When the Women Come Out to Dance: Stories

by Elmore Leonard

  “I’m here to kick you out. This is my home.”

  Avery said, “ ‘Fore you start eating anybody’s ass out, I’ll show you the paper says this property’s ourn for two years, stamped and signed by a noterary in the real estate business. You go on get outta here.”

  Ben said, “You took advantage of an old man didn’t know what he was doing.” And looked at Hazen. “You tell him you’re gonna work shares, only I don’t see nothing a-tall getting done. You got cows grazing on pecans falling off trees haven’t even been sprayed.”

  “I changed my mind about growing pe-cans,” Avery said. “Gonna test for oil instead. They was some pretty fair wells here at one time and they’s always some left.”

  “The wells were plugged,” Ben said. “Cement poured down ’em.”

  “They’s still oil. You heard of stripper wells?”

  Ben said, “Look,” keeping his tone flat, and it was hard, “even if there’s oil, and even if your lease stood up in court, you’d only have surface rights. Mineral rights are something else.”

  “You mean to tell me,” Avery said, “we hit a gusher you don’t want to go shares on it? Boy, you’re ignorant you think you can make more growing pe-cans. You know what oil’s selling for these days?”

  No, and he didn’t imagine they did either. It wasn’t about oil. They were having fun with him, but in a serious way, see where it would lead.

  Ben said, “You people are the Grooms, come here from Arkansas?”

  Avery, looking past Ben, said, “That’s right, and so’s this one coming,” sounding happy to see whoever it was.

  Ben half turned. A pickup came across the open ground to pull up behind his SUV, the driver in a cowboy hat looking this way, then inched up to get his front bumper within a foot of the SUV’s rear end. This would have to be the one called Brother, walking toward them now. He had size but looked slow, about twenty-five, a big kid in a cowboy hat and curl-toed boots. The belt cinched around his jeans bore a rodeo winner’s buckle, one he must’ve bought if he didn’t steal it. Looking at Ben he said, “Who’s this?”

  “The movie star,” Hazen said.

  “No shit.”

  “You tell by his shades,” Hazen said, “and his beauty parlor hair.”

  “What’s he play in movies,” Brother said, “queers?”

  “Ask him,” Hazen said.

  Now their big boy was here they were getting to it. Ben told himself to walk away, and said to Avery, “Why don’t we have this heard in court?” But couldn’t leave it at that. He said to Brother, “You take a swing at me I’ll put you on the ground, hard.”

  Brother stared and Avery said, “Now you got my boy looking sideways at you, like he might want to give you an ass-whuppin’.”

  Ben walked toward Brother saying, “I’m tired, been driving all day. Why don’t you whip my ass tomorrow?” Put his hand on Brother’s shoulder as he passed and kept walking to the SUV. Ben got in and laid his arm on the windowsill. He said to Brother, “You want to back your truck up a few feet?”

  Brother folded his arms and gave Ben a stare that worked pretty well under the hat brim pointing this way. Brother said, “You can’t get out, then you have to stay, huh? Get you ass-whuppin’ right now.”

  Ben turned the key, went ahead a foot or so, revved, said fuck it, and slammed his rear end into the pickup, went ahead, reversed and revved and hit the truck again. Ben slipped out of the space, put the gas pedal on the floor and went into a power slide to head for the road through the trees. He looked back to see Brother going to his truck.

  Coming up on the old house Ben stopped at the side of Lydell’s porch, the old man still sitting there.

  “Lydell, don’t you have a daughter lives in Chouteau?”

  He said, “Lemme think, I believe Isabel’s the one there.”

  “Go stay with her a while.”

  Ben turned onto the country road and held his speed at thirty miles an hour with an eye on the rearview mirror. In less than half a minute he saw Brother’s truck coming up on him fast, closing in at sixty or better. Ben waited till the truck’s hood and windshield filled his rearview, saw the cowboy hat, Brother by himself in there, the big boy wanting to handle this deal on his own. Ben mashed the gas pedal and watched the truck lose ground like it was being sucked away from him. He shot past the road to town doing ninety and held it there, horses in a field raising their heads at the tail of dust rising, the truck behind him hidden as Ben got ready to bring the game to Brother, see if he was any good. Approaching the next intersection he watched the speedometer ease down to forty-five, came to the crossroads and punched his left boot down on the parking brake—tires screaming as the rear wheels locked—cranked the steering wheel a quarter turn, released the brake and let his rear end swing around in a tight one-eighty to head back toward Brother. The fat kid would see from under his cowboy hat a black shape coming dead at him out of the dust and realize, the distance between them closing at top speed, he had seconds to decide how much nerve he had.

  Not enough. Brother bailed, swerved off the road to his right, and Ben watched the truck in his mirror dive into the ditch and wedge itself against the bank. Ben stopped and backed up all the way to the truck. Brother, his hat gone, blood coming down his face, turned and looked this way at Ben watching him. Ben shook his head at the dumb kid, put the SUV in gear and headed back to his property.

  Avery was still on the porch, sitting in a squeaky wicker chair with green cushions, waiting for Brother to come back with his story, Avery expecting it to be a good one. Hazen was in the house. Avery raised his voice to say, “I told Brother bring him on back here. I was thinking, put that pe-can shaker on him, get his nuts to fall.”

  Hazen came out to the porch pushing the screen ahead of him.

  “I said to Brother, bring him on back, we’ll put the pe-can shaker on him.”

  “I heard you. Where’s the number for the real estate office at?”

  “By the phone in the kitchen, last I seen of it. You know Brother’ll likely have to chase that Mercedes all the way to town to catch it.”

  Hazen said, “She’s pretty, huh? Once we tend to the movie star I might keep her.”

  “Suppose to be in pitchers—I never heard of him.”

  “Me neither, but it’s what they say.”

  Both of them heard the car coming and looked out at the yard. Avery said, “Don’t tell me,” seeing it was the black Mercedes back again but no sign of Brother. Now it circled, bringing the driver’s side close to the porch steps. The smokeglass window lowered and there was Ben Webster looking up at them.

  He said, “You all want to settle out of court it’s fine with me. My offer, you have till noon the day after tomorrow to get out of my house and off my property. You don’t, I’ll be back here to run you off.”

  The smoke window started to go up and Avery said, “Hold it there. Where’s Brother at?”

  “He needs to get winched out of a ditch,” Ben said, “and some Band-Aids.”

  Avery watched the window slide up all the way and the sporty black SUV circle out of the yard and into the trees, gone. It got Avery frowning, saying to Hazen, “The hell’s he talkin about, Brother’s in a ditch?”

  “Like he put him there,” Hazen said.

  “Brother was chasing him.”

  “Brother ain’t the issue,” Hazen said. “You heard him, he’s gonna raise the law on us we don’t leave, have troopers out here looking around. You want to stay or not?”

  “We ain’t gonna move nothing in no two days. Course I want to stay.”

  “All right, then what do you want done with the movie star?”

  “What do you think? Take him off somewheres and shoot him. Hell, Brother’d kill you to do it. Yeah, jes take him off somewheres.”

  “I saw it coming,” Hazen said, “but wanted to make sure.” He went inside, walked through the musty smell of the living room to the kitchen, picked up the business card from the counter and dialed the numb
er on it.

  Within moments a voice came on saying, “OK Realty, this is Denise. How may I help you?”

  Hazen said, “You know who this is?”

  There was a pause before she said, “I have a pretty good idea.”

  Hazen said, “Guess who jes come by here?”

  Ben coasted toward Brother standing at the side of the road by his truck and stopped close to him.

  “Man, you’re a mess.”

  Bloody from his face to his T-shirt. Brother said, “I busted my goddamn nose,” and touched it, barely.

  “I see that. Listen, I told your daddy. He ought to be along pretty soon.” Ben raised the window, nothing more to say, and continued on toward town.

  Doing the one-eighty brought him to life again and got him thinking of Carl, what Carl would say to him: “There you go, you don’t take abuse from those people. You can tell looking at ’em they’re dirty. What you said’s fine. Get off my property or I’ll fuckin run you off.”

  They looked serious enough to come after him, and he couldn’t help thinking this situation could be in a movie. The only thing different, he’d be the good guy for a change. And it was real life.

  III.

  Preston Raincrow could trace his people back more than a hundred and sixty years: some of them from a Cherokee clan, the Keetoowah, and some from slaves owned by the Creeks, black slaves brought all the way here from Georgia or Alabama during the Trail of Tears. His great-grandma, Narcissa Raincrow, lost a child when she was sixteen—not having any business being with child—and Virgil Webster hired her as a wet nurse when Graciaplena died giving birth to Carl. Narcissa stayed on as Virgil’s housekeeper, “becoming as close as a man and woman can be,” Preston would say, “till she died a few years ahead of old Mr. Webster.”

  Preston and Ben played basketball three years for the Bulldogs, Ben looping the ball toward the basket, Preston finally growing tall enough to go up for the ball and stuff it. After high school Preston went to work for Ben’s granddad Carl in the orchards and rode bulls every year in the Okmulgee Invitational, the all-black rodeo they held out at the Creek Nation arena, fourteen thousand in prize money. Ben told him he was too lanky for bulls and Preston switched to saddle broncs. It was fun, but didn’t offer a living. After a few years he gave up working for Carl and joined the tribal police, became a Muskogee Nation Lighthorseman and drove around in a white Taurus with a gold star on the door.

  Ben called the Lighthorseman headquarters from the motel and was told Preston was no longer with them, now working for Russell Exterminating, killing bugs. Ben said, “You’re kidding—Preston?” but didn’t get a reason or any more information. He called the exterminators to learn Preston was out on his route. Ben left his name and the Shawnee Inn phone number.

  Five-thirty, Preston Raincrow hadn’t called. Ben was about to try him at home, say hi to Ophelia and find out where he might be. That was when Preston knocked on the door and came in the room in his dark-green exterminator uniform.

  The first word he said was “Tenkiller. Man, it does me good to see you,” and wrapped his long arms around Ben.

  “How’d you find that out?”

  “What, calling yourself Tenkiller?” Now he stepped back to look Ben over. “I’d catch a glimpse of you in a movie falling off something, or getting beat up by the good guy, but I wouldn’t see your name there at the end? I don’t know why I never wrote and asked. So one time I kept stopping the tape to look good. I see ‘Ben Tenkiller’ there with the stuntmen and I know it’s you.”

  “I used it,” Ben said, “to get the job on Dances with Wolves, told ’em I was Indian. But then once I was known in the business as Tenkiller I was stuck with it.”

  “You name yourself after the lake?”

  “After the Cherokee with ten notches on his bow the lake was named after. What’re you doing killing bugs?”

  “You mean ‘stead of arresting drunk Indians? I stopped a white guy come driving away from the Elks, weaving all over the road, and I stood at attention while I caught hell for it. What Caucasians do is not the business of a Lighthorseman. The guy even sideswiped a car, said somebody cut him off, two A.M., not a soul on the street. I said fuck it. I said what am I doing working for the law? My great-grandma Narcissa? Her daddy, Johnson Raincrow, was bad as they come and got shot for it in the olden days. Shot while he’s sleeping outside on the ground, the only way to take him.”

  “You gonna turn outlaw?”

  “I was thinking you could get me work in the movies. Sonny Samson from here made it big. One Flew over the Cuckoo’s? The man didn’t even talk and was one of the stars.”

  “You want a beer?”

  “I don’t need any for a change, but yeah, gimme a cold one.” Preston looked around the room of dark wood, the king-size bed, walked over to the balcony and looked out from the second floor. “Man, you could almost dive from here in the swimming pool. But don’t try it, you hit your head on the concrete. It’s too cold anyway, do any swimming.”

  Ben got a couple of Buds from the cooler asking Preston how his family was doing. Preston said Ophelia took the kids to her mama’s when he quit the cops and stayed drunk for a while. He said, “It ain’t hard to act stupid if you put your mind to it. But two weeks of missing them was all I could take.” He asked how Ben was doing and Ben told how Kim was killed, falling off a ladder while he’s slicing mushrooms, and Preston said, “Did it turn you stupid, get you thinking you’re to blame?” Ben said he was handling it. He didn’t mention the feeling of expectation, ready for something new in his life. Or ask about Denise, if Preston had seen her lately.

  He told about going out to the house and finding these people living there, the Grooms, Avery, Hazen and Brother, and what they’d pulled on Lydell, getting him to lease the property.

  “Bring Lydell to court with you,” Preston said. “The judge’ll let you tear the lease up.”

  They were seated at the table now, drinking their beer and smoking cigarettes. “They’re bad guys,” Ben said, “but I can’t figure out what they’re up to.”

  “What made you suspect it, big ugly prison tats on their arms?”

  “They’re not working the place,” Ben said. “Letting it go to hell. The barns are closed up, the equipment’s all outside in the weather. They got cows in there eating the papershells off the ground.”

  “That’s only criminal in the eyes of a pecan grower,” Preston said. “What else you see?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What you suppose are in the barns all closed up?”

  Ben said, “If I could get deputies to go out there to take a look—”

  Preston was shaking his head. “They have to know what they’re looking for.”

  “But they could go out with subpoenas, couldn’t they? Get these guys to appear in court?”

  “Once you file a complaint.”

  “But when’s the court date, next year? I want ’em out of there now, so I can still hire the pecans picked. I gave ’em till noon the day after tomorrow.”

  Preston, starting to grin, said, “Or what?”

  “I’d run ’em off.”

  “You told ’em that, uh? Man, you sound like old Carl. That’s what he’d do. Come back from Hollywood and find squatters on his land? He’d go out there with a shotgun and run ’em.”

  “If he didn’t shoot ’em,” Ben said.

  Preston got up from the table and went to the phone on the desk. “Avery Grooms and Hazen. What’s Brother’s name?”

  “Haven’t any idea. But that notebook right there has his license number in it.”

  Preston dialed, waited a moment and said, “Eddie? Guess who I’m sitting here with having a beer. Our old point guard, man, Ben Webster.” He nodded, quiet for a few moments, and said, “I’ll tell him that. Listen, what I need, somebody to run two guys name of Grooms, Avery and Hazen, on NCIC.” He opened the notebook. “And a license number I’ll give you, from Arkansas.” Preston spelled the names, gave the
number, spoke and listened for a while and said, “Yeah, if you can do it now, I’ll buy you three beers.” He said to Ben, “Remember Eddie Chocote, the only freshman made the team our last year? That was Eddie.”

  Ben said, “Went on to play for Tulsa.”

  “That’s right, and he said you were the quickest guard he ever went down the floor with, and that’s counting college ball. But you rather ride bulls.”

  “It paid,” Ben said, “else I’d have to’ve sold the farm.”

  “Why keep it? Other than you grew up there.”

  Ben said, “I have to think about it.”

  Eddie Chocote came on again and Preston talked to him for a few minutes taking notes, then came over to sit at the table saying, “Hazen have dog bite scars on his left arm?”

  “He didn’t show me any.”

  Preston looked at his sheet of notes.

  “Hazen Richard Grooms, May 12th, 1967. Served a hundred and thirty-two months in the Cummins Unit over there, Arkansas Department of Corrections. You want to guess what for?”

  “Tell me.”

  “Theft of property and aggravated robbery. Hazen hijacked a highway hauler and they caught him with the tractor. That was, let’s see, twelve years ago.”

  “What about the old man?”

  “Avery Louis Grooms, wears dentures, has ‘Lucky Dog’ tattooed on his left arm. D.o.b. August 5th, 1940. He went down for theft by receiving and was given ninety months in their North Central Unit, the same time Hazen was in Cummins. There’s a detainer on him for parole violation. All you do is tell the sheriff and Avery’s gone.”

  Ben said, “I don’t know if that would settle it.”

  “Maybe not,” Preston said, “but it would spray their hive, get ’em active.” He looked at his notes again. “Next piece of business, the Ford pickup’s registered to Jarrett Lloyd Grooms, so Eddie ran him on the crime computer. Date of birth April 10th, 1975. He’s six-four and weighs two-forty. That sound like Brother?”