was nine and Francine seven she said, what am I doin hangin around with him, divorced Ennis and married the Riverton grocer.  Ennis went back to ranch work, hired on here and there, not getting much ahead but glad enough to be around stock again, free to drop things, quit if he had to, and go into the mountains at short notice.  He had no serious hard feelings, just a vague sense of getting shortchanged, and showed it was all right by taking Thanksgiving dinner with Alma and her grocer and the kids, sitting between his girls and talking horses to them, telling jokes, trying not to be a sad daddy. After the pie Alma got him off in the kitchen, scraped the plates and said she worried about him and he ought to get married again. He saw she was pregnant, about four, five months, he guessed.

“Once burned,” he said, leaning against the counter, feeling too big for the room.

“You still go fishin with that Jack Twist?”

“Some.” He thought she’d take the pattern off the plate with the scraping.

“You know,” she said, and from her tone he knew something was coming, “I used to wonder how come you never brought any trouts home. Always said you caught plenty. So one time I got your creel case open the night before you went on one a your little trips—price tag still on it after five years—and I tied a note on the end of the line. It said, hello Ennis, bring some fish home, love, Alma. And then you come back and said you’d caught a bunch a browns and ate them up. Remember? I looked in the case when I got a chance and there was my note still tied there and that line hadn’t touched water in its life.” As though the word “water” had called out its domestic cousin she twisted the faucet, sluiced the plates.  “That don’t mean nothin.”

“Don’t lie, don’t try to fool me, Ennis. I know what it means. Jack Twist? Jack Nasty. You and him—“ She’d overstepped his line. He seized her wrist; tea............