lightly. Red Mabel was used to driving in the mountains—she considered herself a huntress, although the local authorities considered her a poacher. When they found the cabin, Frank was outside, stacking firewood. When he heard the truck, he looked up at the arrival, as if he had been expecting them all along, but didn’t stop stacking wood. Laverna made Red Mabel wait in the truck, and she stepped out into the mud, bearing a brand-new boot warmer and a bottle of Black Velvet. She talked her way into his cabin, by pretending she was cold, which was untrue, because she and Red Mabel had drunk nearly a third of the bottle on their journey. Frank and Laverna sat across from each other; the rough pine floor seemed an impossible distance. At least he offered her the couch. He stared at her silently.
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” proclaimed Laverna. He made a noise in his throat and looked down at this boots. She continued, unsuccessfully, to make small talk, until they heard gunshots. They emerged from the cabin to see Red Mabel dangling a wild turkey in the air. Unfortunately, it wasn’t wild—it was Frank’s pet. Red Mabel warned Frank that turkeys carried all sorts of diseases, which wasn’t true. Red Mabel warned Frank that Laverna would not leave without a date, which was.
Frank came into town the next month, and took Laverna out to eat at the Bowling Alley, and quietly endured her barrage. To silence her, he took her to bed. They eloped that May, to Winnemucca, Nevada. Laverna drank with elderly showgirls, while Frank gambled on battered machines. “That was a sign,” Laverna would say later. “We put a quarter in a slot machine and Frank broke the handle off.”
The thought of quarters reminded Laverna of closing, and she opened the ancient cash register, pulled a zippered deposit pouch from underneath the counter. She began to stack ones and fives. Only the lesbians paid with larger currency, and they had been absent tonight. Most likely they were singing folk songs in the woods, or playing demolition derby with broken heavy equipment jerry-rigged at the junkyard, something they were known to do.
Chuck Clinkenbeard’s son pushed through the door, the snow blowing in with his entrance. Laverna ignored him and kept counting the cash. He was sixteen, but he had a thin black mustache, and Laverna had served him in the past, especially if it was a slow night and there were no cops in sight. The cops drank at the Bowling Alley, so Laverna often poured for any kid who looked past the point of puberty. She couldn’t remember his first name, but it was too late for last call. All the Clinkenbeards had neatly trimmed mustaches, but no beards, thumbing their noses at their name. She pointed up at the clock and continued counting. Laverna would not be serving this Clinkenbeard tonight.
Still counting, she heard a sharp thwack, and stopped to glare at Rocky, who had dropped his broom. She considered yelling at him, but then the Applehaus boys had hit the floor as well, a thud and a clatter as they took their barstools with them.
She realized then that Chuck Clinkenbeard’s son had a small .410 shotgun, undoubtedly filled with bird shot. The Clinkenbeards had been on a grouse genocide mission for as long as she’d known them. He slowly raised the weapon and advanced toward her, stopping in front of the jukebox as it played a Tammy Wynette song. And then the gun was pointed at Laverna. He nodded at the cash she had been stacking in neat little piles.
Black Mabel stumbled through the front door, always looking for an after-party, and seeing the raised gun, she immediately turned around, back out into the night. Laverna looked everywhere but at the gun. It was as if she didn’t acknowledge that it was happening, and by doing so, it simply wouldn’t. That was how things worked in the rest of her life. Black Mabel watched from outside, through the filthy window. Rocky kept chewing his gum and pointed at the gun, as if Laverna didn’t notice it.
The Clinkenbeard boy said something, but Laverna heard none of it. She had turned to look at Bert, who averted his eyes and looked down at his pint glass. The jukebox whirred and now it was Juice Newton, and Laverna finally turned and looked at the gun.
“You’re not robbing me,” she said. “You’re a fucking idiot. You’re not even wearing