“Don’t think it’s what any of us are used to.” Then she gave him a wry smile as she added, “But so far, so good. You keep surprising me.”
“How’s that?”
“You’re always more than I expect you to be. As a person, as a lover, as a leader.” A beat. “As a man. So, the question is: Are you really that wonderful, or is it a reflection on my dismal experience with males?”
“Every Friday night in church, right?” Sam reminded her. “Church camp every summer? Leaves a girl deprived.”
They turned the corner onto the small downtown, walking slowly, looking in the shop windows. The people who passed—mostly dressed in denim and wearing assorted sweatshirts, hats, and long sleeves—startled Sam. Each and every one said, “How you doing today?” or “Nice to get a break in the rain, isn’t it?” or “How’s it going?”
Shyla was actually quicker with a response, her Vermont roots showing sunny as she tossed back, “Doing good. How about yourself?” or “We needed the rain,” or “Good to see you.”
“It’s like we’re their best friends.”
“Not New York, is it?” She arched an eyebrow. “People don’t fear people here. Same in upstate Vermont.”
“If anyone looks you in the eyes and says hello in Hempstead, you grab your wallet with one hand, and be ready to run. They’re either out to hit you up for money, or they’ve been off their meds for too long.”
Shyla stopped in front of the fabric store. “Holy shit.”
“What?” But she was already tugging Sam inside.
The lady behind the counter called, “Let me know if you need help.”
The sign on the counter read: Cash Only!!!
Everything Sam knew about fabric could be put into Grandma Alvarez’s thimble, and he’d still have room for a finger.
“You think this bank thing will be over soon?” Sam asked the clerk, breaking off as Shyla started fingering her way through bolts of cloth.
“Hope so.” The woman eased back on her stool. “Can’t go on much longer. ‘Course, I was one of the lucky ones. Always had my statements mailed, so they’ve got something to work backwards from.”
“What if they can’t fix it?”
“Honey, who knows?” She tilted her head, the action almost birdlike. “Where you from? New York, I’d bet.”
“Long Island.”
“You get trapped here?”
“Visiting family. The Tappans. They have a ranch west of here.”
She squinted slightly, studying his darker complexion and ink-black hair, then shot a sidelong look at Shyla. “Yeah, should have seen it. Them blue-green eyes. She’s a Tappan for sure. Gotta be Bill’s side. She belong to one of the boys?”
“The boys?”
“You know, Bill and Betty’s boys. Let’s see, there’s Will, Tom, and Mark. Couldn’t wait to get the hell out of Hot Springs. Broke old Bill’s heart. But Frank stayed.”
She gave Sam a knowing squint. “Bet if this bank thing gets worse, they’re gonna be busting ass to get back to the ranch.”
Bill had three other sons? That set him back. There weren’t any photos, trophies, or even a sign that they’d existed, at least in the rooms he had been in. And then there was the mysterious Breeze that no one talked about.
Shyla returned with a thick bolt of heavy brown denim. “If I wanted this whole bolt, could I get a deal?”
“Gotta be cash.”
“I have a little,” Shyla admitted.
This was news. Sam thought she was dead broke like the rest of them. Apparently, Shyla had held back the time they were counting funds after checking out of the Days Inn.
Sam stepped back, amazed to watch the love of his life get down and dirty. He had seen haggling in Tunisia when he had booked a once-in-a-lifetime tour of Carthaginian and Roman ruins as a sophomore. Watching Shyla dicker, he could have been back in Tunis. The only thing missing was the obligatory cup of tea.
“What kind of leather is this?” Shyla had asked.
“That’s bison. From the tannery down the street, but I’ll tell you now, I sell that at fifty-percent mark-up to the tourists. You want bison leather, go deal straight with Ginny down at the tannery. Seeing as you’re Bill’s kin, she’ll give you wholesale.”
Most of an hour later, and with Shyla six hundred and thirty dollars poorer, they walked out with... Or, Sam would say, he packed out a heavy collection of fabrics while Shyla carried a sack full of various threads and sizes of needles.
“Six hundred and thirty bucks? You held out on us.”
She shot him a sidelong glance. “That was before we knew how bad it really was going to be.” A pause. “Jim gave me a couple of thousand. Said, ‘Have a good time out west.’ Call it a parting gift...and never mention his name to me again.”
Sam took her advice. “Didn’t Bill say not to get carried away?”
“God, Delgado, I couldn’t turn it down. We got it for maybe thirty percent of retail. I mean, I understand. Small business, banking crisis, and a cash customer? She needed the cash flow.”
“But why cloth and spools of thread?”
She gave him a disappointed look. “When you wear the knees out of those cargo pants you’re wearing, or worse, the seat, where you gonna get another pair?”
“I...uh, hadn’t thought that far ahead.” Of course there would be a shortage of clothing. My God, people would eventually be in rags.
“Another week and we couldn’t have touched this for a thousand dollars, Sam.”
“I’d have never thought of cloth and thread.”
“Okay, so I didn’t have Friday nights or summers. I had quiet afternoons in my pious Christian household learning the arts of a proper young lady. I’m suddenly thankful for each boring stitch.”
They rounded the corner and found Bill’s truck had been joined by four other vehicles. The meeting must be in full secessionist swing.
“Tannery next,” she said as Sam piled their loot in the back seat and locked the door. On an old receipt he found on the floor he penned a quick note telling Bill where they would be and stuck it under the windshield wiper.
Three blocks down, they found the tannery. A small outfit that specialized in buffalo, elk, and the kind of fur-bearing creatures that would make PETA people scream in outrage.
Thinking of the snow up high where Brandon and Shanteel were hopefully “holed up” Sam wondered if they wouldn’t have desperately cherished one of the coyote coats or fox blankets.
Shyla played the Tappan angle, having overheard the lady in the fabric store. Ginny was great, an oversized and jovial woman. She had to be six-feet-four if she was an inch.
“Yeah, this bank thing’s played hell.” Ginny slapped her legs where she perched on a high stool behind the register. “My guess? Even if they get it fixed, it’s wrecked the tourist trade for the summer. Worse than the damn COVID did, and that played hell let me tell you. You heard the stories about what’s going on down in Colorado? Frickin’ medieval. Tent camps full of refugees? Who’d have thought? Thank God for Governor Agar. Closing the border like that? He probably saved Wyoming.”
She barely stopped for a breath. “‘Course it always drives me crazy when I have to go down there. Just driving through that mess, I have to ask, ‘Who are all these people?’”
She paused for a fraction of a second. “So, Bill’s gotta line of the family in Vermont, huh? Didn’t Mark end up out there someplace?”
“Bill doesn’t talk about him much,” Sam said.
“Yeah. Thank God for Frank. If he’d a left, too? That would have killed old Bill. As it was, drove him and Betty apart, those boys leaving. And you know about Meggan, don’t you?”
Shyla shrugged. “Hadn’t really met her until this trip.”
“Druggie.”
At their startled expressions, Ginny said, “Oh, my land, yes! Quite the story that is. She was running, strung out, trying to get away from that dealer she was living with down in Denver. I wasn’t there. Hear
d about it, though. The night she targeted Bill in the Silver Dollar. Latched onto him like a life raft, she did. Betty’d been gone for more than a year by then.”
She slapped her legs again. “Goes to show you. He took Meggan back to the ranch that night, and she never left. To see them now? Hell. You’d think they was high-schoolers in first love. Now, what can I do for you?”
“Leather. Janeen at the fabric store said that—”
“My land, you bet. You want hair on or off?”
Shyla gave her a helpless look. “It comes with hair on?”
“Let’s go in the back and look at what’s on the shelves.”
Sam had never been in a tannery. By the time Ginny had taken them through the process, it was two hours later. Sam was starting to wonder if Bill had missed the note on the windshield and gone home without them.
Shyla was deep into the bargaining.
“That’s cash,” she said, running her hands over a buffalo robe.
“Being a Tappan, I’d a let you have it on credit,” Ginny replied, fingering her chin as she inspected the hide Shyla had picked.
“No telling when the banks might finally get around to straightening this thing out.” Shyla gave Ginny a sly look. “Power company take credit?”
“Four fifty. Final offer ‘cause, Shyla, you got the charm.”
“Done.” Shyla leaned close and kissed Sam on the cheek.
At the register, to his amazement, Shyla counted out another seven hundred and fifty dollars from her compact purse.
Ginny had closed the register when the vehicles pulled up out front. At least seven that Sam could see through the window. Several of the pickups stopped in a semi-circle, but what really got his attention were the men with rifles perched in the beds.
“What’s this all about?” he asked. “That’s a lot of trucks.”
Ginny had suddenly gone white. “I guess maybe I didn’t turn in my inventory. In the chamber of commerce, we all decided. This is Wyoming. In the Constitution it says there’s no illegal search and seizure.”
Outside, a black Suburban passenger door opened, and a man in a suit stepped out. Two men in Carhart-brown coats followed on his heels.
The suit opened the front door and stepped inside. Took a couple of steps and stopped short, looking around. Light brown hair was cut long over his ears as if to emphasize his already round head with its large and oddly-fleshed jaw—the skin almost looking pulled tight. Heavy lids covered lazy blue eyes, and the man’s tiny mouth below a too-small nose seemed lost in the immensity of his face.
After inventorying the room, he fixed on Shyla, a quiver of smile on his lips. Sam figured him to be five-ten, maybe forty, with the rounded shoulders of a man who’d never worked in his life.
As he studied Shyla, an almost animal intensity began to glitter behind his gaze.
“Welcome,” Ginny called nervously. “Can I help you?”
“I heard about this place,” the man said, walking forward. His two companions, looking like construction hands, finally broke formation. They occupied themselves by fingering the hats, gloves, coats, and vests. All the while, however, they seemed keenly aware of the man in the suit.
“Suppose I don’t have to say it, but cash only,” Ginny told him genially.
“Of course.” His mouth bent into a smile. “You’ve heard of the mandatory inventory?”
The way he said it made Ginny stiffen. “Yeah. Something.” A beat. “You passing through?”
“For the day. I wanted to see what Hot Springs was about. Important to know my district. Up in the headquarters we’ve been referring to the outlying communities as the provinces.” He pointed to one of the beautiful fox blankets. “That one.”
One of the burly men walked over, unhooked it from the rack and held it out over his arm for the suited man to inspect.
“Yes. Very nice. Perfect, don’t you think?”
Sam had looked at it earlier, a bit shocked by the four-thousand-dollar price tag.
Time to get the hell out of there. He wrapped his arms around Shyla’s folded buffalo hide. Sam had never picked one up— discovered it to be an armful. Taking his cue, Shyla filled her arms with the tanned leather she’d purchased.
“Leaving, my dear?” the man asked, eyes on Shyla. “Not so fast.”
“Yeah,” Sam said. “We’re leaving.”
One of the Carhart men—the dark-haired one—smiled humorlessly. “You don’t talk like that to Director Edgewater, mister.”
He stepped forward, an eyebrow raised.
Sam’s heart began to do the trip-hammer dance against his breastbone. So that’s who the guy in the suit was.
To the blond guy, Edgewater said, “Frederick, Take the fox hide out to the car please.”
“Um.” Ginny was off her stool. “Why don’t you let me wrap that for you before...”
The guy was out the door.
“And I think that nice buffalo coat,” Edgewater pointed at a full-length masterpiece.
“Director, you sure?” Ginny asked nervously. “That’s got your total up to about seven thousand—”
“Not even close,” he interrupted with a smile. “Edward, please write out a requisition receipt for the good lady, and remember that businesses always charge twice what their product is worth. They call it the margin, so deduct half. Oh, and use your discretion on anything else you think will be of value to our troops during this time of crisis.”
To Ginny, he added, “To redeem the value of your requisitioned merchandise, you need only bring that receipt to the Cody headquarters where you will be given a voucher for reimbursement from the government.”
“Why are you doing this?” Ginny stared helplessly at Edgewater.
“Madam, are you unaware of the current crisis? Are you not a patriot like so many of your brethren in this most conservative of states? Are you so selfish that you won’t do your part and work for the common good?”
“Well, I... Of course, I will.”
The man’s small mouth puckered. “Without an official inventory, we have no way of validating exactly what merchandize has been requisitioned. It would be your word against the government’s. It’s for your protection and, of course, the government’s.”
“Name?” Edward asked where he penned in a small receipt book.
“Ginny. Ginny Duhaven.”
Once again Edgewater turned his attention to Shyla, fixing on her long legs and breasts before raising his hands, forming a square with his fingers and thumbs, as if to frame her face.
“Such a marvelous creature.”
Shyla’s face burned red with humiliation.
Sam’s stomach turned.
Edgewater continued to stare at Shyla as if she wasn’t a sentient being. Edward stiffly said, “Miss Duhaven. You are aware that martial law has been declared? That all citizens must sacrifice during the current national crisis? We are all serving the national interest by contributing to the common good. Surely you’re not one of these selfish types seeking to profit from the misery of their fellow citizens?”
“No.”
Edgewater took a step closer to Shyla, asking, “And what is your name, my dear?”
“Shyla Adams.” The muscles in her jaw were knotting, a tremble in her muscles.
A nervous sweat had broken out on Sam’s chest, back, and neck. He had that sick-in-the-gut sensation that this wasn’t going to turn out well. Like he’d had the couple of times the MS13 cholos had cornered him on the street.
The blond-haired guy was back, immediately picking up on the tension, the anticipatory smile bending his lips. He pulled his coat back, exposing the black semi-auto holstered on his hip.
“You live here locally, Shyla?” the blond guy asked as he stepped up and inspected her with glittering eyes. “Beautiful name, Shyla. I’ll need to see your ID, please.”
“Tappan Ranch,” she said, voice strained as she laid her leather to one side, unsnapped her purse, and handed over her driver’s license. Edw
ard stepped forward to take it and began writing in his book.
Sam’s throat had gone totally dry.
“Tappan?” Edgewater’s voice turned disdainful. “Those Tappans? Not well recommended.”
Edward said, “Says here that she’s from Rutland, Vermont.”
“Ah, not local.” Edgewater remarked with a curious satisfaction.
“The Tappans are cousins,” Shyla cried, and Sam could see her rising panic.
“Leave her alone,” Sam said, only to be completely ignored. “We’re out here for the summer. Staying at Tappan Ranch.”
“ID, please.” Edward asked, cold blue eyes turning to Sam. Soul squirming, Sam put the buffalo hide down; his fingers were shaking as he handed over his license. “This one’s from Hempstead, New York.”
Edgewater, lazy eyes narrowing thoughtfully, asked, “Ed? Is it just me, or does something about this young woman’s story bother you? Sedition can come in so many forms.”
“Won’t know ‘til you take her back to the room and interrogate her.” The way Edward smiled in anticipation terrified Sam.
Sam burst out hoarsely, “She has rights. Leave her alone, or I’m calling the police.”
He didn’t see it coming. The black-haired guy, Frederick, hit him. Sam’s head exploded like a lightning bolt inside his skull. Then pain as he hit the floor. A vicious kick landed in his belly, lofting him as it blew the air out of his lungs.
From a distance he heard Frederick saying, “Interfering with a federal officer in the conduct of his duty during a time of national emergency? That’s a Class II offense.”
Sam lost the world for a moment, coming to with his vision shimmering in little lights, blurry, and his head cradled in Shyla’s lap, while she yelled, “Stop it! That’s enough!”
“Easy, Frederick,” Edgewater said. “I think the young man’s learned his lesson. Now that he understands, he’ll undoubtedly share his new wisdom with his friends in order that they might learn from his mistakes.”
Sam tried to sit up, the world swimming around in circles.
“You’ve got your stuff!” Ginny was shouting. “Take the whole damn store if you want. But you leave these people alone!”
“Dear lady, we don’t need your store,” Edgewater said mildly, “All we ask is for your cooperation during this time of national crisis. Oh, and if you could drop your inventory off at the courthouse this afternoon, Edward will be my representative in Hot Springs.”
Dissolution: The Wyoming Chronicles: Book One Page 19