TUESDAY

Leah came crashing into a full house at the cantina. Rex got up and found her a chair, squeezing her seat in between his and her father's, while she knocked snow off her boots, hung up her hat and coat, and unwound herself from a long, hand-knit scarf.
"Woo! First snow of the year!" she called out cheerfully to the room.
"Yeah, and the weather guy got it all wrong. Wonder what he's up to," Gary groused.
"Same thing as the pollsters and the people on Meet the Press, I suppose," Rex said, seating himself again.
"Suzie, Leah needs a coffee cup," Gary growled in response. The waitress wandered into the kitchen to find one.
"What's up, pop?" Leah asked Kevin Ambrose as she sat down.
"Oh, nothing new. Got another asinine school trip tomorrow. That crazy math teacher thinks she needs to take the ninth grade to some contest thing. God forbid she runs 'em through an actual full day of school," Kevin muttered.
"Well, it pays for your trip to Vegas in December," Leah said brightly. "You guys and your basketball."
"Oh, are you going to the tournament, too?" Paul asked. "Damn it all if Gert and I don't go every year, and every year the Cowboys get humiliated. And so do we." Paul shook his head. "At least last time Gert won enough from a slot machine to pay for dinner."
"Marion only plays the nickel machines, so we can basically buy coffee," Kevin joked.
"What's she doing today, anyway? I thought she was going to come by the office," Leah asked.
"Your mother has discovered a new computer game and she hasn't come out of that room in three days. Fucking waste of time if you ask me," Kevin said.
"But watching obscure college football teams that you've never heard of isn't," Leah observed.
"Well, you've got to pass the time somehow."
"Give it up, Leah. It's football. You'll never get 'em off football. Not that that's a problem," Leah's friend Deirdre said from across the room. Deirdre had season tickets for the Maryland Terrapins, even though she lived in Wyoming and only made maybe one game a year. She'd always had Turtles tickets, and always would, she always said.
"Yeah, you're right. Hey, you guys mind if I bring someone new to coffee tomorrow? I had to ask before I forgot," Leah said.
"Depends on who it is, and if he's a good guesser or not. Can we stick him for coffee?" Walt asked.
"Oh, I imagine so," Leah said, settling in and accepting a cup from the waitress.
"Who is it?" Caleb asked.
"You'll see tomorrow," Leah said mysteriously.
"I bet she's bringing Buford!" Walt said.
"No, I bet she's bringing Will!" said Caleb.
"Which Will? Garrett or Colter?" asked Walt.
"Garrett, of course. You think Colter will ever come back after that time he got stuck three times in one week? Called us all cheating bastards and said that was the last we'd see of him. Then he came back when he had that asshole who was running for governor with him and we stuck the asshole!" Lee gloated from over his water glass.
"Which asshole was that?" Matt MacArthur asked.
"Oh, you weren't here, Matt," Walt said. "This guy really ticked off Leah and Rex when he started going on about how he's the only guy in the state who really understands school funding and knows how to fix the problems we've got. We thought Rex's head was going to explode."
"Must have been a Republican," Matt opined.
"Well, yes, but that was incidental," Rex said. "I have known a Republican or two in my day who wasn't an asshole... He just happened not to be one of them."
"Plus he's one of the guys who got us into this mess, so it's pretty annoying that he claims he's the one to get us out of it," Leah added.
"That, too," Rex nodded.
"Plus, he called me 'missie.'" Leah said.
"Oh gawd," Matt said.
"Gawd is right, you should have seen it," Kevin said, laying a hand on his daughter's shoulder. "Gary had introduced her as our councilwoman, and this jackass starts blowing smoke up her ass about how municipal government is so important this and it's inspiring to see a young person in politics in this state that, and then –"
"And then Leah got on his ass about how he voted to de-earmark mineral revenues away from municipal governments when he was in the legislature!" Rex laughed.
"And he said she was too young to remember that, and he called her 'missie!'" Kevin exulted.
"Hoo shit! Did you rip him a new one, Leah?" Matt asked.
"No, she just reminded him that he'd met her at the press convention the previous year and promised her to her face that he'd never vote for de-earmarking and asked him why he flip-flopped and did it have anything to do with the deal he made with that guy from Sheridan to vote for his directory assistance bill," Paul said.
"Then his face turned very red and he shut up for a while and he didn't say another word until we ran the numbers and he won," Rex said.
"Remember, he accused us of cheating, too," Leah said.
"Oh yeah, he did. And then somebody – was it Roger? Where is Roger, anyway? – said that's what he got for cheating the towns out of sales tax revenue and then the asshole accused Will of setting him up and said he'd never come back to Big Fittings again," Paul concluded.
"God, that sounds great! What was the asshole's name?" Matt asked.
"It was... It was... well hell, this was two years ago... Russ... Russ..."
"Russ Carpenter," Leah said, tonelessly.
"Carpenter! Yeah. Didn't even get the nomination," Rex exulted.
"Yeah, but there's a punchline, if you recall. The asshole carried Big Fittings in the primaries," Leah said darkly.
"Guess it just shows we're not as easy to fool as the rest of town is," Gary spoke up for the first time.
"You're one to talk, you kind of liked him I thought," Lee said, eying Gary suspiciously.
"I like anyone who ruffles Rex's and Leah's and Deirdre's feathers," Gary said simply.
"I'll ruffle your feathers, Kane!" Deirdre said, flinging the crust of her toast at him. The toast missed Gary and sailed behind his chair, describing a magnificent arc through the air before landing between the bar's two dart boards, closely followed by 150 pounds of chocolate labrador retriever.
"Holy shit, is that Mark? He's getting big," Deirdre exclaimed. "Roger must be here!"
"Hey, it's the drool machine! And his dog, too," Leah said, grinning up at Roger as he emerged from the hallway.
"That gets funnier every time you say it, Leah. Maybe someday someone will actually laugh at it," Roger said, kissing Leah on the top of her head.
"Hope springs eternal," Leah said.
"Hey, Roger, where's my kiss?" Kevin said as Roger gave Deirdre a peck on the cheek before sitting next to her.
"I save my affections for my girlfriends and my sisters-in-law," Roger said sanctimoniously, "And last I checked you are neither."
"Well, I sure ain't one of your girlfriends," Kevin guffawed. "But I don't recall your asking permission to fool with my daughter."
"If he had to go asking permission for every time he was a fool he'd never get any work done, Dad," Leah said.
"Who says he gets any done?" Walt said.
"Hey now, no need to get personal," Roger said. "Mark! Mark, go git him!"
Maker's Mark, the registered lab Roger had bought at the last Ducks Unlimited auction, obediently lumbered over, water and spittle dripping from his jowls, and rested his head on Walt's lap.
"What a magnificently trained dog," Gary said. "You need to help me teach mine to do that."
"Teach? Teach? Labs pretty much do that from birth," Deirdre, who had a house full of the dogs, said.
"Yes, but Mark actually does it on command, and to whomever Roger says to," Gary said.
Mark looked adoringly up at Walt, who fed him a scrap of toast.
"So, what else has been going on while I was off in sunny Mexico, sippin' margaritas at 9 a.m. and wishing you all were here," Deirdre asked.
"Don't you mean 'wishing we all were there?'" asked Walt?
"No, I was pretty glad I was there and you were here," she said, obviously proud that her set-up had worked.
"Well, let's see... Gary still thinks that Will Garrett is right on about the leash law but says we should vote for Will instead of his chosen candidate," Walt began, pointing toward Gary, "Matt got pulled over by the highway patrol over in Laramie but the trooper let him off because he couldn't read his driver's license –"
"I showed him my Costa Rican one," Matt said, proudly. "Hey, it's still good."
"Um... Paul and Kevin are both planning to go to the big tournament in Las Vegas to watch the Cowboys lose again this winter..." Walt continued, "Leah and Rex's brother conned poor Bill, here," Walt patted Bill Greenwood on the shoulder, "into doing some kind of pro bono work for their committee... Rex still has some gutter shielding for sale if you need it, Caleb got mad at the phone company and disconnected his phone again, and Kevin is mad at some schoolteacher again."
"Well, aren't bus drivers always made at schoolteachers?" Deirdre said.
"Damn straight," Kevin said. "But we's just po' dum bus drivahs, massah. Where you wanna go, massah, I'm here to haul chillin' anywheahs you want, massah. Anything but havin' 'em in the classroom where they might accidentally learn somethin', right massah?"
"Oh, and Leah's met the new grocery guy but she won't tell us anything about it just to make sure we'll buy the newspaper tomorrow," Walt said.
"So I didn't miss TOO much, then," Deirdre concluded.
"Well, apart from Kevin's being mad at a teacher, no," Walt agreed.
"You forgot to tell her that Woodstock might finally have something to do, soon," Gary said.
"What?" asked Walt.
"When the grocer starts demanding soccer fields and brand new parks for his grandkids to play in the one month out of the year they're here," Gary said.
"Oh yeah. Well, if that in fact happens, then yes, Woodstock will be a busy boy," Walt agreed. "But we don't know that yet."
"Yeah, he'll probably find a way to get out of that, too," Gary grumbled.
"Hey! That wasn't really called for, was it?" Leah demanded.
"You know what he was doing this morning, Leah?" Gary said.
"I saw him driving a snowplow by my house," Caleb said.
"Mine too," Lee said.
"Mine too," Gary said. "What's the director of parks and recreation doing driving a snowplow?"
"Avoiding Millie," Rex laughed. Leah winced and laughed along with him before giving Gary his answer.
"It's there in his job description, Gary: 'And other duties as may be assigned by the mayor and council when necessary.' He couldn't exactly work on installing the playground equipment until the roads were clear enough to get to the park, could he?"
"Always got an answer for everything," Gary mused. "That's why I like you, Leah. You don't take shit from anybody. Well, not everybody anyway."
"Actually she takes quite a lot of shit, just not from you, Gary," Rex said.
"Oh, especially not with gallant gentlemen like you around to defend me," Leah said to Rex, and rolled her eyes.
"I do what I can, my dear," Rex said.
"Mark! Mark! Go git 'im," Leah said, pointing at Rex.
Mark looked at her dumbly and continued to rest his head in Walt's lap.
"You've got to at least look like you're throwing toast that way, Leah," Roger said.
Leah tried that.
"Well, not NOW. He's onto you now," Roger said.
"Aww, great."
"Mr. Kane, some of us have jobs to get back to, if you don't mind," Walt announced.
"Paul, give me some paper, please," Gary said. "All right, listen up, one to 1000."
With much grumbling about going back to Mexico and kidnapping Roger's dog, Deirdre split the morning's tab with her brother-in-law.