Free Two Medicine by John Hansen

A-frame roof, until you got
back to the further end to a second floor of rooms. The same long,
telephone-pole size beams stretched across the roof, were held in
place with metal braces, wires and thick steel bolts.
    I saw that the large room
consisted of three major sections of stuff for sale, separated only
by a big stone fireplace and sitting area in the middle on the
right side. As I walked further in I saw that the area nearest to
the front doors held tourist merchandise like stacks of park
tourist books and DVDs, picturesque mugs, candles and other
knickknacks for sale. A bit further in were shelves with t-shirts,
jackets, sweatshirts and other wearable park souvenirs for
tourists. It was kind of an odd assortment of stuff all stacked and
displayed together, some of it seemingly not organized in any
discernable way.
    Beyond the clothes and off
to one side near the wall was a large, glass counter with a cash
register. The stone fireplace had a couple of rocking chairs set in
front of it, just like those on the porch out front. At the back of
the building was a little grocery and camp supplies area and a
snack bar kitchen with a few tables and chairs in which people to
relax and eat as they stared out the huge windows that lined the
log walls on either side of the store. The ceiling was about 30
feet above.
    No one was in view in the
store proper, but I could hear Katie speaking from somewhere in the
back near the kitchen hidden from view, so I followed the sound
through aisles of postcards, past little wooden carvings of bears
and eagles, and by rows of CDs and tapes of outdoor-themed music,
gripping my suitcase and guitar case.
    As I walked I looked with
dismay at the plastic and cheap touristy crap that was being sold
here – in such a pristine and wild place! I felt disappointment at
the message these things near the front of the store were saying to
me, to anyone that came in here – that I was going to be working in
a gift shop . I had
imagined something more like the back of the store, I suppose,
selling camp supplies like food and propane gas, tents and sleeping
backs – the honest, rugged and respectable outdoor necessities –
not key chains and license-plate covers... I averted my eyes as I
passed some plastic, mountain goat Montana magnets for the
fridge.
    I found my way into the
back of the store and walked into the grocery and snack shop area
as Katie popped her head through a steel swinging door in the back.
“Come on Mr. Boone, Larry’s back here.” Still that blank, careful
voice, immobile face – hiding something inside.
    Her hair swung back as she
retreated, the door swinging back into place. Who “Larry” was I had
no idea, but I moved with the determined gait of the first-time
parachutist approaching the plane’s open door, and I set my face
with a steady gaze, gripping my suitcase and guitar tighter, as if
wielding these as two weapons as a defense against any further
dismay I may find behind that swinging metal door.

    I pushed through the door and found myself in a two-story kitchen.
It was a room full of big steel appliances, two large stoves, two
double-door refrigerators, big metal sinks and countertops – a
regular restaurant kitchen, everything metallic and wood, the
surfaces here and there looked a little scratched and used but
otherwise spotless. Katie leaned against a counter to my right,
slowly sipping from a mug. To my left an older, short, round man
with a mostly bald, blotchy head was vigorously scrubbing one of
the sinks in the kitchen with a steel wool pad. He wore a
burgundy-colored polo shirt and khaki pants; the shirt was too
tight for him, a huge belly protruded out over his
khakis.
    He turned to me as I set my
suitcase and guitar down beside my feet – he wore enormous glasses.
He wiped his hands on a dish rag. He stared at me for a second with
a kind of earnest but distrustful gaze. “You must be Will,” he said
after a moment. “I’m Larry Martin.” He said his