Bold Gods

3. Fruit

IRA WENT INTO THE TAVERN LIKE IT WANTED TO TAKE SOMETHING FROM HIM, head up and unbowing, cigarette wedged between his teeth. Stare as they might, none of the greedy eyes at the tables slowed him down. He took a table of his own in the corner nearest the door, putting his back against the wall. Fox wondered why he'd picked the worst seat in the house and then saw him watching all the patrons laugh and eat and move in the haze, the fingers of one gloved hand drumming against the table, furs still on his shoulders, ready to leave as soon as he sat down. A wolf alone for a long time.

"Ain't you a little warm?" Fox asked, shouldering off his own coat.

"Yup." Another puff. Another glance over Fox's shoulder.

Fox bit his lip. Bounced his knee against the bottom of the table. "There's a bathroom around the corner if you need it. You got a funny look on your face."

Ira smiled a Mona-Lisa smile, gone in a blink. "Does everyone from whatever armpit sweated you out make shit jokes to strangers?"

"Hey, Texas ain't no armpit," Fox said, frowning. "More like, uh—" He snapped his fingers. Shook his head. Nothing came. "Give me one of them cigarettes and I'll come up with somethin'."

Ira obliged and lit the cigarette in Fox's mouth, who took a couple drags and stretched out in his chair, knees happy to be unstuck from the bottom of the table. "More like an outhouse." Fox turned his palms to the ceiling. "I wasn't sweated out—I was shat out."

Another smile. Ira had round cheeks. Not like Foster's, which came from pie and caribou sausage and too much cheese. A baby face. Kid had to be in his early twenties, but he was already going grey. "You're the first Texan I've met who wasn't in love."

"Don't get me wrong. I do love Texas. Texas just don't feel the same way about me." Fox folded his arms over the table. "I'm the wrong color."

"Then we have something in common." Letting the smoke out of his lungs, Ira stopped fidgeting and tucked his fist under his chin. "Do you speak Spanish?"

"Yeah. It's a little twangy, though. Get made fun of for it every time I go south of the border." A pause, another drag. Fox frowned. "Except I guess south of the border is Canada now."

"Probably the best Spanish they've ever heard."

"Maybe the only Spanish they've ever heard," Fox said. "And I can't quite figure you out."

"My mother is Dena'ina and my father is Russian. I'm from Eklutna."

"Ek—what?"

"I'm from Anchorage." Ira chewed on his cigarette.

"But you just said you was—"

"It's easier to say I'm from Anchorage." Ira nodded at Fox. "Where are you from?"

"About thirty miles west of Texarkana."

Ira laughed. "See what I mean?"

"Yeah. Five hundred people in my hometown. Doubt you would know it, especially since you've never been to the Lower Forty-Eight."

"How do you know I've never been to the Lower Forty-Eight?" Ira asked.

Fox looked over his nose at him—all of him. His furs, the scar on his brow like splintering ice, the nothing-left-to-lose dare in his eye. "Am I wrong?"

"No, but I don't know whether to take that as a compliment or an insult."

"You just look rugged, that's all. And a little tired."

"Mostly tired of getting fucked." Tapping the ash off his cigarette, Ira looked past Fox again and got up like something furry had brushed against his ankle—but he didn't own a cat. Glass clattered against the table. His cigarette crash landed in the quivering ashtray. His lip curled. His voice tore like thunder as he called, "Rosario!" into the bustling tavern, the name almost lost beyond their corner.