Winter In The Blood

Back in the present, the narrator begins walking back towards Gable’s to look for Agnes. It is almost nine o’clock at night. On the way, he sees the airplane man talking to a woman; the woman has her back to the narrator, but she seems familiar, and he wonders if she is the barmaid from Malta. The airplane man directs her towards the hotel, and when she turns the narrator sees that it is, in fact, the barmaid. The narrator looks between the entrance to the Palace Bar, where the airplane man is, and Gable’s, where he thinks Agnes may be. He throws the keys to the Ford Falcon into the gutter and goes into Gable’s, where he finds Agnes. He sits next to her at the bar. She says that he shouldn’t have come; the narrator tells her that he does not care about the things she stole from him. Agnes does not seem appeased. She is nervous and agitated and the narrator asks why, beginning to feel nervous himself. Agnes tells him that Dougie and some of his friends are planning to beat up the narrator because they think he is there looking for him. Agnes says she is telling him because she believes in a fair fight and that she tried to talk Dougie out of the plan.

The narrator tries to leave, but Agnes says he is safe for now because Dougie just left to look for him and should be gone for a while. The narrator tries to talk Agnes into “settling down,” but she tells him he is boring, He suggests she learn shorthand and become a secretary, which she seems to find absurd. He tells Agnes that he isn’t happy and asks her to leave with him. Suddenly, someone grabs him and punches him in the face.

Twenty years in the past, Mose and the narrator eat lunch and worry about the incoming blizzard. After lunch they gather all but one of the cows, who they assume had gotten onto another ranch and would winter there. As they ride back to the ranch, they discuss their longing and plans for a hunting trip. At the head of the herd is a “wild-eyed spinster” cow, an adult female who had not had a calf that year.

In the present, the narrator sits disoriented on the sidewalk. A woman asks if he is alright. Two children, a boy and a girl, watch from a car parked at the curb. The woman tells him that one of his teeth is broken and his nose is puffy, but that he is not bleeding. She says her name is Marlene and asks if he needs a drink, offering to “get us something” if he pays (92). He gives her five dollars and tells her to come back.

Fifteen or 20 minutes later, the woman has not returned. The children have lost interest, but the boy takes a quarter that the narrator offers to him. The narrator walks up the street, finds his abandoned keys, and goes to the Palace Bar to meet the airplane man; he isn’t there, so the narrator cleans his battered face in the bathroom and returns to the bar to order a shot of whiskey. Someone calls from the front door that something is happening outside. The bartender makes some homophobic and transphobic comments, suggesting that the police are arresting someone, but the man says something different is happening. The narrator goes to check and finds a crowd of people gathered around the hotel. He pushes his way through the crowd and finds two journalists, neither of whom have information about what is happening. The narrator says he may know who the police are after, but they are dismissive of him.

Before the narrator can tell the journalists what he thinks, the police emerge from the hotel with the airplane man, handcuffed between the two officers. Someone in a “shiny suit” that is likely with the FBI or another agency also comes out carrying the airplane man’s suitcase. The narrator backs away from the scene, then moves forward when he sees the airplane man spot him, and the man says something before the police put him in the backseat of their car and drive away. The narrator realizes that he is standing beside the Falcon. The journalists ask what happened to his nose; one of them is poised to take notes on his answer.

The narrator sits in the Falcon, conflicted as to what he should do next. He cannot decide if he should go home or try to find the barmaid from Malta. He knows that he should go home and that he will not get help from the white men in the hotel, but he cannot bring himself to leave; he sits in the car for two hours, waiting. He goes into the hotel lobby but it is empty. He leaves and finds Marlene, the woman who found him earlier, “wandering around with two six-packs of beer. She said she had been looking for me, but she looked surprised to see me” (96). They get a room together in another hotel and spend the night drinking beer and having sex. In the morning, the narrator wakes up and tries to appease his restlessness by drinking a beer, which he puts down after one sip. He presses experimentally on Marlene’s body but abandons that in favor of smoking a cigarette. He hears a man playing guitar somewhere nearby and describes it as “the monotony that kept a man company” (97). He looks at Marlene’s body and feels pity for her naked vulnerability. He imagines her as the barmaid from Malta, or Malvina, the woman with whom he’d ridden to Havre.

The narrator climbs on top of Marlene but is dissatisfied with her sleeping stillness. He straddles her body, resting his butt on her stomach and pinning her arms to her sides with his knees. He kisses and nuzzles her, shakes and tickles her; she sleepily requests oral sex from the narrator. He slaps her cheek hard. Surprised, she wakes up and struggles to free herself, but the narrator sits his weight on her and does not free her. After a struggle, she goes limp and miserably sobs. The narrator feels nothing as he watches the woman cry. He removes himself from her and begins dressing himself. Marlene asks if he’s paid for the room and if he has money for her. He gives her the cash he has. She says he could stay or come back later. The narrator says he might, but he avoids her eyes when he leaves.

The narrator has had enough of his experience in Havre and wants to go home. He wants to lose himself in the open land and bright sun and feel erased. He touches his swollen face and begins to walk away from the town.