid?" he asked.
	"I think that I'll keep that to myself," Ellis answered,  "but I will tell you that I think I could fall in love."
	"Sounds like you already did," Duncan said.  "I suppose you'll be moving into town then."
	"Not anytime soon."
	"Well there's always room out in your hovel for another, if you made your bed a little bigger."  Duncan laughed at the thought of Molly holed up with Ellis in the cold where he slept.
	"It would be warmer out there with her to snuggle up next to," Ellis chuckled, "but I don't think she could handle it out there.  She keeps her room at about eighty degrees."
	At the pool table in front of them, the eight-ball rolled slowly toward a corner pocket and fell in.  A fat kid stood up and walked to the table, handed the man that had shot in the eight-ball a dollar bill, and then sat back down.  A man in his early twenties got up and walked to the table.  He had carefully-groomed dark hair, and wore a sweatshirt that advertised his fraternity.
	He took a long time racking the balls just the way he liked them and then looked at the fellow that had won the last game, and said, "Last pocket for a buck, right?"
	The winner of the game nodded and bent over the cue-ball, concentrated briefly and then shot hard into the freshly racked pack of balls.  Balls flew in all directions.  One squirted straight into one of the corner pockets and another bounced around the table, from one cushion to another before finally rolling slowly up to a side pocket and falling in.
	"One of each," he said, "guess it's still open.
	He walked around the table, sizing up his situation and then shot at one of the solidly colored balls.  It went in and he took another shot.  This time he missed, and he returned to his seat.  The well-groomed man got up, shot and missed.  They took turns shooting until the balls were gone and the team that had won the first game had won again.  The guy behind Duncan and Ellis sitting with the girl got up and racked the balls for a new game.  This time the partner of the well-groomed fellow broke the balls, but nothing went in and the girl shot.  She made a ball that sat right next to a pocket and then missed another.  The well-groomed fellow shot several striped-balls down before he missed and then the girl's partner shot and missed.  The next shooter made another three striped-balls before he too missed, and he sat down, taking a long drink of his beer.  The girl got up and looked at the situation on the table.  It didn't look good.  There was only one striped-ball left and she had six solid-balls left.  She lined up one of the balls with one of the side pockets and shot.  The ball went in and she took another shot.  This time the ball rolled right to the edge of the pocket and stopped.  The cue-ball rolled around behind several of the solid-balls and stopped out of sight of the last striped-ball.  She scowled and sat down.
	"Nice leave, Hon," her partner said and pushed her beer toward her.
	The well-groomed fraternity boy got up slowly and walked around the table.  His concentration showed on his face as he sized up several possibilities for his shot.  Finally he bent over the table and stroked the cue-ball into one of the cushions.  The ball bounced off the cushion and headed toward the last striped-ball.  It was close, but passed by the striped-ball, hit another cushion and headed in the direction of the eight-ball, sitting near a side pocket.
	"Oh shit!"  He said, banging the butt of his cue stick on the floor.  The cue-ball hit the eight-ball at a slight angle and the eight-ball fell gently into the side pocket.  He took a dollar bill out of his shirt pocket and threw it rudely onto the table where the girl and her boyfriend sat, went over to his own table and sat down.  His partner said something to him quietly and then got up and slid a quarter under the cushion of the pool table.
	Duncan took a drink and said, "you want to rack or you want me to?"
	"I will," Ellis said, got up, went to the table and put his quarter into the ball dispenser.  The balls dropped with a loud klunk and rolled to one end of the table.  He racked the balls carefully and replaced the rack under the table.
	"I take it we're playing for a buck," he said as he returned to his seat.
The fellow nodded and got up to break the balls.  They flew wildly from their tight triangular position and spread evenly around the table, but nothing fell in.  Duncan looked carefully at the situation and then began shooting.  He made one ball after another until there was only one solid-ball left on the table before he missed.  He returned to his chair and sat back down.
	"Nice shooting," Ellis said as he poured beer from the pitcher into both of their glasses.
	The girl got up and circled the table looking for a plan of action that would hopefully get them back in the game.  She chose the thirteen-ball for her first shot and made it.  She then shot the nine-ball and then the eleven, but when she shot at the ten the cue stick slid off the edge of the cue-ball and the ball went wild, nowhere near what she had intended.
	Ellis got up and went to the table.  He had a choice of shooting their last ball, the six, a long ways into the far corner or making a sharp cut into the side pocket.  He chose the side pocket and made the ball.  He also left the cue-ball in good position from which to make the eight-ball in one of the corner pockets.  This he did as well and the game was over in four quick turns.  The girl walked over to Ellis and Duncan's table and gave them a dollar.
	"Nice shooting," she said with an honest smile, and then she returned to the pool table and put another quarter under the side rail, before sitting down with her boyfriend.