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core of the earth broke through the thin crust. He knew that the park was the home of bison, elk, mountain sheep, and many fishes. People from all over the world came here to see it, smell it, feel it. Vladdy was still outside of it, though, looking in, like Yellowstone Park was still on a television show and not right in front of him. He wouldn’t allow himself to become a part of this place yet. That would come later.
    Yellowstone, like a microcosm of America, was a place of wonders, and it sought Eastern Europeans to work making beds, washing dishes, and cleaning out the muck from the trail horses, jobs that American workers didn’t want or need. Many Czechs Vladdy and Eddie knew had come here, and some had stayed. It was good work in a fantastic place, “a setting from a dream of nature,” as Vladdy put it. But the man in Human Resources had said he was sorry, they were overstaffed and there was nothing he could do until somebody quit and a couple of slots opened up. Even if that happened, the non-hiring man said, there were people on the list in front of them.
    Vladdy had explained in his almost-perfect English, he thought, that he and Eddie didn’t have the money to go back. In fact, he told the man, they didn’t even have the money for a room to wait in. What they had was on their backs—cracked black leather jackets, ill-fitting clothes, street shoes. Eddie wore the stocking cap because he liked Eminem, but Vladdy preferred his slicked-back-hair look. They looked nothing like the other young people their age they saw in the office and on the streets.
    â€œKeep in touch,” the hiring man had told Vladdy. “Check back every few days.”
    â€œI can’t even buy cigarettes,” Vladdy had pleaded.
    The man felt sorry for them and gave them a $20 bill out of his own wallet.
    â€œI told you we should have gone to Detroit,” Eddie said to Vladdy in Czech.
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    V LADDY AND E DDIE had spent that first unhappy day after meeting the non-hiring man in a place called K-Bar Pizza in Gardiner, Montana. They sat at a round table, and were so close to the Human Resources building that when the door to the K-Bar opened they could see it out there. Vladdy had placed the $20 on the table and ordered two tap beers, which they both agreed were awful. Then they ordered a Budweiser, which was nothing like the Czechoslovakian Budweiser, and they laughed about that. Cherry was their waitress. She told Vladdy she was from Kansas, someplace like that. He could tell she was uncomfortable with herself, with her appearance, because she was a little fat and had a crooked face. She told Vladdy she was divorced, with a kid, and she worked at the K-Bar to supplement her income. She also had a job at a motel, servicing rooms. He could tell she was flattered by his attention, by his leather jacket, his hair, his smile, his accent. Sometimes women reacted this way to him, and he appreciated it. He hadn’t known if his looks would work for him in America, and he still didn’t know. But they worked in Gardiner, Montana. Vladdy knew he had found a friend when she let them keep ordering even though the $20 was spent, and she didn’t discourage them from staying until her shift was over.
    Cherry led them down the steep, cracked sidewalks and through an alley to an old building backed up to the edge of acanyon. Vladdy looked around as he followed. He didn’t understand Gardiner. In every direction he looked, he could only see space. Mountains, bare hillsides, an empty valley going north, under the biggest sky he had ever seen. Yet Gardiner was packed together. Houses almost touched houses, windows opened up to other windows. It was like a tiny island in an ocean of . . . nothing. Vladdy decided he would find out about this.
    She made them stand in the hallway while she went in to check to make sure her little boy was in bed, then she let them