Oregon Trails

by Olivia Gaines

  “It would be too bad for you if we get you to the store and I’m not so attractive. Your jack hole friends will not only know you are blind, but that you also have bad taste in women,” she said as she sidled close to him. “I am on your left.”

  Weathered hands reached for her, holding firmly to the back of her arm, trying feebly to reach for her boob, but she continuously shifted her body so his knobbly little fingers couldn’t make contact with her mammary.

  “Smart one, aren’t ya?” The old man asked.

  “You are only blind, good sir. You are still a dirty old man,” she responded.

  “I like you,” he said through a gaped tooth smile. The three remaining teeth in his head were rotted out with deep brown cavernous holes in each. Breath, which smelled of death, walking vomit on a stick, and something out of a Freddy Kruger dream, walked along with them, almost holding the man up. The body odor that came from the sagging pants, tattered shirt, and holey shoes almost broke her heart.

  “I like you, too. These friends of your own the store?” she asked.

  “No, I own the store. They just like to hang out there and get on my damned nerves,” he said. “My name is Hawkeye Madison. Me and my brother-in-law Curley Joe own the store. Well, he owns the store. I own the garage attached to it.”

  “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Hawkeye. I am Kalinda Darton, Paul’s wife,” she said.

  The man stopped in the middle of the street right in front of the largest goat she’d ever seen in her life. She watched the goat with interest as it nibbled on the tattered shirt Hawkeye wore, as if a buffet had just paused in the middle if the street. She tugged at his arm as other hungry goats began to make their way towards them.

  “Damned goats! That is what happened to my shirt on the way to the post office!” he yelled.

  “Curley Joe! Help!” he yelled as Kalinda pulled him by the arm, but to no avail. The dang fool man was standing in the middle of the street surrounded by hungry goats that were literally eating the shirt off his back. Quick as a flash, she ripped the remnants of the shirt from his body and tossed it as far down the street as it would go away from Hawkeye’s dirty old body, ragged breathing came from his feeble, caved in chest now exposed to the morning air. Six long gray hairs hung from the center of his chest like long hookworms seeking out a new host on which to connect their parasitic bodies.

  Hurried footsteps of men and women rushed to the front porch at the old man’s cry. As fast as they ran, they also came to a complete stop at the sign of the old man’s half naked form, the goats in a feeding a frenzy and a black woman walking him across the street.

  “Morning everyone, I am Kalinda Darton, Paul’s wife,” she said with a wide smile.

  “You’re black!” a one-legged man shouted out.

  “And you have one leg,” she retorted. “Now that we have that out of the way, I need to get some groceries and half naked Hawkeye out the street before the wind blows through that bird chest and kills him.”

  Hawkeye yanked his arm away from her at the newfound information. Kalinda held her breath, uncertain if he was angry at the comment about his chest or offended she hadn’t mentioned her race. Either way, she was here to get some supplies and willing to still go inside the store to get what she came for if necessary. Waiting on Paul was out of the question. She lived here. They would either have to get used to seeing her or put their prejudices in their back pocket.

  “I just have one dang question,” Hawkeye grumbled. “Is she a looker, Curley Joe?”

  “Yeah, she is that,” a man said.

  It was seconded and thirded by a few of the other men, but a woman, as wide as the doorway, stepped forward.

  “Why you worried about how she look any how Hawkeye? Didn’t she just tell you she is Paul’s wife? She has all of that good-looking man in her bed e’ry night– your old blind ass ain’t got a chance,” she said.

  “QT, I am certain, the bugs in them drawers of yourn s is what ate away at Hopping Bob’s leg. It weren’t no termites, but bug mites from your rotted crotch,” Hawkeye said.

  “I hate you, you blind bastard,” she said.

  “Now QT, that ain’t no way to talk to your father,” Curley Joe said stepping forward. “Welcome to Imnaha, Paul’s wife.” Others moved forward to shake her hand, welcoming her to the community. Some of the names she’d remember, others were a blur of missing teeth, bad hygiene, or other missing limbs. The residents were good people, as far as she could tell.

  It was a well spent morning, mingling with the townsfolk. They were, just as her husband had stated, warm friendly people. QT, that was her real name and pronounced Cutie, helped dress her father in a warm shirt with all the love and care she would a small child. Her earlier words of hating him did not manifest themselves in her actions as she prepared a quick lunch of soft foods for him to eat.

  Other members of the town included Hopping Bob, the mechanic who worked in the garage, Curley Joe, Dark Louie, because there was a blond Louie, and Tom. Hopping Bob, his leg, true to the tale, had been infested with termites, rotted out about five years ago and he didn’t have the heart to request another. He was also QT’s first husband. There was a story there however, today was not the day to get into those details, but curiosity prevailed on why he spent five years hopping about on one leg.

  “You do know that new a prosthesis can be made out of light weight metals, alloys, and materials immune to seasonal bugs,” she told him.

  “Yeah, one of these days I will call down to the VA and see about getting me a new one,” he said with a shrug.

  “Are you a war veteran?”

  “Yeap, served in Operation Iraqi Freedom, then Kosovo and Afghanistan. Lost my leg to the Afghanis,” he said with a frown.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” she said softly.

  “It’s okay. Hopping about gives me something to focus on versus the anger,” he said to her.

  “Do you have any crutches? A wood worker, or anyone in town who could work to create you a new prosthetic?”

  “Why? I get around just fine,” he told her indignantly.

  “Yes, but prolonged pressure on your remaining leg is going to throw your body out of alignment. When you lie down at night, I know you hurt,” she said.

  “I just figured I was hurting ‘cause I was hopping around all dang gone day,” he said with a frown.

  “Well, then there is also that,” she said moving deeper into the store. He gave up hopping along beside her and sat down, pondering her words.

  QT, bless her heart, tried to follow her about the store, her wide hips consistently knocking items off of the shelves until Curly Joe yelled at her to get back to her restaurant.

  “I’m just tryin’ to make friends,” QT yelled back.

  “Kinda hard to do that, Muffin Bottom, if you keep stalking her and scaring the BeJesus out the lady with random jars hitting the floor! You are also going to damage our relationship if you keep destroying my inventory with that yummy butt of yours,” Curly Joe added.

  QT blushed from her oversized cankles all the way up to her pinked up, doll-like cheeks. The weird thing about the woman wasn’t the enormous ass and huge calves, it was that the rest of her was normal size. Normal B cups, normal arms, standard 32 inch waist. She just simply had a 76 inch ass.

  “I do hope we can become friends, QT,” Kalinda said. “A woman needs a good girlfriend no matter where she lives.”

  The smile on the lady’s face was worth the trip into town. As Kalinda soon learned, QT owned a small B & B. However it only served chicken and fish. She didn’t serve breakfast and only had two beds. Try as she might to enjoy the meal of dry, almost tough, fried chicken, mushy potatoes, and something that looked like a pile of green slime that Kalinda refused to eat, the meal left a great deal to be feasted upon by the eyes, let alone desired by the palate, so she left a few bills on the table, thanked the nice people, and continued her shopping.

  All of the needed items secured in th
e back of the truck, she took a few more photos of the town before heading back into the quietness of her small canyon. The groceries she purchased were quickly unloaded as she tried to again log onto the internet. “This won’t do,” she exclaimed as she located a phone book and placed a call for service for the satellite dish. While she waited on the front porch for the technician, she pulled out her book and wrote the perfect lines to invite visitors to Wide Open Spaces.

  Get back to the purity of nature.

  Serene Mountain trails.

  Unspoiled scenery and easy mornings with time to focus on you.

  Welcome to Wide Open Spaces

  “I love it,” she said and closed the book.

  Chapter 16

  B y three o’ clock, Paul wanted to take the last tray of junk mail and toss it in the nearest gorge so he could get home to his gorgeous wife. Always a man to perform his duty, he made the last 30 stops at record speed, pulling back into the post office parking lot to be greeted by half of the town’s residents. The mail truck, although nothing fancy, was something he politicked, pontificated, and pleaded to get so he didn’t have to use his personal vehicle to deliver the mail for the residents of Imnaha. Having Hopping Bob look at the little mail truck sideways made Paul feel some kind of way. Almost protective over his modified mail truck baby, he wanted to know what the one-legged busybody had to say.

  “Paul,” Hopping Bob started. “When did you go and get yourself hitched to such a pretty little smart fancy gal like that? Is she from Portland like you?”

  “When did you meet my wife?” Paul asked accusatorially, wondering if the nosey people had wandered up to his house after the departure of Uncle Randy’s big ugly red dragon truck.

  Curley Joe spoke up, “She came into town to do some shopping. She spent nearly $100 without blinking her eye. I am curious what she is going to do with all that stuff she bought. Then she made a request for special orders and stuff. We are going to have a good month if she keeps this up.”

  Paul stood quietly, observing them all watching him like greedy little hawks waiting for the field mice to pop up on the plains. He didn’t know what to say or how to say it. So he remained quiet.

  “So, she gonna help you get more people up here to hike your trails and stay in them little tiny ass houses you had sent up here?” Hawkeye wanted to know.

  “Yes,” Paul said cautiously.

  “Well, how the shit can we get in on this deal? She was walking through here taking pictures, asking questions, looking about with those pretty eyes of hers. Man, she is a good-looking gal. She got a sister?” Hopping Bob wanted to know.

  “She does, but she is already married,” he said honestly.

  “Paul, will she bring more people to my restaurant when they start coming to town?” QT asked.

  He smiled at the lady.

  “QT, I tell you, she made me some fried chicken the other night, I swear it was like a piece of heaven in my mouth. I am trying to get home now to get another slice of her pineapple upside down cake, but you guys are impeding my progress,” he said.

  “You didn’t answer our question, Paul Darton,” Tom said. “Are we going to get in on this as well?”

  “If the people come to town, everyone should profit, but I really think we need to put our heads together to make sure that QT’s has some specials in her restaurant, oil change deals for people who drive a long way, specialty jerky in the store, and homemade local wares. Out of towners like that kind of stuff. However, we don’t want to sell junk. We want it to be classy,” Paul said.

  “Your wife sure is classy,” QT said. “You think she would be friends with me?”

  “Kalinda is nice to everyone who is nice to her,” Paul said. “Set a time to get together with her next week. We have people coming in this weekend, and three of the four houses will be taken, so we will be busy.”

  “Okay,” QT said with a smile.

  “If you all would excuse me, I want to end my day and head home,” he said with a smile.

  He left them amid grumblings, more questions, and someone wanting to know what the postman considered to be classy. “You seen his wife. She is classy. Think of stuff she would want to have,” Curley Joe said.

  Paul didn’t care what they were talking about. All he knew was that a big bag of mail had come in that would need to be sorted first thing before he headed out in the morning. The one thing he did notice was the two large boxes labeled Kalinda Darton, Wide Open Spaces.

  “What in the what what?”

  He loaded them in the back of his vehicle, came back inside. and performed his daily checks, going down his list. Just because he was the only person who worked in the building was no reason to shirk his responsibility. At the end of the day, he was a government employee. He had to follow the rules.

  Right now, he was hating the rules.

  He had made up one rule for his own house that he wanted to break. He wanted to go home, strip down to his skin, and jump on top of Kalinda until his right toe twitched, his tongue hung out of his mouth, and he was so happy he could pee. I made the stupid rule. Maybe tonight will be one of the nights she chooses to make love to me.

  He wouldn’t know until he got home.

  He wanted to be home.

  It seemed as if everything known to man was hindering him from doing that. Hawkeye needed to be walked back across the street because the goats had chased him over to the post office, eating most of his pants.

  “Why don’t you stay on that side of the street or either put some peppers in your pockets,” Paul said.

  “Is that what you use to keep them out from over here?”

  “Yes, the sidewalk is loaded with red pepper juice,” he said.

  “Well, I’ll be dang gone!”

  “Come on Hawkeye, let’s get you back across the street,” Paul said spraying pepper spray on the ground. The goats cleared a path to get the old man back to the garage.

  It didn’t help much. The moment he went to his vehicle, every damned goat decided to stand in the middle of the road. He crept along at one mile every ten minutes. After twenty minutes of going less than two miles, he stepped out and sprayed the front end of his car with pepper spray. The goats parted, making his drive home far faster.

  As he rounded the bend going towards the canyon, he spotted the satellite company truck coming down the hill from his house. The guy slowed, rolling down the window and waving at Paul.

  “You are all set. Man, you are one lucky cuss coming home to her! That pineapple cake was amazing!” the driver said to him.

  Paul squinted, speaking slowly, “If you ate all my cake, I will shoot you.”

  The guy winked at him, held up a little to go container, and hit the gas, spewing gravel as he sped away.

  Fucker. He’d better not have eaten all my damned cake .

  It didn’t matter. He walked through the front door to the smell of fresh baked cookies. I am going to be fat as hell looking for my wiener under a big old Santa belly. And I don’t care .

  “Kalinda,” he called to her, carrying the two boxes. “Baby, I’m home.” His words were halted by the big screen television being on, Netflix cued up, the computer running, and the internet working. Slowly, he sat the boxes down as he saw her coming in from the back porch, sucking on her index finger.

  “Hey, Paul. I got a splinter trying to get that tub going,” she said. “I think we are going to have to call a contractor to put us one inside the house.”

  He moved to her side quickly, looking at her finger as if she’d almost cut half of it away with a knife. The splinter was removed with ease as he looked out the back door to see candles lit around the tub.

  “Darling, what were you trying to do?”

  “I was creating a romantic night, hoping that after dinner, we could you know..., she said blushing. “I fell asleep on you last night, am pretty close to it right now, but if you wanted to be together...you know...”

  “I would like that very much,” he said. She�
��d gone through so much trouble and he really didn’t have the heart to let her know that all of her hard work was going to be wasted. He lifted her off her feet, dragging her to the bathroom, which smelled better than it had a few days ago. “Strip, please,” he said reaching for his clothes.

  “What?”

  “I know you have the candles, dinner, I saw the wine, but Baby, I can’t wait that long. I am going to wash this funk off me and all the other stuff will have to wait,” he told her as he started the shower. He undressed himself and her at the same time, dragging her into the small stand up, washing mainly the smelly parts before pulling her body to him.

  “I’m falling so hard for you...so hard,” he said into her mouth as his lips claimed hers. Next he claimed her body. It wasn’t his best performance, but he didn’t care. All he knew was that he needed to be inside of her.

  She didn’t complain as she held onto him, allowing him to find his release. Her beautiful evening was ruined. The one thing he promised he didn’t want to do, he just did. He could at least let her get one as well.

  The water still poured as he dropped to his knees in front of her, raising her leg slightly over his shoulder.

  “You said you didn’t do that,” she told him.

  “For you, I am going to do all kinds of shit I said I would never do. I also said I would never leave you unhappy. You will have your romantic night, with dinner, the tub and all of that, right after I...,” he started to say.

  The rest of his words didn’t even matter as he brought her to a rapid, lusty finish. Paul had kept his word. The rest of the night flowed exactly as she had planned with the one pit stop for showering and a quickie.

  “I am falling for you too, Paul,” she said at the end of the evening, as she snuggled into his wide chest, falling fast asleep.