Winter's Child (14 page)

The cell was
ringing. A muffled noise that emanated from the depths of her bag on the passenger seat and jolted Vicky out of the rhythm of the tires on the snowy pavement. Vicky slipped her earpiece behind her ear, not taking her eyes from the flare of headlights on the road. The ringing stopped. “Vicky Holden here.”

A jumble of sounds: clanking glasses, a distant roar of guffaws, the shuffle of boots on a hard surface. “Hello.” She heard herself shouting over the noise in what was probably a bar. A surge of anticipation ran through her. Vince could be on the other end. “Are you there?”

“Vicky? I got to talk to you.” It was a woman's voice, aggressive and depressed at the same time, slurring the words, stumbling over them. The voice of Betty White Hawk.

“Where are you?”

“At the Buffalo. Waiting for Vince.”

“You heard from him?”

“No. No.” The aggression surged forward. “I'm going to find him.”

“How does that help Vince? Your drinking.”

Loud, raucous laughter erupted in the background. It was a moment before Betty said, “I'm waiting for Vince. Sooner or later, he's gotta come in. He likes this place. He drinks here. So I got to thinking, there's some stuff you don't know.”

“You think it will help locate Vince?” Vicky kept her eyes on the road, the yellow headlights bouncing on the snow. It was surreal, the silence of the snow around her, the hum of the engine, and the stream of warm air flowing from the vents interspersed with the noise of the bar, the drunken meanderings of Betty White Hawk, who had convinced herself that her son would show up if she waited long enough and drank enough to keep believing. And now she was reminiscing, calling up stuff she wanted to talk about.

Vicky knew the way it would go. The nights that Ben Holden had come home drunk, the old memories flooding in and Ben wanting to talk and talk and talk.
Sit down, Vicky. I'm talking to you.

“Vicky? You there? I gotta talk to you.”

“It can wait until tomorrow.” Vicky tried to blink back the image of Betty White Hawk making her way across the bar and stumbling outside when Vince didn't show up. Driving herself home.

“I keep thinking . . . I keep thinking, what if Vince is dead? I can't stop thinking . . .” She was crying, soft mewling noises like those of an infant.

“Stay there,” Vicky heard herself saying. “I'm on the way.” She could feel the tiredness clinging to her, pulling at her legs and arms. In fifteen minutes she could be home. Her own apartment, familiar and warm. She would scramble eggs, make fresh coffee. Be alone. Think about her conversation with Lou and Debbie Bearing, try to
figure out their connection to Vince White Hawk and the Little Shields. That there was a connection, she was sure. But nothing made sense. And there was Betty, drinking, wanting to tell her
something.

“Did you hear me?” Vicky said. “I'm on the way.”

The neon sign with
Buffalo Bar and Lounge
in white letters and a large, yellow glass of foamy beer glowed on the sign ahead. Vicky pulled into the parking lot. It had taken almost forty minutes to get to Riverton. The sense of uselessness was like a physical presence beside her. Betty had probably left by now.

She slammed out of the Ford and made her way to the front door, the icy pavement pulling at her boots, as if she were walking underwater. The pounding noise of music cut through the frigid air. Before she could open the door, it swung out and two cowboys staggered past in the blast of a guitar riff.

“Well, now. What have we here?” One of the cowboys stepped sideways toward her, head first, as if he were heading off a straying calf.

Vicky dodged past and caught the door as it was about to close. “Hey, pretty lady,” the other cowboy called as she stepped inside and pulled the door shut. The air was dim and smoky, vibrating in the music that poured out of speakers set along the ceiling. It took a minute for her eyes to adjust. Groups of cowboys and women in blue jeans and boots—laughing and shouting, hoisting bottles of beer and glasses of what was probably whiskey with ice cubes clanking—formed and dissolved around the table. A few couples were dancing on a small floor in the center, moving drunkenly together at half pace to the music. She couldn't spot Betty anywhere.

Then she saw her, small and vulnerable-looking, straddling a stool, propping her head on one hand, an elbow set on the bar for
support. A half-filled glass of whiskey stood next to her elbow. Vicky started around the tables, slipping away from a cowboy who reached for her arm. She slid onto the stool next to Betty. The smell of whiskey invaded her nostrils and sank into her throat. She swallowed hard to counter the reflex to throw up. “You had better let me take you home.”

Betty managed to lift her head a little, then let it sink back onto her hand. With her other hand, she gripped the glass and took a long drink. “I didn't think you were coming.”

“How long have you been here?” Vicky wondered how many glasses of whiskey Betty had put down.

“Vince could show up anytime.” Betty swiveled a little on the stool, then grabbed the edge of the bar to steady herself. “He's all I got, Vicky. I have to wait for him.”

“He had three bottles of whiskey,” Vicky said. “He's drinking somewhere else. When he sobers up, he'll call you.” God, how many times had she said this to Betty? And who was she trying to convince? This drunken woman or herself? “He's not coming to the bar. I'd better take you home. You can wait there for him to call.”

“He's going to die.” The woman's face crumpled into the kind of grief Vicky had seen at funerals. Betty White Hawk was already mourning her son.

“You mustn't lose hope.” Vicky tried for a calm, optimistic note, and yet she had the sense that she was missing something. Betty had wanted to talk to her, to tell her
something.
The music thumped from the speaker overhead and drowned out the sounds of ice clinking in the glass that Betty set down. The bartender had moved across from them, and Vicky realized he was waiting for her order.

“Coffee, black.” She faced him. “Make that two coffees. We'll be at the table.” She nodded toward a vacant table against the far wall,
a good twenty feet from the nearest speaker. Then she took Betty's arm. “Let's go where it's not so noisy,” she said.

It was as if the woman had climbed out onto a cliff and stood staring down at the abyss. “Vince won't see me over there. I have to stay here.”

“I'll watch for him.” Vicky took hold of the woman's arm and tried to nudge her upward, but Betty remained immobile, holding on to her place a moment before she started to lift herself off the stool. She fell against the bar and clawed at the edge, breathing hard. For a moment, Vicky feared she might pass out.

“I'll help you,” she said, grabbing Betty's arm hard and propelling her upward. Then they were stumbling, both of them, around the tables, past the guffaws and loud, drunken conversations, past a table of cowboys.

“What we got here?” A cowboy jumped to his feet. “Let me give you a hand.” He took hold of Betty's other arm and, as if he knew where they were headed, guided her, toward the vacant table. “Better get some coffee in her.” He winked at Vicky. “Call on me anytime.”

The bartender walked over, waited for the cowboy to head back to his own table, and set down two mugs of coffee. “She didn't finish her drink.”

“Coffee is fine.” Vicky nodded, then sat down next to Betty, who was blinking at the log wall, as if she were trying to figure out how the bar had disappeared. “Drink this,” Vicky said, handing the woman a mug. “You'll feel better.”

Betty took a long drink of coffee before setting the mug down. “I keep seeing Vince dead, and I can't take it, Vicky. It's going to kill me. I couldn't just sit there waiting for Father John or some cop to knock on my door with the horrible news.”

“Vince has gone on benders before. He'll sober up, and I can still try to get the judge to send him to rehab.”

“You don't know.”

“What? What don't I know? What did you want to tell me?”

“I watched his Daddy die. Rickie. The love of my life.” Moisture swelled in the woman's eyes. She made fists and punched at her head. “You know what that's like? To listen to the man you love gasping for breath? I can't ever get that hissing sound out of my head. I kept shouting, ‘Don't die on me. Don't you dare die on me.' But I couldn't breathe for him, I couldn't get him air.”

Vicky waited a moment before she said, “You told me Rickie died in an accident. You didn't tell me you were there.”

“The pickup turned over and I crawled out, but Rickie . . . he was trapped beneath the steering wheel. It pinned him down like a big boulder. I couldn't . . .” Betty set her elbows on the table and leaned into her fists. “I couldn't get him out. I tried and tried. I pulled so hard, but he wouldn't move, and all the time he kept hissing. I screamed for them to come and help, but they went on. They drove away and left him to die.”

Betty was crying hard now, and Vicky found a tissue in her bag and handed it to her. She waited while Betty swiped at her eyes and nose, then nudged the coffee mug toward her. “Try to sip a little more.”

It was a moment before Betty lifted the mug and took another drink. When she set the mug down, Vicky said, “Who drove away? Who are you talking about?”

Betty looked at her with wide eyes blurred with tears. “Lou and Debbie. I hate them. I've stayed away from them since it happened. Vince was young when his Daddy died. I never told him about Lou and Debbie because I didn't want him to grow up with the hatred I
lived with. When I heard Vince had been drinking with Lou right here in this bar, I thought I was going to go crazy. Lou's going to do to Vince what he did to his Daddy.”

“What did he do?”

“I've been trying to forget.”

“I know. But if Lou is going to do the same thing to Vince, you had better tell me what it was.”

Betty drained the rest of the coffee, and Vicky motioned the bartender for a refill. After the bartender had moved away, she waited while Betty took a sip of the fresh coffee, giving her time to organize whatever she was about to say.

Finally Betty set the mug down and looked at her. “We didn't have any money. And Vince was getting bigger. He needed things. A lot of food, and he was always growing out of blue jeans and boots. Rickie wanted to be a good dad. He loved that boy. He got to talking to Lou Bearing—they'd gone to school together—and Lou said he had a job for him. Five hundred dollars. Well, that was a lot of money. All Rickie had to do was drive Lou and Debbie over to a car lot in Casper. They had picked out a car they wanted, and Lou knew how to start it. He was gonna drive the car off the lot and back to the rez with Debbie in the passenger seat, like they were just a young couple going to the movies.”

Betty took another drink of the coffee, and Vicky could see she was starting to sober up. She was saying how she had gone along because she didn't want Rickie to go alone. And it would look better if it was a couple in the pickup. The cops wouldn't be so suspicious. Lou and Debbie were scrunched together in the backseat, giddy with excitement. It wasn't a new car they intended to steal. Nothing fancy. Lou needed an SUV for the parts. He could cannibalize it, fix up a couple of other SUVs that, she figured, he had also stolen. Lou
knew what he was doing, Rickie told her. He'd always been good at fixing up old cars, making them like new.

“What happened?”

“We went to the lot. It was Sunday night, nobody around. Didn't take long, and Lou and Debbie drove out through a chain that was about a foot high. Snapped it in two. We started back to the rez. Lou wanted us to follow, stay close behind, in case of trouble and they had to abandon the car. They figured they'd jump back into our pickup and take off. It was crazy, the whole idea, but Rickie had five hundred bucks in his pocket. We were on Seventeen-Mile Road, and Lou was driving fast. Too fast, and Rickie tried to keep up. We came around that big curve, and the pickup skidded out into the other lane. There was a truck coming, and Rickie tried to get back into our lane. That's when it happened. We were all over the road, back and forth, out of control. I don't know how we missed hitting the truck. I still see it whizzing past. Next thing I knew we were rolling down the barrow ditch and out onto the prairie.”

She started crying, big, racking sobs that shook her chair. Vicky placed an arm around the woman's shoulders. “I'm so sorry,” she said.

“I tried to pull him out. I tried and tried, and Lou and Debbie kept going. They didn't even stop. I can't watch Vince die like that, Vicky. I can't.”

“Do you think they're still stealing cars?”

“What do you think? They got Vince to help, just like they got his daddy. They paid him some money. Those sons of bitches. When I went out to beg them to tell me what they knew about Vince, they threw me out!”

Vicky sat back in her chair. The music sounded far away, as if it came from across the street. The bar had started to clear out, only
a few cowboys and their girlfriends still hugging the tables. Nobody was on the dance floor. Vince had been drinking with Lou Bearing, a man who repaired cars and trucks in a barn, and Vince had come into some money. It made sense.

“I'll drive you home,” Vicky said. “I'll have your car brought to your house in the morning.” Annie would handle it, she was thinking. She would hire a couple of her relatives to retrieve the car.

“What would you have said to Lou if he had come in?” Vicky guided the woman out of the bar and across the parking lot. She placed her arm around her waist and turned her toward the Ford.

Betty stopped and looked at her. “Didn't you hear what I told you? If that sonofabitch came in, I was going to kill him.”