Bus Stop at the Last Chance (Loni Wagner Western Mystery Book 2)

by Sue Hardesty

  “Really?”

  “Really.” Daniel smirked at her.

  “In that case...” Daniel finally released her, and Loni ran up into her apartment. Ten minutes later she was in Daniel's truck sitting beside him, a package between them, still laughing at his birthday present. “At least you used the Sunday comics to wrap it with. Where'd you get that bow?”

  “What bow?”

  “What's on top of the box?”

  Daniel looked down. “Oh, that's the card. I folded up a rolodex card but the damn tape didn't want to hold it on the package so I used almost the whole dispenser.”

  “Jesus, Daniel,” Loni stared at him in amazement. “You need to get married.”

  “So do you. We should get married together.”

  “Don't wait for me.” Leaning back, Loni looked around. It was good being a passenger for a change. She commented on places and people as they drove through town and out the other side. Three miles on the other side of town Loni saw the bar's blinking sign ahead. The Oasis was a bar where she spent more times arresting people than enjoying herself. “You remember Len and Sharon Hinkle? They had that chicken ranch up north?”

  “Sure. Len is older, but I went to school with Sharon.”

  “Did you hear about last summer when I got a call from the Oasis about a woman climbing on the top of the bar and refusing to come down? I asked the barkeep what he expected me to do and he just said, 'Get your ass over here and talk her down!'”

  “You tellin’ me that Sharon climbed up top of that monster bar?”

  “Yep.”

  Daniel snorted. “Good god, that thing's more than twelve foot tall!”

  “Probably.” Loni agreed. “When I got there her husband was hollering at her to get off. Seems she had grabbed one of the barkeep's large sloppy wet sponges and started climbing. By the time I got there everybody was chanting 'jump! jump! jump!' I stood there wondering what the hell to do when she dropped the sponge onto the floor. Then she said, 'Watch this, everybody! I'm going to dive into that sponge!' There she was, all two-hundred pounds of her perched up on one of those carved colonnades, her frizzy blond hair flying as she started a countdown.” Loni smiled in memory. “Then the bar started counting with her while her husband kept hollering, 'No! No! Come on, Sharon! Stop!'

  “She stopped counting and shouted at him, 'Why not?'

  “'Because,' Len hollered back at her, 'you can't swim!'”

  Holding onto the steering wheel, Daniel weaved back and forth in giggles. “I never heard that one.” He was still giggling when they parked behind James's huge black pickup. Daniel looked over at Loni with an innocent expression. “Just making sure he doesn't drive away drunk.”

  “He's got a wife now.”

  “Ever seen her at a bar? She can out-drink him.”

  “That bad?” Loni opened the door laughing. Anything to irritate James. She knew Daniel would be the happy drunk before this night was over, and she would be the one driving them home. Good thing they all lived at the airport.

  They pushed into a loud noise and crush of bodies. Loni didn't know so many people lived in Caliente. People were dressed in Western tuxes, matching square dancing costumes, wildly colorful Western shirts, and Levis. The old-fashioned juke box flashed red and green as it blasted through the vibrating corner speakers around the room. Daniel trailed Loni as she wormed her way through the grins, hugs, and nods. She waved and started toward Lola until she saw that she was sitting with her family. Lola’s oldest brother, Miguel, stared knives at her.

  At Aunt Mae and Uncle Herm’s table was covered with streamers, and balloons hung overhead. Daniel put his present with the others on the middle of the table. “This here's from me and Loni,” Daniel yelled at his dad as he held onto Loni, giving her a knuckle rub on top of her head. “She picked it out!”

  Loni sent an elbow into Daniels ribs before she pulled up a chair next to her aunt Mae. Grinning at each other, they did a jiggle hug in their chairs, hanging on for awhile. “I love you,” her aunt shouted to her with a kiss on the cheek.

  Daniel disappeared, and the racket of music suddenly stopped. With a beer mug in his hand, he leaped up on the ornate bar, spilling suds everywhere as people around him ducked and wiped. “Everybody!” Daniel waved his beer like a club. “Can any of you country bumpkins out there sing Happy Birthday?”

  The crowd tittered. “Why don't you show us how,” someone hollered.

  “Ready?” Like a band conductor, Daniel led the waving crowd through the song as Uncle Herm waved back. Hopping down from the bar, he grabbed four pitchers of beer and slammed them on the table in front of Loni. Herm had already started ripping paper off the presents, scattering the scraps on the floor where dancers kicked the smears of color around the floor.

  Loni joined the groups of step dancing singles until Lola moved onto the floor with Junior. He kept pushing into Loni’s space until he kicked her behind the knee, forcing her to the floor. Daniel grabbed her just as she started after Junior and dragged her back to the table. Loni played with the gag gifts and half-heartedly blew party horns until the hot and sweaty dancers were ready for karaoke.

  The church singers predominated, but a small Western band and three jazz players took turns with the jukebox. Lola was the biggest surprise. Loni had heard her humming around the station, but behind the mike she was mesmerizing, combining the mellow of Nora Jones with the pitch of Barbra Streisand.

  Daniel yelled in her ear, “Not heard her before, have you?”

  “Not for karaoke.” Daniel’s punching elbow had given her sore ribs. She pushed her chair back, said goodnight, and hugged Uncle Herm and Aunt Mae. Slipping her hand in Daniel’s pocket, Loni grabbed his keys. “See you tomorrow,” Loni told him with a bite on his ear.

  She moved into the crowd to find Lola and got caught in a line dance. The second time around the room, Loni caught up with Lola and shouted, "I want to talk to you.”

  "I want to talk to you, too."

  Grabbing Lola's hand, Loni pulled her out the door into Lola's three brothers.

  “Where the fuck do you think you're going, Lola?” Miguel grabbed her arm.

  Jerking away, Lola insisted, “Back off, boys. This is none of your business.”

  Miguel grabbed Lola around the waist and dragged her, screaming and kicking, back into the bar while her twin brothers circled Loni and held her until the door closed behind Lola. Shaking in anger and despair, she watched the twins disappear back into the bar. Loni leaned against the truck watching the door, but Lola didn’t come back. Just as Loni turned and opened the door to Daniel's pickup, James rushed out the door and jugged up to her.

  “No goodbye hug?”

  “Sorry James. You were busy dancing.”

  “But I haven't had my dance with you.” James grabbed Loni and swung her around a couple of turns before he sat her back on her feet. “Just wanted to tell you I'm glad you came home.”

  With mixed tears in her eyes, Loni drove back to the hangar, grateful for James and Daniel. If only she could find peace with Lola's family.

  CHAPTER 20

  PAINT WAS DOWN. Loni saw tears running down Willie's brown face as he held the horse's twitching head in his lap. She watched Bahb run water up and down Paint's body with a spurting hose, working to cool him. The horse felt on fire, and his sides heaved as he panted for breath. Saliva bubbled out of his mouth, and muscle spasms racked his beautiful painted body. “Bahb! What the hell happened?”

  “Indian chase with pickup. Paint got too hot.”

  “Did you call the vet?”

  “She on way.”

  A streak of fear shot through Loni. “Where's Roanie?”

  Bahb didn't answer.

  “Bahb!” Her voice shook.

  “He gone.” Loni heard the sorrow in Bahb's voice.

  “Five came in two pickups with trailers. I could not stop.” His sorrowful voice stabbed through her. “I could not stop.” The tremor in his voice broke Loni's heart.r />
  “Who, Bahb?”

  “They gone now, two hours.”

  “Goddamn it, Bahb. Who? Please tell me it wasn't the Pimas.”

  “No. Not Pima.”

  “You sure? You haven't heard of any funerals?”

  “No.”

  “Please, Bahb, I can't let them push him off a cliff.”

  “No, I tell you.” His face rock hard, he insisted, “They bad boys running the wild Santa Cruz over on the Colorado. They come before. They know the best horse.”

  “Why are you so sure?”

  “One in rust-covered pickup had painted face. He ran Paint hard.” Bahb scrubbed at his face with the back of his hand. “We at Topaz Tank fixing gate when your grandma call. Not back in time.”

  "Why didn't you call me?"

  "They bad boys. They hurt you."

  Loni sagged against the corral railing and buried her face in her arms. “Roanie can't do that anymore.” Pushing herself up from the railing, she trotted back to her truck, swearing, “No one's going to steal my horse again.”

  “Hela! They hurt you,” Bahb shouted at her back.

  Loni jumped in her truck, ignoring his command to stop. Not if I see them first, she thought grimly. She shoved the truck into first, and her spinning tires shooting fine silt everywhere as the truck fishtailed its way back to Old Highway 85. Turning west, she slammed a portable red and blue flashing light to the roof as she picked up speed. She was breaking the law, and she didn't care. She would bring Roanie home.

  Ninety minutes later, Loni saw the village ahead and stopped. She bunched her hair into a tangled mass and unbuckled her gun belt. Removing her gun and Taser, she tossed the belt behind the seat. She kept the truck at a crawl, watching for any movement.

  Square, government-built cement-block houses clumped together and surrounded a church and school building. Fifteen or sixteen in all, painted in a variety of pastel colors badly faded from the sun, all empty.

  Sandwich houses were scattered among ironwood trees behind the clump of houses. Loni's truck dipped down a wide gully as the road crossed the dry sandy wash. The brilliant yellow blossoms barely hanging onto the Palo Verde trees followed Loni up and out to the edge of the village. No visible name, no street signs. Missing doors and windows left dark, empty holes in the block houses. Below the blank spaces, broken glass sparkled in the hot sun. A skinny red chicken hopped up on a window sill and cocked its head, watching Loni drive by.

  With no breeze, people couldn't sleep inside, so beds sat under sparse mesquite and ironwood trees. Furniture and abandoned cars littered the ground wherever Loni gazed, and a trash mound rose behind the Catholic Church. Pickups and horse trailers crowded around the schoolhouse ahead.

  An old woman in a long, dark blue dress threw scratch to the few scraggly black-spotted hens hurrying toward her. Two of them flew out of an old, crooked mesquite tree, and one ran out from under an old faded couch, ticking hanging out, that leaned against the side of a house. What her granddad called overstuffed. The old woman kept her head down as the truck passed her by.

  Loni smelled cooking and spotted a fire under a huge old mesquite tree. It was built under a grocery cart on its side with a big aluminum pot sitting in it. The odor of menudo wafted through the stench of hot dust. No dogs barked at her, and she wondered what was in the stew. She remembered the time she went with Willie and Bahb and ate at a La Paz village. They were miles away before Willie told her that she ate dog. “Didn't see that old blue hound around, did you Bahb?” She vomited and stayed angry with him all day.

  She gave a sigh of relief when she saw Roanie's ugly tail hanging out of a horse trailer hooked up to an old Datsun kingcab pickup. Stopping a few car lengths back, she got out, facing the schoolhouse. Focus! She eased past Roanie and opened the door to the pickup. Crawling behind the driver's seat, she crouched down, curled up, and waited, sharing the seat with a saddle. God help me if they're already on peyote, she thought.

  It seemed forever before the schoolhouse door opened, releasing a stream of dogs, kids, and adults. Sweat rolled down her body covered with a smelly horse blanket as she waited. The driver's door opened, and someone sat down heavily, bouncing the pickup. It started, and voices faded. Careful of the mirrors, Loni pressed her gun into the hollow where the head connected to the neck. “Stop!” she ordered. “Don't move! Put it in neutral. Take your foot off the gas. We're going to talk.”

  The La Paz started to swing at her, and Loni jabbed him hard in the throat, stopping the arm in midair. “What's your name?”

  Anger and fear radiated off him. “Name!” Loni jabbed him again.

  “Merve,” he grunted. Loni glanced around again. The dust from the cars and trailers pulling away was so heavy that they probably wouldn't notice he wasn't following them.

  “Ok, Merve, hands on your head. Then get out.” Unwinding her long, lean body, Loni followed him. Gun in his back, she handcuffed him to a Palo Verde tree on the side of the road. Trading her truck for his pickup, she locked the hitch on the ball as Merve's dark eyes sullenly watched her every move.

  Fear replaced the arrogant, angry expression on Merve's face when Loni walked toward him and stuck her gun in his face. “Your trailer will be at the Caliente Police Station with your pickup keys. Take this horse again and you will not live to ride him.” She watched him struggling with his handcuffs in her rearview mirror until the village disappeared from view. The ride home was uneventful.

  Loni unloaded Roanie and opened the gate. With a fast walk, he went directly to the water trough. She leaned against the rails, exhausted, as the surging adrenalin faded. Her grandparents came toward her with sorrowful faces.

  “Paint's dead.” Shiichoo turned and went back into the house.

  Loni turned to Bahb. “He drink too much water before we could stop him.”

  “Where's Willie?”

  Bahb shrugged. “He broken now. He go off like old sick dog.”

  “I'll find him.”

  Loni looked around Willie’s house. Most of his treasures were gone except for his tomahawk on the kitchen table and the biggest two ollas in his pottery collection. She checked his secret hiding places. The stack of gold coins, the pocket watch she never saw him wear, and the few Pima trinkets she didn't understand, were all gone. In his closet, his gaudy turquoise string ties, even the expensive ones, were all missing.

  In the field near the hump of dirt, Paint's new home, Loni fell to her knees and wept.

  The weekend on the desert seemed to last forever. Bahb’s broken leg kept him from riding, and Loni had to push a herd of mother cows to the north windmill. A deep ache accompanied her on the long ride. Loni missed Willie, and she missed her granddad. She couldn’t match them, no matter how much she tried. The two men grew up on the O'odham Nation and had that special bonding of walking the desert in the same shoes. With a heavy heart, Loni drove home.

  FROM: Loni Wagner

  TO: Sandi@gmailyahoo.com

  DATE: July 20

  SUBJECT: Still here

  Reason #6 why I don't ranch: Losing old friends to the fierce desert heat is too hard.

  Willie lost Paint today and I almost lost Roanie. Bahb says we may lose Willie too, but I'm going to find him and bring him home.

  I don’t understand such cruelty. Bahb always said gentle treatment is important because if you are good to a horse and you get sick or hurt, then the horse will come to you and you will get well. But if you mistreat a horse and you are sick or hurt, then the horse will not come willingly, and you will probably die. He means that applies to all pets and people, too. As I stood by Paint's grave, Bahb's loving attitude didn't help. Sorry, I can't deal right now.

  Take care of you and yours.

  Loni

  “Coco?” Loni called to her beloved poodle. Burying her face in the kinky wool, Loni let her tears flow.

  CHAPTER 21

  LATE SUNDAY AFTERNOON she faced her granddad’s silent disappointment after she admitted losing three
mother cows in her push to move them to the Carter windmill. She didn’t get away from her grandparents' ranch until she promised she’d be back the next weekend to find them.

  Dirty and tired, she just wanted to shower and climb into bed, but she needed to find Willie. On the trip into town, she kept flashing on the fax report that listed flour stuck to the drug package they found on the biker. Something about that niggled at her all weekend, just below her misery. She figured that since she was looking for Willie, she might as well ask the cooks around town.

  The last bar on the street was the Last Chance Saloon. Loni pushed through the doors, close to admitting defeat. She perched on the bar stool and ordered her fifth Coke in a little over an hour. Petting the yellow-striped cat that strolled back and forth in front of her gave her a chance to watch the bartender. Elmer Bowe was a big man, both tall and broad, with an arm span that made it easy for him to reach across the bar and smack a badly behaving patron. She always admired his gruff ways. “Hey, Loni. What can I get you?” he growled.

  “Seen Willie lately?”

  “Last night late. Damn shame about his horse.”

  “He say where he was headed?”

  “Not really. Just said he was on his way hunting.”

  “You think he said happy hunting grounds?”

  “Why? Something wrong?”

  Loni rubbed her face hard. “He's on a bad drinking binge losing his horse.”

  “He did look rough.” Elmer peered at Loni, questioning, “Sure you don't want a drink?”

  “Anything cold would be fine. With lots of ice. And maybe a treat for my friend here,” Loni said, pointing at the huge cat sitting in front of her. “What’s his name?”

  “Jalopy.”

  “Isn't that a car?”

  “See how big he is?”

  Loni nodded. “Good choice.”

  “Did I hear right? Did you really wreck another police car and lose a bus along with the Mexican Mafia? Bet that was a real proud day for you.”

  “Why don't you sit on your thumb?”