“How do you figure?”
“Lots of things. But mostly, it’s a family store and the girl works regular evening hours on regular days. She’s in college and she works alone. No extra staff, no surprise arrivals.”
“That’s good?”
“Real good,” Aiden said. “She locks up at ten, walks two blocks down the street to the bank and drops the cash bag in the slot. The drop is next to the alley that leads to the park that leads to the ravine and gone.”
“Sounds good. Where’s the hitch? There’s gotta be a hitch.”
Aiden sipped at his milkshake. “We gamble on the day,” he said.
“Meaning?”
“What they turn that day. How much business they do.”
Cort took a long look down the street toward the bookstore. “Doesn’t look like much of a business to me.”
“Trust me,” Aiden said. “Bookstore. Never a crush of people, just a regular, steady business. It doesn’t stick out. Not to the cops, not to anybody. They feel safe. Nobody robs a bookstore. It’s always the liquor stores and corner stores.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know. I figure a few hundred.”
“That ain’t much.”
“It’s enough to slide it down the list.”
“The list?”
“The score list. Guys are pulling down scores all the time. Cops are more interested in the big ones, the ones over a grand, the ones with narcotics involved, home invasions, shootings, that sort of stuff. Small jobs like this don’t draw much heat. They’ll investigate it because they gotta but they’re not real hot to trot to solve it.”
“Still.”
“Still what?”
“Still don’t seem like a lot for the effort.”
Aiden nodded. When he looked at Cort he did it squarely and he saw his friend blanch at the directness, lower his head to his food and wait for the next words to release him.
“It’s all safe. It’s way out of our neighbourhood for one thing and nobody knows us around here. It’s fast; show the piece, grab the bag, don’t make a lot of noise and attract attention, gone. It’s a girl so there won’t be a scene. And we’re not walking around with fistfuls of loot after. I seen guys after a score spending money like it was on fire in their hands. We don’t do that. Everything we do is low key. Safe. Unnoticed. No heat. Besides,” he said and grinned at Cort over a mouthful of burger, “I’m just a friggin’ kid.”
Cort smiled back. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m just a friggin’ kid.”
“Who’s gonna figure a kid for a stickup?”
“Not me.”
“Me neither. Are we good then?”
“We’re good. When?”
“Soon,” Aiden said.
Cort looked away down the street, chewing slowly. “Soon,” he said quietly. “I like the sound of that. I really, really like that.”
In the diffused light through the window blinds she could almost convince herself that he was still a small boy. His head turning against the pillow was the same tousled head she’d seen through his door all those nights of his boyhood. Now, though, there was a deep furrow in his brow she’d never seen before. In the light it looked deep as a cut, an untreated gash, and she wondered what territories he navigated in his dreams. She prayed that they took him to happy times. Life as he’d known it, the life that she and Birch had worked hard to provide for him, had been normal—normal as life can be for a rodeo-raised youngster. There was nothing in her experience to equal the intense spirituality that came from the rhythm of horseback. It was where she’d always found proof of God. Something in her blood told her the truth of this, this union of tribal woman to tribal animal forging a bond to everything she moved through, be it valley, mountain, pasture or rodeo arena. Harmony, they called it, the Old Ones. She preferred to call it perfect. One and the same, she imagined, but perfection sat easier in her mind.
She’d tried to pass this on to her son, and in the early years he’d taken to it bright-eyed, attracted by the mystery, the mystical Indianness of it. Later, as he grew more and more into the company of men, the cowboys, he shrugged it off with a grin and a shy “Aw, Mama” before banging his hat against his thigh and heading off to mount up one more time. Still, she knew it stuck like a burr to a saddle blanket. A mother knew these things about her own, and she understood that deep within her boy, down where it counted, there was a well of spirituality, an understanding of mystery, Wakan Tanka, the Great Mystery that presided over everything. Spirit Dogs. That’s what the Sioux had called the horses in the purely tribal days. Loyal, intelligent, intuitive and capable of guiding you to the spirit coursing through you, the truth of it born in the gift of motion, the pitch and sway of the ride. Now, watching him sleep, seeing the furrow of strain and worry at his brow, was where the faith came in, the belief that he would move through the pain and indecision of the world and drink from that deep, cool well.
“What are you thinking?” Victoria whispered, easing into the chair beside her.
She took the old woman’s hand and they sat looking at him. “I was thinking that it’s going to take him a while to get to where he needs to be with this.”
“Well, truth is that he’s a cowboy,” Victoria said. “He’ll grit his teeth, gather up his gumption and try to move it alone for a spell. But he’ll tire. Eventually.”
“Eventually?”
“It’s a cowboy word. It means worn down to the last notch in the belt. Then you can start to see the sense of things.”
Johanna smiled. “Damn cowboys,” she said. “You just have to love them though, don’t you?”
“Can’t help it, really. I never could.”
“So what do we do?”
Victoria turned in her chair until their knees touched. She leaned forward and put her hands in Johanna’s lap, cupped the younger woman’s hands in her own. They sat silently, watching Joe Willie.
“I’ve never been on a bull,” Victoria said. “But I watched enough to learn something about it. There’s a secret to bull riding that only the good ones really ever get. The secret is that you can never beat the animal. You can only beat yourself. For eight seconds you stare down fear, doubt and indecision. That’s what you ride. That’s what’ll buck you off long before the bull does. You can teach them how to stick and stay. You can teach them how to make eight. Give them all the tools, all the tricks, all the tips, I suppose you can even give them the blood for it, like this one here. But you can’t give them the secret. They only ever learn that from the ride. At least the good ones do.”
“He was the best,” Johanna said and she felt the sorrow crease her face.
“Yes. And it’s just another ride, Johanna. Maybe a bigger, badder bull than he ever rode before, but it’s just another ride.”
“Mankiller,” she said.
“What?”
“Some bulls are mankillers. Maybe this is one of them.”
The old woman squeezed her hands. When Johanna met her gaze she felt the uncompromising steel of her. “You listen to me, girl. You listen hard and you listen well. There’s no room for that here. So you just shoo it right out of your head. You raised a champion. You raised a no-holds-barred, spit-at-the-devil roughneck. You raised a cowboy. He’s got the blood of three proud peoples running through that body—Ojibway, Sioux and Irish—tribal people, all of them. Not a one of them ever ran from a fight. And on top of that he’s got everything that you or I or Birch or Lionel ever gave him. I don’t know about you, Johanna, but I figure love’s a pretty tough hombre and we filled that boy up with it. Now you be doubtful, you be afraid, you be sorry, but don’t you ever let him see that. You don’t ever let him see nothing but the love you always showed him. If we have to teach him to ride this big, bad bull here, then that’s exactly what we’ll do. It’s gonna take some doing on his part, a powerful lot of doing, but it’s him that’s gotta do it. It’s him that’s gotta find the peace with it. It’s him that’s gotta want to settle it. The rest of us a
re leaning on the gate here. Whatever it takes to get him past this is what we have to allow him. Whatever that may be.”
“I ever tell you about Mesquite in ’42?” Lionel asked.
“Only a few thousand times,” Birch said.
“Well, you know that Mesquite in them days was the daddy of them all?”
“Yeah. I know that.”
“And you know that that old bangtail I drew was a handful and a half?”
“Yeah. That’d be old Prairie Fire.”
“Old Prairie Fire. That’s right. And you know that I got me a real fine pair of shotguns, them fancy step-in kind of chaps I used to love?”
“I heard that.”
“And I told you that my sweet Victoria was mightily impressed with my look that day, standing at the gate eye-balling me like the coyote at the chickens?”
“Yessir, I surely heard that too,” Birch said with a grin.
“Well, let me tell you that I was primed and ready that day. That bangtail had been around the circuit awhile and all I needed was a clean ride. I coulda told you every move he was gonna make once I marked him out. Winning Mesquite was a mighty big thing then on accounta every sumbitch worth his salt was there.”
“Daddy of them all,” Birch said.
“Damn straight,” Lionel said. “Glad you’re following along. Anyhow, it couldn’t get any better for making the money. Horse I rode before, spanking-new broke-in chaps, a hot an’ ready woman waiting for me and ten days off before the next draw. I was ready. I told you this, right?”
“Yessir, you did.”
“Well, the truth is that that old bangtail had a few more tricks up his sleeve than anyone figured. I mark him out and we’re frying the breeze, riding fast and wild, and he’s doing everything I expected him to do. It’s looking good. Then about four seconds in he throws me a loop. Right when he normally gathers up for a big leap and kick he almost comes to a standstill. Well, I’m right over his shoulders leaning pretty good when he starts to crow hop around, and that kills all my timing. Then as quick as he does that he springs straight up and comes down spinning. I do the face plant and the crowd groans. I feel crapped out, but when I go to stand up I know it’s bad.”
“The knee,” Birch said.
“Yessir. Landed square and it busted all to hell. Don’t know why. The angle, I guess.”
“One of those things,” Birch said.
“Just one of those things,” Lionel echoed.
“It was over.”
“Yeah. Done. I didn’t know it right off though. I tried to come back, but I couldn’t get enough squeeze. Hurt too damn much. So I hung ’em up.”
Birch gave him a look. “So why you telling me this now? Why you telling me this story you told me a thousand times?”
“Well, I guess I just kinda remembered it myself, looking at my grandson all wrapped up and broke. Kinda important now for me to recall what I learned out of that.”
“And what’s that, Daddy?”
“I learned that it ain’t the fall that kills you, son. It’s the gettin’ up that hurts like hell.”
Birch nodded. “That knee still hurt?”
“Only if I think about it,” Lionel said.
She watched the young man approach her on the darkened sidewalk and felt fear. As he got closer she realized he was just a kid. He was grinning at her. Guys were all the same no matter what the age, she thought, and gave a small sideways glance despite herself. Jesus, Amie, she thought, the kid’s all of fourteen, maybe fifteen tops, and you’re giving him the eye. Long day, she figured and clutched the money bag a little closer to her body as she neared the bank deposit chute. The kid was still grinning. Horny little bugger, out way too late for his age, she thought as she stepped up to the bank drop.
“Nice night,” the kid said.
She looked at him, the silly grin still pasted to his face. “Yes,” she said. “Kind of late for you, isn’t it?”
“Not really,” he said, stepping closer.
“Excuse me,” she said, pressing against the wall.
“No. You excuse me,” he said.
It happened like the slow-motion roll of dreams. One hand reaching into the pocket of the windbreaker in one long roll of motion. She told the police after that she’d actually expected to see the gun before it emerged into the low light, shimmering like a small fish. She gasped. The kid looked back over his shoulder and down the length of the street almost casually, then raised the gun higher toward her face.
“I’m gonna need that,” he said. The grin was gone.
“I can’t,” she said.
“No time for can’t,” he said. “Just give me the bag.”
“I can’t,” she repeated.
He stepped back a pace and aimed the gun hard, his arm rigid. “This ain’t no game now,” he said, so calmly it surprised her. “You have to give me that bag and I’ll just disappear. Don’t need to be no bigger deal than that.”
She started to cry. Loyalty was strong in her and she couldn’t bring herself to simply hand over the store’s earnings. The kid looked around again.
“Jesus,” he said, “don’t do that. Fuck. Just give me the bag.”
She kept crying, clutching the bag tighter and stepping out into the light of the street.
“Goddammit,” the kid said, waving the gun at her.
She told the police that he almost bolted then. She could see it in his thighs, the momentary clutch of muscle ready to spring.
There was a brief blip of siren, high and hard, and they both looked down the street at the unmarked police car easing to the curb, red dashboard light flashing. The kid blanched, pivoting his head back and forth, trying to determine a direction to flee.
“Go down the alley!” she said.
He looked at her, stunned, and stepped away, sidling toward the alley on the other side of the street. She wanted to tell him he was going to the wrong alley, that he should go down the near entrance. The kid moved across the street in small sideways hitch-steps, facing the policemen, the gun pressed to his thigh. She would recall the silvery glint of it for years after. She would recall the rubbery feel of time, watching the drama unfold in front of her. The kid’s small steps, the thin thighs of him trembling through the jeans, the shaky plant of each foot edging toward the freedom of the alley in counterpoint to the firm voice of the officers, their own guns raised toward him, one of them crouching to aim while the other stepped sideways toward the opposite sidewalk, talking to him, commanding him. The kid’s jaw shook and he raised the gun tentatively, the hand shaking too. He was crying. Huge, gulping, chin-shaking swallows made his Adam’s apple jump in his neck and when he raised the gun to cradle it in both hands she sensed that it was more to quell the shaking and make a bigger bid for the alley than any real threat. The voices of the officers hit the air like punches, each driving the crazy beat of the action into a herky-jerky staccato. She saw the muzzle flash and the kid’s arms kick back high and hard with the recoil. He looked surprised. There was another boom. The bullet drove the kid backwards a few feet, where he crumpled to the concrete and time regained itself.
Immobility was the worst. Joe Willie felt trapped. He understood now how the calves felt when the ropers had them tied. It seemed that sudden. The calf bursts out of the gate and four seconds later he’s dazed on the ground, incapable of moving, while the horse maintains a taut line to prevent him from getting away. Four seconds. That’s how fast this felt. It didn’t seem like any time at all since he’d been straddled over the chute staring down at the deep brown sea of the bull. He recalled the kaleidoscope thrill of the arena spinning crazily around him, the colours flashing and the sound of the crowd like surf crashing on the rocks. Clear, like it was moments ago. Like time melted. He remembered the conscious times, minutes when he lived with the realization of what happened, but they had an unreal quality to them, fuzzy, obscure, hard to hold. Then the dark times, when the morphine sent him under, were empty except for the bear. What the hell w
as that about? Cowboys told all kinds of funny stories about the things medication had done to them, and right now it felt best to put it down to some addled morphine dream. Still, the bear turning into an old woman was eerie, something a part of him remembered but far too faint to pinpoint.
He tried to move but had to settle for a hitching of the shoulders. He grimaced. The ceiling, flat, empty, still. His life. That’s what his life was going to be from now on. Motionless as he was right now.
“Joe Willie?”
He turned his head and saw his grandmother seated at the bedside.
“Hey,” he said.
“How do you feel?”
“Like a roped-up calf,” he said.
“Can I do anything?”
“No.”
“Do you want anything?”
“No.”
“How about a TV? We could get you a TV. Would you like that?”
“No. I don’t want a television. I don’t want a radio. I don’t want a newspaper. I don’t want anything. Nothing. Nothing but to be left alone.”
“Okay,” she said. “I suppose we can arrange that too. Except there’s a lot of people that really want to see you. A lot of people that care.”
He stared at the ceiling while she waited. “There’s nothing for them to see,” he said. “The show was in the arena and the show’s over. Tell them that.”
“Joe Willie?”
“What?”
“It’s okay.”
“What’s okay?”
“It’s okay to feel the way you feel right now.”
“Thank you,” he said. “That helps so much.”
“We understand. We really do,” Victoria said.
“Do you? Good. That’s really good that you understand. Because I don’t. I don’t understand any of it. Eight seconds, Grandma. One life all boiled down to eight seconds. Less really. What’d I make it? Five? Five seconds? So I was three seconds away from being the best, from being the champion. Three ticks of the clock away from the top of the world and now I can’t even move into the world. And when the cast comes off and the carving up they done heals, I won’t be able to move around it either. Limp, yeah? Hitch-step around, dragging one arm like some cripple, some invalid. You all understand that? You can explain how I’m supposed to handle that? Can you?”
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