Silbert turned his back on them and walked away. Matt looked past him to see Rachel, staring at him not with shock or anger, as he expected, but with disappointment.
"The fucking asshole," Andy muttered, snatching a long-handled cant hook from a nearby woodpile and advancing on Silbert from behind.
Matt rushed forward, tackling Andy just as he was raising the cant hook over his head. They hit the ground hard, rolling in the mud and sawdust, Matt wrestling the cant hook from Andy's hand.
Andy turned Matt on his back, straddled him, and raised his fist to deliver a hammer blow.
"Andy!" Matt called out.
His friend froze and blinked hard, like he was snapping out of a daydream. Andy looked at Matt, then in surprise at his own fist, poised to smash his friend's face in. He slowly lowered his arm and unclenched his fingers.
By now other loggers had gathered around them. They pulled Andy off of Matt, who raised his hand up to his friend for a lift to show there were no hard feelings.
But Andy just backed away until he was swallowed up in the crowd and disappeared from Matt's sight.
Another logger took Matt's hand and helped him up. Matt thanked him, slapped the dirt off his clothes, and went to clean out his locker.
The Longhorn looked like a sawmill that served drinks. The walls were decorated with blades and vintage sawing tools, and just about everybody in the place when Rachel came in was a B. Barer and Sons employee or, in the case of Andy and Matt, ex-employees.
Andy was at the center of attention, holding court at a table overflowing with mugs and pitchers, people buying him more beers than one man could possibly drink, though he was certainly going to give it his best try.
Matt sat at the bar, where he had been nursing a beer and a bowl of mixed nuts for an hour, idly watching the celebration of the bravado that had cost Andy his job.
Rachel took the stool beside Matt and helped herself to a sip of his beer.
"That was a stupid thing you did today," she said.
"You're right," Matt said. “Silbert probably deserved to have his head caved in."
"You know what I'm talking about, Matt. You didn't have to go down with Andy."
Matt shrugged. “He had every right to be angry and didn't deserve to be fired for it."
"That's not what happened. Andy is undependable, irresponsible, and an asshole. He knew he'd be the first to go, and that's why he pulled this stunt, so he could go out feeling like a hero. But you ruined it for him. He's still an asshole and you're the hero."
"I don't feel like one," Matt said.
"That's how you know you are one," she said. “Because the real heroes know being one means you've got to lose something big in the deal. What are you going to do for money now?"
"I can get by without much," Matt said. “Besides, I'm pretty good with a hammer and saw and there's always plenty of folks who need carpentry work."
"Only there's not many folks here who can afford it."
"So I'll work in trade," Matt said. “Patch a mechanic's roof in exchange for him fixing my transmission."
She studied his face now, seeing something there she hadn't seen before. “You really are okay with this."
"I take things as they come," he said.
"What did Andy Goodis ever do to deserve you?"
Before Matt could answer, Andy sauntered over, bringing two overflowing mugs of beer and two dozen of his admirers over with him.
"I love this man," Andy said, setting the mugs down hard in front of Matt and spilling beer on the counter. “Matthew Cahill is the greatest human being in the Pacific Northwest. Am I right?"
The crowd cheered and whooped and applauded, which clearly embarrassed Matt. He dismissed it all with a shrug.
"You think what he did today was great, you should have seen him in the seventh grade," Andy said, then turned to Matt. “Remember that?"
"Nobody wants to remember anything they did in junior high," Matt said. “Why doesn't somebody put a song on the jukebox?"
Matt reached into his pocket for some change, but Andy wasn't going to be so easily distracted. He turned back to regale the crowd with his story.
"The principal came into first period and accused me of breaking into his office and leaving a pile of horseshit on his desk. He hauled me out of my seat by my ear," Andy said. “But before we even got to the door, you know what Matt did? He confessed."
Rachel looked at Matt in astonishment. “You did that?"
Matt grimaced and nodded.
"He was suspended for an entire quarter, and when Matt got home, his dad took off his belt and whipped his ass raw," Andy said. “The thing is, Matt wasn't the one who left the shit on Ackerman's desk."
"Then why did you take the blame?" Rachel asked Matt.
"The principal always assumed anything bad that happened at the school was Andy's fault, whether it was or not," Matt said. “I had a clean record, so I knew they'd go easy on me, but if Andy went down for this one, they'd expel him from school for good."
"And he knew that the beating I'd get from my daddy wouldn't be nearly as gentle as the one he got," Andy said. “That's Matthew Cahill for you."
The crowd applauded again, raising their glasses and guzzling more beer in Matt's honor. One of the loggers gestured to Matt and yelled at the bartender, "His money is no good here!"
"That's good, because after today, I'm not going to have any," Matt said.
Everybody laughed and headed back to their seats, except for Andy, who lingered at the bar, eyeing Rachel with curiosity.
"Did you come down here to console us?" Andy said.
"Just because I work in the front office, that doesn't mean I don't care about what happens in the yard."
"That's real nice, but I'm plenty consoled already," Andy said. “My buddy Matt here, however, has hardly been consoled at all. I've never met a man more in need of consolation than him."
"Go away, Andy," Matt said.
Andy started to go back to his table when Rachel asked a question.
"So who really did it?"
Matt replied, "Did what?"
"Left the horse manure in the principal's office," she said.
"They never found out," Matt said.
Andy grinned. “They knew right off."
Matt looked at Andy with genuine surprise. “You really did it?"
"Of course I did," Andy said. “You knew that. Who else but me would have had the balls?"
Andy laughed and turned to share the hilarity with the other loggers, all of whom found it as wildly amusing as he did.
Matt got up quietly from his stool. When Andy turned to look at him again, Matt hammered him in the face with a right hook that might as well have been a brick.
The blow knocked the mug out of Andy's hand, splattering him with beer, and sent him tumbling back into his friends, who caught him before he fell. The mug shattered on the floor.
Matt tossed a few bucks on the counter and met the bartender's eye.
"That's for the broken mug," Matt said and walked out without giving Andy another glance. If he had, he'd have seen that the punch failed to knock the grin off Andy's face, but it did smear his front teeth with blood.
"See?" Andy said to Rachel. “He's feeling better already."
"You're an asshole," she said and followed Matt out the door.
Andy watched her go, bounced back to his feet, wiped his bloody mouth on his sleeve, and turned to his friends.
"Beer me!" he yelled, and the party continued.
CHAPTER SIX
Twenty minutes later, Matt and Rachel sat across from each other in a booth at the Denny's on the edge of town. They each had a cup of lousy coffee in front of them and picked at a piece of banana cream pie that looked incredible but tasted synthetic.