Justice. Larry Watson

      WHEN Tommy Salter, Lester Hoenig, and the Hayden brothers left Bentrock, Montana, at dawn, only a gentle snow—flakes fat as bits of white cloth—fell from the November sky. But the spaces between those flakes filled in fast, and soon it became impossible to see more than fifty yards down the highway. Where the road dipped or was sheltered from the wind, snow lay so thick on the road that the bottom of the Model T, even with its high clearance, scraped the tops of drifts.

      “We get high-centered,” Tommy Salter said from the backseat, “we’re done for. We ain’t going nowhere.”

      Frank Hayden, the driver, said, “We’re all right.” He tightened his grip on the steering wheel and kept the car aimed for the tracks made by the last car that had passed that way.

      “You bring a shovel?” Lester asked.

      Frank glanced quickly at his brother then shook his head.

      Wesley Hayden tilted his head until it rested against the window’s icy glass. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the car’s slow, wobbly motion down the highway. Goddamn, he had wanted so badly for this trip to go well. Next fall, Frank, two years older than Wesley, would be in college, seven hundred miles away at the University of Minnesota. This could be the last time the brothers took this trip together for years. For years? Wesley reconsidered. This could be the last time. Ever.

      “Anyone want to turn around? Go back?” Frank asked.

      Tommy laughed. “Where the hell you going to turn around?”

      “It could let up,” Lester offered. “Down the road. I guess I’m for pushing on.”

      Wesley kept his eyes closed. “It isn’t going to let up.”

      “You know that, do you?” Frank asked his brother.

      “You know it too,” Wesley answered.

      “We ain’t going to freeze to death anyway,” said Tommy.

      Wesley knew Tommy was referring to the three bottles of bootleg whiskey, purchased for them by Dale Paris, a hired hand on the Hayden ranch.

      “What’s the nearest town?” Frank asked.

      Lester asked, “Are we in North Dakota?”

      “We’ve been in North Dakota since breakfast,” Tommy answered.

      “You know damn well the closest town,” Wesley said to his brother. “McCoy.”

      Frank nodded. “If it doesn’t let up I’m thinking we’ll head for McCoy. That’s got to be less than fifty miles.”

      The plan had been to leave their home in northeast Montana, cross over into North Dakota, and head south. Eventually they would set up camp on the banks of the Little Missouri and from there hunt the red rocky bluffs, the dark wooded draws, and the sagebrush flats of the Dakota Badlands. They had hunted that region for years, and just last year they returned with four deer and over fifty pheasant and partridge. Lester had even shot a coyote. Of course last year the weather had been much different—three days of sunshine and uncommonly warm temperatures.

      “I don’t hear you,” Frank said, cupping his ear to the group.

      “What’s in McCoy?” asked Lester. “Anything?”

      Tommy laughed. “It’s right off the reservation. You know what’s in McCoy.”

      Lester looked down the road. “It sure as hell ain’t letting up.”

      “What about you?” Frank asked Wesley.

      “Do what you want. You don’t need my permission.” When they were first planning this trip, Wesley had hoped that he and his brother would go alone. But Frank invited friends, and now Wesley not only had to share his brother, but since Lester and Tommy were Frank’s age, Wesley was stuck being the youngest as well. He was the little brother; he didn’t have any influence with this group. Hell, Wesley had hoped they’d actually hunt. Just hunt. But this snow covered that hope too.

      Frank said to Wesley, “I’m not taking anyone where they don’t want to go. If you don’t want to go to McCoy, say the word.”

      “I’ll camp out in the snow,” Lester said. “Don’t bother me.”

      “Go to McCoy,” Wesley said to his brother. “Fuck if I care.

      Frank took his hand from the steering wheel and slapped his brother gently on the arm. “Hey—it’s outside the jurisdiction, right?”

      Outside the jurisdiction. How many times had Wesley heard his brother use that phrase? They were the sons of Julian Hayden, the sheriff of Mercer County, Montana, and that fact made Frank’s and Wesley’s lives both easier and more difficult. They grew up knowing that if they ever got into trouble, their father, proud and protective of his sons, would bail them out. Yet knowing this, they felt they had to behave so it wouldn’t seem as though they were taking advantage of their father’s position. Only when they got out of town, out of the