“Did Kali talk about the carnivore holocaust?” Sally asked.
“Not to me. Didn’t say a word to me, come to think of it. There were half-a-dozen other people kind of hanging around, and when she wasn’t on the phone, Kali was working up things for them to do. Nina’s still running the operation out of her home office, but they’re looking for space in town. When they find a place, Kali and her crew are supposed to move into Laramie, but for now, they’re camped out all over Nina’s place.”
“Oh wow,” said Sally.
“Mmm-hmm,” said Jackson. “Woodstock in Wyoming.”
“Well, the good news is that there’s a big snowstorm forecast for tomorrow. That might inspire them to find some real shelter someplace, hopefully not in her house. I’m kind of surprised,” Sally mused. “I’ve had the impression that Nina treasures her privacy. Why else would she have bought that place and moved out here permanently? Why would she want to go and collect a gang of wackos who, if I know my hippies, may or may not ever get around to moving out?”
Trouble in the blue eyes. “Beats me. And that’s the worst part. Nina isn’t acting like herself. I’ve known the woman twenty-five years. She’s always had a regrettable tendency to collect hustlers and strays, but she’s sharp. She notices everything. She’s liable to let one thing or another slide by, but she always has her reasons. And when she’s inclined, she’ll tell you exactly what she thinks, and if you don’t like it, tough.”
Jackson pondered a moment. “She called me a month ago to talk about the benefit, and we’ve had several conversations since. She’s seemed distracted, like she’s having trouble concentrating. She complains that she’s tired a lot, and I’ve never known anybody with that much energy. I’m worried that there’s something wrong with her, and the Dub-Dubs are taking advantage of the situation.”
Sally wanted to help. Not just because she had this lifelong thing about Thomas Jackson being the man of her dreams, but also because it did sound as if Nina might have a problem. But really, she and Nina Cruz were only acquaintances. “Shouldn’t you be talking with her close friends about this?”
His mouth quirked, softly. “Half of Nina’s good friends wouldn’t speak to me if they were in a burning building and I was the guy with the fire hose. The other half, well, let’s just say I don’t regard them as likely possibilities. But her sister Caterina is solid gold. Unfortunately, Cat’s in Brazil on some kind of UN goodwill ambassador gig, and the only way to get in touch with her is satellite phone.
“Look, I have the impression that Nina hasn’t met all that many people in town, but she speaks highly of you. And of course, our friend Pete does, too.”
Sally looked at the ceiling. She could only imagine what kind of recommendation had come from the latter source.
“I’m not sure what you’re asking me to do,” she said.
“Take the gig,” he replied. “And if you’ve got the time, see what you can find out about this Dub-Dub thing. I’ll be back and forth from Cody, but hang out with me while I’m in town, and keep in touch when I can’t be here. Share your impressions.”
Now that would be a hardship, wouldn’t it? Sally thought.
Might be, come to think of it, if Hawk Green, the love of Sally’s life, took a dislike to the idea.
He might have done so back when they were in their tempestuous twenties, when Sally had been a wild girl flirting with danger, and Hawk had been a rambling guy with a tendency to get mad and move on. But happily for Sally, Hawk Green was the kind of man who gave aging a good name. He was still as lanky and broad-shouldered as he’d been at twenty-one. He still wore jeans and boots or sneakers, T-shirts or flannel shirts, and kept his mass of straight black hair, now shot with silver, tied carelessly in a ponytail at the back of his neck.
He’d mellowed some over the years, in Sally’s opinion, just exactly enough. But Hawk was anything but laid back. His immense, deep-set brown eyes radiated intelligence and curiosity. He woke fast every morning, springing out of bed with a list of the day’s obligations already fixed in his head. Daunting, to say the least. Good thing he could sometimes be very happily convinced to return to the horizontal.
He might not be as easy to convince about the wisdom of her spending any quantity of time with the idol of her youth.
“In case you’re interested, Margaret Dunwoodie is one of my favorite poets,” Jackson told her. “In fact, I’d like to talk with you about making a contribution to your Dunwoodie Center. I read that biography of her that you wrote. Thought it was great.” He paused. “Word has it that particular research project nearly did you in.”
Thomas Jackson had read one of her books? “Glad you liked it,” Sally said, blushing.
Thomas Jackson’s eyes glowed. “I really, really liked it,” he said.
Chapter 2
Blood on the Tracks
“I don’t like it,” said Hawk Green, pouring coffee, looking out the kitchen window at fat snowflakes drifting ground-ward. “They’re predicting at least six inches of snow by tonight and more to come. Your car handles like shit on snow without snow tires.” He removed his round wire-rimmed glasses and polished them on the tail of his flannel shirt. Narrowed his eyes and frowned downward.
“I don’t even have snow tires,” said Sally. “Remember? You looked at them when I took them off last May and hauled them out to the dump.” Tires meant a lot to Hawk. When he’d given her a set of Michelins for the Mustang for her birthday last year, she’d taken it as a sign of deep commitment. “The snow isn’t even sticking,” she told him, playing Wyoming’s favorite wintertime role: amateur mete-orologist. “It’ll take a couple of hours for the ground to cool off enough for it to start piling up. Nina’s expecting me. If I leave in the next half hour, I can get out there, talk to her about the benefit, and be back in time for lunch.”
The temperature had dropped forty degrees overnight, blasting everybody’s zinnias and marigolds and zucchini and tomato plants to shriveled black tangleweed. Yesterday, Sally had gone to work in a short denim skirt and a black cotton T-shirt. Today, she’d gotten up and put on jeans, a long-sleeved turtleneck, a fleece vest, and wool socks. For the ride out to Albany, she’d add a fleece jacket and lightweight hiking shoes, and throw a pair of sweatpants, an extra pair of socks, some heavier boots, a down jacket, a wool hat, cashmere-lined leather gloves, and a fleece scarf in the back-seat. Her cell phone was fully charged, her gas tank full, her windshield washer tanks and antifreeze topped up. She’d made herself a small thermos of coffee and even laid in a supply of chemical heat packets, the kind hunters used to warm their hands and feet. She didn’t want to fret Hawk, but on the other hand, she’d lived in Wyoming long enough to think ahead. She’d already put her foul-weather emergency kit in the trunk. Flashlight, granola bars, box of matches, blanket, plastic jug of water, jumper cables, tire chains, signal flares. She thought there might even be a few rock-hard Slim Jims left over from the previous year, so she wouldn’t starve even if she was stuck in a ditch for a week. She’d toss in her sleeping bag. Hawk wasn’t wrong to worry. In Wyoming, you couldn’t actually be overprepared for a sudden onslaught of winter.
She had to get out there and see for herself what was going on before she pitched the idea of doing the Wild West benefit to the Millionaires. But there might be a slight problem with Jimbo Perrine, the Millionaires’ ursine bass player, who proudly described himself as a born-and-bred Wyoming redneck. He worked a day job as a foreman at the cement plant, but during hunting season he moonlighted as a taxi-dermist. Jimbo handed around a business card that said, MOUNTS BY PERRINE. YOU SNUFF ’EM, WE STUFF ’EM.
Jimbo said he’d always wanted to take a trip to New Mexico just to shoot spotted owls. He referred to the Sierra Club as “the sequoia-fuckers.”
It might not be so easy to talk Sam and Dwayne into it either. Sam Branch and Dwayne Langham, the Millionaires’ lead guitarist and musical polymath, respectively, were also, respectively, the town’s leading developer and
banker. Sam’s earlier thriving sales career in high-grade weed and snortable powder was one of those subjects his heavy-hitting Republican friends (some of whom were, of course, former customers) never saw fit to mention. As for Dwayne, who scoured eBay every day on the chance that a Grateful Dead bootleg he didn’t own might be up for bid, his famously hyper-cautious loan policy at the Centennial Bank made even his most fascist colleagues smile faintly at his tendency to sport ties with dancing bears, or lightning-bolt skulls and roses, on the occasional casual Friday.
During the Vietnam War, Nina Cruz had been photographed in Hanoi, kissing a little guy in black pajamas. That didn’t exactly bowl them over at the Rotary lunches. But maybe by the weekend, when Sally would see them, Sam and Dwayne would be in a good mood. A little bit of snow and they’d likely get their deer right off the bat. Hunters loved a nice light snow for the animals to walk through, not deep enough to create problems, but perfect for revealing tracks. With that kind of trail, even the most inept heavily armed bozo could fancy himself a heap-big frontier scout.
Some guys treated hunting as a social event. Sam Branch, for example, made a point of getting out the first day of deer season, and passing some hours at other times of the year getting wet and cold in duck blinds, chiefly to drink whiskey from a flask, tell off-color stories, and rack up karma points with the good ol’ boys. But lots of Wyoming men, and a few women Sally knew, were skillful and serious hunters. Hawk, for instance, enjoyed bird hunting, and had bagged a nice goose for their last Christmas dinner. Dwayne Langham and his brother Dickie, the county sheriff, had pretty much been hunting from the time they could toddle, and they’d shot everything from rabbits and pheasants to elk and moose. Hunting was a big Langham family tradition, although Dickie allowed that since he’d gone into law enforcement, he’d lost some of his enthusiasm for putting holes in things that bled.
She hoped they’d be as jazzed about opening for Jackson as she was, but then again, if they decided they couldn’t stomach his lefty politics, she could have a tough time changing their minds. Back in 1980, after all, Sam had handed out Reagan campaign buttons with every gram of coke.
But then who was she to take the high moral ground? She’d spent her share of time with Sam during the Reagan years, playing in the band and otherwise. Indeed, she’d done five or six things she regretted right into the next millennium, one or two of them with Sam Branch.
Fortunately, Hawk had developed the capacity for forgiveness, given a decade or two.
She sighed. With Sam’s ambitions and Dwayne’s congenital unwillingness to do anything that might be perceived as controversial, she was going to have a tough time selling them on the Wild West benefit. And that was before she even got to Jimbo Perrine.
Her Michelins swished on the wet pavement as she drove over the railroad bridge and into West Laramie. Ordinarily she’d be blasting a CD by now, Beatles or Stones, reggae or Haggard, whatever. But right now, she kept the music quiet. Jonatha Brook offered up a Paul Simon tune at low volume. Sally needed to be able to listen to the sound of her car wheels on the road.
There were a few scattered cars and pickups in the parking lot at Foster’s Country Corner Truck Stop. Almost no big rigs. It occurred to Sally that any trucker pushing east on I-80 was likely trying to keep ahead of the storm, while the ones heading west would probably keep driving until it got too bad to go on. The pavement was darkly wet but clear, and you could still see lots of space between flakes. The heavy heart of the front must be well to the west. Nina Cruz’s Shady Grove was forty minutes’ drive from Laramie in good weather. She’d have hours before getting back might be a problem, Sally devoutly hoped.
If Foster’s wasn’t doing much business, the West Laramie Fly Store was making up the difference. The Fly Store was a local institution, the last stop at the edge of town for guns, ammunition, camo gear, Vienna sausages, burned coffee in plastic foam cups, and Goody’s Headache Powder. King-cab, step-side pickups, oversize SUVs, battered Jeeps, and ancient Land Cruisers thronged the parking lot, abandoned at haphazard angles, as if the drivers had been too preoccupied with getting into the Fly Store for last-minute supplies to think about the fact that they were parked blocking three other vehicles.
But then, Sally reflected, it was after eight in the morning. Anybody presently buying bullets or preserved meat was already late. Conscientious sportsmen, looking to get a jump on the storm and the season, had doubtless risen in the dark, their gear packed, the Mr. Coffee programmed to drip a pot of Folgers right about the time their pajama pants hit the floor and they pulled on long johns. Here in southeastern Wyoming on the first bloody day of the season, antlered deer were already confronting mortality.
Sally drove on, deciding to pass up the turn-off for route 130 to Centennial, and continue along 230, southwest instead of straight due west. She could have gone through either Centennial, on the north, or Wood’s Landing, from the south, to get to Nina’s place southeast of Albany. Going down from Centennial would mean more paved road and less dirt, but would also require climbing up over a pass, where the snow would be heavier, the road, likely, worse. So Wood’s Landing it was.
Twenty minutes later, her tires made a quieter sound as the road cooled and began to speckle white and frosty in spots. On a sunny day, she’d be driving close to seventy by now (and looking out for cops, since the speed limit was fiftyfive). But it wasn’t sunny. She was still fairly relaxed, but obeying the law, listening to the ssshh of her windshield wipers and taking note of the feel of her tires on the pavement. They gripped solid enough that she didn’t even think about turning around, even though she had three miles of dirt road ahead, on the way to Nina’s. Worse, on the way back.
Just before Wood’s Landing, Sally turned north to wind her way uphill on a good enough gravel road in the summer, but a potential problem today. The creek paralleled, and then flowed under the road and right through Nina Cruz’s land. That could make for a muddy, even flooded road. Happily for Sally, Nina’s driveway was on this side of the creek. Still, the road could easily wash out if the culvert backed up. For now, the dirt was packing down slightly under the dusting of wet snow, not yet turning to slick and viscous gumbo.
She promised herself she’d have just a quick chat with Nina, and hope to lay eyes on a few of the Wild West crew. She was making this possibly unwise trip as much to reassure herself that taking the gig was the right thing to do as to accommodate Mr. Stone Jackson. Just because the guy was her Idol of All Time didn’t mean she had to do everything he asked, now, did it?
Nina’s driveway was on the left, and, as Sally took the turn, she was delighted to feel and hear gravel crunching beneath her wheels. One of the benefits of being a Hollywood homesteader, Sally reflected, was that you could afford to have somebody deliver a truckload of rock for your ranch road whenever you liked. Another benefit was that you could write a check, and some incredibly beautiful piece of Rocky Mountain paradise could be yours. The Shady Grove that had inspired the name of Nina’s spread was an aspen forest. Here, more than eight thousand feet above sea level, it must have frosted a week ago. Slender silvery trunks spired up into the golden and leafy canopy, shivering in rhythm with the snowflakes that fell out of steely skies. The timbers of the log house, studio, and barn Nina had built had weathered gray in only two years. Nina had cleared as few trees as possible, and the buildings seemed to nestle into the landscape in almost organic harmony, counterpointed in bright, assertive notes by the tilting blue photovoltaic panels on the roof, the slender silver spire of the three-bladed wind turbine in the clearing.
Rhythm, harmony, counterpoint. Shady Grove made Sally imagine countryside in musical terms. Nina would like that. The house she’d built was a rambling musician’s retreat, complete with three bedrooms and three baths, a vaulting central space combining kitchen, dining room, and enormous living room, full of light from windows and skylights. A short walk through the aspens, down a flagstone path, led to a smaller building, a studio housing recordi
ng equipment and instruments, a large office space, a futon bed, and another full bath. More room than a solitary occupant would need, but plenty of space for the occasional houseguest or three. Not enough for an occupying army of Californians, but sufficient for friends to drop in.
The ordinary Wyoming homesteader would have found Nina’s place palatial. The average visitor from Malibu or Marin would see it as minimal, remote, rustic. Nina had told Sally that her agent, a lifelong Angeleno whose idea of roughing it was to sit in the second row at a Lakers’ game, referred to Nina’s Wyoming abode as “Dogpatch.”
For the first time, Sally had some sympathy with the agent. The dirt-and-gravel turnaround between the house and the barn, big enough to accommodate a dozen vehicles without crowding, was packed. The school bus Stone Jackson had mentioned stood adjacent to the barn. It was painted lime green, its windows festooned with tie-dyed curtains. Any Wyomingite would instantly notice three things about the other cars, vans, and SUVs filling up the area. First, they all had out-of-state plates, mostly from California, but Oregon, Washington, and Colorado were also represented. Second, with the exception of the Ford F-250 Nina had bought for hauling, there were no pickup trucks. Third, nearly every vehicle was a foreign model, with the emphasis on European manufacturers. Northern Europe was heavily overrepresented, with Volkswagen vans and bugs, Mercedes sedans and sports cars, Volvos and Saabs. A couple of BMW SUVs represented the “roughing it” crowd. The sole Japanese vehicle she saw was a curiosity—a forest-green Toyota Prius, a hybrid gas-electric jellybean of a car favored, Sally knew, by science nerds who wanted to drive green and stay ahead of the technological curve.
Sally managed to slip the Mustang in between a yellow VW bug and a silver Mercedes Sport, opening her car door carefully so that she wouldn’t leave a Mustang-red ding on the Mercedes. She had no sooner squeezed herself to a standing position than a shot rang out, then two more. She ducked, then felt incredibly stupid for doing so. By the time you heard a shot, after all, it was too late to do anything about it. Some hunter was a damn sight closer to the house than any hunter ought to be.
Bye, Bye, Love Page 2