Chump Change

by G. M. Ford

  What would have undoubtedly been an incisive retort was interrupted by the arrival of our waitress.

  “Breakfast’s on us, fellas,” she announced.

  I started the obligatory protest, but she waved me off.

  “Sorry you had to see that. Boyd may be a regular occurrence to us, but there’s no reason he’s got to spoil anybody else’s breakfast.”

  “Didn’t spoil mine,” I assured her.

  She checked out my empty plate and smiled.

  The daughter was still massaging the sore spot on her arm when she arrived tableside. She was long-limbed and lithe, but otherwise pretty much a younger version of her mother, who introduced herself as Irene Coulter and the girl as her daughter, Virginia.

  A couple of loose tears had spoiled the girl’s mascara, giving her that winsome, waiflike quality of bad art. “Hey, thank you two so much,” she said.

  I shook my head, and jerked a thumb at the kid. “Not me. Him.”

  She leaned out over the table. She smelled of strawberries as she spoke directly to Keith, who was using his spoon to play Spanish Armada with the few remaining shards of shredded wheat. “Thanks for helping out there . . . er . . .”

  He looked up as though he’d only just noticed she was there. Which might’ve worked, if he hadn’t been blushing like a middle-schooler. “Keith,” he said. “Keith Taylor.”

  The chemistry between them was forming waves in my water glass.

  “Well, thank you, Keith Taylor,” she said with a smile. “I’m Ginny Coulter. Boyd seems to be having a hard time coping with adulthood.”

  “And damn near everything else,” her mother muttered.

  Ginny straightened up. “Momma never liked him,” she said. “Not from the beginning.” She shrugged. “What can I say? He said he was gonna join the Air Force. I figured anything was better than being stuck in this town for the rest of my life.”

  “Till the Air Force wouldn’t take him and he started beatin on you,” Irene added.

  The girl looked away, annoyed. We were in the middle of a long-term bone of contention between mother and daughter, and it wasn’t someplace I wanted to be, so I changed the subject.

  “We’re looking for something called The Flying H Ranch.” I gestured with my fork. “Somewhere up north, on the other side of the river.”

  “Sure,” Irene said. “Over by where the town of Silcott used to be.”

  “Used to be?”

  “First fruit orchards in the state of Washington were planted there,” she said. “Then they built the dam, and most of the place went under water. Nothin left out there but the Chief Timothy Recreation Area and The Flying H. The Hardvigsens. Olley and Sarah Jane. Good people.” She started to add something, but stopped herself.

  “What?” I prodded.

  “Long story,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You’ve already gotten more than your fill of our local color, I’m sure.”

  “From where I sit, the local color’s just fine,” I said with a grin.

  She blushed and looked away.

  “You were saying about the Hardvigsens?” I asked.

  “They’re the last holdouts,” she said.

  “To what?”

  “The almighty Keeler Group,” she said with a sneer.

  “What’s The Keeler Group?”

  “Buncha local hotshots and wheeler-dealers put together a syndicate,” Irene said disgustedly. “They’re trying to build a big fly-in resort/casino up between the two reservations. Over on the west side of the Snake.”

  “And the Hardvigsens won’t sell out,” Ginny added. “Everybody’s all worked up about it. Say they’re holdin back progress. Keepin the town down.”

  “Why’s that?” Keith asked.

  Mom sighed. “Keeler’s promising hundreds of jobs, and if there’s anything this town needs it’s more jobs.” She rolled her eyes. “Wouldn’t have so many idiots like Boyd hanging around with too much time on their hands if we had a way for them to earn a decent living.”

  “Who’s this Keeler guy?” I asked.

  “There’s no Keeler,” Irene said disgustedly. “At least not anymore. Bobby Keeler was an old-time mayor of Lewiston . . . way back in the fifties. Really beloved by a lot of local people. They just co-opted his name for this half-assed project of theirs.”

  “And the Hardvigsens are the only ones against the idea?”

  “Other than the Indians.”

  “What Indians are those?” Keith asked.

  “Coeur d’Alenes to the north and the Nez Perce to the south. Nez Perce really didn’t like it. Spent what hadda be millions fighting the project in court. They got their own casinos and resorts, so they hate the idea of anybody horning in on their business. Specially a bunch of fat-ass white guys,” she said with an ironic grin. “You know . . . since that’s who cheated them out of the land in the first place.”

  “No sense of humor, those folks,” I said.

  Irene laughed out loud.

  “Why does Keeler need the Hardvigsen place?” I asked. “Lewiston’s got an airport. I saw it on the map.”

  “Cause The Flying H is over on the Washington side of the border. If they land over here in Idaho, they not only gotta bus em ten or twelve miles over to the casino, but they become subject to taxes in both states. They claim the whole thing isn’t profitable if they got both states gouging em.”

  One of the Mexican guys poked his head out of the kitchen. He fired off a volley in Spanish. Mom nodded. “Un momento,” she said.

  She looked over at her daughter. “Dishes ain’t gonna do themselves.”

  Ginny heaved a sigh. Then sulked across the room, stiff-armed the kitchen door open, and disappeared inside.

  Keith’s eyes followed her all the way.

  Irene was right. You couldn’t miss it. All you had to do was cross the river and then get yourself onto U.S. Route 93. The Flying H was easy to find because it was the only damn thing out there. The odometer read 8.7 miles out of Clarkston, and we hadn’t passed so much as a prairie dog when the ranch gate finally came into view.

  Looked like it had been cut out of a single piece of half-inch steel by somebody who really knew what they were doing. Cutout of the state of Washington in the middle. The Flying H Ranch on top. And the year 1891 down at the bottom. NO TRESPASSING sign tacked to the nearest fence post.

  I turned the Blazer under the gate and started up the rocky track. A thin film of dust clung to the air, as if someone had come this way in the not-too-distant past. Gravel pinged against the underside as we rolled along.

  If the map could be believed, we were rolling across the northernmost section of the Intermontane Plateau. An arid no-man’s-land nestled between the North Cascades and the Rocky Mountains. In all directions, the horizon bristled with craggy peaks, most of them snowcapped, a few bare and black in the morning light.

  Keith hadn’t uttered a syllable since we’d left Lewiston. Been sitting over there in the passenger seat, chewing his lip, lost in his own thoughts.

  “Pretty girl,” I tried.

  For a second, I thought he was going to try the old “What girl?” routine on me. Instead, he nodded and made a wry face. “Yeah,” he said, “. . . she was. Can’t believe she was married to that hoople.”

  “Small towns,” I said, philosophically. “Limited choices.”

  “That’s why you get the hell out as soon as you can,” he said.

  Out in front of the Blazer, the quality of light had changed. It was like when you get close to the ocean, and somehow your senses pick up on some inarticulate property of light, and you intuitively know that the familiar world is about to end, and something new and different is about to enter the picture.

  Half a mile and a long, sweeping left-hand turn later, a big grove of leafless trees appeared on the horizon. Another half a mile and I could see the old house nestled under the bare, black branches.

  The ground was falling away from us now, moving perceptibly downhill as we approache
d the house. I eased off the gas, so’s not to arrive in the proverbial cloud of dust. Country folk hate it when you do that.

  Three huge barns stood sentry across the back of the house, shielding it from the relentless north wind. What looked like a hay baler under repair filled the south end of the yard. A red Dodge pickup truck sat directly in front of the arbor that served as a gate to the yard.

  Three men and a woman appeared to be involved in a heated conversation as we pulled up. Fingers were being pointed, chests were being tapped. Even from a distance, I could feel the anger in the air.

  As I shut down the Blazer, Keith popped his seat belt and looked over at me.

  “Is it just me, Leo, or does it seem like trouble is following us around?” he asked.

  “Might just be the other way,” I allowed as we stepped out of the car.

  I could hear them now. The one with the white hair and the suit jacket was yelling at the old lady. He was maybe sixty. Trim and sporting a hundred-dollar haircut.

  “You can’t do this anymore!” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “That damn baler is right where it was two weeks ago. You two can’t do this on your own. You’re just too damn old.”

  On Suit Jacket’s left, standing by the passenger door of the pickup, was what had to be the muscle. Little short fireplug of a guy with a ponytail halfway down his back. Native American. Thick like an upright freezer. His narrow eyes tracked our approach.

  The old lady looked to be made of tanned leather and sinew, and she was having none of it. “Maybe so,” she fired back. “Then we’ll die out here and be damned happy to do it . . . long as we die on our own damned land.”

  The old man hitched up his pants. “Go on . . . get outta here,” he said to Suit Jacket. “Ain’t nothin for your kind out here.”

  “County gonna take it for taxes,” Suit Jacket said. “No damn money in the cattle business anymore. You know that, Sarah. It’s all economies of scale, which is just what you two don’t got. We’re gonna end up with this place one way or another.”

  “Not gonna happen,” the old woman snapped.

  “Not ever,” the old guy piped up.

  I missed whatever was said next. My attention was diverted to the side of the truck, where a square, white sign proclaimed in red script: The Keeler Group. Into the Future Together. I felt better already.

  I veered slightly to the left as I moved their way. Kept moving that way until I could make out that the driver’s door had the same Keeler sign on it. The muscle noticed and waddled toward the back of the truck.

  I walked up and looked down at the thick brown layer of dust covering the back bumper. I used my hand to wipe it off. No BANTAMS bumper sticker.

  By the time I dusted my hands off, Muscle Man was standing one pace away.

  His black eyes moved over me like I was a lunch menu. I’d seen eyes like his before, but only at the Seattle Aquarium.

  Whatever pleasantries we were about to exchange were put on hold when Suit Jacket said, “Let’s go, Dexter. Some people are just too damn stubborn to let you help them.”

  Suit Jacket threw an angry glance at Keith and me as he strode toward the truck.

  Dexter lingered long enough to be threatening and then hopped into the passenger seat in the half-second before Suit Jacket put the pedal to the metal and fishtailed his way out of the yard in a rooster tail of dust.

  The old man pulled out a blue bandana and held it over his nose and mouth. The old lady hunched her shoulders and turned her back to the cloud.

  Took a couple of minutes for the yard to clear. Out in the distance, the Keeler truck raced away from us, inside a swirling mantle of dust. I could hear the old man having a coughing fit. Choking and spitting into his bandana, as the dust swirled around us like locusts.

  When I opened my eyes, the old lady was standing directly in front of me.

  “Didn’t you see the damn sign?” she wanted to know.

  She had the bluest eyes I’d ever seen.

  “Yes ma’am, I saw it.”

  “Well?” She looked from me to Keith and back. “Can’t either of you boys read?”

  “We came about Gordon,” I said.

  And she knew why I was there. I could see it in those deep blue eyes.

  The Snake River was aptly named. From where we sat, about a hundred yards behind the Hardvigsen house, the canyon writhed its way through the steep terrain like a slithering serpent. She was finished crying. She’d reached that point in grieving where you start reliving your life and wondering how things might have turned out differently.

  I’d asked her if there was someplace we could sit down and talk. She’d led me out back to where the yard overlooked the river. Keith stayed back by the car. Seemed like he didn’t much want to be there when I told her the news. Probably smart.

  We sat down on half a log that served as a bench. There was no way to soft-pedal what I had to tell her, so I took a deep breath and blurted out that her son Gordon was dead. I left out the gory details. Telling her he’d had a heart attack seemed close enough to the truth for me.

  “Nothin good was gonna come from all that money,” she said finally.

  I kept my mouth shut. I’d pretty much decided that I’d told her about all I was going to. Then she asked the question.

  “Where’s his body now?” she asked. “I wanna make sure he’s put away decent.”

  I took a deep breath. “Well . . . there’s a . . .” I stopped.

  She pinned me with her eyes.

  I told her the story of the woman in black picking up her son’s body.

  The news pleated her leathery brow. “Why would somebody do something like that?”

  I told her I had no idea, at which point she switched gears.

  “Gordon and Olley never got along,” she mused. “Gordon thought Olley was extra hard on him cause he was a stepchild.” She caught my eye. “Wasn’t true, though. Olley woulda been the same way if they was blood.”

  “That why Gordon changed his name?” I asked.

  She nodded. “They had a fight. Gordon wanted to give us some of the money, but Olley wouldn’t take it. Not if it come from gambling. Said it was the devil’s money.”

  “And you?”

  She pinned me with those eyes again. “He’s my husband,” she said stiffly.

  She gazed out over the vista in front of us. “It’s a hard life out here,” she said. “Gordon just wasn’t much suited to it. Gettin by was enough for him. Just his nature, I guess,” she said with a sentimental shrug. “Got it from his daddy, I suspect.”

  “The two guys in the truck . . .” I began.

  The very mention of them freshened her anger. “Damn Keeler,” she spat. “Think they own the damn world.”

  And then I heard my name being shouted. I swiveled my head around in time to see Keith jumping up and down, waving his arms frantically. He beckoned for me to come and then turned on his heel and sprinted from view.

  I’m not much of a sprinter, but I gave it all I had. By the time I arrived at the corner of the house, I was gassed. The old man was laid out on his back in the driveway. Keith was doing chest compressions and counting. “Twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight . . .

  “He’s not breathing,” Keith said through clenched teeth.

  He laced his hands together and started pumping again. “One, two, three . . .”

  He was up to twenty again when I heard the old woman’s voice.

  “Merciful Jesus,” she panted, and dropped to her knees in the driveway.

  And then Olley coughed and flailed his right arm. Keith put his ear up to the old man’s mouth, then looked over at me. “Breathing,” he announced.

  “We better get him to a hospital,” I offered.

  Keith was feeling along his throat.

  “Better hurry . . . he’s barely got a pulse.”

  I backed the Blazer right up to where he lay, folded the rear seats down, and helped hoist him into the cargo area. Keith rode back there with O
lley. Sarah Jane rode up front with me.

  I was still doing fifty when we fishtailed out onto the paved road. The tires screamed in protest, and the rear of the car wiggled like a belly dancer, then righted itself as we went screaming down the two-lane blacktop.

  About halfway back to town, the old man’s heart stopped again. Keith started compressing and counting again. He was nearly through with his second set of thirty when Olley resumed breathing. “Come on, mister,” he said. “Hang in there.”

  We crested a ridge fast enough to become completely airborne. When my vision stopped bouncing, I could see the Main Street Bridge in the distance.

  Above the roar of the engine, I shouted, “I’m gonna need directions.”

  Sarah Jane looked around as if I’d spoken to her in some strange language and then pointed out toward the back of the Blazer. I checked the mirror at the same moment when I caught the wail of the siren.

  Deputy Rockland Moon was thirty yards back, in his county cruiser, the siren screaming, the light bar ablaze.

  I put the pedal to the metal.

  “I can’t keep him breathing,” Keith shouted above the din. “Hurry.”

  We were screaming downhill at over ninety. The Main Street Bridge was maybe three hundred yards away. “Where we going?” I shouted again at Sarah Jane.

  “Over the bridge,” she said. “Go right on Eighth. Hospital’s down the end.”

  Keith pulled out his cell phone. Dialed 911. “We’ve got an elderly man in full cardiac arrest,” he shouted into the mouthpiece. “Comin up on the Main Street Bridge.”

  He looked up at the old lady. “What’s the name of the hospital?”

  Her blue eyes rolled in her head like a spooked horse, “V-V-Valley Medical Center,” she managed to stammer.

  “Need a cardiac team ready at Valley Medical Center,” Keith shouted into the phone. “One . . . two . . . three . . .”

  “Roger that,” I heard the dispatcher say.

  The deputy was right on our ass, whoop-whooping along with every other sound he was making.

  I kept the hammer down and leaned on the horn.

  We swung onto the bridge at full volume. My horn screaming, the deputy’s bullhorn blaring, the Blazer’s engine bellowing like a wounded animal.