“You okay, Crockett?”
“Yeah. Just kinda numb. My ass is draggin’, Texican.”
“I can see that. Eat the candy bar, finish the orange juice, and kick back. You’ve had a big night. You had to use a gun and Stitch said you shot at least two guys. That kinda shit’ll take a lot outa ya.”
Crockett began unwrapping the Snickers. “I’m too old for this,” he said.
“Everybody is, Pard,” Clete chuckled. “I bet all them ol’ boys that came swarmin’ outa that Columbian anthill back there didn’t think we were too old though, now did they?”
Crockett continued letting the Ford support him as he finished the candy and drank the rest of the juice, and watched Ruby stride back out to the car, sucking on a full quart of chocolate milk. She wiped her mouth and beamed at him.
“Hoo-rah!” she said.
“Hoo-rah yourself, LaCost,” Crockett said.
Ruby turned to Clete.
“I wanna drive, Texas,” she said.
“Zat right?”
“Yeah.”
“Promise to settle down a little bit?”
“That’s why I wanna drive. It’ll help me settle down. God, I’m pumped!”
“Alright,” Clete said. “Here’s the deal. You drive like you got some sense and you can stay behind the wheel. You start pullin’ some a your high speed bullshit, and you’re in the back seat. Clear? We absolutely cannot afford to be stopped by the police.”
“You’re throwing around a lot of orders,” Ruby said.
“Let’s talk about the chain of command,” Clete said. “First there’s me, then there’s everybody else. You can live with that, or you can hitchhike. You’ve done real good, Ruby. Don’t be an asshole.”
They stared at each other. Ruby was the first to look away.
“Alright,” she grumbled.
“Great. You drive, I’ll ride shotgun. Crockett, you hit the back seat with our other zombie and get some sleep.”
Crockett got in, put on his seatbelt, and turned to Marilee.
“How you doin’?” he said.
She flinched and looked in his direction.
“What?” she said.
“How are you?”
“Oh. I’m fine, I guess. I don’t know. I sorta feel like I’m wrapped in cotton or something. My hands hurt.”
Crockett took the can out of his pocket and sprayed her palms.
“That’ll soak through the gauze in a minute. You’ll feel better.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Marilee said, her eyes shining in the reflected lights as Ruby eased out of the drive. “Is your name Beckett or Crockett?”
“Crockett. David Crockett.”
Her brow knitted. “David? Davey? Like that Davey Crockett guy?”
“Just like that.”
“So what do I call you? Davey?”
“Call me Crockett,” he said.
“You saved me.”
Crockett laughed. “Not me,” he said. “You saved yourself. It took a lot of courage to act on what we told you, to make those calls, to run to the helicopter across that dark field. All we did was give you the opportunity. It was a cooperative effort from several of us, including your grandmother.”
“You’ve seen her?”
“Yeah. You and she could be twins. That’s why I keep staring at you.”
Marilee smiled. “That the only reason?”
“Almost,” Crockett said.
“An honest answer. I’m going to have to get used to that. My life’s been a little short on honesty lately.”
“You’ll be fine,” he said. “You have a do-over. That’s a helluva gift.”
She was silent for a while, and Crockett settled in, weariness washing over him as he leaned against the door. He was just beginning to doze when Marilee spoke again.
“Thanks, Crockett.”
“Sure. Glad to help.”
“You’re my hero, you know.”
“Bullshit,” Crockett said, and the night covered him up.
Dawn beat them to Vegas. Crockett surfaced briefly on the bypass, feeling a little crushed. Marilee had abandoned her seatbelt and scooted over against him, leaning into his left side, her head lolling on his upper chest with the motion of the car. He adjusted his position a little higher in the seat and slipped his arm around her to support her neck with his shoulder. Marilee stirred slightly, rubbed her nose with the back of her hand, and mumbled one word.
“Safe.”
Just as Crockett closed his eyes, he noticed Ruby staring at him in the rear-view mirror.
As the Explorer rocked to a halt, Crockett woke up and shook Marilee to bring her around. She looked confused for a moment, then lurched upright.
“Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry! You must be awfully uncomfortable. Have I been leaning on you all night?”
“Most of it. You needed the contact. Now you need food.”
“Where are we?” she mumbled, sliding away from Crockett and blinking in the light.
He yawned. “Don’t ask me. I just got here myself.”
Ruby unsnapped her seat belt. “St. George, Utah,” she said. “Food, gas, and potty time at a good old American truck stop. Everybody awake?”
“More or less,” Crockett said.
“If you two want to continue to sleep, Clete and I can bring you something back.”
“Thanks,” Crockett said, “but I think I can make it inside. How ‘bout you, Marilee?”
She opened her door. “I’m hungry and I have to use the bathroom. Oh! I’m stiff.”
“No wonder,” Ruby said. “You haven’t moved in hours. You clung to Crockett like you were afraid he was going to drift away.”
Marilee smiled and patted Crockett’s leg. “No,” she said. “I might, but he wouldn’t.”
Cletus chuckled as he and Crockett followed the women to the building.
“What’s so funny?”
Clete smiled. “Son,” he said, “you are in shit to your ears.”
Crockett’s clever response was simple. “What?” he said.
As is genetically predetermined, the boys made it out of the restrooms and to the table well ahead of the girls. Crockett was perusing a menu when Ruby sat down.
“How ya doin’ Crockett?” she said.
Crockett rubbed her arm. “Lots better. I needed some sleep.”
Ruby fussed with her menu. “You looked like you were getting a lot of rest,” she said. “How’s the fare?”
Clete fixed his eyes on the tabletop while Crockett searched the pages for biscuits and gravy.
The waitress brought coffee twice as they waited for Marilee. Just when Clete was considering a search party, Crockett spotted her walking in from the entrance to the attached convenience store. Wearing a black Freightliner windbreaker over a red Peterbuilt t-shirt, black jeans, and aviator style sunglasses, with freshly brushed hair and new lipstick, she adjusted her fanny pack and grinned as she sat down.
“Who the hell is this?” Cletus said.
“Just the person who is terribly grateful to all of you,” Marilee said. “Sorry I took so long. My clothes were filthy and covered in blood. Breakfast is on me.”
“Considering the wardrobe and your offer of breakfast,” Ruby said, “it would seem you have money.”
“A little,” Marilee said. “Before I left, I broke into the big bottom drawer of Ricky’s desk. In my pack I have a new lipstick, a new hairbrush, a new deodorant stick, and a little less than eighty-seven thousand dollars cash. Order anything you like.”
Ruby was the first to recover.
“Good work!” she said.
“Small change to Ricky, but a fresh start for me,” Marilee said. “If I could have gotten into his office safe, we’d be having breakfast in Paris or someplace, after we flew over in our new plane. He keeps millions in the house. I figure I had the eighty-seven grand coming.”
Ruby smiled. “That and more,” she said. “How’re your hands?”
Mari
lee exposed palms that were graced by several new band-aids.
“Doing fine,” she said. “They just hurt a little.”
Ruby turned to Crockett. “Did you bring in that spray?”
“It’s in the car,” he said.
“Well, why don’t you go get it?”
“That’s okay,” Marilee said. “I put some of that cream stuff on them. They’ll settle down in a minute.”
Ruby glared at Crockett. “Fine,” she said.
Clete grinned at him. “Boy, am I hungry!” he said. “How’s your appetite, Crockett?”
When they got back in car, Ruby continued to drive. Crockett settled into the back seat. Before they reached Cedar City, Marilee had burrowed back into his left side and was snoring softly. He held her and avoided looking into the rear view mirror. They stopped in Crescent Junction for a late lunch and fuel and headed off into Colorado. Crockett asked Ruby if she needed relief from driving, but she declined.
Darkness and hunger overtook them, and they stopped for a late dinner in Glenwood Springs. Over some terrific fried chicken, Crockett looked Ruby in her bloodshot eyes.
“When we get done here,” he said, “I’ll drive. You look beat. Both of you do. Have you and Clete had any sleep at all?”
“I’m fine,” Ruby said.
“Bullshit,” Clete said. “You’re at least half as tired as I am, and that is too tired to drive. It’s all yours, Crockett.”
With Ruby and Clete in the rear, Crockett drove east on I-70. They were both out before he’d driven twenty miles. Marilee curled up in the passenger seat and dozed too, but was restless and fretted a lot. About ten miles later, she awoke enough to re-position herself, and draped a hand on his right leg. She didn’t stir until Crockett stopped for coffee on the east side of Denver.
Clete didn’t wake up. Ruby staggered inside to use the john. Marilee surfaced enough to smile and tell him she was fine. Crockett hit the head, bought four stale donuts with chocolate icing and sprinkles, a large gourmet coffee that tasted exactly like roadside gourmet coffee, a pack of Camels because he was out of Shermans, and some gum to wear a little of the sludge off his tongue. Ruby was asleep when he returned to the Explorer. He slipped it into gear, cruised back onto I-70, and headed for Kansas.
Crockett was just getting back into the swing of driving and starting on his second donut, when Marilee sat up and looked around. It took her a second or two to realize where she was. When she did, she relaxed, took a bite of his donut, gave him a crummy kiss on the cheek, and curled up in her seat. Just before she went back to sleep, she patted the top of his leg. He liked it. All of us enjoy having our virtues overestimated.
Crockett hung in there ‘til Goodland and then had to stop for food, gas, and a walk around. He spent some time in the john washing his face and trying to clean up a little. He changed into jeans and a wrinkled but clean shirt, decided against shaving, and still made it to the table before Ruby and Marilee. They came waltzing in, grinning and giggling at each other, a study in contrasts. Ruby, olive with dark hair and over six feet in her heels. Marilee, fair with blond hair and five-four in her Reeboks. Clete looked at Crockett and smiled.
“Two a them and two of us, Son,” he said. “Lord, I hate bein’ outnumbered that bad.”
Their orders varied depending on individual sleep schedules. Ruby had two over easy, hashbrowns and ham. Clete wolfed down a turkey sandwich and fries. Marilee ordered Swedish pancakes, and Crockett had the meatloaf special. In the parking lot, Ruby insisted on driving. Crockett hit the back seat, glad for the opportunity to sleep during the boring trip through Kansas. Marilee rode shotgun and Clete got in back. As the girls chatted in the front seat and Crockett made himself as comfortable as possible, Clete grinned.
“Hey, Davey,” he said. “If I snooze on your shoulder, and you put your arm around me, ya think Miz Ruby’ll get pissed off?”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Ruby reactive
Crockett woke up when Ruby stopped to pay the toll after they passed Lawrence, Kansas. It was dark. Clete turned his attention from the window.
“It’s alive,” he said.
Crockett grunted as he tried to shift some of the pain out of his low back. His stump ached. He hadn’t had his leg off in over forty-eight hours.
“What time is it?” he said.
“A little after nine,” Ruby said. “Anybody hungry? We’ll be home in less than an hour, and there will be no food preparation tonight. Speak now or forever wait until breakfast.”
“Home,” Crockett said.
“Home,” Clete agreed.
They carried all the stuff into Ruby’s side first, sorted it out, and Crockett led Clete through the closet to his place.
Clete dropped his bags and grinned.
“Pretty slick,” he said. “I thought maybe she made you use that little doggie door.”
“That’s a kitty door, you ignorant redneck,” Crockett said, walking into the kitchen, “and before all this is through, it could possibly come to that.”
Clete joined Crocket at the snack bar. “She sure as hell got her ruff up about somethin’,” he said.
Crockett got down the coffee grinder and loaded it with beans before he answered.
“Ruby’s pissed off because her identity is being challenged.”
“What identity?”
Crockett packed the grounds into the espresso machine and poured in the filtered water, wondering how much to tell Clete.
“Her lesbian-ness,” he said.
“She sure don’t look like no dyke.”
For some reason that elemental assessment hit Crockett sideways. Laughing, he dumped some half and half into the steel pitcher and, as the machine started to rumble, began to foam the cream. As soon as the bubbling and hissing became audible, Nudge raced into the kitchen and levitated to the counter top with an audible thump.
“Jesus Christ!” Clete said. “They let you keep a fuckin’ cougar inside the city limits?”
“Clete, meet Nudge,” Crockett said. “Grab a saucer outa that cabinet, willya?”
Nudge, completely ignoring Clete, was tugging diligently at Crockett’s arm. Crockett poured a little of the steamed cream in the saucer and slid it down the counter. The cat squatted happily beside it, lapping away, as his ragged purr suffused the room. Clete eyeballed him from a safe distance.
“Damn, Son,” he blurted. “I bet you don’t have any trouble with the zebra population!”
Crockett chuckled. “Not much,” he said, pouring the cream into two tall glasses and letting the excess steam hiss out of the spigot.
“That is the biggest cat I ever saw in my life! He friendly?”
“Occasionally,” Crockett said, splitting the espresso between the glasses and pushing one over to Clete.
Nudge, finished with his treat, followed the glass and sat on the counter beside it, casting his baleful yellow gaze at the Texan from a range of less than a foot. Their eyes were at equal height.
“Myrrph,” Nudge intoned.
“What’s he want?” Clete said.
“He wants you to dip your finger into the froth and let him lick it off,” Crockett said. “Try not to show any fear.”
Nudge regarded Clete for a moment, then shifted his ears back into great-horned-owl position and tried again.
“Meaowfff,” he urged, flexing the talons of his right forefoot against the counter top.
Clete’s eyes flickered to Crockett then steadied again on the cat.
“What if I don’t?” he said.
“Ah. Then I get to drink your coffee.”
“Huh?”
With great delicacy and marvelous control, Nudge carefully dipped his right front paw into the top of Clete’s glass. It barely fit. Frozen in place, Clete watched as the cat withdrew his foam-covered member and began to daintily lick off the residue. Crockett exchanged glasses with Cletus.
“Take a sip,” he said. “He won’t drink after you do.”
As Nud
ged leaned toward the fresh glass, Clete lifted it to his lips and drank. Nudge moved to Crockett and head-bumped his chin a couple of times, hard enough to make him clamp his teeth together.
“Hello, old man,” Crockett said.
Nudge patted Crockett’s face with his dry paw and stepped down into his lap, his purr vibrating Crockett’s entire body.
“Damn,” Clete breathed, peering across the counter at Nudge. “I never thought it was possible to have too much pussy, but I may be forced to re-think that assumption.”
“He’s a lot of cat.”
“Speaking of re-thinking pussy,” Clete went on, “what’s all this about Ruby’s identity?”
Crockett took a drink of his coffee. “Clete,” he said, “I believe that the vast majority of homosexual men are gay because they don’t have a choice. I also believe that the vast majority of homosexual women are gay because they do have a choice. For the most part, I think the mechanism operates completely differently between the genders.”
“I never thought about it,” Clete said.
“As a rule, gay men get along with women much better than gay women get along with men. And, with exceptions, the gay women that dislike men the most, are the ones that attempt to appear the most masculine.”
Clete grinned. “Well, you damn sure don’t have that problem with Ruby.”
“No, that’s one I don’t have.”
“She sure is pissed at you for somethin’.”
“She’s pissed at herself. I think she’s beginning to realize she’s been gay for the wrong reasons. Her entire sexual identity is being challenged and she just doesn’t know what to do with that. She’s closer to me than any other man she’s ever known. Hell, probably than any other person she’s ever known. I’m the dreaded male that she can’t dread. I’m the asshole man who is not the asshole. I have failed her masculine expectations, and she’s having a real problem with feminine acceptance. Acceptance of me and acceptance of herself. Put that together with the fact that we love each other, complicated by the proximity of the Amazing Disappearing Woman manifested in sweet young flesh, and the pressure on Ruby is terrific.”
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