Western Swing (31 page)

Darlene's speech brought Thorne down another step and Billy G's hands up to his chest. “I never touched her.”

Darlene twirled on him. “You said I was better than Daddy's whore.”

Billy G appealed to Thorne. “I swear to God, sir.”

“I know.”

Maria appeared and handed Thorne a mug of coffee. He blew over the steaming surface and sipped. Billy G fell back into his original chair. Darlene continued her promenade.

In the charged silence, E.T. slid his arms around my shoulder. “Just now, Lana Sue and I were French-kissing in the basement.”

Billy G groaned, Darlene slapped her forehead like an idiot. “Mama's gonna die.” I gave E.T. a move-it-or-lose-it stare and the hand fell from my shoulder.

Billy G's head came up for one last supplication to Thorne. “Please give her back. I tried not to like her. I really tried, but I can't help it. You don't have any use for her, give her back.”

Thorne looked amused. “Hell, I don't own her. We ain't even screwed yet. You want her so bad, take her.”

Billy's face brightened with hope as he swung back to me, but I changed that real quick. “Lay one finger on me, sucker, and I'll snap your spine.”

His jaw trembled and he twisted the hat around in his hands. I think, for about three seconds, Billy G was sizing up the odds of his spine surviving an all-out assault—the John Wayne approach of throwing me over his shoulder and marching me off to the bunkhouse. However, reason prevailed and his eyes dropped away. “You win, Lana Sue. I'm leaving. This state's too small for the both of us.”

“I'll stay out of your way if you'll stay out of mine.”

“Nope. Because of you I have to leave the home I love and go on the road.” Out of pure spite, he added, “Maybe I'll go back to Chicago.”

Before I thought up a catty-enough comeback, Darlene latched herself onto his arm. “Oh, darling, take me with you.”

Billy G panicked. Jumping about five feet back and to his left, he gave off a little moan.

Darlene followed after him. “I've got money. We could go to California. Or France, my mother's in France. You won't ever have to ride a horse again.”

The coward ran—out the door and across the lawn. My itch had caused another man to alter his life. Not that I felt remorse. I figure if these jokers can't maintain themselves after me, it's their own damn fault. This case was a bit more absurd than the others and took twenty-four hours instead of several years. Other than that, Billy G was nothing more than typical.

Darlene sat in his chair and glared at me. She muttered under her breath, “Slut.”

“Gross slob.”

E.T. trotted back down to the Dead. Thorne drank from his mug. He looked across at me and smiled. “Can't have you chasing off all the help.”

“Sorry.”

“That's okay. Wait'll I get dressed and eat some biscuits, we'll ride around the ranch, show you some land.”

“On horses?”

“Sure. Maria, how about some biscuits, and see if you can find something that'll fit her better. Looks like she's wearing a pup tent.”

“Yes, Mr. Axel.”

Thorne started up the staircase. He stopped and turned to me again. “Which Billy was that anyway?”

• • •

My horse encounter was put off until afternoon because, while Thorne was eating his biscuits, the phone rang. Then another phone rang, then when Thorne set down the first phone, it rang again. The head wrangler came in to talk about fetlocks. You can't just abandon an ongoing dynasty for a three-day drunk and suicide attempt. Sooner or later, fetlock problems have a way of catching up.

Maria and I sat around the kitchen, grinding our molars, while Thorne took care of bankers, oil foremen, and guys from two different kinds of stock markets. Finally Thorne looked up from one of the phones and shrugged an apologetic smile. “This may take awhile.”

“No rush. Maria and I will be in her room, looking through clothes.”

Maria's first-floor, back-of-the-house room was just what you'd expect. Small, neat as a curio shop, yellow enamel walls with a framed velvet painting of Jesus hanging over the bed. Photos of her father and boyfriend stood on the bureau. A neat stack of laundry sat at the base of the made-up bed. Next to a Silhouette Romance on the nightstand lay a small mirror reflecting a white powdery residue.

Maria lifted a pair of jeans off the laundry stack. “There wasn't much blood on these. They're still wearable anyway, if you don't mind a few stains.”

“Does it look like I had an accident?”

She shook out the jeans and we inspected the few dark blotches. One Idaho-shaped smear could conceivably be misinterpreted as careless spotting, but only by the kind of person who looks for that sort of thing.

“They'll do.” I was on the edge of the bed and slipped off my sandals and Janey's green army pants. “I can't stand this mountaineer uniform any longer. Does Janey still dress like this?”

“Not in thirty years. The shirt you used on Thorne's arm is beyond hope.”

I slid into my comfortable old Lee Wranglers. “That shirt was an old thing I wear to do housework around the cabin.”

“You do housework?”

“Sure. Do I look like a trust fund baby?” E.T.'s roll of bills crammed in my front pocket gave the jeans a lumpy look.

“I think you're accustomed to giving orders.”

“It's a talent I pick up quickly.”

Maria shuffled through the bottom drawer of the bureau. She pulled out a blue and gold football jersey—ROCK SPRINGS across the back shoulders. Number 38. “This was Petey's. He gave it to me when Janey ran him off the ranch.”

The jersey fit real well, maybe a little tight in the chest. Petey wasn't a very big fullback. “Why did Janey run him off the ranch?”

Maria sat next to me on the bed. She picked up the Silhouette Romance and turned it over in her hands. “Janey thought we were in love.”

“What's it to her?”

“My mother fell in love with a cowboy from the bunkhouse and I happened. Janey didn't want a repeat.” I saw
passion
and
exotic nineteenth-century New Zealand
on the back cover of the book. Also something about daring privateers. “So you've lived on the ranch all your life?”

Maria stared at the nightstand. “Oh, no. Janey threw my father out as soon as I was old enough to travel. We lived in Cheyenne until Mama died and Janey offered me a job. My father still lives in Cheyenne. He lays tile.”

Maria licked her right index finger and rubbed it over the mirror. Then she touched her finger to her upper gum. “My father doesn't want me working here, but I dropped out of high school and came over. Janey's frightened to death I will get pregnant and she'll have to make her own bed for a few weeks.”

Maria handed me the mirror so I could massage my gums also. “The more I hear about Janey the less I like her.” My mouth dropped into a dental memory. “I sure am glad I sold the coke. It'd be awful to do more.”

“Yes, I am thankful to you for taking it away.”

The mirror was wiped clean as Maria's kitchen. Not even a speck of white dust remained. I said, “That E.T. is a character. He's like a doped-up mole down there surrounded by Grateful Dead tapes. It's creepy.”

“E.T. is not so bad. Everyone expects him to grow up like Thorne, which must be difficult. He told me he is afraid of cowboys.”

“Must be tough being the son of a legend.”

Maria nodded. She took the mirror, looked at herself a moment, then set it back on the nightstand, next to the book.

“I hope you didn't think I was really kissing E.T. when you came down there,” I said.

“Of course you weren't.”

“I mean, I was, but it was part of the deal. I had to.” I ran the tip of my tongue between my upper teeth and lips. “Don't you just hate the way cocaine makes you feel?”

She looked at me. “Of course.”

Maria and I held about ten seconds of eye contact before I spoke. “Let's find E.T.”

• • •

His tunnel was dark as a cave. I blind-groped along the wall down each side of the stairwell. “Where's the light switch, Maria?”

“It's hidden. E.T. is afraid of rip-offs and Thorne. He hides everything.”

I peered into the black. “Could he be in the little room full of Dead tapes?”

Maria was a step above, which made her the same height as me. Her voice came from next to my ear. “I do not know. Sometimes after a big score he holes up down here for several days. There's a flashlight in the kitchen.”

I stood on the bottom step while Maria went back up in search of light. Because of my earlier snorts, the black hole of E.T.'s basement wasn't totally black. A yellow transparent curtain rippled before my eyes, and red dandelion bursts appeared to bounce from top to bottom. The room buzzed like a neon bar sign. My saliva glands craved vitamin C.

A couple minutes of womb sensations later the light bobbed down the steps, shining on the walls and my jeans.

“I changed the batteries,” Maria said.

“Let me carry it.” We stumbled into the basement, following the beam over trash and video games. The alcove was locked tight, but the little bugger had left a note and a Baggie tacked on the door.

Mama—One frenchie wasn't enough huh? Got to have more of E.T.'s electric tongue. I ran into Rock Springs, but if you slip a hundred dollars under the door, you can have this as a substitute. Or you can have it free for another kiss. One from you and one from Maria.

Your new son, E.T.

At my elbow Maria muttered what I took to be a Spanish curse.

“How much you figure is there?” I asked.

“Not a hundred dollars' worth. Hardly enough for one of us.”

I tapped the Baggie with my index finger. The crystals sparkled in the flashlight light. “What should we do?”

“I wouldn't pay a hundred dollars.”

“You'd rather kiss him?”

Maria repeated the Spanish curse.

“That's what I thought.” I folded up a hundred-dollar bill and slid it under E.T.'s door. We found a flat-topped video game and snorted by flashlight. Maria was right, there wasn't enough.

• • •

Any person who lives in Wyoming, especially in a cabin at the base of a mountain, is expected to be crazy about horses. It's a responsibility. Anything less is interpreted as letting down the Western mystique. So this is something of a betrayal to admit, but I'm just not a horse lover. My first thought when Thorne said we'd tour the ranch on horseback was to ask if all the trucks were broken.

I'm not afraid of horses, exactly. It's just that they're awkward and sweaty and unpredictable. Like men. Except men are easier to handle.

Another way horses are like men is that the ones you see in the movies and magazines are sleek and beautiful, whereas in real life they're generally shaped wrong and look funny around the nose. And they're stupid—horses, not men, necessarily. A horse's intelligence rates somewhere between the turkey and the armadillo. Which is actually a blessing, since most horses loathe humans and would kill if they only knew how. You don't run into many
My Friend Flicka
mares in love with a master who climbs on her back and yanks at an iron peg stuck sideways in her mouth, all the while chanting, “Atta girl, go get 'em baby.”

Back in high school, Roxanne was always dragging me off my towel at the country club pool to follow her down to the stables so we could pet the horses and flirt with the help. She still loves the whole horsemanship game; spends thousands of dollars on outfits and saddles; speaks in pithy little Texasisms like, “That stallion's hotter'n the tail pipe on a chopped-down Harley.” She's the only female rider I know who wears spurs.

I think Roxanne's deep interest in corrals and horses is based on the same thing as all her other deep interests. She just naturally gravitates to any hobby involving spread legs.

When Loren and I first moved into the cabin, our nearest neighbors, Lee VanHorn and his daughter, Marcie, took us on a three-day pack trip in the Teton Wilderness. My horse's name was Alex Trebeck. He was a pink-white edging to jaundice color with blood-filled eyes. He hated me.

Marcie was fourteen back then. She rode with a set of Walkman plugs in her ears and her head down, reading Loren's
Yeast Infection.
For all the nature Marcie absorbed those three days, she could have stayed in her room.

At night around the campfire, she asked Loren questions about his sensitivity and the creative process.

“A mind like yours must be an awful responsibility, Mr. Paul.”

Loren squinted his eyes to affect a pained poet look. “It's the burden of my life.”

“I'd love to write novels someday. My mind is full of great ideas for plots, all I need is help getting them on paper.”

I hit the fire coals with my wienie stick, showering sparks into the night. Burden, my ass. Loren eats up that writer's sensitivity myth. Keeping him from taking this tender esthete act seriously is a full-time job. That's why, whenever he's around, I say he's “typing a book” rather than “writing a novel.” Otherwise Loren'll start thinking he's Eugene O'Neill and the regular rules of life don't apply in his case. The last thing he needed back then was a fourteen-year-old disciple.

Marcie's young face turned to me in the firelight. “You must feel so honored to live with such a gifted husband. I mean, to know that while you're cooking dinner, he's in the study creating works of literature.”

I waved the glowing end of my stick dangerously close to Loren's smudged glasses. “Yes, Marcie, it gives my life meaning to know I'm washing the socks of a genius.”

Neither Marcie nor Loren caught the sarcasm.

About then, Marcie's father came into camp and said Alex Trebeck had broken his hobble and run into the forest and I better go catch him. We chased that mangy animal up canyons and across creeks for two hours while Marcie and Loren sat on stumps, sipping cocoa and admiring each other.