Distinctly Montana Magazine

www.DistinctlyMontana.com 71 The smirk becomes a scoff, but I continue anyway. "I still had just enough Sunday school in me to remember that when God was trying to figure out whether to save Lot or just kill everyone at Sodom and Gomorrah, he sent angels in the guise of humans to test the people of those cities of the plain. Them folks acted like jerks to the angels, and as a consequence everyone was vaporized, if you believe that kind of thing. Pillar of salt, so on. Well, I get to thinking, what if this feller is an angel? May- be if I don't give him the double sawbuck, God might nuke the train, or Billings, maybe even the whole Treasure State. So I says to him, 'You are my children.'" The guy at the bar laughs. "Cheesy line. So that's it?" He's halfway to turned back around in his stool when I go in for the killing blow, the denouement. "No, that's not it at all. The best part of the story is still to come. So anyways, I press the twenty-dollar bill into his hands, and I says to him, 'Go ahead and take it, get warm.' Then I turn around for a moment because I hear my brakeman shout something to me and when I turn back around, he was gone. And I mean gone. I looked all around, and again, and this was in two, three feet of snow. But the guy didn't leave any tracks. And his tracks, having only one shoe, would have been easy to find, but they aren't there. Or there are exactly two tracks—the ones he was standing in, and then I turn around, and he's gone. No other tracks. Nothing. Now, what do you make of that? I think he was an angel, and I was tested." "What happened to the twenty-dollar bill?" This throws me off for a second. "What do you mean?" "I mean that if he blinked out of existence, did your twenty float down, or did the angel take it with him to heaven? You were still out the twenty, right?" I have to admit, I'd never thought about that before. Still, I've never passed up an opportunity to be pious. "It's not really about the money, you know. It's about the spirit of generosity. That twenty-dollar bill is only a thing, after all." Now the guy turns on his stool to face me. "Okay, if that's true and you're so damn righteous, why don't you give me a twenty?" I scrunch up my face into a frown. "What are you, a moron? Didn't you hear the story at all?" He stares at me, blank. "He was the angel, not me! I ain't giving you nothing!" He examines the dregs of his glass, morose. "Then buy my next beer for making me listen to that load of horseshit." I can't prove that this isn't another test from God, so I'd better not fail in my generosity this time. "Sure, why not," I say. "Say, let me tell you another, about the time I saw a UFO hovering above the train one night. It was one of the coldest nights I can remember. Yes sir, you wouldn't be- lieve the noise it made." For a moment, I think he's not going to take the bait. But then he bites, helpless. "All right, what the hell noise did the stupid UFO make?" Get answers for commonly treated conditions such as indigestion, or flu and cold symptoms from your cellphone, computer or tablet with b2VirtualCare.com today. Dowload the b2 VirtualCare App to talk to a doctor after hours, today. Get answers from doctors. Not some randos on the internet. b2Cares.com

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