Cold Dish

by Craig Johnson

  Vonnie was wearing a pair of dark coveralls that had been unzipped and peeled down to her waist and tied with the sleeves there. She had on a pair of Vasque hiking boots, and the blood had dribbled on them too. I wondered how she was still conscious. Then I noticed the Sharps buffalo rifle that was propped up between her knees with the butt resting on the floor. It was angled slightly in my direction. I knew how heavy the things were, but those fingers still wrapped around foregrip and trigger with a terrible determination. I could see that the massive hammer was pulled back and the rifle was ready to fire.

  I eased the rest of the way into the room. She was against the wall, and there was a counter to her left where her shoulder was. The surface was strewn with medical supplies, most of them for horses. There were blood-saturated gauze pads, plastic bottles of topical antibiotics, and even a couple of syringes. They looked as if they had been pushed aside with a sweeping gesture when she had lost interest in the procedure. There was also a police scanner sitting on the table and, from the illuminated dial, I could see that it was set to our frequency of 155.070.

  More saddles rested on log racks to her right, and the layers of grime made it clear that they hadn’t been disturbed in years. The ceiling was low, and I had to lean to one side to see around the naked light bulb that hung there. The glare from the proximity of the bulb was irritating. I was standing in the only door in the room, and there were no windows. There wasn’t anywhere to go, for either of us. I looked down and studied her face and could feel the sympathy twinge in my own. The damage to the left side of her head was only slightly evident in the tangle of blood-matted hair that stuck to the side of her face and strung down past her shoulder where the blood continued to drip. I was pretty sure her ear was gone and could only guess as to the extent of the rest of the damage.

  “Hello, Walter.” She stared at the automatic in my hand that pointed down at the wooden plank floor and then to the Sharps that hung loosely in my other hand. “Are you going to shoot me again?”

  I glanced down at the hammer of the Sharps she held but quickly looked back up at her eyes. With the dim light, I could barely make them out and wasn’t sure if they were dilated or constricted. “No.” I slowly lowered the hammer, placed the .45 back in my holster, and pulled the snap over and clicked it shut. I raised the Cheyenne rifle muzzle up and leaned it against the wall beside the door. “It’s department policy to only shoot people once a day; it’s a budgetary thing.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.” She laughed. “At least what I can hear . . .”

  “Got your ear?”

  Her blood-covered hand started to come up but then rested back on the rifle beside the set trigger; if it had already been pulled, it wasn’t going to take much to set the thing off. “Yes.”

  I watched her hands for a moment. She was hurt and the effect was gruesome, but her movements were still sharp and, so far, the loss of blood hadn’t robbed her of any of her mechanical skills. “Pretty impressive. Getting hit like that would knock most people down and out.”

  “It did.” Her eyes twitched in response to the wound, but she rolled her head back a little so that I could see more of her eyes. “I was out for a minute or two . . .”

  “Pretty tough.” I waited for a moment, but she didn’t say anything. “We’re a pair, aren’t we? You with your ear and me with mine?”

  She nodded slightly, smiled, and the effect of the bright white teeth against the blooded gore made my heart trip. “I don’t think this relationship is going to work out.” The smile broadened and then relaxed, as the muscles in her face must have disturbed the ear. “You play too rough.”

  “Vonnie . . .”

  “I’m glad you’re here, though. It wouldn’t have been right if you hadn’t been.”

  I nodded and stepped to the side just enough to get the light bulb out of my face. “You’ve lost a lot of blood.”

  She nodded slightly and glanced at the medical supplies scattered on the counter. “Not much of a Florence Nightingale, am I?” A moment passed. “I suppose my talents lie elsewhere.”

  As I started to move again, the muzzle of the Sharps leveled up between us and hung there. “No.” I stopped, still too far away to grab the gun. She leaned a little, the slope of her back resting against the wall. “We could just . . . talk.”

  “Well, we’ve got an awful lot to talk about.”

  I waited, and after a while her face shifted a little, saving me the view. “Why couldn’t I have met you a day earlier?” She readjusted her weight against the wall and turned a little farther. Almost none of the damage showed now, except that the blood continued to saturate her thermal top. “Maybe none of this would have happened.”

  “Vonnie . . .”

  “One day earlier, that’s all we would have needed.”

  “I don’t . . .”

  “Twenty-four hours, and maybe I wouldn’t have made all this mess.” She glanced over at the medical supplies. “Why you? Why did all this have to do with you?”

  “It’s my job.”

  She looked back at me. “Yes.” Her attention dropped to the barrel of the buffalo rifle. “We all have our jobs, don’t we?”

  I tried changing the subject. “What’s the story on the feathers?”

  “Oh . . .” She blinked and refocused. “A bit of dramatic effect, symbolic really . . . life and death . . . I had hoped that the eagle feather would heal Melissa, the breath of life to make her better.”

  “You took a lot of chances placing them.”

  She didn’t move. “That was the hard part, seeing them up close . . .”

  I thought about not telling her, but we were telling the truth and maybe it would keep her going. “They aren’t real. The eagle feathers, they’re fake.”

  Her eyes glazed over, and the stillness of her was betrayed only by a sharp nod. “Well, doesn’t that fit . . .”

  I glanced down at her feet. “The boots?”

  “I was in the store when George was buying his. We have the same shoe size and I thought it might be handy later.”

  “You knew where he was going?”

  “I told him and his brother that they were welcome to fish at the old family place on the Powder if they wanted to.” She glanced at the scanner. “I also knew it was where you thought he was going.” Her eyes returned to the rifle. “Is he going to live?”

  “Probably.” I waited what seemed like a long, long while. “We need to get you into town . . .”

  “Walter, don’t.”

  I waited. “Okay.” I looked around and gave it a resigned quality. “Why are we in here?”

  “Why not here? This is where everything happens.” I looked at her, hoping that if I kept my eyes on her, she wouldn’t drift. She smiled just a little, started to laugh, and then stopped herself. She kept her eyes away from me. “He built it himself. He never built anything else in his life; he just wasn’t good at it. But we had this older cowboy who was working for us at the time who helped him . . .”

  I smiled. “Jules Belden?”

  Her eyes returned to me, but her head didn’t move. “Yes.” She stayed like that. “He’s still around?”

  “Yep, he’s still around.” I started formulating a plan to keep her talking. If I could get her to go long enough, then maybe I had a chance.

  She was looking into my eyes when I focused on her again. “He gave me quarters.”

  “Me too.”

  She laughed the wispy laugh. “He used to drink when he was here, and that’s why Father finally fired him, but he was a good carpenter.”

  I looked around. “So he and your dad built this?”

  “Yes.” She glanced at the tack. “When I decided to have the arena built, I just didn’t have the nerve to tear it all down, so I left this part.” I waited. “I still see him, sometimes . . .”

  I watched as her eyes dulled a little. “Your father?”

  “Yes, I sometimes see him. I’ll be out riding in the arena and I’ll look over and
there he stands by the door, waiting for me.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “I’ve been having a little problem along those lines myself lately.”

  The eyes narrowed. “I’m not being funny.”

  “Neither am I.”

  She continued to look at me but then broke it off to glance around. “You see him too?”

  I shrugged. “No, I’ve been seeing Indians.” I placed my hands in my pants’ pockets, so she could see that I wasn’t going to try anything. Yet.

  She gestured toward the buffalo rifle. “Is that their gun you’ve been carrying around?” She continued to study it. “The one you shot me with?” She didn’t show any signs of weakening, and I was beginning to think this was going to take awhile. “It’s beautiful. What was it you called it?”

  “What?”

  She continued to look at it. “The rifle?”

  “Oh.” The barrel of her Sharps had shifted a little. “The Cheyenne Rifle of the Dead.” She nodded, and I smiled back. “It’s haunted.”

  “By the Indians?”

  “The Old Cheyenne.”

  “Why?”

  I studied her and tried to think if this was a good line for our conversation to take. “The Old Cheyenne stay near the rifle, and every once in a while they get the urge to take somebody back to the Camp of the Dead with them.”

  “The Camp of the Dead.” It gave me time to look into her eyes. The pupils were dilated, but it was difficult to tell if it was from trauma or from the darkness of the room, or both. I watched her very carefully as I spoke and noted the continuing tremors in her long fingers. “So, the Old Cheyenne have come to get me, huh?”

  “I started to leave the Old Cheyenne inside your door, but you said you didn’t allow guns in the house.”

  I wondered how long it would take for her to get to the fact that her father had killed himself, probably in here. I looked at the wood behind her head, but the planks had been replaced. It had to be here, but I didn’t want to discuss her father’s suicide with her as she sat there with the loaded and cocked buffalo rifle in her hands. I didn’t say anything, and I didn’t move. She gestured gently with the Sharps. “This is the one he did it with.” I still remained silent. “They really are exquisite guns, aren’t they?”

  It seemed safe enough. “Well made.”

  “Yes, well made.” She looked back up from the barrel. “I was thirteen.” She puzzled for a moment, nodded, and then stared off into space as more blood dripped from the side of her face. “Did you ever wonder why it was he did it?”

  I lied. “No.”

  She was looking at me again. “You’re lying. You’re afraid I’m going to shoot myself.”

  “The thought had crossed my mind.”

  “You ever wonder why he did it here?”

  It seemed like an odd question, but as long as she was talking. “I think you said it was because he didn’t want to make a mess in the house?”

  She looked around. “He didn’t, but this place had special meaning for him.”

  “Because he built it . . .”

  She was perfectly still. “More than that.”

  I looked at her, and the pieces started to fall into place. “What happened, Vonnie?”

  “You’re a smart guy, Walter. I bet you can figure it out without all the horrid details.” She took a deep breath. “Daddy’s little girl . . . I was nine years old, I mean for the physical act. It started a long time before, though.” She looked back to me. “Can you imagine?” Her eyes welled. “No, I don’t suppose you can.” I towered there like a stacked-up wreck and watched as tears fell from her dull eyes, diluting the blood on her face. I could feel their heat from where I stood. “I hated him. How could you not hate somebody that would do that to you? Somebody you trusted, somebody who was supposed to protect you? Someone who was supposed to love you.” She paused, and some of the heat died. “I tried. I really tried to have a life with a husband, family, children, and dogs even . . . I tried, but no matter how long or how hard . . . No matter how much therapy . . . I couldn’t get past it. No matter how strong I’d be, I’d remember him. I’d remember this place and what he did.” She had run out of air with a hissing finality, and I listened as she breathed. I waited as she continued to look at the rifle that leaned against the wall. “He didn’t kill himself because of me . . . I didn’t even get that satisfaction.” She sniffed and winced in pain. “He did it because my mother was going to tell . . . I moved back after a lot of years to take care of her and to try and get my life back from him, from here . . .” Something struck her as humorous. “I came back so I could hate him with her.”

  “Vonnie . . .”

  “And then, when Melissa . . . When it happened to her? She’s a child, Walt, just like I was . . . I thought surely now, now there’d be some kind of punishment, some kind of justice. Something for her, something for me. But they got off. Hardly any time served.” Her eyes turned toward me. “I didn’t let him off . . . I couldn’t let them.” I started to move but the barrel of the rifle was still there, and I had to wait and make it count. After a moment, she spoke again. “So, do you think the Old Cheyenne can get me in here?”

  I cleared my throat. “I don’t think they’re out to get you.”

  She half-nodded. “That’s too bad, I rather hoped they would be. But maybe I just don’t make the cut, huh?”

  I took a deep breath. I thought about how it is a woman’s lot to be dismissed by men. “I think they could hardly do better.”

  Her voice was small and distant. “Thank you.” The little corner of her mouth kicked up again, and the barrel of the Sharps shifted a little and came back closer to her chin. I took my hands from my pockets and gauged the distance to be about eight feet. We looked at each other for a while, and it’s possible she was reading my intent. “I don’t think anything will ever get me here again.” She was learning to smile with the undamaged side of her face. “But I suppose they can get you anywhere.” She paused for a moment, and I thought I might have a chance. “You understand, don’t you? I mean, you said that a part of you wished you had done it?”

  “I think that a lot of people feel that way.”

  “You know, I have a hard time telling which part of you I like most: your smile, your sense of humor, or the fact that you lie so poorly.”

  “What do you want me to say, Vonnie? I don’t think the county’s going to have a parade for you . . .” Her eyes stayed steady. “There’s a difference between talking about it and doing it.”

  She looked sad. “I was hoping we were past the moral portion of the conversation.” I wanted to hold her, to patch the ear up, and to make it all better. “Please, let’s not talk about what people deserve.”

  “I guess it doesn’t make much difference, does it?”

  “Not now.” Her finger twitched on the trigger. “Walter, I need you to not look at me . . .”

  “Vonnie, don’t do it.” There was a long pause.

  I froze the image of her then, with her head turned just slightly in the light of the dim, forty-watt bulb, the angle of her head accenting the fine bone structure of her jaw and the strong muscle tone of her throat. It might have been the night I saw her at the bar, the morning with the pancakes, our one date, on the street that day, angry at the hospital, or now.

  She said it like it was a statement about the weather. “I love you.”

  It was my turn to look away, just as she knew I would. My breath was short, and my voice refused to cooperate and burned in my throat. For a split second I studied one of the saddles, the worn appearance of the horns and curled surfaces of the rosettes where the touch of human and horse had at first softened the leather but where the man had left it to stiffen and dry. The dust on this particular saddle had been brushed as she had passed, probably by one of the sleeves that were tied at her waist. The leather surface underneath had held a warm glow that promised romance and freedom, and you could almost feel the gathering of equine muscles as they reached out a
nd grasped the rotation of the earth.

  I looked closer at a small spot on the cantle and at a singular drop of blood that had landed there. Blood drops at a uniform volume of .05 milliliters and in a tiny ball. Upon striking a surface, the blood leaves a pattern that will be dependant on the type of surface it falls upon. Splatters. On the smooth leather of the saddle, the drop had remained relatively intact with only one scalloped droplet having escaped at eighty degrees and perpendicular in direction.

  I’m sure the blast in the little room was deafening, but I didn’t hear it.

  EPILOGUE

  I didn’t go into work the next day, or the day after that, or even the week after that. I’ve been drinking a lot, not with a conscious effort but more as a pastime. It’s a nicer place to drink, since Red Road Contracting finished up. I don’t think I drove them off, but maybe I did. There’s still a lot to do in the cabin; I think I was making them nervous.

  The new deck is my favorite part. It’s about as big as the house and goes out the back door toward the hills. There’s an opening in the middle where they said I could plant a tree in the spring, but for now it’s where I toss the empty beer cans. It’s an easy shot from the lawn chair, which I placed against the log wall of the house, and my sheepskin coat keeps me warm enough. The cooler is right beside the chair, so I don’t have to get up much. Sometimes, at night, the beer freezes, but I just wait for it to thaw the next morning.

  Periodically, vehicles come up the driveway; some of them are official and some of them aren’t. The DCI Suburban was one of the official ones, and they brought the Bullet back sans bullet holes. They left the keys on the counter, and she sits out there pawing the ground, waiting. I guess Ferg got a new truck. Vic came by once, but now she just calls and talks to the phone machine. I’ve developed a tactic for dealing with these drive-by visits. No matter what time of day it is or what I might be doing, whenever I hear somebody coming up the driveway, I just step off the deck and start walking toward the hills. In a couple of minutes, I can be in those hills. Sometimes I walk; sometimes I just pick out a rock and sit. Nobody stays very long, but I lose track of time out there, and sometimes I remember coming out when it’s still light, only to look around and find that it’s dark. Sometimes, it’s the other way around, and I get to watch the sun come up.