“Shannon, those neighbors and friends you’re talking about, a lot of them are really mad at your father for not signing the wind farm lease.”
Shannon heaved a tolerant sigh. “I understand not everyone’s on board with this energy project, but Bear Paw’s a tight-knit community. Nobody’s going to hassle me about how my father feels about wind power, and they sure aren’t going to hassle Rose. It’s a barbecue, Billy, a fun family event in a little town. We’re not singing at some redneck bar on a Saturday night for a bunch of drunks.
“I left some sandwiches in the refrigerator for you and the monkey wrench gang, should they decide to return. Keep working with those mustangs and stop worrying about us, we’ll be fine,” Shannon said in parting.
Five minutes later she and Rose had left the brooding Billy behind and were headed for town. Shannon had the radio turned up and was singing along to country-and-western music, warming up her vocal chords. She used to do that every day and it was time to get back into the swing of things. She was feeling really good about herself for the first time in ages. This was her first gig since the divorce. Maybe she’d been too hasty in thinking the responsible thing to do after splitting up with Travis was to give up her singing career. Maybe she could find a way to keep singing and be a good mother.
Three miles past Willard’s General Store and just a mile from the Grange Hall, her cell phone rang. She switched off the radio, pulled the car over and fumbled in her purse to retrieve it. Reception was spotty through here but it was good enough that she could hear Billy’s voice.
“What if Travis shows up?” he asked. “By now everyone knows you’re going to be singing at the Grange Hall today. I’m coming into town to pick up Rose.” And either Billy hung up on her or the call went dead. Shannon sat for a few moments, thinking about what he’d just said.
She’d forgotten all about Travis.
CHAPTER NINE
THE GRANGE HALL parking lot was crammed with vehicles, mostly pickup trucks but a few sedans and station wagons. Kids swarmed everywhere. The smell of mesquite hardwood chips and chicken barbecue flavored the air. Billy could hear the nasal twang and guitar strum of the Badlands band in the background, out where the big tent was pitched.
Shannon was here somewhere. He’d spotted her car parked on the side of the road in a long line of vehicles that couldn’t fit into the Grange parking lot. All he had to do was find her and pick up Rose. There was every possibility Travis would show up at this free concert. Billy cursed himself for not thinking of it before Shannon left for town.
He made for the band platform, nodding to familiar faces. Patriot Energy had set up a table with project information on it on the outer edge of the big tent that had all the long banquet tables and chairs under it. There were big maps on easels and brochures and pamphlets, and a few townspeople were perusing the offerings and displays. Billy passed by the table with a nod to the fresh-faced young rep who was answering questions, and, in Billy’s opinion, greenwashing the naive residents of Bear Paw with the false promises of wind power. He didn’t spot Tom Carroll, and for that he was grateful, as he threaded his way through the people crowded around the bandstand.
He heard Shannon call his name and spotted her beside the bandstand, holding Rose’s hand. His heart gave a thump at the beauty of her smile when she recognized him. She raised her arm in a beckoning wave and he altered course to meet her. “Thanks so much for coming,” she said when he drew near. “I never thought about Travis being here, but you’re right. If you could take Rose home and keep an eye on her, I’d owe you big-time.”
“That’s why I’m here,” Billy said. “C’mon Rose. Let’s go.”
Rose looked at her mother. “You said I could see the monkey magician.”
“I’m sorry, Rose, but Billy came to pick you up and you have to go now.”
“But, Momma...!”
“I’ll take her to see the magician, then we can go home. I won’t let go of her hand. Where’s this dude and his chimp hanging out?” Billy said.
“There was a crowd of kids over beside the Grange Hall,” Shannon said.
“Okay then, Miss Rose, let’s go find the monkey and the magician.”
Shannon gave her daughter a hug and then hugged Billy, a brief gesture of gratitude that sent him into the stratosphere. He felt his face flush as he took Rose’s hand in his and turned toward the Grange Hall just as the band ended their song. A spattering of applause trailed off as Spencer Wallace spoke into the mic.
“And now it’s my great honor to introduce, as if any of you needed the introduction, Shannon McTavish, one of Bear Paw’s very own, who’s dazzled the Nashville scene for the past ten years the same way she’s going to dazzle all of us today. Shannon?”
Billy paused to watch her ascend the steps to the bandstand, take the guitar that was offered by Spencer and step up to the mic wearing that same beautiful smile that she’d flashed him so brightly.
“Thank you, Spencer, and thank all of you for being here today to enjoy this wonderful barbecue. I’ve been away for ten years but that’s made coming back home all the sweeter. I’d almost forgotten how beautiful this valley was, and what waking up to a Wyoming morning did for the soul.”
“All our souls would rest a whole lot easier if your father would just quit screwin’ us over!” a man bellowed from the back of the crowd.
“McTavish should sign the lease,” another added in a belligerent tone of voice. “He needs to get on board and quit holding this wind project up.”
“Ain’t fair, one man putting the brakes on something that could help all of us feed our families and bring in tax dollars for this town,” a third pitched in.
The crowd at the bandstand milled restlessly, nobody looking at anybody else. Billy’s hand tightened on Rose’s as he scanned the crowd for the three hecklers, but they were hidden way in the back. “C’mon,” he said and started tugging Rose toward the bandstand. After five steps he picked her up and carried her in his arms and pushed through the crowd.
“I’ve heard about this energy project, and I realize it has a big impact on the residents of Bear Paw,” Shannon said in a calm voice. “I’m not here to dispute the pros and cons of wind energy. I’m here to sing with Badlands. My daddy has a right to run his affairs as he sees fit, and unless I’m in the wrong town, if someone told any one of you what you could or couldn’t do on your land, you’d blow your tops. I realize you’re all here at the invite of the wind company to enjoy a free meal and listen to some good music, but if you think bullying me can get him to change his mind, you don’t know Ben McTavish very well.”
“Which side are you on, Shannon?” a man called out. “If you’re here today, you must be for the wind project. Am I right?”
Billy had reached the bandstand. He carried Rose up the stairs and handed her to a startled Spencer Wallace. “Hang on to her for a second, Spence,” he said. Billy walked up beside Shannon and, as diplomatically as he could, moved her aside so he could speak into the mic.
“Is Tom Carroll here?” he said, anger tightening his words. “Anyone seen him? No? Funny, isn’t it? I haven’t spotted hide nor hair of him, either, which is strange because he’s the project manager for Patriot Energy, and this is his party. He should be right handy, but my guess is, he didn’t want to be around when the hecklers he hired started harassing Shannon McTavish. Am I right?”
He scanned the crowd and nobody would meet his eyes. “Who shouted those questions from way in the back? Come on up here and let’s talk face-to-face. We’re all neighbors, aren’t we? Step right up here, we’re real interested to hear what you have to say about all this.”
Nobody came forward. Shannon was trying to regain the mic so he plucked it off the stand and held it in his hand. “How much were you fellas paid?” he called out. “Don’t be bashful, we all want to know.” The crowd was beginning to break up and wander off.
“If the rest of you are embarrassed by this, you should be,” Billy challenged them. “More than a few of you have harassed Ben McTavish over the past six months, including Bear Paw’s mayor. Shannon McTavish shouldn’t be wasting her talents singing for the likes of you.”
“Billy!” Shannon protested. “That’s enough!”
Billy put the mic back into the stand and before she could reach for it he took her by the hand and tugged her off the bandstand, pausing to scoop Rose away from a slack-jawed Spencer Wallace. “Sorry, Spence, you just lost your lead singer.”
“But I promised!” Shannon struggled to twist from his grasp.
“You’re not singing for this crowd,” Billy said, pulling her down the steps behind him.
“Billy Mac, you let go of me!”
Billy paused at the foot of the steps and rounded on her, anger tightening his voice. “Listen to me, Shannon. Rose isn’t safe here, and neither are you. If you want to stay, I can’t stop you. But I’m taking your daughter home.” He released her hand and headed for his truck, reasonably sure that as long as he had Rose in his arms, Shannon would follow.
He was right. She stalked behind him, stiff with anger. When he reached his truck he stopped short with a soft curse. All four of his tires had been slashed and the truck was sitting on its rims. Shannon stared.
“I have to hand it to you, Billy. You sure know how to make enemies,” she said, then dug in her jeans pocket for her car keys. She started down the line of vehicles parked beside the road until she reached her own, where she unlocked the doors, buckled Rose into the back seat and climbed behind the wheel. Billy stood uncertainly beside the car until she powered her window down and said, “I don’t have all day and you have four flat tires. Get in.”
* * *
SHANNON WAS SO upset she had trouble getting out of the parking spot, nearly hitting the vehicle in front of her and then the one behind. Her hands were shaking and she kept them clamped around the steering wheel so Billy wouldn’t see. For a few minutes they drove in silence, then she had to vent or explode.
“You had no business interfering like that,” she burst out, hoping he didn’t hear the tremble in her voice. “That was my first real gig since my divorce, and you ruined it.”
“You were set up,” Billy said. “Tom Carroll planted those hecklers in the crowd to rattle your cage so’s you’d run home to daddy and get him to sign the wind leases.”
“You have no proof of that whatsoever,” Shannon shot back. “You’re just trying to poison me against the project and against Tom Carroll.”
“Did you recognize any of those voices?”
“I’ve been away for ten years, Billy, there’s probably a whole slew of newcomers I wouldn’t recognize.”
“In Bear Paw? Nothing much ever changes around here, including the population.”
“If you’d just’ve stayed out of it, I could’ve handled them,” Shannon said. “They were all talk, they weren’t going to throw rotten eggs.”
“Or slash truck tires?” Billy countered.
Shannon blew out her breath. “You okay, Rose?” she asked, glancing in the rearview mirror at her daughter.
“I didn’t see the magic monkey, Momma,” Rose said in a small voice. She didn’t understand everything that had just happened back at the Grange Hall, but she knew it was bad.
“I’m sorry, sweetie, but we had to leave early.” Shannon shot Billy a brief dark look. “We’ll do something fun when we get home.”
“Like what, Momma?”
“Like pack our bags and get out of Dodge,” Shannon muttered under her breath.
“That’s extreme,” Billy said.
“Is it? You can fight against that wind project till hell freezes over and everyone hates you, if that’s what trips your trigger. Frankly, I think you’re both crazy for fighting something that could be so beneficial.
“Coming home was a bad idea. I thought Bear Paw would be a good place to raise my daughter, but I was wrong. I brought Rose back here to try and rebuild my life, to mend fences with my father, to find some peace and healing, and instead we landed in the middle of a war zone. Rose deserves better than this. She didn’t even get to see the magician and the monkey!” Her voice trembled with anger and she realized she was on the verge of tears.
“I’m sorry,” Billy said.
“Me, too,” Shannon choked out. “But maybe it was for the best. I have friends in California that have been asking me and Rose to come visit. Maybe it’s time we did.”
“I never figured you for a quitter,” Billy said.
“Quitter? This isn’t my fight, Billy. Don’t drag me into it.”
She turned onto the ranch road, driving beneath the magnificent sign her mother had designed, driving past the house that should have been hers but wasn’t, through gates that sagged on rotten fence posts, along the rutted dirt road full of potholes and choked with weeds, and suddenly she wanted nothing more than to leave this shabby place populated with small-minded, vindictive ranchers and farmers.
When they topped the knoll that overlooked the ranch buildings, Shannon felt the bottom drop out of her stomach. They were still a quarter mile from the house, but that was close enough for her to recognize the sheriff’s vehicle parked in front of it and the uniformed sheriff standing on the porch.
“Oh, no,” she said.
* * *
THE SHERIFF DESCENDED the porch steps to meet Shannon as she hurled herself out of the Mercedes. “What’s happened?” she blurted out before the sheriff could utter a word. “Is my father okay?”
The sheriff glanced at Billy as he exited the sedan, then redirected his expressionless gaze to Shannon. “Far as I know,” he said. “I just arrived here a few minutes ago. I have a few questions I’d like to ask him.”
“About what?” Shannon demanded.
“Is he here?” the sheriff asked.
Shannon rounded her shoulders defensively and shoved her hands into her pockets. “He went off early this morning.”
“Do you know when he’ll be back?”
“He didn’t say.”
“Was he alone?”
“We weren’t up when he left,” Billy pitched in before Shannon could respond. “We can give you a call when he gets home.”
The sheriff nodded. “Appreciate that.” He handed Shannon his business card with his cell number.
“Can you tell me what this is about?” Shannon asked, glancing at the card.
“There’s been some vandalism of Patriot Energy property,” the sheriff replied. “A meteorological tower was pulled down over on Wolf Butte. That’s across the valley from here, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Shannon conceded, glancing toward Wolf Butte.
“There were hoofprints around the tower. Tom Carroll from Patriot Energy called this morning to report the vandalism. He gave me some names of ranchers who oppose the project and your father’s headed the list. Was he on horseback when he left here?”
“My father has a broken arm,” Shannon said. “I doubt he was out toppling towers before dawn.”
“Maybe not, but if he could get a saddle and bridle on a horse with just one arm, it’s not impossible,” the sheriff responded stonily. “If you could have him give me a call when he gets back?”
“I will, and if you’re driving through Bear Paw, sheriff, you’ll see an old blue truck parked beside the road near the Grange Hall with four flat tires. That’s Billy Mac’s truck. His tires were slashed while he was taking my daughter, Rose, to see the monkey and the magician at the chicken barbecue. I had to give Billy a ride home. You might want to check into it.”
The sheriff climbed into his Ford Explorer, nodded curtly and sped off in a cloud of dust. Shannon scowled after the departing vehicle, shoving the sheriff’s card into her pocket. She turned to take Rose out of the car. “Go inside, Rose,
and see if Tess needs to come out for a pee,” she said.
When her daughter had climbed the porch steps and disappeared inside, Shannon glared at Billy. “I hope you have enough money saved up to spring for Dad and Henry’s bail, because as far as I’m concerned, they can both rot in jail for pulling that tower down.”
She turned on her heel and followed Rose into the kitchen, letting the door bang shut behind her.
* * *
RATHER THAN STAY and face Shannon’s wrath, Billy drove McTavish’s old truck back to town to hunt up four used tires he couldn’t really afford and find the junkyard man, who had a flatbed tow truck. Fortunately, Slouch didn’t have much of a social life and he lived at the junkyard. Billy found him sleeping on a couch in his office, which was a tiny alcove inside the Quonset hut. Unshaven, disheveled and wearing greasy jeans and a T-shirt promoting pit bulls, he followed Billy to the Grange Hall and winched Billy’s old Ford truck onto the flatbed.
“Somebody don’t like you,” Slouch remarked as he chained Billy’s truck down.
“More than a few somebodies, probably,” Billy remarked, nodding toward the gathering at the Grange Hall. “Patriot Energy’s hosting a barbecue today if you want to grab a free plate of food.”
Slouch brightened. “I can always eat something,” he said and wandered off.
Billy figured he had some time to kill while Slouch sated his appetite, so he headed toward the marquis tent and the long banquet table where Patriot Energy had a display of maps and wind energy information. A small group of townspeople were perusing the information when Billy arrived.
Billy had never met the young man staffing the table, who was eager to answer all of Billy’s questions about the size and scope of the project and point out on the maps where the turbines would be located. “One hundred seventy-five turbines in all, running along this ridgeline, then over on this one to this butte here...” the staffer said, running his finger along the higher elevations that defined the valley’s boundary and paralleled the Bear Paw River.
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