Wyoming Nights

by Gaines, Olivia

  The weapon was still held low as she looked about the front porch of the cabin for the second vehicle. Jamar walked up on the porch as a raccoon scooted by her leg. Darlene nearly jumped out of her skin.

  Jamar was frowning. “What is that smell? It smells like old hot dog water boiling dirty panties!”

  She could smell it too and knew the scent all too well. “Cassandra?”

  The dirty woman stepped around the side of the house and Jamar almost bounded two feet in the air. “What the fuck is that?”

  Ignoring Jamar, she turned towards her second unexpected guest. “Cassandra you scared me,” Darlene said to the woman.

  By now, Jamar had spotted the weapon and was trying to get it out of Darlene’s hands. “Shoot it before it attacks!” he yelled.

  She snatched her arm away. “Cut it out, Jamar!”

  “I am from the Southside of Chicago and I am scared of whatever that is! Shoot it Darlene!” He was still trying to get the gun.

  “Tell that fool boy to stop it ‘fore he hurts both of ya!” Cassandra said as she made her way around to the front of the porch and sat down on the stairs. A few clicks of her tongue, Roscoe was back at her side, sitting on her shoulder like a thuggish parrot from the hood. The dark markings around his eyes were like a little mask of thugdom as he stared at them, daring either of them to make a move towards his master.

  Jamar was in disbelief. “I think that damned raccoon is more gangsta than I will ever be.”

  Cassandra didn’t miss a beat. “He is. You bitched out real quick.”

  “Well the smell of you is kicking my ass, so you are not one to talk Sir!”

  “I ain’t no sir!” Cassandra said quickly.

  “No, no and no,” he said shaking his head. “You can’t be a woman smelling like that. It’s just not right,” he said.

  Darlene had had enough. She pointed her finger at Jamar letting him know to be quiet. “Cassandra are you checking in with Daniel or something?”

  “Kinda; I knew he was back at work today and I saw him out looking for those lost hikers. I didn’t want you to be up here alone, so I thought I would stay until he made it back,” she said.

  The smell was not going to do. On top of that, Darlene had no intention of talking to the woman through the screen door. Her stomach was not strong enough to sit and share a meal with her let alone air space with her current stench. The smell was bad a few months ago when she first met the vet. The warmer weather only ripened her odor to a putrid, sour smell that was causing Jamar to start gagging.

  “I appreciate that Cassandra, and I would love to have you stay for dinner, but we have to get you cleaned up,” she told her.

  “Daniel don’t allow me inside the house,” she told her. The look on her face was hopeful as if this was why she had come.

  “I know, but there is a hot spring a mile or so up the road. I am going to go in and get you a towel and some fresh clothes, and we are all going to head up there for a quick soak. When we get back, I am going to give you a nice haircut and maybe get you down to one eyebrow,” she said with a smile.

  “You need to get her down to one mustache too,” Jamar mumbled.

  Cassandra was scowling, showing off gums where her rotted teeth used to be. “Does he have to come with us? We need to leave his skinny ass here,” Cassandra said. “As bad as I want a man, I wouldn’t even take him with a dirty butt!”

  Jamar’s eyes were wide. “Is she referring to having sex with me?”

  Cassandra took to the defensive. “How would I have sex with you? I would confuse your wiener with one of them skinny ass legs!”

  The smell was getting to Darlene. “Enough you two. Cassandra do you know where the hot springs are?” she asked. The back and forth between the two of them reminded her of her son George and daughter Nathalie. Those two would continue to go at each other just to kill time.

  “Yep, but I still don’t think he should go with us,” she said defiantly.

  “If we are in the water, we need someone to keep watch,” Darlene suggested.

  “Yeah, but who is going to watch him. Anything comes at us, he is more ‘n likely going to take off running like the skinny bitch he is!”

  Jamar grabbed for the gun again.

  “Stop it,” she warned him. “Cassandra, head for the springs, Jamar and I are right behind you.”

  “No, you are right behind her. I am staying here - with the gun in case she comes back without you,” he said. “...Or comes back gnawing on part of your leg.”

  “I thought you said Daniel asked for you to come and make me feel safe,” she said to him. He was an attractive young man, but like Cassandra’s assessment, he was pretty thin.

  He pointed at Cassandra, “...yeah, but he didn’t say anything about fending off a talking lady Bigfoot!”

  “Yo Mama is a Bigfoot!” Cassandra said as she popped to her feet.

  She popped up and so did the smell of what she had been sitting on. Jamar made a lunge for her but the smell knocked him back. He started swinging at the air like he was being attacked by an invisible hoard of killer bees. When she looked at Cassandra, standing there all defiant, she almost called her Nathalie.

  “Get in your vehicle and start driving Cassandra,” Darlene commanded.

  Unfortunately, she had to hold the gun on Jamar to get him inside of his vehicle. Even when they arrived at the hot spring, he refused to get out of the car. Once Darlene started to peel away the layers of grimy clothing that Cassandra had on, Jamar put the sun blinds up in his front windshield refusing to look at any of it. He was on to something because the moment Cassandra hit the water, the sulfa in the hot spring began to kill every parasite, bug and living creature that inhabited her body. Cassandra begin to scream as little black dots crawled up her neck covering her face heading into her hairline.

  “Dunk your head now!” Darlene yelled. It hadn’t dawned on her that the poor woman had to be cleaned like a dog to rid her of the infestation of cooties that covered her body. All of the poor creatures floated in the pool as she popped up in the water, giving a bare mouth grin. A layer of grease covered the top of the water, with the remnants of years of parasitic organisms floating, gasping, and clinging to dirty flotsam pieces of filth for their last breaths of life.

  “Ms. Darlene,” she said as a hot pink boob floated in the water. Her pale skin pinked more as the hot water cleansed her. “I have my new teeth in the car, you think if you can clean me up real good, I might be able to get me some loving?’

  Darlene’s eyes teared up at the lonely woman who only wanted a connection; this she understood all too well. “I will do my best to make you look good enough for a man to want to call you his own.”

  Her blue eyes were sparkling as she accepted the washcloth. Each swipe of the cloth removed a layer of dirt. “Woohoo!” she yelled out loud as she raised her crud crusted foot to wash it. Cassandra started singing loudly, “Im’ma get me some loving!”

  Darlene was not prepared for how soon that would come to pass.

  Jamar suggested the seats in Cassandra’s truck be covered with a tarp or some form of sheeting to prevent a new infestation from occurring after the natural delousing in the sulfur pool. It sounded like a good idea to Darlene because the clothes were so nasty they could stand up by themselves minus Cassandra’s body.

  Once they reached the cabin, the joy which overcame Cassandra at being able to come inside was almost infectious. She loved touching the furniture, marveled at the lopsided quilt and the machine, but moreover, she enjoyed walking about the cabin in her bare feet. Her fingers caressed each piece in the cabin as she finally took a seat in the living room on one of the chairs.

  “Ms. Darlene, do you think you can make me a quilt for my bed for Christmas?” she asked her.

  Jamar jumped in, “She can’t because she is making me one for Christmas for my bed!”

  Darlene sighed. “I will try to make you both a very simple quilt, since I am learning.”

&nbs
p; The answer seemed to satisfy Jamar who went back to reading his tablet. Cassandra had something on her mind. Darlene never had time to fully listen to Nathalie when there was something troubling her, but there was no rush today. There was time. She would listen to Cassandra and be her cheerleader.

  “What’s on your mind Cassandra?” She asked her.

  “I just miss this kind of stuff with my mom. When she died...a part of me went with her...I stopped caring....stopped brushing my teeth, only thing I did each day was cared for the animals. I stopped caring about myself,” she confessed.

  “I understand far more than you may realize, but living again, starting over, learning to love freely is a beautiful thing,” she told her as she patted her hand.

  Cassandra with down cast eyes asked, “Do you think, it would be possible, sometime, if I came over to maybe have tea with you?”

  “That would be lovely, but first, let’s get you all finished before dinner,” Darlene told her.

  Hand in hand they walked down the small hallway to the bathroom where Cassandra’s hair was washed again over the bathtub and given a deep conditioning. A shower was in order this time with soap. Moisturizer was applied to the wind weathered skin which soaked up the emollients like a sponge on a wet sink. At $75 a jar, it was well worth every penny as Cassandra’s skin began to plump up as it absorbed the much needed nutrients.

  Darlene was careful with the scissors when she trimmed the dead, split ends from the uncared for brittle hair which softened under the soaking of the conditioner. Soft bangs fell across her forehead that now sported two eyebrows. There was a small bag that the raccoon maiden had brought in from her truck; inside of it were Cassandra’s new teeth.

  “You look so nice,” Darlene told her new friend as she turned her body to look at the cleaned up version of the new Cassandra in the mirror.

  Cassandra’s fingers went to her face, then her hair and eyebrows. Tears welled in her eyes. “It has been so long since I looked like...felt like...”

  She turned and flung herself at Darlene. “Thank you. I didn’t know how to ask...” The tears were overwhelming her. “...tomorrow is my birthday. This is the greatest present ever.”

  Darlene was curious. “How old will you be?”

  “I will be 33,” she said with pride as she glanced at her new teeth.

  Down the hall Jamar yelled, “33? I could have sworn you were 63!”

  The new Cassandra reacted pretty much like the old, dirty one. “And you are still acting like a skinny box headed child!”

  Jamar changed his tune when Cassandra walked down the hall in a borrowed dress that fit her like it was made for her body. The bra was a couple of sizes too small, but she had a narrow back which made her assets sit up high. Assets which caught Jamar’s attention and held on to it undividedly throughout dinner. Darlene popped him several times to make him stop staring.

  The only other distraction was Roscoe who constantly tapped on the back door with a rock until his master gave him food.

  “I guess I will need to bake a cake for your birthday tomorrow,” Darlene said gently.

  “I get cake, with candles too?”

  “If I can find some candles you sure can,” she told her.

  “This is going to be the best birthday ever!”

  Chapter Twenty Three – High Noon

  Daniel climbed the side of the rock face and looked down in the ravine. Sheila D. was barking profusely as he looked over the ledge to see the missing hikers huddled up together for warmth. The ledge was narrow and one wrong turn and off the side of the hill they would tumble to their death.

  He spoke softly to not startle them, “Hey down there, I have been looking for you all night.”

  The man and woman moved slowly. Both were covered in scratches, bruises and a few contusions, but overall they looked nothing more than tired, scared and hungry.

  “Thank God you found us, we haven’t had any water since Thursday night, and we are starving,” the man yelled out.

  “Mr. Graymont,” Daniel said. “I will have you and your wife up and out of there in a jiffy.”

  Two whistles from his mouth, Sheila D. dragged his backpack over allowing him to grab his rope, tie it off and make a harness to drag them upwards. The mountain pine beetles had done a great deal of damage to many of the trees, so locating one that was sturdy enough to hoist the weight of a full grown man wasn’t so easy. The first pull, the limb gave way resulting in a solid Mrs. Graymont landing flat on her ass. Daniel tied off the rope again this time to a stump and used his body as the counterweight to pull up the solid mass of the man’s wife.

  It took both he and Mrs. Graymont to pull her husband up from the ledge. Daniel looked at the nearly dehydrated and exhausted couple. He didn’t need to hear any excuses, he simply wanted to get home to his wife. Water bottles were handed to the couple as he urged them to make tracks down the peak. With any luck he could have them back to the ranger station and could be home by 2:00.

  I am seriously missing my wife.

  As he drove the couple back to his ranger station, he passed out crusty bread and the jar of jam Darlene had made with Jamar. She added her own seasonings and a special ingredient that she had refused to share with the young man. It must have been mighty tasty or the Graymont's were really hungry.

  “This jam is amazing, where did you get it?” Mrs. Graymont asked.

  “My wife made it,” Daniel said. His chest filled with pride at saying my wife. Someone he needed to call as soon as possible.

  “I want this recipe,” Mrs. Graymont said.

  “I’m going to give her a contract so we can put this on the shelf in every one of our food stores,” Mr. Graymont said as he opened the second jar.

  Daniel didn’t care where he put the jar of jam, he simply wanted to get home to her beautiful face. The moment he entered into cell phone range he called home. He longed to hear that sweet voice that answered in the third ring.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Hey baby, how is everything?”

  “Oh Daniel, I was so worried. Are you okay, did you locate the hikers?”

  “They are safe and sound and so am I,” he told his wife.

  “Are you headed home?”

  “Not quite. Paperwork; they have to be checked out, equipment put away and Sheila D. and I will be home hopefully no later than 3:00,” he said.

  “I missed you last night,” she said softly, out of earshot of her house guests.

  “Hopefully, after Labor Day, we won’t have as many of these incidences,” he told her.

  “Just get home to me okay?”

  “On my way as soon as I can get there.” He paused, “I love you. See you in a few.”

  “I love you too,” she said as she hung up the phone.

  Daniel could not stop grinning. This time when he told her he loved her, she’d said it back. She loves me back. He looked over at the Graymont’s. “Okay, guys, let’s get you squared away and home, so I can do the same.”

  By the time Darlene made it to the kitchen, Jack was making eggs, Cassandra was eyeballing him like a salivating dog, Jamar was having an argument with the back of her head and Roscoe the Raccoon was laid back in Sheila D’s bed like a boss. Jack must have arrived this morning. She smiled at the full house of people. How my life has changed.

  “Is that raccoon eating a piece of ham?” she asked with a furrowed brow. As if he understood her, Roscoe held up his chunk of ham showing the meat like he was saying good morning.

  “Morning Darlene,” all three of them said in unison.

  “Morning children,” she said back with a smile. Jack handed her a freshly brewed cup of coffee as the sound of more tires pulled into the graveled back yard caught all of their attention. It was only 9 am, there was no way her husband was home this soon.

  Jack, quick to point out the obvious, peered out the window. “It is two black people.”

  Both she and Jamar looked at him dumbfounded as if he didn’t seem to
notice they too were black. However, those two black people in her driveway were her brother Roosevelt and Krysten, who climbed out the car with attitude on her face and a messiness coming out her lips.

  “Gurl! Are you having a sexy sleepover and where is your husband?” she said as she stepped into the back door.

  Roosevelt stood on the back porch, seemingly rooted to his spot not moving as his eyes scanned over the backdrop of his sister’s new home. It was far lovelier than she had let on. The mountains were gorgeous, the sound of the river was relaxing and the back porch was calling for him to take a seat, have a beer and talk some trash.

  I could live here.

  Darlene addressed her friend first, “Good morning Krys, what are you doing here?”

  “Gurl, I was trying to explain to your brother about this backyard and he said he needed to see it for himself. He had me on a red eye and here we are. Surprise!”

  “Come on in, Jack, we have two more for breakfast,” she said.

  “No problem, hot cakes coming up,” as he poured more batter onto the hot grill. Krysten poured herself a cup of coffee as she took in all the small touches in the cabin. Her friend had put her stamp on the space and made it feel homey, like a couple who shared a life lived in it. What was throwing her off were the extra people; especially the muscle bound sexy cook.

  “Where is Daniel, who is that cooking, who is this little skinny dude and hold up...” she looked at Cassandra. “...Is that raccoon girl with a new do, a set of teeth and de-funkified?”

  Cassandra stood up. “There you go again with all your fancy talk. It’s good to see you too.” She grabbed her cell phone which had started to ring and headed out the back door. “Come on Roscoe, let’s step outside.”

  Jamar introduced himself as well as Jack. Well, Jack kind of grunted, but it was close enough. Krysten was never one to pass up a meal, took a seat as Jack served her breakfast. Darlene in turn joined her brother on the back porch. She handed him a cup of Jamar’s fancy coffee.