July 19. Paradise Valley, MT. I got up early and walked outside. The air was cool. I stretched my arms out over my head and then walked over to the irrigation canal and washed my face in the cold mountain water to clear my head. It was a beautiful morning. I looked out across the valley from Clay's easel. I stood in the shadow of the Absarokas but the west side of the valley was lit up and the river shone down below like a black snake moving through the grass. I stood there a minute looking out over Paradise Valley, like Moses at Mt. Pisgah. A hawk riding a morning thermal broke my trance with his scream. I looked up but could not find him in the sun. I walked over to the bike and tried to start it up. It was dead as a doornail.

We drank some coffee and then went out to the bike. The Stinsons had fold-up ramps in the barn that they used to load up their four-wheelers. I had parked the bike on the concrete slab that covered their septic system. The driveway traced a circle around that slab and on the low side the slab sat up about six feet higher than the level of the driveway. I backed the truck up from that side so the bed was more or less even with the landing and then we laid the ramps down side by side together. When it came time to walk the bike up into the bed I got nervous. I could see it tipping and falling the five feet to the ground and being wrecked. 

Clay got done what he was doing and came out to the porch and sat down. It was already late afternoon. The day had passed us by.

"Let's go to the river," he said.
"Alright."
"I don't know if my girl is ready to move to Montana bro. Sometimes she is and sometimes she isn't."
"Are you ready?"
"I am if she is," he said.
"You can't be that way with women," I said. "You can't show doubt or weakness when they're scared about something. They hate you for it."

We went back to the house and showered up and then went out to a local steakhouse to eat. A big ole greasy Montana steak. Steak's better hung and aged. Out there its straight off the cow and so it's kind of greasy and stringy because the juices inside haven't settled in and broken the tissue down. It still tasted good as hell. I was starved. I drank a couple of beers and Clay had one with me. I started to get the kind of buzz that makes me want to get hammered. It happens sometimes.