“And?”
“He has a girlfriend Belle’s age.” She refills her water and downs it. Does it again. And again.
“No!”
“Yes.” Maggie presses her back against the door and slides down until her rump is on the cold linoleum floor and she is sitting cross-legged.
“That, that worthless pendejo. Then who are you with?”
“You don’t want to know. Even I don’t.”
Michele groans. “Oh, chica, chica. Are you okay?”
“Hungover. Humiliated. Homesick.” Maggie picks at her cuticles. Her sunshine-yellow nail polish is chipping off. Apropos to her outlook.
“I worry about you.”
“With good reason.”
“And I hate to be the bearer of bad news at a time like this.”
Maggie sticks her legs out straight and flexes her feet upward, stretching her thigh muscles. More bad news. “Hit me.”
“Omaha and Nebraska. They’re out again. They’re like freaking Houdini and . . . another famous illusionist.”
“There are no other famous illusionists.”
“Any ideas on how to keep their asses penned up?”
“Shut the gate?”
“Ha ha. I am. But I’m wondering if your rental guest isn’t. Or if someone else isn’t. Because otherwise the goats are opening it.”
“Seriously, the gate was open?”
“Yes. Multiple times.”
“I’ll text my guest.”
“Maybe I could take them to Gidget’s? Loopy could help me keep an eye on them.”
Lumpy—or Loopy as Michele liked to call him—is a former Texas Ranger who had been Gidget’s next door neighbor. Then Michele’s when she rented the place for a year after Maggie inherited it. Michele had built a house on her own property, though, and moved out the previous spring. Now the old farmhouse was rented, and its gallery of paintings by Gidget and other famous artists Maggie had pulled for herself or loaned to museums and galleries. She was holding on to the place for sentimental reasons, at least until she could make up her mind whether to sell or remodel and move there herself.
“Sounds good. And I’ll be home in a few days.” Maggie gets up. With the cold shower going, the mirror hasn’t fogged. She wishes it had. Her eyeliner and mascara make her look like a close cousin to a raccoon.
“Have you seen Gene?”
Does from a distance count? “No. Don’t think I’m gonna this trip.”
“Okay, well, be safe. I love you.”
“Love you, too.”
They hang up. Maggie sets the phone on the counter. There’s a knock on the bathroom door.
Chet’s deep voice says, “You in there, firecracker?”
Maggie closes her eyes. She can’t hide forever. “My name is Maggie.”
The knob turns. The door opens, and he pokes his head in. “Whatever your name is, you’re a live wire, girl.”
“And I’m not a girl.”
“Looks like you need company.” He steps in, still naked and his personal parts broken in the “on” position. His eyes roam over her body, and his eyes glisten.
Maggie pulls a towel off a shelf. It covers the most critical areas, save her meager cleavage and, she’s sure, the bottom few inches of her ass. “Time to hit the trail, cowboy.”
His eager face droops. Sad puppy meets American Gigolo. “But, I thought we had a good time last night.”
“We did. Past tense.”
“What did I do wrong?”
“You’re too young.”
He stands straighter. “I’m older than I look.”
“So am I. Goodbye, Chet.”
He reaches toward her face. “Hey, now. I rented the room.”
She ducks away and points at the door. “And I thank you for it.”
“Can I get your number?”
“No.”
“Buy you breakfast?”
“Chet.”
“Ask you to marry me? You’d make a real nice mama to my little girl. And I promise my mother isn’t as crazy as people say.”
She sighs. “Seriously.”
“What, is an oil-production worker not good enough for you?”
“It’s not that.”
“Because I own my own ranch and house.”
“Good for you.”
“What if I told you I was about to come into big money—would I look better to you then?”
“Not really. Goodbye, Chet.”
“Okay, okay. I’m going. But you can’t ruin it for me. Last night was the best night of my life. And not just because you’re famous.”
If Maggie only had a dime for every time she’d been told that.
When she hears the door to the room shut, she goes to it, throws the deadbolt, and puts on the safety chain. Chet might have kept a keycard. Plus, she remembers a rough crowd in the hotel parking lot and the woman who’d slapped Chet. No use taking any chances in case her grudge extends to Chet’s hookups, too.
Maggie returns to the bathroom and turns the shower water as hot as it will go. She works herself over with latherless soap and a sandpapery washcloth until her whole body is an angry scarlet. Self-flagellation. Seems appropriate right now. She keeps scrubbing.
Six
After she’s dressed in her clothes from the night before, she finger-brushes her teeth with water. She’s still exhausted—in no shape for a desolate, lengthy drive toward Texas. Safety first. She sets her phone alarm for ten.
When she wakes, she feels less like death. She texts the guest at her house while she waits on the in-room coffee maker.
Leslie: Hi. Hope things are good. Pls keep gates closed & latched. Goats getting out. Thanks! Maggie
She notices a message from her birth father, Boyd. I hear you’re in northern WY. Big family secret: My mother is half Crow. Makes you an eighth. Reservation in southern MT. Huge powwow every August. Maybe we can go sometime.
She knew she got her dark coloring from Boyd, but the source is a shock. The Herrington family is Houston high society and very political. She can’t imagine that Native American heritage fifty years ago fit their mold. It pleases the rebel in her. And the connection to the people and history of the area stirs her. Is it crazy to think she feels it, has been feeling it ever since she got here? Which is sad, since she’ll never be back. No way will she risk another encounter with Hank.
The coffee isn’t quite ready, so she sends a quick reply to Boyd: Scandalous. Compared to that, my existence is practically tame.
Maggie splits her coffee between two cups and makes it as light and sweet as she can with the few packets of creamer and sugar available. She drinks the first coffee in the room. The other she carries with her. She takes an elevator down to the lobby, where she’s reminded of the name of the place. The Bison Inn. The place couldn’t be less charming if it were made of Styrofoam. Which it looks like it could be. And it’s too much like the name of the Buffalo Lodge, where she’d once stayed with Hank. This experience taints the former somehow.
Meanwhile, her cute room at the very original, if cheap, Mill Inn is paid for and sitting empty half an hour north. She’d left her checkout open-ended, hoping she’d stay there in bed with Hank, naked and happily bruised, until she had to rush back for fall show. Her shower-roughened skin aches at the thought. She wants to head straight south now, but she can’t. It’s going to add an hour to her already long drive, but she has to return to Sheridan to pick up her stuff. She just prays her junk trailer is intact. Otherwise, the trip will be a total loss.
First, though, she has to find Bess. Chet drove here last night. But she has no idea where “here” is in relation to downtown Buffalo, where she parked her truck. She needs an Uber. Or a taxi.
She pulls up her Uber app. No dice. They don’t operate within three hundred miles of here. Through the lobby window, downtown Buffalo is visible in the near distance. Her boots are comfortable. The sun is out. Walking will be good for her.
As she passes a nondescript recept
ion desk tucked back from a claustrophobic lobby, the clerk calls out to her. “Management wants all our guests to know that your next night here is free.”
The words are unexpected. Maggie stops. “What?”
He pushes back the sleeves of his hoodie, revealing burn scars. “You know, because of the murder.”
Now Maggie sees scarring on his neck and ear that his longish hair almost hides. “What murder?”
“The dead guy? Out in the parking lot?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, well, somebody bashed a dude’s head in. Blood and brains everywhere, man. The police are still out there.”
Jesus. Maggie shudders. Small towns aren’t immune to bad people, that she learned back in Texas. She wonders how close she and Chet came last night to the same fate.
“This is the first time anything like this has ever happened in Buffalo. At least since I’ve been here. It’s freaky, man.”
“Very.” She heads for the door, eager to get the hell out of there, but afraid of what she’ll see in the parking lot.
“Wait. Don’t you want to get the voucher for your free stay?”
She waves without turning. “Keep it.” Through the front doors she can see an ambulance, a morgue vehicle, and flashing lights.
“The police want to interview everyone. Are you checking out?”
She pauses. If she could help, she would, but she isn’t a witness. And her experience with police questioning is that it doesn’t go quickly or easily. “Um, no. Just grabbing something to eat. Which reminds me, I forgot my wallet.” She reverses course.
“What’s your room number? I’ll let them know.”
Pretending not to hear him, she turns down the hall and studies the parking lot from a side exit. Yellow crime scene tape is stretched across the back of the parking lot. Four police cars block her view. The exit at the far side of the building is a better bet. Walking fast, she ducks out and makes tracks for the nearby Maverik gas station. There are no shouts for her to come back.
She stops at the station for a large sweet tea. Dehydration from too much alcohol. She doesn’t shake hangovers like she used to. Sipping through a straw, she darts across the road and then under the interstate to a sidewalk. The sound of the tumbling water of a creek over rocks to her left competes with the rush of moving vehicles on her right. A truck struggles by with a load of cattle, spewing diesel and manure fumes in her direction. She covers her mouth and nose.
The fifteen-minute walk helps her regain her equilibrium from the bad night and weird morning. When she gets to her truck, she has the shakes from too much caffeine on an empty stomach. Food can’t be delayed any longer.
Munching potato chips, a pickle spear, and a Reuben sandwich at the Busy Bee, she watches a young boy fish. He’s persistent, casting over and over, until he catches a trout from the stream. He bashes its head with a rock and stuffs it in his backpack. Russian dressing gushes out of her sandwich onto her hands. The mix of sweet, sour, and salty in her mouth goes from pleasing to nausea-inducing in a second. The boy, the fish, the rock, the oozing sandwich guts—it’s too reminiscent of the clerk telling her “Somebody bashed a dude’s head in. Blood and brains everywhere, man.” She puts her sandwich down and asks for her check.
She drives toward Sheridan, still feeling rocky. The wide-open plains and wildlife give her a boost. The herds of pronghorn are enormous. Fifty or sixty head apiece, bigger, she thinks, than a few days ago when she drove up. They munch the irrigated fields as if the crops were planted just for them. Birds of prey ride the thermals overhead. Hawks. A bald eagle. She’s going to miss this. She’s glad she’s seen it.
Even as she’s longing for escape, she sees the exit for Piney Creek, just north of Lake Desmet. Stalker that she’s been, she knows that Double S is only a few miles away off Wagon Box Road. Her brain screams no, but her weak heart guides her hands to steer the truck down the exit ramp. Just one peek, she tells herself. See it with her own eyes, then beat it. She doesn’t need Siri to direct her. She memorized this route, just in case.
A turn approaches on her right. A sign points the way to the FETTERMAN MASSACRE. It’s the opposite direction from the Double S, so she keeps going. The next road is on the left, and the signage there directs her to FORT PHIL KEARNEY and WAGON BOX FIGHT. There’s no street sign, but it sounds promising. She takes it, and half a mile later comes to Wagon Box Road. Small victories, she congratulates herself.
Wagon Box, it turns out, is a dirt road. The truck’s shocks are shit, so she slows, taking the opportunity to lower her windows. The smells of Russian olive trees and fresh mountain water from Little Piney Creek flood the cab. When she admired the silvery trees aloud a few days ago, she’d received a scolding. “They’re invasive. Pests. Non-native. On their way out, one shovelful at a time.” She doesn’t care. They smell marvelous. She breathes deeply, letting it fill her senses. If clean had a smell, it would be the air in this valley. For the first time that day, she feels like there’s hope for her. White-tailed deer graze in every direction. Flocks of turkey hens and their ugly broods amble in front of her, herded by spectacular toms. The aspen trees along the creek rustle and shimmer, their leaves just starting to yellow. Although bumps and potholes jar her shoulders, she doesn’t mind. She knows so little about the area, but suddenly she can imagine the ancestors she’d never known she had. Did they live and hunt here?
She sees movement in the thick aspens by the creek. She strains her eyes trying to find an animal. Nothing. Whatever it was, it’s gone. Just as she returns her attention to the road, Bess hits a pothole. A big one. There’s a loud thunk, then the truck stops moving forward. Something clatters, loud, but the engine is still running.
“Shit!” Maggie presses the gas. The engine revs, but the truck doesn’t move.
After several more tries, she turns off the ignition. She’ll just give Bess time to change her mind. When Maggie starts the engine, she gets the same horrible noise. She shifts to drive and gooses the gas pedal. Bess stays put. Maggie tries reverse. Nothing doing.
“This isn’t happening.” She walks around Bess, patting her. “Come on, girl. It’s rally time.”
She crouches on the ground. Something big is hanging off the undercarriage, all the way to the ground. All the stress and disappointment bubbles up in her, and leaks out her mouth in a surge of curse words. “Fucking fucker.”
She kicks a tire. Once. Twice. Three times. All she gets is a sore foot. But she knows it’s not Bess’s fault. Maggie was the one gazing off into the trees, distracted and goofy over wild animals and thoughts of her heritage. She’ll have to call for help. But of course when she checks her phone, she gets a No Service message.
Why does Wyoming hate her?
In the distance, she hears the rumble of a truck. Heavy-duty, from the sound of it. Well, she’ll hitch a ride, then. She hitchhiked plenty back in the day. But that was when she was younger and didn’t feel the knife’s edge of mortality at her throat. Wyoming people had been nothing but kind so far, but the men . . . they act awfully, awfully lonely. A life of sexual captivity in a dilapidated cabin doesn’t appeal to her. She retrieves her bag from the truck, hangs it over her shoulder, and clutches the pepper spray inside it with one hand.
A flatbed Dodge dualie rounds the corner uphill from Maggie. The driver is male. Alone. She hitches her thumb as she squeezes the pepper canister so hard it digs into the palm of her other hand.
The truck rumbles to a stop, nose to nose with Bess. The engine’s bwah-bwah-bwah-bwah-bwah quiets. Maggie stays by the door to her truck. A linebacker-size man slams the truck door. He’s carrying an oilcloth jacket over one arm. Behind him, dark storm clouds are rolling in over the mountains. The sun fades away. A wind whips up, and the temperature drops, suddenly and noticeably. The man dons the jacket. Maggie wishes she wasn’t in a tank top.
The man touches the brim of his cowboy hat. “Looks like you’re having a bad day.”
&nb
sp; Maggie grinds her teeth. Mister, you don’t know the half of it. “Appears so.”
The big man halts five feet short of her. “Out of gas?”
“I wish.” Maggie points at the ground under Bess. “I seem to have dropped some essential parts.”
He walks all the way around the truck. When he comes back, he bends over for a look. He whistles. “Damn straight. Need a ride? A tow?”
Maggie’s anger is giving way to a feeling of inevitability. She is doomed to a hellish and humiliating visit to Wyoming. “I may need both, if you could call me a tow truck.”
He looks amused, his eyes crinkling in a weather-beaten face. “You won’t find better than what I got here, as long as you’re not needing a tow all the way to Texas.” He jerks a thumb toward the back end of the truck, where her Texas license plate gives her away. At her blank expression, he adds, “I carry tow gear in my toolbox. I don’t know about Texas, but out here, we’re ready for anything, anytime.”
Maggie stews on his words. He doesn’t sound like he means that in a creepy way. She checks his finger. He’s wearing a wedding ring. That decides it for her. She releases her pepper spray and sticks out her hand. This has to be fate, breaking down by Hank’s ranch. Why not give in to it? Let it play out the way it is going to, without fighting it. The universe might still have a plan. “Maggie Killian. Thank you. If you could just drop me up the road at my friend’s ranch, he can help me from there.”
They shake.
“Patrick Rhodes. You’ve killed your truck in front of my place. Who’s your friend?”
“Hank Sibley.”
Something dark crosses Patrick’s face, then he grunts. “No problem. At least you’re pointed in the right direction.”
Live Wire (Maggie #1) Page 4