by J K Ellem
Shaw reached over and passed the cop the registration and his license through the open window.
The cop took his time scrutinizing them both, then finally said, “It says this vehicle is registered to a Miss Daisy McAlister.”
Shaw nodded, “Yes, that’s correct, Officer.” Being polite and respecting his title was important to the kid with the gun. It established the line of authority, and maintained control of the situation. “But you already knew that,” Shaw added. “Before you pulled me over.”
The eyes flickered behind the aviators, the cop unsure for a moment. Was he being asked or told?
“It says here on your license that you reside in Washington D.C. Are you here on business or just passing through?” the cop asked, ignoring the comment, remaining in charge.
Shaw smiled, playing the game. “Not sure yet. The people seem so nice here that I might just stay for a while.”
Surely this couldn’t be Taylor Giles, the guy Callie had mentioned back at the café, the one she had taken to the prom in high school? The name badge matched. Maybe he was stuck in a small town just like her. The place had the gravity of a black hole. You can’t break free.
The cop did a slow loop of the Dodge, noting the pump box in the tray, then nodded to Shaw, pausing to look at the face on the license one more time like remembering Shaw’s personal details was important. “We don’t like strangers around here.” His hand rested again on his holstered handgun, the threat obvious. “Can I give you some advice?”
Shaw didn’t want advice, but went along. “Sure.”
“I’d be leaving town today. There isn’t much here to see.” He handed back the driver's license and registration. “It’ll be best for everyone.”
Everyone?
Shaw took the license and paperwork, and placed it back on the seat. He wasn’t angry at the kid, but it was two veiled threats in one day to leave town. He must be doing something right. Time to turn the tables like he had done on a few inexperienced young cops before.
“Am I free to go, Officer Giles?”
“Leave town, Mr. Shaw. Just some friendly advice.”
Shaw nodded like he agreed to the advice, put the truck in gear then paused, his foot hovering over the gas pedal, his arm on the doorsill.
The cop turned, his job done, and headed back to the cruiser.
Shaw hung his head out the window. “Hey, can I ask you something?” he said, like he was asking for directions.
Taylor Giles stopped, turned and stood where he was, his sunglasses glinting, hands on his hips. “Sure, go ahead.”
“How much does a police officer make in Hays?”
Giles seemed taken back for a moment, unsure, his face scrunched in confusion. “Excuse me?” he replied, as he slowly walked back to the Dodge.
“You know. How much does a cop make around here? Like how much does he get paid?”
Giles shrugged, “Why?”
Just let it go. Just drive away, the voice inside Shaw was telling him, the voice of logic, reason and commonsense.
But Shaw was riled now. It was a free country and he didn’t like being told what to do or where he could or couldn’t go. Not especially by one of the minions who was probably on the payroll of the Morgans. This cop, this kid with a gun, was just reinforcing the message Billy Morgan had made outside the café.
Shaw smiled, “Well, you see I was thinking about joining up, you know, becoming one.”
Giles shuffled awkwardly on his feet, unsure if it was a serious question or if the man was joking with him.
But Shaw didn’t give him a chance to answer. Shaw nodded at him. “You must get paid a decent amount right?”
Giles said nothing, but he was getting aggravated, tossing up whether the guy was being a public nuisance or not. “It’s okay, I guess.” Giles replied, not knowing where this was going.
Shaw never forgot a face. He had filed away in his memory so many faces over the years from his past, a past that still haunted him.
His brain was like one huge depository of faces, places, and what people would consider minor, insignificant and easily forgotten details. What people were wearing, how they were behaving, their facial expressions, and more importantly the look in their eyes. It was always the eyes that gave them away. It wasn’t where they were looking that gave them away, it was where they weren’t looking; at Shaw when he was looking directly back at them in a crowd, at a demonstration, or just filling up their brand new expensive car at a gas station. And Shaw had filed away in one of the many filing cabinets in his brain the details of Police Officer Taylor Giles when he first saw him yesterday filling up his car at the diner.
“Well, it must be better than okay, the pay I mean,” Shaw added, turning the tables, the kid was out of his depth. “Was that the six-point-two liter V8 you had? You know, the fast one?”
Suddenly it dawned on Giles and the color drained from his face. He told his friends and work colleagues that it was paid for from an inheritance from an aunt who died last year in Topeka. He told them she had left him a lump of money in her Will. But Giles was too young and dumb to see the error, especially when Jim Morgan owned the Chevrolet dealership in downtown Hays. The untrained eye would have missed it, but Shaw hadn’t. Maybe he should have bought a Dodge instead.
“Man, that was a nice car I saw you filling up at the gas station yesterday. Brand new Chevy Camaro. Nightfall grey metallic, I think they call it. Black center stripe, twenty-inch machined-finished wheels, two-tone leather seats. I saw the interior when you opened the door and got out.” Shaw gave a short whistle. “They must be paying you cops in Hays a pretty packet for you to be driving a fully-optioned beauty like that.”
Shaw turned back to the road ahead, and pressed down on the gas. The tires on the Dodge slid then bit and threw up a stream of gravel and dust as he swerved off the shoulder and back onto the asphalt at speed, leaving Officer Giles staring after him in his wake.
14
The bar was a small establishment set back off Main Street. It had rough brick walls, polished timber floorboards, soft lighting and a gleaming length of mahogany bar that was all brass fittings and taps. The beer was cold and the music loud, and people pulsed in waves to country music from the live band as waitresses navigated between patrons, delivering drinks and food to tables.
People also jostled at the bar and the crowd was a mix of locals and workers swapping their weekly wages for a good time.
Shaw had spent the afternoon replacing the old water pump. Then he worked on the wind pump, twisting off rusted bolts and lubricating bearings and gears as he watched Daisy work Jazz through the cattle, shifting them between paddocks.
They had driven into town in the Dodge, Daisy content just to sit with her thoughts in the passenger seat while Shaw drove. She hadn’t been forthcoming with conversation and when Shaw had asked her how her day was she just replied in one-word answers, preoccupied with looking out the window at the fields of orange and brown as the sun slowly sank.
Callie had met them in the parking lot of the bar and she was quick to remind Shaw with a whisper in his ear that her place was just a short walk away.
Inside the bar they found a quieter booth away from the throng of noise and people.
Callie had slid right next to Shaw on the vinyl seats and straight away her hand found the inside of his thigh under the table.
Discrete, but direct.
Daisy had sat diminutively, and didn’t say much all evening while Callie just bubbled with chatter, being playful and full of excitement. Daisy had a certain confidence about her, but didn’t need to be the center of attention. Shaw had seen it in the way she went about running the ranch. But there were cracks in her façade, a sign of growing up too fast, the vulnerable girl living beneath the skin of a young woman. Shaw was always attracted to the most vulnerable. No chemistry or physiology could explain his compulsion, and that’s what made him vulnerable too, a need to help those who needed helping. The Morgan brothers turning
up to the diner was the reason he hadn’t got back on the bus, and Daisy McAlister was the reason he decided to stay a few more days.
Daisy sat across from him drinking a beer straight from the bottle, her eyes watching Callie who was spinning and dancing with some guy on the dance floor. It had taken Shaw some effort to convince Callie that he didn’t want to dance, so she gave up and grabbed the nearest eligible guy and pulled him up instead to dance with her.
“Is everything okay?” Shaw asked.
Daisy turned back from watching Callie dancing. “She likes you,” she replied, taking another sip from her beer, her eyes avoiding his, peeling the label on the bottle obviously more interesting than looking at Shaw’s face.
Shaw smiled. “I think she likes everyone. She seems like a fun person.” Shaw’s eyes lingered over Daisy while she was looking down at her beer.
Might as well get an eye-full, he thought.
She looked good, natural beauty, minimal make-up, her skin and face had a healthy glow, she looked different out of her work clothes, but she looked good in them too. She wore tight jeans, boots and low-buttoned sleeveless check shirt with a lace bra underneath, the frill and tiny bow in the center just visible when she leaned forward.
Attractiveness came in many forms and Shaw never fell for the most obvious, the prettiest, or those who were the center of attention in the room, those women who men seemed to gravitate to like dogs on heat. He preferred the dark horse, the less obvious, those who hovered in the background and didn’t flaunt themselves. Daisy McAlister was all of these and that’s what made her all the more alluring.
“Just don’t hurt her,” Daisy said, finally looking up, catching Shaw watching her, and gave him a quizzical look.
Shaw shook his head, “How would I hurt her?”
“You’re not staying, she’ll fall for you and next thing you’ll be gone. She deserves better. I’ve seen her get involved with too many guys who just blow through here. They use her and she lets them.”
“I can’t help that,” Shaw replied. “It’s her choice, she grown-up, like you. She’s an adult. She can make her own decisions.” Then Shaw tried a different tack. “Maybe I’m not interested in her. I’m just looking for some peace and quiet. I’m not interested in getting involved with anyone.”
Daisy cocked her head. “Then you better tell her that and don’t lead her on.” Daisy could feel her anger rising.
Shaw looked at her in disbelief. “I’m not leading her on,” he said a little too loud. A few people on other tables turned and looked in their direction like they were a couple having an argument.
Daisy snapped back, the heat building in her cheeks, “Well, she seems to be all over you like a rash. She told me you had a very cozy little talk in town today. I thought you went to just get the pump, not meet with her like it was some kind of rendezvous.”
“I didn’t know I had to punch a time-clock,” Shaw replied in a calm voice.
Daisy said nothing and went back to peeling the label off her beer bottle, leaving a small pile of confetti on the table.
Shaw rolled his eyes. “So this is what this is about? You’re jealous.”
“You’re kidding me, aren’t you? Jealous over a blow-through ranch hand like you?”
Shaw gave a smirk. “You are jealous aren’t you?”
Daisy slammed down her bottle, spilling some on the table, beer frothing from the neck. Now she was furious. She hated the way he was grinning at her across the table, like he saw and knew everything.
Smug bastard.
Daisy placed her arms on the table, leaned forward and hissed, “You know nothing about me or what I’ve had to do.” It all came pouring out. “You sit here like some know-it-all, but mister, you know nothing!”
Shaw just sat back and let her take out her frustration on him. She needed to take it out on somebody for the last few years, so it might as well be him.
“I’ve had to run that ranch almost single-handedly since my father died. My mother did what she could. We had no money left to us. There was no life insurance, nothing! He died and left us just the farm and the cattle.” Her eyes flared as she spoke. “The bills are piling up. The bank had threatened to foreclose and we’ll lose the place in a fire-sale if that happens, I’ve got the Morgans breathing down my neck wanting to drive us off our own land and I don’t need some out-of-town city hick like you telling me you know me or any of the shit my mother and I have had to put up with over the last few years.”
Daisy looked away and took a swig from her beer, conscious of the tears in her eyes, not wanting to seem weak to anyone. She wasn’t looking for pity either. Life had dealt her a rough hand, but she had to deal with it and suck it up. She didn’t have the liberty like Callie or most people to walk out of the door at the end of the day and forget about their worries. For her it never ended at five pm. Running a business, especially a farming business, was a twenty-four-hour-a-day gig. It was constant and never-ending, and the stress and responsibility had taken its toll on her.
She couldn’t remember the last time she had worn a dress, or put on some make-up, or bought a new pair of shoes or had been asked out on a date. Callie had all these and more and maybe, just maybe, Daisy was a bit jealous of her lifestyle.
But Daisy was too proud to ask for help, or money, or for a hand. Maybe too stubborn as well. Selling the ranch was not an option, yet everyone had said it was the best thing to do after her father died. It had been in the family for generations, but with modern farming these days it was all about herd consolidation, organic feedlots, artificial insemination and the like. She didn’t have the know-how or money to change. Bigger players and government lobbying were pushing the smaller landowners to the brink of bankruptcy.
Shaw felt bad. “Look, I’m sorry if I’ve upset you. I’m—”
“Forget it,” Daisy said, still looking everywhere but at him. “This was a bad idea coming out tonight. It’s probably just as well you’re not staying anyway and will be gone in a few days.” She pushed her chair out, got up and glared at Shaw. “I’m going. You can catch a ride with someone else. Or maybe you can spend the night at Callie’s place.” She walked away through the crowd and headed towards the exit.
* * *
The parking lot sat adjacent to the bar, and was cracked concrete, dim lighting and pickups squeezed in side-by-side off a narrow driveway that ran from the street.
The Dodge was parked away from the bar, close to the street at the front of the lot. Shaw burst through the exit door, hoping to catch-up to Daisy before she drove off. He saw the silhouette of several shapes clustered in the middle of the lot.
Shaw quickened his pace. As he closed the distance the dark shapes split into four people: three male, one female.
The three men had formed a triangle with the woman in the middle. One of the men had the woman by her arm. She jerked and fought, but couldn’t break free from the man’s grip.
“Take your damn hands off me,” she yelled.
“Can I help you?” Shaw stopped a few feet away.
Four heads turned in unison towards him.
Billy Morgan had Daisy by the arm while the other two brothers, Jed and Rory stood watching, hands on hips, enjoying the show.
“Well, what do we have here? The new ranch hand.” Billy Morgan smirked at Shaw. “You should have gotten on that bus like I said. Now you just keep moving on. None of this concerns you. It’s just a little private conversation between the young woman and me.”
Shaw could see Daisy wasn’t afraid, but Billy had her arm tight, his fingers digging into her flesh, her face twisted in pain. Billy looked back at Daisy. “Now you stop your fretting. I ain’t going to hurt you.”
“Let her go, Billy,” Shaw stepped closer, angles, distances, and fist combinations running through his head. He could definitely drop Billy Morgan, maybe Jed too if he came at him at the same time. But all three at once would be a problem. Not impossible, but not preferred.
Billy Morg
an let out a belching laugh and shook his head at Shaw. “I told you this ain’t none of your business. You should have taken that bus ride like I said and left town. Could’ve been in Colorado by now banging some sweet piece of ass, instead of wasting your time on this frigid bitch.”
Jed and Rory let out a roar of laughter.
“I didn’t want your money,” Shaw replied.
Daisy looked at Shaw in surprise.
“Maybe Billy, you should give Daisy a little taste of what she ain’t had for a while,” Jed chuckled. “You know, let her see what a piece of real grain-feed meat feels like.”
Jed and Rory grinned like fools.
“Would you like that, Daisy?” Billy said, pulling her closer to him, twisting her arm up. He stunk of alcohol and sweat. “You ain’t got no prize-bull on your ranch like me, honey. Hell, I’ll even do both holes if you like? Would you like that?”
“I’ll get on the bus, if you let her go,” Shaw edged forward. There was no one else in the parking lot.
Billy Morgan seemed to contemplate this for a moment. He lowered Daisy’s arm slightly. “Well, you see that’s the problem right there,” he said, smiling at Shaw. “That ride is long gone now.” Billy was relishing the moment, wanting to drag it out as long as he could. His eyes narrowed, the smile gone, replaced by a cold sadistic stare. “So you see, the only choice left for you now is leaving town in an ambulance. That’s the only ride I’m offering.”
15
“It’s a fair enough trade isn’t it? I let her go, but you get to stay with us.” Billy Morgan still had a hold of Daisy’s arm. Jed and Rory moved closer to Shaw.
Three against one. Bad odds for one person. Better odds, if you knew how to handle multiple attackers.
The Morgan brothers were big, heavy with muscle, but that usually meant they were slow, with poor reaction times and a lack of agility. But they could do some damage, especially if all three ganged up or if the fight went to the ground. The ground was the worst place to be when you had multiple attackers. The brutality doubled. On the ground six fists became six boots and the scale of damage that could be inflicted suddenly went off the charts. Skulls, spleens, kidneys and livers didn’t like being kicked.